This is Gavin Newsom - And, This Is How Social Media Will Decide the Next Election With David Pakman

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00:01:41.320 This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. 0.56

00:01:43.400 Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem.

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00:02:05.880 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0.62

00:02:11.480 The right plays on fear, identifies villains more quickly and more effectively than the left.

00:02:18.540 If you go to Bernie and to Tucker Carlson, they will give you a similar diagnosis up front.

00:02:24.320 We need better models of masculinity.

00:02:26.160 And where I think the left has sort of failed is the narrative of toxic masculinity is bad

00:02:30.840 as a primary message.

00:02:33.280 I think it pushes people away.

00:02:35.640 This is Gavin Newsom.

00:02:37.980 And this is David Pakman.

00:02:42.680 We got to just start right there, Mr. Argentin.

00:02:45.380 Yes.

00:02:46.080 Born in Argentina.

00:02:48.040 Yeah. 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.

00:03:17.740 because Argentina does not get attention for anything globally usually and it's like Millay 0.74

00:03:24.320 is friends with Trump and Argentinians are horrible people so you had a horrible week

00:03:30.060 it was a it was you had to suffer through all of that yeah yeah and sit there and watch Messi 0.81

00:03:35.940 as he's just absorbing and sobbing at least we didn't lose to England is the takeaway is that

00:03:43.440 Well, historically, because that's a big matchup and rivalry, but what can you do?

00:03:47.080 You still agree with them putting out those, you know, I mean, just the flags and everything?

00:03:51.940 I am not into how politicized it was.

00:03:55.820 And 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.

00:04:10.260 Like that doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:04:11.580 Yeah. So you really are, you know, you, this is nature nurture.

00:04:14.880 Yeah.

00:04:15.300 You're defending your, your home country back in the day. I respect that, man.

00:04:18.880 But also I defended that the United States would have been much better off

00:04:21.680 winning without Trump's intervention if they could have done it.

00:04:25.160 Cause it just devalues it.

00:04:26.760 But you thought it was, I mean,

00:04:27.780 you liked seeing Trump there at the celebration, right?

00:04:30.520 Wasn't it nice to see that our president didn't make you proud?

00:04:33.200 I liked that.

00:04:34.200 Here's the,

00:04:34.920 what I loved about the Spanish players is they didn't give whatever about

00:04:40.280 trump being there and they were doing their celebration and they were looking at him like

00:04:43.720 who's this guy what's he doing here and then they cropped him out of the celebration pictures which

00:04:47.900 is beautiful i mean even fifa cropped him out not just this which is jesus i mean that was

00:04:52.440 i mean and the spain actually like literally didn't even crop them out they literally ai

00:04:58.860 eliminated yeah yeah yeah photo how could you do that to the winner of the fifa peace prize you

00:05:03.380 know i appreciate your sensitivity so you're always looking at the world from a different

00:05:07.680 set of eyes, which I respect. But so just, you know, by the way, I just to rub it in a little

00:05:12.820 bit further, my son was sitting there. He's 10 years old. It's the sweetest thing. I can only

00:05:18.840 admit if he felt this way, I can't even imagine how Argentine fans felt. But I mean, he started

00:05:24.480 sobbing after they lost and his sisters were making fun of him. And then everyone realized

00:05:30.120 how serious it was. It was like 20 minutes of just intense, emotional, you know, just release.

00:05:36.580 yeah uh so you know it is a big it's a big thing and what's interesting about that is my oldest

00:05:41.040 daughter is four and she was asking when can we get back to paw patrol but we watched with some

00:05:46.720 slightly older kids who were crying and it was it was tough it was tough to see that so when did

00:05:51.680 you know that you could make a career out of you know using your voice it's an interesting question

00:05:57.700 i mean the first five years of this show it made zero and i don't mean like it didn't make a lot

00:06:03.180 of money. It made there was just no revenue. And so I think like in some sense, getting from zero

00:06:09.080 dollars to one dollar is the spark where it's like, OK, it can make a dollar. Can this be

00:06:15.260 something? And so I think that was that was a big deal. And then when I hired my first real

00:06:20.400 employee and was able to say, OK, now this is now a business. I think that was that was probably

00:06:25.860 the beginning of thinking there might be something to this. And I was in grad school at the time

00:06:29.420 doing an MBA. And my friends were becoming financial advisors and bankers and going into

00:06:35.140 private equity, which seemed very cushy and lucrative in the immediate. But the long term

00:06:40.780 of that just didn't appeal to me. So I said, I'll give myself a year to really see if this can

00:06:44.880 become something. And was it always, I mean, was it a political show from the outset? Yes.

00:06:49.160 And it was commenting about local city councils. It was always national.

00:06:53.380 Always national. Interesting. Paint the picture 21 years ago. What were the big issues? You

00:06:58.400 remember well 21 years ago it was in the immediate uh pre-obama era so it was the iraq war um it was

00:07:08.580 what is it going to look like when george w bush is done with his second term what is the direction

00:07:13.660 republicans are going to go this was pre-tea party i mean this is it's it's like almost ancient

00:07:18.020 history to people who are now 25 and voted for the first time it has a lot of echoes of today

00:07:22.800 right on the other side not the tea party but dsa for the democrats democrats in the wilderness

00:07:27.520 What 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.

00:07:44.660 They're never going to guide the direction. And the Tea Party really led to MAGA and to Trumpism.

00:07:49.460 Yeah. And I you know, I've been critical of the kind of what I call do nothing centrism,

00:07:55.140 which is like, let's find a couple of things on the fringes to say we will do and end up doing

00:07:59.220 nothing. I don't think that's good for the Democratic Party. Right. But also what I'm

00:08:03.300 seeing, I was just looking at the DSA platform, which it has moral motivations that I respect,

00:08:09.940 but a lot of completely unrealistic stuff that if it becomes litmus test worthy is going to be a

00:08:17.080 real problem for Democrats. And so I don't know when the right time is to have that conversation.

00:08:22.440 I tend to think it's as soon as you realize something's up, it's a good time to do it

00:08:26.400 without saying, well, if we talk about it now, how will it affect the midterms? I think now

00:08:29.960 is when it has to be talked about. I think social democracy is the path forward, which is a sort of

00:08:35.260 northern european model so we can go i i'm going to get back to the dsa it's interesting and we

00:08:41.640 could talk some of those litmus test issues because i think they're important to illuminate

00:08:44.700 because not everybody is familiar right with some of those platform issues as it relates to private

00:08:49.440 prisons number of issues that do deserve a little bit more attention beyond the tonality of sort of

00:08:54.740 this anti-establishment and this desire to see more aggressive clear uh leadership etc but let's

00:09:01.420 let's jump into your book because you what you've been writing books for some time now you've been

00:09:05.280 at this and i think it was i wanted to paint a picture you've been also at this art form of

00:09:08.880 sorts for 21 years because so you don't come to this issue that you bring and highlight in the

00:09:13.660 book uh from a perspective as an outsider i mean you've lived and breathed this uh in a pretty

00:09:19.240 profound bottom-up way you've been at this as well writing books for some time you wrote a book in

00:09:24.520 2025 about the right wing and the echo chambers uh you've written a lot of children's books which

00:09:30.120 is interesting you mentioned your your child's paw patrol affinity which i respect uh but you've

00:09:37.340 also written a number of children's book but this one pay attention how the algorithms and the media

00:09:42.620 wars are suppressing truth and re-wiring our brain is your latest work is available in september so

00:09:50.560 i love that we have a chance to talk about the book before it's even out there and full disclosure

00:09:56.720 read it love it and I really want to dive deep into it because we've talked so much all of us

00:10:02.660 say we collectively talk about this issue and around this issue we understand aspects of it

00:10:08.840 tenants of it trend lines of it but not I think how pervasive and profound the issue is around

00:10:17.760 algorithms around what media is all about and so let's talk a little bit about this book and

00:10:23.360 start with the obvious and that is you start in the prologue about this arms race and you're the

00:10:28.400 first to acknowledge uh you're participating in this arms race right and so you sir david

00:10:37.560 are you not the problem well listen i think everybody is in a sense contributing to this

00:10:43.680 and also i think the best thing we can do is identify the systems that are at play

00:10:48.520 and then figure out what are our choices one choice is we just kind of abandon it

00:10:52.280 If we abandon it, we cede ground to those with terrible ideas to completely dominate.

00:10:58.300 I don't think that's a good idea.

00:11:00.160 The second option is we figure out how to play the game while not kind of losing our

00:11:04.860 soul to deception, lies and misinformation.

00:11:09.200 That's where I kind of tend to land, which is we could ignore these platforms and algorithms,

00:11:14.280 but then the worst people just take them over.

00:11:17.800 Right. 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.

00:11:43.200 And then we can explain, well, you know, you should be engaged in that because the fact

00:11:47.700 that you don't care about politics, you're just struggling to make a living.

00:11:51.100 That's housing, affordability, groceries, energy prices and jobs.

00:11:54.700 All of that stuff is determined by municipal, state and federal elections and who you vote

00:11:59.160 for.

00:11:59.560 And then it sort of starts to click.

00:12:01.480 Once we get there, it's OK, why are you hearing about what you're hearing about and someone

00:12:06.480 else is hearing about something totally different?

00:12:08.660 It's these algorithms.

00:12:09.660 It's these platforms.

00:12:10.320 And 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.

00:12:29.180 It's two things. It's one. At this point, the elections more than ever being affected

00:12:33.900 by these platforms and 2028 probably more than any before that is going to be highly

00:12:39.500 determined by the narratives that these algorithms determine are the most emotionally salient

00:12:44.220 and put in front of people. That's number one. And number two, because of the A.I.

00:12:47.900 aspect of it, the whole last part of the book is about how I will change this.

00:12:51.580 The technology is essentially there to create synthetic influencers.

00:12:57.820 Have to sit in front of a camera and if I want to do an hour of content

00:13:01.120 I've got to record an hour of video with technology. You can dial up a thousand of me

00:13:07.320 Some might be male some might be female different identities

00:13:10.780 Whatever will appeal most directly to people and spin them up with nothing other than compute power and a thousand X

00:13:17.880 What I'm doing tailored to the algorithms of people it's 60 70 percent of the way there as we're recording this

00:13:24.420 very very dangerous and you've run your own experience we'll get to that you write about

00:13:29.440 it in the book yeah but you start you the introduction begins with uh ai in some respects

00:13:34.520 and it's you know that that's an iconic image of of donald trump with the walker and you make the

00:13:39.660 point that he did this right after he went after states like california california being the first

00:13:44.820 state in the country to go after large language model frontier models and do transparency language

00:13:49.260 legislation as it relates to regulating AI. He didn't like that. David Sachs, his AI czar didn't

00:13:55.180 like that. They tried to preempt the state of California and stop other states. All the while,

00:14:00.760 we saw a viral video of Donald Trump in a walker. That's right. And the point I make in the book

00:14:06.680 is that by the time it was determined that this image of Trump with the walker isn't real,

00:14:12.200 it kind of didn't matter because it accomplished a bunch of different things for different people.

00:14:18.160 That's not all positive for not all positive or negative for Donald Trump.

00:14:22.060 But 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.

00:14:32.320 The truth of it is almost irrelevant.

00:14:34.760 And I even talk about talking with creators who have published accidentally, as far as I know, AI stuff.

00:14:42.080 And I've said to them, listen, you know, that that that actually wasn't real.

00:14:45.740 Like, I know it was an honest mistake.

00:14:46.880 That wasn't real.

00:14:47.480 And they go, yeah, but it worked.

00:14:49.740 It got clicks.

00:14:50.480 It got views.

00:14:51.280 And whether I agree with the message or not, I think that is dangerous.

00:14:54.280 And that goes to the beginning of the book.

00:14:56.200 I mean, you open a chapter one.

00:14:57.340 It's about attention.

00:14:58.720 I mean, period, full stop.

00:15:00.280 Yeah.

00:15:00.900 There's the idea I think a lot of people have that the likes and how much time you spend

00:15:06.160 on stuff on these platforms will naturally surface what's true and what's right.

00:15:10.720 And that is not the way these platforms are designed.

00:15:13.260 And sometimes I think when we attribute political bias to like people want to talk about what are

00:15:17.820 Mark Zuckerberg's personal politics, for example. Interesting question. That's not really what

00:15:23.020 determines what does well on Facebook. What does well on Facebook is what starts to spread quickly.

00:15:28.940 And you can think about I mean, forget about truth for a second, just to think about vaccines,

00:15:33.500 the covid vaccine, for example. There's two competing claims. One is these vaccines are

00:15:39.340 killing millions of people and the government has covered it up. That's claim number one.

00:15:44.140 Claim number two is, hey, these vaccines are really safe, not as effective at preventing

00:15:48.420 the spread of COVID as we had hoped. Pretty good at keeping you out of the hospital or

00:15:52.000 which one? Forget about what's true. Which one is going to get grandma and a college student

00:15:57.020 and whoever else to like it, comment and share it? Of course, it's the emotionally salient one.

00:16:02.300 That's what these platforms are optimized for. So that goes to this, you know, then as the book

00:16:09.320 goes on in the next chapter. You talk about, you know, we used to have editors. We used to be able

00:16:13.080 to actually sort of, we fixed that by making sure we fixed to some North Star of truth so we can

00:16:19.460 build trust. Now, no longer that's the case. Right. There are a lot of really interesting

00:16:25.800 books I read in writing this, including, for example, about the New York Times investigation

00:16:30.240 into Harvey Weinstein. And one of the things that comes up, or Ronan Farrow's book about the same

00:16:36.600 topic, a lot of these investigative journalism books, and they all tell stories of editors

00:16:41.520 and executives and all of these layers that have different incentives to slow down a lot

00:16:47.280 of these investigations.

00:16:48.460 And then you find out there's personal stuff at play and there's financial incentives,

00:16:51.940 all these different things.

00:16:53.280 That's a problem with that legacy system.

00:16:56.620 One of the great things about the digital platforms is you kind of get around that or

00:17:00.280 you eliminate that.

00:17:01.600 The other problem with it is that with no fact checking and with no layers of let's

00:17:07.360 make sure we feel good about this, stuff will go ultra viral simply because it's emotionally

00:17:13.780 salient.

00:17:14.780 So I don't tell this.

00:17:16.200 The book is not about bad legacy media.

00:17:19.220 It's there's pros and cons to these systems.

00:17:21.180 The democratization of the news and politics space has been phenomenal.

00:17:25.780 On the other hand, we also have this problem of truth versus virality to contend with.

00:17:30.040 And 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.

00:17:50.140 That's right. And not only that, not everybody is given all of the same material from which

00:17:54.300 they can then say, here's the side I come down on, right? Based on your interests and

00:17:58.860 online behavior, you and I and everybody else can have a completely different sense of what's

00:18:05.020 going on out in the world. A great example is with the Trump medical stuff that was,

00:18:10.860 you know, when he went for his third physical in 13 months, there were two completely competing

00:18:16.380 narratives. There was one side of the space that was saying the disclosures have never been

00:18:21.820 fulsome and complete. There are inconsistencies here. We don't believe the height and weight

00:18:26.780 that's on these documents. There's stuff missing. He talked about an MRI for two months. It turns

00:18:30.760 out it was a CAT scan. That's one side. There are millions of people who vote who were not

00:18:35.500 even exposed to that. It wasn't that they said, oh, I don't believe that or I don't like that.

00:18:40.180 Their algorithms don't even show them that content. They don't even get the opportunity

00:18:43.660 to say, do I want to examine this critically? How do you fix that? That's a major problem.

00:18:48.680 And you make that point in the book that the algorithm then becomes the boss.

00:18:53.180 That's right.

00:18:53.600 And I mean, it's, and I think, I mean, to me, there's nothing, it explains so many things in

00:18:58.680 so many ways of our interactions we have and, you know, fill in the blank with, you know,

00:19:02.860 Uncle Joe or something at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And you're like, what the hell's happened

00:19:06.900 to Uncle Joe? And in many respects, it's completely understandable what's happened to him.

00:19:11.080 Yeah. He's sincere about his beliefs because he doesn't see the other side. And by the way,

00:19:17.260 maybe we don't. You don't either. No, I advise my audience if you want to still be informed and

00:19:26.040 still sort of participate in the space of online news and politics, but you want to kind of take

00:19:29.980 control back a little bit. One of the things you can do is seek out audio podcasts or they might

00:19:37.100 be video as well, but long form podcasts that you have identified as these are good faith

00:19:42.060 people trying to explore what is really true. Podcasts are not really in this algorithmic

00:19:47.540 space yet. People mostly find podcasts not because of swiping and how long and where

00:19:52.500 they're looking and that sort of thing. They're finding them through interpersonal recommendations,

00:19:57.080 hearing about them on other podcasts, et cetera. So I still think long form podcasts are one of

00:20:01.780 the best spots to kind of exit. I mean, most of the podcasts you find through viral

00:20:06.420 clips that are in this very frame that we're talking about. It's absolutely true. It's absolutely

00:20:14.220 true. The other thing that I think is good is after you've come to identify some of these

00:20:19.040 mechanisms, you can have a sort of self-check thing where you say, OK, I'm seeing a lot of

00:20:25.280 content that is telling me X. Is that really all there is to this? So being aware of the fact that

00:20:31.100 this is taking place can be a really good kind of inoculation against it. And then you can go

00:20:36.380 and say, hey, let's look at some other ideas about this. There was a point to go back to the

00:20:41.280 covid vaccine stuff where your algorithm would basically take you to anti Fauci stuff. He's a

00:20:47.360 criminal. Then it takes you to some long form podcasters who would invite. Sometimes they were

00:20:53.140 medical doctors. Sometimes they had Ph.D.s, but they were sort of presented as if they were experts

00:20:57.720 in medicine and you would go down this very dark path.

00:21:01.800 At some point, you could have said if you had been armed with the knowledge that you're

00:21:05.500 being taken down this garden path, I'm going to now go back and say, let's look at some

00:21:10.360 randomized controlled trials.

00:21:12.040 Let's look at what the people at actual medical institutions are saying.

00:21:15.400 So the point is, knowing that you are pushed, pushed, pushed further and further is a really

00:21:20.080 good starting point to say, I'm going to go and seek out something else.

00:21:22.780 A lot of times this is really innocent.

00:21:24.520 I tell the story in the book of, for example, it could be people looking for workout content

00:21:29.720 or parenting advice.

00:21:31.420 These are like two, you think, parenting advice, workout content.

00:21:34.460 These are radioactive spaces.

00:21:36.720 Mom groups on Facebook where you go and say, hey, I'm looking for some toys that are whatever.

00:21:44.200 And next thing you know, you're being fed stuff about alternative parenting techniques.

00:21:48.520 Do you know what they're teaching your kids in school?

00:21:50.280 By the way, did you know public schools require vaccinations?

00:21:53.180 takes you through a dark path. You just wanted toy recommendations. This is, this can happen

00:21:57.400 within weeks to people. I mean, it could happen. I mean, I happen. I, this is the origin story of

00:22:02.280 this podcast in so many respects. I mean, during COVID son's on his, he wasn't on any devices that

00:22:08.400 I was aware of outside his advice that came from school, which allowed him to access YouTube and

00:22:16.720 he's checking on fitness and he's checking on, you know, some of the things that, you know,

00:22:20.760 a lot of these young boys are into it and all of a sudden he's talking to me

00:22:23.220 about Andrew Tate. Right.

00:22:24.780 Rogan was a passing phase of sorts.

00:22:26.600 It was more Charlie Kirk and then different conversations to your point.

00:22:30.560 And within, and it was his entire friend group. I mean, and I don't care.

00:22:34.540 There was an experiment I read the other day where they provided tablets for

00:22:39.180 boys around the globe. And it was, I think within 22 minutes,

00:22:43.860 they all had formulated the same construct in terms of the algorithms that

00:22:48.540 found them that sought them out you're not searching for information they're seeking you

00:22:55.180 out and targeting you at a level so that's i mean how and this is the challenge and you you write

00:23:00.520 about you know you're you're at a confessional chapter in there about the machine it being

00:23:04.700 inside the machine so sort of work us through that what was your own confession in this context

00:23:09.440 well and how do we start to work ourselves out of this i mean there's no way listen anybody who

00:23:14.380 makes content is not doing it for it to be seen by as few people as possible. That's the challenge.

00:23:19.240 You're making it for the incentives here. Those are the incentive structures. And so what I try

00:23:24.740 to be aware of is I'm not going to deliberately choose stuff that will bomb and that nobody's

00:23:29.400 interested in. I mean, that seems counterproductive. But the way I kind of see it is I'm going to

00:23:34.720 package the content as best as my brain will let me figure out how to maximize eyeballs while being

00:23:41.820 honest so that then I can also give people the conversation with the PhD nutritionist I had on

00:23:48.700 last week who explains the truth about the Maha stuff and the food dies and GMO. And so I'm sort

00:23:54.300 of using the techniques to buy myself the bandwidth for the audience to then also accept the stuff

00:24:02.020 that's less likely to go giga viral, but is valuable. And I think it's important. So it's

00:24:07.380 sort of a it's a negotiation with yourself in a sense that you're having. Right. I could package

00:24:11.560 this stuff in the most boring way possible and never build an audience.

00:24:14.940 Might it feel good?

00:24:16.580 Maybe on some level.

00:24:17.640 But then I've built no capital that I can then spend on important ideas that I want

00:24:22.220 to put in front of my audience, if that makes sense.

00:24:24.180 So I think it's a negotiation every creator has.

00:24:26.620 And I talk in the book about some who go too far and they've got titles like Trump taken

00:24:30.740 out on a stretcher.

00:24:32.020 And then you watch the video and it's like Trump was not taken out on a stretcher.

00:24:35.440 That's very far beyond the pale. 0.99

00:24:37.720 But editorializing about what I see as Caroline Lovett's failings as a press secretary and

00:24:42.580 making that as engaging as possible, I think that you have to play that game.

00:24:47.320 And again, in the audio podcast, there's none of that stuff.

00:24:50.760 It's 70 minutes of me talking.

00:24:52.460 There's none of this editorialized titles or anything because you don't need it.

00:24:56.220 And you talk about colors as well.

00:24:57.920 It was interesting.

00:24:58.360 I never looked at the shades in the context of how that's able to move the needle as well.

00:25:03.820 Yeah.

00:25:05.080 Intuitively, the specifics change over time.

00:25:07.720 But what we figured out intuitively and most of these algorithms are black boxes

00:25:11.820 So you never get hard data about it intuitively more sort of saturated colors and and bright colors colors about alarm and attention

00:25:20.380 Do better than muted colors it this it's such a funny thing

00:25:24.400 Because of Donald Trump's orange. Yeah, the orange you write about it naturally lends itself to YouTube thumbnails that do well

00:25:32.220 I mean, it's a it's a crazy thing. There are creators who will dial up the saturation on Trump's orange

00:25:37.240 i don't do that it's an interesting technique though because it just naturally lends itself

00:25:41.940 to attracting the eye in the in attracting the eye sort of begs as in the book you know you

00:25:49.560 write in another chapter about how it also changes you we're being watched 24 7 we're all become

00:25:54.960 performers i mean particularly these streamers yes that are quite literally 24 7 their entire

00:26:01.080 life is online um but you make the point politicians you know we're right now i mean

00:26:07.460 we're performing it's changing us yeah in every way shape or form our physiological changes not

00:26:14.680 just what we say it's how we say it yeah where we say it i hear from a lot of congressional and

00:26:19.060 senate staffers who want to figure out how do i make my principles content speeches etc yeah more

00:26:27.880 interesting for them to get covered. And, you know, there's a hundred senators and 435 in the

00:26:32.760 house. They're all competing for attention. They all kind of want to be in that top 5% of who is,

00:26:37.160 is brought on shows to comment on stuff. And I don't necessarily have the answers for them.

00:26:42.460 It's not my area of expertise, but they understand that there's more than just what they are saying.

00:26:47.840 It's the packaging, it's the appearance, it's the emotionality and the tone. So this goes way

00:26:53.080 beyond content creators and streamers. And what, I mean, what's your, what do you make of that?

00:26:57.020 I mean, obviously, you know, we can, you know, I get some, a bunch of Kennedy memorabilia up here.

00:27:02.580 My favorite with his hand on his, at the desk, like, exacerbated.

00:27:06.420 But, you know, the modern era of television as it relates to, you know, how debates were won and how people began to perform a little bit.

00:27:14.260 We've seen the performance changes as it relates to even city council meetings.

00:27:18.180 Yes.

00:27:18.500 When they're televised and when they're not.

00:27:20.200 Yeah.

00:27:20.560 And how it quite literally changes people.

00:27:22.620 It changes the tone and tenor.

00:27:24.120 It 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.

00:27:30.740 You 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?

00:27:37.340 Everybody who is on these platforms is affected by this.

00:27:40.700 Even if you say I'm not a creator, I'm not a streamer, I'm not an elected official.

00:27:44.240 If 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.

00:27:52.300 And then everybody is sort of staging some version of their life and then gauging the

00:27:58.240 reaction that it gets.

00:27:59.460 So it's affecting everybody.

00:28:00.460 And there are people who aren't professional content creators who just get bummed out when

00:28:04.640 the, you know, teenagers who post stuff and their friends don't like it, or they get attacked

00:28:08.800 or all of this stuff.

00:28:09.940 So everybody's in this space if you're on the platform.

00:28:11.760 But aren't we all celebrating the authentic?

00:28:15.920 Isn't that what we're all after?

00:28:17.120 So 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.

00:28:36.580 And I don't know what that does to interpersonal relationships.

00:28:39.840 I mean, I think one of the things that is definitely true is 98 percent of my interactions

00:28:46.540 online with people are very negative and one hundred ninety eight percent and 100 percent

00:28:52.860 of my in-person interactions with people are positive or neutral.

00:28:56.340 And so the disinhibiting nature of these interpersonal means where you see people, you kind of think

00:29:02.860 you know them, you're willing to say. Sometimes I'll get emails from people who say horrible,

00:29:07.640 horrible things to me, and I rarely write back. But sometimes I'll just as a test, I'll go,

00:29:11.760 do you think you would say this to me if we met in person? And oftentimes it completely deflates

00:29:18.080 the anger and people go after a day. I was really upset with what you said. The truth is, I know

00:29:24.040 you're just saying what you believe. I disagree with it. We'd probably have a good conversation

00:29:27.760 in person, which is a really interesting switch. Do you, I just looking back, I'm curious as you

00:29:34.220 said, do you remember the first thing that just blew up first? I mean, something that you said

00:29:39.740 or did or how you said it, how you did it, how you found it, whatever it might've been that were

00:29:44.340 like, whoa, this thing, like, what do you remember? What was it? I do. There was a story where a woman

00:29:51.760 did a test. A black woman was not getting job interviews and she did a test where she

00:29:57.380 started submitting her resume with what you would call a white sounding name instead of 0.98

00:30:03.520 what would be considered a black sounding name. Same exact resume. And she suddenly

00:30:07.820 got a ton of callbacks. And I thought it was interesting. I didn't think that that story

00:30:11.980 would perform well, but I thought that it was fascinating as a social commentary. And

00:30:17.420 And so I talked about it and it just went absolutely crazy.

00:30:21.980 And it did a couple of things.

00:30:23.200 Number one, it showed me the power of some of these platforms as they grew that in overnight

00:30:27.340 they could generate tens of millions of views, which is crazy.

00:30:30.380 But number two, it also showed me there was something very emotionally salient about that

00:30:36.700 individual's experience, the story of one particular woman rather than a large group

00:30:41.100 of people.

00:30:42.100 That particular woman's story really resonated with people and maybe got them thinking about

00:30:45.600 their own experiences.

00:30:47.040 it kind of surprised me how well it did. And the flip side of that, things that just don't work. I

00:30:52.600 mean, you talked about the complexity, nuance, seeing both sides, storytelling, policy versus

00:30:59.100 emotion. I mean, what are the things that continue to just hit your head and just say, I do not

00:31:04.420 understand why this is not breaking through, whatever this may be? Not understand is interesting.

00:31:10.300 When I do long form discussions with economists, for example, I'm doing one next week on wealth

00:31:15.680 taxes. And we'll talk about the proposal here and then the federal one that you've talked about,

00:31:20.280 what Europe has done, where it's worked, where it hasn't. If we really want to be serious about

00:31:24.780 collecting more money from the wealthiest, this is like the most important conversation that we

00:31:30.040 could be having. Thank you. It's not going to do that well on YouTube. The clips on TikTok are

00:31:35.180 probably not going to do that well. You're so pessimistic. You haven't even done it yet.

00:31:37.780 No, but my long form audience will like it. So this is the sort of thing where people will take

00:31:42.340 the time to email me and say, that was a really great discussion. Now I understand why wealth

00:31:47.040 taxes will or won't work or how they need to be structured. It doesn't have the it hits you

00:31:52.920 emotional salience of Donald Trump being cropped out of the World Cup picture. Right. Right. It

00:32:00.020 doesn't have that. It's 30, 40 minutes with an economist on dense stuff. I wish that that did

00:32:05.660 better. I wish it did better. It's extraordinarily important. The right wing tends to do

00:32:12.320 better in this medium you write about rush limbaugh i had my second guest on this podcast when i

00:32:19.240 launched it uh was michael savage who you know was competing with limbaugh limbaugh back in the day he

00:32:24.940 was a guy who created the frame language borders and culture yeah was unbelievably effective uh

00:32:32.020 in that frame and built a huge uh audience and and still has a career that continues to this day

00:32:38.640 um they're more naturally successful in this space you write that you write about that why

00:32:46.240 two parts to it one the right plays on fear identifies villains more quickly and more

00:32:55.680 effectively than the left that's number one why though why well uh i mean this this gets into

00:33:02.080 deeper stuff. There are some studies that show that the sort of brain realities of the

00:33:08.580 right are more reactive to fear and disgust than the left. It gets into deeper stuff.

00:33:13.860 But one thing is they identify scapegoats and villains really quickly. Some of their

00:33:17.940 arguments are just better in these platforms, like to go to some other examples that I talk

00:33:22.840 about in the book. If I just go, listen, it's your money. Taxes are theft and we need tax

00:33:30.760 relief.

00:33:32.120 That's a really tidy and efficient argument, right?

00:33:34.780 And if I come in as the guy on the left, I don't go, no, taxes are awesome and raise

00:33:39.160 them as high as possible.

00:33:40.580 I have to go.

00:33:41.580 Listen, if you want to live in a society with basic infrastructure, the only way to do it

00:33:46.680 is through the collection of taxes by the government.

00:33:49.200 Is it sort of coercive?

00:33:50.200 Well, in a sense, but it's which one of those is going to do better?

00:33:53.940 Of course, it's they're stealing your money.

00:33:56.660 It's yours.

00:33:57.660 You should get to keep it.

00:33:58.960 That's structural to their argument.

00:34:01.740 On abortion, there's a similar analogy. 0.83

00:34:04.620 Murdering babies is bad. 1.00

00:34:06.180 Abortions murder. 1.00

00:34:07.180 That's it. 0.77

00:34:08.180 We're not doing it.

00:34:09.180 And we on the left, at least I've never met anyone who goes abortion is awesome. 0.98

00:34:12.540 Let's look to increase the number of abortions.

00:34:14.280 We say there's a lot of competing of factors here and we have to talk about bodily autonomy

00:34:19.080 and it's not going to translate as it never translated as well to the rage of AM radio

00:34:25.080 and it doesn't work as well in the algorithms.

00:34:27.340 It's structural.

00:34:28.340 So I don't think it's inevitable that the left has to lose on it.

00:34:32.760 We have to rethink the entry point into a lot of these issues.

00:34:36.500 For example, if you work, of course, you should be able to afford a dignified life in the

00:34:43.300 place where you are working, not 70 miles away where it's cheaper.

00:34:47.840 That has a little more emotional salience.

00:34:49.820 And then we can back in like what policies are we talking about, housing and wages, etc.

00:34:54.300 It's for people who are better on the language stuff than me to kind of figure out.

00:34:57.660 I don't think it's a lost cause. I just don't think we're winning with it right now.

00:35:00.720 I mean, do you sense that, you know, Bernie Sanders has been effective? I mean, just calling

00:35:06.060 out the villain. I mean, is that, you know, being able to just sort of distill the essence

00:35:11.940 of it's us versus them. It's not left and right. It's, you know, what Torigo, others are saying, 0.56

00:35:17.760 it's the top versus the bottom, the people on top, the systems rigged. Does that have the

00:35:23.900 emotional silence that actually can compete in that space? I think it does. What we're kind of

00:35:28.940 getting into now is the populist rhetoric. And the thing I talk about about populist rhetoric

00:35:33.340 is that it's not a definitive set of policy proposals. And the danger with the populist

00:35:38.240 rhetoric is that if you go to Bernie and to Tucker Carlson, they will give you a similar

00:35:43.400 diagnosis up front, which is there are these empowered elites that are in it for themselves.

00:35:50.820 like you'll get a pretty similar analysis. You then go to what are the solutions? And Tucker's

00:35:56.500 solutions are pretty ugly in a lot of ways. Whereas, of course, Bernie's are ones that I

00:36:01.800 would agree with more. I think the risk of adopting the populist rhetoric, which Trump has also

00:36:06.840 adopted, is that then the solution may be one that's actually completely antithetical to the

00:36:12.820 policy and values that that we support. But on the rhetoric, I think Bernie's been very good.

00:36:17.480 um you know it's interesting just you know the issue of of of selling fear and anxiety you know

00:36:24.260 issues like crime and immigration and and and then being able to get away with selling common

00:36:29.140 indifference on things like climate change and the erosion of our hard-earned national rights

00:36:33.500 is i mean it to me at the core of this dialectic and the challenges we're having as a party yes and

00:36:38.880 their ability to shape shift their ability to control the narrative their ability uh to

00:36:42.920 communicate with this with you know taking advantage of so many things you highlight in

00:36:46.520 book or illuminating the book as it relates to the algorithms, but also just this machine they've

00:36:51.860 built. And not just in one platform, across the spectrum of platforms. But you talked about Tucker

00:36:57.900 in the context of these platforms that are out there and people and personalities in these

00:37:02.140 platforms that are asserting themselves with this notion of independence. And you challenge that a

00:37:06.800 little bit. That no one is truly independent in this space. Yeah, there's obvious ways and there's

00:37:12.600 less obvious ways. First of all, a lot of times when people talk about independent, they either

00:37:17.400 mean I don't have advertisers controlling me or I don't have editors controlling me. OK, even if

00:37:22.460 you don't have direct advertisers, if you're monetizing your content through YouTube, Facebook,

00:37:26.840 TikTok and other built in monetization platforms, you're still influenced to create content that

00:37:33.180 won't violate those monetization rules so that you don't make money. So that's that's still there.

00:37:38.080 But there's a lot of other ways that people are not truly independent, for example, wanting

00:37:42.640 access to people in power.

00:37:44.440 And this is what I think has been very interesting about Fox News over the last few months,

00:37:48.680 where they are starting.

00:37:49.840 I mean, just two days ago, when we learned about more troops tragically killed in the

00:37:55.280 Iran war, Fox News didn't really sugarcoat it.

00:37:59.080 They even played a clip of Trump saying months ago, this is going to be two to three weeks

00:38:02.820 and nobody's going to die.

00:38:03.840 And then they've got this.

00:38:04.760 I don't think it's out of a desire to kind of plant a flag and say we now oppose Trump.

00:38:11.000 But I think it's hedging because they don't know what comes next.

00:38:13.980 They don't know what's going to happen in November. 0.86

00:38:15.680 They don't know if this president is going to be the lamest of lame ducks for two years

00:38:19.440 and we'll see approval ratings in the 20s.

00:38:22.640 So it's about preservation.

00:38:24.360 We also want access and to stay in good graces with the Republican Party and whoever replaces

00:38:29.380 Trump.

00:38:30.380 And so, like, is that really independence?

00:38:32.100 I would argue that it's not.

00:38:34.040 And how do you, how are you able to balance that in your own? I mean, I mean, what's your sort of

00:38:39.780 situational awareness about your own capacity to maintain that independence? I mean, you've got

00:38:47.100 advertisers, you've got an audience, you have the same desire to have access to get the right guests

00:38:53.640 and to be, you know, how do you, how do you work through all that? The first thing is I try to

00:38:59.220 never do anything that is against my kind of existing framework of values.

00:39:04.540 So if I go and interview someone somewhere, I want to make sure that I'm not interviewing

00:39:12.900 someone in whatever way I would normally do it because of somebody who has said, hey,

00:39:18.980 come to our convention or go to this thing or go to go to that thing.

00:39:21.780 I'm always going to only be up front with my audience about here's someone whose values

00:39:26.460 and policies I support. Here's someone who I don't. And I'm not going to let any kind of

00:39:29.640 financial relationship come in between that. I don't talk to anybody from any of my advertisers.

00:39:34.220 I never have conversations with them. We've luckily never had an advertiser that got word to me,

00:39:39.800 hey, they didn't really like how you fortunately it's never happened. But I have no conversations

00:39:43.680 with advertisers. And if they said something like that, I would say, well, that's not not how we do

00:39:49.620 the show. The platforms are the platforms. There's no doubt that there's content I could do that would

00:39:55.080 get me demonetized or even kicked off of the platforms if it were extreme enough. Those aren't

00:40:00.200 really the sorts of things I believe and do. So the risk of that happening is relatively low.

00:40:05.740 You talk about us being trapped. Obviously, we talk about the business model around polarization

00:40:11.000 and we've highlighted that and we've talked about that. You highlight it in a much deeper way in one

00:40:16.800 of the chapters in the book. But this notion that we're trapped in this feed, and you picked that

00:40:22.480 apart a little bit in terms of what podcasts may mean that we can get out of this feed a little bit

00:40:27.060 but get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price

00:40:33.320 guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca

00:40:38.120 for details and to check availability bell connection is everything what's up fam i'm

00:40:43.500 sports journalist ari chambers hey what's up y'all it's your girl sam j and we're the host of

00:40:48.380 Everyone watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports.

00:40:52.580 Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

00:40:57.000 So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.

00:41:03.520 My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating?

00:41:07.680 The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline.

00:41:12.720 And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

00:41:16.400 Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

00:41:20.060 Naomi Osaka, showing out.

00:41:22.220 She beat Sabalenka. 0.99

00:41:24.260 Shout-outs to you, Naomi. 0.96

00:41:25.100 You get the palm, Naomi. 0.80

00:41:26.200 You get the palm for that.

00:41:27.920 Because we're not just interested in what happened,

00:41:30.020 we're interested in why everyone's talking about it.

00:41:32.300 Because everyone watches women's sports.

00:41:34.580 Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports 0.97

00:41:36.040 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

00:41:38.320 or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:41:42.540 Hey, Portlandia fans.

00:41:44.260 Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

00:41:46.180 You know us, or rather, you know them.

00:41:48.000 Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken.

00:41:52.320 We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years,

00:41:54.600 but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia,

00:41:58.340 AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast.

00:42:00.600 Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning,

00:42:04.460 breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters,

00:42:08.660 revisiting the Portland locations you know and love,

00:42:11.320 and opening up about our creative process.

00:42:13.960 How did any of this get made?

00:42:15.600 Why do we think that was a good idea?

00:42:17.460 We're ready to talk about it.

00:42:19.000 And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life.

00:42:22.000 Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel,

00:42:26.080 the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

00:42:31.040 Kyle is going for it here.

00:42:32.860 You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody.

00:42:36.620 Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song.

00:42:38.860 I remember you thinking that.

00:42:40.580 Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:42:50.560 I'm Nick Turturro.

00:42:51.860 You probably know me from NYPD Blue, The Longest Yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman.

00:42:56.740 But I'm also from Queens, which means I know pizza.

00:43:00.140 And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, I deliver pizza from Prince Street Pizza to a new guest.

00:43:06.640 Are you delivering pizza now?

00:43:07.540 Then we sit down for a real conversation.

00:43:09.720 I've shared a slice with everyone, from Seth Rollins...

00:43:12.700 What are you doing with my belt?

00:43:13.700 ...to Alex Rodriguez...

00:43:14.960 Just to let you people know, we're talking to one of the goats here.

00:43:18.120 ...to Bill Burr...

00:43:19.040 I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am.

00:43:24.180 And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Turturro...

00:43:28.800 It's called happiness.

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00:43:34.980 Open your free HiHeartRadio app, search Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro,

00:43:39.100 and listen now. Illuminate us more. I mean, what do you mean by trapped in the feed?

00:43:44.900 Well, to the extent that you want to be a participant in some of these town square

00:43:49.060 conversations that are happening, they're happening on these platforms at this point.

00:43:52.960 We've lost as a country, even the idea of at 6 p.m. people gather around and watch 30 minutes

00:44:00.420 of the nightly news. Yes, Cronkite. Ratings are very low there. Even with sporting events,

00:44:07.080 I mean, things are so fragmented that the town squares really are happening asynchronously.

00:44:14.020 It's not all at the same time, but it's over these periods of six, 12, 24, 48 hours where

00:44:18.840 these stories build and swell online.

00:44:21.480 So instead of like it's the Super Bowl kickoffs at six, 28, it's 48 hours of a building story,

00:44:28.460 like like a ship, you know, being pushed up by a swell.

00:44:30.860 And then it kind of comes down and we move on to the next thing.

00:44:34.200 If you want to be involved in that and participate in it, it's it's on these platforms.

00:44:39.320 So I think people are trapped in that sense.

00:44:41.240 And then number two, a lot of the platforms used to have these reverse chronological feeds.

00:44:46.100 Facebook at the beginning, if you were friends with 20 people and you went on to Facebook,

00:44:50.920 this is a while ago now, you wouldn't see an algorithmic feed of what you're most likely

00:44:55.700 to enjoy.

00:44:56.900 You would just see reverse chronological of my 20 friends.

00:45:00.260 What's the last thing that was posted and the one before that?

00:45:02.620 you would kind of get to the end. There's no end anymore. You can always scroll and get to the

00:45:07.220 next thing, which is part of why it's very addictive. But a lot of those tools that let

00:45:11.100 you kind of control the ecosystem you're in have been taken away. AI is blowing everything out of

00:45:18.320 the water. And in the book, talking a little bit more about AI, you begin with that Walker video

00:45:23.740 and just around truth and trust in relationship to artificial intelligence. But you commented

00:45:29.380 earlier about um 60 to 7 percent of their uh their in terms of these avatars people yeah using your

00:45:35.920 voice you using your own voice turning it over and so you ran your own experiment yes uh and it

00:45:42.300 told you what it it it communicated to you what that you have another six months and you're one

00:45:49.740 upgrade away from uh needing a real job well what's uh where are we going i'll get back to how

00:45:55.660 I think it'll affect me. So we did two tests, one with audio, one with video. The technology

00:46:00.360 is phenomenal. If I feed hours of my voice into these systems, it'll spit out an avatar

00:46:07.560 that I can be sitting on a plane somewhere, type into it a script. It will spit out an

00:46:13.140 audio file that even my team that listens to my voice every single day can't tell the

00:46:17.400 difference. That's there. That's good enough already. It was good enough probably six to

00:46:21.320 12 months ago. The video is a little uncanny valley. Still, we tested a couple models where

00:46:26.500 we just upload like an hour of my video and then feed it a script. It's weird. You know, I think if

00:46:33.660 you didn't know me, you might just think this is someone who articulates themselves in a strange

00:46:38.100 way. If you know me, I think it's obvious that it's AI. But these things are accelerating so

00:46:43.040 quickly that it's going to be there very soon. Now, in terms of how it will affect my job right

00:46:47.940 now there is such a movement that is skeptical of this sort of thing where people don't want

00:46:54.900 to be getting their commentary from someone that they know is an avatar. Now, could it get so good

00:47:01.820 that they don't realize it? Well, that's a different story. And it probably it probably will happen at

00:47:06.120 some point. But I think people are very incentivized to seek out real connection. And this is, I think,

00:47:11.160 one of the backlashes to what's happening with these platforms as social as we think we're being

00:47:15.980 when we're connected to 1,200 friends and DMs and all this different stuff. There's this lack of

00:47:21.560 in-person conviviality that isn't able to be replaced when you're participating in Twitter

00:47:29.080 threads. And so I think that there's a movement of people wanting to reconnect in the real world

00:47:33.000 that maybe is going to push up against the technology as it advances. And you talk about

00:47:37.480 pushing up the friction. You talk about friction and how you need to lean into friction. And that's

00:47:44.040 how you conclude the book. Talk to me about that. Friction in this sense is good, which is if your

00:47:49.880 instinct is when you're in line at the bank to take out your phone and watch 40 seconds of TikTok

00:47:55.480 videos, it's kind of good to resist that and to be able to resist that for a lot of reasons. Number

00:48:00.480 one, because studies seem to find that people who do that are actually less happy in general,

00:48:05.060 but also so that you're kind of like working your ability to be bored muscle, which is something

00:48:09.540 that we've kind of lost. And so there's a lot of people, Cal Newport and others who write

00:48:13.580 extensively about this stuff. When you get home, maybe you leave your phone plugged in on the

00:48:18.760 kitchen counter or the foyer instead of it being in your pocket the entire time because it introduces

00:48:24.020 a little bit of friction. Maybe when you go on Twitter, I'm barely on Twitter, but what I do is

00:48:29.860 I have a private list of about 100 people. I only am looking at what they've posted. I'm not looking

00:48:35.880 at my for you Twitter feed and I'm not looking at dear God, I'm not looking at my replies, which is

00:48:40.920 just horrifying. I'm just looking at what are these specific people. I've put friction between

00:48:46.220 myself and that feed that's out there constantly perpetuating itself. These are the sorts of things

00:48:51.160 people can do. And you've also done it. And what I admire about you, you've been on Rogan a number

00:48:54.860 of times. You've been on a number of these shows, Patrick's show. Patrick, Pat David. Yeah. I

00:49:00.960 sometimes enjoy watching him, full disclosure. Now I might get in trouble. Well, I enjoy it

00:49:08.140 because I think he's very interesting on the show,

00:49:11.020 even if I agree with very little.

00:49:12.740 Yeah, right.

00:49:13.060 No, that's what I think that's what makes it different.

00:49:15.060 I mean, Rogan, I find vacuous, but that's just me.

00:49:18.220 And that's not just someone, you know,

00:49:19.960 he attacks me on a weekly basis, won't have me on.

00:49:23.380 But I find him more the Facebook version of podcasters.

00:49:27.560 But that's, again, a personal expression.

00:49:29.820 You can't say that because you've been on twice

00:49:31.300 and you want to get on a third or fourth time.

00:49:32.580 Well, this was years ago.

00:49:33.320 I don't think he'll ever have me back on at this point.

00:49:35.080 But what is, so speaking of not getting back on,

00:49:37.220 I mean, this is the challenge of our time.

00:49:38.980 You're on this blacklist, right?

00:49:40.720 The White House.

00:49:41.700 Oh, the media offenders.

00:49:42.700 Yeah, media offenders list.

00:49:43.880 I mean, so let's talk a little bit about this.

00:49:45.520 I mean, all of this then leads to just the obvious, back to the polarization.

00:49:49.640 And again, you highlight that and a lot of the reasons why we're so polarized and increasingly

00:49:54.340 traumatized and just exhausted and how we're just living in our own filter bubble and our

00:49:59.280 own set of facts.

00:50:00.580 And we don't even share the same set of facts.

00:50:02.200 So we've identified all the problems and your desire to get out of it physically, which

00:50:05.980 again, I admire your willingness to speak to people you disagree with, again, on platforms

00:50:09.600 where people can be more disagreeable and also challenge your own algorithms. And I think all

00:50:15.460 of us, that's a very healthy thing. But where does all this end? I mean, this is the early days,

00:50:28.740 the black and white movie days of what AI can do in terms of weaponizing these grievances

00:50:36.720 and how it becomes almost limitlessly automated. You know, give me your over under.

00:50:43.340 A couple of different things. Politically, just from the standpoint of we've got to get power back

00:50:49.100 from people who have terrible ideas, we have to engage and we have to get better at playing the

00:50:53.740 game. So this is like the one side we it it would be nice if the algorithms optimize truth

00:50:58.860 over emotionality. They don't. I don't think there's any way to force them to. So it's

00:51:02.960 either you get out or you participate and you get better at it. That's number one.

00:51:07.020 On the other hand, I do think that over time, I'm not an acceleration is by my nature. I'm

00:51:13.980 not like it has to get really bad so then we can rebuild it. I don't think historically

00:51:18.240 that's worked. But I think inevitably, if things keep going in the direction they're

00:51:22.860 going, which is life is increasingly unaffordable for people.

00:51:26.780 People feel disconnected, both from societies and from the people in power and don't feel

00:51:31.880 that anyone's really looking out for them.

00:51:33.580 And there's a societal breakdown, you know, there's a lot of antisocial stuff going on,

00:51:37.280 not like the birthrate stuff.

00:51:38.360 Elon talks about as countries get wealthier, the birthrate goes down.

00:51:41.220 But I mean, people dating less, people just staying home, et cetera.

00:51:45.680 If that continues to get worse and worse, some kind of breakdown is likely to happen.

00:51:50.900 I'm not like a futurist gloomer that predicts it will be fires and, you know, like the day

00:51:56.700 after tomorrow.

00:51:57.700 I don't know what it will look like, but there may be some return to the kind of socializing

00:52:03.760 society of old before some of these platforms.

00:52:06.620 It doesn't mean that they'll go away.

00:52:08.300 They may just occupy a different place in society.

00:52:10.540 One example is for a while, the average number of Facebook friends people had was going up,

00:52:16.020 up, up where it was like, let me collect all of these people I've met once and acquaintance

00:52:20.820 the trend now is the opposite. Facebook's worried about it because people are saying, you know,

00:52:25.640 I actually want to be connected only to people I really know. And those are things that I think

00:52:30.820 are pointing in the right direction. What form all of it is going to take five years out? I don't

00:52:34.780 know. Do you what do you make of this loneliness epidemic? I mean, exacerbated by the very factors

00:52:40.560 that you highlight in the book that we need to, quote unquote, pay attention to, but particularly

00:52:44.980 for young men and boys. I mean, is that an area of focus for you? It is. Absolutely. And I've

00:52:50.680 talked now for years about how even though these manosphere models are not good models

00:52:57.220 for young men, we on the left also have to acknowledge you have to provide an alternative

00:53:02.640 that's interesting and positive. And I don't know that it has really been done. And we

00:53:07.260 spoke about this last time we talked a little bit. I don't know that that model has really

00:53:11.420 been built in a way that can compete. Now, part of the reason it can't compete is these,

00:53:16.240 you know, extremely interesting characters. I mean, I don't know if you saw the video of Andrew

00:53:21.120 Tate being arrested recently, even just his physical appearance. It's extremely, it attracts

00:53:26.860 the eye, you know, it's unusual. And it's, it's, it was wearing red or something back to colors.

00:53:31.100 Yeah. It was like capri pants and tasseled loafers with like a purple shirt. Purple. Maybe it was

00:53:37.040 purple. I remember it was very colorful. It's interesting. It's visually interesting. Very

00:53:41.000 visually interesting. And also when you say extreme things, it attracts more attention. So I

00:53:45.240 I don't know what the solution is, but we need better models of masculinity. And where I think

00:53:49.620 the left has sort of failed is the narrative of toxic masculinity is bad as a primary message

00:53:56.960 about people away. I think it pushes people away and it only makes them more susceptible to being

00:54:01.240 pulled in by people like Tate. So what do you and I appreciate that. And I think there's some truth

00:54:05.320 to that, that there was sort of an over indexing in that toxic frame and we lost folks. And so what

00:54:11.120 is the positive alternative and that's the challenge how do you make i mean these guys

00:54:15.120 have one thing in common i think it's more the boyosphere than the manosphere uh from the

00:54:20.000 attention perspective and i think you look at the audience in some respects that's the case

00:54:23.280 but but and and there is a toxicity which you have to one has to acknowledge yeah because they

00:54:28.100 filled the void right so how do we fill the void is there i mean you say there's we're not there

00:54:32.880 yet do you see any contours of are there there's some examples of people that are competing in that

00:54:38.560 space? I think there are. I mean, listen, I since no longer being president, I think President Obama

00:54:44.580 has done a couple of really interesting things in speaking to young young boys and men. And one of

00:54:49.320 them is really creating this frame where it's masculine to raise people up around you and to

00:54:57.920 make people feel better so that they are their best selves in their community. The alpha beta

00:55:03.480 male stuff and these tropes of masculinity that people like Tate and others, how to how

00:55:09.480 to insult women so that they like you, this sort of stuff.

00:55:14.040 Let's raise people up.

00:55:15.320 What's more masculine than saying, hey, you know what, I have the confidence that raising

00:55:19.760 others up isn't going to diminish me and it's not zero sum.

00:55:23.260 You know, I think these are sort of some of the ideas that would much better serve the

00:55:29.260 the left and serve young men and boys than the stuff from the manosphere that they're getting

00:55:33.640 on the right. Well said. You speak of serving. I mean, what do public servants, what do people

00:55:39.320 in positions of power and influence, those with formal authority, what should we be doing

00:55:42.960 in the context of addressing the systemic issues in this space, moving beyond just the issue of

00:55:49.680 the manosphere and the challenges with men and boys and the issues, again, that you highlight

00:55:54.820 in this book? What do we need to pay attention to in terms of a regulatory framework or not,

00:56:01.300 in terms of leaning in, socializing, highlighting, creating a different culture,

00:56:05.820 construct, challenge? I mean, is it FCC? Is it I mean, what what do we need to be doing

00:56:11.520 in this space? The micro answer is different in so many different areas. But I think the macro of it

00:56:17.900 is that there is a feeling. So I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, a lot of the people

00:56:22.840 I talk to don't vote because they have not yet understood the connection between voting and their

00:56:27.880 day-to-day lives. We've got to relink that connection. Once that's done, there's a feeling

00:56:32.620 that governments, state, federal, move too slowly to really solve problems for people. And so

00:56:40.280 there's a lot of situations people are in that are urgent, issues of housing, out of a job,

00:56:46.080 food instability, issues with children, et cetera. The BS that is then the easy answer and the

00:56:52.460 scapegoat in the context of the algorithms and the filter bubble. That's a good point in a way

00:56:58.760 to look at it. I think that if people come to believe that there are systems in place that can

00:57:04.280 respond to the specific problems people are having, because it's great when someone announces,

00:57:10.300 we have just secured X amount of funding, which will be distributed over Y years to start working

00:57:15.440 on. That's great. But there's people who are like, I'm in a crisis now. What is available to me?

00:57:20.260 Some 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.

00:57:32.640 And 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.

00:57:42.500 That's right.

00:57:42.960 Even 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.

00:57:57.220 It does. How much of this is just level setting versus, you know, just exploitation of people's grievances?

00:58:05.180 I think a lot of it is level setting and and and communication.

00:58:09.380 One 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,

00:58:18.740 which are effectively memos asking someone to do something which make a lot of his followers

00:58:24.860 believe that he is doing the things he promised when he is actually not.

00:58:29.180 I'm not suggesting that elected officials on the left start deliberately lying about

00:58:34.020 the things that they're going to do.

00:58:35.280 But the lesson is communication, especially if it's honest and it's going to be backed

00:58:40.520 up by action, is a lot.

00:58:42.900 And so, you know, when you hear about we're considering writing a strongly worded letter,

00:58:48.160 For my audience, that's like, what are you talking about?

00:58:50.220 You've lost me.

00:58:51.140 You've lost me.

00:58:51.500 Or an op-ed.

00:58:52.860 Or an op-ed.

00:58:53.300 Let's get in the New York Times.

00:58:55.220 There'll be 100 likes.

00:58:56.680 Right.

00:58:58.920 I agree with that.

00:59:00.260 So let's, I mean, it all touches on where we are as a party.

00:59:03.380 And 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.

00:59:17.060 But what, you know, what is the lesson today for the modern Democratic Party?

00:59:20.940 What would you be advising if you were the head of the DNC that the party itself?

00:59:47.060 Everyone watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. 0.50

00:59:51.140 Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

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01:00:41.120 Hey, Portlandia fans.

01:00:42.840 Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

01:00:44.760 You know us, or rather, you know them.

01:00:46.580 Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken.

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01:00:53.180 but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia,

01:00:56.900 AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast.

01:00:59.180 Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning,

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01:01:12.600 How did any of this get made?

01:01:14.180 Why do we think that was a good idea?

01:01:16.040 We're ready to talk about it.

01:01:17.580 And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life.

01:01:20.580 Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel,

01:01:24.660 the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

01:01:29.620 Kyle is going for it here.

01:01:31.440 You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody.

01:01:35.180 Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song.

01:01:37.440 I remember you thinking that.

01:01:39.160 Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:02:09.160 Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's

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01:02:15.760 Do you know I just found 1.00

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01:02:23.140 Chelsea Network. If he got

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01:02:39.160 Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:02:49.320 Or 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?

01:02:59.120 I think there's value to structure, but there is a lot of bottom-up stuff.

01:03:02.580 I mean, some of the most successful campaigns that just dominate social media are built from

01:03:07.880 the bottom up with people who are really good on social media. I do think that being less

01:03:14.180 structured is something I've told a lot of staffers. They want the questions ahead of time,

01:03:20.220 which we never do. They want to, they say, you know, do you still, you really get that still?

01:03:24.840 We really get it. We just had a situation. I haven't said, I mean, I gave you all the questions.

01:03:29.540 that's an exception this was a special case yeah you know we recently had a situation where a

01:03:35.400 staffer talked to my producer and said what are we going to talk about seven eight things were

01:03:40.640 kind of mentioned it was a 15 minute conversation which i think is also a problem but how can you

01:03:45.560 talk about eight things in 15 minutes we got to two and then my producer got a call saying i was

01:03:50.540 disappointed that the focus was only on those two and say well hold on a second yeah it gave us 15

01:03:55.520 minutes. And this was the range of things that would be discussed. I can't force, I'm not in

01:04:01.820 David's ear saying, move on to the next topic. So that stuff I think makes the end product feel

01:04:07.640 extremely stiff. People don't relate to it. So that goes to the authenticity piece.

01:04:11.940 That goes to the authenticity piece. And I think being less structured, appearing in less structured

01:04:16.340 situations, I think is only good. And you got to hand it to Trump during the 24 campaign.

01:04:21.960 he spent three hours with the Nelk boys and he's talking to Lex Friedman and he's with Rogan and

01:04:27.700 he's not. You've been on Lex as well, by the way. I spoke to Lex as well. Yeah. I think that that

01:04:33.320 worked. Even if he's telling lies, the fact that he's there and it feels relaxed and unstructured

01:04:39.160 goes a really long way with boaters. So that's one piece of advice. What else? I mean, so this

01:04:45.460 notion of abundance, I mean, I think we talked around that. I mean, we haven't used the word

01:04:50.360 abundance so you didn't use the word abundance i i use it often and i certainly embrace the frame

01:04:55.500 uh people are just sick and tired of process and the paralysis of process they want to see they

01:05:02.000 want to physically see the results yes it's proof of concept that i want to see results don't tell

01:05:08.860 me you've housed 68 000 people newsom which by the way we have through project home key don't tell

01:05:16.140 me that. I want to see it physically on the streets. Otherwise, I don't believe you. And

01:05:20.240 we're losing trust. And obviously, that is exploited and obviously is creating a lot of

01:05:26.600 friction. And it's politically challenging. So what else do you advise in the context of the

01:05:31.400 political, the Democratic Party in terms of getting back on its feet, getting back into

01:05:36.000 its ascended position, getting off the map? Matt, obviously, there's no, you know, for all the

01:05:43.240 animus that has developed, increasing animus, not just the Democratic Party and independents,

01:05:49.960 but increasingly in his own base against Donald Trump. It's not inured to the benefit of the

01:05:53.860 Democratic Party. I think that the focus really has to be on the economic situation. One of the

01:06:00.220 mistakes that I saw with President Biden's reelection campaign while it was going on,

01:06:04.560 and then with the Harris campaign when it became the Harris campaign, was a lot of pointing to,

01:06:09.460 but don't people see the economic numbers? Things are really good. And they may be really good for

01:06:15.060 a bunch of people and not good for a lot of others. But if people don't feel that things

01:06:20.060 are good and you're telling them they are, of course, they're not going to think you'll make

01:06:24.300 anything better. You're saying everything's fine to begin with. And this is why I think Barack

01:06:28.080 Obama's 2012 campaign did this very well, where he said, we've made a lot of progress getting out

01:06:34.240 of the Great Recession and we still have a long way to go. And here are the three or four things

01:06:38.500 I'm going to focus on. It felt much more like, OK, I can acknowledge this is no longer 2008.

01:06:45.220 And also this is still a climb that we are in the middle of. And then you need to have policies you

01:06:50.840 can actually deliver on. So that's where Donald Trump made a huge mistake, which is gas will be 0.54

01:06:55.140 down 50 percent. Everything will be cheaper. It's going to be a new glory. You know, and gas is over

01:07:00.220 four bucks a gallon nationally and much more in certain parts of the country. You have to have

01:07:04.900 some possibility of delivering on what you're asking. Well, I couldn't agree with you more.

01:07:09.380 I mean, my own confession, you have a confession chapter. But, you know, I was out there

01:07:13.160 stumping for Biden. I was making the same point. Inflation's cooling. You know,

01:07:17.880 economy's booming. Best jobs market since the 1960s. Lowest unemployment for blacks,

01:07:22.160 for women, for those with disabilities. We had record job growth. We were reducing the

01:07:27.320 deficit in debt. We had these unbelievable bipartisan deals, 400 bipartisan legislative

01:07:33.780 victories, some of the most iconic being, you know, IRA, the issues around infrastructure,

01:07:40.300 chips and science. And it was all about the aggregate. Right. And people don't live in

01:07:45.140 the aggregate. And they weren't feeling it. And you're right. That was, I mean, boy, that

01:07:50.980 landed like a thud. Yeah, that and immigration, I think, were two areas that weren't landing well

01:07:57.200 with a lot of voters and the here's the progress we've made, but then like here's the North Star.

01:08:04.800 There is a kind of transition there that's relatively smooth, which I think makes people

01:08:09.200 feel a lot more heard. And as unrealistic as Donald Trump's promises were, at least they

01:08:14.400 sounded tangible, completely unrealistic. And we all were saying this will never happen.

01:08:20.000 But they sounded like specific, tangible promises. Gas is going to be half the price.

01:08:23.920 Of course, it's not going to be, but that sounds tangible.

01:08:26.140 I can imagine what that would be like.

01:08:27.800 Yeah, drill, baby, drill.

01:08:29.200 But, you know, it's interesting.

01:08:30.720 I, you know, I then go back to your book.

01:08:34.160 The flip side of that is you also make the point that identity politics works a hell

01:08:39.220 of a lot better than policy laden, you know, five point plans.

01:08:43.640 So we want to talk about the economy blending an identity frame back to my sort of PTS 0.52

01:08:49.480 on immigration, blaming immigrants, blaming Somalis, just blaming the other. The effectiveness 0.96

01:08:57.020 of doing so as an economic message. Your rents are high because of all of the illegals that 1.00

01:09:04.880 Biden has brought over the border. How do you square that circle without becoming them? 1.00

01:09:10.840 Well, my view on identity politics has always been, I never am in favor of the identity politics

01:09:17.260 that's used as a cudgel to silence people, which is like, hey, listen, I'm a member of X group.

01:09:23.020 I'm the one who gets to speak, decide and sort of lay down the law. I'm interested in identity

01:09:29.840 insofar as it can be used to bolster an economic message and that people of certain identities may

01:09:35.940 indeed be the best position to tell us about their experience. And I'm speaking with I'm doing a

01:09:41.680 panel on the Latino vote in a few weeks. And one of the messages that I want to bring is

01:09:47.040 it's great to think about Latino voters as a group. And also we should consider that their

01:09:53.020 economic interests are the same of any voter and that we need to be thinking about that as let's

01:09:58.960 not necessarily separate them out as it is. It is a group with a particular background and some

01:10:04.540 shared interests, but also their concerns are the concerns of the average everyday American.

01:10:09.480 So you've got to do both.

01:10:11.720 Amen.

01:10:12.440 I mean, how many Latino audience I've been in talking about immigration and people are like, stop, you're patronizing us.

01:10:18.580 That's not the only issue.

01:10:19.920 Of course, so much of the issues around immigration have disproportionately obviously impacted our immigrant communities.

01:10:26.180 And by definition, mixed status families and obviously Latino community. 0.83

01:10:30.380 But that point is foundational.

01:10:32.840 So 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.

01:10:47.400 Communication that seems a little bit more effective, certainly electorally, has been effective in some cases.

01:10:53.460 We can overread, you know, we tend to color things in.

01:10:56.720 A few examples then become sort of the dominant norm or the meme that suggests something bigger than itself.

01:11:03.400 But 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?

01:11:20.160 So 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

01:11:50.140 disaffected with the party. They don't want to vote for Republicans. And there's this other thing

01:11:55.100 that they're finding preferable to the Democratic establishment. Really important message. If if

01:12:01.060 you ignore that message, if Democrats ignore that message, it's like the Republicans ignoring the

01:12:05.000 Tea Party in 2010. We saw what happened. So that's extremely interesting and relevant on the

01:12:10.780 specifics. Ten years ago, when I would interview DSA people, socialists, et cetera, they would say

01:12:16.760 me very soberly, they would go, listen, David, I'm a socialist. You're not. But our next stops

01:12:23.160 on this bus are the same. And so I see myself as united with you if and when we get to social

01:12:29.800 democracy and the things we agree on, we get people, health care, et cetera. Then the social

01:12:34.280 Democrats and the bona fide socialists can have an argument about whether we go further or not.

01:12:39.320 I really respected that. That was a very interesting conversation to have. There wasn't a litmus test

01:12:44.120 that was imposed on me as someone who is not a socialist.

01:12:48.240 That's very different now, where I regularly get emails and see comments for people saying

01:12:52.180 you're with us or against us.

01:12:53.580 It doesn't matter if we agree on universal health care and a few other things.

01:12:57.860 We believe housing should be government owned and people are assigned a house and blah,

01:13:01.940 blah, blah.

01:13:02.940 I go, I don't believe that.

01:13:04.000 Do I think people should be homeless?

01:13:05.500 No.

01:13:06.500 Can I point to things that have been done in St. Louis and in Salt Lake City to just give

01:13:09.980 people housing and how it's actually cheaper than having it on the streets?

01:13:13.000 Yes. For homeless folks, absolutely. But I'm not a take take away private ownerships. And then

01:13:18.800 well, then you're simply not part of the same movement. This is not everybody, but these are

01:13:23.060 some of the conversations I've had. So I feel like the tone of these conversations is very

01:13:27.060 different today than it was eight, 10 years ago. So what's I mean? So fast forward. I mean, is it

01:13:31.920 so I mean, do you believe this is a truly robust movement that will continue to gain momentum?

01:13:38.820 Or 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?

01:13:52.860 Predictions 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.

01:14:03.940 it's really up to the voters. And so that's where I hesitate to say this will not go further or it

01:14:08.940 will. It'll be up to voters to decide. And part of it also has to do with whether Democrats are

01:14:15.260 putting forward interesting and authentic candidates with good ideas. If the alternative

01:14:20.300 to the DSA actual socialists, which, by the way, a lot of them aren't actual socialists,

01:14:26.700 but some of them are. That doesn't really matter. A lot of this is labeling. If the alternative

01:14:30.640 is a terrible centrist Democrat, that helps this DSA movement. If there are interesting people

01:14:38.320 that are to the left of the centrist Democrats, but not socialists, that's the best thing that

01:14:44.020 they can do in a lot of these districts. The other thing is Michigan and Iowa and Connecticut

01:14:50.240 and New York City are very different places. And this is a huge country with a lot of different

01:14:54.640 people. So I think it's difficult to make any kind of overarching prediction about something like

01:14:59.460 that what is what's i mean and the word centrist it's interesting is that what is centrist centrist

01:15:06.440 in policy centrist in attitude centrist is the establishment centrist is an incumbent i think

01:15:14.020 what is the center centrist is a corporate democrat the what is what centrist what is

01:15:18.560 what is the definite i'm curious people use the word centrist i don't use it as a pejorative some

01:15:23.720 people do. Some people do. I don't use it as a for me. Centrist is you're basically happy with how

01:15:29.200 things are. Status and you're satisfied with the changes you want to make being really on the

01:15:36.020 fringes. Yeah. You're an incrementalist. Yeah. And incrementalism. I'm OK with. I mean, Ted Kennedy

01:15:40.880 was an incrementalist and he had a lot of incremental successes that he spearheaded in the

01:15:45.020 Senate. But it's things are basically fine. And I don't want to change much of anything. I think

01:15:50.480 we need more than that. I'm not socialism, and I'm certainly not communism, but I'm also not

01:15:56.380 like things are basically fine. Radical centrism? Yeah, I've never met one. Have you met a radical

01:16:02.760 centrist? I don't know. What was Obama in this? How would we describe him today? Oh, boy. Depends

01:16:08.780 who you ask. Yeah. I mean, he defends the incremental side of Obamacare. He didn't get

01:16:14.500 everything, but he makes the point. We made progress. Don't make a perfect enemy of the good

01:16:19.480 framework. Is that that that would that play well today?

01:16:23.760 And today it's playing pretty poorly with the left part of the base. I mean, I'm when

01:16:29.540 I in my first book, I talked about the successes of incrementalism. And if you look at the

01:16:33.700 three big eras of advancement for the left in the United States, which were the progressive

01:16:37.920 era in the early 20th century, you looked at the New Deal era after World War Two and

01:16:43.260 you looked at the civil rights era. Yep.

01:16:45.440 In retrospect, it feels like big change and it was hugely significant changes.

01:16:50.220 But at the time it was a lot of, hey, we got a Supreme Court pick who 10 years from now

01:16:56.540 is going to be part of a really important decision, either on women's voting or on civil

01:17:00.760 rights or et cetera.

01:17:02.020 It's we've made another tweak to the programs of FDR.

01:17:06.220 So the incrementalism has a pretty strong track record in the United States.

01:17:10.680 It's it's OK to go seemingly slowly as long as you're going in the right direction and

01:17:16.340 you're not basically done making the changes.

01:17:19.020 I'm OK with incrementalism.

01:17:20.620 And I often say to the acceleration is to say, we've got to we've got to take all businesses

01:17:25.520 and make them government controlled housing, et cetera.

01:17:29.000 Break it all down.

01:17:30.000 I asked them for examples of where that has worked.

01:17:32.840 And so far, nobody's given me any.

01:17:36.500 What did you was was Biden's biggest challenge?

01:17:40.680 communication? Was he an incrementalist? Was he a centrist? You think universally people

01:17:46.000 describe him, quote unquote, as a centrist. But did his policies suggest that? Or was it the

01:17:53.820 rhetoric, the style? I think Biden's style made him seem like a status quo guy. But he ran on

01:18:01.860 paper to the left of where President Obama ran, both in 2008 and 2012. Times had changed, right?

01:18:08.980 and it was 12 years later, eight years later. But I think in policy, President Biden was not

01:18:16.460 really just a status quo centrist. He didn't get as much done as I think he would have liked to.

01:18:23.240 But I don't I think he is. He's center left a step towards left of that, I guess I would say.

01:18:31.000 Right. So, no, it's just interesting to me because I think about, you know,

01:18:34.280 uh you know an industrial policy that's worker centered uh biden delivered on that i mean that

01:18:40.080 there's populism to that i mean one of the most the america first you know i mean america buy

01:18:45.440 america products first the framework around actually having living wages union wages the

01:18:49.920 guy walked picket lines right save pensions i mean he was a populist in that respect and actually

01:18:54.600 delivered on all those things i yeah it's sort of interesting to me that i mean what would you do

01:18:58.640 back to the policies not to rhetoric what would you do you would try to mimic some of those things

01:19:03.100 You 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.

01:19:10.640 I 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.

01:19:18.700 Those seem to be a lot of things that the left is promoting that he actually delivered.

01:19:25.500 Yeah, I think that's what I'm trying to sort of figure out is.

01:19:28.780 But but but was he the sellout?

01:19:30.740 I mean, what am I missing on that?

01:19:32.180 No, I think he President Biden was probably the most pro organized labor president

01:19:38.900 in my lifetime, probably. But I mean, for a while, only president to walk an active picket line.

01:19:45.460 It's sort of lame and pedantic to say he was limited by the House and Senate and the political

01:19:53.060 environment and what he could get done. But that is a reality to some degree. Right. It's hard.

01:19:58.980 You 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.

01:20:08.540 Even if he delivered on.

01:20:09.400 Yeah, I think that's the truth of it.

01:20:10.900 So that gets to just back to style.

01:20:13.580 Yeah.

01:20:14.080 Rhetoric, the ability to communicate, the ability to communicate in this new medium that we need to, quote unquote, pay attention to.

01:20:23.280 Clips, virality, social media, mom donnings, ascendancy.

01:20:27.800 so much of that attached to his appeal in that space so much of AOC's appeal in that space

01:20:34.900 obviously the movement that is you know was Howard Dean was you know mybarackobama.com

01:20:41.480 self-organizing communities that is all things Bernie Sanders so much of that again is self

01:20:47.420 organizing and is driven by these algorithms driven by these clips virality driven by these

01:20:54.120 filter bubbles as well. So is that, I mean, what do we learn? What's the takeaway as we start to

01:21:00.640 knit together what you're communicating here that we all need to pay attention to in terms of

01:21:05.660 how our, you know, we've moved from search to suggest and how all of a sudden now our behaviors

01:21:12.620 are not only just commoditized, but we're becoming perfect little sheep in some respects to the

01:21:19.720 machine, how do we start to knit together a frame around restoring and repairing our democracy,

01:21:27.600 democratizing our economy so we can save our democracy, and knit back a political framework

01:21:33.760 that actually could build a majority and distill a sense of well-being at a time we're so desperate

01:21:40.360 to just take a deep breath and breathe again.

01:21:49.720 What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

01:22:03.900 Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay.

01:22:05.760 And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports.

01:22:11.200 Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

01:22:15.300 So Kelsey Fendler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.

01:22:22.380 My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks?

01:22:24.480 Like, what are we eating?

01:22:26.280 The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline.

01:22:31.340 And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

01:22:35.300 Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

01:22:38.720 Naomi Osaka showing out.

01:22:40.840 She beat Sabalenka. 0.99

01:22:42.860 Shout out to you, Naomi. 0.98

01:22:43.620 You get the palm, Naomi.

01:22:44.700 I mean, you get the calm for that.

01:22:46.560 Because we're not just interested in what happened,

01:22:48.640 we're interested in why everyone's talking about it.

01:22:50.920 Because everyone watches women's sports.

01:22:53.220 Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports 0.97

01:22:54.680 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

01:22:56.940 or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:23:01.200 Hey, Portlandia fans.

01:23:02.900 Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

01:23:04.800 You know us, or rather, you know them.

01:23:06.620 Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken.

01:23:10.900 We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years,

01:23:13.100 But today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, A.O. Rewatch, our brand new podcast.

01:23:19.320 Each 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.

01:23:32.580 How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it.

01:23:37.460 And 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.

01:23:49.680 Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody.

01:23:55.220 Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song.

01:23:57.480 I remember you thinking that.

01:23:59.720 Listen to Podlandia Ayo Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:24:07.460 This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea.

01:24:11.580 Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, 0.85

01:24:14.460 and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem.

01:24:18.860 If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you, okay? 0.97

01:24:24.100 If you do some s*** in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you.

01:24:28.760 Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories 0.99

01:24:32.500 on her new podcast, You're the Problem, with Yamanika.

01:24:35.520 Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was?

01:24:39.020 New episodes weekly every Wednesday as part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. 1.00

01:24:44.520 If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. 1.00

01:24:48.260 Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. 1.00

01:24:51.800 So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. 0.95

01:24:55.160 Who's the problem?

01:24:56.680 I'm Yamanika and I'm out.

01:24:57.920 listen to you're the problem with yamanika on the iheart radio app apple podcast

01:25:03.920 or wherever you get your podcasts

01:25:05.860 i think at the individual level people should understand how they're being manipulated by

01:25:13.700 these algorithms that's that's something every single person who's on these platforms should do

01:25:17.440 democrats the left elected officials candidates need to become better at using these platforms

01:25:23.440 And 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.

01:25:38.540 The 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.

01:26:01.480 And so it would be nice to have a regulatory framework that makes sense.

01:26:05.780 You know, Neil Postman, who was a technologist, he would write time spent opposing new technologies is basically worthless.

01:26:14.260 This is my paraphrasing.

01:26:15.840 What 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.

01:26:25.980 That's essentially my view on these algorithms, these platforms and on AI.

01:26:30.200 I don't think that the idea of stopping them dead in their tracks and eliminating them

01:26:35.540 is even plausible.

01:26:36.880 And no matter what the United States does, other some other countries aren't going to

01:26:40.940 do that.

01:26:41.940 And it's going to be there.

01:26:42.940 It's going to spread.

01:26:43.940 So I would rather skip to the let's maximize the good, figure out what level of regulation

01:26:48.700 we need to limit the bad and educate people.

01:26:51.200 You know, a lot of kids don't even get media literacy anymore at all.

01:26:55.380 It's just not taught in school.

01:26:57.480 people so that they understand how these algorithms work.

01:27:00.780 We have a sort of understanding that advertising wants to influence us.

01:27:04.580 When we see advertising messages, when we recognize them, sometimes they're hidden.

01:27:08.000 But when we see advertising, we understand this is an influence campaign to get me to

01:27:12.560 believe something, buy something, a service product.

01:27:14.820 If you're a kid, go and tell mom and dad this is what I want.

01:27:17.760 We need people to understand how the algorithms work and the platforms in the same way so

01:27:21.580 that they realize this is not just naturally surfacing content to my interest.

01:27:26.620 This is stuff that is being ABC tested constantly for emotional salience and attachment and then

01:27:32.860 fed to you. And if people understood that, a lot of these manipulations would be less

01:27:37.520 effective. So this is your prescription as the head of the DNC, that we take advantage of these

01:27:43.120 tools. We don't act taller than thou. We recognize that we deal with the cards that have been dealt.

01:27:50.060 Absolutely. We're pragmatists. Have to be. And listen, I think that there are campaigns that

01:27:55.600 have figured it out. There are elected officials that have figured it out that have really good

01:27:58.880 digital offices. I mean, I think what your office has done with the reflecting back to Trump,

01:28:02.580 the way he communicates has been interesting. And it's it's when you see that. Right. All caps,

01:28:09.260 Gavin, see you some all that stuff. It triggers something where it's like, oh, I recognize this

01:28:14.100 style. Oh, but it's not Trump. At least people are stopping and thinking. And that's something.

01:28:19.880 And and so I think that being creative about that is important. Yeah. No, well, I obviously

01:28:24.960 appreciate that. What do you hope people will appreciate about this book? What ultimately

01:28:33.660 is it just to illuminate? Is it to change behavior? Is it to sort of begin to act

01:28:38.840 with the kind of friction that you try to highlight in here? Is it to step outside,

01:28:44.100 take a deep? I mean, what's the ultimate action that you hope this inspires? You didn't just write

01:28:50.380 it for the intellectual exercise. You're a doer, not just a dreamer in that respect. What's the

01:28:57.080 takeaway? I think three things, depending on the position people are in. One, if you're just an

01:29:01.140 individual on these platforms or you have kids who are on these platforms, you have to understand

01:29:06.420 how they work and how they're trying to influence you in order to take control of them. So that's

01:29:09.780 number one. Number two, when it comes to the political system, which I have an interest in,

01:29:14.580 I want good people in power putting in policies that that I want, that I think are good policies

01:29:20.180 for people. That group needs to also get better at using these platforms. That's number two.

01:29:26.900 And then number three, understanding at a systemic level why the right has been better at this,

01:29:32.260 because if you don't understand that, you can't possibly change it. So those are the three things.

01:29:36.260 uh is politics i mean don't we also need just just politics has infected every part of our life

01:29:45.380 hasn't it yes i mean we talked about trump we were talking about obviously the world i mean

01:29:49.260 i i used to loved sports because it wasn't political it's one place to get good brief

01:29:54.760 now it's everything thinks political you can't have a conversation in our lives i mean fishing

01:29:59.180 is political i wouldn't fill in the blank whatever the issue is it has now it's become i mean is that

01:30:03.960 also something we need to start to address fundamentally? Yeah, I think we need to detox

01:30:08.360 politics. I would say I think politics has been more political for longer than maybe we want to

01:30:13.700 acknowledge. But what we've lost is the ability to have disagreements that don't need to ruin

01:30:21.100 interpersonal relationships. And that I think, you know, there's a lot of people now who are

01:30:26.120 very uncomfortable with the fact that there's a disagreement. And sometimes I'll say, you know,

01:30:30.220 I know X person in real life and we disagree, but but we're able to get along. How is that possible?

01:30:35.660 Well, because there's multiple dimensions to people and maybe you don't relate to someone

01:30:40.700 as an elected official, but you relate to them as a parent or you relate to them as a Latino person

01:30:46.100 or in some other way. And it's become very toxic, accelerated by these platforms where because all 0.94

01:30:52.720 you do is argue on Twitter when you get together and there's a sporting event or an entertainment

01:30:58.200 thing, the assumption is we have to have bad blood and we can't just sit in the same room.

01:31:03.120 We've got to do away with that. And again, the whole, the interactions online are toxic.

01:31:08.460 The interactions in person are very polite and respectful. I think the in-person has a lot to do

01:31:14.020 with that. Do you think there's a business model for point, counterpoint, crossfire today? Or is

01:31:18.460 it just, I don't want to hear the other side. I mean, honestly, as a business proposition.

01:31:23.320 There are a lot of shows where we have two people going back and forth.

01:31:27.540 There's a lot of shows out there that like that right now. I think that they are diminishing

01:31:31.780 a little bit. A year to 18 months ago, I would have said these inflammatory debates and some of

01:31:38.900 them are one on one, some are four on four, some are one on 20. This is what people want.

01:31:44.020 The thing about debates that I've talked about is that they rarely are adjudications of who's

01:31:48.980 right or the best ideas. They're adjudications of who's most articulate and most prepared for

01:31:54.580 the debate. And that might line up with what's right and what's true. But the algorithms, as we

01:32:00.780 find out, they don't surface what's accurate. They surface what gets an emotional reaction from

01:32:04.700 people. So I don't know that that's the way to figure out what we need to do. It's so true about

01:32:09.160 I mean, I just think about debates that I've been. I did one with Ron DeSantis. And again,

01:32:12.840 back into the filter bubble, a few people actually watched the entire thing. What most people said

01:32:18.520 that they watched it, they saw the clips that were shared within their feed with only reinforced and

01:32:24.480 express their pre-existing bias. That's right. So the point of view is you got crushed or you

01:32:29.540 crushed it when there's nuance. And we've lost so much of that nuance. But again, nuance doesn't

01:32:36.420 sell. I remember watching the entire thing and there actually was some deeper discussion of

01:32:42.620 policy, which I found interesting, missing from all of the clips that each side made to kind of

01:32:47.880 reinforce. Yeah, it's I don't know how we move forward on what's best for the country when that's

01:32:53.720 the kind of media environment that we live in well you were supposed to be able to answer that

01:32:58.180 question uh but you've just posed yet another question for your next book but on in september

01:33:03.720 uh this book which technically is your next book already written pay attention how the algorithms

01:33:09.160 and media wars are suppressing truth and rewiring our brain david it's been great to have you my

01:33:16.400 pleasure thank you so much thanks for being here this is an iheart podcast guaranteed human

This is Gavin Newsom - July 23, 2026

And, This Is How Social Media Will Decide the Next Election With David Pakman

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