1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:02,960 I try to look nice for you, and I get no credit. Ask 2 00:00:03,359 --> 00:00:09,039 not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for 3 00:00:09,119 --> 00:00:16,960 your country. Mister Garbuchaw, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast 4 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,600 with Rob Long and Steven Award sitting in for Peter Robinson. I'm James Lylyx, 5 00:00:20,600 --> 00:00:24,280 and today we talked to Glenn Lowry about his new autobiography and more so, 6 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:27,640 let's have ourselves a podcast. If you want to characterize it as a 7 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:31,519 failure, I leave it to you. What I can tell you is that 8 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:36,640 we don't control the weather. You better believe that US Central Command Forces are 9 00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:39,799 going to do everything in their power to make sure that this is back and 10 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:45,320 operational as soon as possible. America is a nation that can be defined in 11 00:00:45,399 --> 00:00:51,759 a single word. How does foot him to put? Excuse me? Well, 12 00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:55,000 Hello, welcome. I'm James Lylyx. This is his podcast number six 13 00:00:55,119 --> 00:00:59,920 hundred and ninety four, moving inexorably to another number seven hundred. Steven Hayward 14 00:00:59,920 --> 00:01:02,240 is sitting here for Peter. Rob is with us as well. We're going 15 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:03,120 to go to our guests in just a second. But I got to say 16 00:01:03,319 --> 00:01:07,200 we're at a hard point here because the verdict isn't in, so we don't 17 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:11,719 know. And when the verdict does come in, we'll be back next week, 18 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:15,519 after which it will be chewed, digested and will be extremely old news. 19 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:18,359 It'll be the beef jerky as opposed to these about to be served to 20 00:01:18,359 --> 00:01:19,959 Filly minual that it is now. I have no idea what's going to happen 21 00:01:19,959 --> 00:01:23,000 to Andrew McCarthy says he's going to be found guilty. The instructions to the 22 00:01:23,079 --> 00:01:26,480 jury seem to indicate that they can find him guilty of maybe showing up one 23 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:30,560 day and scratching his left ear lobe and therego he goes to jail. I 24 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:37,120 don't know, very briefly, like twenty seconds predictions, gentlemen, which time 25 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:42,200 may or may not bear out. I don't know anything about any of this 26 00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:47,359 stuff, so I base it only on Annie McCarthy and then the few smart 27 00:01:47,439 --> 00:01:51,400 lawyers I have follow on Twitter, which looks like the jury came back with 28 00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:57,079 questions that seem to indicate they are looking for a way to convict. Yeah, 29 00:01:57,120 --> 00:01:59,359 and Steven, you's right, Stephen, You're in Europe, where I'm 30 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:05,000 sure the cap are a buzz with this. Oh yes, and I'm trying 31 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:07,560 to watch it from afar. I mean, the first day with all the 32 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:10,240 questions and asking for the judges instructions to be read back. That sounds to 33 00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:14,039 me like this is going to go a long while. And I went forrob. 34 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:15,039 I think that in the case that they do want to convict him, 35 00:02:15,039 --> 00:02:17,520 but they're going to have to take their time to do it. I was 36 00:02:17,599 --> 00:02:22,599 once on a jury that for a five week, very difficult trial for twenty 37 00:02:22,599 --> 00:02:27,199 eight felony counts, and the guy's guilt was not in question, very strong 38 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:29,560 case, but it was very strange, but it still took us a couple 39 00:02:29,599 --> 00:02:31,800 of days to work through all the charges one by one and come up with 40 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:36,479 guilty verdics on every one of them. And this one will be much harder, 41 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:39,199 I think. So it'll be studied for an awful long time and eventually 42 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:43,960 scientists, I think we'll be able to discern the likelihood of the likelihood of 43 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:46,879 conviction based on the number of veins popping in Robert Nero's forehead. It's a 44 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:51,080 metric we have at looked at before, but it's one that we should well, 45 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,199 you know, we'll get to that. There's a whole bunch of podcasts 46 00:02:53,199 --> 00:02:57,520 in Ricochet that are smart and legally and Laurel Lee and all those other great 47 00:02:57,560 --> 00:03:00,879 smart stuff, so you will go to them to get to the minute comments 48 00:03:00,919 --> 00:03:05,280 and observations about what has happened. What we are going to do today is 49 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:09,360 give you the long view with a great man. And now we welcome back 50 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:14,919 to the podcast. Glenn Lowry the Merton P. Stultz Professor of the Social 51 00:03:14,919 --> 00:03:17,800 Sciences and Professor of Economics of Brown University. He's the host of the Glenn 52 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:21,599 Show podcast. You can find uh you know, well, you know on 53 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:24,759 a substack and that Ricoshet dot complation might have heard something about. Glenn is 54 00:03:24,759 --> 00:03:30,000 also the author of the newly published Late Admissions Confessions of a Black Conservative. 55 00:03:30,159 --> 00:03:35,080 Glenn, welcome back to the show. Thanks very much. James introduction. 56 00:03:35,919 --> 00:03:40,439 You say something that I'm sure raises eyebrows and it makes people lean in wanting 57 00:03:40,439 --> 00:03:45,360 to hear more. You say, I'm going to tell you things about myself 58 00:03:45,639 --> 00:03:50,560 that no one would want anybody to think was true of them. Well, 59 00:03:50,639 --> 00:03:55,639 let's start. You want me to tell you something about myself that no one 60 00:03:55,639 --> 00:03:59,960 would want anyone to think those two of them, Yeah, I think so. 61 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:01,199 I mean, you can leave some for the book. But you know, 62 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:06,840 having said that, we are curious, I mean killed a man and 63 00:04:06,879 --> 00:04:10,719 Reno, just killed a man in Reno just to watch him die. I 64 00:04:10,719 --> 00:04:15,840 mean, that's the you know, that's pretty well not quite. I was 65 00:04:15,879 --> 00:04:21,199 a cocaine addict and had to be hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital for two months 66 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:28,040 in my effort to stop using, which was fitful and went on over the 67 00:04:28,079 --> 00:04:31,759 course of a year. I did eventually free myself from dependency on that substance, 68 00:04:31,839 --> 00:04:35,680 but it was a real struggle. How did that change your attitude towards 69 00:04:35,759 --> 00:04:40,199 addiction, because that's that's one of those things that's fraught in the discourse today 70 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:43,680 because of you know, what we've seen on the streets, the plank of 71 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,759 difficult drugs like fentanyl and the rest of it. People describe a moral responsibility 72 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:50,199 to them, some don't. I mean, how it has that shifted and 73 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:55,480 altered your your perspective on that problem that wein Well, I do have a 74 00:04:55,600 --> 00:05:00,600 wealth of personal experience with how hard it is to actually get clear and stay 75 00:05:00,639 --> 00:05:03,560 clean a day at a time and all of that. This is the school 76 00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:10,480 of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. It's a personal struggle. It's a question 77 00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:18,839 of self command. I don't have a big philosophical position on the basis of 78 00:05:18,879 --> 00:05:23,759 that experience. I have sympathy for people who struggle with this problem, but 79 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:30,959 I'm also aware of the dangers of enabling and the fact that actually nobody can 80 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:33,079 do it for you. You have to do it for yourself at the end 81 00:05:33,079 --> 00:05:36,920 of the day. But these are nostrums or platitudes. I don't have any 82 00:05:36,959 --> 00:05:41,240 real wisdom for you on this, James, Well, you know, glad, 83 00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:44,560 if I can jump in, I think you're understating your achievement here. 84 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:48,839 And I mean the literary style of your memoir I think is really quite extraordinary 85 00:05:48,920 --> 00:05:55,199 because you not only combine some intellectual content. There's poetry. I mean you 86 00:05:55,240 --> 00:06:00,399 go from poetry to quadratic equations in the space of five pages. But you 87 00:06:00,439 --> 00:06:05,240 know, telling your personal story, you know, confronting you know, failure, 88 00:06:05,399 --> 00:06:14,800 fear, redemption, doubts, professional success. Uh oh, I mean 89 00:06:15,079 --> 00:06:17,560 there's several parts that robbed me literally to tears. You know, you're you're 90 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:21,519 young, with your son Alden for example. And in fact, I'll tell 91 00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:27,000 listeners that if you if you're not grabbed by the preface, then the page 92 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:30,360 and the half glen about your father in the first chapter will make people not 93 00:06:30,399 --> 00:06:33,399 be able to put the book down. Uh. And I'm reading all that 94 00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:35,959 sort of the political and philosophical and other stuff. So I mean, you 95 00:06:36,079 --> 00:06:40,759 weave together an extraordinary narrative that has this tremendousness. All right, there's my 96 00:06:40,839 --> 00:06:44,279 dust jacket blurb. I'll stop about all that. Well, let me let 97 00:06:44,319 --> 00:06:46,240 me comment, Steve, let me comment. I mean, first of all, 98 00:06:46,279 --> 00:06:49,279 about the preface, and thanks James for mentioning it. I say, 99 00:06:49,319 --> 00:06:54,839 I'm playing a game with the reader in that I'm the author of my own 100 00:06:54,959 --> 00:06:58,120 account. This is my life. I'm telling you the story. I am 101 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:00,240 telling you the story of my life. You, if you're wise as a 102 00:07:00,279 --> 00:07:06,240 reader, should be on the lookout for me manipulating my control over the narrative 103 00:07:06,319 --> 00:07:11,279 on behalf of my own objectives. This is a game. Theoretic insight that 104 00:07:11,439 --> 00:07:15,480 you know, if you're an economist, comes readily to mind. And therefore 105 00:07:15,519 --> 00:07:16,879 I have a problem. How do I persuade you to trust what it is? 106 00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:21,920 And I'm telling you about myself, and I make the observation that you 107 00:07:21,959 --> 00:07:26,600 know I'm going to tell you stuff that is not really pretty and that's not 108 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:30,240 all that crediting to me at one level, but the fact that I'm willing 109 00:07:30,279 --> 00:07:34,360 to tell it to you should win over your trust in me as a reliable 110 00:07:34,439 --> 00:07:39,319 narrator, and I can use that. I can use that confidence that you 111 00:07:39,399 --> 00:07:43,319 have. This guy, this scumbag, this miscreant, this complete failure of 112 00:07:43,319 --> 00:07:46,000 a human being, isn't the same guy who's telling me about his failures and 113 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:50,480 his triumphs over his failures and so forth. And that's my effort to both 114 00:07:50,519 --> 00:07:56,319 be truthful to the narrative of my life, but at the same time not 115 00:07:56,439 --> 00:08:01,120 to leave myself completely discredited in the eye of the reader. And the preface 116 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:03,439 of the book, where I make this observation about the game, is meant 117 00:08:03,439 --> 00:08:07,759 to foreshadow for the reader the fact that as you go forward, there's a 118 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:11,680 lot of stuff about Glenn Lowry's life that's not pretty, and that he's going 119 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:15,000 to be telling you about. Well, sure, I get all that, 120 00:08:15,879 --> 00:08:18,680 but I've always known you're a great writer. I've been reading you for years. 121 00:08:20,079 --> 00:08:22,399 But this cannot have been an easy book to have written, and it 122 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:28,600 what made you decide to really lay it all out there. It was not 123 00:08:28,639 --> 00:08:37,039 an easy book to write, and I came to the conclusion that, you 124 00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:43,399 know, I needed to come clean some of the stuff, the discrediting stuff. 125 00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:48,440 Residency and a psychiatric hospital for drug addiction, having to withdraw from a 126 00:08:48,519 --> 00:08:52,720 high level appointment in the government, the federal government because of a scandal with 127 00:08:52,759 --> 00:08:58,759 a mistress and the accusation of assault, and a secret apartment, and all 128 00:08:58,799 --> 00:09:05,840 that. The abandonment of my son Alden at birth and not really developing a 129 00:09:05,879 --> 00:09:11,399 relationship with him until he was an adult. The failure to live up to 130 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:16,720 what I and others thought was my intellectual and academic promise as a young, 131 00:09:16,879 --> 00:09:22,399 tenured professor of economics at Harvard specializing in technical economics and microeconomic theory, applied 132 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:31,320 theory, writing models and getting published in journals, and my embrace of another 133 00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:37,600 kind of professional life as a social critic and public intellectual and a pundit right 134 00:09:37,639 --> 00:09:41,000 of center, to be sure, but nevertheless not publishing in the American Economic 135 00:09:41,039 --> 00:09:45,799 Review for a decade kind of thing. What happened to me at Harvard in 136 00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:48,639 the early nineteen eight all of these different things. I wanted to come to 137 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:54,240 terms with these things for myself. I mean, there's a therapeutic dimension, 138 00:09:54,399 --> 00:10:03,080 there's a kind of self knowledge dimension. One of my dear friends and colleagues 139 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,840 was the late great economist Thomas Schelling, who wrote about the problem of self 140 00:10:07,840 --> 00:10:15,960 command, about the conflict of the game between two instantiations of the same individual, 141 00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:20,000 one of whom would want not to use cocaine and the other whom would 142 00:10:20,039 --> 00:10:24,600 spend his last dollar to get high, And how it is that one, 143 00:10:24,720 --> 00:10:31,480 as an economic specialist or game theorist, can conceptualize that kind of internal struggle. 144 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:35,200 And I was very much intermortive that, both because I respect and admired 145 00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:39,679 Tom as an economist, but also because I had struggled and come out the 146 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:45,799 other side of a struggle with addiction. But self command and self knowledge, 147 00:10:45,799 --> 00:10:50,039 these are very closely related things. It seems to me that if you're not 148 00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:54,799 willing to be honest with yourself about what's actually going on in your life, 149 00:10:54,799 --> 00:10:58,120 what has gone on, what your failures were, what your fears were, 150 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:03,679 what you unrealized hopes were, What were the temptations to which you succumbed. 151 00:11:05,039 --> 00:11:09,759 Why did you do that stupid thing that you did that costs you so much? 152 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:15,679 Why did you not take more care of the nurturing of the relationship with 153 00:11:15,720 --> 00:11:20,039 your wife, or with your children. These kinds of questions. These are 154 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:24,080 questions I had in my mind when I began writing this book, to which 155 00:11:24,080 --> 00:11:26,919 I didn't really know the answers. I'm not sure I know them now. 156 00:11:26,039 --> 00:11:30,080 Ah. Well, that I have whole bunch of political questions for you, 157 00:11:30,159 --> 00:11:33,600 I'm going to put off, But I have one last personal one that will 158 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:37,879 be of interest to Rob who's shortly to DeCamp to Divinity School. Part of 159 00:11:37,919 --> 00:11:41,960 your story in the middle, and including, by the way, the wonderful 160 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:45,279 anecdote of being chewed out by Richard John Neuhouse, who I knew a bit 161 00:11:46,240 --> 00:11:48,480 right. But part of it is you know the role of religious faith and 162 00:11:48,519 --> 00:11:54,639 helping to overcome addictions. But then your admission that some lingering doubts have crept 163 00:11:54,679 --> 00:11:56,679 in. It wasn't quite clear to me where you landed. It sounds a 164 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,919 little bit like the famous quote of the Latin Tertullian Right, who said, 165 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:07,080 what would I don't Lord help vow my unbelief? So say a little bit 166 00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:09,600 about that, and if you can share with us where you've landed now. 167 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:18,279 So in the late eighties, when I was struggling with addiction, I came 168 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:24,840 under the influence of and allowed myself to be completely won over by the evangelical 169 00:12:24,919 --> 00:12:31,399 fervor of a Protestant congregation somewhat charismatic and fundamentalist in its sensibility, led by 170 00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:37,799 two African American physicians who had in effect abandoned their medical careers in order to 171 00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:45,919 stand up and nurture the development of a new church in inner city Boston. 172 00:12:46,039 --> 00:12:50,360 My wife, my late wife, Linda Linda Lowery, Linda Datcher Lowry, 173 00:12:50,399 --> 00:12:54,799 the economist whom I met in graduate school and who passed away from breast cancer 174 00:12:54,840 --> 00:13:00,360 in twenty eleven. We were married for twenty eight years. She and I 175 00:13:00,399 --> 00:13:05,600 became members of that congregation early in its uh in its development, the congregations 176 00:13:05,639 --> 00:13:11,120 development, and I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I accepted him as 177 00:13:11,159 --> 00:13:16,200 my savior. I became a born again Christian. And it was a very 178 00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:26,320 sincere and profoundly sustaining transformation in my life, and not just with respect to 179 00:13:26,399 --> 00:13:37,519 drug addiction, and it involved embrace of the of the Christian worldview. And 180 00:13:37,639 --> 00:13:41,120 I talked in the book about how nurturing that was, how glorious it was, 181 00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:48,039 how beautiful at many levels for me it was, how compelling it was 182 00:13:50,159 --> 00:13:54,120 but I also talk about doubts. I talk about whether or not I really 183 00:13:54,159 --> 00:13:58,879 did believe that a man had been raised from the dead, and lives on 184 00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:03,480 whether I could, as a modern person, as an intellectual, a PhD 185 00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:11,120 from MIT, a scientist, believe in the supernatural claims, and I came 186 00:14:11,159 --> 00:14:15,519 to have doubts, and those doubts not at me. I related in the 187 00:14:15,559 --> 00:14:20,480 book an an Incident. It was the funeral of a dear friend who had 188 00:14:20,519 --> 00:14:24,120 died in her early forties from a tragic viral infection of her heart that came 189 00:14:24,159 --> 00:14:28,559 out of nowhere and took her in the blink of an eye. And of 190 00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:33,039 my feelings about how it is that she was a member of our church and 191 00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:37,240 how it is that the congregation dealt with her death. At that funeral, 192 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:41,879 it was a moment for me which crystallized some of those doubts, and I 193 00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:45,240 let those doubts get the better of me. Now, I don't want to 194 00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:52,879 tell everything about the book, but there was another dimension to the reasons why 195 00:14:52,960 --> 00:14:56,960 I moved away from the church, which I talk about honestly in the book. 196 00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:05,639 But my theologic doubts were genuine, and the sense of crisis that I 197 00:15:05,759 --> 00:15:15,480 felt, oh can I believe do I really, really really believe that drove 198 00:15:15,559 --> 00:15:22,799 me to seek console, and Father Richard John Newhouse, the late great theologian 199 00:15:22,679 --> 00:15:26,519 who happened to be a friend of mine, opened his doors to me to 200 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,120 give me console. And I write about that in the book You asked me 201 00:15:31,159 --> 00:15:35,360 where am I now? And I try to signal a little bit of my 202 00:15:35,279 --> 00:15:41,519 agnosticism. I wouldn't call myself an atheist, but I also can't call myself 203 00:15:41,559 --> 00:15:46,200 a believer. I'm a person who, based on my personal experience, but 204 00:15:46,240 --> 00:15:54,080 also based upon my general temper and my sense of where our civilization is, 205 00:15:54,399 --> 00:16:03,720 have great respect for the quest that people are on to ground their understanding of 206 00:16:03,759 --> 00:16:11,480 the meaning of life and transcendent commitment. But I can't say that I unreservedly 207 00:16:12,159 --> 00:16:17,720 embrace that commitment at this stage in my life. I'm an agnostic. If 208 00:16:17,759 --> 00:16:21,080 you've got to put a label on it, well, Glenn as Rob, 209 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:25,759 you just describe yourself as an agnostic and not sure what you if you believe 210 00:16:25,759 --> 00:16:30,919 it. You sound like a perfect candidate to be an episcopal bishop, because 211 00:16:30,039 --> 00:16:37,519 that's that's what I'm going for here, you know. I mean, I 212 00:16:37,559 --> 00:16:42,240 gotta say it's an absolutely beautiful book. And it's a beautiful book, and 213 00:16:42,279 --> 00:16:45,200 it comes out kind of at the right time, I think, just culturally, 214 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:48,799 I just think it's really important and it's an important book for people to 215 00:16:48,799 --> 00:16:56,320 read. It's also sneaky political. It is your least political, most political 216 00:16:56,320 --> 00:17:00,600 book. Is that a fair thing to say? I can see why you 217 00:17:00,679 --> 00:17:07,559 might say that. Yeah. I mean it's a personal story, but it's 218 00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:11,440 also kind of an intellectual journey. Is that a fair thing? And I 219 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:15,759 mean it fits in a lot of categories of sort of American literature, and 220 00:17:15,799 --> 00:17:22,680 one of them is the the way somebody grows and changes and gets ideas and 221 00:17:22,759 --> 00:17:25,799 throws ideas away and then gets new ideas and then sort of emerges. Is 222 00:17:25,799 --> 00:17:29,839 that is it? Am I? Is that fair? Or is that that's 223 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,039 very fair? That's very fair, Rob. I was going to call the 224 00:17:33,039 --> 00:17:37,000 book changing my mind. Yeah, for a long time, because I thought 225 00:17:37,119 --> 00:17:44,119 the book was mainly about well, I was a Riggan Conservative in the eighties 226 00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:48,839 and and then I kind of lost my faith, not only my Christian faith 227 00:17:48,880 --> 00:17:56,559 but also my neo conservative slash conservative political faith for a while. But did 228 00:17:56,599 --> 00:17:59,559 I really lose my faith or was there another thing that was going on with 229 00:17:59,599 --> 00:18:02,359 me. This is one of the stories that I'm working with in the book 230 00:18:02,359 --> 00:18:06,920 What maybe I just wanted back in with the what I call the negro COGNOCENTI 231 00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:15,480 with the public intellectuals on the left of black prominence who had ostracized me. 232 00:18:15,599 --> 00:18:18,599 And some of these people who ostracized me were members of my own family or 233 00:18:18,799 --> 00:18:22,960 lifelong friends who I'd grown up with, you know, and calling me a 234 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:26,680 traitor to the race and all of that. And maybe I chafed a little 235 00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:30,720 bit at the ostracism that comes the loneliness of the black conservative kind of thing, 236 00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:34,559 and I succumbed to that, you know. So anyway, I interrogate 237 00:18:34,839 --> 00:18:37,960 the reasons for the shift, but I thought the thing was about the shifting 238 00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:42,680 politics, and I moved left in the nineties, broke with many of my 239 00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:51,160 conservative friends, reviewed some of their books acoustically, wrote obituaries of people whom 240 00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:57,519 I knew were decent and wise and morally grounded people. I think of James 241 00:18:57,559 --> 00:19:03,240 Q. Wilson, the late great political scientists, whom I blasted in a 242 00:19:03,279 --> 00:19:06,960 review that I wish I could take back now after he died. Samy died 243 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:11,720 with blood on his hands because his view of the incarceration and policing problem, 244 00:19:11,799 --> 00:19:15,599 and my view at that time of the incarceration and policing problem. Whereat odds 245 00:19:15,599 --> 00:19:18,480 with one another. So I moved around, and you could make the book 246 00:19:18,519 --> 00:19:22,400 about, you know, those kinds of political shifts. You lose friends, 247 00:19:22,759 --> 00:19:26,200 Are you certain of your views? Do you question your motives? You know? 248 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:33,200 How do you process the struggle to ground your beliefs in an intellectually respectable 249 00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:40,519 way, but also to acknowledge the influence that social and cultural currents and pressures 250 00:19:40,559 --> 00:19:42,319 and conformity and whatnot might have on you. I thought that's what the book 251 00:19:42,359 --> 00:19:47,200 was about. But that's not what the book. That's not the main thing 252 00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:51,240 that the book is about. It's another thing that I can work with, 253 00:19:51,839 --> 00:19:55,480 and I do work with in the book. But I thought, at the 254 00:19:55,559 --> 00:19:57,480 end of the day, the book had to be about telling myself the truth 255 00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:02,640 about my life and all it's aspects. I guess I feel like I guess 256 00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:03,880 why I said political. I don't. I guess I don't mean capital people. 257 00:20:04,079 --> 00:20:11,240 I've almost been culturally political, because I mean, look, I'm you're 258 00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:17,599 a fancy professor at Brown University, You're a published academic, you have been 259 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:21,000 a public intellectual, which is a phrase because I hate but the only way 260 00:20:21,039 --> 00:20:26,119 to describe what you've been for decades. You are not supposed to write a 261 00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:32,880 book about changing your mind because in America, the way we are today, 262 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:36,960 we are not allowed to do that. We're supposed to wear the jersey, 263 00:20:37,319 --> 00:20:44,839 and that's the jersey we're going to wear and die with. How hard is 264 00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:47,200 it? I mean, I think I know the answer to this. It's 265 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:48,759 because I think I know you well and I not know it probably wasn't as 266 00:20:48,759 --> 00:20:53,960 hard. But what advice would you give to other other intellectuals that you know, 267 00:20:55,480 --> 00:21:00,559 fellow professors, authors, writers on both sides, when they're thinking, 268 00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:04,359 hey, maybe I was wrong, but I don't want to say it. 269 00:21:06,039 --> 00:21:07,480 I mean, don't you think that's part of what the problem we have right 270 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:12,160 now in the culture is that people, once they say something I'm on Twitter 271 00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:17,319 or wherever, they just dig in. Yeah. I think there are a 272 00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:22,759 lot of forces that unilitate in favor of doing so. You accumulate a kind 273 00:21:22,799 --> 00:21:33,559 of social capital and your political identity, and there's an investment there. I 274 00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:36,440 mean, what can I say that anything I say is going to sound self 275 00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:40,759 aggrandizing. That's okay, I had the courage to admit that I was wrong. 276 00:21:40,839 --> 00:21:44,559 Everybody should be here as courageous as me. It's twenty twenty four, 277 00:21:44,599 --> 00:21:47,119 you're on a book tour. Let's do it. But I mean, I 278 00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:49,640 mean, did you ever think to yourself, Okay, well, I mean 279 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:52,680 here's the reason people don't do it, especially if people who are sort of 280 00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:56,880 public thinking public thinkers, is that that, well, you were wrong about 281 00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:00,000 that, You're wrong about this now. People say that all the time. 282 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:02,720 I mean, I know a lot of people I know who are, like 283 00:22:02,759 --> 00:22:07,960 a remark economists who have now sort of come to a slightly more i would 284 00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:12,799 say, industrial policy friendly position in economics that I have not. And sometimes 285 00:22:12,839 --> 00:22:15,400 when I'm talking to them, I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, 286 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:18,680 am I just being rigid and doctor naire or are they just being you know, 287 00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:22,720 squishy on hard economics. I don't know if you know this paper. 288 00:22:22,759 --> 00:22:30,839 I think it's Candice Pendergrass, the Chicago based Applied Economists Labor Economists A theory 289 00:22:30,839 --> 00:22:34,599 of yes men, long stories. There's a nice it's a nice applied theory 290 00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:38,880 paper. We're economist around here, so let me just you know. I 291 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:42,319 mean, the idea is you're in an organization and you're giving advice, and 292 00:22:42,359 --> 00:22:45,799 your advice is noisy. You know, you get a signal, but it's 293 00:22:45,799 --> 00:22:48,000 a noisy signal. You might be right, you might be wrong. If 294 00:22:48,039 --> 00:22:55,720 you're really a low variance, high information source of advice, your advice will 295 00:22:55,759 --> 00:22:59,240 be relatively stable over time. This is base you know stuff. I mean, 296 00:22:59,559 --> 00:23:04,160 yeah, basically, the new observations won't cause you to change your estimate 297 00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:11,240 of the unobserved parameter very much. You'll be a stable over time. Vascillation 298 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:22,000 indirectly reveals high noise in your signal. If your advice is shifting a lot, 299 00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:26,480 you are expost fact or revealing yourself to be a relatively unreliable source of 300 00:23:26,519 --> 00:23:30,599 information. And so you're going to be discounted in the organization when you try 301 00:23:30,599 --> 00:23:36,960 to give advice. And that's I think a very nice economistic way of capturing 302 00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:41,279 the thing that you just got through saying rob that you don't want to be 303 00:23:41,559 --> 00:23:44,640 shifting around a lot, because people discount everything you say when they hear you 304 00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,319 say one thing one day and another thing another day. And I think that's 305 00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,279 right. If I'm reading the book, I'm reading the story, I'm reading 306 00:23:51,319 --> 00:23:55,680 your story, and I'm falling along with you. As you go on all 307 00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:59,440 these different little, you know, tributaries and journeys, right, one of 308 00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:06,680 them is intellectual and ideological and political. It all makes sense to me because 309 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:08,559 it's coming from you, and because I think that's why I guess I'm trying 310 00:24:08,599 --> 00:24:15,680 to think that political the personal part of this book makes the political part or 311 00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:23,920 the intellectual part so much more easily understood and celebrated. And I just think 312 00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,839 that's I don't think I've ever read a book that had quite has been quite 313 00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:37,759 this such a great example of that of a thinking person's trip through his life 314 00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:41,759 and his thinking, and so I just I think it's that's why I think 315 00:24:41,759 --> 00:24:44,640 it's an amazing book. And I think I think everyone should be encouraged to 316 00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:48,079 think about what book they would write just like this of themselves, because everybody's 317 00:24:48,079 --> 00:24:51,400 got a story already had a little journey, and everybodys had a little trip 318 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:56,759 through you know, politics and culture. So my next thing is, I 319 00:24:56,799 --> 00:25:00,039 think you should run webinars for money and have people, you know, right, 320 00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:03,039 just do a writing workshop for people, because it really is sort of 321 00:25:03,039 --> 00:25:08,160 an extraordinary exercise when people go through an ideological pull shift, and a lot 322 00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:11,480 of us did it's either for a couple of reasons. It would seem either 323 00:25:11,519 --> 00:25:15,960 a new set of new set of facts, new information that makes you a 324 00:25:15,039 --> 00:25:22,640 reevaluate thought before, or a change in situation of maturation. People are more 325 00:25:22,839 --> 00:25:26,759 likely perhaps to find themselves moving towards the center and gasp towards the right when 326 00:25:26,759 --> 00:25:30,240 they find themselves married with a house paying property taxes all of a sudden, 327 00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:37,480 and once you start to re examine your previous set of givens, in comes 328 00:25:37,519 --> 00:25:41,240 doubt about everything else that leaches away the foundation until now you are seeing what 329 00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:45,839 else is on the other side. And it's always it's exhilarating at first because 330 00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,839 you have a whole new set of people to discover, a whole new set 331 00:25:48,839 --> 00:25:52,759 of people to support you and welcome you into the fold and the rest of 332 00:25:52,799 --> 00:25:55,400 it. But then, as you've said, you look back on what you 333 00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:56,880 believed before and say, why did I believe that? Was I wrong? 334 00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:03,799 And you have to know where to stop and fix yourself. Is it the 335 00:26:03,839 --> 00:26:08,559 difficulty these days? Do you think is the difficulty in being of a mind 336 00:26:08,559 --> 00:26:15,640 about say, the Constitution or basic facts about economics and finding that the discourse 337 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,160 in which we live is constantly constantly moving away from these ideas and pushing us 338 00:26:19,279 --> 00:26:25,680 into you or I feel like an extremist because I'm a First Amendment absolute So 339 00:26:25,759 --> 00:26:30,480 how much of the shifting culture was responsible for your changes in what you came 340 00:26:30,519 --> 00:26:33,920 to believe? Why? I guess that's my question. Why did you switch 341 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,680 from this set of beliefs to that? Was it? New information? Was 342 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,960 a personal situation? Combination of the two life what Yeah, I'm going to 343 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:49,680 say a combination of the two given the alternatives on offer. So in my 344 00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,119 specific case, I moved from right to left. In the nineties, I 345 00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:59,680 became exasperated with my conservative colleagues on the race question. I actually agreed with 346 00:26:59,759 --> 00:27:04,839 them about the bankruptcy of the civil rights vision. You know, Thomas Soul 347 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,839 being a source here, but he's not the only one. I agreed with 348 00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:17,400 him that the discrimination mongering was really barking up the wrong tree, and that 349 00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:22,440 the real problems had to do with culture and structure of internal life within the 350 00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:30,119 community, various social developments that were impeding people from taking advantage of opportunities that 351 00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:34,720 actually existed. I agreed about all of that, but and this was a 352 00:27:34,759 --> 00:27:40,480 point in my life where I was maybe vulnerable I had gone through my Christian 353 00:27:40,519 --> 00:27:45,039 conversion. I had gone through the public humiliation of the revelation of my drug 354 00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:52,200 problem and the fact that I had to withdraw from the government job because of 355 00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,119 the mistress that I was keeping in a secret apartment accused me of assaulting her. 356 00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,160 All of these various scandalous things, and I had endured them. I 357 00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:06,480 was vulnerable, was my guard was down, and I was looking for succor. 358 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:11,680 I was looking for comfort. I was looking for comradeship and collegiality and 359 00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,000 things of this kind. There were personal things that were going on, and 360 00:28:15,039 --> 00:28:19,960 I wanted back in to my community, which I defined, at least in 361 00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:26,680 part in racial identitarian terms, and this was a factor that was weighing on 362 00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:36,359 me. But I also was annoyed, disquieted a little bit by some of 363 00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:40,559 the attitude on the race questions that I detected amongst my conservative colleagues who were 364 00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:45,279 in I described in the book and my reading willing to basically settle for the 365 00:28:45,279 --> 00:28:48,640 fact that the liberals have their heads up their butts. They're completely wrong about 366 00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:55,319 this. All of their rhetoric and their demagoguery and whatnot is bad for the 367 00:28:55,359 --> 00:29:00,039 country. And to help with them and not be admit it as I had 368 00:29:00,079 --> 00:29:04,000 hoped they would be, as I thought of myself as being too, notwithstanding 369 00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:10,079 the liberals error, remaining steadfast and trying to do something about the problems of 370 00:29:10,119 --> 00:29:15,200 these marginal communities, and realizing that as wrong as the Liberals were, it 371 00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,000 wasn't good enough simply to be right about them being wrong about about the social 372 00:29:19,079 --> 00:29:26,359 policy questions. We needed to keep at it this kind of thing. You 373 00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,319 know, Son, I was going to ask about that very point, because 374 00:29:29,319 --> 00:29:30,799 you know, you wrote about a lot of friends of mine and you know 375 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,039 hears of ours, and I agree with you, by the way, that 376 00:29:34,039 --> 00:29:38,480 they're quite wrong to abandon. By the way, hope is a primary Christian 377 00:29:38,559 --> 00:29:41,400 virtue. So even no matter how bad things are, you shouldn't give up 378 00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:45,759 hope that something cannon should be done. But then there's an earlier episode in 379 00:29:45,799 --> 00:29:49,680 the book, and so reverse chronological order. You also have a passage where 380 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:53,799 you talk about meeting in the mid eighties and the White House with President Reagan 381 00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,799 and Jack Camp and Bob Woodson and about you know, an agenda to do 382 00:29:57,839 --> 00:30:02,200 something about south side of Chicago where you grew up, and you know, 383 00:30:02,519 --> 00:30:06,200 the Bronx or wherever, and the big idea then, as I recall, 384 00:30:06,359 --> 00:30:08,240 was enterprise zones, right, it was going to be you know, low 385 00:30:08,319 --> 00:30:11,319 taxes, deregulation, and I never mentioned I don't know that you mentioned the 386 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,079 enterprise zone idea specifically, but I don't think. Yeah, but I've been 387 00:30:15,119 --> 00:30:18,720 thinking for a while that was the big idea, and it all sounded great, 388 00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:22,319 and then I don't think anything. I thought it was, by the 389 00:30:22,319 --> 00:30:26,720 way, the conservative version of the Great Society's Model Cities program, and maybe 390 00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,759 it has the same problems. I don't think it was ever tried, or 391 00:30:29,759 --> 00:30:32,960 if it was tried, it didn't work. And I'm not aware of any 392 00:30:33,279 --> 00:30:37,160 evaluation studies about why it never happened or why it didn't work if it did 393 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:41,000 happen, And there doesn't seem to be any successor to it, do you 394 00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:44,319 know opinion either one of those or it seems to me that too many conservatives 395 00:30:44,359 --> 00:30:47,880 are still where you saw them and criticize them for being in the late nineteen 396 00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:52,960 nineties. Well, that was Jack Kemp, who's the guy I think of 397 00:30:52,039 --> 00:30:57,119 as the most prominent political proponent of the enterprise zone idea, and it was, 398 00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:02,799 you know, a low tax enclaves that would encourage capital to come and 399 00:31:02,839 --> 00:31:07,799 locate and generate jobs in inner cities. And I'm not a historian of this 400 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:15,720 policy initiative. I don't know exactly chapter and verse how intensely it was tried, 401 00:31:15,759 --> 00:31:19,039 although I know it was tried at least in pilot versions in some places. 402 00:31:19,039 --> 00:31:22,000 And there must be papers out there that attempt to evaluate, but I 403 00:31:22,039 --> 00:31:26,880 can't tell you what they say. I've never heard of any either. So 404 00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:30,200 yeah, it was so controversy with ideologically, and it was met with opposition, 405 00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:34,400 of course from the Democrats and from the black leadership in many of the 406 00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:41,079 cities who didn't want to see conservative market oriented ideas get a fair shot. 407 00:31:42,359 --> 00:31:48,880 So that's what I have to say about it. I mean, not all 408 00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:55,559 conservatives threw their hands up and walked away and said this patient is beyond saving. 409 00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:57,799 Let's move on to the next case. And Jack Kemp was one who 410 00:31:57,799 --> 00:32:01,519 did not do that. Bob Woodson is one who to this day, God 411 00:32:01,559 --> 00:32:05,920 bless him. He's well into his eighties now, he's been doing this his 412 00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:09,759 whole life. Enterprise zones is a part of his general vision. This is 413 00:32:09,839 --> 00:32:15,640 Robert Woodson of neighborhood enterprise, of people being able to grapple on the ground 414 00:32:15,759 --> 00:32:21,640 in the communities with the leadership that they have and the resources that might be 415 00:32:21,799 --> 00:32:30,680 supplemented by external but that are also indigenous to their social and cultural lives, 416 00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:36,519 to do some things for themselves. This kind of idea, well, my 417 00:32:36,599 --> 00:32:40,119 last question and involves two different ways to give Rob heartburn. Want us to 418 00:32:40,119 --> 00:32:45,960 talk about your academic work on the cake eating problem, and then the other 419 00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:51,079 one is you discussed toward the end that you you actually kind of like Trump 420 00:32:51,079 --> 00:32:52,960 and are fond of him and like the way he insults the media and you 421 00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,640 know acknowledges his faults. I don't want to go down the Trump rabbit hole, 422 00:32:55,680 --> 00:33:00,039 because we have plenty here. But the specific question now is we have 423 00:33:00,119 --> 00:33:05,400 all the survey data showing minority voters, especially a span next, but it 424 00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,599 appears a considerable number of black voters who like Trump and are moving to the 425 00:33:08,599 --> 00:33:13,000 Republicans. And this is without having just said a moment ago that there's no 426 00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,000 real conservative program for the inner cities. What do you make of all that? 427 00:33:16,119 --> 00:33:21,400 Is this real? What's driving this so quickly? On the cake eating 428 00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:27,440 problem? That was an academic paper right about how to optimally over time use 429 00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,240 a resource that's limited in availability when you're uncertain about exactly when that limit will 430 00:33:31,279 --> 00:33:37,079 be reached. Problem that exam I can guarantee you well. As actual time, 431 00:33:37,119 --> 00:33:40,319 which was the late nineteen seventies, people were writing down, you know, 432 00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:45,799 little intertemporal optimization models of this sort of one kind or another. I 433 00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:49,680 was trained mit Robert Solo was my advisor. This is the kind of work 434 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,279 he did and I produced. This paper was published in nineteen seventy eight in 435 00:33:52,319 --> 00:33:55,200 the Review of Economic Studies. And you know, I'm proud of it. 436 00:33:55,279 --> 00:34:00,319 But you know, the practical value of that kind of effort is is, 437 00:34:00,359 --> 00:34:07,280 I think a little questionable On the Trump thing. I mean, what do 438 00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:12,760 I know. I'm not a political guru. I haven't got polled dated at 439 00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,840 hand, and you know empirical basis for anything I'm about to say, so 440 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:20,679 take it with a grain of salt. I think you have to consider the 441 00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:27,800 alternative. I think the reason that there are emanations of increased minority, Black 442 00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:35,480 and Latino support for Trump is because people are a remembering what Trump's presidency was 443 00:34:35,519 --> 00:34:37,320 actually like for them on the economy and other things, and it wasn't that 444 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:42,280 bad. The pandemic messed things up, but it wasn't that bad and be 445 00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:52,440 looking at the other side and Biden's pandering. I don't know who's advising him 446 00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,519 and what makes him think that this is something that black people want to hear 447 00:34:54,559 --> 00:34:59,920 that speech at Morehouse where he says, in effect, the hooded clansmen are 448 00:35:00,039 --> 00:35:01,920 coming to get you, and I am the only thing that stands between you 449 00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:06,840 and them. Why would you believe in this country? Why would you believe 450 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,239 in democracy? Why would you believe in free enterprise? Why would you believe 451 00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:15,639 in the hope and the promise of the Constitution and whatnot? When you're being 452 00:35:15,679 --> 00:35:19,519 gunned down in the street like the hero George Floyd, or when you have 453 00:35:19,599 --> 00:35:22,199 to be ten times better than the next guy in order to get it. 454 00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:29,159 Has he ever heard of affirmative action? You know? I think that people, 455 00:35:30,199 --> 00:35:34,199 many people, I'm one of them, who are African American, don't 456 00:35:34,199 --> 00:35:37,679 want to be talked down to like that. The other thing I think is 457 00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:45,639 that inwards for Trump N I G. G E. R S for Trump. 458 00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:50,840 That was on a T shirt of a rally in Atlanta some months ago 459 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,880 that I couldn't help but see one black guy running around with this T shirt 460 00:35:53,920 --> 00:36:02,000 on because Trump had been arraigned in the Fulton County for this uh you know, 461 00:36:02,159 --> 00:36:08,119 law fair uh initiative that Democrats have undertaken to try to keep him from 462 00:36:08,119 --> 00:36:15,719 from being duly elected again president of the United States. I think, uh, 463 00:36:16,039 --> 00:36:24,960 there are a lot of people who who are themselves skeptical about how the 464 00:36:25,039 --> 00:36:30,719 rules of the game can be uh so construed as to unfairly disadvantage them, 465 00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:38,599 who uh feel some identification with with the plight that Donald Trump has. That 466 00:36:38,599 --> 00:36:44,719 that's speaking now out of my lack of expertise as a political commentator. I'll 467 00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:50,119 speak for myself. Reading the book, it was hard for me not to 468 00:36:50,519 --> 00:36:55,320 remember not to think of you now because you seem like you're having a lot 469 00:36:55,320 --> 00:37:00,960 of fun. And I guess my question is, as an academic and as 470 00:37:00,039 --> 00:37:07,559 a writer and as a professor in a big university, is it easier? 471 00:37:09,039 --> 00:37:15,880 Is it getting easier or is it harder to be Glenn Lowry, You understand 472 00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:17,400 what I'm asking that it feels to me like, you know, when we 473 00:37:17,679 --> 00:37:20,400 say, oh, you know, teacher a Brown university, we think, 474 00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:22,719 oh my god, that must be just miserable, But it kind of looks 475 00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:29,400 like you're having fun. I'm okay. I'm okay in part because I don't 476 00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:36,280 rely on dinner party invitations from my faculty colleagues. Here, I'm quite okay 477 00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,599 taking my wife out to the restaurant. I'm okay because even though this is 478 00:37:39,639 --> 00:37:45,719 Brown and Brown is a hotthouse of ultra woke sensibility in the faculty and in 479 00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:52,199 the student body, it's not monolithically so especially in the student body. There 480 00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,239 are kids here, and there are These kids are smart, as you will, 481 00:37:54,400 --> 00:38:00,079 of course expect at a place like Brown, and they're hungry to be 482 00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:07,840 exposed to argument, and they're tired of being talked down to and told what 483 00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:12,039 to think. That there are a minority, to be sure, but you 484 00:38:12,079 --> 00:38:15,559 know, we got a few thousand undergraduates here, so ten percent is a 485 00:38:15,599 --> 00:38:19,679 pretty good number of kids. They fill up my classrooms, they come to 486 00:38:19,679 --> 00:38:23,840 my office hours, they write me emails. I have relationships with these kids. 487 00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:29,840 I didn't teach it last year, but the year before last and the 488 00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:34,760 year before that, I taught a seminar on free inquiry in the modern world, 489 00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:39,039 which I developed with the help of an undergraduate teaching us AS at a 490 00:38:39,079 --> 00:38:45,920 brilliant young man who's now at Stanford Law named David Sachs is his name. 491 00:38:45,159 --> 00:38:51,360 And you know, we read the Plato and we read John Stuart Mill, 492 00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,920 and we read Milton, and we read George Orwell and we read Alan Bloom 493 00:38:55,039 --> 00:38:59,960 and you know what I mean. We read, We read a lot of 494 00:39:00,119 --> 00:39:04,239 stuff. We had twenty kids. There was a limit that were fifty applicants 495 00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:09,239 for twenty seats in this seminar, and it was just a scintillating experience from 496 00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:15,800 these youngsters who were hungry for, if you will, a heterodot's take on 497 00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:21,599 some of the pressing issues of the day. So in other words, like 498 00:39:21,679 --> 00:39:28,159 Robbie George at Princeton, I've found a niche for myself here at Brown, 499 00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:34,800 I'm known as this particular kind of eyeball guy. But that's attracted to some 500 00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,800 of the smartest kids on campus, and that's largely what keeps me going here. 501 00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,360 Hunger is the word that I hope to hear. And you said it, 502 00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:47,360 Hunger for something that is rooted, grounded, is not just another feather 503 00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:52,519 blowing around in the winds of the moment. And you're teaching kids who went 504 00:39:52,559 --> 00:39:58,440 through an extraordinary period in American history. They had the pandemic, the lockdowns, 505 00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:05,719 and they had the reaction to the George Floyd death. I live fourteen 506 00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:10,760 blocks south of where George Floyd died, and my city it is still struggling 507 00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:16,039 to get back. And I am in a largely empty office because the pandemic 508 00:40:16,079 --> 00:40:20,960 sent everybody home and everybody is content to stay there. So these kids, 509 00:40:21,039 --> 00:40:23,360 well not kids, they are going to be adults. How do you think 510 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:27,960 as a as a whole if you look at them, if you apprehend the 511 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,199 totality of their zeitgeise, how are they? How are they doing? Are 512 00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:36,280 they coming out of this stronger? Are they coming out of this regarding America 513 00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,639 as actually a fragile place that can be sundered by riots and disease? And 514 00:40:40,039 --> 00:40:45,159 is it in all the more need of strengthening and bolstering or how would you 515 00:40:45,199 --> 00:40:50,440 say that they've weathered this extraordinary four years? Well, again, I'm not 516 00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:53,880 an expert here. I go to somebody like Jonathan Hid. He's got this 517 00:40:53,920 --> 00:41:00,639 book out now about middle stress on people in that generation. He attributes to 518 00:41:00,639 --> 00:41:05,199 a lot of it to the effects of social media. I don't know. 519 00:41:07,679 --> 00:41:13,480 My general surmise, though, is that they're troubled and they're not doing so 520 00:41:13,599 --> 00:41:22,880 well. And I think maybe you can see a link between that condition of 521 00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:27,119 these kids battered by the forces that you were calling attention to, and some 522 00:41:27,199 --> 00:41:32,280 of this upheaval on campuses occasional by protests against the war in Gaza, where 523 00:41:35,039 --> 00:41:38,559 you know, people are grasping on to something that they hope will be meaningful. 524 00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:45,559 They're trying to find something that they can believe in. I don't want 525 00:41:45,599 --> 00:41:50,559 to get us down into at this late hour discussion about Gaza that I don't 526 00:41:50,559 --> 00:41:52,199 even have a point to make about it, except that we're talking about the 527 00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:58,000 kids and what's going on with them, and I don't think one can overlook 528 00:42:00,079 --> 00:42:12,559 he's acting out or disconnected from our general assessment of the temper of emotional life 529 00:42:13,119 --> 00:42:17,679 in youngsters at the elite institutions. There's a lot to worry about there. 530 00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,719 Well, they're lucky to have you, all I can say. Late admissions 531 00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:28,800 Confessions of a Black Conservative and extraordinary story with lots of levels and details to 532 00:42:29,679 --> 00:42:32,280 make you think and make you pause and make you be eager for the next 533 00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:37,079 page. Lennon's been a pleasure as ever, and we look forward to the 534 00:42:37,119 --> 00:42:40,079 next book. Whatever it is you can go through to ideological pull shift between 535 00:42:40,079 --> 00:42:42,880 the next time we talked to you. We're just happy to read you and 536 00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,280 happy to talk to you. Thanks very much, James, I'll be back, 537 00:42:45,679 --> 00:42:53,559 yes, Thanks Glenn. Thanks guys. Well, I'm sure that you 538 00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:58,599 have lots of things that you would have liked to ask Glenn, you the 539 00:42:58,639 --> 00:43:01,360 listener, and I'm sure there's ideas in there in the conversation and in his 540 00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:06,679 book you would like to discuss with other like minded people. I mean, 541 00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:08,039 sure you can find somebody on the street that doesn't know anything about it, 542 00:43:08,079 --> 00:43:13,639 and you know, the grab their lapels and tell them the the Gospel of 543 00:43:13,639 --> 00:43:16,039 Glenn or oh, I don't know. It's too ridiculous to think that people 544 00:43:16,039 --> 00:43:21,320 could actually get together in person and discuss these things, isn't it, Rob 545 00:43:21,679 --> 00:43:22,480 Well, I mean you can get together in person. Of course, you 546 00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,400 can also join Ricochet at Rickhey dot com and you can be part of the 547 00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:30,239 conversation there. And you can also you know, get Glenn's podcast on our 548 00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:36,119 super Feet if you just sign up for the super Feet. But we do, 549 00:43:36,199 --> 00:43:38,280 as you know, as members of Ricochet, we do like to get 550 00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:43,119 together and have meetups, especially in the summer. The summer seems to be 551 00:43:43,159 --> 00:43:45,440 the time when people want to do it, although there's some coming up in 552 00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:49,280 the autumn too. So let me just run down where are you if you 553 00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:52,719 join Ricochet or if you're already a member, where you might find yourself this 554 00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:57,920 summer in Cookeville, Tennessee. It's National Bourbon Day on June fourteenth, that's 555 00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,280 about two weeks away. Stop break there. What's everybody's favorite bourbon? Steven 556 00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:13,559 le Froy, Sorry, Scotch whiskey drinker. You're a American, Well, 557 00:44:13,559 --> 00:44:17,119 I'll tell you I have a couple favorites. I am not a snob, 558 00:44:17,159 --> 00:44:21,239 and that I love Makers. I'll drink Makers on the rocks pretty much. 559 00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:25,679 Makers is fantastic. Uh, the old weller. I do like it's affordable, 560 00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:30,119 and I mean it's expensive, but it's affordable and findable. I am 561 00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:35,079 luckily, although not in the bourbon supply business, but only in the personal 562 00:44:35,599 --> 00:44:42,199 enhancement business. To be friends with the family that makes the happy. Van 563 00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,480 Winkle ben Winkle family, Julian ben Winkle and his wife and his son are 564 00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:50,599 old friends of mine, and it does not they The first thing they'll tell 565 00:44:50,639 --> 00:44:52,719 you is they don't have any to sell you or to give you. But 566 00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:58,480 it's been a fascinating. It's fascinating friendship because you you learn a lot about 567 00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,840 this incredibly interesting American liquup. So I'm I'm nash Bourbon day is a good 568 00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:07,199 day. I have a bottle of Babby and I'm telling you that stuff and 569 00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:13,119 some diet coke. It's just it's a fantastic drink. He wouldn't mind that. 570 00:45:14,599 --> 00:45:17,000 I'm kidding. I'm send no letters and no letters. So there's a 571 00:45:17,039 --> 00:45:22,320 National Review cruise coming in National Review Cruise is shipping off on June sixteen. 572 00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:27,519 So if you're on that cruise, make yourself known to the other RICOSHETA members 573 00:45:27,559 --> 00:45:30,400 because there's gonna be a bunch of rickshe meetups a board And I think, 574 00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,159 I don't know for a fact, but if you've suddenly got this idea like 575 00:45:34,199 --> 00:45:36,039 I want to go on that cruise, I think if you go to the 576 00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:38,559 National Review website there might still be some some statements available. I don't know 577 00:45:38,559 --> 00:45:43,000 that for facts that don't hold my feet to the fire on that. There 578 00:45:43,039 --> 00:45:45,199 is a fourth of July weekend meet up in Fargo, North Dakota, fourth 579 00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:50,760 July, fourth of July and Fargo, you're you're basically you're in James Lilex's 580 00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:52,599 dream journal at that point, I know, and I would love to be 581 00:45:52,599 --> 00:45:55,760 there, except I have a show in London. But everybody who is there, 582 00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:00,480 remember before you go home, go to West Fargo. Fill up your 583 00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:05,559 tank at R Jay's station. R Jay's Tsorrow. It's a gas station at 584 00:46:05,599 --> 00:46:08,079 the edge of town. That's my dad's joint, and good gas all the 585 00:46:08,079 --> 00:46:10,440 way. Let me put that a different way. You'll be filled up and 586 00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:15,280 ready to go. I get your gas here. You. In fact, 587 00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:19,079 I remember, early early in your early not in I don't know if it's 588 00:46:19,079 --> 00:46:21,199 early in your blocking days, but certainly early in the days that you were 589 00:46:21,199 --> 00:46:23,519 writing a blog and I was reading it. You sort of explained somebody was 590 00:46:23,519 --> 00:46:27,480 complained, said, I think somebody said something like, well, you know, 591 00:46:27,679 --> 00:46:30,599 the gas prices go up. Those gas station owners they just you know, 592 00:46:30,639 --> 00:46:36,400 they they make bank. And you sort of like, very dispassionately, 593 00:46:37,199 --> 00:46:42,119 although it was clear your rage was clear. You explained as how that business 594 00:46:42,159 --> 00:46:45,599 works, and you said, here's what, here's here's here's what we make 595 00:46:45,639 --> 00:46:47,440 the money. You go into the little store and you buy us, you 596 00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:51,400 buy a die cope. That's how you make the money. Uh, And 597 00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:57,079 so stop acting like we're Rockefeller, which I loved. Okay, back on 598 00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,800 we get of July twenty six. So if you need a little more extra 599 00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:05,639 time to sort of plan the German Fest meet up in Milwaukee, which if 600 00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,480 I could, I could. I can't think of another. I can only 601 00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,039 think of one, maybe one better place to have a German Fest, and 602 00:47:10,039 --> 00:47:14,920 that's Louisville. And if the summer doesn't work for you, you can mark 603 00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,000 your calendar for the weekend of October third. There's a meet up in Saint 604 00:47:17,079 --> 00:47:20,239 Louis, which is gonna be great. Saint Lois is a great city. 605 00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:24,159 And if none of those dates work, I mean, we're giving you a 606 00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:30,039 bibe. None of those dates work. Here's what you do. Join Ricochet, 607 00:47:30,119 --> 00:47:30,920 put up a post, say hey, how about a meeting? How 608 00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:35,800 about a meet up here at this time? And guess what people are gonna 609 00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:40,440 show up because Ricochet members show up, as they do, so yes, 610 00:47:40,679 --> 00:47:43,920 do that, put it on a calendar, show up, or you know, 611 00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:46,239 just join Ricochet and announce that you'd like people to come to your place, 612 00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:50,920 and Ricochet members will suddenly appear, as if by spontaneous generation. They 613 00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,440 will just emerge from the from the miasma and be fully formed as human beings 614 00:47:54,519 --> 00:47:58,519 and wonderful boon companions and the rest of it. Before we go, we 615 00:47:58,559 --> 00:48:05,199 should probably know something the war in Gaza that Glenn referred to, the United 616 00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:10,239 States has made its efforts to solve the humanitarian crisis caused by AMAS doing what 617 00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:17,239 they did in Israel then responding by building a peer, and the peer ain't 618 00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:23,000 The peer was breaking into pieces and falling apart and just didn't do very well. 619 00:48:23,039 --> 00:48:28,880 And I thought, is there an analog to this somehow in previous day? 620 00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:30,239 And I thought, you know what it made me think of? It 621 00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:32,760 made me think of the Jimmy Carter failed ready to get the hostages back, 622 00:48:34,039 --> 00:48:37,239 you know, the helicopters crashing in the desert, the just sort of basic 623 00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:42,400 technical know how that we assumed the government, the army had, the armed 624 00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:45,960 forces have, and then finding out that all of a sudden there seems to 625 00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:49,719 be some institutional rot that left us vulnerable and unable to do the things we 626 00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,239 used to do. I mean, I can't blame Joe Biden for this unless 627 00:48:53,239 --> 00:49:00,639 he personally approved that the schematics and made changes. But then again, it 628 00:49:00,679 --> 00:49:04,599 is of a peace, isn't it. Well, I would just need to 629 00:49:04,639 --> 00:49:07,199 be theolytical matter. I think that's exactly the that that should be. The 630 00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:13,159 fear that is running ice cold through everyone in the White House right now, 631 00:49:13,519 --> 00:49:16,880 is that what you look what, especially in a campaign year, it's not 632 00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:21,840 so much about who signed off on the pier and whether the way, that's 633 00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,920 not the issue. The issue is it symbolizes, it crystallizes a kind of 634 00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:32,559 American impotence and incompetence, whether that's fair or not. That's that's the key 635 00:49:32,559 --> 00:49:37,199 word, rob is the competence. By the way, I'm convinced that this 636 00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:39,480 is just like the Afghanistan bug out. I'm convinced that some people in the 637 00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:44,119 military surely told the White House this is a bad idea, here's all the 638 00:49:44,159 --> 00:49:45,280 problems with it, and they said, we don't care, we want to 639 00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:50,239 do it. And there does seem to be a race on now between whether 640 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:53,800 the government is largely more incompetent than it is the seafold that they don't tell 641 00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:58,880 us the truth about they li to us right you know. I'm over here 642 00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,920 in Europe where I was reminded once again that when the European Commission wants to 643 00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:07,559 do a new power grab, they announced that today we're announcing two new competencies. 644 00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:13,480 That's the word to use, competencies for fisheries regulation or sausage wrapping. 645 00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:15,719 I think they're good at it. And you know, sparking to a bunch 646 00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:20,239 of European friends that you know, if our government ever came out one day 647 00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:22,440 and said we're announcing a new competency, three quarters of the country would burst 648 00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,960 out laughing. But that's where we are today. And I mean, you 649 00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,360 can look. I'll just give you one other example, well two. One 650 00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:36,559 is the Biden Energy Program has promised us thousands of electric charging stations coast to 651 00:50:36,599 --> 00:50:39,280 coast, and I think they've built seven seven seven. I think that's the 652 00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:43,880 number, less than a dozen. And then second, going back to your 653 00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:47,400 discussion a moment ago, James on gasoline prices in Fargo or anywhere. California 654 00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:52,039 has announced a new solution to its high gas prices. And you'll never guess 655 00:50:52,119 --> 00:50:57,760 what comes next. Tact rolls really control price control on refiners. They're going 656 00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:01,039 to they're going to regulate them the refinery refiners' margins. And boy isn't that 657 00:51:01,079 --> 00:51:05,119 going to work great? There's only two in California, right, I mean, 658 00:51:05,119 --> 00:51:07,840 that's part part of part of the problem is that California has a special 659 00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,039 gas brew right, Yeah, and they only make it in two places. 660 00:51:10,079 --> 00:51:14,800 So this can you mention that. I mean, it's very easy to regulate. 661 00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:17,559 You only have to just got to set up to My guess is eventually 662 00:51:17,679 --> 00:51:22,039 Gaven news And is going to say that the state of California should refine its 663 00:51:22,039 --> 00:51:23,719 own gas, which is going to mean the gas no longer has a price 664 00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:29,480 control. It's twenty seven thousand dollars a gallon. Yeah, but I think 665 00:51:29,519 --> 00:51:31,639 that's I think that is probably I mean, the two interesting things about the 666 00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:42,079 Armed Services are history, right, is that after the disaster of Vietnam, 667 00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,119 they a lot of the critics, like Seymour Hrsch who wrote depending on Paper 668 00:51:45,119 --> 00:51:49,920 a lot a lot of the big critics ended up teaching classes at West Point 669 00:51:50,119 --> 00:51:52,960 and the War College. They were brought into the system, into the organization 670 00:51:53,679 --> 00:51:57,840 to sort of help reform it, and it reformed it, and they that 671 00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:02,039 was an organization that actually took itself its failures very seriously. And after the 672 00:52:02,079 --> 00:52:06,440 Desert, the Desert One, I think it was called Desert One, which 673 00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,400 is the Jimmy Carter failed thing in the desert to liberate the hostages. They 674 00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:15,679 did the same thing because it's there. It got a serious job, right, 675 00:52:15,679 --> 00:52:20,719 so they got to succeed. And then you saw really not much, 676 00:52:21,639 --> 00:52:24,599 not much after that. Whether you agreed with these or not, you saw 677 00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,599 a very effective I mean the many invasion of Grenada under Reagan, which was 678 00:52:30,639 --> 00:52:37,920 which was was useful. You saw that Reagan's bargaining position with the Soviets went 679 00:52:37,079 --> 00:52:43,960 up because they understood that the American armed forces were not incompetent and not disorganized. 680 00:52:45,119 --> 00:52:49,159 You saw the First Skulp, the Desert Storm, the first Gulf War, 681 00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:52,920 which was sort of a cakewalk for the American forces. So it is 682 00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:58,360 possible to turn the ship around you. It isn't. It isn't a foregone 683 00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,599 conclusion that, you know, American might, American competence, and American strategic 684 00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:10,280 power is on the decline. It just it just isn't working now. And 685 00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:15,079 that I think if you're an American voter, your question is is it not 686 00:53:15,119 --> 00:53:17,079 working now because this is the way it is. It's not working now because 687 00:53:19,199 --> 00:53:21,920 you know, the Mediterranean seas are too rough, Or is it not working 688 00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:29,559 now because there's derelict leadership at the top, and or misplaced priorities. Yeah, 689 00:53:29,599 --> 00:53:32,440 well then, I mean, if you hang around Twitter and social media 690 00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:37,400 and the rest of it along enough, you will see rampant examples of the 691 00:53:37,519 --> 00:53:43,159 armed forces making us very aware of how socially correct that they are. And 692 00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:49,639 it seems to be that they are concerned with elements of social policy that ought 693 00:53:49,639 --> 00:53:52,079 to be utterly irrelevant to the job at hand, which is defending the United 694 00:53:52,119 --> 00:53:55,159 States and inventing a lot of things that go to other places and blow them 695 00:53:55,239 --> 00:54:01,440 up. But yet the push to assure everybody that they are inclusive is the 696 00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:07,159 sort of thing that you know, flows from having administrations of a democratic nature 697 00:54:07,159 --> 00:54:12,079 in power that if you have Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan, they're not going 698 00:54:12,119 --> 00:54:15,880 to be particularly concerned about whether or not the rainbow flag is flying over the 699 00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:21,719 recruitment office. And that's a whole sort of attitudinal shift towards the military as 700 00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,719 a social program, as a jobs program, as a to one that says 701 00:54:25,159 --> 00:54:29,840 it is an instrument for projecting American power. And you have to have somebody 702 00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:35,760 that is confident about saying that as opposed. I mean, Joe Biden can 703 00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:37,159 say what he wants to say, the Democrats can say what they want to 704 00:54:37,159 --> 00:54:40,239 say, but we all know that they are part of a whole multilateral, 705 00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:45,000 transnational idea that we should all work together, and the idea of sovereignty and 706 00:54:45,079 --> 00:54:50,599 projecting individual national power is kind of uki, you know, in this handholding 707 00:54:50,599 --> 00:54:52,599 come by a world whereas you know that Trump, a Reagan or the rest 708 00:54:52,599 --> 00:54:54,039 of the guys are going to say, no, we're going to go to 709 00:54:54,039 --> 00:54:57,639 alone because we're the best and we you know, we got this, we 710 00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,159 got this thing going here, and we're going to keep it up. So 711 00:55:00,039 --> 00:55:07,039 the fact that these incompetencies happen under somebody who is himself gray at the edges 712 00:55:07,079 --> 00:55:12,039 and sometimes very very gauzy at the center does not bolster the case that the 713 00:55:12,039 --> 00:55:16,119 Democrats are for square for national security. Just doesn't. So, yeah, 714 00:55:16,159 --> 00:55:22,400 there's that. No, it doesn't. And luckily for his opponent, his 715 00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:27,519 opponent whose biggest, you know, biggest weakness is his own mouth, is 716 00:55:27,639 --> 00:55:31,519 kind of locked away in a courtroom and not able to remind us that he's 717 00:55:31,559 --> 00:55:35,760 probably not an answer, not a very good answer either. Well, Stephen, 718 00:55:36,039 --> 00:55:38,199 Yeah, Stephen, you remember four years ago when we had when World 719 00:55:38,199 --> 00:55:44,199 War three started with Iran because we killed because he waxed Lane I mean that 720 00:55:44,199 --> 00:55:50,119 that has been their mode forever than any assertion of America, any violent assertion 721 00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,119 in order to defend American interest is the sort of thing that destabilized that that's 722 00:55:53,119 --> 00:55:57,079 going to destabilize the world. That Donald Trump in a second term with somehow 723 00:55:57,199 --> 00:56:00,400 destabilized the world more than it's done to itself into the last four last thing. 724 00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:05,280 Maybe if we continue on the war in Gaza, we've seen another one 725 00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:12,280 of those stories comes out where it's you know, appalling news Israeli jets put 726 00:56:12,679 --> 00:56:17,960 barrel bombs into a nursery and then a week later the story is actually precision 727 00:56:19,119 --> 00:56:25,000 munitions hit a Hamas control center in a tunnel. We have another one of 728 00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:29,599 those with the refugee camp where they attacked I think it was a jeep. 729 00:56:29,639 --> 00:56:32,480 They had some coordinates on it and there was secondary explosions and a lot of 730 00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:36,840 stuff cooked off and a lot of people were killed. And is that narrative 731 00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:42,280 still holding yet or are people just it never seems to the end, part 732 00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,280 of the story never seems to take root in the ongoing narrative. Yeah, 733 00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:50,400 so I actually expoke a couple of days ago they fairly senior member of the 734 00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:53,559 Kanesset from Israel, and yeah, he told the story which has subsequently been 735 00:56:53,599 --> 00:57:00,960 reported that the civilian deaths were actually the collateral of having blown up some ammunition 736 00:57:00,039 --> 00:57:04,119 that was hiding in some of the buildings they targeted. So once again we 737 00:57:04,199 --> 00:57:07,599 see Hamas using civilians and shields. But I think the bigger story right now 738 00:57:07,599 --> 00:57:10,800 about the Rafa business is Biden. Everyone said, don't go in, don't 739 00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:14,800 go into Rafa. Canivade Rafa, and I think they head in mind they 740 00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:17,400 are going to be tanks and big urban warfare instead of It looks to me 741 00:57:17,519 --> 00:57:22,320 is that Israel has been very cleverly enveloping the place and using special operations and 742 00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:29,039 uncovering the tunnels, and they're slowly strangling off Hamas in Rafa in ways that 743 00:57:29,079 --> 00:57:31,239 don't look like the big cataclysmic battle. So I mean they're ringing very clever 744 00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:36,719 because they're enveloping Rafa without looking like they're doing so. And there we go, 745 00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:42,119 well we will see. That's it for us now. It's been fun. 746 00:57:42,599 --> 00:57:45,800 We appreciate you listening. We appreciate Stephen sitting in for Peter and Rob. 747 00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:46,960 Of course, brother Rob, is is he still with us here or 748 00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:52,760 is he here? We advise everybody to go to ricochet dot com and sign 749 00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:55,719 up because the member feed is where it's at, as they used to say 750 00:57:55,719 --> 00:58:00,360 in the sixties and seventies. And also to go to Apple podcasts, Apple 751 00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:04,760 Music, Apple iTunes, go to that Apple place, the Apple you know 752 00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:07,119 it is five stars, And so the more people can discover the podcast and 753 00:58:07,159 --> 00:58:10,360 discover Ricoshe and I ensure that we're here for years to come. We're rolling 754 00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:13,599 going to get better, We're only going to get bigger, and uh, 755 00:58:14,039 --> 00:58:16,159 you know, we've all been with this operation for a long time and it's 756 00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:19,639 one of the great joys in my life and we hope one of the great 757 00:58:19,679 --> 00:58:22,599 joys of yours. If not, it can be ricochet dot com. I'm 758 00:58:22,679 --> 00:58:27,760 James Lylyx here in Minneapolis to Stephen, to Rob elsewhere. We thank you 759 00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,079 guys for showing up, and thank everybody for listening, and we'll see you 760 00:58:30,159 --> 00:58:32,760 in the comments in Ricochet four point two next week. Glas