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Speaker 1: Or period. Poor poor carrier pigeons. Ask not what.

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Speaker 2: Your country can do for you, Ask what you can

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do for your country.

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Speaker 3: Mister garbashaw, tear down this wall.

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Speaker 2: It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long, John You and

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me James Lylyx. Today we talked to you of all

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eleven about his new book about the Constitution, how it

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unified America once and could do it again. So let's

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have herselves a podcast.

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Speaker 4: I've known her a long time, indirectly, not directly very much,

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and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was

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only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black

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until a number of years ago when she happened to

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turn black, and now she wants to be known as black.

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Speaker 3: Welcome everybody.

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Speaker 2: This is the Ricochet Podcast, number seven hundred and two.

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I'm James Lylyx in a beautiful summer day in Minneapolis,

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Rob Long in Gotham, presume, and John You is joining

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us from California. Of course, the crucible of sanity in

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the modern world.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure he's going to tell us all about that, gentlemen.

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Speaker 2: Welcome, Hello, well, hi, James, Johns is right, that's what

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you do sometimes sometimes in radio and broadcasting. We like

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to say the more dead air, the better, But oftentime

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if we like to just kind of jump in there

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with something that just gets the ball rolling. The ball

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now seems to be rolling uphill for Donald Trump, downhill

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for Kamala Harris as she's vaulted to the front of

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the race. She's America's sweetheart and without really anybody taking

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a look at the positions what not that she's had.

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But perhaps over the next couple of months we'll have

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the opportunity to revisit some old clips and see exactly

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whether or not those old positions are still being held.

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Do you think it's going to come back to buy?

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I mean, the New York Times is doing stories essentially saying,

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you know, she makes she made fudge on the stove.

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Here's her seven tricks to keep it from from caramelizing.

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I mean, that's my favorite headline was one of the

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La Times.

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Speaker 5: Uh uh, Kamala Harris is a knowledge of l A

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restaurants is large? Will that help her win the presidency?

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So okay, you guys all need to just just take

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a deep breath here and relax.

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Speaker 1: I uh it was. It still made me laugh.

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Speaker 6: Uh yeah, well, I thought the Times recipe would be

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camealized onions by now.

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Speaker 3: Very good, very good.

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Speaker 6: I thought I would replace I'm sitting in for Steve Hayward.

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I mean, you know, Peter Robinson gets to sit in

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for Steve Hayward. But now I'm sitting in for Steve.

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Speaker 3: That's right, all right.

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Speaker 2: Well, now that you are sitting in, let's uh, let's

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let's put it to you. Do you think that? I mean,

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you were there in California. You saw exactly what she

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was able to do for that state. Tell us what

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her what her California record might be, how it might

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be introduced to the rest of the country, what it was.

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Speaker 6: I have a piece up this week about her record

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as district attorney attorney general. First, I think people are

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going to see the bad campaigner she was in twenty twenty,

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wants all this you know, happiness, it starts to maybe

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it won't end, but all this happiness in the media

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starts to end. Because I think she's the typical of

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a California politician. We live in a one party state,

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so she's never had to run a tough race before,

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and so I think that's why. I think that explains

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all the malapropism, weird stame a is goofy character because

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if you're Kamala Harris, you've never had to run against

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a tough candidate.

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Speaker 3: But the broader.

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Speaker 6: Issue is when people start to look at her record.

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I think it's a mistake actually for Democrats to be

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praising her as a prosecutor, because once people see the

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decisions she'd made back here, they're not going to be happy.

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There are some very well known cases in California. For example,

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there was an early in her tenure there was a

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guy who killed a police officer, severely wounded a partner.

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His partner, she would seek the death penalty. Another example

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where there's an illegal alien who is an MS thirteen

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gang member, walked into a communie store, killed the owner,

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shot up the two sons, and she didn't seek the

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death penalty. She had a I think she had a

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very lax attitude towards crime. So all this talk about

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her saying, oh, I know Donald Trump, he's a felon,

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and I know felons, I think that it's inviting the

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wrong kind of scrutiny. Once America's who I worried about crime,

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particularly in California, see the kind of progressive attitude she had.

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Plus then you can get into stuff she dies as senator,

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where she's calling for donations to bond funk bail, fights

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for Black Lives Matter, and so on.

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Speaker 3: So I think this is and where where might that

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have been? John, Do you remember?

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Speaker 6: I think somewhere up there in the north somewhere I

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know there's like white stuff that's called somewhere where the

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people comes out of the air. It's like water falls

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from the air in solid form, things like.

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Speaker 3: This, God's Dandre amazing. Yeah, that was here.

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Speaker 2: That was the bailphone with the people who were who

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were burning down the streets and burning down the buildings,

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and she was telling that we need, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, basically more of it.

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Speaker 2: That the riots shall continue until we have equity spread

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and evil even laer across the land. So yeah, there's that.

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But again again, if all we get is happy warrior

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energy and smiles and no real particular investigation from the media,

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then I think a lot of you know, the vast

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middle that needs to be persuaded, may just say, well,

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she looks like more fun time for a wine on

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for for for a president.

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Speaker 3: Why not? And I don't want that crazy old guy.

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Speaker 2: So I mean yeah, Now, so Rob, where do you

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think the Trumps, the Trump campaign goes from here?

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Speaker 1: Well, they better get it together.

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Speaker 5: It should come as no shock that you're not going

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to find for a progressive Democrat, really incredibly aggressive need coverage.

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That should not be surprising to them. They didn't get

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it for under Biden. They're not going to get it

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under when Kamala Harris is running, uh, and they need

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to focus and she's giving them all sorts of openings

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and they just seem to be focusing on a lot

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of stupid stuff at this point. Look, he got on a

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hundred days, less than hundred days, so it's sprint. You

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don't have any time for throat clearing. Everyone in America

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should know about every single one of those cases that

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John just mentioned that they should.

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Speaker 1: The nasty term is to Willy Horton.

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Speaker 5: But people forget that Willy Horton story was true, that

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he did he was fur.

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Speaker 1: Load from prison, and he did commit crimes, to commit murder.

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Speaker 5: That the reason that that worked was because there was

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no response from the Democrats and for the candidate then,

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and the most governor of messages is Michael Lucaucus.

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Speaker 1: To actually defend the the the process of furlough. He didn't.

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He just ran away from it.

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Speaker 5: It is and crystallized the difference between liberal and conservative

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voters for liberal conservtive voters on law and order issues.

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So everyone every time that this sort of like clown

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car of a Trump campaign starts talking about anything other

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than her record, they are wasting time and they have

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very little time left.

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Speaker 1: The problem with Trump.

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Speaker 5: Is it's integral to the Trump campaign. A lot of

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people don't like him. That is a real problem for him,

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and they know him well, and what he needs to

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do is not remind them about all the reasons they

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have to not like him. They should be reminding them

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of all the reasons they can't in good conscience vote

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for this extremely liberal, extremely progressive alternative. And they see

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me failing at that now, which is surprising to me

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because you know, just go you go back to the debate.

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Speaker 1: That debate, everybody focused on Biden.

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Speaker 5: I said this at the time, and yeah, you're right,

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it's terrible for Biden, but they forgot that it was

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absolutely terrific for Trump, not just because Biden was a

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dottery old man, but because Trump was controlled. I mean,

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he had a little trumpy near the end, but you know,

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we take our wins and we can find him. But

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he basically held the line. He argued passionately for things

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that he believes in, and he connected with voters. And

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I'm starting to believe that that is the singular moment

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of campaign discipline we're going to get from this candidate

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in that campaign. And if that's the case, it's going

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to be a disappointing election night for him. I suspect,

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and again always the problem to think about it. It's

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a gift, Kamala. Harrison's got to run on a record

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which is not great if you're a moderate or a

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centrist or conservative, which is what most of the country is.

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All Donald Trump has to do is just to stop

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being a jerk and stop reminding us how what a

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jerk Donald Trump is and how tiresome me is. That

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shouldn't be that hard, and yet it seems to be

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a stumbling block for this candidate.

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Speaker 2: Would you say that people don't like Trump, that's true,

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but they don't like him for his personality, not necessarily

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his politics, his policy preferences, which can.

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Speaker 3: Be you know here there in the other place.

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Speaker 2: So do we have a situation then where people say

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I don't like him, therefore I'm going to vote for

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the person who is completely opposed to just about everything

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I happen to believe in, from energy policy to gun

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policy to yeah, aliens getting to illegal aliens getting you know,

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free healthcare, all of these things I.

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Speaker 3: Just don't like.

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Speaker 2: I just don't like this guy. So I mean, and

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I know there is that element. I'm going to feel

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good about myself because I feel good voting for this

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person because it is a virtuous thing to do. But

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you do have a fairly stark policy difference.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but I would just say, right, there is the problem,

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and Drama was going to hear, right, there is the problem.

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It's the problem for the Trump campaign is that when

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you start to say that people are going to vote

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for Kama Harris so they don't like Trump our idiots

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or fools.

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Speaker 1: Emotional, I know, but that's what they are.

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Speaker 5: You start doing that, you stop listening to why people

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don't like you. And that is that is exactly how

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the liberals got in a position they're in now because

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everybody who said I don't really like those Liberals, they

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instead of listening to that, no Democratic party listening to America,

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they decided to steamroll over them.

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Speaker 1: That is not a recipe for success at the ballot box.

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Speaker 6: I operationalize what Rob is saying. I think it's pretty simple.

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They could make a quick fix, which is usually in

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campaigns the vice president is the attack dog and the

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president is the one who sits back and puts out

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the positive program for the future. Right, doesn't engage directly

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in all this identity stuff. You know, I watched that

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black journalist conference with the interview, and Trump likes paying

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the attack dog. They should be sending jd Vance out

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to do that kind of stuff, and Trump should turn

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to a more positive That's just traditionally what happens in

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presidential campaign. Strangely, it's the reverse, right. You hear people say, oh,

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they picked Dvance because he is the broad vision for

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what the party is going to be in the future. Yeah,

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the roles, it's very strange. And the Trump campaign could

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easily change that. And I think that would have that

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would actually take what Rob's talking about and put it

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into sort of real campaign practice. It'd be easy, excepting

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you'd have to have Trump to And this brings me

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to just one other point is the Trump campaign officials,

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they may sadly look back on the days when Trump

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Trump was a defendant with fondness and as the good

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old days, because then Trump couldn't speak all day. He

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was limited to this kind of two minute sound bites

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when he was walking into an out of court. And

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that's when Trump was doing the best because he couldn't

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talk that much. The court forced discipline on him. And

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that's the hard thing is that if they could switch

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the president and vice presidential roles and then Trump, I mean,

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this is wishing for a candidate that's not there could

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be more disciplined at it, then it would be a

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Then it would be a good campaign.

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Speaker 3: Yes, we're always looking at the candidate. We don't have

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to go ahead run.

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Speaker 5: No, that's absolutely true. The structural problems are sort of

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baked in obviously to the Trump campaign. But it's not

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as if there isn't past performance that you can use

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to you know, as they say, and they say they

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won't do in the finance, but they should do in campaigns.

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When did he lose in twenty twenty, And he did

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lose in twenty twenty. He lost after the first debate,

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and the campaign officials knew because they had focus groups

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and numbers of Republican men and Republican women in Wisconsin

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and Arizona and Georgia who turned off of Trump. That

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is what happened, and they were perfectly. They have trained

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the Republican voter to go into the ballot box and

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to vote for the down ballot candidates with that are

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by their name, and to leave the top slot blank.

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That is a dangerous thing. You don't want. You don't

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want your voters to be doing that. And there It

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isn't that hard. I mean, it's not like we've seen this,

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We've seen Trump do.

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Speaker 1: It's not like he can't do it. It's just that

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he won't. And that is I don't know.

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Speaker 5: If that was in the Trump campaign, that would worry

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me more than the JD. Van's stuff, More than anything else.

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It would worry me that the most disciplined days of

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the Trump campaign seemed to be over.

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Speaker 3: Well.

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Speaker 6: One other thing about oh sorry, just one little small

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point is he suppose Harris does great, and she is

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doing great right now. We shouldn't like pretend it's not happening.

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But all she's doing, if she succeeds, she will just

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get the race back to what it was before Biden's

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disastrous debate performance. It's still going to come down to

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six or seven battleground states, and the country's close, and

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it's divided, and it's going to be decided by a

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pointer two. And so that's the other thing is Trump

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really should be focusing just on those Midwestern states. The

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polling I saw come out in the New York Times today,

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it just seems to show that Harris has just come

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back to even in all those battleground states. But I

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don't think Trump's going to be winning Minnesota now, Sorry, James.

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Speaker 2: Is she doing great or is it just being announced

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that she is great? I mean, we get this flood

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of relief from the media that they have this wonderful, charismatic, smart, braddy,

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confident meme, goddess gout you know who can do it?

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So is she doing great because of anything other than

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she's a beaming alternative to the doddering old man that

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they had before? And I mean, yes, you're always going

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to get a bounce when you introduce somebody new who

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comes in who's younger, has got a little bit more,

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it has more vibrant energy in the rest of it.

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Speaker 3: Before the honeymoon fades and people get tired of it.

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Speaker 2: But I mean, doing great. I don't think right now

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has anything to do with what she's said or she's.

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Speaker 6: Raised three hundred million dollars and the parties unified behind her,

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and she's starting to restore support in the Democrat for

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the Democrats amongst minorities women. I mean, this is I'm

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not saying she's doing better than they did in twenty twenty.

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She's just getting them back to the same start line

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is twenty twenty. But that's that's an achievement because Biden

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was going to get trounced.

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Speaker 5: I mean, look, I mean four weeks ago, I mean,

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it's probably about eight weeks ago. It was a it

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was absolutely de facto truth that everybody knew projecting forward

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that either one of these parties replaced either one of

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their top candidates with almost anybody, they would get a

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bounce because the negatives were really high on all of

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these candidates. And one party did it kind of halfway,

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not really, but they kind of did it.

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Speaker 1: And that's what you're seeing.

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Speaker 5: I mean, we would have predicted this with person X

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at the top of the side on either side, so

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none of this is a surprise. All of the problem

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is it in a compressed timeline, which is what this is.

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You don't have that much time to define your candidate.

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And luckily for Kamala Harris, Trump defines himself in the

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negative constantly, and instead of defining her and I get

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you know that bill, that list of all of those

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people that she was ill served as Attorney General of California,

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instead of having those be household names, what about this person?

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Speaker 1: What about that person?

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Speaker 5: What about those two kids in a store? We're talking

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about whether her father is Jamaican or whether he's like

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half Indian. Like this nonsense, waste of time. And if

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they brought it up, they started it. They need to

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like get there, They need to get back into control.

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Speaker 1: And they are not. They do not look to me

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like they're doing it.

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Speaker 2: You know, I might have not have been the best

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way to spend the week, but at some point, since

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ethnicity and identification and all these things are of absolute

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critical importance. Right now, it is a fun conversation to

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be had, but not at the moment because our guest

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is here. You've all leven the director of Social, cultural

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and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Speaker 3: That's the AIE. Of course.

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Speaker 2: He's the founder and editor of National Affairs and the

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author of seven books, The most recent, published earlier this summer,

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is American How the Constitution Unified our Nation and could

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again you've allved, thanks for joining.

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Speaker 7: Us, Thank you very much for having me.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know that the title of the book presumes

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that there is a period of unification behind us, in

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a period of constitutional unification that could be before us.

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So that would mean we are in an interregnum of

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constitutional disunity. How would you describe where we are right

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now Visa VI, that old piece of bellum.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it.

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I mean we are in a moment when we are

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not unified about or by the Constitution in the ways

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that we ought to be. And I think a lot

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of Americans recognize that we're very divided, but tend to

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think that the Constitution is the reason and are frustrated

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by the various ways in which it holds them back

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when they win elections or when they have ambitions. And

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rather than see that the Constitution is a solution to

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the kind of division we have now, they tend to

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see it as the problem, Michaal in this book is

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to help people see that, in fact, the Constitution is

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much more like the solution than the problem that it

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exists to help address exactly the sort of problem we have,

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which is the challenge of holding together a diverse and

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divided society, and that to the extent we're living through

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a period of constitutional failure, which I think we are

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to an extent, it's a failure of constitutional practice and

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not of constitutional design, and therefore it calls on us

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to reacquaint ourselves with the structure of the system and

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what it might have to teach us. And that's what

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I hope this book might help to do.

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Speaker 5: Hey, you boy, can I try a little theory on you?

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You can tell me if I'm bull of it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, John already's rolling his eyes. I can see.

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Speaker 5: In the strength of the Constitution, this strange document that

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we still argue and fight about.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think there's another document.

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Speaker 5: Maybe since the Gospels, that people have been reading and

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rereading and fighting over. In software engineering, right, there's this

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two big categories of how you put together a giant

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software project. Right. One is called agile and one's called waterfall.

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Waterfall is you go step by step, you accomplish one component,

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and you move the next component, and you move to

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the next component.

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Speaker 1: You just kind of chip away in it that way.

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Speaker 5: An agile is you kind of you start before you've

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got everything taken care of, and you just get going,

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and you know that there are weaknesses.

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Speaker 1: You can have to fix those later.

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Speaker 5: But the idea is to keep going and you create

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a document that is both incredibly resilient, or you create

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a product incredibly resilient but also has problems that need

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to be fixed over time. But the point is you

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got it going and everybody kind of agreed on the

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big vision. It feels to me like in terms of

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the software, the code for the United States of America,

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which is the Constitution, that it's an incredibly brilliant piece

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of agile coding. And every argument we have about it,

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when people talk about how well this is, like, well,

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this is our problem. We're still fighting over this. We're

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still fighting over the Second Amendment. I think that is

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the great act, that great strength of the Constitution, right

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that we're still going to fight over it, and our

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grand channel will fight over it.

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Speaker 7: I think it's absolutely right. It's a really good metaphor

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for how the system is meant to work, and it's

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intentional in a lot of ways. What you see when

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you look at the records of the Constitutional Convention is

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that the framers of the Constitution dealt with some very

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serious problems by containing them as tensions within the system. Right,

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were they going to empower the large states or the

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small states? That seems like a stark choice to make,

404
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but their answer was, yes, We're going to empower the

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large states and the small states, and the fights between

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them are going to be essential to the political life

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of our society. Right. Is the President of the United

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States an elevated head of state or is the president

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a kind of glorified clerk. Well, the answer is yes,

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the president is both those things, even though that's obviously contradictory,

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and the presidency is a contradictory office about which we

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fight constantly and unendingly, and a lot of the most

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significant and kinds of tensions that occupy us as Americans

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in our political life are contained within the structure of

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the Constitution. What that allows the system to do is

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to is to shift its weight as it needs to

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without losing its balance. It's extraordinarily precisely agile, because it

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allows us to emphasize different things at different times. There

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are moments when we need a strong president to respond

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on behalf of the country to dangerous problems. There are

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moments when we need Congress to be stronger. And a

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lot of the arguments we can have are about how

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to rebalance and shift the weight of the different parts

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of the system. I think those are a lot of

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our arguments now, and it's a sign of strength in

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our system. We underestimate the stability and strength of the

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American system. We've had the same institutions in America since

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seventeen ninety. There's no other country that can say that

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about its governing institutions.

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Speaker 6: You've all. What strikes me, why it's John you, I'm

431
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sitting in for Steve Hayward. What strikes me is I

432
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could see a youngster reading this book and going, You've

433
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:06,400
all you don't know what time it is, right, that's

434
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their big frame. It's so you know, the both the

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left and the right, young people on the left and

436
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the right all have you know, reject the constitution. Right,

437
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the left is so influenced by the sixteen nineteen project.

438
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This is the work of racist and sexist oppressors. But

439
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,359
also on the conservative side, there's this big movement, you know, saying,

440
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you know, the Constitution is also holding us back. You know,

441
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we should be advancing conservative social values despite originalism and

442
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despite all these ideas that tried to create a neutral

443
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approach to the Constitution. These last week, it seems like

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everybody wants to go beyond the Constitution. Now, how do

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you respond to them?

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Speaker 7: You know, the book very much speaks to exactly those

447
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younger people. And one thing I would say is, I'm

448
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a conservative, so I think it's always the same time.

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It's time to raise another generation of Americans to be

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decent human beings and good citizens. That's always our challenge.

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That was your grandparents' challenge, and it's going to be

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your grandkid's challenge, and it's your challenge.

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Speaker 3: And I think a.

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Speaker 7: Lot of what you don't know what time it is

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kind of arguments on the right now are a form

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of escapism from responsibility. They want to say, well, this

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was how we used to work, but now all the

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rules have been broken, so we don't need to worry

459
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about the rules either. Well, no, they're still here. We

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still need them. They still answer questions and challenges. They're

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always with us, and we have to recognize that the

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burden of sustaining this system is the privilege of being

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an American citizen. But more than that, I think the objections,

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in a sense, the objections that you find in the

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Constitution on the left are familiar, and the book treats

466
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those at great length. They're the same kinds of arguments

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that the progressives have been making for more than one

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hundred years about the Constitution, that it's not democratic enough,

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that it's not sophisticated enough to govern in the modern world.

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I disagree the Constitution is more sophisticated than these critics

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are about the nature of the liberal society. The conservative

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critiques are a little newer, and I think in some

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ways they're misguided about the character of democratic life and

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of our constitutional system. At the heart of a lot

475
00:24:13,759 --> 00:24:17,880
of them is this notion that the Constitution is empty proceduralism,

476
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:21,079
that it doesn't have moral content, it's just about a

477
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,839
set of procedures and rules. And I think the whole

478
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:29,200
idea of empty proceduralism is completely confused. There's actually no

479
00:24:29,319 --> 00:24:33,799
such thing as empty proceduralism. What procedures do is create

480
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:39,359
habits and virtues and facilitate moral formation. Just think about

481
00:24:39,759 --> 00:24:42,839
if you want to speak for the Western moral tradition,

482
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:45,000
which they do, and if you want to say you're

483
00:24:45,039 --> 00:24:48,079
speaking for the tradition, the classical Christian tradition that reaches

484
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:52,319
back to Aquinas and Aristotle. In that tradition, the way

485
00:24:52,319 --> 00:24:56,480
in which we become morally formed is by being habituated

486
00:24:56,519 --> 00:25:00,240
to practicing the virtues. And what is the mechanism for

487
00:25:00,279 --> 00:25:03,279
a bituation. It's precisely what they call procedure. It's the

488
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,640
rules that govern how we engage with each other. And

489
00:25:07,039 --> 00:25:12,440
constitutional procedures make us into citizens that respect each other's equality,

490
00:25:12,839 --> 00:25:15,640
make us into people with some humility and some patience

491
00:25:15,799 --> 00:25:19,000
and ability to deal with difference and confront one another

492
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:22,400
in a way that points to some constructive common action

493
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,640
that is deeply morally formative. I think the arguments on

494
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,680
the right about the nature of the Constitution are just

495
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:28,799
very confused.

496
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,640
Speaker 6: You just put a practical point on it as abortion.

497
00:25:33,079 --> 00:25:34,960
So it sounds to me like you would support the

498
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,960
idea of Dobs that abortion should be sent back to

499
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,119
the States where we can all fight about it politically.

500
00:25:40,519 --> 00:25:43,680
Because both conservatives and liberals want Congress to pass an

501
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,960
abortion bill, right, just in different points of the spectrum.

502
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:52,039
Even conservatives now are talking about passing a federal nationwide

503
00:25:52,079 --> 00:25:54,759
pro life bill, just in the same way liberals want

504
00:25:54,799 --> 00:25:58,640
to pass a restoration of ro versus Wade in Congress.

505
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 7: Yeah, and look, I think that that's the venue where

506
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,880
we have to argue about questions like that. It's not

507
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,680
up to the courts to decide what our laws should be.

508
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,799
What our laws should be is the fundamental political question,

509
00:26:09,839 --> 00:26:12,240
and that means we have to decide it together in

510
00:26:12,319 --> 00:26:15,039
those arenas where we can actually engage with each other,

511
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,119
compete with each other, negotiate with each other. And that

512
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:19,519
has to happen in the legislature.

513
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: Hey, I have maybe a political cultural question now.

514
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 5: Obviously, the first ten amendments, a first ten amendments Constitution

515
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:31,359
happened all kind of at once, right, and then there's

516
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,240
a bunch more kind of in a cluster. And then

517
00:26:34,279 --> 00:26:36,400
there was a couple around the Civil War periods, the

518
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,079
Civil War era kinds, and then there were there's a

519
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:44,440
bunch of them around turn of the last century that

520
00:26:44,559 --> 00:26:48,880
were with suffrage and prohibion things like that. And then

521
00:26:49,039 --> 00:26:53,519
kind of a quiet period where it just seemed like

522
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:55,119
whenever you say to people, well, you could have a

523
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:57,400
constitutional amendment, they kind of rolled their eyes, like, well, man,

524
00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:58,759
that's just never going to happen.

525
00:26:58,799 --> 00:27:00,759
Speaker 1: Two thirds of this two there's never going to happen.

526
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 5: Are we going to Are we entering a phase when

527
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,240
that is true, that this is the idea of like

528
00:27:06,319 --> 00:27:09,519
galvanizing a giant majority of Americans to do this thing

529
00:27:09,599 --> 00:27:13,079
and throughout all these different houses of government state houses

530
00:27:13,079 --> 00:27:16,440
and uh and and federal chambers.

531
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,039
Speaker 1: Or is it cyclical?

532
00:27:19,519 --> 00:27:21,599
Speaker 5: I mean, could we look at another period in the

533
00:27:21,599 --> 00:27:24,880
next ten twenty thirty years where we reminds us of

534
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,119
those turn of this turn of the twentieth century spate

535
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,359
of some of them were really dumb, but we managed

536
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:32,000
to get him through.

537
00:27:32,039 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: I mean nobody.

538
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 5: I don't think anybody's really arguing for prohibitions, certainly not

539
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:36,759
John Hughes.

540
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: Not sure to get you up in the morning.

541
00:27:41,759 --> 00:27:44,839
Speaker 6: Are you add more stuff just telcohol?

542
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,839
Speaker 7: John wants to mandate drinking exactly.

543
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,839
Speaker 6: I mean, how it's easier would be for us to

544
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:52,640
agree if we.

545
00:27:52,599 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 5: All have the I mean, I guess that's what I'm saying,

546
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,839
is like, is it I mean, is the idea that

547
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:00,759
I always say to people when they complain of I'm like, hey, listen,

548
00:28:01,839 --> 00:28:03,119
constitutions a living document.

549
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 1: You can amend it. You can amend it.

550
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 5: And they'll call, you know, come on, that's not realistic.

551
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:08,839
Is it not realistic? Or is it cyclical? Or is

552
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,640
it something that happened in the past and it is

553
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:13,599
possible to happen now.

554
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,079
Speaker 7: Well, I think the Constitution allows us for allow us

555
00:28:17,079 --> 00:28:20,119
for a lot of room for political decision making, for

556
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:24,039
changing the rules that govern the workings of American government.

557
00:28:24,039 --> 00:28:28,039
Without a constitutional amendment, we've, as you say, the amendments

558
00:28:28,079 --> 00:28:33,279
of common bunches generally, and the last real bunch of

559
00:28:33,319 --> 00:28:36,319
amendments was the Progressive Amendments. We had a series afterwards

560
00:28:36,319 --> 00:28:38,440
in the middle of the twentieth century to sort of

561
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:42,680
fix a couple of things, presidential succession and so on,

562
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,240
lowering the voting age, and there was the final so far,

563
00:28:47,359 --> 00:28:51,359
the twenty seventh Amendments was almost symbolic really as part

564
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,279
of celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the Constitution. The

565
00:28:54,359 --> 00:28:56,559
last real amendments fifty years ago, and that is a

566
00:28:56,599 --> 00:28:57,279
long time.

567
00:28:58,400 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 3: I have to say.

568
00:28:59,079 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 7: For one thing, I'm I'm a conservative, and therefore I

569
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:03,839
don't really see a lot of problems to which a

570
00:29:03,839 --> 00:29:06,079
constitutional amount would be a solution. I don't think it's

571
00:29:06,119 --> 00:29:10,400
obvious now that there are some essential amendments. I think

572
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:12,640
a lot of the problems of our political culture are

573
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:16,559
functions of things we can change without constitutional amendments. The

574
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,759
nature of the electoral process and especially the primary system,

575
00:29:19,799 --> 00:29:23,559
the way Congress works. We don't have broad majorities for

576
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,680
anything in American public life right now, so the notion

577
00:29:26,799 --> 00:29:29,680
that we would have a broad majority for a constitutional

578
00:29:29,759 --> 00:29:32,119
amendment is a little hard to imagine.

579
00:29:32,119 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 3: But these things do change.

580
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,839
Speaker 7: American party politics work in phases, and I can certainly

581
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,079
imagine that twenty five years from now we're in a

582
00:29:39,079 --> 00:29:44,119
different enough place where there's public pressure for amendments. I

583
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:47,839
shudder to think what those would be, frankly, but it's possible.

584
00:29:48,119 --> 00:29:50,279
I don't think that in this moment where we are now,

585
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:52,599
those would be possible, And I think the pressures we

586
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,400
do see actually reinforce the wisdom of the original structure

587
00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,480
of the Constitution. You know, the Biden administration wants to

588
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,079
limit the terms of Supreme Court justices.

589
00:30:03,039 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 5: To ask about to ask that that collection of quote

590
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:08,279
reforms unquote Yeah.

591
00:30:08,279 --> 00:30:11,559
Speaker 7: I mean, look, I think those ideas are exactly an

592
00:30:11,599 --> 00:30:14,920
example of why we have lifetime tenure for judges. When

593
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,200
you tell people people as wise they're left time tendre

594
00:30:17,319 --> 00:30:19,240
you say, well, you want to protect them from pressure

595
00:30:19,319 --> 00:30:24,039
from the political branches that would try to kick out

596
00:30:24,119 --> 00:30:26,240
judges that make decisions they don't like. And people say, well,

597
00:30:26,279 --> 00:30:29,480
that wouldn't happen. Well, that's literally what's happening now. What

598
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,839
the Democrats want to do here is exactly why there

599
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,599
is lifetime tenure for judges, and exactly why we have

600
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:37,440
to retain lifetime tenure for judges.

601
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 6: I think isn't it fair to say that Donald Trump, Yes,

602
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,480
he's accused of being a threat to the constitution or democracy,

603
00:30:47,559 --> 00:30:49,720
even though we live in a republic not a democracy.

604
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,480
But when you read about what the Democrats want to do,

605
00:30:53,559 --> 00:30:57,400
aren't they the ones threatening longer term damage to the constitution,

606
00:30:57,559 --> 00:31:02,079
right term limits on the justices. Kamala Harris back in

607
00:31:02,119 --> 00:31:05,799
twenty twenty said she supported court packing these ideas about it.

608
00:31:05,799 --> 00:31:07,720
They also want to get rid of the electoral college.

609
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,200
They talk about getting rid of the filibuster, adding Puerto

610
00:31:11,279 --> 00:31:14,599
Rico and Washington, DC as states. I mean, I mean,

611
00:31:14,599 --> 00:31:16,599
this is actually kind of like what Rob was talking

612
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:20,400
about before the big burst of progressive constitutional amendments were

613
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:24,799
designed to get rid of more guardrails pure democracy. Isn't

614
00:31:24,799 --> 00:31:26,759
that what progresses want to do again right now? And

615
00:31:26,839 --> 00:31:30,000
is it? Kamala Harris the right she is the phalank

616
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,960
had phalanx in that movement to undo this constitutional order

617
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,799
your favorite with It's just the Supreme Court termlament thing

618
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:38,880
is just the first of what they have in mind.

619
00:31:39,319 --> 00:31:41,519
Speaker 7: I think what's always been striking about the progressives is

620
00:31:41,559 --> 00:31:45,799
that they go at the Constitution head on. They openly

621
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,400
dislike the system and want to change it in fundamental ways.

622
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:51,519
When to undermine it fundamental ways, And I do think

623
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,079
a lot of what they're talking about here are direct

624
00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:58,680
attacks on all of the countermajoritarian parts of the Constitution.

625
00:31:58,759 --> 00:32:02,720
The Constitution exists of balance majority rule and minority rights.

626
00:32:03,279 --> 00:32:06,720
All of the ways that restrain majority rule are under

627
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:08,759
attach now the Bill of Rights, one by one who

628
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,279
they're working their way through the first Amendment from religion

629
00:32:11,319 --> 00:32:15,160
to speech and on from there. They talk the same

630
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,519
way about the Senate, now about the courts the electoral College.

631
00:32:18,519 --> 00:32:22,640
As you say, it's a strategy that seems rooted in

632
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,319
this weird notion that they're the majority, which I actually

633
00:32:25,319 --> 00:32:27,680
don't think is correct. But in any case, that's always

634
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,079
been how the progressives have thought about it. I think

635
00:32:30,079 --> 00:32:33,240
there is a danger to the Constitution from the kind

636
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,759
of the approach that Donald Trump had to the presidency.

637
00:32:35,799 --> 00:32:38,599
He was just not cognizant of the boundaries on the

638
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:40,960
president and didn't care much about them. I think that's

639
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:45,039
bad too. But there is a kind of direct assault

640
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:48,319
on the Constitution, a knowing assault on it, that is

641
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,400
much more characteristic on the left. But as you said

642
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,400
at the beginning, John, there are now threats to the

643
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,319
Constitution from both left and right, and we all need

644
00:32:56,359 --> 00:33:00,119
a reminder of what the Constitution is, for why it

645
00:33:00,119 --> 00:33:02,759
works the way it does, Especially the parts of it

646
00:33:02,799 --> 00:33:06,279
that are most frustrating two narrow majorities, which are the

647
00:33:06,319 --> 00:33:08,680
only kind we have now, are the parts of it

648
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,519
that we have got to sustain and remind people about,

649
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,039
because those elements are what allow our system to keep

650
00:33:15,039 --> 00:33:19,839
its balance. The Constitution is meant to frustrate narrow majorities,

651
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,799
to force them to grow, and to empower only broad majorities.

652
00:33:23,839 --> 00:33:26,160
That's the distinct feature of the American system. It's not

653
00:33:26,359 --> 00:33:29,119
like parliamentary systems in that way. I think that's had

654
00:33:29,119 --> 00:33:32,160
a lot to do with its durability.

655
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 5: I always have a problem with my friends are like

656
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,440
talk about I mean, I get a lot of crap

657
00:33:38,519 --> 00:33:42,359
on this podcast from people like John You about being

658
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:44,440
a rhino. But you know, when I talk to my

659
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,160
liberal friends, my very liberal Democrat friends, always say to them,

660
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:51,720
your MVP of the Democratic parties, Joe Manchin, the MVP

661
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:54,079
of the Republican Party, are all the rhinos like me?

662
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: You need it, That's the way the system works. You

663
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:56,400
don't like it.

664
00:33:56,519 --> 00:33:58,039
Speaker 5: I guess we need a prime minister. We're not going

665
00:33:58,079 --> 00:34:00,480
to get one. This is the way the system is.

666
00:34:00,759 --> 00:34:03,319
And it always stolished to me how quickly we forget that.

667
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:07,839
Speaker 7: Absolutely. Our system does not trust narrow majorities. And the

668
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,039
reason for that is very straightforward. Majorities can be dangerous.

669
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:11,760
Speaker 3: It's true.

670
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,119
Speaker 7: Majority rule is necessary to legitimate political power, but it's

671
00:34:15,159 --> 00:34:19,320
also dangerous, and the Constitution deals with that by standing

672
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,360
in the way of narrow majorities so that they are

673
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:22,239
forced to grow.

674
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:22,800
Speaker 1: And some.

675
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:26,679
Speaker 7: Of the institutions built up around it, like the filibuster,

676
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,360
which I think is very important to protect and sustain,

677
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:33,079
are also they work that way. All the bipartisan legislation

678
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,760
of the twenty first century has basically been a function

679
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:39,079
of the filibuster, and the idea that getting rid of

680
00:34:39,119 --> 00:34:42,360
it is what twenty first century American politics requires strikes

681
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:44,840
me as just crazy. There's an assumption at the bottom

682
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,199
of a lot of progressive arguments that there's this big

683
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:50,239
majority out there and it's being held back by the system.

684
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:53,119
But the problem we have is that there's not a

685
00:34:53,199 --> 00:34:57,119
majority for anything, and we need to form majorities. That's

686
00:34:57,159 --> 00:34:58,960
what the Constitution can help us to do.

687
00:35:00,119 --> 00:35:02,679
Speaker 2: We were speaking before about the right not liking the

688
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:06,480
Constitutions parts of it because it was just procedural, and

689
00:35:06,519 --> 00:35:08,239
you were right and correct to say that the entire

690
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,519
document is suffused with the philosophy at the times like

691
00:35:10,559 --> 00:35:14,480
a building, the framework, the structure, the girders, or the

692
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:17,119
spirit of Western civilization, and the procedural stuff is the

693
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:19,119
cladding that goes up on top of that.

694
00:35:19,159 --> 00:35:19,639
Speaker 3: We see.

695
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,079
Speaker 2: But I wonder if you had a constitutional convention, as

696
00:35:24,119 --> 00:35:27,039
so many people seem to want to, are talking about,

697
00:35:27,679 --> 00:35:30,960
some way of getting our arms around this thing and

698
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,320
making sure that it's adaptable for its next century. I

699
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,719
think that the right, I would fear less having a

700
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:42,039
constitutional convention, because I think the instincts of the right

701
00:35:42,079 --> 00:35:44,840
would be still to constrain the power of the state

702
00:35:46,079 --> 00:35:49,360
and have rights be natural rights, and that the left

703
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:53,519
would wish to enshrine in the Constitution any number of

704
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:57,760
an innumerable number of little detailed rights which the state provided,

705
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:01,440
guaranteed and was the source of. And maybe that's the

706
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:05,119
difficulty that we're talking about here when you say that

707
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:06,800
there's not a majority for these ideas.

708
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 3: Well, they don't believe that.

709
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 2: If the left may not believe that there is a

710
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,519
majority for these things, but more importantly, they are correct,

711
00:36:14,559 --> 00:36:16,400
and therefore the things that stand in the way of

712
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:18,480
all of these things being manifested in the country are

713
00:36:19,679 --> 00:36:23,760
illegitimate and immoral and possibly evil and the rest of it.

714
00:36:24,679 --> 00:36:29,280
And that's why they would shread nearly any single aspect

715
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:32,039
of the Constitution that got in their way, whereas I

716
00:36:32,079 --> 00:36:34,159
don't fear that from the right.

717
00:36:35,119 --> 00:36:37,079
Speaker 3: So I agree with that.

718
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 7: I think that well, I would be worried about a

719
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:46,239
constitutional convention from all directions. I think that opening up

720
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,239
the document in a way that some people suggest, and

721
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,639
just having a free for all about what it ought

722
00:36:50,639 --> 00:36:52,840
to be would not serve ce well in this moment.

723
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:54,679
But I would certainly fear the left more than the

724
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:57,679
right for just the reasons you're suggesting. I think the

725
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:01,159
Constitution was written in a very peculiar moment in American history,

726
00:37:01,519 --> 00:37:04,400
where there had been five years of war in the Revolution,

727
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:09,559
war against government that was seen as overly powerful and domineering.

728
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,599
And then there were five years after the Revolution in

729
00:37:12,639 --> 00:37:15,880
which there was total pandemonium and government was too weak

730
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:20,719
and ineffective. And the Constitutional Convention responded to both of

731
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,760
those problems, and so was aware of the dangers of

732
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,320
weak government and strong government at the same time, and

733
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:31,280
sought for some kind of balance between the two. It's

734
00:37:31,519 --> 00:37:33,800
very hard to imagine that at any other moment in

735
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,239
American history we would have produced quite that kind of balance,

736
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:39,400
and so I think for that reason, it's a good

737
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,159
thing that it's hard to amend the Constitution. Sometimes we

738
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:44,840
need to, but we should be very wary about opening

739
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:45,119
it up.

740
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:46,679
Speaker 2: I think it's great. I mean they say the center

741
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:48,519
to the place where the passions go to be cooled.

742
00:37:48,559 --> 00:37:52,599
I mean the Constitutional Amendment brought is it process is

743
00:37:52,639 --> 00:37:55,679
the deep freeze in which things are packed in ice

744
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,760
and the good luck getting out of that. Which is

745
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,760
good because, as you noted, it came out of a

746
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,559
very unique time. But at the same time we seem

747
00:38:04,599 --> 00:38:08,000
to have been blessed by not only a time that

748
00:38:08,079 --> 00:38:11,480
produced this unique document, but the temperaments the people who

749
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:14,679
crafted it and to understood it. And that's what baffles

750
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:16,320
me about the people who want to tear it up

751
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:18,679
and start all over or just tinker it into oblivion.

752
00:38:19,199 --> 00:38:22,599
Is that human nature, what they discern, what they knew

753
00:38:22,599 --> 00:38:24,960
about human nature and human systems at the time is

754
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,320
hardly irrelevant and outdated today.

755
00:38:28,199 --> 00:38:29,199
Speaker 3: They haven't, they.

756
00:38:29,159 --> 00:38:31,800
Speaker 2: Haven't changed, and they exist to this day. And there's

757
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:36,719
a lesson in that that an ahistorical generation seems completely

758
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:37,880
delighted to ignore.

759
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:43,519
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the notion that it's old and out

760
00:38:43,519 --> 00:38:46,239
of its time is the most wrong thing about the

761
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,679
critiques that people offer about the Constitution. The Constitution is

762
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,440
I think more sophisticated than its critics about the most

763
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,599
difficult challenge that faces every modern democratic society, which is

764
00:38:57,639 --> 00:39:02,320
the challenge of cohesion amid diversity. The United States is

765
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,519
you know, The most popular kind of critique among political

766
00:39:05,519 --> 00:39:08,800
scientists of the Constitution is a kind of comparative critique

767
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,599
that looks at Norway or Denmark and says, well, these

768
00:39:11,639 --> 00:39:15,519
systems are more directly representative and more proportional. The very

769
00:39:15,559 --> 00:39:18,599
idea that we could even think to compare our government

770
00:39:18,639 --> 00:39:22,920
to Norway's is an example of how effective the Constitution is.

771
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:26,400
The United States is not like Norway. It's like India.

772
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:30,239
It's like it's like Brazil and Mexico, except it's much

773
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:34,199
better governed than those places. It's a vast democracy that

774
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,360
works so well that it could compare itself to Denmark.

775
00:39:38,119 --> 00:39:40,880
And the fact that we're able to do that is

776
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,000
a function of the incredible sophistication.

777
00:39:43,039 --> 00:39:45,599
Speaker 6: That's crazy. I don't ever want to compare anything we

778
00:39:45,679 --> 00:39:53,119
do to Denial. Yeah, well look than Denmark.

779
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: This is a legit. What's a real question. I really

780
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:56,840
I've always wanted this.

781
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 5: I get that they were really smart guys. You know,

782
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:07,639
I was forced to read the Federalist papers in college,

783
00:40:07,639 --> 00:40:09,719
and so I get that they were smart. But the

784
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:13,119
idea that they were the architects of this system that

785
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:17,400
works at this scale, like at the scale that the

786
00:40:17,519 --> 00:40:20,039
United I mean, the reason that we are not like

787
00:40:20,119 --> 00:40:22,119
Norway's because we have Norway here too.

788
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: It's up there somewhere close.

789
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:27,880
Speaker 5: To where James lips and we have a little bit

790
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:28,880
of Mexico down there.

791
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 1: I mean, we have everything.

792
00:40:30,519 --> 00:40:33,119
Speaker 5: And the idea that these Do you think these guys

793
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:35,840
had an idea that this country was going to be

794
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:39,639
loud and fractious and noisy, and that we needed a

795
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:41,400
system that was going to be able to contain that

796
00:40:41,519 --> 00:40:45,920
and channel that. Or do you think they just thought, hey, listen,

797
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:51,920
you put people in a room together, no matter what

798
00:40:52,039 --> 00:40:56,840
their background is, they're going to fight. Sometimes the most bitter,

799
00:40:57,039 --> 00:40:59,280
the bitterest arguments are between family members.

800
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 1: So so this works at scale.

801
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,199
Speaker 5: It works when we have, you know, thirteen colonies, works

802
00:41:04,199 --> 00:41:06,199
when we have a population of one million, we have

803
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,039
two big cities, and it works when we have twenty

804
00:41:08,039 --> 00:41:08,800
seven big cities.

805
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: Is that did they know? Well?

806
00:41:12,599 --> 00:41:15,599
Speaker 7: I certainly think they didn't know quite how the United

807
00:41:15,639 --> 00:41:18,519
States would grow. I think I think they didn't have

808
00:41:18,599 --> 00:41:20,480
a conception of what it could be in the twenty

809
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,119
first century. But I do think a number of them

810
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:25,840
had a very strong sense that the United States was

811
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,719
destined to be a great world power had a real

812
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,679
sense that it was going to grow geographically and demographically.

813
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:37,920
You know, Alexander Hamilton talks about the future of the

814
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:42,199
country in a way that is extraordinarily modern and far seeing.

815
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:44,639
They didn't know exactly how, but I think they were

816
00:41:44,679 --> 00:41:48,320
building for durability and growth. And they had a sense

817
00:41:48,679 --> 00:41:53,239
that politics is always contentious, that it is about fighting,

818
00:41:53,519 --> 00:41:56,880
and therefore the system has to be built to contain

819
00:41:57,039 --> 00:42:02,119
tensions but also facilitate constructive fighting. And that is an

820
00:42:02,119 --> 00:42:05,320
insight that has served us very well. It's remained true.

821
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,280
And you know the United States, I mean Americans, I

822
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:11,880
think we always exaggerate our internal differences. We say, well,

823
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,480
we used to be, you know, this one homogeneous society

824
00:42:14,519 --> 00:42:17,280
back then, but now we're so diverse and different. I

825
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,199
think we're kind of wrong on both ends of that.

826
00:42:20,039 --> 00:42:23,360
The America of the late eighteenth century was quite divided

827
00:42:23,639 --> 00:42:27,079
and fractious and felt diverse to itself, and the America

828
00:42:27,119 --> 00:42:28,880
of the twenty first century. I mean, look, if you

829
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,280
spend a few weeks abroad and then run into an

830
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:34,840
American somewhere, you know that person's an American in five

831
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,960
seconds from across the room. We have a lot in common,

832
00:42:38,159 --> 00:42:40,559
and it's not only when we agree with each other,

833
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,960
when we're from the same place. There is absolutely such

834
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,239
a thing in the world as the American character, and

835
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,079
in a lot of ways it's a function of our

836
00:42:48,119 --> 00:42:50,920
constitutional system and of our political culture.

837
00:42:52,559 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 6: Thank you all. What comes next. So there's an influential

838
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,000
theory out there that says, you know, American history goes

839
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:01,760
in these kind of cycles, and where you're at the end.

840
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,360
I feel like we're in one of these, Like at

841
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,119
the end of the ancient regime, the way things have

842
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:10,559
run for a while decades comes to an end. They say,

843
00:43:10,679 --> 00:43:14,159
you get these years of closely divided elections where nothing happens,

844
00:43:14,199 --> 00:43:16,840
people get more and more frustrated. Then some kind of

845
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:19,960
crisis occurs and we kind of break through that, and

846
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,840
then a whole new system comes into existence. So they

847
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:26,440
say Reagan was like that, FDR was like that, Lincoln

848
00:43:26,519 --> 00:43:29,079
and Jefferson going back. You know, those are the major points.

849
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:31,760
Don you feel like we're in that now? And if

850
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,320
that's true, what's going to be what's going to replace

851
00:43:34,599 --> 00:43:41,039
this kind of close elections, bitter divisions, polarization, which you know,

852
00:43:41,079 --> 00:43:43,840
what you see at the end of a cycle. What's

853
00:43:44,119 --> 00:43:45,159
the next one going to look like?

854
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's right. You know, Samuel Huntington wrote

855
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:50,000
a book in the early eighties called The Promise of Disharmony,

856
00:43:50,039 --> 00:43:53,719
which is an amazing book what really underappreciated, and he

857
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,159
describes this these kinds of cycles, and he even said

858
00:43:56,199 --> 00:43:59,360
that we would be in one in this period in

859
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:04,880
the second deck of the twenty first century. And oftentimes

860
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:06,960
what characterizes these moments, like you say, is that there's

861
00:44:07,039 --> 00:44:11,239
not an obvious majority party in American political life. So

862
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:13,159
most of the time, if you look in on the

863
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:16,639
United States, there's a majority party that's holding together a

864
00:44:16,639 --> 00:44:20,079
complicated coalition. There's a minority party that's trying to broaden

865
00:44:20,119 --> 00:44:24,960
its coalition. They're both engaged in coalition building, and those

866
00:44:25,079 --> 00:44:27,480
phases kind of run out, and you reach a point

867
00:44:27,519 --> 00:44:30,960
where neither party is engaged in coalition building, and our

868
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,960
politics just feels totally dysfunctional. I think that's actually a

869
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,079
great description of this moment. Neither party is engaged in

870
00:44:37,119 --> 00:44:39,920
coalition building. If you step back from them, they're not

871
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,920
really trying to grow, They're trying to mobilize their existing

872
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:48,760
base of voters, and this creates an enormous opportunity for

873
00:44:49,079 --> 00:44:53,079
political insight and political talent to build a real majority.

874
00:44:54,159 --> 00:44:56,239
I think a lot of politicians in this moment think

875
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:58,920
that can't be a majority again, even though they live

876
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,559
through a paer. Look, Ronald Reagan won forty nine states

877
00:45:01,559 --> 00:45:06,159
in nineteen eighty four. Nobody imagines that's imaginable, that's achievable now.

878
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,960
But a majority is absolutely achievable now.

879
00:45:10,199 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 3: I think it's.

880
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:16,079
Speaker 6: Something like a conservative populist working class party, Isn't that

881
00:45:16,079 --> 00:45:17,639
what it feels like is coming in.

882
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,519
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think both parties have an opportunity. I think

883
00:45:21,559 --> 00:45:25,400
Republicans have a bigger opportunity. It's easier to imagine Republicans

884
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:29,079
being that party, but yeah, it would be the popular party,

885
00:45:29,119 --> 00:45:31,559
the party that speaks for the people in a kind

886
00:45:31,599 --> 00:45:34,320
of up down politics as much as left right. You know,

887
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:37,960
the traditional divide in democracy is the few and the many,

888
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,079
and left right is a kind of modern addition onto that.

889
00:45:42,519 --> 00:45:44,039
But the few in the many is still the most

890
00:45:44,039 --> 00:45:47,280
powerful force in the life of a democracy, and our

891
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:50,719
politics increasingly feels like a party of the elite and

892
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:54,000
a party of the people. That obviously can be very unhealthy,

893
00:45:54,079 --> 00:45:56,159
and I think we're seeing it as unhealthy. Both the

894
00:45:56,199 --> 00:45:59,480
elitism and the populism we have now are unhealthy. But

895
00:45:59,639 --> 00:46:03,639
to fill a majority that somehow cuts across some of

896
00:46:03,679 --> 00:46:06,920
the familiar categories of the phase of our politics that's ending.

897
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,400
And I'm not talking about eighty percent, but sixty percent.

898
00:46:10,559 --> 00:46:13,679
That's a big majority in American politics. I absolutely think

899
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,119
that is achievable. And that's what the next phase looks like.

900
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:17,599
Speaker 6: I just want to say, I want to be with

901
00:46:17,639 --> 00:46:20,000
the elites because they all have the best stuff. But

902
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,199
when the revolution comes, I'm switching. I'm going with Rob.

903
00:46:23,199 --> 00:46:25,000
Wherever Rob goes, I'm going with them.

904
00:46:25,079 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm a I'm a survivor, John. And to push

905
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:32,440
you off my bandwagon. Oh yeah, not that everybody. I

906
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,599
can get this guy.

907
00:46:39,639 --> 00:46:42,079
Speaker 2: Well, we could get the entire country, forty nine states

908
00:46:42,119 --> 00:46:44,559
at least if we agreed with John Yu that the

909
00:46:44,679 --> 00:46:49,039
Mick rib should be available all year round in addition

910
00:46:49,079 --> 00:46:51,320
to the Shamrock Shake or some of the popular menu items,

911
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:52,480
that being John's thing.

912
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 3: Right.

913
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,320
Speaker 2: Barring that, It's hard to see what issue it'll be,

914
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:59,239
but we may find out. In the meantime, we recommend

915
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:01,400
that everybody, since we are in this period a TwixT

916
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:06,199
constitutional adherents at a national and social personal level.

917
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:08,119
Speaker 3: Read his book.

918
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 2: The book is called American Covenant, How the Constitution Unified

919
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,320
our Nation? And good again, I've all even thanks so

920
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:18,119
much for joining us today. Fascinating conversation. We can go

921
00:47:18,159 --> 00:47:19,760
on and on and on about it, and you know,

922
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:21,840
we'll talk to you maybe before the next book.

923
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:24,119
Speaker 3: What is the next book? By the way, thank you

924
00:47:24,199 --> 00:47:24,519
very much.

925
00:47:24,519 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 7: I appreciate it, though I have to said I don't

926
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,400
appreciate that question because it's always a very hard question

927
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:31,440
to answer right after writing this book. But time will tell.

928
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,039
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I'll be in the newspaper business. Here.

929
00:47:34,039 --> 00:47:34,840
We're all about the list.

930
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,760
Speaker 2: So i'd say that, you know, the Bill of Rights,

931
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:43,079
pick five and five favorite five hottest rights in the

932
00:47:43,079 --> 00:47:44,000
turnat Bill Rights.

933
00:47:44,119 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 6: There you go, no quartering, no quartering.

934
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: Good for collects.

935
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 3: Thanks you, thanks you all, thank you so much, thank

936
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:49,719
you all.

937
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 2: You know, yes, top down pleabs versus the patricians, all

938
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,159
the rest of it, you know. But thanks to Marks,

939
00:47:57,239 --> 00:48:01,280
we have a we have elites work collectivists. That that's

940
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:05,000
the strange thing, right right, prefer the old days when

941
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:06,719
the elites would just simply leave the peasants to be

942
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:08,280
in their fields and do what they want die as

943
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:10,199
long as they pay their access and give.

944
00:48:10,079 --> 00:48:11,880
Speaker 3: Their farthings and leaves to the king.

945
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 2: But no, we got to have this collective identity thanks

946
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,800
to our betters and oh you know Dave os w

947
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:21,400
EF all those places, all those crazy words.

948
00:48:21,079 --> 00:48:22,639
Speaker 3: That we throw out there to say.

949
00:48:23,159 --> 00:48:25,760
Speaker 2: And I don't believe that the WEF is actually anything

950
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:29,039
more than just a sort of amusing collection of supervillains

951
00:48:29,079 --> 00:48:31,679
who just plot, who just tell you their stories out

952
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:34,199
and the the thing is that they always tell their

953
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,559
their plans about owning nothing in the fifteen minute city

954
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,519
and you know, eating the bugs living in the pods.

955
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:43,519
They always say these plans before they actually have James

956
00:48:43,599 --> 00:48:47,280
Bond strapped into the laser castration machine.

957
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, right now.

958
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 2: The thing about it, Yeah, you're supposed to reveal all

959
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,239
that stuff when you got the guy where you want

960
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:54,840
them and then you tell But no, they're out there

961
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,760
in the in the open telling us everything. In rickchhet

962
00:48:57,760 --> 00:48:59,480
At the other day we were having a conversation about

963
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:02,239
fifteen minut cities. I know Rob lives in one, I

964
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:06,000
practically do. And the reason that I wanted to push

965
00:49:06,039 --> 00:49:08,760
back against people throwing fifteen minute cities out there.

966
00:49:09,159 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 3: Maybe we talked about this before, I can't remember. It

967
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,480
has to do with that. It's not a bad idea.

968
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:17,679
Speaker 2: It really isn't to design places where you can get

969
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:19,239
around and you can walk, and you can get your

970
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,079
groceries and you can go to a cafe in a

971
00:49:22,119 --> 00:49:24,880
bar drug store within fifteen minutes not having to get

972
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,840
in your car. And the problem is a twofold one.

973
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:33,159
They use it as a means to bash the paradigm

974
00:49:33,199 --> 00:49:35,440
that a lot of people have happily adapted to, which

975
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:38,639
is the suburbs. People are completely content to live in

976
00:49:38,679 --> 00:49:42,239
the suburbs for a variety of reasons. And two, you

977
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:44,039
have to be very very careful that it doesn't turn

978
00:49:44,039 --> 00:49:49,440
into a mechanism whereby this good idea, suffused with its

979
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:52,360
moral purity, becomes a way of the state extracting more

980
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:56,159
resources from you by putting, you know what, you can

981
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:58,400
drive out of your fifteen minute city elsewhere if you want,

982
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:00,760
but you're going to pay a congestion stuff like that.

983
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, it bothers me.

984
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,679
Speaker 2: How so many things that we that in your heart

985
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:11,159
and in your head you agree with stewardship of the environment. Uh,

986
00:50:11,599 --> 00:50:14,400
you know a end of the you know, the blight,

987
00:50:14,639 --> 00:50:16,239
visual blight of billboards, etc.

988
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:17,800
Speaker 3: All of these things.

989
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,199
Speaker 2: They've got an aspect to it that, yeah, it's good

990
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:21,840
for all of us if we do this, But it

991
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,639
becomes a dogmatic it becomes be a stocking horse for

992
00:50:25,679 --> 00:50:29,400
another ideology. See, it inevitably leads to the diminution of

993
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:31,760
your freedom. And that's one of those crazy words that

994
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:34,800
when you start throwing around, the younger generation starts to

995
00:50:35,119 --> 00:50:38,039
roll the Riyes, do you know what word is now

996
00:50:38,599 --> 00:50:41,559
making the rounds as being sort of suss to the

997
00:50:41,599 --> 00:50:43,639
young You guys, you have any idea? I mean, free

998
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:45,519
and liberty. We know that that's what crazy people with

999
00:50:45,559 --> 00:50:47,800
the red hat say. What's a word that also gets

1000
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:48,519
their hackles up?

1001
00:50:49,559 --> 00:50:50,360
Speaker 3: Abundance?

1002
00:50:51,119 --> 00:50:54,159
Speaker 5: Abundance? Yeah, that's right. I believe that. You know, there's

1003
00:50:54,199 --> 00:50:56,079
no abundance. It's just shortages of everything.

1004
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:58,559
Speaker 3: We shouldn't have. No, well, we shouldn't have it.

1005
00:50:58,599 --> 00:51:00,599
Speaker 2: But first of all, we don't have abundance because we're

1006
00:51:00,599 --> 00:51:01,840
in a post capitalist hell.

1007
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:03,880
Speaker 3: But we shouldn't have abundance.

1008
00:51:04,559 --> 00:51:07,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a philosophical question that they have.

1009
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:09,920
It's a philosophical argument, but that's it is.

1010
00:51:10,039 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 5: I mean, it is absolutely the end product of everything

1011
00:51:15,039 --> 00:51:18,480
that we've been teaching them, which is that there's shortages

1012
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:21,920
so and that there's less and that the future is

1013
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:25,360
going to be filled with challenges like the ocean's on fire.

1014
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:28,159
Speaker 2: You know what abundance means. Abundance means we turn the

1015
00:51:28,199 --> 00:51:30,280
light switch on, there's light. It means, and when you

1016
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:31,880
turn the hot water on, there's hot. Well, that's what

1017
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,719
abundance means. Actually we I mean, the things that we

1018
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:37,400
take for granted are symbols of tremendous abundance and we need.

1019
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 1: It also means that if.

1020
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:42,039
Speaker 5: You do well right, then that isn't zero sum that

1021
00:51:42,119 --> 00:51:44,719
I could do well too. We believe that the country

1022
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:47,400
grows and the economy grows, and rising tidle of salt

1023
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:49,239
boats and they roll their eyes at that, but it

1024
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:53,360
is in fact, demonstrably, unquestionably quantifiably the truth.

1025
00:51:53,639 --> 00:51:53,800
Speaker 6: Right.

1026
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 2: Well, well, Rob, we agree that is not enough. It

1027
00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:59,360
is not enough for you and I to do well, John,

1028
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:00,440
you must do poorly.

1029
00:52:02,079 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the libraries.

1030
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:12,239
Speaker 6: Where idea, neither one other idea, James, about just trying

1031
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,239
to draw from you know, what's going on in the academy. Stuff,

1032
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:17,920
crazy stuff, I read. But you know, there's one big

1033
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:21,000
stream of thought going into conservatives asking why do we

1034
00:52:21,039 --> 00:52:23,960
have cities at all? You know, now that we're decentralizing,

1035
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,719
now they have worked from home, now that our economy

1036
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:29,719
is based on the production of information, why do we

1037
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:31,480
why do we need cities? Why do we all need

1038
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:35,320
to live together in these closely compacted, dense places with

1039
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:39,519
expensive housing prices. And so here's here's the alternate world.

1040
00:52:39,599 --> 00:52:41,119
And I thought You've always going to mention this, but

1041
00:52:41,159 --> 00:52:45,400
he didn't, which was the constitution actually is great for decentralization.

1042
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,000
It's a great government for what Rob was saying, a

1043
00:52:48,079 --> 00:52:51,800
large country with people all spread out and diverse communities.

1044
00:52:52,559 --> 00:52:55,039
And you think about the government we have now, you

1045
00:52:55,079 --> 00:52:57,519
think about the cities we have now that you're talking about, James,

1046
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:02,480
that's mass production, factory style economics and society. That's not

1047
00:53:02,559 --> 00:53:06,719
the way things organize anymore. No, maybe that's why that's

1048
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,239
what I think, that's behind what you're talking about, James

1049
00:53:09,599 --> 00:53:13,599
about Well, these fifteen minute cities and suburbs, that's actually

1050
00:53:13,639 --> 00:53:17,119
a way station to going back to something that might

1051
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:20,559
look an organization more like the eighteenth century again, which

1052
00:53:20,599 --> 00:53:22,039
is where Rob really wants to live.

1053
00:53:22,559 --> 00:53:25,480
Speaker 5: Sure in a village. The villages are the most interesting places.

1054
00:53:25,559 --> 00:53:28,519
But I mean they're twin parts of the American experience

1055
00:53:28,599 --> 00:53:29,639
or just these are human nature.

1056
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 1: Right on the one hand, you want space. I want

1057
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:33,920
my space. That's one of the things that people said

1058
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:34,360
when they.

1059
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:37,800
Speaker 5: Left the dirty, stinking city and they went out to

1060
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:39,880
the suburbs the first time. I mean after about like

1061
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,480
the thirties and forties and fifties, right, and like, look

1062
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:43,000
at it.

1063
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:45,039
Speaker 1: I had a lawn, I got a front yard, I

1064
00:53:45,079 --> 00:53:48,039
got all this stuff, and that is incredibly powerful. That's

1065
00:53:48,079 --> 00:53:49,639
a great thing. That's why people live.

1066
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:51,800
Speaker 6: In Europe too, right, Yeah, because in Europe, the source

1067
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:53,400
of wealth was just having land.

1068
00:53:53,599 --> 00:53:56,599
Speaker 5: And that's some people didn't want to Some people wanted

1069
00:53:56,639 --> 00:53:58,079
to be in the city. Actually when they were young,

1070
00:53:58,119 --> 00:53:59,519
and they want to be with other young people. They

1071
00:53:59,519 --> 00:54:00,960
wanted to be in It's kind of crazy. They were

1072
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,719
willing to put up with it. And there's these two characters.

1073
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:06,239
There's this you know, there's the urban dweller and then

1074
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:10,519
there's the suburban choice. And then there's another human person

1075
00:54:10,639 --> 00:54:14,880
that's always there and that's the hoa head, right, that's

1076
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:20,239
the hoa busybody, and that is more than more I

1077
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:23,760
think than any other image is what people think about

1078
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:27,840
when they think about the sort of the progressive left,

1079
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,039
like this, these are there. They're going to walk around

1080
00:54:30,079 --> 00:54:34,119
the neighborhood and write your note because they don't like

1081
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:36,199
your curtains or they don't like this, whether you put

1082
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:37,880
up pum or you have a planter that's not the

1083
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:41,280
right color. And I think that is also very human

1084
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:43,119
like humans like to do that, we like to boss

1085
00:54:43,159 --> 00:54:45,920
each other around. But that is also part of this

1086
00:54:46,039 --> 00:54:50,239
kind of like small minded, limited mentality that if you

1087
00:54:50,519 --> 00:54:53,440
have this thing, we're all going to suffer. You look

1088
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:54,360
like you're having fun.

1089
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:58,519
Speaker 1: That's not good. And you know, unfortunately, culturally, I.

1090
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,679
Speaker 5: Think think we're probably on the hope, we're on the

1091
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:04,400
down side of that cycle, and we're coming back up

1092
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:07,639
to the what I think the normal American view, which is,

1093
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:10,719
go do you do you but as quietly as you

1094
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:12,679
possibly can do it, because I'm trying to get you know,

1095
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:13,239
some sleeves.

1096
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:16,800
Speaker 6: If you're happy if Kamala Harris's president, you just don't

1097
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,039
want it to be head of the city council of

1098
00:55:19,079 --> 00:55:19,559
your town.

1099
00:55:20,199 --> 00:55:24,599
Speaker 5: Well, I actually think that when Americans vote. You know,

1100
00:55:24,639 --> 00:55:28,800
if you look at the best of the probably the

1101
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:34,039
most interesting, and see change. Political changes in my lifetime

1102
00:55:34,719 --> 00:55:37,880
happened when Bill Clinton was president and the Republicans took

1103
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:39,840
the House and they took the Senate. And that's when

1104
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:41,679
we got well for reform, and that's when we got

1105
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:45,119
actually institutional congressional reform in a major way. I mean,

1106
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:48,360
it now seems like a cliche, but the Newt Gingrich's

1107
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:54,239
Contract with America was a radically, radically influential and successful document.

1108
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:59,159
And you know, people kind of like this gridlock stuff,

1109
00:55:59,159 --> 00:56:01,480
but they also they do like sticking it to the

1110
00:56:01,519 --> 00:56:06,320
guy at the top. And I you know, if Kamala

1111
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:08,320
Harris wins, which would not be surprising.

1112
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:11,280
Speaker 1: Uh.

1113
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:15,559
Speaker 5: I don't think that the conservative movement's dead.

1114
00:56:15,559 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 1: I don't think the conservative reforms are dead. I think

1115
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:18,760
they might be even invigorated.

1116
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:21,960
Speaker 3: I've never before.

1117
00:56:22,039 --> 00:56:24,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should lose this election because then people will

1118
00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:27,920
get really good and they'll realize that.

1119
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:29,159
Speaker 3: I know, I'm kidding, I'm kidding him.

1120
00:56:29,159 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that that it's possible.

1121
00:56:30,639 --> 00:56:33,760
Speaker 5: The problem with both sides is they think it's inconceivable

1122
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:36,320
that they're going to lose either now or in the future,

1123
00:56:36,599 --> 00:56:38,360
and they think that once you vote for your once

1124
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:40,400
you voted for my guy for president, whether it's Kamala

1125
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,559
Harris or Donald Trump, if forever you're just all the

1126
00:56:43,599 --> 00:56:45,039
things are going to be fixed and you're never going

1127
00:56:45,119 --> 00:56:47,960
to have any trouble at all. And that's the ultimately,

1128
00:56:48,039 --> 00:56:49,719
just go back to the Constitution. That's the problem with

1129
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:52,440
our interpreting the Constitution, which people think of it, interpret

1130
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:55,039
it only as this document that keeps them from getting

1131
00:56:55,039 --> 00:56:57,519
what they want, when in fact, it's a document that

1132
00:56:57,599 --> 00:57:00,960
keeps you from getting what you want. And that's kind

1133
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,599
of how it's supposed to work, right. It restricts you

1134
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:07,760
and not me, that's primarily what it does. So you know,

1135
00:57:09,679 --> 00:57:12,199
we should be prepared not maybe we'll win, maybe the

1136
00:57:12,199 --> 00:57:14,800
Conservatives will win in twenty twenty four, maybe they'll lose, but.

1137
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:19,199
Speaker 1: They are going to lose elections in the future. So

1138
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:20,559
how do you prepare for that?

1139
00:57:22,239 --> 00:57:22,719
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1140
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:26,239
Speaker 2: I just do know that if we have a massive

1141
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:28,679
attack on Israel by Iran in the next week or so,

1142
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:30,480
I would really be keen to know.

1143
00:57:30,440 --> 00:57:31,639
Speaker 3: Who's calling the shots here.

1144
00:57:32,039 --> 00:57:33,679
Speaker 2: Something tells me I ought to be the guy who

1145
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:36,760
is called the president but I'm wondering if this is

1146
00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:39,079
going to be an opportunity for them to show count

1147
00:57:39,119 --> 00:57:46,679
Layers is foreign policy six dimensional chest shops and have

1148
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:47,639
her in charge.

1149
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 3: Of what the American reaction to this is going to be.

1150
00:57:50,719 --> 00:57:52,880
Speaker 2: Or Biden will just get on the wrong plane again

1151
00:57:53,039 --> 00:57:55,440
and be whisked off to someplace and we'll never see

1152
00:57:55,519 --> 00:57:55,840
him again.

1153
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know.

1154
00:57:56,880 --> 00:58:00,199
Speaker 2: I'd like a little bit more clarity at the top. Ever,

1155
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:02,679
it is the top of the top of the hour,

1156
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:05,039
end of the show. Usually we tell you right now

1157
00:58:05,039 --> 00:58:06,719
where they're going to be meet ups around the country.

1158
00:58:06,719 --> 00:58:08,320
But you know what, you can go and read that

1159
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:11,119
att You should go and read that at Ricochet along

1160
00:58:11,119 --> 00:58:13,320
with everything else, and you should join as well, because

1161
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:15,800
on the member feed, where all kinds of friendships are made,

1162
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:19,800
in every single discussion and object of controversy and art

1163
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:21,840
and music and the rest of it, you'll find it there.

1164
00:58:22,159 --> 00:58:24,360
You can hear me in my podcast The Diner, which

1165
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:27,559
is available on Saturday. I think we're talking about dogs

1166
00:58:27,599 --> 00:58:30,920
and renaming streets, two vital crackling topics.

1167
00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:34,800
Speaker 6: You want to stop the presses, it's the same same subject,

1168
00:58:35,159 --> 00:58:35,880
stop the presses.

1169
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:37,679
Speaker 3: Oh that's another whole issue. Maybe I'll get a shit

1170
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:39,239
name the streets after dogs.

1171
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:42,159
Speaker 2: Why didn't that occur to me? Well, you know what,

1172
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:43,760
I'm gonna rip it up. I'm gonna go back. I'm

1173
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:46,840
gonna do it the you collar me as we call it,

1174
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,119
and read the show.

1175
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 6: I can totally see you living on Poodle Street.

1176
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:53,559
Speaker 2: Come on one.

1177
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm off.

1178
00:58:59,559 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 3: I'm really really is.

1179
00:59:01,119 --> 00:59:02,639
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I think they have to have more here

1180
00:59:02,679 --> 00:59:07,039
than I actually do, so well it's better than Pug Place.

1181
00:59:07,599 --> 00:59:09,679
Speaker 3: Uh, John, Rob, It's been a pleasure.

1182
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:12,280
Speaker 2: We'll see you both next week perhaps, and we'll see

1183
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:15,920
everybody in the comments at Ricochet four point zero next week.

1184
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:18,239
Speaker 6: Bye, guys, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Thanks John excellent as always, absolutely so.

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Speaker 3: Ricochet Pea join the conversation.