0:01

Hey upstream listeners, today we're

0:03

releasing a conversation I had

0:05

on turpentine's show, Econ 102,

0:07

with my friend Noah Smith. We

0:10

cover Ezra Klein and Derek

0:12

Thompson's abundance agenda, The New Right,

0:14

the 2008 recession, and more. Please

0:16

enjoy. I

0:32

enjoyed our abundance chat last week and it's

0:34

been cool to see, I just listen to

0:36

Ezra and Derek on Lex and really see

0:38

them on the circuit, is your sense that

0:40

this is sort of a set of ideas

0:42

that is gaining a constituency, is on the

0:44

left, is your is your sense that it

0:46

is getting before we get to the new

0:48

right which you wrote about and I think

0:50

is fantastic, but just sort of closed loop

0:52

on the on the left. Do you think?

0:54

as the reception surprised you, do you

0:57

think this is a niche sort

0:59

of wonky set of ideas that,

1:01

you know, doomed for the sort

1:03

of small amount of reasonable people,

1:05

you know, super sort of economically

1:08

literate people? Or do you think,

1:10

hey, this is actually has a

1:12

constituency here and the last? So, you

1:14

know, I do think it's getting lots

1:16

and lots of excitement. you know,

1:18

among Democrats, liberals, etc. You know,

1:20

when people say the left, I

1:23

automatically think of like, you know,

1:25

Palestine protesters and Bernie fans. But

1:27

if you mean, like, the more generalized left

1:29

of America, like, you know, the

1:31

Democrats, liberals, etc., that half of

1:34

the country, then yes, I absolutely think

1:36

it is gaining lots of currency.

1:38

People are really excited, and I did

1:40

not expect that, because I thought, A,

1:42

it's too wonky. You know, it's too like,

1:44

and B, it's optimistic at a

1:46

time when, you know, Trump is

1:48

just smashing, like, lots of American

1:51

things, like, you know, try telling

1:53

Donald Trump that, like, we need abundance,

1:55

we need to build this and that,

1:57

when, like, Donald Trump is... busy destroying

2:00

the auto industry with tariffs. Like he,

2:02

who, now like, he's doing the exact

2:04

opposite. And so, so, you know, there

2:06

may be people in Donald Trump's like,

2:09

you know, administration buried somewhere in the

2:11

administration who were like trying to fight

2:13

NEPA or like, you know, make it

2:16

easier to invest in America who really,

2:18

you know, are hoping against hope that

2:20

somehow tariffs restore American manufacturing to this

2:22

magic that Trump thinks that they exert.

2:25

You know, maybe they still would believe

2:27

in something like abundance like abundance, but,

2:29

but, but. No, primarily it's like, it's

2:31

like, it's something we know isn't going

2:34

to happen soon. Maybe we can make

2:36

it happen on like the state and

2:38

local level. So maybe we can do

2:40

like, yeah, be stuff and, you know,

2:43

maybe be more efficient with state government.

2:45

All those things, we can make it

2:47

happen. But then I think there's this

2:49

general attitude of pessimism, like Trump is

2:52

just destroying America. And so like, you

2:54

know, what can we do with abundance?

2:56

Happy, sunny, sunny, sunny, blah, blah, blah.

2:58

This is what I mean. Looking at

3:01

that, looking at that enthusiasm that is

3:03

materialized for Ezra and Derek's book, and

3:05

this whole notion in general, I have

3:07

a few ideas of why that's true,

3:10

of what's catching fire with people, but

3:12

they're all sort of retroactive explanations that

3:14

I didn't expect. And so, you know,

3:16

you got to take those with a

3:19

grave assault. It was saying more about

3:21

that. Which parts are resonating the most

3:23

you think? Right. So I think that

3:25

there are two things. Number one, abundance

3:28

represents sort of a... The idea of

3:30

national unity the idea of we're all

3:32

in this together Because when you when

3:34

you? Ezra and Derek don't really say

3:37

this and one of my problems Was

3:39

that they didn't say this in the

3:41

book But they and they could have

3:44

said it and it makes a lot

3:46

of sense And I think it's driving

3:48

what a lot of people like about

3:50

it is that it's it's something that

3:53

you know, it's not going to unite

3:55

the country, but it's it's it's It's

3:57

something where you think in a nationalistic

3:59

way, you think in terms of like,

4:02

let's make our country better. think of

4:04

abundance for this group and disabundance for

4:06

that other group. It's not a zero-something.

4:08

It's not it's not class warfare. It's

4:11

not here are class enemies. Let's defeat

4:13

them. Right. And I think that or

4:15

here are racial enemies. Let's defeat them.

4:17

You know, let's elevate this group and

4:20

disempower this other group or this class.

4:22

You know, etc. It's not any of

4:24

that. It is a uniting, not a

4:26

divisive kind of thing and provides, I

4:29

think that people really yearn for that

4:31

after the 2010s and what the Democratic

4:33

Party has sort of become and what

4:35

the progressive movement has become, people yearn

4:38

for something to unite us. And the

4:40

last time we saw that was Obama's

4:42

first term, you know, with the like

4:44

hope and change of all blah, like

4:47

and the Iraq war, fix the great

4:49

recession, and you know, reform health care.

4:51

That was like, that was this uniting

4:53

mission of Obama. And he made pretty

4:56

good progress on all three, but that's

4:58

the story for another day. Obama, underrated

5:00

president because wokeness broke out in the

5:02

second term, people remember that and get

5:05

mad about that, but that wasn't really

5:07

his fault. What do you think you

5:09

should get credit for? Obama. Number one,

5:11

stimulus bill was good. Yeah, it was

5:14

expensive. It, you know, increased the debt,

5:16

which we should have gotten rid of

5:18

some of later. paid back some of

5:21

later, but it was the right thing

5:23

to do at the time. Financial regulation,

5:25

Dodd-Frank, has some problems with it, but

5:27

overall, like, the derivative stuff in there

5:30

was really good. And made a 2008

5:32

crisis in the future, basically no one

5:34

even talks about that anymore. There were

5:36

some problems with it, with the way

5:39

it handles, like, you know, what banks

5:41

are allowed to do, and, you know,

5:43

bank profit, and things. It didn't, you

5:45

know, we weren't entirely out of Iraq

5:48

forever because then ISIS popped up, we

5:50

went back in Iraq, kicked their ass,

5:52

and then got out for real. But

5:54

certainly this whole idea where... like Iraq

5:57

as an American province and we have

5:59

like you know the green zone and

6:01

like all this stuff which we had

6:03

known during the Bush years Obama got

6:06

rid of that and it didn't like

6:08

Iraq didn't collapse into some like Islamic

6:10

fundamental estate I mean ISIS came and

6:12

then they were defeated Iraq didn't also

6:15

didn't turn into like an Iranian proxy

6:17

like Iran still is proxy militias there

6:19

but you know we won the Iraq

6:21

war Okay, like I know people like

6:24

to say we lost Iraq war and

6:26

you know, it's understandable to say that

6:28

because it weakened our geopolitical position divided

6:30

our society and destroyed global norms and

6:33

got a lot of people killed. That's

6:35

bad. The Iraq war was a bad

6:37

thing and I wouldn't have done it.

6:39

But we did win it. And Obama

6:42

sort of like realized that and just

6:44

got out. And that was the right

6:46

move. And so, that was good. And

6:49

then, you know, Obamacare. was pretty good,

6:51

you know, like it's, I would have,

6:53

I would have, I would have done

6:55

a lot more cost control stuff there,

6:58

but if you do, if you look

7:00

at, you know, health care spending as

7:02

a percentage of GDP, around the time

7:04

we did Obamacare, it starts to, it

7:07

starts to level off. So it's not

7:09

like it did nothing, right? And some

7:11

of that's due to do Obamacare, some

7:13

of that's maybe due to saturation people

7:16

just deciding I can't spend any more

7:18

money on FMRI, on FMRI, F, FOM,

7:20

FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM,

7:22

FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM,

7:25

FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM,

7:27

FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM, FOM,

7:29

FOM, FOM, FOM, FOMS, FOM, FOM There's

7:31

confounding factors here, but I think that

7:34

Obama did a lot of stuff to

7:36

address all the problems that we had,

7:38

like, in 2008. Right? Also, Obama was

7:40

much tougher on immigration than George Bush

7:43

had been and deported a lot more

7:45

people, and under Obama, the number of

7:47

illegal immigrants in America shrank by about

7:49

a million, and even the independent estimates

7:52

that say that the baseline number of

7:54

illegal immigrants was higher than the public

7:56

census numbers claim. you know, which is

7:58

realistic because illegal immigrants will hide from

8:01

the census takers, right? Even those people

8:03

say, well, according to us, and they

8:05

looked at like border crossing data, Mexican

8:07

data, all kinds of other sources and

8:10

just collated all these other sources, even

8:12

they said that illegal immigrants, the number

8:14

fell by like... million during Obama's term

8:17

in office. So like, you know, that

8:19

was, you know, I don't think that

8:21

like, any possible thing we could do

8:23

to remove illegal immigrants would be good,

8:26

right? But I think that overall, that

8:28

was a good strategy. Like, you know,

8:30

we did deport a million people. So

8:32

I want to call that a mass

8:35

deportation, sure. We deported almost entirely criminals.

8:37

Sure. So the notion, so Obama didn't

8:39

actually change the definition to say like,

8:41

oh, we turned people back to the

8:44

border, that's a deportation. Actually, we sort

8:46

of did something like that, but it

8:48

is under Bush. Obama deported started a

8:50

mass deportation of criminals program. And so

8:53

that's one reason why arrest rates among

8:55

illegal immigrants fell so much. And now

8:57

you can have. guys at like the

8:59

Cato Institute saying look illegal immigrants commit

9:02

less crime and people like whoa it's

9:04

because we took the criminal ones and

9:06

we mass deported like we deported like

9:08

a tenth of the illegal immigrant population

9:11

of the criminal tenth right and I

9:13

know this because my sister did that

9:15

my sister was a lawyer for the

9:17

Justice Department whose job was deporting illegal

9:20

immigrants who commit crimes yeah wow You

9:22

know, we did a lot of that.

9:24

So anyway, Obama did a lot of

9:26

stuff. It was reasonable. It was centrist.

9:29

It was, you know, for the good

9:31

of all Americans kind of stuff, right?

9:33

Fix health care, fix the economy, you

9:35

know, get out of Iraq, all this

9:38

stuff. It was a message of hope

9:40

and change. And then like this had

9:42

nothing to do with like him being

9:44

black, like this is, you know, he

9:47

was actually a fairly conservative black guy.

9:49

He was like, like, like, like, conservative

9:51

black guy to like run the country

9:54

and just as Cisco got rid of

9:56

the the dominion Obama kicked out of

9:58

legal emirous. No, at Cisco ended a

10:00

war. Okay, now Obama was real Cisco.

10:03

That's a new post for the future.

10:05

Amazing. Okay, I guess the critiques that

10:07

Obama gets is one, I guess the

10:09

health care thing didn't work to the

10:12

degree that he hoped, I guess, the

10:14

foreign policy stuff. People think that he

10:16

sort of like conceded this kind of,

10:18

you know, what do they call it,

10:21

like measured decline of America and was

10:23

too willing to sort of, sort of

10:25

collaborate with our enemy, like not a

10:27

friend of Israel or something, the country

10:30

is in the least, I think just

10:32

people see him as weak on foreign

10:34

policy and not really interested in like

10:36

being a, I don't know, getting deals

10:39

done, being a true politician, as opposed

10:41

to more of like an academic or

10:43

rally or you know. So that's actually

10:45

correct. That's correct. Obama did fail to,

10:48

of course, I mean, like Bush and

10:50

Clinton also failed with this. So like

10:52

it was like everyone, everyone since the

10:54

Cold War sort of had this delusion

10:57

that China was going to China was

10:59

going to be our buddy. If we

11:01

just open our markets, then Obama shared

11:03

this delusion and it didn't work out.

11:06

But everybody else had that delusion too

11:08

and Bush was the worst, letting all

11:10

the deindustrialization happen under Bush, basically. If

11:12

you look at the manufacturing employment under

11:15

Bush, because China entered the WTO then,

11:17

that's what deindustrialized us. And then that

11:19

was in 2001, right? The real 9-11,

11:22

it fell right off a cliff. U.S.

11:24

manufacturing employment. But then Obama continued that

11:26

and it was bad. And like, you

11:28

know, he and Michelle Obama made this

11:31

like wishy-washy documentary American factory about how

11:33

like, well, actually, the Chinese are just

11:35

good at making everything naturally good at

11:37

making everything what can we do? And

11:40

like, it was, it was very stupid,

11:42

you know, because of the military angle,

11:44

they just did not recognize it all,

11:46

they didn't recognize China as a threat,

11:49

they didn't understand that stuff. And on

11:51

Russia, they basically like sat there and

11:53

scolded Russia as Russia took over Crimea

11:55

and the Donbos. and like didn't stand

11:58

up to them then they started arming

12:00

Ukraine which was good by the way

12:02

like Ukraine did not have the chops

12:04

to stand up to Russia at that

12:07

time like Ukraine can stand up to

12:09

Russia now and increasingly without external weapon

12:11

Ukraine is standing up to Russia. By

12:13

the way, have you heard about this?

12:16

Like Ukraine just like went ham on

12:18

drone manufacturing and now makes like a

12:20

bazillion military drones a year and just

12:22

like is increasingly replacing like artillery riflemen

12:25

and like missiles with drones. Do they

12:27

have their own Androle or something? How

12:29

are they doing? Yeah, they have their

12:31

own like a million little Androles. They

12:34

have a whole ton of companies making

12:36

drones. Yes, they do. And Andrew is

12:38

like recognizes this and is now like,

12:40

hmm, we should make drones in Ukraine.

12:43

And so Andrew is like, like learning

12:45

from the Ukrainians right now, how to

12:47

mass manufacture, right? Because Andrew doesn't know

12:50

how to mass manufacture, they know how

12:52

to prototype, they know how to invent

12:54

shit, they don't know how to like

12:56

make a million things of it and

12:59

make it efficiently. And Ukraine is teaching

13:01

them. And they will be good because

13:03

of this. Right. And so, and then

13:05

like America with drawing aid is, is,

13:08

you know, we paused aid back in

13:10

like 24, right? We stopped giving them

13:12

as many like, you know, artillery things

13:14

to shoot. And they were like, okay,

13:17

well, what are we going to do

13:19

instead of artillery? And they're running out

13:21

of guys because like Ukraine, Russia just

13:23

has a lot more guys than Ukraine,

13:26

by the way, has like the best.

13:28

like engineers computer scientists like programmers engineers

13:30

programmers and and like innovators like in

13:32

all of the Soviet Union right if

13:35

you look at where the people who

13:37

made like all the great Soviet weapons

13:39

came from like a hugely disproportionate amount

13:41

came from Ukraine so like you basically

13:44

when when Ukraine left it was like

13:46

they are the you know they're the

13:48

Iowa of the USSR because they produced

13:50

a grain and that's what everyone knows

13:53

them for and that's what their flag

13:55

actually is. It's a field of grain.

13:57

and then gold. But then, so it's

13:59

like, it's a grainfield, but they're also,

14:02

it's also like, the like Silicon Valley

14:04

and like, Texas. Imagine like, Silicon Valley

14:06

and Texas and Iowa got together and

14:08

seceded from America and like that was

14:11

a country. And then the rest of

14:13

America, you know, is just like, we're

14:15

coming after you, but like, can't get

14:18

it past NEPA. Like that's like, like,

14:20

that's basically like Ukraine fighting off Russia.

14:22

Okay, so we started talking about Obama

14:24

because we've been talking about abundance basically

14:27

being a rallying crime. We haven't seen

14:29

rallying, cries. That's right. It's something Americans

14:31

can all get behind in. Why do

14:33

you do abundance? Because Americans deserve more.

14:36

You deserve more. You deserve more because

14:38

you're an American. You've got a Confederate

14:40

flag on your pickup truck. I don't

14:42

give a shit. You deserve electricity. You

14:45

deserve a house. You deserve it because

14:47

you're American. Even if you have some

14:49

beliefs, I think you're stupid. You know,

14:51

but you've got a confederate flag in

14:54

your pickup truck. You're still getting a

14:56

cheap house. You're still going to get

14:58

electricity. It doesn't matter. Right. You're like,

15:00

you're like, you're like a rich person

15:03

who lives in a suburb. Cool. You

15:05

get to have solar, cheap solar power.

15:07

You get to have cheap batteries. You

15:09

get to have cheaper electricity. Maybe you

15:12

don't need it because you're rich. You

15:14

get to have like. You know, maybe

15:16

I should shill for impulse, you get

15:18

a cool stove, I don't know. But

15:21

like you get, that hasn't made it

15:23

into the abundance agenda yet, unfortunately. But

15:25

anyway, like, you know, rich people need

15:27

the government to like work too. It

15:30

would be nice if rich people could

15:32

take a train, like in Japan, you

15:34

know, billionaires take trains. Why do they

15:36

take trains? Because it's nice and clean

15:39

and everything works, and it's on time,

15:41

and it's like, it's great. You know,

15:43

and a billionaire in New York will

15:45

not take a train, they'll take a

15:48

taxi. Train is for the middle class.

15:50

And that's a problem. That's still, you

15:52

know, enough people take the train in

15:55

New York to sustain it, but like

15:57

the... Rich people should have the ability

15:59

to take a train. The rich people

16:01

shouldn't have to worry about where to

16:04

park their cars. It's still annoying to

16:06

like cruise around looking for parking or

16:08

whatever, park at the garage and walk

16:10

or whatever, if you're a rich person.

16:13

You can have abundance too. Abundance for

16:15

everybody. Abundance for everybody. Obviously rich people

16:17

are going to have to pay higher

16:19

taxes for a country that doesn't work.

16:22

That's a little worse. We'll continue our

16:24

interview in a moment after a word

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18:11

Well, to echo where you're saying we're

18:13

now supply constrained because we've been restricting

18:16

supply or regulating way too much and

18:18

so hard to build. But he makes

18:20

the argument that at one point, you

18:22

know, maybe around the 2008 etc. We

18:25

were more demand constrained and there were

18:27

a set of, you know, policies meant

18:29

to stimulate demand. Can you explain that

18:32

just from the kind of, you know,

18:34

one or two perspective, like what was

18:36

the need then and what policies helped

18:38

there? So 2008 we had this giant

18:41

financial crisis. Lehman Brothers failed, Bear Stearns

18:43

failed, and then like all these other

18:45

giant banks were on the verge of

18:48

failure, they got billed out. Okay, because

18:50

they bought all these stupid bonds that

18:52

sucked and died and were based on

18:54

housing and those bonds eventually made money,

18:57

but it took them like 10 years

18:59

to make money and end up making

19:01

money for the Fed because the Fed

19:03

took it all off their hands. So,

19:06

at this time, everyone was scared. Everyone

19:08

was scared. Banks were scared to lend,

19:10

so companies couldn't get money. Companies were

19:13

scared to invest in the future, so

19:15

they didn't know what was happening. Consumers

19:17

were scared to consume because their wealth

19:19

was evaporating, and because, you know, like,

19:22

banks weren't lending to their employers, and

19:24

their employers might fire them, and employment.

19:26

So everyone was just scared as hell.

19:29

Not irrationally scared, but reasonably scared. You

19:31

know, you had a coordination failure in

19:33

the economy, economy broke down. This is

19:35

called, in economics, we would call this

19:38

a liquidity preference preference-preference preference shock. What

19:40

that means is liquidity is like cash.

19:42

Preferences like I want cash. Shock is

19:44

like suddenly I want cash. So look,

19:47

I translated from economics ease, right? Econ.

19:49

He kind of language, liquidity preference shocks,

19:51

suddenly everyone wants cash. And when everyone

19:54

wants cash at once, no one's spending

19:56

it. Everyone wants cash like in the

19:58

bank account or preferably like under the

20:00

mattress, right? Cash under the mattress, give

20:03

it to me. But what happens if

20:05

everyone takes all their cash and sticks

20:07

it under the mattress instead of spending

20:10

it, well, what happens then is companies

20:12

can't get money, right? Like you're not

20:14

spending money on like a new bed,

20:16

a new washing machine, a new car,

20:19

you know, like a bigger apartment, you're

20:21

not spending money on anything. Right? And

20:23

when you're not spending money on anything,

20:26

then companies can't invest, right? They can't,

20:28

the companies are going to scale back.

20:30

When companies scale back, what do they

20:32

do? They fire people and they cut

20:35

salaries. When you fire people and cut

20:37

salaries, what do people do in response

20:39

to that? Well, they stop spending. So,

20:41

as you can see, it's a little

20:44

bit of a cycle there. This is

20:46

called an aggregate demand because nobody wants

20:48

to spend. Aggregate demand shock, lower aggregate

20:51

demand, that's just a fancy John Maynard

20:53

Keynes term for nobody wants to spend.

20:55

And if nobody wants to spend, nobody

20:57

can like invest, nobody can can build,

21:00

you know, because no one wants to

21:02

spend. So the government comes in and

21:04

says, okay, I will spend. You know,

21:07

so usually aggregate demand shocks are small,

21:09

and what you do is you cut

21:11

interest rates. And when you cut interest

21:13

rates, that says, okay, well, now it's

21:16

easier to spend. I didn't want to

21:18

spend, but damn, look at these low

21:20

interest rates, I better spend. You know,

21:22

it's a little intervention, minor intervention, but

21:25

then when you get something as big

21:27

in catastrophic as a 2008 crash, especially

21:29

in interest rates, go to zero, and

21:32

you can't even cut them anymore, right?

21:34

Zero lower bound, they call that, because

21:36

interest rates can't go below zero. Like

21:38

you can't go below zero. You know,

21:41

and so people, you can't get people

21:43

to take a bond that doesn't pay

21:45

interest. And so, like, you'll just take

21:48

cash and... because it pays zero interest.

21:50

Or anyway, anyway, point being that when

21:52

all this happens in the economy seizes

21:54

up, interest rate cuts can't do the

21:57

job. So you can do QE, which

21:59

is basically the Fed, prints, like prints,

22:01

the Fed, prints, the Fed, prints, the

22:04

Fed, like, prints, the Fed, like, prints,

22:06

the Fed, like, prints, like, prints, the

22:08

Fed, like, prints, like, bailouts, by bank.

22:10

That was the real bailout, by the

22:13

way, and it didn't cost the taxpayer

22:15

a dime. In fact, it made money

22:17

for the taxpayer because 10 years later,

22:19

when the housing market recovered, those bonds

22:22

suddenly made money. Right, and so the

22:24

Fed was just able to hold on

22:26

to him for a long time because

22:29

the Fed can't go bankrupt, despite what

22:31

Ron Paul and Rand Paul may tell

22:33

you. Yeah, so anyway, point being that

22:35

you need to get the government to

22:38

spend money, borrow and spend money. And

22:40

it's the spender of last resort. And

22:42

so the government, what should it spend

22:45

money on? The answer is infrastructure and

22:47

payments to the states. So like the

22:49

states do like, you know, education stuff

22:51

like that. So you give some money

22:54

to the states to like keep the

22:56

teachers hired and whatever. But mainly you

22:58

build roads, right? You build bridges and

23:00

you build power lines and you build

23:03

all these things. It's a time to

23:05

build, right? And it's especially good as

23:07

a time to build because in, in,

23:10

remember, interest rates are really low during

23:12

a like a like a like a

23:14

depression. Like a recession where the interest

23:16

rates at zero is basically a depression.

23:19

And so during a depression, you've got

23:21

the low interest rates and then ZERP

23:23

basically happens. And then the government can

23:26

borrow really, really cheaply. Borrow cheaply, build

23:28

productive things. Build infrastructure. You can get

23:30

some effect just from having the government

23:32

like take the money, bury it in

23:35

a hole, and have people come and

23:37

dig it up. Right, that's like what

23:39

Keynes talked about. You can get some

23:42

effects from that, right? It's not zero.

23:44

And this is basically a tax, a

23:46

temporary tax cut. that's exactly what a

23:48

temporary tax cut is. Half people dig

23:51

the money out of the hole. You

23:53

know, you could just give the money

23:55

to people. And so like, that's a

23:57

temporary tax cut. And Obama did lots

24:00

of that, and honestly, he did too

24:02

much of that. Like, more of it

24:04

should have been in terms of building

24:07

some productive thing, because if you pay

24:09

people money to build you a road,

24:11

then not only do you accomplish the

24:13

objective of getting money into the economy,

24:16

injecting the sort of jumpstart the cycle

24:18

of spending, but you also get a

24:20

road on top of that. The one

24:23

problem was that because in the Great

24:25

Recession there was this imperative of like

24:27

get money into the economy, we weren't

24:29

very efficient about getting roads for our

24:32

money, right? We spent money on California

24:34

high-speed rail and that money went to

24:36

like consultants and shit. Yes, and that

24:39

ends up being just like a very

24:41

unfair kind of tax cut. Right. Like

24:43

a tax cut for consultants. It's lob

24:45

money at their head. And so... The

24:48

way we did the way we rush

24:50

money out the door we did not

24:52

make sure that like we got value

24:54

for money and this ended up Having

24:57

problems down the road because now as

24:59

I as a client and Eric Thompson

25:01

would tell you we don't have good

25:04

systems for making sure that stuff actually

25:06

gets built So by the way remember

25:08

I said doge is mostly an ideological

25:10

purge, but then actually they may try

25:13

to end cost plus contracting which is

25:15

something that would actually really get America

25:17

building again more and you know, Trump

25:20

may take some action against NEPA and

25:22

that so that that may get America

25:24

building more. So Trump may do a

25:26

couple of abundance things through no fault

25:29

of his own. But anyway, but those

25:31

will not cancel off the tariffs. But

25:33

anyway, that's another story. The story is

25:35

that that was what Obama did that

25:38

was good, but it was a it

25:40

was a problem of a different time

25:42

and it it created problems down the

25:45

road like, you know, FDR solved a

25:47

lot of problems of problems of the

25:49

depression. And the ways in which he

25:51

solved that ended up setting us up

25:54

for some problems down the road. Sure.

25:56

But that's fine. That's how things work,

25:58

right? Like in the Cold War, we

26:01

solved the Cold War by allying, de

26:03

facto allying with China against Russia, right?

26:05

And that helped us win because it

26:07

distracted the Russians and it, yeah, basically

26:10

just distracted the Russians and freed us

26:12

up to like focus only on the

26:14

Russians, right? And so we won the

26:17

Cold War. That was great, but it

26:19

strengthened China in a way that would

26:21

ultimately start building up as a rival.

26:23

The solution to one era's problems. plant

26:26

the seeds of the next era's problems.

26:28

And just close that loop. What was

26:30

the FDR example you gave of what

26:32

were the problems at it? Oh, so

26:35

like FDR made unions. So FDR made

26:37

the deal with the unions to basically

26:39

allow people to unionize, but then he

26:42

made it shop by shop. So essentially

26:44

you have massive amounts of resources wasting

26:46

on people fighting unions instead of just.

26:48

the whole sector getting to get like

26:51

in many countries what they do is

26:53

like the whole sector gets together and

26:55

just like basically sets sets wages like

26:58

all the fast food workers within like

27:00

this one city right we don't have

27:02

that we have every fast food joint

27:04

in America has like a fight over

27:07

whether unionized and so like it's a

27:09

giant waste of resources and so that

27:11

was that was sort of you know

27:13

in it social security is not a

27:16

fully funded pension system right it's a

27:18

pay it forward system that was necessary

27:20

then because It wasn't necessary, we could

27:23

have borrowed a hell of a lot

27:25

of money to fully fund an alternative

27:27

to Social Security that was a fully

27:29

funded system, but we, FDR was deep

27:32

into austerity. He did not want the

27:34

government to borrow money. And so he

27:36

was a very fiscally austerity-minded person. And

27:39

because of that, we had Social Security

27:41

be a pay-it-forward system, which is fine

27:43

for a while until population growth slows.

27:45

When you have a baby boom, when

27:48

you have like a fertility rate above

27:50

replacement, then a pay it forward system

27:52

actually works really well. This is actually

27:55

a very classic result in economics. That

27:57

when you have higher fertility rates, the

27:59

pay it forward system is actually the

28:01

most efficient. thing you can do. So

28:04

in a baby boom, it's the most

28:06

efficient thing you can do. But when

28:08

you get slow population growth, it's like

28:10

you don't have enough young people to

28:13

pay. You need the old people to

28:15

pay for themselves instead of the young

28:17

people to like pay for all the

28:20

old people. And so pretty simple way

28:22

of all the old people. And so

28:24

pretty simple way of understanding that. But

28:26

because of the young people to like

28:29

pay for all the old people. And

28:31

so pretty simple way of understanding that.

28:33

And so a pretty simple way of

28:36

understanding that. going to bite us a

28:38

little bit and we're going to have

28:40

to cut benefits a lot more than

28:42

if we had fully funded it. Okay,

28:45

so now let's finish a loop on

28:47

the sort of demand side policies that

28:49

we enacted after 2008, creating problems in

28:51

the future. Is it just that we

28:54

forgot about sort of the supply side

28:56

or it somehow limited us on the

28:58

supply side or we couldn't do both

29:01

or what was sort of the... And

29:03

it built up debt. So now, as

29:05

long as interest rates are low, you

29:07

can carry debt. So we came into

29:10

the Obama administration with a debt of

29:12

60% of GDP, and we left it

29:14

with debt of 100% of GDP. And

29:17

that was all in response to the

29:19

Great Recession. That's a lot of debt,

29:21

and that means the more of a

29:23

stock of debt you have, the more

29:26

sensitive you are to interest rate hikes.

29:28

So that meant that if inflation ever

29:30

returned, which, spoiler, it did. And the

29:33

Fed has to hike interest rates to

29:35

control the inflation, what happens, the interest

29:37

rates start going up on all the

29:39

government debt as you roll it over,

29:42

you have to roll it over at

29:44

higher rates, and then the interest rate

29:46

on government debt starts going up and

29:48

government interest expenses go up and starts

29:51

crowding out the rest of the budget,

29:53

which is exactly what you're seeing now.

29:55

On that point, is GDP, is the

29:58

ratio going to be over 100% kind

30:00

of... indefinitely or do you imagine a

30:02

point where we get it down and

30:04

if so is that a combination of

30:07

like a little bit of inflation you

30:09

know some you know higher GP growth

30:11

like how to our productivity how do

30:14

we well so inflation erodes that number,

30:16

because the debt is priced in dollars

30:18

and inflation decreases the value of a

30:20

dollar, so it decreases debt to GDP.

30:23

Inflation basically adds, inflation basically adds fake

30:25

GDP to our GDP, but then the

30:27

number of, so the number of dollars

30:29

we owe, it's like a dollar matters

30:32

less, so it's easy to pay back

30:34

a dollar, because our GDP is higher.

30:36

And yes, it's with funny money, but

30:39

that funny money really allows us to

30:41

pay back debt more easily. So inflation

30:43

erodes debt. In fact, in fact, during

30:45

Biden, The inflation during Biden was so

30:48

high that you, despite the fact that

30:50

Biden was borrowing and spending way too

30:52

much money, you actually saw the debt

30:55

to GDP go down over Biden's term.

30:57

So is that basically the answer? We're

30:59

just going to have the higher inflation?

31:01

It's part of the answer. So it's

31:04

a third of the answer is going

31:06

to be a period of extended period

31:08

of higher inflation. That's not going to

31:11

be fun. But actually, we had that

31:13

in like the... in like the 50s

31:15

and 60s our inflation was like higher

31:17

than it is now or than it

31:20

has was during like the 80s 90s

31:22

and 2000s and it helped erode the

31:24

debt of World War two right we

31:26

lived with like 3% inflation during that

31:29

era or 4% 3 4% inflation and

31:31

you know what it was fine we

31:33

we're a happy country anyway and so

31:36

it's not it's not the worst thing

31:38

but it's gonna annoy people and it's

31:40

gonna last for a while you see

31:42

like inflation at like Persist like inflation

31:45

is going back up now because of

31:47

tariffs. Inflation's going like inflation last month

31:49

was like four and a half percent.

31:52

Hmm. Welcome back. It wasn't dead. It's

31:54

back. There's a cold open right there.

31:56

So that will be one I think

31:58

maybe if historical precedent holds that'll be

32:01

a third of it or roughly one

32:03

of the three pieces, let's say. The

32:05

other two pieces are tax cuts or

32:07

are spending cuts. We need to do

32:10

that. get it down to a reason

32:12

like what level could we get it

32:14

down to or is it always just

32:17

you get down as low as you

32:19

like 25% of GDP if you like

32:21

wow 25% of GDP would be fine

32:23

we wouldn't even notice it yeah we

32:26

get that down we could realistically like

32:28

you know getting it down to 60%

32:30

of GDP would probably you know now

32:33

it's at like 120-ish-ish I think we'll

32:35

continue our interview in a moment after

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choose squad.com and mention turpentine to skip

33:32

the wait list. It's basically like whichever

33:34

president does that is going to be

33:36

a hero but probably not reelected or

33:39

something like it's going to be a

33:41

bitter pill? Yeah, I mean like so

33:43

Clinton was able to do it and

33:45

be hero because it came there was

33:48

this real growth boom that we got

33:50

from like the computer revolution. and from

33:52

the end of the Cold War and

33:55

all this stuff and Clinton was able

33:57

to do this and he was able

33:59

to start on this path and Bush

34:01

should have continued on this path but

34:04

Bush decided that you know to go

34:06

back to like a pandering sort of

34:08

thing where you just A tax cut

34:11

for you and a tax cut for

34:13

you and a blah blah. And to

34:15

his credit, he did cut taxes more

34:17

on the middle class than the rich.

34:20

Like Bush was a compassionate conservative in

34:22

that he cut taxes more for like

34:24

the middle class. But it was fiscally

34:27

responsible. Like many things that Bush did

34:29

was like, you know, well-intentioned but moronic

34:31

is well-intentioned but moronic is the hallmark

34:33

of the Bush administration. Completely moronic. Like

34:36

he was not an evil guy. But

34:38

he got a lot of people killed

34:40

and he really, he inadvertently wrecked America

34:42

in certain ways. Trump is deliberately wrecking

34:45

America for his insane ideology. Whereas Bush

34:47

inadvertently wrecked America for his incompetent stupidity.

34:49

That's cold open. That's a good one.

34:52

And so why is it growth in

34:54

one of your three sort of answers?

34:56

Just like growing our way out of

34:58

it. You can't control it. Right. Growth

35:01

could be a fourth part and we

35:03

hope that it is. Right, but like

35:05

I can't tell you that it will

35:08

be like I can't tell you that

35:10

there'll be like a big technology boom

35:12

blah blah like fertility rates are going

35:14

down so investments going to be limited

35:17

decoupling is going to happen You know

35:19

and and then the other factors that

35:21

we're going to do that austerity that

35:23

we're going to need to do could

35:26

act as a break on growth and

35:28

so so growth you can't just say

35:30

grow out of this debt And we

35:33

can't depend on that. I hope it

35:35

happens, but I can't tell you that

35:37

it will. AI could just like supercharge

35:39

the real economy. AI could just, you

35:42

know, if AI actually made us grow

35:44

5% in here, like some of the

35:46

people are saying, goodbye debt, by poof.

35:49

Solved, but it won't. Because Tyler is

35:51

right, Tyler counts right, and you have

35:53

lots of little blockages in the thing.

35:55

And so it may be, but I

35:58

still think it could increase growth by

36:00

like a modest amount if it increases

36:02

growth by 1% a year, that's gonna

36:05

like 1% a year compounded over 20

36:07

years, right? Like that's more than 20%

36:09

of our debt to GDP, right, that

36:11

you get rid of like a. amount,

36:14

add higher inflation to that, like that

36:16

would get rid of higher amount. And

36:18

so then we could do, you know,

36:20

if fiscal austerity, if we just balance

36:23

the budget and let those two things,

36:25

and we had higher growth because of

36:27

AI, and then like slightly higher inflation

36:30

for like 20 years, like that could

36:32

solve all the debt problem without us

36:34

having to like run a surplus like

36:36

Clinton did and actually pay anything back.

36:39

Okay. And that's going to be pretty

36:41

painful. But hopefully AI will cushion the

36:43

blow of that. And, you know, we

36:46

will grow on like and we'll get

36:48

rid of artists jobs. By the way,

36:50

can we, I got to write a

36:52

post about like all the freaking people

36:55

who are like, AI art is evil

36:57

and fascist and like you're turning everything

36:59

into meazaki, you fucking fashion. And it's

37:01

like, stop having fun, stop making things

37:04

and having fun with it. You know,

37:06

it's like this idea that like. You

37:08

know, people who make art professionally are

37:11

like owed a signature by the government.

37:13

You are not. It's coming for development.

37:15

Everyone in America thinks they're owed a

37:17

signature. You're owed, like your job is

37:20

something that is owed to you. Your

37:22

career is something that is owed to

37:24

you. It's not owed to you. It's

37:27

not owed to you. It is an

37:29

expedient. It is a thing you did

37:31

to make money. You found this niche.

37:33

Now that niche won't always exist. It's

37:36

just that is the way of the

37:38

way of the world. That's a, it's

37:40

a, it's easy one, or easy one

37:43

to sort of be on the sort

37:45

of right side of, I mean, the,

37:47

yeah, so let's segue, because you mentioned

37:49

Trump's crazy ideology, it's a great segue

37:52

into your other piece on the new

37:54

right, which I thought was fascinating, because

37:56

we don't always think of the right

37:58

as having an ideology, right, even, you

38:01

know, what do they say the fusionism

38:03

of, of sort of the old right,

38:05

was sort of, sort of, you know

38:08

an alliance of convenience between three people

38:10

three you know groups people who had

38:12

the same enemy right sort of the

38:14

enemy being communists it was sort of

38:17

the libertarian business people, the sort of,

38:19

you know, sort of, religious right? Yeah,

38:21

the religious right. And then Trump, of

38:24

course, people say, is a cult of

38:26

personality, so people don't think, you know,

38:28

and he was formerly Democrats, people don't

38:30

think of him as having like an

38:33

ingrained ideology, but sort of you write

38:35

about sort of, you know, the, the

38:37

Vance, Trump, sort of, it seems like

38:39

the right has actually coalesced along some

38:42

sort of, especially as it relates to

38:44

Europe, what one you sort of, sort

38:46

of, I'll just explain a little bit

38:49

of what you see is sort of

38:51

this, explain this coalescing. What is the

38:53

underlying ideology? So the underlying ideology is

38:55

based around the idea of Western civilization.

38:58

And I grew up thinking that Japan

39:00

was part of Western civilization. I grew

39:02

up thinking the free world, you know,

39:05

like, was like anybody who was on

39:07

our side during the Cold War was

39:09

part of Western civilization. And that like...

39:11

You know, even China had like its

39:14

period of like Westernization, blah blah, blah,

39:16

like you eat hamburgers, you're part of

39:18

Western civilization, you have McDonald's, you go

39:21

to see movies, you wear blue jeans,

39:23

you like rock music, rap music, basketball,

39:25

blah, blah. That's Western civilization. And that

39:27

was what we told people during the

39:30

Cold War. And honestly, I think that

39:32

was a pretty good definition of Western

39:34

civilization. But it's not what JD Vance

39:36

and Company think is Western civilization. They

39:39

think of it as a much narrower

39:41

thing. What defines Western civilization for them,

39:43

Europe? Old Europe, the not modern day

39:46

Europe of like the EU and like

39:48

bureaucrats and you know, socialized medicine and

39:50

stuff. But the old traditional Europe of

39:52

like, you know, Bach and conquistadors and

39:55

the Catholic Church and you know, the

39:57

like electorate of the Palatinate. And like,

39:59

you know, the, the, the, the House

40:02

of, House of Bourbon and the House

40:04

of Valois and that, you know, and

40:06

the House of Huns on, and, you

40:08

know, the House of Plantagenet, although I

40:11

think they, they went extinct, the House

40:13

of Plantagenet, which is a shame because

40:15

they had the best name of any

40:17

of the houses. Plantagenet. That's pretty good.

40:20

Please bring back the Plantagenets, England. Can

40:22

you just call yourself, Plat? Anyway. Anyway.

40:24

change their name from Cuznizettes to Plantagenet

40:27

instead of Smith's, you know, it's less

40:29

accurate but more awesome. Anyway, the hell

40:31

is I talking about that that old

40:33

Europe, you know, of Christianity and like,

40:36

you know, yes, white people, but like,

40:38

this is not a racial nationalist movement.

40:40

This is not like land of whites

40:43

for the whites. Like, I mean, yes,

40:45

white nationalists will support Trump, but like.

40:47

I don't think JD Vance is a

40:49

white nationalist. Look at his wife, like

40:52

he's made like an Indian-American. He does

40:54

not want to like kick her parents

40:56

out and like, you know, trade her

40:59

in for like, you know, a white

41:01

trad wife, like he doesn't want that,

41:03

right? Elon Musk certainly doesn't want that,

41:05

like Elon Musk is like, I will

41:08

go to war with you, fuck yourself

41:10

in the face, like Elon Musk, you

41:12

know, he's concerned for like white people

41:14

being discriminated against in like South Africa,

41:17

like South Africa, right. or even in

41:19

America, but not, you know, it doesn't

41:21

mean he wants like a nation of

41:24

whites, four whites and by whites, like

41:26

he's not a white nationalist, he will

41:28

fight for like Indian immigration, Asian immigration,

41:30

or Nigerian immigration, whatever, like as long

41:33

as they're like, you know, tech people,

41:35

like he'll, he lives in a diverse

41:37

society, even Joe Rogan. So Joe Rogan

41:40

said, like, you know, and you hear

41:42

this refrain from people on the new

41:44

right all the time, though, he's like,

41:46

he's like, why, why, why, why, why

41:49

does Poland, Well, I mean,

41:51

honestly, it does and no one

41:53

cares. So, like, it's a bit

41:55

of a bad question because, like,

41:57

yes, there's just white people. Like,

41:59

they've got a few South Koreans,

42:01

but, like... Poland in general, like,

42:03

keeps out immigrants that doesn't want,

42:05

like, no one notices this. But

42:07

anyway, the point is that Joe

42:09

Rogan lives in Austin. Joe Rogan

42:11

lives in a town that's 40%

42:13

white and is a bunch of

42:15

lives. All right, that's where he

42:17

lives. That's where he used to

42:19

live. He does not, it's not

42:21

about your neighbors. It's about the

42:24

idea of Western civilization out there.

42:26

Dissent from Europe, the old European

42:28

stuff, the heritage, the history. the

42:30

idea that Europe was a great

42:32

was a great civilization should remain

42:34

a great civilization along the same

42:36

general lines with the same general

42:38

characteristics you know like and that's

42:40

the idea of the right and

42:42

this idea that western civilization which

42:44

includes conservative values include traditional Christianity

42:46

includes those things but it's not

42:48

about living those things right the

42:50

the 1990s Christian right that I

42:52

grew up with they lived Christianity.

42:54

They had a personal relationship with

42:56

Jesus. They would pray at the

42:58

flagpole every morning. They would tell

43:00

you about their walk with God.

43:02

They believed homosexuality was a sin

43:04

and abortion was a sin and

43:06

all those things, but they believed

43:08

that in real life they went

43:10

to church and that, you know,

43:12

the preacher at like the Church

43:15

of Christ would like preach conservative

43:17

values and they would live those

43:19

at the local level. It was,

43:21

you know, the new right is

43:23

all online and it's all about

43:25

the idea of not of Christ

43:27

but of Christ, but of Christendom.

43:29

It's this idea of, let me

43:31

draw a map around Christianity, let

43:33

me draw a border, here's the

43:35

borders of Christianity as a civilization,

43:37

you know, like Sam Huntington style.

43:39

Like, it doesn't matter, they like

43:41

Russia, it doesn't matter that Russians

43:43

don't go to church and get

43:45

divorced all the time, and like,

43:47

whatever, like, that doesn't matter that

43:49

Russians aren't really Christian, it mattered

43:51

the fact that the patriarch, like,

43:53

patriarch Kirill or whatever, supports... Putin's

43:55

regime, they have reverence, official reverence

43:57

for Christendom. That's Western civilization to

43:59

them. If you don't have the

44:01

reverence for it, it's not civilization.

44:04

You're like, if you're just a

44:06

bunch of like blue-haired gender... queer,

44:08

leftist, whatever, white people in an

44:10

all-white town full of that, which

44:12

is like basically like Eugene, Oregon,

44:14

or like, you know, Arcadia, or

44:16

like, or like, or like, Oberlin,

44:18

let's say, you know, those are,

44:20

those are places, that's, that's a

44:22

bunch of white people, and like,

44:24

they get together, and like, die

44:26

their hair blue, and like, you

44:28

know, say they're trans, they're Christian.

44:30

Right, but they, but it doesn't

44:32

have the reverence for the Europeanness

44:34

of greatness that they, that they

44:36

care about. So they don't have

44:38

this coordinating mechanism saying, this is

44:40

us, this is our team, this

44:42

is our civilization, blah, blah. Here's

44:44

what we stand for, here's what

44:46

we've always stood for, here's our

44:48

heritage, blah, blah. It's an online

44:50

heritage, indigenady movement. And, and for,

44:52

for people unfamiliar with Sam Huntington,

44:55

sort of, sort of thesis, or

44:57

contributions, can you briefly explain. it

44:59

and how it relates to the

45:01

new right? Yes. Sam Huntington drew

45:03

a map around different civilizations, quote

45:05

unquote. Japan was its own civilization,

45:07

which I agree with. I kind

45:09

of agree with Sam Huntington's idea

45:11

of like civilizations drawing map. You

45:13

know, I disagree with him about

45:15

what they are necessarily, but he's

45:17

right that you can sort of

45:19

identify local civilizations. I think that's

45:21

that's that's pretty reasonable idea. But

45:23

then, you know, He drew a

45:25

boundary at East Europe and said

45:27

you have like Slavic civilization or

45:29

whatever and then West Europe as

45:31

a civilization. He drew a Cold

45:33

War boundary between civilizations. The new

45:35

right thinks that Russia is part

45:37

of us. They're on our side.

45:39

They're white. They're Christian. They have

45:41

reverence for the idea of Europe.

45:43

They're no longer godless commies. They're

45:46

us. And they're on our civilization.

45:48

So they draw the boundaries a

45:50

little different than Huntington. But they

45:52

basically think like... You know, Europe,

45:54

sort of white or white-ish, you

45:56

know, descended from Christians, Christendom, you

45:58

know, blah, blah, blah. This was

46:00

a civilization. And there's this idea

46:02

of like that all of the

46:04

Christian lands of Christendom used to

46:06

be united during the Middle Ages.

46:08

It is medieval in a deep

46:10

way. It is, you know, late

46:12

Roman Empire, crusader, you know, early

46:14

modern sort of Baroque-era stuff. It's

46:16

got this through line. It's not

46:18

a new idea of this civilization.

46:20

This is not a new idea.

46:22

What's new is that it's now

46:24

it's all online and it's sort

46:26

of about like the memes of

46:28

it instead of like. this civilization

46:30

in real space, but we can

46:32

get to that. What Huntington also

46:34

said, right, is that, you know,

46:37

he said conflicts, he wrote in

46:39

the 90s, right, his book, Clash

46:41

of Civilizations, he said, the conflicts

46:43

would be less about economic and

46:45

political differences, the way it was

46:47

during the Cold War, and more

46:49

around cultural and religious differences, which

46:51

somewhat predicted identity politics. The problem

46:53

was that, you know, online, there

46:55

are no boundaries and borders and

46:57

borders. And so Sam Huntington drew

46:59

lines in meetspace because he thought

47:01

that geography and who your neighbors

47:03

were would always be the most

47:05

important thing. He did not anticipate,

47:07

even though it was already starting

47:09

to coalesce in the early 2000s,

47:11

you could already see the very

47:13

beginnings of it, but it didn't

47:15

really coalesce until social media. He

47:17

believed, like he thought it would

47:19

all be space-wise, geometric, horizontal, where

47:21

in fact... what the identity politics

47:23

turned out to be vertical. It

47:26

turned out identity politics is like

47:28

some like Asian American person in

47:30

like Novai, Michigan, sitting there and

47:32

like vibing with some Asian Australians

47:34

in like Brisbane over like their

47:36

shared Asian heritage that like, you

47:38

know, actual people in China wouldn't

47:40

even give a shit about, but

47:42

like they feel it's like their

47:44

shared heritage because this club online

47:46

of like, you know, Boba T

47:48

memes and... and like joking about

47:50

getting higher grades in the SAT

47:52

and stuff if you hang out

47:54

in those those groups that's what

47:56

they talk about like and then

47:58

like then get into getting into

48:00

kpop and so like that like

48:02

there's it's it's vertical it's these

48:04

verticals. You know, it's people basically

48:06

delocalized what we call de-rasinated people.

48:08

That means disconnected from land, people

48:10

connecting in online space, online people

48:12

of your neighbors now. I'm sitting

48:14

in Tokyo. You are in San

48:17

Francisco. We are connecting in online

48:19

space now. And we're connecting with

48:21

people who share our memes, who

48:23

are not necessarily our neighbors. Obviously

48:25

some people in San Francisco listen

48:27

to us, but like, you know,

48:29

Yes, we have things we do

48:31

with our neighbors. Meat space still

48:33

matters, right? When we would do

48:35

like a party or something, it

48:37

will still, like people will still

48:39

take an Uber there and it's

48:41

still our neighbors. But like, but

48:43

identities went online. They went vertical.

48:45

They are disconnected. They are, it's

48:47

no longer geometry. It's now network

48:49

theory. Every mathematician is like, you

48:51

can solve geometry problems with network.

48:53

Yes, okay. a kill me, I've

48:55

used a bad metaphor. Anyway, but

48:57

the problem, but the point is

48:59

it's now about like who's connected

49:01

point to point instead of like

49:03

the, you know, like this contiguous

49:05

map of a thing. And in

49:08

some ways this makes identity politics

49:10

less scary because like identity politics

49:12

150 years ago meant you cleanse

49:14

the interior and you police the

49:16

perimeter, right? Like, like Serbia for

49:18

the Serbs means if you're in

49:20

Serbia and you're not a Serb.

49:22

You're, you know, fuck you, at

49:24

the best you get expelled and

49:26

at the worst you get in

49:28

early grave. And so that's what

49:30

that meant. And then, and then

49:32

policing the perimeter meant Serbia would

49:34

go to war with Croatia and

49:36

like bomb them over like who

49:38

gets this town, right? Border wars,

49:40

territory wars, and then ethnic cleansing

49:42

and genocide was the homework of

49:44

identity politics and the, 150 years

49:46

ago. Now, identity politics has gone

49:48

online. So basically it's whose notion

49:50

identity group can, can get online

49:52

status, who can dunk on who.

49:54

Nobody ever really wins, right? It's

49:57

like, can I make like white

49:59

people unpopular on social media? That's...

50:01

That's, you know, decolonial politics in

50:03

1965. It would be like, you know,

50:05

kill the white man, expel the white

50:07

man from like wherever, I don't know,

50:09

whatever town. But like now, it's not

50:12

that. It's like dunk on the white

50:14

man and like, you know, get a

50:16

lot of retreats for saying like white

50:19

people suck. Like that's identity politics now.

50:21

It's all a bunch of dunk

50:23

wars. And and I see the new

50:25

right as using real life things to

50:27

win online meme battles. because online meme

50:30

battles are what they care about. Like

50:32

those Venezuelans they deported, right?

50:34

They just grabbed some people off the

50:36

street. I'm sure some of those guys

50:38

were gangbangers. I'm sure some of those

50:40

guys were not. They were just like,

50:43

there was this like gay baker with

50:45

like a tattoo saying like, I love

50:47

my family or whatever, and they grabbed

50:49

him. They're like, you're part of

50:51

Tenetagua, you know, wake up in

50:53

a Salvador and torture dungeon. That

50:55

he's there now. I shouldn't. I

50:57

shouldn't. That's that's evil. That's an

50:59

evil thing to do. But why did

51:01

they do it? It wasn't because anyone

51:03

knew that guy in real life. It

51:05

wasn't because he was anyone's neighbor. It

51:08

didn't matter where he was. They could

51:10

have grabbed and deported him

51:12

from like fucking Macau or, you know,

51:14

anywhere. They could have grabbed and deported

51:16

him from like some island of the

51:19

Pacific and no one would have cared

51:21

because it didn't matter where he was

51:23

it mattered who he was. It was

51:25

the vertical that matter. can grab you

51:28

for just having a tattoo and send

51:30

you to a Salvador and torture dungeon

51:32

if we feel like we have status,

51:34

we have power, we, you know, our identity

51:37

group, strong, you know, it was for

51:39

online dunk wars that they just tortured

51:41

that guy. I, therefore, I agree that

51:43

substance and optics of these deportations

51:46

are retarded. So I'm going to

51:48

agree with you. I do wonder

51:50

if there's, if they're also trying

51:52

to win some legal battles, maybe

51:54

they already won them, but, you

51:56

know. It is not so years

51:58

affirmative action, D.I., right? And I

52:00

think you're fighting that too. But that's

52:02

it. I think there's a big gap

52:05

between being anti-de-I and being white nationalist.

52:07

And I'm glad you sort of agreed

52:09

that these. I mean, no one likes

52:12

the EI. Do you notice how Trump

52:14

is like, D.I. is bad and we're

52:16

going to do you know how Trump

52:19

is like, D.I. is bad and we're

52:21

going to do something to universities and

52:23

like, D. I is bad and we're

52:25

going to. Like we're closing

52:28

this office, University of California,

52:30

University of Michigan, they all immediately

52:32

folded. Oh, Trump is making us close

52:35

D.I. Oh, no, we certainly didn't want

52:37

to do that. Wow, well, fascist making

52:39

us do this. You wanted to do

52:41

this. Everyone hated D.I. and it was

52:43

this, it's a preference cascade. You

52:45

know, it's a preference cascade. Everyone

52:47

freaking hated D. I and was

52:50

waiting for like the first available

52:52

excuse to get rid of it.

52:54

Yeah, and like, you're the people who

52:56

really love DEA will never, will not

52:58

get rid of it. They will sneakily

53:01

do it. Just like when you made

53:03

laws against anti-black discrimination or anti, you

53:05

know, female discrimination in

53:08

the 70s, some companies still sneakily

53:10

practiced it. And some governments and

53:12

country clubs and whatever, they just

53:14

kept on the download and said,

53:16

I bet they won't sue us.

53:18

We're below their radar and they

53:20

were right some of the time,

53:22

right. some anti-white discrimination anti-male discrimination will

53:24

remain in some companies and some

53:26

non-profits and some blah blah but

53:28

most people don't actually want that

53:30

they did that because they were

53:32

bullied into it by social media

53:34

universities it was social media that bullied

53:36

universities it was social media that bullied

53:38

universities and doing DUI and now that

53:41

I mean you know they don't care about like

53:43

sit-ins or something just call the cops like like

53:45

eventually people will just get expelled from school it's

53:47

like it's you know we we learn how to

53:49

deal with that shit in like the 80s and

53:51

they're like Like guess who needs a

53:53

job you guess who needs you not

53:56

us? We're you're on financial

53:58

aid bitch. Bye, like But

54:00

that's, but that's, but online, they

54:02

don't know how to deal with

54:04

social media criticism online because it

54:06

hurts their reputation. Going back to

54:08

the fans, I remember for a

54:10

second, I think it's like, I

54:12

agree that no one really cares,

54:14

Poland is just, you know, continue

54:16

to be Poland, no one cares.

54:18

I think these talk about more

54:20

like, hey, you know, England, you

54:22

know, basically countries that have very

54:24

high amounts of immigration from countries

54:26

or sort of religions that they

54:28

see as like hostile to the

54:30

native. sort of culture and population

54:32

and they see the native culture

54:34

as a native people is not,

54:36

maybe that's not the right word,

54:38

but basically the white, you know,

54:40

people in England not being able

54:42

to stand up. The white people

54:44

in England can't stand up for

54:46

themselves. And that's not even important.

54:48

What's important is yes, that's important.

54:50

And when Vance talks about free

54:52

speech, that's what he's talking about.

54:54

He's saying, you know, you can't

54:56

say bad things about Islam, you

54:58

can't say like that. If you

55:00

say racist stuff, you'll be put

55:02

in jail, blah, blah. He's right.

55:04

That is an abrogation of freedom

55:06

of speech. That is illiberal. That

55:08

is, you know, like, that is

55:10

authoritarian and illiberal in Europe. You

55:12

know, that you're, guess what, Europe

55:14

is still less free than us

55:16

in many ways, right? So, so

55:18

he's right, sure. But, here's the

55:20

thing, what they really want is

55:22

for the government to stand up

55:24

and for it. They want the

55:27

British government to protect notionally the

55:29

idea, the interest of like Christians

55:31

and whites and blah blah blah,

55:33

the traditional people of Europe. If

55:35

you're in Britain and you have

55:37

like, you know, Pakistani neighbors who

55:39

are doing stuff you don't like,

55:41

then yes, meet space matters. There

55:43

are people who don't want immigrants

55:45

living near to them, but in

55:47

America we just don't see that.

55:49

I'm talking about like... like British

55:51

guys who were rioting or whatever.

55:53

I'm not talking about that. I'm

55:55

talking about JD Vance. I'm talking

55:57

about like... Like, yes, maybe they

55:59

say, like, someday if we have

56:01

that much, like, immigration, we could,

56:03

like, they could come to our

56:05

community, but, come on, it's America.

56:07

They're already there. Like, you want

56:09

Muslims go to Dearborn, Michigan? Like,

56:11

America is a big country where

56:13

there's room to spread out, and

56:15

nobody's Muslim neighbors are bothering them.

56:17

You know, like, we are a

56:19

big country that's spread out, we

56:21

live online, it's, for them, it's

56:23

all like who gets to say

56:25

that they're the sons of the

56:27

sons of the sons of the

56:29

soil. Who gets to say that

56:31

there are the people who, like

56:33

the privileged people for whom this

56:35

country is really for? And like,

56:37

if you think about it, like

56:39

a lot of declonial leftist like,

56:41

quote unquote, anti-racist stuff, which is

56:43

against racism in the sense that

56:45

anti-matter is against matter. It's simply

56:47

matter with the opposite charge. Right.

56:49

It's like a lot of anti-racist

56:51

stuff is about privileged BIPOC, BIPOC,

56:53

you know, and then... And then,

56:55

you know, deprivaging whites and basically

56:57

saying, like, whites, you are intermen,

56:59

you are, you are the interlopers,

57:01

you are colonialists, colonizers, you are

57:03

sort of lower, lesser people within

57:05

the nation. It's memetic. It's who

57:07

gets to get called on first

57:09

in class and stuff like that.

57:11

It's a bunch of like mimetic

57:13

Dunkin' white people. And yes, there

57:15

may be like some meat space

57:17

dunking on white people too. Like

57:19

you may kick white people out

57:21

of your stupid little club at

57:24

university or like some lefty professor

57:26

may not calling white students. That's

57:28

a real thing that happened by

57:30

the way. Yes, you can have

57:32

stuff in meat space. I'm not

57:34

saying it doesn't matter at all,

57:36

but ultimately it doesn't matter at

57:38

all, but ultimately it's like who

57:40

gets like who gets like. leftist

57:42

people say like, you know, slavery

57:44

built this country. It was slaves

57:46

who built this country. Well, it's

57:48

factually wrong. I mean, they built

57:50

like a bit of this country,

57:52

like some of the countries built

57:54

by slaves, like most of it

57:56

was not, because slaves were only

57:58

like ever, like, you know, 10%

58:00

of the... population built in the

58:02

whole thing, like most of the

58:04

country, especially because like a lot

58:06

of much of the country didn't

58:08

have slaves in it for a

58:10

lot of the time. And like,

58:12

so no, it wasn't, you know,

58:14

mostly not slaves who built the

58:16

country. But when you say slavery

58:18

built this country, you're looking for

58:20

dunks. You're looking for group status

58:22

dunks, right? And that's what the

58:24

new right is doing. They're looking

58:26

for group status dunks in the

58:28

name of Western civilization. I

58:31

think he has a Davis-Vilt tattoo. And

58:33

it's like, it's, it's meme crusades. It's

58:35

the meme crusades. It's like, you know,

58:38

like, in the actual crusades, it's like,

58:40

well, the, the, the Saracens, the heathens

58:42

came and took some of the whole,

58:44

some of our lands. Those were Christian

58:47

lands, and now Christendom, we'll fight back.

58:49

We're going to send a bunch of,

58:51

you know, religious fervor, blah, blah, blah,

58:54

blah. It didn't work. Preview, it did

58:56

not work. It worked in a small

58:58

area for a small amount of time.

59:00

You had some crusader states involved. But

59:03

like mostly that didn't work. But like,

59:05

it was like, it was like, it

59:07

was a meat space crusade, right? It

59:10

was a real life crusade. Deus Volte,

59:12

you got some guys with swords and

59:14

you know, battle axes, and like, um...

59:16

how that worked out. But like the

59:19

meme crusades, now it's online, it's about

59:21

like, you know, we're not reclaiming the

59:23

holy land, we're reclaiming X. That's the

59:26

holy land that was reclaimed by the

59:28

meme crusade. You know, it's digital online

59:30

territory. It's reclaiming respect space. And I

59:33

don't see how those wars ever get

59:35

won, because nobody's going away. And unless

59:37

you make the great firewall of America

59:39

like to imitate China, unless you do

59:42

that, you're... going to spend all your

59:44

entire life right next to foreigners talking

59:46

to foreigners all day long on social

59:49

media. You cannot, like, unless you build

59:51

a China-style great firewall, foreigners will always

59:53

be your neighbors in digital space. Like,

59:55

you're always, like, bureaucrat liberals, European liberals

59:58

are always going to be yelling right

1:00:00

in your face. The Libs will be

1:00:02

right there and like all the, like...

1:00:05

you know, you're like, expel the Muslims,

1:00:07

blah, blah, blah. Well, they're still going

1:00:09

to be right there. They're just going

1:00:11

to be in your feed where you

1:00:14

live. Like, and if you live on

1:00:16

X, if you're just shit posting on

1:00:18

X or Reddit or wherever all day,

1:00:21

like there's going to be a shit

1:00:23

ton of like Pakistanis there posting at

1:00:25

you, and like, Ian Miles Chong, a

1:00:27

Malaysian, will be posting you all day.

1:00:30

You're going to be taking your cues

1:00:32

from like a frick African Malaysian Malaysian.

1:00:34

You know, especially if you're in politics,

1:00:37

like I think normies are getting off

1:00:39

social media. Normies are going to group

1:00:41

chats, they're going to like, or just

1:00:44

real life hangouts or just texting again.

1:00:46

But like all the politics brained, fucking

1:00:48

brain fried people of the new right

1:00:50

and the new left and the woke

1:00:53

left, all those people live on social

1:00:55

media because all they want to do

1:00:57

is have these meme wars all day.

1:01:00

Right? Most people are dropping out of

1:01:02

the Meam wars and going to live

1:01:04

their god damn life and going to

1:01:06

a fucking party. But then, you know,

1:01:09

everybody, like, all the 10% of the

1:01:11

population, it's absolutely politics brain, is still

1:01:13

there on X, post, ha ha ha,

1:01:16

ratioed, you know, and like, and those

1:01:18

wars never get one, but it's a

1:01:20

shrinking segment of the population. And unfortunately,

1:01:22

that segment is now doing bad things

1:01:25

to us and meat space through tariffs

1:01:27

and through like grabbing random. like guys

1:01:29

with like I love mom tattoos and

1:01:32

sending them to Salvador and torture dungeons

1:01:34

but also tariffs most importantly tariffs will

1:01:36

wreck your life for stupid memes online

1:01:38

status dunks for Western civilization that like

1:01:41

most people don't give a shit about.

1:01:43

Yeah it's um it's funny it's like

1:01:45

we close on this you know in

1:01:48

the abundance book Derek talks about how

1:01:50

at dark as we talk about how

1:01:52

at sort of these local meetups, you

1:01:55

know, the NIMBs just have more time

1:01:57

on their hands and so they go

1:01:59

to the meetings and block things and

1:02:01

sort of the policymakers think that they

1:02:04

represent the population, but in fact they

1:02:06

don't. And similarly on social media, you

1:02:08

know, the craziest people are the most

1:02:11

active and so, you know, policymakers think

1:02:13

that they're getting a representative sample set,

1:02:15

but in fact, they're getting an extreme

1:02:17

sort of view. Right. Exactly right. And

1:02:20

that's right. So Martin Guru wrote about

1:02:22

this in revolt of the public and

1:02:24

it was exactly right. He said the

1:02:27

the masses, the populace is not the

1:02:29

public. Right. The, you know, the public

1:02:31

is a tiny sliver. It is a

1:02:33

small sliver of the populace that's politically

1:02:36

engaged and those are the people that

1:02:38

yell. They do all the yelling. And

1:02:40

social media gave them a tool to

1:02:43

yell at anyone and everyone and that's

1:02:45

why every institution went woke. because this

1:02:47

tiny woke fringe was able to just

1:02:49

wag the dog. They were able to

1:02:52

control universities and NGOs and corporations stuff

1:02:54

by yelling at them on social media

1:02:56

because you had a small percent of

1:02:59

the population was really engaged on Twitter

1:03:01

and also read it in Facebook, but

1:03:03

like mostly Twitter, who was able to

1:03:05

just yell at you, yell in your

1:03:08

face, make your reputation bad or whatever,

1:03:10

and that tiny public was able to

1:03:12

control the larger populace and all the

1:03:15

institutions and organizations thereof, through yelling a

1:03:17

line. Elon has helped the situation by

1:03:19

taking over X and turning into like

1:03:22

a right wing space and making all

1:03:24

the, you know, all the lefty chuds

1:03:26

leave for blue sky and the righty

1:03:28

chuds congregate on X, but like, it

1:03:31

hasn't, it fundamentally hasn't solved the problem

1:03:33

that like, there's this vast silent majority.

1:03:35

It's bigger than the silent majority ever

1:03:38

was during Nixon's time when he coined

1:03:40

that term, right? It was, it's much,

1:03:42

the silent majority is much bigger because

1:03:44

the silent majority is in group chats

1:03:47

and group chats and they're going to

1:03:49

real life. hangouts and they're hanging out

1:03:51

in real life because they you know

1:03:54

the the like 1% of the population

1:03:56

that's on Twitter, the Twitter Shourters, of

1:03:58

which you and I are part, we

1:04:00

are part of the ruling class. You

1:04:03

know, like, I want to disempower our

1:04:05

class, but I want to disempower not

1:04:07

you and me specifically, but the entire

1:04:10

class that we're part of. The shouting

1:04:12

class rules us, and the shouting class

1:04:14

must be disempowered. And like, Dan Rather...

1:04:16

Say what you and Peter Jennings and

1:04:19

the old editorial board of the old

1:04:21

New York Times, you know, they disempowered

1:04:23

the crazies in America. because they wouldn't

1:04:26

let them talk. The crazies weren't able

1:04:28

to talk. And of course, many normal

1:04:30

people weren't able to talk to, and

1:04:33

whoever opposed the Iraq war wasn't able

1:04:35

to talk, and there, so obviously this

1:04:37

leads to elitist media leads to problems.

1:04:39

But at the same time, the crazies,

1:04:42

like as a crazy, how could you

1:04:44

scream and shout at someone important? You

1:04:46

could protest in real life and know

1:04:49

everyone would ignore you, you, you could

1:04:51

write a letter to the editor and

1:04:53

it wouldn't even be accepted. You know,

1:04:55

you could do, you could pass out

1:04:58

pamphlets. You were, as a crazy, you

1:05:00

were disempowered. Now the crazies rule our

1:05:02

civilization. Every civilization is ruled by these

1:05:05

few fucking crazies. The platform is the

1:05:07

enemy because every organization is afraid of

1:05:09

getting yelled out on X or whatever.

1:05:11

There's a quote you said, like five

1:05:14

years ago, I had you on my

1:05:16

podcast and you said something like, when

1:05:18

you give everyone a voice, don't be

1:05:21

surprised when they all say, fuck you.

1:05:23

Yes. We're thinking of having a voice,

1:05:25

right? And so that's what happened. Thank

1:05:27

you, technologists. Thank you, you know, liberal,

1:05:30

like, engineers living in San Francisco in

1:05:32

2005 who wanted dreamed of, like, giving

1:05:34

the voiceless a voice. Thank you, Jack

1:05:37

Dorsey. Thank you for opening the floodgates

1:05:39

of hell. Anyway. That's where we are

1:05:41

now and we're just starting to come

1:05:44

back from that. Maybe if we can

1:05:46

just get everyone off X and we

1:05:48

can shrink the power and blue sky

1:05:50

and shrink the power of these platforms

1:05:53

to irrelevance, maybe we can get out

1:05:55

of this by having it just be

1:05:57

a, you know, a rubber room where

1:06:00

the... crazy shout in. But where are

1:06:02

we going to get our information? Podcasts,

1:06:04

YouTube. We're still going to get our

1:06:06

information online. Maybe just not from the

1:06:09

very crazy sliver. We'll get it from

1:06:11

like slightly less crazy people who have

1:06:13

like the ability, who have like the

1:06:16

chops to make like nice videos on

1:06:18

YouTube. Maybe your curation will just get

1:06:20

better in terms of like maybe things

1:06:22

like prediction markets or we'll just be

1:06:25

able to filter the signal from the

1:06:27

noise better perhaps. Yeah, I'm opening AI.

1:06:29

We'll do this. I'm hoping that we

1:06:32

get AI Dan Rather to curate our

1:06:34

shit for us. Now, I don't know

1:06:36

that it's going to be better than

1:06:38

like real Dan Rather, but it's certainly

1:06:41

better than what we got. Like, AI

1:06:43

Dan Rather, save us. Thesis, you know,

1:06:45

antithesis, synthesis, maybe that's the... No, as

1:06:48

always is a great conversation on the

1:06:50

new left and the new right. As

1:06:52

always, until next time. Until next time.

1:06:56

Upstream with Eric Tormburg is a

1:06:58

show from Turpentine, the podcast network

1:07:00

behind Moment of Zen and Cognitive

1:07:03

Revolution. If you like the episode,

1:07:05

please leave a review in the

1:07:07

Apple store.