WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:04.120 At some point I'll disappear for thirty seven seconds to go get it. We'll 2 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:10.599 time you ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you 3 00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:18.399 can do for your country. Mister Gerbuschoff, tear down this wall. Read 4 00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:26.559 my lips. It's the Rickorsche Podcast. I'm James Liviacs with Rob Long and 5 00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:29.079 Peter Robinson. That's the first and some time, and we're gonna have a 6 00:00:29.079 --> 00:00:32.600 lot of fun talking to Barton Swain from the Wall Street Journals about Joe Biden's 7 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:36.359 iron grip and some other stuff. Lots of it. So Let's Abrise was 8 00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:43.679 a podcast this issue. We'll destroy New York City. We get in ten 9 00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:49.479 thousand migrants a month. I said it last year when we had fifteen thousand. 10 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:52.880 I'm telling you now when I went to two thousand, the city we 11 00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:58.159 knew with about the loose Welcome everybody to the Ricoche Podcast, number six hundred 12 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:00.079 and fifty seven, and James, I'm like in Minneapolis, I was. 13 00:01:00.359 --> 00:01:03.840 I was not here for six fifty six because I was at the State Fair, 14 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:07.920 the great Minnesota get together, swept together when in the daytime it's absolutely 15 00:01:07.959 --> 00:01:11.319 fantastic and the twilight comes and the lightspop on it. It's magical eleven It 16 00:01:11.319 --> 00:01:14.840 gets to be about eleven o'clock at night and all the miscreans try to storm 17 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:18.560 the gate and there's gunfire. But that's another day and another story. Happy 18 00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:22.239 to be here back with Peter and Rob for the first time in some time. 19 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:26.480 Peter Howard things Howard things in California. This feels like a family reunion. 20 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:30.799 Well, it depends on the family, doesn't it. Are there certain 21 00:01:30.799 --> 00:01:34.439 things we shouldn't talk about? And I was much fonder of the two of 22 00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:37.239 you, it turns out, than I would have guessed. Absence. It's 23 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:44.840 called absence or abscess. And Rob, good to hear you two New York. 24 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:47.719 I was just here this morning hearing an angry TikTok rant. And I 25 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:49.760 know, I repeat myself from a New York mother who is not pleased at 26 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:56.680 all that her child has to present in just a huge trench of documentations to 27 00:01:56.719 --> 00:02:00.920 get her kid in the school. But all of the migrant children are waved 28 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:04.480 right in instantaneously. And so you're there in the New York that mayor Adam 29 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:08.680 says is going to be lost or gone, And so of course you have 30 00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:12.479 all the people on the right saying well, you know, we reap yourself 31 00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:15.719 is what you're voted for. I have no sympathy whatsoever. Go enjoy your 32 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:22.080 dystopian hell. What is it like? Because I've seen the film outside the 33 00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:25.400 Rosevelt Hotel where I stayed once. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's closed. 34 00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:28.639 Anyway, we should just say yeah, so it was it was. 35 00:02:28.719 --> 00:02:31.319 It was closed owned I believe by a Pakistani hotel group too, So they're 36 00:02:31.319 --> 00:02:36.159 getting the nice amount of cash from the from the city. So what is 37 00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:38.479 it? What is it like? Do you notice or you just live in 38 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:42.479 a in a migrants, No, I don't most migrants. I notice the 39 00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:46.080 normal, you know, the normal New York City chaos. But I also 40 00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:50.759 noticed there's a little bit there's a lot more more addicts on the street, 41 00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:53.639 mostly because I love the village, and they can every now and then, 42 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:59.800 like uh once every eight weeks, the neighbors around Washington Square Park complaint screaming 43 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:05.400 and and they clear it cleared out. But that's pretty much where people can 44 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:07.120 score your drugs. So if you're looking to score drugs, James, that's 45 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:12.080 where you want to go. There. Well, north that the corn Yeah, 46 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.759 that was the epicenter in in uh yeah, panic, panic and Needle 47 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:22.879 Parker Panic Needle Park was actually seventy second seal. Yeah, you go up 48 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:25.759 there, it's like, uh so, so that's and then every eight weeks 49 00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:30.159 it's it's gonna it'll it'll die down because the parents have just arrived because it's 50 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:34.879 NYU bas basically ny you kind of de facto owns Washington Square Park. They're 51 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:39.280 there, they they were given it for a lot of other concessions, and 52 00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:42.840 so, you know, and then every now and then people complain. The 53 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:47.719 the migrant thing is interesting because I just have to say that I thought the 54 00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:53.599 the the little trolling jokes kind of thing that people like Rona Santist did sending 55 00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:57.840 you know, migrants up to Martha's vineyard. We're kind of cute, but 56 00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:01.560 basically, what's you know, a lot of energy for nothing. But I 57 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:11.159 think you have to say that the ground swell of rage in New York City 58 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:15.639 and New York State, but between the mayor and the governor and the elected 59 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:25.160 representatives in Congress is precisely because the problem that they got to philosophize and theorize 60 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:30.399 about came home and you know, you have one hundred plus thousand migrants in 61 00:04:30.439 --> 00:04:33.399 New York City in a city, woulds going to stretch budgetarily always it's gonna 62 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:38.920 and you you passed a law promising them all sorts of things you now can't 63 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:41.120 get out of because you just never thought would come right, You never thought 64 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:44.519 be here. It's one thing's Sanctuary City New York City's like okay, fine, 65 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:46.519 Like, how are you can gonna know? Like you're not gonna get 66 00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:48.040 all the way up here? Well, wait a minute, and then does 67 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:51.439 the plaque on the statue of Liberty face towards the ocean or towards the city? 68 00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:55.519 Because if it faces towards the ocean, I can give them a break 69 00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:57.920 that they haven't seen it. But if it faces towards the city, they 70 00:04:57.959 --> 00:05:00.759 ought to have been able to see. And the legal promise that it contains, 71 00:05:00.839 --> 00:05:03.879 they know all that. And of course the problem here is not the 72 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:10.879 illegal. The word legal does not apply here. And so you may find 73 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:14.040 that the what I thought to be the silly little you know. I mean, 74 00:05:14.079 --> 00:05:15.040 I was in favor of it. I applauded it, but I just 75 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:18.360 kind of shrugged and let me on and ho hum. That's stuff that, 76 00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:25.240 like Rodney Santis did, actually has managed to galvanize a whole portion of the 77 00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:29.279 country that just kind of didn't care because it was happening down there in the 78 00:05:29.399 --> 00:05:32.079 places where we are gonna go, and you know, and they and they 79 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:36.560 spent past quarters saying crazy things like, well, New York City doesn't have 80 00:05:36.600 --> 00:05:44.279 the resources that Brownsville, Texas has, which is hilarious. Right, So 81 00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:47.959 now you're starting to see people like Mayor Adams say we gotta do something. 82 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:54.879 Hey, what's going on? And that is probably good for the country. 83 00:05:55.279 --> 00:05:59.519 By the way, I just checked you said correctly. I'm fairly enough. 84 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.120 I think that New York City is always stretched for resources, or that the 85 00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:08.720 budget is always stretched, but may I note that that is because they choose 86 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:14.240 to run the city that way. Here is the size of the twenty twenty 87 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:18.160 four budget for New York City. One city population about eight million people, 88 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:24.319 one hundred and seven billion dollars. Here is the budget for the state of 89 00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:28.839 Florida, an entire state, what is it twenty five million people now or 90 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:31.040 actually, now that's a little high, and in an event, an entire 91 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:36.360 state one hundred and sixteen billion dollars. New York City spends so much money, 92 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:42.480 so lavishly that it has a budget that's ninety five percent as big as 93 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:46.000 the budget of the entire state of Florida. This is right, But Peter, 94 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:49.319 beyond the city do you have to you have to understand, I mean, 95 00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:54.839 where does that money go. It goes for the fantastically well maintained, 96 00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:58.560 clean and efficient subway system that at the envy of the world. It goes 97 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:01.079 for infrastructure so that the bridge to themselves are never a crumble. It goes 98 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:04.839 for all kinds of every you go to New York City, you see it's 99 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:10.800 worse than that spend you It's worse than that. It's the state that hope 100 00:07:10.879 --> 00:07:14.199 runs the subway, pays for it, and it's the state that runs the 101 00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:19.480 infrastructure. A lot of that stuff is like for the deputy assistant to the 102 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:26.560 chairman of the subcommittee of the Diversity school Board, controlling authority or whatever. 103 00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:29.639 Right. A lot of it is crap, that is for sure. But 104 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:35.600 the point is that they can't mean you want you can make decisions about how 105 00:07:35.639 --> 00:07:39.519 you want to spend your money, and you can spend it luxuriously if you 106 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:42.560 want, and you can waste it if you want on yourselves. Right, 107 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:45.879 So the city can tax everybody and then spend it on some nonsense thing. 108 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:47.720 And then that's you know, that's not the right way to be, but 109 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:54.360 it's nothing wrong with it when you add to it one hundred thousand plus and 110 00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:59.120 growing number of people who've arrived here with nothing and then have a right to 111 00:07:59.279 --> 00:08:03.439 all sorts of things that some of the city citizen city residents don't have a 112 00:08:03.519 --> 00:08:07.959 right too because you passed a law in a grandstanding you know, well, 113 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:18.279 virtue signaling well a series of of of movements that you thought would never ever 114 00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:22.480 you promises you never ever have to keep, and now you've got to keep 115 00:08:22.519 --> 00:08:28.360 them. You know this. I hope people watching this are enjoying it because 116 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:33.279 you you you don't get this kind of You just don't get this kind of 117 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:37.840 symmetry. This is fantastic. It rarely happens in life, at least in 118 00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:41.279 my lifetime. That's something so obvious. Happens exactly the way he predicted, 119 00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:45.320 and this is it. And I think it's good for the country because it 120 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:50.600 is time now for people all over the country to realize that border security and 121 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:56.840 border policy is central to the future and that we cannot have You cannot have 122 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:03.600 a welfare state and open borders. You can only have one or the other. 123 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:05.639 You have both, you go broke. And that's what's happened in New 124 00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:09.799 York City, and that's partly what happens in California. Rogers long. When 125 00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:16.240 you're really conservative, you're just beautiful at these things are good object lessons. 126 00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:20.480 The University of West Virginia, for example, is cutting a whole bunch of 127 00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:22.200 programs, but as people have noticed, they're cutting the things that are useful. 128 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:26.879 They're keeping these social sciences and they're keeping the aspirations stay perfectly intact. 129 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:30.039 So the people who are on the liberal side, who are inclined to support 130 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:35.200 education of this nature, are appalled, and they're the ones who are making 131 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:39.120 the complaints. In New York you have the liberals who are making the complaints 132 00:09:39.159 --> 00:09:41.159 about this. And I mean a part of you wants to say, look, 133 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:43.840 you don't get to have these issues. These have been our issues. 134 00:09:43.879 --> 00:09:46.720 We've been talking about them. But on the other hand, if this is 135 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:52.440 what it takes to get the issue to the table, then I'm then fine 136 00:09:52.519 --> 00:09:54.279 as long as we can then agree and move forward, and if they want 137 00:09:54.279 --> 00:09:56.200 to take credit for it down the road, I don't care. As long 138 00:09:56.279 --> 00:09:58.759 as we have changed. This morning, I was listening to the BBC IS 139 00:09:58.759 --> 00:10:05.080 show called hard Talk, in which they had a Swedish politician of the of 140 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:07.759 the liberal leftist stripe who was talking about the need they have organized crime, 141 00:10:07.879 --> 00:10:11.399 huge amounts of organized crime, and it's connected to the immigration, and he 142 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:13.639 was talking about how they're going to crack down to that and solve address the 143 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:20.320 problem of integration of the of the integration of these immigrants into Swedish society. 144 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:22.879 And he was attacked by the host for using the language of the far right 145 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:28.320 Swedish Social Democrats, who themselves have been talking about it into merely to bring 146 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:33.360 these things, to use these terms to this British guy was to validate practically 147 00:10:33.480 --> 00:10:37.600 Nazism, whereas in Sweden the left now is having to come around and say, 148 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:39.679 hm, taking you know, maybe we should start to take up these 149 00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:43.480 terms before indeed the really bad guys get to take them. But when it 150 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:48.320 comes to looking at stuff at other you know, other countries of the cultures, 151 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:50.159 it's yeah, you know, you can, you can you can go 152 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:54.039 on and buy streaming service, or you can watch television from other countries, 153 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:56.960 or sometimes if you want to save a little money, and we all want 154 00:10:56.960 --> 00:10:58.559 to save a little money. You know, you can figure out a way 155 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.720 to watch the shows in other countries themselves, And you think, wait, 156 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:05.919 a matter, how how do I do that? A lot of you spend 157 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:09.240 a lot of money on streaming services, right Netflix and Disney Plus and Prime 158 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:11.840 and you name it. But but if you use Express VPN, you're able 159 00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:16.399 to cut back and save so much money every month. Let me expline. 160 00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:20.519 See all these streaming services like Netflix, they actually have thousands of more shows 161 00:11:20.519 --> 00:11:24.919 than you actually suspect. You don't see all of them? Can they give 162 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.919 you different shows depending on what country you're in. So what you see on 163 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:31.639 Netflix here it's completely different from what someone in Italy or South Korea sees. 164 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:35.759 But using the Express VPN app, you can change your online location and choose 165 00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:39.240 from over ninety countries to see what they're watching right now. For example, 166 00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:43.000 you can watch The Big Bang Theory even though it's not on Netflix in the 167 00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:46.799 US. That's right. Some of these things just vanish and where are they? 168 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:50.720 Well, you know they're in South Korea. With the Express VPN package, 169 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:54.519 you tap one button to change your country to England, refresh the page, 170 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:56.440 and Big Bang Theory shows up. You don't even need to pay extra 171 00:11:56.440 --> 00:12:00.080 for Apple TV or Prime just to watch it. And on top of that, 172 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:03.159 though, you can even use express vpn to get discounts. Some services 173 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:07.039 cost list and in other countries. For example, if you buy Netflix from 174 00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:11.600 Argentina cost a fraction of the price, so you're saving money and at less 175 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:15.879 than seven dollars a month, Express vpn pays for itself and so much more. 176 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:18.600 It's a no brainer. So if you want to get way more shows 177 00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:22.559 and save money while you're at it, go to Express vpn dot com slash 178 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:26.120 Ricochet. Used our link, you know, because you can get three extra 179 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:31.639 months free. That's right, use our link three extra months free. That's 180 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:37.360 e xp R e ssvpn dot com, slash ricochet Express vpn dot com slash 181 00:12:37.399 --> 00:12:41.519 Ricochet to learn more, and we thank Express vpn for sponsoring this the Ricochet 182 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:45.960 Podcast. Now we welcome to the show. Barton Swain the author of the 183 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.720 speechwriter of Brief Education on politics. He has a regular column in That Wall 184 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:52.240 Street journalmate newspaper you might have heard about. He reviews books on a range 185 00:12:52.279 --> 00:12:56.559 of topics, and earlier this week he penned an excellent op ed titled Joe 186 00:12:56.639 --> 00:13:01.080 Biden's Iron grip on his party. Barton. Welcome Barton. You're on with 187 00:13:01.159 --> 00:13:05.720 three three writers. And you may think that we ask you on to talk 188 00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:09.559 about politics, discuss your recent columns and so forth. The truth is we 189 00:13:09.639 --> 00:13:15.240 have news for you. Between your book reviews and your op eds, you're 190 00:13:15.240 --> 00:13:18.679 doing too much work. Yeah, kid, you need to slow down. 191 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:22.919 You're making the rest of us look bad. I have seven pieces do this 192 00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:26.600 week. Thank you, very seven pieces do this week. Seven. I'll 193 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:28.360 talk to Barton about what it's like to be a productive member of society, 194 00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:31.360 and the rest of you can stare at your blank page. Okay, listen, 195 00:13:31.399 --> 00:13:35.159 you wrote a piece your latest op ed. I think it's your latest, 196 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:39.240 and I haven't looked at today's paper. You wrote a piece about Joe 197 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:46.639 Biden's iron grip on the Democratic Party, in which Rob is going to resist 198 00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:52.120 this a little bit. But it was I thought, just a beautiful piece 199 00:13:52.519 --> 00:13:58.759 of angry what aboutism? And Rob is so sick of what aboutism or claims 200 00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:01.480 to be. But would you play please make the case for us that you 201 00:14:01.559 --> 00:14:05.559 made in that column. Well, I like what about is him? The 202 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:11.399 piece was a it was it was the product of a long standing annoyance that 203 00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:22.039 I have had since like twenty seventeen, when I started reading in the New 204 00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:28.600 York Times, in the Washington Post, article after article about Donald Trump's grip 205 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:37.440 on the Republican Party, his iron grip. Conversely, various Republican officeholders fealty 206 00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:41.399 to Donald Trump. And I remember reading this and well, I should I 207 00:14:41.399 --> 00:14:43.600 should point out that at the time I was working at the at the Weekly 208 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:48.399 Standard, and so so my views were colored by that, And I thought, 209 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:52.840 Gee, it doesn't feel to me like much of an iron grip, 210 00:14:54.480 --> 00:15:00.279 and I don't see a lot of fealty at the Weekly Standard. But you 211 00:15:00.279 --> 00:15:05.200 know that that was his own, its own thing. So uh. I 212 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:09.000 remember thinking as I would read these pieces that I'm not a huge fan of 213 00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:13.879 Donald Trump, but he is the head of his party. He is the 214 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:16.399 president of the United States, so you would expect, you know, Republicans 215 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:20.919 to to, you know, bend their views somewhat to whatever he wanted to 216 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:26.399 talk about. Granted it was done in many cases in unseemly ways, but 217 00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:31.240 that's the nature of politics. So that was in my mind for a long 218 00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:33.879 time. And every time I would read one of these pieces with the word 219 00:15:33.919 --> 00:15:37.759 fealty particularly, was like one of those words that you had to learn at 220 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:41.960 that point and then and then suddenly everybody was using it, you know, 221 00:15:43.759 --> 00:15:48.200 and then uh fast forwards. It occurred to me recently that like on the 222 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:54.519 Democratic side, there's virtually no criticism. What criticism there is is expressed in 223 00:15:54.559 --> 00:15:58.679 the vaguest possible terms. And you know, in a piece I just pointed 224 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:03.960 out to things, but there are others. One his obvious mental decline, 225 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:07.639 and the other is to pull out from Afghanistan. On the Republican side, 226 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:11.720 if those things had been true of any Republican president, I think I'm right 227 00:16:11.799 --> 00:16:18.200 in saying there would be maybe not uproar and demands for resignation, but at 228 00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:22.480 least, you know, significant criticism. And I just do not see that 229 00:16:22.600 --> 00:16:27.159 on the Democratic side. So that's that's basically that where my annoyance came from. 230 00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:32.240 So not only if so fealty is the word for Trump, but it's 231 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:34.960 a kind of omerta for Biden. They all have to take this their behaving 232 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:37.759 as though there's an oath of silence. They're not allowed to see what's in 233 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:41.759 front of everybody else's eyes. Yeah, yeah, Rob, will now tell 234 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:44.879 you why you're mistaken to engage in words, No, I don't know if 235 00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:45.519 I don't know, if you're mistaken. I just think that I mean, 236 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:49.480 if you're you know, as a as a Conservative'm not a Republican, but 237 00:16:49.519 --> 00:16:55.120 I'm a conservative. I like, you know, free trade ish stuff. 238 00:16:55.200 --> 00:16:57.080 I didn't really think we needed to renegotiate NAFTA, and if we were going 239 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:02.960 to renegotiate it, we shouldn't renegotiate it with the big labor unions at the 240 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.599 table setting the terms. I felt like, we, you know, if 241 00:17:06.599 --> 00:17:08.920 we're gonna go into a trade dispute with China, as Trump did, we 242 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:12.200 should you know, stick to our guns and not give up on the first 243 00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:17.880 day the important stuff like intellectual property rules. So I, you know, 244 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:22.880 I can criticize Trump from a conservative point of view. I thought maybe he 245 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:25.400 should have built the wall. He said he was gonna and he didn't, 246 00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:32.279 didn't even come close, and he wasn't a serious person. So I was 247 00:17:32.440 --> 00:17:34.839 arguing from him because I had, uh, you know, conservatively, if 248 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:38.079 I want a conservative president. It feels to me like the Democrats, at 249 00:17:38.119 --> 00:17:41.480 least the liberal Democrats, are getting everything they want from this puppet president. 250 00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:48.359 Right. It's like he's the Emperor pu Yee in Manchuria and the administrations filled 251 00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:59.440 with Obama loyalists. They seem to like be unaware or unalarmed by the incredible 252 00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:00.960 collapse and polls. It's almost like, I mean, I was at a 253 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:07.200 dinner party last week, a bunch of right wingers and me, Peter, 254 00:18:07.240 --> 00:18:11.519 So you don't say that. And no, the only thing we could think 255 00:18:11.559 --> 00:18:15.559 of was we could spend weird fantasies about what happens as they sort of carry 256 00:18:15.599 --> 00:18:18.759 this old man through the convention and then replace him and set every after a 257 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:22.480 labor day, which they can do in democratic party rules. I'm solving two 258 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:26.319 problems at once, the Biden problem and then the problem b which is the 259 00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:32.519 Kamala Harris problem. But nobody thought that he wasn't gonna Nobody, no point 260 00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:34.279 did we think that he was going to get replaced. Because he seems to 261 00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:38.200 be doing everything the liberals want. I mean, it's not fair or not. 262 00:18:38.279 --> 00:18:42.480 I mean, I think it is fair. And if we could distinguish, 263 00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:52.400 maybe we should distinguish between policy on the one hand and political follies on 264 00:18:52.519 --> 00:18:55.839 the other. So, like, you know, Trump did a lot of 265 00:18:55.839 --> 00:19:02.200 things that conservatives like. Yeah, and he didn't get criticism from conservatives for 266 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:07.400 doing those things. He did get criticism for being a clown, uh, 267 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:12.480 you know, saying idiotic things, mainly saying idiotic things. Actually, so 268 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:18.119 on Biden doesn't well I was going to say, he doesn't say idiotic things. 269 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:26.000 He doesn't mean necessarily but when he speaks, yeah, the sort of 270 00:19:26.039 --> 00:19:32.240 idiotic things. But there are a lot of sort of political follies on coming 271 00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:37.680 from the president, the current president and his administration. And but so even 272 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:44.000 on this is, to your point, rob one, one policy issue that 273 00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:52.880 there's no pushback on with the student loan forgiveness. I rank democrats said, 274 00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:56.319 including Nancy Pelosi, said no, the president doesn't have that power. He 275 00:19:56.359 --> 00:19:59.519 does it. Okay, he doesn't have that. He does have that power. 276 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:04.839 Silence, No one said anything. It's a mystery to me. And 277 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:11.160 I think I think a lot of people on the right, not necessarily in 278 00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:15.200 this sort of political media class, right, but just ordinary folks, they 279 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:18.839 look at the democratic side and they sort of admire it. They sort of 280 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:23.480 why can't we get behind our guide and just and stop arguing it's I don't 281 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:29.000 know whether to admire it or to be just outraged by it. Yeah, 282 00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:30.240 well that's the problem of politics is like, what we want to say to 283 00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:34.960 them, Republicans want to say each other is why can't we get behind our 284 00:20:36.119 --> 00:20:41.240 unfit candidate the way they've gotten behind their unfit candidates. Are these parties just 285 00:20:41.359 --> 00:20:44.559 dead? Should we just are they just out of gas? It just seems 286 00:20:44.599 --> 00:20:47.319 to me like I look at the Republican leaders, the Democratic leaders, and 287 00:20:47.319 --> 00:20:51.759 I just think you all should just go home. You should be replaced by 288 00:20:51.799 --> 00:20:57.680 younger, more energetic people who are insane. Yeah, I don't know. 289 00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:03.359 We talk about parties has always, uh, it sort of leaves me cold. 290 00:21:03.400 --> 00:21:07.799 I take this sort of Disraeli view of parties and think that they're all 291 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:15.279 they are is organized opinion. Opinions are going to organize themselves somehow, and 292 00:21:15.640 --> 00:21:19.440 in our country they organize themselves into two big groups, and they can be 293 00:21:19.559 --> 00:21:23.319 led by idiots or not. But I don't think the parties are going away 294 00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:30.200 or anything like that. The the the age issue is really kind of perplexing, 295 00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:34.079 and I don't I don't understand it. People. I've heard different theories. 296 00:21:34.119 --> 00:21:40.880 I don't know. I don't know what's which are true. But it 297 00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:45.119 stands to reason that some of them will have to go soon whether we get 298 00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:49.200 a better crop. I have no idea. So Barton, could hear shrewd 299 00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:55.000 observer that you are This is the this is the way I've begun to think 300 00:21:55.079 --> 00:22:00.319 about it, although I resist it because it seems to sort of creepy crawly 301 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:04.119 two grassy Knollie, as Bill Buckley would have said, two sort of conspiratorial. 302 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:11.200 But the deal that has been made within the Democratic Party, the deal 303 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:14.440 to which I was about to say, Joe Biden is a party, but 304 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:17.680 he's gone. He's not a party to anything anymore. But to deal to 305 00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:22.720 which Nancy, the deal to which the sentient Democrats, including old figures such 306 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:26.559 as Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders. But above all, the deal is as 307 00:22:26.599 --> 00:22:33.079 follows. We are working a slow I don't want to use the word revolution, 308 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:37.319 but it is a revolution. It's a kind of constitutional revolution, transformation, 309 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:45.920 transformation in which we are asserting the policy agenda of about the progressive policy 310 00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:51.839 of agenda of actually only about fifteen percent of the country. We are formalizing 311 00:22:51.839 --> 00:22:56.680 the power of the deep state. And all this is possible because we have 312 00:22:56.799 --> 00:23:03.279 reduced the President of the United States to the status of a mere figurehead. 313 00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:10.440 Now that's fine for us. And if we get another US the technocrats, 314 00:23:10.519 --> 00:23:15.799 the progressives, if we get another four years of this, we will be 315 00:23:15.880 --> 00:23:19.599 able to make changes in the country that are effectively permanent or extremely very extremely 316 00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:26.920 hard to roll back the Green Agenda, all of that, and that seems 317 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:33.119 to me to be roughly what's going on. Biden is now sinking in the 318 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:38.599 polls. Even Trump is beating Biden. So this grand scheme of theirs that 319 00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:45.480 we that if that Biden can win against Trump, maybe not, but he 320 00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:48.319 can't even win against Trump. Maybe, so we'll see whether they get shaken 321 00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:55.160 up enough to try to do something about it. But the general idea that 322 00:23:55.240 --> 00:24:00.720 they subvert in slow motion the Constitution, Article two of which tells us we 323 00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.200 need an executive and that the executive power is vested in one human being. 324 00:24:06.119 --> 00:24:08.960 We now have a situation in which nobody really knows where the executive power is 325 00:24:10.039 --> 00:24:14.759 vested. The press, the incuriosity of the press on exactly who's running the 326 00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:18.799 White House, how decisions get made in this White House where the president is 327 00:24:18.839 --> 00:24:23.119 apparently only awake and alert for four or five hours a day in any event, 328 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:29.400 So we got this. It's a kind of slow motion revolution. Taking 329 00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:33.519 place, and in the interest of that revolution, they're all willing to clam 330 00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:36.839 up. That's the price they're willing to pay. Tell me, I'm mad, 331 00:24:40.039 --> 00:24:45.559 You're not mad. Look, in my view, something happened in twenty 332 00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:52.000 sixteen, and that was that the American left hit the jackpot. They didn't 333 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.440 know it, and they they didn't feel it was the jackpot, but it 334 00:24:56.559 --> 00:25:00.519 was. They got what they wanted, which what I'm I mean by that 335 00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:07.079 is as an inheritance I think of even early twentieth century progressivism and certainly sort 336 00:25:07.119 --> 00:25:15.559 of modern revolutionary leftism. They never really believed in the old liberal idea of 337 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:22.359 different points of view coming together forming compromises, i e. The entire the 338 00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:26.000 system that our entire republic is based on, with different interests showing themselves in 339 00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:33.440 Congress and so forth. They always were technocratic in their outlook, and technocrats 340 00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:37.319 see a thing that needs to be done, and they think that they should 341 00:25:37.319 --> 00:25:42.759 be empowered to do it like now. And so when Trump first was nominated 342 00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:52.160 and then was elected, that was I think in the American leftist liberal progressives 343 00:25:52.240 --> 00:26:00.160 mind, all the excuse they would ever need to completely ignore and dismiss any 344 00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:08.240 legitimacy coming from the other side, and I it has grown that they've become 345 00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:17.680 more openly dismissive of the right and anything coming from the Republican Party. And 346 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:22.519 now I just don't think that they care. There's a there's a great line 347 00:26:22.759 --> 00:26:30.799 in Casablanca where the Peter Lore character asks the Bogart character do you despise me? 348 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:33.720 And Bogart says, and if I've thought about you, I might, 349 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:41.079 And that's perfect. You know. It's like they can't even be bothered to 350 00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:48.599 despise the right, and so I just don't think that they feel obliged in 351 00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:56.359 any way to acknowledge any shortcoming, any any mistakes that Biden makes. And 352 00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:03.319 I also think that that is why they sort of secretly want Trump to stay 353 00:27:03.359 --> 00:27:07.599 in politics, right. They're divided about it, but they want him to 354 00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:11.559 be the nominee. And I think that they even want him to be president 355 00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:14.440 again, although they would never admit that. Yeah, I kind of agree 356 00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:18.039 with that. I mean, yeah, I think I think I agree with 357 00:27:18.079 --> 00:27:22.480 that. There's also this other thing going on, which is that nobody wants 358 00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:25.440 to be the guy who elected Donald Trump on the left, right, So 359 00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:30.680 if you run against the incumbent, you're the guy. Right. You know, 360 00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:34.359 everybody knows that Ralph Nader elected George W. Bush probably right, So 361 00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.599 you don't want to be that guy. What you're waiting for, I think 362 00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:42.119 is sort of party leadership. If you're if you're I mean, you know 363 00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:45.960 the Gavin Newsom is doing a really good job of running for president without running 364 00:27:45.960 --> 00:27:48.920 for president. Right, he's just kind of like announcing his availability and showbiz 365 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:52.400 we would call this person. You know, they are circling the studio in 366 00:27:52.519 --> 00:27:57.200 makeup. They are ready right understudy is how's his health today? They are 367 00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:00.680 ready to go. If you're a Gretchen Whitmer, you might be feeling the 368 00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:03.720 same thing, right, I mean, it's not like, I mean, 369 00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:06.119 I don't think the Democrats have a very big bench. That's the legacy of 370 00:28:06.119 --> 00:28:07.160 Obama. He's sort of destroyed their bench. But on the other hand, 371 00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:10.720 they don't. It's not like they don't have nobody. They got somebody, 372 00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:15.519 but nobody wants to be the guy because you are terrified of this other outcome. 373 00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:18.279 Half of you are terrified if you're a Democrat, and the other half 374 00:28:18.359 --> 00:28:21.920 think have constructed a house of cards in a sort of a mental landscape, 375 00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:23.000 which means it will be a good thing. That's who we want. That's 376 00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:27.480 who we want. That's who we want. Don't they have ambition? I 377 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:33.720 mean I was I always thought politicians are just endlessly ambitious, right, they 378 00:28:33.799 --> 00:28:36.920 want what happened? You know? Why are you so scared all of a 379 00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:38.960 sudden? Yeah, of course there are dangers, but you guys are the 380 00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:45.480 most self serving, narcissistic, ambitious people on earth. Right, But they 381 00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:49.599 somehow became they somehow became the bureaucrats they've empowered, haven't they. They said 382 00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:55.000 they like it. They don't really like the getting a car and you go 383 00:28:55.039 --> 00:28:57.440 to your office and people like kind of bound scrape and use a separate elevator, 384 00:28:57.480 --> 00:29:00.480 and it's kind of nice, and it's like you can't do anything anyway. 385 00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:07.839 And so maybe maybe there's something really reassuring about having this ancient ossified bag 386 00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:11.160 of bones in the oval office and this like monster dragon on the outside, 387 00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:15.680 and it's kind of keeps everything. Everybody in line, right, I mean, 388 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.279 Republicans are in line. And it took how many Republicans have dodged the 389 00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:26.559 even Mike Pence, I mean arguably someone that his boss, the President of 390 00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:32.279 the United States, he said they should hang and even he won't name him. 391 00:29:32.359 --> 00:29:36.599 In a Wall Street Journal editory, he refers to a leading presidential candidate. 392 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:44.160 I mean, the weird, cowardice and unique disease that's I said affected 393 00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:45.480 both these parties. That's I guess that's why I'm saying. It's like, 394 00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:48.599 how can this last? I mean, no, monetary systems don't last, 395 00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:52.640 political parties don't lat. These things don't last. They almost always refreshed. 396 00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:56.279 Are we at a period where they're going to be refreshed or is it more 397 00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:59.680 like, well, we'll just be filled with different people, because it doesn't 398 00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:02.640 seem like about to be filled with different people. Yeah, there is sort 399 00:30:02.680 --> 00:30:08.799 of this pathology in both parties in which the worst, the worst thing on 400 00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:14.160 earth is to be blamed or criticized for anything. So like, I really 401 00:30:14.200 --> 00:30:18.039 saw it in a in a sort of gruesome way during the pandemic when I'm 402 00:30:18.119 --> 00:30:22.880 we're just following the science, like it's it's those guys over there telling us 403 00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:26.240 what. We have no capacity to make any decisions. So look, don't 404 00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:29.960 don't yell at us. We we we don't. We We just believe in 405 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:33.839 science, Okay, And you see that across across the board in all sorts 406 00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:40.440 of ways, and and it may be that what what our politics is headed 407 00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:45.319 to is just to have this sort of debilitated figurehead off in an attic somewhere 408 00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:48.880 that we call the president, and sure you can get mad at him if 409 00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.720 you want, but we're doing what we want. And when you get mad, 410 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:56.960 you know somebody, somebody's fault, and that that's the that's the dynamic 411 00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:03.599 with the administrative state. You know, we don't actually make decisions. It's 412 00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:07.720 all the regulators at the EPA and so on, and there's no accountability. 413 00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:11.119 There's not only no accountability, there doesn't seem to be a demand for accountability. 414 00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:15.559 If we had a national, nationwide movement that wanted to interrogate every aspect 415 00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:19.400 of the coronavirus handling, maybe we would learn something. Maybe there would be 416 00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:22.880 some people who would do the sensible thing and performer ritual disemboweling of themselves, 417 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:26.720 you know, in the old Japanese style, and be shamed and be drummed 418 00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:30.200 out. Rob has spoken about one of the things that bothers him about the 419 00:31:30.200 --> 00:31:34.680 two thousand and eight financial crisis. There wasn't enough bankers jumping out of windows, 420 00:31:34.680 --> 00:31:38.240 paraded around in hairshoots humiliated for what they did, we just went on. 421 00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:42.119 So there's no institutional accountability at a time when we seem to have no 422 00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:48.079 faith whatsoever in any of our institutions, they having failed us spectacularly in all 423 00:31:48.079 --> 00:31:52.480 the way. So it breeds. It seems sort of a passivity in the 424 00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:55.519 electorate, which, as you spoke before about the gift that Donald Trump was 425 00:31:55.599 --> 00:31:57.880 in twenty sixteen, is an excellent opportunity for this other, for this great 426 00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:02.079 force to I'm in and flood. But when it comes to nobody having the 427 00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:06.559 temerity to go up against the old bag of bones in the attic, is 428 00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:13.039 it because now we are sort of post American institution and figuring that if the 429 00:32:13.079 --> 00:32:16.759 Democrats find a way to plug Gavin Knewsom in, that's fine. And Newsom 430 00:32:16.839 --> 00:32:21.359 thinks that he doesn't have to go through the usual processes, that he can 431 00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:23.599 just be plugged in, that that's fine. And so we come up with, 432 00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:27.920 you know, what began as a fairly rigorous way to run a country 433 00:32:27.960 --> 00:32:30.480 ends up with a year of four emperors. Not a question so much as 434 00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:34.680 a speech. But I'm sure you can probably speech though you can pull something 435 00:32:34.680 --> 00:32:37.559 out of it that can be answered to it you may say anything you wish. 436 00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:45.720 Barton. Yeah, well it's all very depressing, Thank you very much. 437 00:32:45.720 --> 00:32:47.400 That's Parton's way. We can read him in the Wall Street. I'm 438 00:32:47.440 --> 00:32:53.400 sorry, Gone, Yeah, this is actually one reason I sort of I 439 00:32:53.440 --> 00:33:00.960 have an eccentric fear of AI. I mean eccentric in the sense that it's 440 00:33:00.039 --> 00:33:05.279 not a fear that that is shared by other people. But I think that 441 00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:12.960 that AI is the perfect avenue to avoid all accountability forever and completely right, 442 00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:17.559 because you know, the algorithm said to do it, and it's not our 443 00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:24.720 fault. So God only knows what government folly could be excused by an algorithm. 444 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:29.519 Barton, I have two questions for you. The second one concerns you, 445 00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:32.119 but the first one is returning us to Donald Trump in the State of 446 00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:38.640 the country. You said, but did not follow up on, that you 447 00:33:38.759 --> 00:33:45.319 thought the Democrats or at least the Progressive secretly want Donald Trump to become president 448 00:33:45.359 --> 00:33:50.000 again. That is an idea that had simply not crossed my mind. Could 449 00:33:50.039 --> 00:33:53.759 you explain that? Well, you know, people want things without knowing that 450 00:33:53.799 --> 00:34:02.400 they want them. Yes, the know it's more fun. For one thing, 451 00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:07.199 It's just generally more fun in a lot of ways to be in the 452 00:34:07.239 --> 00:34:12.880 opposition, and it is in power. In your power, you have to 453 00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:16.480 defend everything, and you have to make excuses for your mistakes, and you 454 00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:24.559 have to, you know, spin everything. And when you are in in 455 00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:30.280 opposition, you get to you get no accountability and you get to criticize everything. 456 00:34:30.960 --> 00:34:40.599 And look, if there's one thing that unites all progressives and liberals, 457 00:34:40.760 --> 00:34:45.800 it is the need to be outraged. They love it and they always have 458 00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:52.119 and I think that at the end of the Obama's second term, the things 459 00:34:52.159 --> 00:34:57.360 to be outraged about were really small, you know, we were talking about 460 00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:04.679 like transgender bathrooms and stuff like that. Right just just wasn't satisfying. And 461 00:35:04.719 --> 00:35:09.960 when Trump got elected, it was like, oh, man, carry us 462 00:35:10.119 --> 00:35:15.000 a long way. And I think they had a blast, loved it. 463 00:35:15.239 --> 00:35:27.079 Are you kidding him? It was just the smartest sport of outrage and every 464 00:35:27.159 --> 00:35:32.440 day and now with Biden being a complete embarrassment, it's it's just not fun. 465 00:35:34.239 --> 00:35:37.079 So yeah, I think that they'd be happy with it. The right 466 00:35:37.159 --> 00:35:40.679 is prone to its daily outrageous too, though. I mean, if you 467 00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:45.519 hang around Twitter long enough, you see that we have our own version of 468 00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:49.599 the thing that we just simply cannot believe now in the case of you know, 469 00:35:50.199 --> 00:35:52.440 the Trump years, it was something that Trump said her in all caps 470 00:35:52.559 --> 00:35:54.119 rant, or it was this that or the other thing. It wasn't necessarily 471 00:35:54.159 --> 00:35:58.960 always a policy issue. But we have those two and maybe for good reason, 472 00:35:59.559 --> 00:36:02.559 because there is a lot going on on a daily basis that we ought 473 00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:07.719 to be outraged about and not lose our ability to do so. I think 474 00:36:07.719 --> 00:36:14.880 what distinguishes right and left and in this way is that the left cannot concede 475 00:36:14.920 --> 00:36:21.920 that anything is good, right, very bad at all times. And and 476 00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:27.679 and the right is is fully capable of acknowledging distinguishing between the good and the 477 00:36:27.719 --> 00:36:32.480 bad, which is, you know, the proper way to live. So 478 00:36:32.559 --> 00:36:37.280 but yeah, we we do have our our our need for outrage. I 479 00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:45.679 guess, although I would caution against uh looking at Twitter for any reason at 480 00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:52.880 all. That's very wise. So Barton my second here's my second question. 481 00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:59.400 This is a question about Barton Swain. The journalism business model has collapsed. 482 00:37:00.320 --> 00:37:04.480 All journalists who want to make a career of it need a constant presence on 483 00:37:04.480 --> 00:37:09.280 Twitter. They've got to get a television contract with Fox News. They need 484 00:37:09.320 --> 00:37:15.840 to establish a substack. And you're not doing any of this. There you 485 00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:20.119 are seated at home in South Carolina. By the way, they also need 486 00:37:20.159 --> 00:37:24.159 to be in Washington. There, you are seated in South Carolina, and 487 00:37:24.239 --> 00:37:32.880 you're a newspaperman. You're a newspaperman. Furthermore, you take books so seriously 488 00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:38.400 that you wrote one brilliant book, so beautifully written. As a fellow writer, 489 00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:43.760 I'm forced to hate you. You wrote one, and you review books, 490 00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:47.119 and you take the ideas in those books seriously, and you even comment 491 00:37:47.239 --> 00:37:54.159 on how well they're put together. Art and Swain you are. You are 492 00:37:54.199 --> 00:38:00.280 a nineteenth century man. What the hell do you think you're doing? Go 493 00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:07.719 on, go on. You're putting your faith in newspapers and the written word. 494 00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:14.280 Well, yeah, that's a that's a topic, uh, the written 495 00:38:14.280 --> 00:38:20.159 word. I heard this interview with your old friend Peter teal years ago in 496 00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:25.199 which he said that if anytime he's interviewing, uh, someone you know, 497 00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:29.199 for a for a position or something, he says, tell me of you 498 00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:34.760 that you hold that nobody else holds. You know, that that would be 499 00:38:35.199 --> 00:38:38.119 that would be widely panned if if anybody knew you held it. And he 500 00:38:38.199 --> 00:38:40.760 said, usually, you know, they come out with things that a lot 501 00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:44.440 of people actually believe, you know, racism is a bad or something. 502 00:38:44.880 --> 00:38:47.920 If I had to answer that question, it would be that there is a 503 00:38:49.079 --> 00:38:54.280 future in newspapers, which is probably actually probably that's the dumbest view ever. 504 00:38:54.599 --> 00:39:00.079 But and when I say papers, I mean I mean print papers. And 505 00:39:00.440 --> 00:39:05.119 that is just because when you I'll put it this way. From time to 506 00:39:05.159 --> 00:39:07.880 time I tell people that they say what do you do? And I say, 507 00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:08.800 I work for the Wall Street Journal And they say, you know, 508 00:39:09.199 --> 00:39:13.440 so so you write for them? I say yes, and they say like 509 00:39:13.800 --> 00:39:19.199 online and I say no, I mean in the print paper and they say, 510 00:39:19.320 --> 00:39:22.320 oh wow, oh okay. And so what I what I glean from 511 00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:28.840 that reaction is that people when people see something in print, they think, 512 00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:35.960 well, somebody took the time to edit this into shape and uh, and 513 00:39:36.159 --> 00:39:42.599 spend the capital necessary to deliver it somewhere on actual paper, So it must 514 00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:47.519 be important. And when you encounter something online and you know that it's only 515 00:39:47.599 --> 00:39:52.840 online, it may be excellent, and often it is excellent, but you 516 00:39:52.920 --> 00:40:00.639 also know that all somebody had to do is type it into an application and 517 00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:07.639 hit you know, post, and that's it. And so I think that 518 00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:16.440 over time there print print papers will come back print magazines and papers. The 519 00:40:17.320 --> 00:40:23.960 demand will slowly, slowly re emerge. So I have some I have some 520 00:40:24.119 --> 00:40:29.199 very bad news for you, because I get the Wall Street Journal and delivered 521 00:40:29.239 --> 00:40:31.280 to my door every day, and if it's something that I'm doing, I 522 00:40:31.400 --> 00:40:36.719 guarantee you it's not on its a way to becoming a trend. I'm usually 523 00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:39.719 the guy turning off the lights. Yeah, yeah, so Barton, Tom 524 00:40:39.800 --> 00:40:44.519 Wolfe told me the story that he was working at the New York Herald Tribune 525 00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:50.320 when John Kennedy was killed and they listened to it in the newsroom on the 526 00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:54.039 radio. I think there was a television they watched Cronkite pronounced Kennedy dead, 527 00:40:54.960 --> 00:41:00.880 and Tom had this sinking feeling that he was witnessing the death of news papers. 528 00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:07.400 Here was a major event that had taken place, and it was broadcast 529 00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:15.199 rather than And then as he walked home to his apartment, there were lines 530 00:41:15.239 --> 00:41:20.159 around the block at every news stand for the evening edition newspapers, right, 531 00:41:20.519 --> 00:41:25.920 because it wasn't real until people had read it in print. Still valid, 532 00:41:27.159 --> 00:41:36.280 Still valid, Marton, Yeah, yeah, I think that's still valid, 533 00:41:36.880 --> 00:41:40.800 all right. Maybe not for the immediacy, you know, the web takes 534 00:41:40.800 --> 00:41:46.519 care of the immediacy. But if you if you really want to know something, 535 00:41:47.480 --> 00:41:54.239 everybody knows that you have to Not everybody admits, but everybody knows you 536 00:41:54.280 --> 00:41:59.239 have to read it on a physical thing. It may be a mental take. 537 00:41:59.360 --> 00:42:05.960 Just with me, but I cannot remember anything I've read online more than 538 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:10.000 six months ago. Nothing, It's all just a blur. I can remember 539 00:42:10.079 --> 00:42:19.360 things that I read in Commentary magazine in nineteen ninety six and be able more 540 00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:22.320 or less to find it on the page. I mean, it's not a 541 00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:29.079 memory. But you know, you oftentimes you remember things that well from long 542 00:42:29.119 --> 00:42:31.199 ago, and yeah, you consulted. Maybe it's not exactly you know, 543 00:42:31.239 --> 00:42:35.639 the way you remember it, but you do remember it. No clue what 544 00:42:35.719 --> 00:42:40.599 I read last year online. So there's hope. There's hope, depends as 545 00:42:40.639 --> 00:42:45.800 there is. I agree. Walter Kern American Writers has started his own little 546 00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:51.239 newspaper with somebody else who's name escapes me, and it comes out periodically, 547 00:42:51.239 --> 00:42:53.880 and it's an attempt to revive the newspaper as it used to be a community 548 00:42:53.920 --> 00:42:59.199 sort of conversation. It's not online that paper, No, it's not. 549 00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:00.480 No, it is printed. It's like the way things used to be we're 550 00:43:00.519 --> 00:43:02.400 going to cut down a tree, We're gonna pulp it, We're gonna ship 551 00:43:02.440 --> 00:43:05.920 it here, we're gonna spell it full of ink, and then it's going 552 00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:07.880 to run through this enormous machine. It's going to be mechanically folded, put 553 00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:10.760 it into trucks, dropped off its street corners, and urchins will deliver it 554 00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:14.159 to your door, which is still kind of how we do it here at 555 00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:16.159 the newspaper where I am. But we all know where print is going. 556 00:43:16.519 --> 00:43:21.559 We all have seen where the line is going, and it's writing a demographic 557 00:43:21.559 --> 00:43:22.840 down into the graveyard, and we have to figure out how to get new 558 00:43:22.840 --> 00:43:28.000 people and eyeballs to use those wretched terms to the website, where everything, 559 00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:30.679 as you point out correctly is digital and weightless, it doesn't have the same 560 00:43:30.760 --> 00:43:34.760 thing, the same heft. So the question is whether or not we can 561 00:43:34.840 --> 00:43:37.519 keep the shells of the institutions alive long enough to repopulate them with people who 562 00:43:37.559 --> 00:43:40.840 realize that there is something there, and also to do it in a way 563 00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:45.199 that seems counterintuitive. The Wall Street Journal is a great newspaper. It's broad 564 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:49.480 is it has depth, that has intelligence and trust its audience, and it's 565 00:43:49.519 --> 00:43:51.679 got a lot of stuff in it. I go to the UK and I 566 00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:54.559 see the Telegraph and I just marvel at this huge saddle blanket that I can 567 00:43:54.639 --> 00:43:59.199 unfurl. It's got all kinds of stories and the serendipity of going to here 568 00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:00.519 to there and find something on the jump and the rest of it is an 569 00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:04.840 experience that cannot be reproduced on the web or you're just simply a flea on 570 00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:07.519 a hot plate. So a last question, then, do you think that 571 00:44:07.800 --> 00:44:14.519 that the newspaper industry as we know today has to shutters and die and then 572 00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:17.599 something comes out of the ashes, or can we slow the decline and repopulate 573 00:44:17.639 --> 00:44:22.960 it. That's that's my last that's my last sermon masquerading as a question. 574 00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:28.880 I don't know is the answer, but okay, yeah I don't either, 575 00:44:29.079 --> 00:44:35.559 really don't. But I think that So I've always wondered if there's if there's 576 00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:38.519 a way to if one business model, and I don't maybe this has been 577 00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:44.239 tried, is to charge. This would work only at a local level, 578 00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:51.360 I think, but that but that's that's where that's where newspapers that they're going 579 00:44:51.400 --> 00:44:53.559 to be revived would need to be revived, and that's the local papers. 580 00:44:53.559 --> 00:44:58.360 So people know what this school board is doing or whatever is. There is 581 00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:04.599 one business model to arge for the online sub but to get the paper for 582 00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:09.559 free. So maybe delivery would be a problem. But on any newstand, 583 00:45:09.719 --> 00:45:13.920 the actual paper would be free. But if you want to see it, 584 00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:16.159 you know, if you like the instantaneousness and all of the rest of it, 585 00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:20.280 you want it on your phone, your desktop, You're gonna have to 586 00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:24.039 pay and pay a lot. So these outlets are going to have to experiment 587 00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:30.679 with different, different business models. But I think that just the demand for 588 00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:34.280 news hasn't gone down. I have a little wrinkle on that to suggest I 589 00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:37.320 personally would be willing to pay not to have the New York Times delivered. 590 00:45:38.079 --> 00:45:42.280 Just a thought for you there, Bertie, or we switched our model to 591 00:45:42.440 --> 00:45:46.480 a dog wasteed disposal envelope system and then give the newspaper for free. Well, 592 00:45:47.079 --> 00:45:52.880 I stopped my New York Times print subscription only because the art section. 593 00:45:52.719 --> 00:45:55.000 You know, I have kids in the house. Come on, I don't 594 00:45:55.039 --> 00:46:02.360 want born lying around. Well, I still get it because I love doing 595 00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:08.360 the Crossroad puzzle on paper. And that's that. So so I I well, 596 00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:10.360 well, a question before before we go, because I know we gotta, 597 00:46:10.360 --> 00:46:13.760 we gotta let you go. And I keep asking the same question, 598 00:46:13.800 --> 00:46:16.239 but it seems to me like there's a market opportunity. Right, Well, 599 00:46:16.280 --> 00:46:21.039 you look at the where where is there? Where is there no one in 600 00:46:21.159 --> 00:46:27.119 politics everyone has has basically the same thing. This is great, big center, 601 00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:30.079 right, This is great, big kind of shrugging center there. You 602 00:46:30.119 --> 00:46:34.119 know, the pro life pro choice movement is pretty much abortion is pretty much 603 00:46:34.119 --> 00:46:37.320 a great example of that that. Americans are kind of clustered in a very 604 00:46:37.440 --> 00:46:43.360 very very big, fat center, and they are looking for a party to 605 00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:45.840 speak to that and need a party seems to be doing that right. Half 606 00:46:46.039 --> 00:46:50.400 the Republicans are saying things like life begins the conception, they don't like that, 607 00:46:50.639 --> 00:46:52.039 and the Democrats are saying you should be able to have an abortion the 608 00:46:52.199 --> 00:46:58.400 you know, second year of birth of life. Right. Essentially, isn't 609 00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:04.679 that emblematic of politics in general? I mean, isn't somebody gonna gonna jump 610 00:47:04.719 --> 00:47:07.719 on this? Does does it seem like? I mean, I don't, 611 00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:13.119 I guess I'm just I'm looking at economically, there's a market, there are 612 00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:15.599 buyers out there. Yeah, yeah, I mean with with the with the 613 00:47:15.639 --> 00:47:22.239 example of abortion, there's this difference. Uh that people don't want to talk 614 00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:25.199 about abortion. That's true. Most people are in the middle. But they 615 00:47:25.239 --> 00:47:29.360 also don't like to talk about it. They don't like to debate it, 616 00:47:29.480 --> 00:47:34.559 they don't want to argue about it, and so and so that that that 617 00:47:34.679 --> 00:47:37.599 leaves that leaves a hole in the middle for people who do want to argue 618 00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:42.679 about it to get in to take all the action. But I mean, 619 00:47:42.760 --> 00:47:46.559 I think on economic issues, the market is there, and you know, 620 00:47:46.639 --> 00:47:52.159 it's a it's a it's a matter of reforming the institutions, particularly Congress, 621 00:47:52.639 --> 00:48:04.039 to to actually make these debates real and simply use their offices as juve all 622 00:48:04.079 --> 00:48:10.159 evince as platforms for a national audience. So we just need to to figure 623 00:48:10.199 --> 00:48:15.800 out a way to make our institutions, particularly Congress, functioning the way they 624 00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:20.440 were intended. That'll be great. Let's reform our institutions and make them work. 625 00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:23.719 I think we can probably get that done by the end of the month, 626 00:48:24.039 --> 00:48:30.840 and we redouble our efforts. Great prescriptions and great ideas you can find 627 00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:32.840 them at the Wall Street Journal. Under Barton's Ways is a byline also that 628 00:48:34.039 --> 00:48:37.039 the author of the speech, writer of brief education on Politics and the latest 629 00:48:37.039 --> 00:48:39.400 pieces Joe Biden's iron grip on his party. As you can tell by this 630 00:48:39.480 --> 00:48:44.719 wide ranging conversations, He's adept in a variety of arena and we thank him 631 00:48:44.760 --> 00:48:47.280 for coming and we look forward to having you on again. Gentlemen, Thank 632 00:48:47.320 --> 00:48:52.960 you, Thanks Marton. All right, take care man the next time. 633 00:48:52.039 --> 00:48:54.960 Perhaps if you're going to quote Peter Lorrie, I think you have to do 634 00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.760 it in a Peter Lorrie voice. Yes, I think you do a nice, 635 00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:05.119 nice Peter. It's right the lie, you know, I always thought 636 00:49:05.119 --> 00:49:07.760 the line was you just I know you despise me, Rick, but it's 637 00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:10.519 not. It's a what did I think? Well, in any case, 638 00:49:12.280 --> 00:49:15.039 Laurie was great. I love Peter Laurie in that movie. And I was 639 00:49:15.079 --> 00:49:19.360 just thinking about Casablanca the other day, what an American treasure it is, 640 00:49:19.400 --> 00:49:22.440 and how the fact that it was just a wrote studio product that just became 641 00:49:22.480 --> 00:49:29.320 inhabited by the best people who could possibly do any of those roles, and 642 00:49:29.360 --> 00:49:31.440 how they never managed to do it again. And they kept trying, didn't 643 00:49:31.440 --> 00:49:36.199 they. I mean, Robbie would know better than I. But they when 644 00:49:36.199 --> 00:49:38.119 something works, they turn around and say, well, let's do that again. 645 00:49:39.079 --> 00:49:43.280 As we seeded diminishing effects with the Marvel world. But we don't see 646 00:49:43.280 --> 00:49:45.800 that is with you know, when a conservative movie hits, the studios don't 647 00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:49.360 say, hey, what was a little lightning in a bottle that they captured 648 00:49:49.360 --> 00:49:51.840 there? Let's see if we can do some of that before we go. 649 00:49:51.920 --> 00:49:55.719 Then a brief account of how our things in the entertainment industry right now. 650 00:49:57.840 --> 00:50:00.039 You are keeping your eye in the strike in the summer box. I'm on 651 00:50:00.159 --> 00:50:04.480 strike. Has anybody learned anything or does anybody know anything? Or is it 652 00:50:04.519 --> 00:50:06.480 still know? No, nobody does anything learned anything. I mean, I 653 00:50:06.519 --> 00:50:09.559 think the it's coming down to two big issues. And you know, it 654 00:50:09.599 --> 00:50:15.960 depends on you know, it depends on it depends on how how the market 655 00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:22.559 reacts to the continued shutdown, depends on what happens when everybody realizes that if 656 00:50:22.559 --> 00:50:28.400 you backdate from summer twenty twenty four, you figure that your movies have to 657 00:50:28.440 --> 00:50:31.440 be either in production or finished in post production right now, and they're not. 658 00:50:31.559 --> 00:50:37.639 So, you know, the long term, the tail effect of a 659 00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:42.000 strike is continues and lingers, and you know you're seeing I think a lot 660 00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:45.599 of sort of what they call M and a activity. Well, I think 661 00:50:45.679 --> 00:50:50.079 less M and a and more breaking up is going to be happening, and 662 00:50:50.119 --> 00:50:53.880 that's going to be great. The future of show business is going to be 663 00:50:54.800 --> 00:50:59.800 not six big companies, but twenty seven thousand little companies, because that's what 664 00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:05.679 show business the most efficient. And I think we're also seeing things like the 665 00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:10.480 as you mentioned, you mentioned a movie that did very well this summer. 666 00:51:10.960 --> 00:51:15.920 I think it's maybe the third biggest movie is called Sound of Freedom, and 667 00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:17.960 it was I happen to know a lot about a movie because a good friend 668 00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:21.760 of mine wrote it. I'm writing a piece about up for commentary and I'm 669 00:51:22.079 --> 00:51:25.079 doing Martini shot about it next week next week. Probably the guy who wrote 670 00:51:25.079 --> 00:51:35.360 it is a believing Catholic, a practicing Roman Catholic, as is the dog. 671 00:51:35.400 --> 00:51:37.840 I don't, I don't. I don't know whether Jim Caviezels are Roman 672 00:51:37.880 --> 00:51:43.119 Catholic specifically, but you know, okay, I know he's devout. I 673 00:51:43.159 --> 00:51:49.719 don't know if he's the archives. There's a little little weirdly okay. Uh. 674 00:51:49.760 --> 00:51:52.039 And so they made a movie, and they're gonna make about two hundrellion 675 00:51:52.039 --> 00:51:55.760 dollars domestically this year, which is a lot. Uh. And the distributor 676 00:51:55.840 --> 00:52:00.760 Angels' notice that James is or that Rob is a little uncertain about the religion, 677 00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:02.679 but he knows exactly how much money. Yeah, well, I know 678 00:52:02.679 --> 00:52:07.320 he's Catholic, but I mean I do know people I know some Catholics in 679 00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:15.760 that know him that that are not Roman Catholic. They differ. So there's 680 00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:19.360 that and uh and but the movie itself is just a really really great thriller, 681 00:52:19.960 --> 00:52:22.360 and it's a true story, and the guy it's based on, who's 682 00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:25.559 a real person, is also a believing Catholic. There really is nothing particularly 683 00:52:25.559 --> 00:52:30.360 faith based about the Sound of Freedom. The next movie they're making, or 684 00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:35.480 this Maide is coming out of March, is called The Cabrini and the trailer 685 00:52:35.719 --> 00:52:43.320 looks spectacular about Mother Cabrini, who was very sort of first American Saint. 686 00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:45.599 I think, Peter, why am I doing this Roman Catholic stuff, Peter, 687 00:52:45.599 --> 00:52:51.480 you should be jumping in so there. But my friend who wrote it, 688 00:52:51.599 --> 00:52:54.199 Rod Barr, who's a wonderful, wonderful writer, said he's not sure 689 00:52:54.360 --> 00:53:02.400 that these big companies could even release some movie like that and afford it. 690 00:53:02.400 --> 00:53:07.440 It's just too risky and small. So we're a movie that did really well 691 00:53:07.480 --> 00:53:08.880 in the movie theater, by the way, two hundred million dollars, which 692 00:53:08.920 --> 00:53:14.039 is pretty good in movie theater. When the conventional wisdom was no only big 693 00:53:14.079 --> 00:53:16.880 movies with marvels, whatever could be in the movie in the movie theaters, 694 00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:22.119 there'd be no way for them to release it to the larger public because it 695 00:53:22.440 --> 00:53:25.400 had to start in a certain place, kind of following the old Tyler Perry 696 00:53:25.960 --> 00:53:30.239 model, which as you start small with a small audience, you and you 697 00:53:30.280 --> 00:53:34.719 grow the audience, and a big company like Disney simply just can't wrap your 698 00:53:34.719 --> 00:53:39.440 head around it, which creates a huge opportunity for people to make real movies 699 00:53:39.599 --> 00:53:44.159 that are good and can go in the movie theater and make hundreds and hundreds 700 00:53:44.159 --> 00:53:46.119 of months. And there's space for that now because companies like Disney have just 701 00:53:47.079 --> 00:53:52.280 poisoned their brand. Manesque before we go. I mean, I had I 702 00:53:52.320 --> 00:53:57.679 grew up with a great fellow feeling for for you know, Uncle Walt in 703 00:53:57.719 --> 00:54:00.280 the house every Sunday night, and then I kind of sort of fell away 704 00:54:00.280 --> 00:54:02.119 when I grew up. But then I had a child, and all of 705 00:54:02.199 --> 00:54:07.599 a sudden, I'm rediscovering this great backstory of the catalog of American wonderfulness and 706 00:54:08.039 --> 00:54:12.920 learning about that, and enjoying going to Disney World and marveling at the efficient 707 00:54:13.039 --> 00:54:16.599 machine, the money extraction machine that this is, while still finding myself in 708 00:54:16.639 --> 00:54:21.599 a dark room somewhere in a little off of Main Street spaghetti place, watching 709 00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:25.280 watching Flowers and Trees, one of their earlier color numbers, and just you 710 00:54:25.320 --> 00:54:30.559 know, just enjoying the whole Disney thing. And now it's just weird to 711 00:54:30.599 --> 00:54:35.679 me, not just the whole place, it's just it's just got a whiff 712 00:54:35.800 --> 00:54:39.000 about it that I just don't like, and I don't think a lot about 713 00:54:39.039 --> 00:54:43.360 it. But if that's if that's hit me, who was a you know, 714 00:54:43.400 --> 00:54:45.320 a Disney fan, not a supern You know, I'm not going to 715 00:54:45.400 --> 00:54:46.400 go there in the mouse hears and propose to my wife in front of the 716 00:54:46.400 --> 00:54:50.320 Magic Kingdom. But I love the place and everything about it, And now 717 00:54:50.360 --> 00:54:54.239 I'm just I don't care if they sunder and fall into the ocean. Well, 718 00:54:54.280 --> 00:54:57.880 I mean that may be true, all that could be true. I'm 719 00:54:57.920 --> 00:55:01.199 just making a business argument, which is that these big companies have big channels 720 00:55:01.199 --> 00:55:06.119 and they can only do big things in a big way, and they really 721 00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:08.079 rearrange themselves for that. I mean, I mean, we're using I'm using 722 00:55:08.119 --> 00:55:10.199 disease an example, but you could say the same thing about so and you 723 00:55:10.239 --> 00:55:13.800 can say the same thing about comcasts. You say the same thing about Warner 724 00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:17.280 Brother's Discovery. They're just too big and they think that's going to that adds, 725 00:55:17.360 --> 00:55:22.039 gives them efficiencies, but I think it really doesn't. In a way, 726 00:55:22.039 --> 00:55:25.920 it opens up the market to a lot of movie makers, like the 727 00:55:25.920 --> 00:55:30.559 people who made Sound Freedom and Gabrini, to do like incredible movies. Looks 728 00:55:30.559 --> 00:55:31.960 not a Freedom is just a really good thriller you can want. You can 729 00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:37.199 go in and eat your popcorn and watch a hero do something heroic and saves 730 00:55:37.280 --> 00:55:39.920 children, and then you know, you cheer and you walk out, and 731 00:55:42.320 --> 00:55:45.000 that that's a business argument. And you may be right about the other argument, 732 00:55:45.039 --> 00:55:49.800 but it's not. It isn't as if there's some very exact, exact 733 00:55:49.840 --> 00:55:55.519 parallel here in Silicon Valley sequoia of venture capital became too big. If you're 734 00:55:55.519 --> 00:56:00.760 managing billions and billions of dollars, you can only do really big deals, 735 00:56:00.440 --> 00:56:04.920 and those are not where the returns are. The returns are these little upstart 736 00:56:04.960 --> 00:56:07.639 companies that you want to get them in. They're same same kind of thing. 737 00:56:07.960 --> 00:56:12.840 If you're big. If you're managing huge amounts of money, then the 738 00:56:12.920 --> 00:56:17.480 executives can very easily convince themselves they need big bets, and that means things 739 00:56:17.519 --> 00:56:22.119 that aren't as risk they need to deploy anyway. You get the pictures same 740 00:56:22.079 --> 00:56:24.840 here. Yes, that's true. You I mean you need size because you 741 00:56:24.880 --> 00:56:29.239 need financial resources to do some things. Although I still don't understand why digital 742 00:56:29.239 --> 00:56:31.079 movies cost so much. I mean, it's not like you have to build 743 00:56:31.159 --> 00:56:35.840 the sets physically. But if there were three things you would ask me twenty 744 00:56:35.920 --> 00:56:37.960 years ago that I absolutely would love for the rest of my entire life, 745 00:56:38.079 --> 00:56:43.079 besides the Disney catalog, it would be Star Wars because I grew up with 746 00:56:43.119 --> 00:56:45.599 it and I will love it even though they did stupid things with it. 747 00:56:45.480 --> 00:56:47.320 It would be Marveled because I grew up with the cartoons and my god, 748 00:56:47.360 --> 00:56:50.960 I love that Iron Man and the fourth thing was so great. And it 749 00:56:50.960 --> 00:56:53.519 would be Pixar because it was the genius home of storytelling, the likes of 750 00:56:53.559 --> 00:56:57.960 which we hadn't seen in our entire lives. And what now happens. I 751 00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:02.639 look at Disney Plus on my bill, which is Pixar, Marvel and Star 752 00:57:02.679 --> 00:57:07.039 Wars, and I went eh, and I canceled it. I did too, 753 00:57:07.239 --> 00:57:09.719 just a couple of months ago. It was exactly because they happening. 754 00:57:10.039 --> 00:57:15.000 They had leached out every element of goodwill and interest that I had through a 755 00:57:15.039 --> 00:57:21.119 combination of ideological, emotional storytelling decisions that had nothing to do with the size. 756 00:57:21.159 --> 00:57:25.599 And my point to that is this the golden era of Hollywood's There wasn't 757 00:57:25.639 --> 00:57:30.320 any such but in the studio system they had size. But they also had 758 00:57:30.760 --> 00:57:35.920 a certain way of looking at the audience and the culture and their role in 759 00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:40.320 it that enabled them to turn stuff out. It wasn't all Casablanca, but 760 00:57:40.360 --> 00:57:45.239 the stuff below it was watchable, and part of it I almost sound like 761 00:57:45.239 --> 00:57:47.480 Peter and Robinson there. It was watchable, and you would go to the 762 00:57:47.480 --> 00:57:52.760 theater and sit there for the newsreel and the cartoon and the short feature and 763 00:57:52.840 --> 00:57:55.840 the programmer and the big thing, and that was your night. And that 764 00:57:55.920 --> 00:58:00.320 was big. And they owned the theaters and they owned the actors, and 765 00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:05.119 Bigness worked because of the culture and the attitudes of the people who were running 766 00:58:05.159 --> 00:58:07.000 the show. Says me, what do I know, Well, I mean, 767 00:58:07.039 --> 00:58:12.000 I think that's I think it's partially true. They didn't own the theaters 768 00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:15.760 in the thirties, they were bought busted, and they couldn't block book and 769 00:58:15.800 --> 00:58:17.880 they owned the actors. But that was like the actors like that because they 770 00:58:17.920 --> 00:58:22.039 got these giant fact contracts and they had to do certain certain movies, but 771 00:58:22.280 --> 00:58:25.639 they put the two things that were different. One is they made tons of 772 00:58:25.679 --> 00:58:30.119 movies. They made tons of pictures, like the Paramount released fifty pictures a 773 00:58:30.199 --> 00:58:38.679 year and then not including b movies. And they were terrible, terrible investments. 774 00:58:39.480 --> 00:58:45.559 So nobody in a Wall Street thought of investing in these crazy companies. 775 00:58:45.599 --> 00:58:51.000 They were run by people, and there was cash flow business and individuals got 776 00:58:51.119 --> 00:58:53.199 very, very rich, but shareholders there weren't any. They didn't They didn't 777 00:58:53.199 --> 00:58:58.920 really start getting interested in show business until the sixties. And every single acquisition, 778 00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:01.320 major acquisition of a company, of a large company, of a studio, 779 00:59:01.400 --> 00:59:07.320 and it in tears. There isn't one that hasn't yet. So the 780 00:59:07.400 --> 00:59:12.559 reality is that show business were The argument you're making that they were big was 781 00:59:12.599 --> 00:59:16.400 like, but they were small, and they had a bunch of little little 782 00:59:16.519 --> 00:59:22.440 contraptions within it, and decisions were not they were not vertically integrated, and 783 00:59:22.679 --> 00:59:27.559 they made so many movies that there was no top down supervision of the movies. 784 00:59:27.559 --> 00:59:30.199 There's no marketing department that read a script before they made it. It 785 00:59:30.239 --> 00:59:32.960 was all kind of It was show business the way it's supposed to be, 786 00:59:34.400 --> 00:59:38.679 and it totally worked. And I think what's broken about it now is that 787 00:59:38.719 --> 00:59:43.480 you have a bunch of people who think that if only I was in charge 788 00:59:43.519 --> 00:59:49.519 of everything, then I wouldn't make any mistakes. And that is just not 789 00:59:49.639 --> 00:59:52.480 efficient way to run a movie studio or a TV studio. It's just isn't 790 00:59:52.639 --> 00:59:55.199 like you gotta like make some room for some mistakes, which means vertical integration 791 00:59:55.239 --> 01:00:01.320 is a disaster. And it used to be a law that financial interests and 792 01:00:01.360 --> 01:00:06.000 occasion rules that Nixon put into place in the early seventies because he wanted to 793 01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:08.320 punish the TV networks, so he said that you can't own any TV shows 794 01:00:08.679 --> 01:00:12.880 and then there was deregulation, which I'm in favor of the de regulation of 795 01:00:12.880 --> 01:00:15.840 it, but that doesn't mean that just because you're not regulated from doing something, 796 01:00:15.880 --> 01:00:17.719 you should do it. And everyone thought, oh, you know what, 797 01:00:17.920 --> 01:00:22.800 So so you have this bizarre moment where because of low interest rates, 798 01:00:22.960 --> 01:00:30.159 Netflix could go to Ball Street and raise billions of dollars in debt, make 799 01:00:30.239 --> 01:00:34.800 a lot of TV shows and movies and put them on their servers, and 800 01:00:34.840 --> 01:00:38.920 no one is watching them. The number one show on Netflix this summer is 801 01:00:38.960 --> 01:00:45.360 a USA TV rerun series called Suits, Suits, and every said, well, 802 01:00:45.400 --> 01:00:46.480 that's because Megan Markle's in it. Well was you know? She was 803 01:00:46.519 --> 01:00:50.360 in Suits four years ago, and two years ago and one year ago she 804 01:00:50.480 --> 01:00:52.440 was not. People didn't just discover this summer that she was in Suits. 805 01:00:52.440 --> 01:00:55.039 They're watching Suits because Suits is a pretty good show. It's light, it's 806 01:00:55.119 --> 01:00:58.960 fun, it's interesting. You can watch an hour of it if you were 807 01:00:59.280 --> 01:01:04.440 if you're a yearholder of Netflix, and the number one show on that network 808 01:01:04.519 --> 01:01:08.599 is an almost ten year old rerun. I mean, what is that telling 809 01:01:08.639 --> 01:01:12.199 you? It's telling me that we should end this before I get on a 810 01:01:12.239 --> 01:01:15.880 big, long story about how actually I found myself spending most of my time 811 01:01:15.960 --> 01:01:20.519 on YouTube. The serendiity angle of which and the fastness and the turnover and 812 01:01:20.559 --> 01:01:23.400 the connectivity of it once google notes which you like is terrifying, and the 813 01:01:23.480 --> 01:01:28.280 quantity of commercials is absolutely off putting. But on the other hand, Wow, 814 01:01:28.440 --> 01:01:30.920 the things that you find and the things that you hear here so ladies 815 01:01:30.960 --> 01:01:35.880 and gentlemen listening to this podcast if you haven't already, cancel that stupid streaming 816 01:01:35.920 --> 01:01:38.840 subscription and spend the money on Ricochet, where you will find a community that 817 01:01:38.960 --> 01:01:43.760 is welcoming and interesting and fascinating. The member feed, which you don't have 818 01:01:43.800 --> 01:01:45.320 access to unless you remember, is you know, really where a lot of 819 01:01:45.320 --> 01:01:51.119 the great stuff happens. And by great stuff I mean conversations that go all 820 01:01:51.119 --> 01:01:53.360 over the road. Rob Long of course would usually in this spot tell you 821 01:01:53.400 --> 01:01:57.760 about the meetups to come. But you know the thing about Ricochet meetups about 822 01:01:57.800 --> 01:02:00.480 people getting together in real meat space as we used to not call it, 823 01:02:00.800 --> 01:02:04.159 can be found at ricochet dot com as well. If you go to look 824 01:02:04.199 --> 01:02:07.239 at the panel that says meetups, see if there's one coming into your area, 825 01:02:07.320 --> 01:02:08.960 or join and start one of your own and wants the Ricochet people come 826 01:02:09.000 --> 01:02:13.480 to you. Give us those five stars at Apple Review if you wouldn't mind 827 01:02:13.559 --> 01:02:16.079 so much the podcast, help the show get a little bit more traction, 828 01:02:16.320 --> 01:02:20.719 join, of course, goes without saying and tell us what you thought of 829 01:02:20.719 --> 01:02:23.199 the show in the comments, and we'll see everybody, I usually say at 830 01:02:23.280 --> 01:02:28.119 Ricochet four point Oh. But here's the thing. Thanks, to you. 831 01:02:28.519 --> 01:02:32.400 Thanks to sponsors like an Express VPN, we have invested in something coming, 832 01:02:32.840 --> 01:02:38.119 something good, something wonderful. I'm not in twenty twenty ten when Dave Bowman 833 01:02:38.159 --> 01:02:42.920 appears from the grave and they ask it wonderful, very wonderful. Too bad 834 01:02:42.960 --> 01:02:46.119 they didn't have Peter Laurie for that role. Sending wonderful ric We'll see everybody 835 01:02:46.119 --> 01:02:50.960 in the comments, said Ricochet. Four for now, point out next week, 836 01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:58.519 guys, next week to tell us Ricochet join the conversation.