1 00:00:16,879 --> 00:00:20,960 We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Adrisianski, 2 00:00:21,039 --> 00:00:23,920 culture editor here at The Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:27,800 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST. 4 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:31,039 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to the 5 00:00:31,039 --> 00:00:34,920 premium version of our website as well. It's not often that I can say 6 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:38,759 I'm joined by one of my very favorite writers, one of my very favorite 7 00:00:38,799 --> 00:00:42,719 journalists, But today that's true because Nellie Bowles is here. Nellie Bulls has 8 00:00:42,759 --> 00:00:46,560 just informed me that her formal title at The Free Brass, one of my 9 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:52,280 favorite publications, is Head of Strategy Brilliant Okay, which is also it's a 10 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:56,439 fake title. It's good. But she's also the author, for the purposes 11 00:00:56,439 --> 00:01:00,759 of this interview of Morning After the Revolution Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History 12 00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:04,359 that book us out on May fourteenth. Nelly, welcome to the show. 13 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:10,120 Thank you so much for having me on and for using very importantly my very 14 00:01:10,159 --> 00:01:12,200 real title. Yeah, well, we're all about accuracy here, Nelly. 15 00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:17,519 And we should say also, if you don't subscribe to TGIF, that is 16 00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:21,359 the weekly news newsletter, that Nelly writes, it is one of my very 17 00:01:21,439 --> 00:01:23,920 favorite parts of the week. And actually, Nelly, maybe we could just 18 00:01:23,079 --> 00:01:26,120 start because maybe some people, I don't know if you ran into this, 19 00:01:26,599 --> 00:01:33,079 but just do people know, like exactly the depth of your journalistic bona fides, 20 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:38,079 Like how much like amazing reporting you did before. Whole career has been 21 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:44,760 building out to the moment of doing news summaries largely based on what's going viral 22 00:01:44,799 --> 00:01:49,959 on Twitter. That is the iCal of my journalistic career. But yes, 23 00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:53,400 so that is what I do now. I do a weekly news round up 24 00:01:53,519 --> 00:01:57,920 for the Free Press, which my wife and I started. She really started 25 00:01:57,959 --> 00:02:04,200 and I'm kind of tagging along and help him build it. And it publishes 26 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:07,919 all kinds of things. And every Friday I write of a Huber column summarizing 27 00:02:07,919 --> 00:02:14,080 what's been going on in the world. And yeah, but before that, 28 00:02:14,159 --> 00:02:16,400 I did real journalism. I did. I did lots and lots of it. 29 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:23,560 I started my career at the San Francisco Chronicle, a amazing local paper, 30 00:02:24,319 --> 00:02:29,360 and I started. You're like a seventh generation San Francisco And I think 31 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:34,599 you say in the book like your family is like you're like Joan Didion. 32 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:38,439 She is the Sacramento, you are to San Francisco. I made my dad 33 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:42,599 like do the actual sort of diagram because I could never figure it out. 34 00:02:42,599 --> 00:02:46,319 I think I'm sixth and then and then the next generation now who lives there, 35 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:50,319 is seventh. But yeah, a lot. We've been in San Francisco 36 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:53,680 for forever. I love this. I'm obsessed with it. Now we live 37 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:57,639 in LA because it was hard to convince my wife to move to San Francisco. 38 00:02:57,719 --> 00:03:04,199 But during the pandem it was not the best time to sell our city, 39 00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:07,240 I would say, with all the tent encampments that were happening. But 40 00:03:07,919 --> 00:03:10,479 it's the most beautiful city in the world anyways. So I started there and 41 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:17,319 then I bopped around a little bit freelance, writeful magazines, did a year 42 00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:23,439 on camera advice news, and then joined the New York Times in early twenty 43 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:30,599 eighteen and or maybe end of twenty seventeen, and I was a New York 44 00:03:30,599 --> 00:03:36,360 Times reporter. I was a reporter for the business section and doing business stories 45 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:43,560 and then sort of started doing more general features, big profiles, trend stories, 46 00:03:43,639 --> 00:03:49,199 that kind of thing, some investigations, and it was for a long 47 00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:53,080 time pretty great. I mean I kind of lived my journalistic dream for a 48 00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:58,680 few years there and achieved the pinnacle of what I had set out to achieve 49 00:03:58,719 --> 00:04:04,719 as a aspiring journalist or young aspiring writer, and then you ruined it, 50 00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:14,879 and then very ruined it. No. Then then twenty twenty happened and a 51 00:04:15,039 --> 00:04:17,959 lot changed. And this has been written about now so many times. I 52 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:26,360 mean, it's been written about ad nauseam. But twenty twenty came and journalism 53 00:04:26,839 --> 00:04:35,959 went through a seismic shift, and all of a sudden, the kind of 54 00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:41,759 young cohort that I was in at the New York Times, but at most 55 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:50,079 mainstream publications, a switch flipped and instead a flip switch sorry, And it 56 00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:57,120 was like, we're not here to pursue curiosity and to find the truth of 57 00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:03,040 what's going on. We are here on a mission to do It's beyond like 58 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:10,600 activism. It's like moral clarity. It's almost religious. It's almost like we're 59 00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:13,879 on like a mission, like a bigger mission. But it has nothing to 60 00:05:13,879 --> 00:05:17,199 do with journalism, and it has nothing to do with the kind of values 61 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:20,879 and morals that brought me into it. So anyways, long story short, 62 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:26,560 I ended up leaving The New York Times a few years, like after four 63 00:05:26,639 --> 00:05:33,920 years or so and wrote this book of essays that it starts with like a 64 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:40,360 few pages about the times, but it's not like some violin like woe is 65 00:05:40,439 --> 00:05:48,680 me here I have suffered. Mostly it's a collection of reported essays from the 66 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:57,920 world over the last few years, trying to depict the cultural shift, the 67 00:05:57,959 --> 00:06:00,720 revolution, whatever you want to call it, that we've all seen and lived 68 00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:11,079 through from all the different angles of it. So going to Seattle when neighborhoods 69 00:06:11,079 --> 00:06:17,480 were taken over by Antifa, going to the protests where you see transactivists wanting 70 00:06:17,519 --> 00:06:27,560 to integrate the Women's spa, going to exploring all of these scenes. And 71 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:30,519 in each chapter, I tried to be on the ground in that place, 72 00:06:30,879 --> 00:06:34,120 because that's the training I had in journalism was I was a future reporter, 73 00:06:34,160 --> 00:06:36,480 so I would go and be on the ground and be listening. I mean, 74 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:40,839 I started as a party reporter, so really it's all sort of like 75 00:06:40,879 --> 00:06:46,439 an elaborate version of party reporting. Anyways, I'm rambling now, but that's 76 00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:48,079 my story in a quick nutshell, and how I got to this book, 77 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:54,560 and that's what it is. You're sort of perfectly situated to tell the story 78 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:58,639 from your background A in San Francisco, which is such a battleground in the 79 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:03,160 revolution, and be as somebody who had a front row seat to the revolution 80 00:07:03,279 --> 00:07:06,720 happening inside of media. And actually that's one of the things that struck me 81 00:07:06,759 --> 00:07:10,920 about this book, which I can't recommend enough. It is fantastic. There's 82 00:07:11,079 --> 00:07:17,759 so many fascinating observations in it. But the book is really it describes so 83 00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:23,639 much of what happened in media leading up to twenty twenty, in twenty twenty, 84 00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:27,439 after twenty twenty, and I guess I just wanted to get your perspective 85 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:30,959 on how central the role media played in all of this, because people for 86 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:35,720 so long saw this ideology that was sort of a curiosity festering on the fringes 87 00:07:35,759 --> 00:07:42,040 of academia at Oberlin wherever else, and then suddenly it was like, this 88 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:47,360 is the Oberlin Women Studies Department, except it's like literally the like a desk 89 00:07:47,439 --> 00:07:53,160 at the New York Times. Like, how central is media to all of 90 00:07:53,199 --> 00:07:58,439 this? The idea that these these notions that ever stay fringed. I think 91 00:07:59,079 --> 00:08:03,160 I think I kind of believe that at the start that it was largely harmless 92 00:08:03,199 --> 00:08:07,240 and whatever. Like deconstructionism is something that people talk about in college classrooms and 93 00:08:07,279 --> 00:08:11,199 it's fun to think about, but no one actually wants to like dismantle the 94 00:08:11,279 --> 00:08:15,000 United States, and like those are these are these are more like philosophy, 95 00:08:15,079 --> 00:08:20,720 philosophical fun things to discuss. How important was the media in this? I 96 00:08:20,759 --> 00:08:24,800 think, I mean, obviously, I think the media played a huge role 97 00:08:24,839 --> 00:08:35,200 in this in that it it actively lied to Americans about what was happening and 98 00:08:35,200 --> 00:08:39,360 what and said that what they were seeing was not what they were seeing. 99 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:46,480 And when you walk down the street and you see disorder or whatever, this 100 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:50,399 or that chaos or that, that actually you're not seeing. And I think 101 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:58,840 we all know now that various examples of that during COVID of the media kind 102 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:05,919 of like shutting down discussion in ways that were really inappropriate and discussions that should 103 00:09:05,919 --> 00:09:07,879 have been really fair. And I think people for a few years, I 104 00:09:07,919 --> 00:09:11,519 think less so now, but for a few years lived in a lot of 105 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:20,720 fear of crossing very random, very strong sort of media set rules about here's 106 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:24,120 where discussions are allowed and here's where they're not. And if you talk about 107 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:26,759 the classic example, if you talk about the lably, you're a racist and 108 00:09:26,799 --> 00:09:33,679 like these crazy notions that make no sense, but so as it relates to 109 00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:37,240 the book and like being in it and being in the mainstream media during the 110 00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:43,600 start of this it basically was that all the most interesting stories that were happening 111 00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:50,279 for a few years were off limits to mainstream media reporters. You weren't allowed 112 00:09:50,320 --> 00:09:54,039 to touch them, you weren't allowed to look at them with a curious open 113 00:09:54,080 --> 00:09:56,840 mind, you weren't allowed to find them funny or or to find them to 114 00:09:56,879 --> 00:10:01,639 be something like newsworthy. The book starts with me like obsessively trying to get 115 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:07,679 up to Seattle to cover the Chaz takeover where Antifa took over a neighborhood, 116 00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:11,480 and it was really hard, and I was facing a lot of pressure from 117 00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:13,480 colleagues who are like, why do you want to do this, Like this 118 00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:16,399 is this is a weird thing that you want to go and cover Antifa, 119 00:10:16,519 --> 00:10:20,000 Like why would you want to highlight this? It's not right. We don't 120 00:10:20,039 --> 00:10:24,240 want to show Americans what's happening there. It's not right to do that because 121 00:10:24,240 --> 00:10:30,440 that might give the wrong impression to people. And it sort of drove me 122 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:35,240 a little nuts. And yeah, anyways, I think the media plays a 123 00:10:35,279 --> 00:10:41,120 huge role in this whole thing. And yeah, just in making people fearful 124 00:10:41,159 --> 00:10:43,759 of talking about things they shouldn't be fearful of talking about, or curious about 125 00:10:43,799 --> 00:10:46,120 things that they shouldn't be fearful of being curious about. And people who've never 126 00:10:46,159 --> 00:10:50,559 worked in media might wonder what that process of, you know, being told 127 00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:54,879 or maybe the erection of boundaries, like what that actually looks like in a 128 00:10:54,919 --> 00:10:56,840 newsroom where you say, like you weren't really like you had to push to 129 00:10:56,879 --> 00:11:01,919 go to Seattle where there was this fast which is the most story exactly, 130 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:07,200 So how does that are people telling you don't go to Seattle, Nelly that 131 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:09,039 will help Republicans But like, you know, that's sort of a joke, 132 00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:16,200 but how are those parameters established? I'm serious, I'm not. No, 133 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:24,039 it's not like as subtle as you might think. It really is. Like 134 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:30,759 the Hunter Biden laptop story is inconvenient for Democrats and so we're going to say 135 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:37,759 it's fake news, and like it's like, okay, I also like a 136 00:11:37,759 --> 00:11:41,039 lot of things about Joe Biden, but the Hunter Biden laptop story is not 137 00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:48,799 fake news. Like I can't it's it's it's not crazy making, it's nuts 138 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:54,200 and it's not journalism and it's a boring way to look at the world. 139 00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:56,559 And so yeah, it happens through like very unsubtle ways, but it also 140 00:11:56,600 --> 00:12:01,240 happens through small social ways. So how it applied to me at the times 141 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:11,360 was basically like what you imagine like middle school cafeteria politics to be just little 142 00:12:11,519 --> 00:12:18,320 gentle bullying. And when I would publish something eventually that was anything but the 143 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:24,200 perfect party line, I would have colleagues openly calling me on on Twitter or 144 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:28,120 whatever, calling me a fascist or you know, saying really nasty things about 145 00:12:28,159 --> 00:12:33,039 me. And I think at the time I was quite naive about how this 146 00:12:33,159 --> 00:12:37,039 all worked, and so I was shocked and very upset and so like, 147 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:39,559 you know, emotionally heard. I thought these people were crently, you know, 148 00:12:41,159 --> 00:12:45,320 you get now I can look at it with some amount of distance and 149 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:48,200 now it seems sort of funny or whatever, But at the time it was 150 00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:52,000 very meaningful, and I was very like upset that I was being pushed around 151 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:56,320 on these stories or bullied or called a fascist by people I'd had dinner with. 152 00:12:56,039 --> 00:13:03,600 And it was weird. It was we're super weird. But I think 153 00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:11,679 the other thing was being in San Francisco and being from there. It made 154 00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:18,600 me really open to the idea that maybe some of the policies that were gaining 155 00:13:18,639 --> 00:13:22,919 popularity in twenty twenty through twenty twenty three to I mean, they're still popular 156 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:28,720 now, but when it was really starting, that maybe some of those didn't 157 00:13:28,759 --> 00:13:35,600 actually have the impact that we wanted them to. So you live in San 158 00:13:35,639 --> 00:13:45,440 Francisco, you're seeing really like pure distilled progressive policies in action, but a 159 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:48,720 lot of policies for a long time. If you send them to me, 160 00:13:48,759 --> 00:13:52,080 I would say, yeah, I completely agree. Like we shouldn't punish people 161 00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:58,759 who are addicted to drugs with police, like with Carcero solutions, Like we 162 00:13:58,799 --> 00:14:03,360 shouldn't A lot of those policies make sense to me intuitively and emotionally and with 163 00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:09,360 empathy, and almost person shouldn't be put in jail for being homeless, it's 164 00:14:09,399 --> 00:14:18,519 horrible, like and then living in San Francisco, or like just it's not 165 00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:20,879 all about the street stuff. It's also like, let's say, equity policies 166 00:14:20,879 --> 00:14:26,759 in schools. We all want everyone to succeed more, we all want things 167 00:14:26,759 --> 00:14:31,200 to be more fair, we all want, you know, everyone to do 168 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:35,360 well in school. And so I was also on board with a lot of 169 00:14:35,399 --> 00:14:39,000 the kind of progressive notions around education that you saw put in a place in 170 00:14:39,039 --> 00:14:43,960 San Francisco. The trouble was the actual reality, the actual what actually happened 171 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:50,120 once those policies were put into place in San Francisco led to the opposite outcome 172 00:14:50,519 --> 00:14:54,399 of what was desired, And it was just very hard to deny that. 173 00:14:54,480 --> 00:15:01,039 So even as the press was saying, you know, it's a beautiful thing 174 00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:05,440 to let people have the freedom to sleep on the sidewalks and drugs should be 175 00:15:05,519 --> 00:15:09,759 legal, even as everyone is saying that, everyone's saying it's backed by science 176 00:15:09,799 --> 00:15:13,759 and research and this is the better way. You're walking down the streets and 177 00:15:13,799 --> 00:15:20,799 you're walking past someone who is just dying on the sidewalk, and you're being 178 00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:22,399 told the best thing for you to do is just to walk along, pay 179 00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:26,840 your taxes. Lots of people are helping support that person, but you look 180 00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:31,240 at the numbers and guess what they are just dying on the sidewalks. Like, 181 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:37,919 the actual thing that was happening was brutal, And with the schools with 182 00:15:37,159 --> 00:15:43,159 like the sort of hard left of San Francisco successfully banned eighth grade algebra and 183 00:15:45,919 --> 00:15:48,519 yeah, and because they were like for equity, it was like and literally 184 00:15:48,559 --> 00:15:54,440 the equity was too many Asian students were testing into this and it was kind 185 00:15:54,480 --> 00:15:58,960 of looking weird. And so eighth grade algebra was this was the excel of 186 00:16:00,039 --> 00:16:03,639 rated eighth grade option, and so it was banned, and so everyone had 187 00:16:03,639 --> 00:16:07,440 to take the same sort of class that I would have taken also in eighth 188 00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:14,679 grade, of like mediocre math students. And the result of that, it 189 00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:17,799 is not in the end all of a sudden, kids are all in general 190 00:16:17,879 --> 00:16:19,960 that or at math. It's just that the high achievers didn't get as successful 191 00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:22,879 as they could have. And it just each of these policies I was looking 192 00:16:22,919 --> 00:16:26,919 and I was seeing that it was having kind of the opposite of the intended 193 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:32,159 effect, and it was having it was almost like sort of absurdist actually, 194 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:41,120 And so yeah, I started writing about it and reporting on it. Not 195 00:16:41,279 --> 00:16:45,720 that it's easy to make the street scenes of San Francisco like funny, So 196 00:16:45,759 --> 00:16:48,399 that chapter is not exactly funny, but I tried in the others to be 197 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:52,480 more funny. But anyways, so yeah, that's that's how it started. 198 00:16:52,519 --> 00:16:55,879 And in both the media and being at the New York Times and seeing the 199 00:16:55,919 --> 00:17:02,320 hypocrisy there and also being living in San Francisco and being from Seattle and San 200 00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:07,599 Francisco are gripping and poignant. And that's actually something I wanted to talk to 201 00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:10,599 you about. Is you end the book almost on a hopeful note for San 202 00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:14,319 Francisco. You say sort of this backlash that's happening is real. I think 203 00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:17,640 is the verbiage you use. So I just wanted to see Ellie if you 204 00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:22,279 could one talk to us about what you've watched happen. This is a huge 205 00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:25,640 question, but you know, just basically you talked about a lot of it 206 00:17:25,759 --> 00:17:29,480 just now, but like what San Francisco was like when you were growing up 207 00:17:29,559 --> 00:17:33,359 versus what it is now and why you think the backlash is real. I 208 00:17:33,599 --> 00:17:36,359 know a lot of people have heard about chesa bedeen and all of that, 209 00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:40,160 but is it you know, it doesn't have staying power. Are the people 210 00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:49,119 of San Francisco really going to be counter revolutionaries? I I I think not 211 00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:55,400 counter revolutionaries, but I think there is a movement of the moderate and the 212 00:17:55,480 --> 00:18:00,319 same, the kind of common sense Americans, the people who are not like 213 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:06,960 obsessed with an ideology right or left, who just kind of like want things 214 00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:11,200 to be a little better and want life to be nice and all that, 215 00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:15,440 who are finally, at least in San Francisco, and I think more broadly, 216 00:18:15,839 --> 00:18:22,680 who are finally starting to come out of the woodwork say it's enough and 217 00:18:22,799 --> 00:18:27,160 say like we're not going to be just like bullied and shamed out of saying 218 00:18:27,319 --> 00:18:32,240 reasonable things. So in San Francisco you saw that. I'm sorry I keep 219 00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:34,640 talking about It's just one chapter, I promise to the listeners. There's other 220 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:37,279 chapters. It's not just about my hometown. But I love talking about my 221 00:18:37,279 --> 00:18:41,160 hometown. I'll talk about for hours. But it's also such a good symbol 222 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:45,440 of America, you know, like what's happening? I agree, I think 223 00:18:45,519 --> 00:18:48,559 local reporting on San Francisco could tell you everything you need to know about America. 224 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:57,039 But the basically what happened is after a couple of years of increasing really 225 00:18:57,039 --> 00:19:06,400 insanity and huge numbers of deaths from fentanyl and among the homeless, the schools 226 00:19:07,079 --> 00:19:15,039 just failing. My favorite part was the the school board. Schools were still 227 00:19:15,039 --> 00:19:21,200 shut for COVID obviously in San Francisco, basically shut for like they would have 228 00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:26,240 done it for decades, and yet they were having school board meetings on zoom. 229 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:29,079 We're instead of discussing like how to make the schools COVID safe for like 230 00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:33,119 improved ventilation or whatever. They were discussing which school names needed to be changed 231 00:19:33,519 --> 00:19:40,759 because of the racist history and the racist comments of people such as Dianne Feinstein, 232 00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:45,160 who is deemed as beyond the pale to have a school named after Abraham 233 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:48,519 Lincol. Don't even get me started about like Lincoln or Washington. My god, 234 00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:52,319 so neither of whom was friends with Harvey Milk. Just insane, really, 235 00:19:52,519 --> 00:19:56,680 I don't even want to know what they said about lesbians, and like, 236 00:19:57,519 --> 00:20:00,279 this was just getting so absurd it was hard to deny. And you 237 00:20:00,319 --> 00:20:03,880 had Chessa Boudin as the district attorney, and so the top cop in the 238 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:12,799 city was a socialist, leftist whatever like activist who very strongly didn't believe in 239 00:20:12,839 --> 00:20:21,480 carcerol solutions to problems. So he just didn't believe in the fundamental part of 240 00:20:21,519 --> 00:20:30,359 his job. And so you had really the perfect ground for a major backlash, 241 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,559 and that's what you had. And so for the first time in some 242 00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:37,920 thirty years or whatever, San Francisco had a recall. They recalled Chessa, 243 00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:41,240 they recalled the school board, and it was largely led kernel of it The 244 00:20:41,319 --> 00:20:45,559 reason why the eighth grade algebra thing is so interesting is because the kernel of 245 00:20:45,599 --> 00:20:51,160 it was led by Asian parents who were absolutely sick of being kind of actively 246 00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:56,119 discriminated against and having the rub pulled out from under them for a lot of 247 00:20:56,160 --> 00:21:00,160 the pathways of opportunity that that they built in the city. The one elite 248 00:21:00,319 --> 00:21:06,519 public school, loll was it's sort of elite status was removed by removing the 249 00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:08,839 test that would let people into it. Kind of the stivet city of San 250 00:21:08,839 --> 00:21:15,680 Francisco. Anyways, So you had a moderate revolution for the first time. 251 00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:21,799 I'd never seen that, and it was pretty amazing. And now it's had 252 00:21:21,839 --> 00:21:25,000 a huge number of wins in the city. You see a lot more common 253 00:21:25,039 --> 00:21:27,160 sense policies coming in. I'm not saying that San Francisco is now some like 254 00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:33,519 moderate utopia, but you've had a reformation within the progressive world. Now how 255 00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:41,680 this is covered in the media. It's covered as right wing fascist adjacent activists 256 00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:45,440 funded by right wing billionaires have taken over San Francisco. San Francisco is no 257 00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:48,920 longer progressive city. San Francisco's you know, it's covered in the mainstream media 258 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:55,559 as it's like basically it's like the Kuklux Klan took over the city as far 259 00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:57,880 if you were just reading the mainstream media on this, but it's just a 260 00:21:57,920 --> 00:22:03,200 bunch of like Swiat liberals who were like, maybe we can keep the standardized 261 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:11,319 tests for high school admissions, which, again within the world, like the 262 00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:15,920 Times of Washington Post, is consideredly the outer edge of white supremacy. But 263 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:18,400 yeah, so it did really harden me. And so the end of that 264 00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:22,119 chapter is like really hopeful, and I do, I mean more broadly, 265 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:26,519 I feel really hopeful right now, and like in what we're seeing in a 266 00:22:26,559 --> 00:22:37,880 lot of this kind of centrist moderate revival of like normal people politics. And 267 00:22:41,559 --> 00:22:45,240 it's the constant battle in the Biden administration between the Biden leftists and the Biden 268 00:22:45,279 --> 00:22:52,119 sort of moderates I think are probably more in keeping with him, however alert 269 00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:56,119 he is to the world. But and I think it's a battle happening on 270 00:22:56,160 --> 00:23:00,400 the right too, between the you know, this book really focuses on the 271 00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:06,039 spaces I was in, which are progressive spaces and cities and blue states, 272 00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:08,759 but I think there's a mirror happening on the right for sure, with the 273 00:23:08,759 --> 00:23:17,400 battle between the fringe and the and the centrist moderates anyways, but at least 274 00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:22,839 in progressive spaces there has been a reformation to some extent. Although although now 275 00:23:22,839 --> 00:23:25,400 well now that I'm looking at like schools and what's happening on campus, that's 276 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:30,400 obviously so I can get away. That's what I was going to ask you 277 00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:34,720 about, because the sort of central I think disagreement that some of our listeners, 278 00:23:34,759 --> 00:23:40,720 probably me and then people at the Intercept would have with like what you're 279 00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:45,119 describing, is they would say there's something fundamentally Like the Intercept guys would make 280 00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:49,359 that argument from like a socialist Marxist perspective, like there's something fundamentally broken about 281 00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:55,400 capitalism, therefore downstream of it, everything else is miserable and corrupted. From 282 00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:59,640 the right, there's an argument right now that we have maybe it would come 283 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:03,799 down to secularism or postmodernism that like something broke, that, like Nietzsche saw 284 00:24:03,839 --> 00:24:11,079 something that was happening across the West, it's broken, and here we are. 285 00:24:11,319 --> 00:24:14,319 But what's so interesting about what you're saying is that and I was talking 286 00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:18,720 to Jennifer Say about this last week. A lot of people isn't a lot 287 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,920 of people like jen They feel like, you know, I didn't leave the 288 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,799 Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me. So I've rethought some things, 289 00:24:26,039 --> 00:24:30,599 but I still feel like I'm fundamentally centered in the same place that I always 290 00:24:30,759 --> 00:24:34,200 was. And you know, Bill Ackman is on this odyssey of personal discovery 291 00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,759 to where do you find yourself and all of this, Like, do you 292 00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:41,440 feel as though you've changed anything fundamental in your ideology, that you've come to 293 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:47,359 reject anything that was fundamental in your ideology, or do you feel like it's 294 00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:51,279 this other the trappings of the new left, or are the things that you 295 00:24:51,279 --> 00:24:55,559 can kind of trim and get away get rid of. I think that, 296 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,720 I mean, I think I've become much less idealistic. I think a lot 297 00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:12,200 of the ideas underpinning modern progressivism or modern leftist politics are just super idealistic and 298 00:25:12,559 --> 00:25:18,599 have this vision of humans as being so beautiful and pure and good, like 299 00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:25,519 you can only believe and abolish the police if you think that people by nature 300 00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:30,599 are good and that their souls are kind, and that they don't want to 301 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:34,920 hurt each other, and that if given enough resources, they won't hurt each 302 00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:38,200 other, they won't steal from each other. I mean, part of the 303 00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:42,160 notion of this is so crazy because the idea that like they just need resources. 304 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:45,519 It's like the rich don't do theft, Like are you kidding me? 305 00:25:45,839 --> 00:25:52,519 But that is the idea in those communities, and it was quite effective for 306 00:25:52,640 --> 00:26:00,240 years, but effectively one over the left, the fun movement. But I 307 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:10,720 think I've definitely lost that like idealism around human nature and around Yeah, but 308 00:26:10,839 --> 00:26:17,799 I don't I don't think I identify differently politically. I mean, I don't 309 00:26:17,799 --> 00:26:21,160 know what did you put in TJF last week? You said you identify as 310 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:25,480 like Hillary Owa and someone Hillary Oh wait, and John Betterman posts stroke. 311 00:26:26,799 --> 00:26:32,480 I don't know what happened during that stroke. John Betterman is suddenly my favorite 312 00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,680 politician. But yeah, I mean, I think the whole idea of all 313 00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:41,680 these labels is sort of like ridiculous and doesn't apply to most Americans who identify 314 00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:48,000 its independent or are like swayable, Like it's it becomes kind of like a 315 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:52,839 parlor game of like I think it's probably it's very relevant in DC which political 316 00:26:52,839 --> 00:26:56,920 party you identify with and which politician all that, But I think a lot 317 00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:02,960 of that is unnecessary this point, especially in a place like California where everyone's 318 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:07,039 a Democrat. You're just fighting. It's intra democrat fighting, and so I 319 00:27:07,079 --> 00:27:11,480 guess I would identify as like a moderate Democrat in California and like who knows. 320 00:27:11,759 --> 00:27:18,559 But but largely I think another shift within Naya Vidte saying right, I 321 00:27:18,599 --> 00:27:26,480 think I'm mispassing so many words. Is the both on the right and on 322 00:27:26,519 --> 00:27:33,200 the left. Right now, you see a desire for kind of revolution and 323 00:27:33,279 --> 00:27:38,839 a desire for big change. Throw it all out like restart and we'll figure 324 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:45,680 it out. On the other side, and I think I am more skeptical 325 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:51,880 of that than I was, and I now am more for technocratic small changes 326 00:27:52,039 --> 00:27:56,240 and improvements in the world because I don't know of the revolution. I don't 327 00:27:56,279 --> 00:28:00,319 know, like what you see when Antiva take over a neighborhood in Seattle, 328 00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:06,480 it's certainly a revolution, but I don't know if we need to start from 329 00:28:06,559 --> 00:28:10,359 scratch, like America's got problems, but I'm not sure we need a full 330 00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:15,839 overthrow of our city governments, any full overthrow of our police, like the 331 00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,160 police can certainly be improved, but I don't know if they need to be 332 00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:26,519 abolished. Per se, you are not qualified to be the mayor of Minneapolis. 333 00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:33,039 But okay, so actually on that point, I'm gonna start a campaign 334 00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:37,960 for small improvements over time. Actually probably very attractive to a lot of people, 335 00:28:38,119 --> 00:28:44,359 especially in San Francisco. But a moderate California Democrat who perhaps owns an 336 00:28:44,519 --> 00:28:45,839 AR fifteen, like, do you actually this is I think it's early in 337 00:28:45,839 --> 00:28:52,000 the book. Did you actually go out and buy an AR fifty? No 338 00:28:52,119 --> 00:28:59,920 comment on my personal home safety incredible regiment. No, no, no, 339 00:29:00,319 --> 00:29:06,279 genuinely, I I'm not anti gun, though I don't I don't know. 340 00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:10,480 I mean, was that always the case? Yeah? I grew up. 341 00:29:10,519 --> 00:29:15,000 I grew up around guns and shooting, and my dad's side of the family 342 00:29:15,039 --> 00:29:19,480 are farmers in the Central Valley, and this is why San Francisco is such 343 00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:23,279 a symbol. There's duck hunting out there. Yeah, But my job, 344 00:29:23,319 --> 00:29:27,480 honestly mostly was like doing the little duck calls. I was the one making 345 00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,680 the squawks with the duck call to get the ducks to the area. Because 346 00:29:32,839 --> 00:29:37,759 I'm not known as a great shot in my family. I would say that's 347 00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:41,480 one of the reasons of that California's decline is so again so poignance, because 348 00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:45,880 California has like the frontier history, and there was so much help, like 349 00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,200 if you're listening to the beginning of La Confidential and they're rolling these old ads 350 00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:53,839 of the American dream being you know something that you can discover in San Francisco. 351 00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:59,480 You can live this wonderful middle class life and it's sort of self exploration 352 00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:04,880 and becoming self made American, and it's all it seems like it's almost impossible 353 00:30:06,119 --> 00:30:08,880 to be middle class in California, almost impossible to feel like your family is 354 00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:15,480 safe in California. It's just been such a rapid flipping of what California stands 355 00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:21,839 for. I mean, like, let's just talk about housing. That is 356 00:30:21,839 --> 00:30:26,960 a kind of perfect example of progressive idealism getting in the way of the stated 357 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:34,519 goal. So let's say the goal is more housing, affordable housing. Yeah, 358 00:30:36,359 --> 00:30:40,599 the actual thing that progressives are doing in California is blocking housing at every 359 00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:45,960 single turn and making it so you know, you want to turn a parking 360 00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:51,799 lot into a duplex, and you will face years, if not decades, 361 00:30:51,799 --> 00:30:55,920 of environmental reviews that are thrown at you. Obviously, this got to a 362 00:30:56,279 --> 00:31:00,839 kind of comedic state in San Francisco where you're trying to declare laundromats as historic 363 00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:06,400 and all this stuff. But it's the whole state. And and it's this 364 00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:11,799 is another kind of like bizarre flip. It's considered right wing to want to 365 00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:18,720 let people build apartments in California, and it's considered crazy to suggest that supply 366 00:31:18,759 --> 00:31:22,640 and demand might be a factor in housing prices. Like that is considered like 367 00:31:23,039 --> 00:31:30,880 the wildest edge of economic thinking. And I it's another that was another kind 368 00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:34,880 of point. I read about it a little bit in the book. There's 369 00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:41,400 like a fetishization of homeless encampments and of the homeless as like a visible symbol 370 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,480 of capitalism's declined. And I think that a lot of those folks are sort 371 00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:56,680 of used as a prop in very smart leftist thinkers political dramas that they're setting 372 00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:04,279 up. And those same thinkers then are very resistant to any efforts to actually 373 00:32:04,359 --> 00:32:10,440 make housing more portable in California or in the American West. Just timing at 374 00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:15,559 every level, and they usually use similar tactics. It's usually environmental reviews and 375 00:32:15,599 --> 00:32:19,720 all this, and it's sort of like, you can't build a three story 376 00:32:19,759 --> 00:32:23,960 building there it will cast a shadow for twenty minutes a year on our chicken 377 00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:29,119 coop in our backyard. And are you against backyard chickens? And it's like, 378 00:32:29,519 --> 00:32:37,680 what are you talking about? So it's just it's so frustrating because the 379 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:43,160 politics of this get really bizarre, and all of a sudden it's called like 380 00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:50,599 right wing to want affordable housing for people, and it's crazy. And I 381 00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,759 just sort of reject first of all those labels that are thrown at people who 382 00:32:53,759 --> 00:33:01,480 do this, and it's just another great example of ideals lead to literally the 383 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:06,000 opposite of the stated thing. And you could say, maybe there's some of 384 00:33:06,039 --> 00:33:09,880 these people who are actually idealists, and maybe some of them are just very 385 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:16,000 very clever and don't want more housing because it will make their house price go 386 00:33:16,079 --> 00:33:21,920 down, or they don't want they don't want things to get better actually because 387 00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:25,160 they benefit in some way from the chaos or from the high costs or whatever, 388 00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,880 and that they're using this supposed idealism. So that's that's also a fair 389 00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:35,119 argument that it's not actually truly held believe you know. Yeah, I was 390 00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:38,039 actually while I was reading this book, I in the middle was listening to 391 00:33:38,039 --> 00:33:42,160 the Free presss. I think it's the latest podcast you guys did with Paul 392 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,119 Kingsnorth and oh he's amazing, absolutely, and on this environmental question of watching 393 00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:50,880 the sort of state of desire differ so dramatically from the outcomes, and that 394 00:33:51,039 --> 00:34:00,359 ground even desire is The environmentalist movement is the most frustrating leftist movement right now 395 00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:05,680 by far, because the sticks are really high, Like you want the environment 396 00:34:05,799 --> 00:34:07,159 to be you want the water to be clean and the air to be clean, 397 00:34:07,239 --> 00:34:15,760 and speak yourself, but you've got this movement, Like my favorite is 398 00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,199 the Sunrise movement, which I reference a little bit in the book, But 399 00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:29,159 it's like supposedly the movement of Zoomer Zoomer millennial or environmentalists. It's supposed to 400 00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:30,960 be like the big cool gathering. It's got the best website, it's got 401 00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:36,519 all the graphics, it's like really chic and hip, and they're doing stuff 402 00:34:36,559 --> 00:34:42,639 that is absolutely antithetical to environmentalism. Plus most of what they're there, if 403 00:34:42,679 --> 00:34:45,480 you look at their social media or look at what they're actually protesting, it's 404 00:34:45,519 --> 00:34:50,440 all like around abortion, or around is your Palestine, or around defund the 405 00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,320 police, or it's like all of these other issues that have nothing to do 406 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:59,719 with gathering a coalition of people to want to support clean air and clean water, 407 00:35:00,199 --> 00:35:04,199 want to clean up this or the that, Like it's antithetical to the 408 00:35:04,199 --> 00:35:09,360 actual cause. Yeah, the environmental was a movement today needs needs a major 409 00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:17,440 reformation. So you write about Patrice's Colors and an amazing character, which is 410 00:35:17,559 --> 00:35:22,119 a beautiful perfect and you know the founders of Black Lives Matter, right, 411 00:35:22,199 --> 00:35:27,320 And you have this great quote from w Comal Bell that I had totally either 412 00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,480 mister forgotten about. This is a thing he said on CNN owned by like 413 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:35,920 Time Warner. Quote. Antifa is short for anti fascist. Picture a table. 414 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,280 On one side of the table is Hitler and Mussolini and on the other 415 00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,920 side is the popular performer Raffi. Which side of the table are you sitting 416 00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:46,119 on? I'm with Raffi. So this brings us to the kind of class 417 00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:50,880 question and Patrice's Colors is a good example of that too. A self proclaimed 418 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:57,079 Marxist who takes the BLM money and quite literally builds a mansion. And you 419 00:35:57,159 --> 00:36:00,360 have w come Alball Bell talking about this on corporate media on CNN for one 420 00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:04,320 of the biggest corporations in the world, with not a hint of self awareness. 421 00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:07,239 So these are really self proclaimed class warriors. I mean, these are 422 00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:14,360 people who believe that what they're doing is rooted in a sort of centering of 423 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:17,599 the working class. Where does the left or where did the left sort of 424 00:36:17,639 --> 00:36:21,760 go wrong in this revolution? How central is class to all of this. 425 00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:29,159 It's a core part of this, I think, on that sort of situation 426 00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:35,360 in particular, it also goes back to the media question, because these were 427 00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:40,880 groups like BLM was a group that was fundraising and taking huge amounts of money 428 00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,480 and spending it in ways that we're not being reported on, and that we're 429 00:36:45,559 --> 00:36:52,679 not being covered and tracked by the real heavyweight investigative reporters in our country. 430 00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:57,199 It was being ignored intentionally because it would be so inconvenient. And so you 431 00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:02,599 had this group raising huge amounts of money off of the names of murdered children 432 00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:09,400 often I mean to me Rize, raising enormous sums of money and spending it 433 00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:15,440 in ways that were basically unscrutinized. And I mean the most hilarious example, 434 00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:22,159 of course, is they bought a multimillion dollar mansion in La with like a 435 00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:28,000 sound stage, and it looked like a great party house. I mean, 436 00:37:28,039 --> 00:37:31,760 I can't say they made a bad party house choice, but they bought a 437 00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:37,159 party house, a very safe space, a very very safe space for the 438 00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,320 leadership who needed that safe space. But it's just I mean, it's theft, 439 00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:44,000 right. It might not be legally theft, and maybe it's allowed, 440 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:51,159 but it's stealing from people who donated thinking they were helping the cause of life 441 00:37:51,199 --> 00:37:55,960 for black Americans. And because the media refused to cover it for so long, 442 00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,320 it allowed for that theft to take place, and because it was for 443 00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:02,840 boten to talk about, and we're boten to say, you know, what's 444 00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:09,760 going on? Where is this money going? And in part yeah, like 445 00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:14,880 you were just referencing. Of course, it is a class issue, because 446 00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:20,159 all of these issues are kind of irrelevant to the rich, Like how is 447 00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,480 it it's actually nice if you own your own house, you don't want more 448 00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:27,280 housing to be built, so you want to give to the Sierra Club to 449 00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:32,840 block new housing and to make it impossible. You might not even want wind 450 00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:38,119 power because the sound of that wind power might annoy you when you're in your 451 00:38:38,159 --> 00:38:42,920 weekend house in Napa, and so you might give to the Sierra Club also 452 00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:47,199 to block more wind power whatever and request environmental reviews to stop it up. 453 00:38:49,199 --> 00:38:57,679 If you're really rich or even upper middle class, safety in the streets isn't 454 00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,079 the most relevant thing, you can get good home security, or maybe you 455 00:39:02,119 --> 00:39:07,840 live in New York City in an apartment where you're up five levels that makes 456 00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:12,559 you inherently safer, or you've got a doorman that makes you extraordinarily safe. 457 00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:17,199 Public safety is basically irrelevant if you live in an apartment in New York with 458 00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:23,119 a doorman and take cabs, and a lot of our media world does live 459 00:39:23,199 --> 00:39:31,800 like that. Like I'm thinking lately about personal safety more in part because of 460 00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:40,000 my wife with her just whacky need to have political ideas. But literally, 461 00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:44,039 we're thinking we want to move to a doorman building in New York City because 462 00:39:44,039 --> 00:39:47,679 that's the safest place to live. No wonder these people think it's absurd to 463 00:39:47,679 --> 00:39:52,239 talk about public safety or think it's pure racism to talk about public safety. 464 00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:57,159 They're not living in a neighborhood where it actually matters. And you can play 465 00:39:57,159 --> 00:39:59,480 that out with so many of these things. Let's say take the schools. 466 00:40:00,199 --> 00:40:05,679 Many of the activists who are for eliminating the tests to get into stuiveit Center 467 00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:08,239 into Lull any of these elite public schools. They don't send their kids to 468 00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:15,920 public high school. It's irrelevant, it doesn't matter. It's just an ideas 469 00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:19,679 game, and like we talked about, the ideas behind it are often beautiful. 470 00:40:20,519 --> 00:40:22,280 All people are equal. Why do we have a test? Like all 471 00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:29,400 these notions are these wacky, beautiful ideas. But the class issue is basically 472 00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,079 that a lot of the philosophies and policies that were thrust on America for the 473 00:40:32,159 --> 00:40:39,920 last four years come from people to whom they don't apply and to whom it 474 00:40:40,039 --> 00:40:45,440 makes no difference. Why don't they see that because people have been pointing this 475 00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:49,760 out for at least five plus years now. Definitely luxury beliefs, Rob Henderson, 476 00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:54,000 I mean right, beautifully. I mean that's be able to it falls 477 00:40:54,000 --> 00:41:04,480 on deaf ears. It's like it doesn't consciousness why. I mean, that's 478 00:41:04,519 --> 00:41:09,360 like a psychological question. I think that a lot of them are true believers 479 00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:15,079 and think it can be done right. And maybe there will be initial suffering 480 00:41:15,159 --> 00:41:22,599 in this neighborhood as we figure out the new form of police, but eventually 481 00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:24,559 it will be beautiful and they will be happy and they will like this. 482 00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:30,239 I think there's some of that thinking, and then I think some of it 483 00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:36,679 is just genuine provincialism. I think some of these people have lived in a 484 00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,760 beautiful wealthy neighborhood of Brooklyn for all their life. Maybe they come from a 485 00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:45,079 suburb that was also safe. They just have no concept of it. They 486 00:41:45,119 --> 00:41:52,960 don't think of themselves necessarily as if a critical or as elites, and it's 487 00:41:52,119 --> 00:42:00,679 just kind of the blindness that comes with the provincialism of that and the foolishness 488 00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:07,000 that comes with that. Well, now let's end on a vibe check because 489 00:42:07,119 --> 00:42:12,239 I feel like you're now one of those people that is a magnet, likely 490 00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:16,280 for the gripes of other people who are still inside the industry. Maybe they're 491 00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:23,920 inside the Democratic Party, They're probably inside the nonprofit sort of infrastructure. Your 492 00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:28,800 optimism, I imagine, has to be informed to some extent by what you 493 00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:31,440 hear from other people who are in a similar position to you. So what 494 00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:35,599 are you what are you hearing? I mean, do you think this is 495 00:42:35,639 --> 00:42:40,000 really something that has momentum. I'm optimistic because I am seeing some pushback and 496 00:42:40,039 --> 00:42:44,599 I am seeing movements that are happening that are like, no, we don't 497 00:42:44,639 --> 00:42:50,840 want to do this, and yes we weren't common sense. I don't know 498 00:42:50,880 --> 00:43:00,079 if I'm like bigly fully optimistic. What I'm seeing vibe check wise is a 499 00:43:00,119 --> 00:43:05,719 lot of people interested in coming to the free press. I think there is 500 00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:10,559 some amount of corrective happening inside big newsrooms where like for a few years, 501 00:43:10,679 --> 00:43:16,719 the Slack channels were a major place where people would police reporters who step out 502 00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:21,840 of line, and it would basically be a public drumming of some reporter in 503 00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:27,840 front of a few thousand other reporters. And those channels have been shut down 504 00:43:28,599 --> 00:43:31,000 Slack for few I don't if you don't know what slack is, God bless 505 00:43:31,039 --> 00:43:36,360 If you do, you know what I'm talking about. And I think there's 506 00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:45,000 been some amount of leadership trying to say to the younger employees, you know 507 00:43:45,039 --> 00:43:52,280 that we follow a set of rules here. But I'm not optimistic about our 508 00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:59,599 big news organizations or something to like reform themselves. And I think that's also 509 00:43:59,639 --> 00:44:04,760 okay. Like I'm optimistic about the ecosystem of journalism and the writing. I'm 510 00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:08,400 optimistic about the new places that are sprouting up and the competition that's happening. 511 00:44:09,679 --> 00:44:15,840 But I don't think like the Washington Post or the New York Times are going 512 00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:24,320 to be having some internal reformation anytime soon. I was worried about it for 513 00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:30,079 a little while because for our business. If one of those places decided to 514 00:44:30,159 --> 00:44:34,800 become a little less crazy by even like five percent, we're in trouble. 515 00:44:35,039 --> 00:44:45,280 And blessedly they have decided to stay the course and continue on their mission of 516 00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:51,920 telling a very narrow perspective of what's going on in America and of the issues 517 00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,559 of the day. Someday the Free Press can buy The New York Times. 518 00:44:55,360 --> 00:45:00,400 Absolutely, Yes, that's the plan. That's our eighteen month plan. Yes. 519 00:45:00,079 --> 00:45:04,880 Well again. The book is called Morning After the Revolution, Dispatches from 520 00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:07,400 the Wrong Side of History. It's out May fourteenth. Cannot recommend it enough. 521 00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:12,760 It's a super fun and fascinating read. Nellie Bowls, thank you for 522 00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,119 joining us. I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much for having 523 00:45:15,159 --> 00:45:19,679 me on its pleasure, of course, even listening to another edition of The 524 00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,159 Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Leksashinski, culture editor here at The Federalist. Will 525 00:45:22,159 --> 00:45:25,320 be back soon with more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious 526 00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:35,320 for the fray. You right, well, you