Trump vs Kamala, Hereticon, Election Craziness
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Welcome to econ one or two where economist newest Smith and I makes sense of what's happening in the news, technology, business and beyond through the lens of economics.

Let's jump in that merchant that it's .

from a company that just got salt in video called brave OK. What is they? They did like gp stuff. great. I I slightly england bathroom them.

Oh, wow. Is that first .

first exit? No, no, no, no, no, no. My first, my first exit was actually the best, the best one that was like a yeah first exit was like twenty .

seventeen .

oko .

maybe maybe no, no. Opinion venture .

fund in your future. I'm no, no. I I just want to invest in like you know my friends and like kind of call stuff that these guys are my friends.

I live down this. I just before the mobile, I do want to say that I feel I use your name a lot as as an example of why sort of public elections should move to same scope, especially if they're writing about technology, is one of the factors at the right. But they should also be investors to it's a way for them to um to get more plugging in but also can make can make good money .

for definitely out of verse to investing business ventures whatever fun.

Yeah amazing. Well, we're excited to discuss I me what else the election um know you wrote this great peace on why we don't want to go back to the twenty tens and a why trump would be taking us back there and I want you to flush out your argument for the audience benefit but it's basically this idea of you where are going back sort of trump was not the single cause but was in your view, a cause of a lot of the craziness of the of the twenty tens and of the activism of certainly you know the for like left african of the second half of twenty ten and biden era was a sort of much calmer time um this is ironically the same argument curser van makes for why he supported fight in in twenty twenty um and neo come and twenty four um which is that trump hurts his friends and helps .

his enemies right and uh yobs right he's he's absolutely ah ah yeah so so basically the the twenty tens were different. They felt different. If you didn't think they felt different, I don't know where you were for what you were doing at the time.

American politics has always been highly polar, ized and divisive as long as i've been a live, there is never been a time. I mean, there was, I guess, there was a brief moment that early nineties, right up for the end of the cold war, when republicans and democrats said some nice things about each other, and you know, James carvel and mary metal and got married. They were republican critic ragists.

And like, there is this like little tiny era of good feelings there for a couple years. But other than that, I think that you know, we had impeachments. We had, you know, the arguments over the two thousand and election. We just a warranted um incredibly divisive stuff and we've seen polarities get worse and worse and people who are involved in politics scream to each other calling people fascist or communist was not unusual in the two thousands IT was not unusual in one thousand nine hundred ninety. Um the difference is who had to experiences this in those years if you are what we call the political, which is where the the name of the media psych lit al comes from.

If you were a person with into politics were you were steeped in this all day and you and you to some extent loved right you you watch shows like cross fire or you know hand in comes or whatever and you're you'd rail about the enemy party involve the differences in the twenty ten. We all had to be part of that. Every every single person for if you were an economics commentator, I realize that that can be politics adjacent.

But if you were just a regular personal, a regular job politics, and suddenly you were hearing about the the cavin hearings, and everyone was, everyone was yelling about that at every house party. I went, that was different, that was new um or um you know weakness obviously or the latest trump outrage the you know did you hear what trump s set on twitter became topic of conversation of parties that was different. You know no one like like occasionally people talk about George w busher like iraq or whatever.

You know we talk about politics a little bit back in the two thousand but um but know did you hear the latest thing George db. Bush said was never know was not a topic of conversation that everyone had to talk about. I did not dominate.

And the the sort of social chaos of the time, the idea that, you know, people lost friendships over being called cultural appropriators for, you know, like wearing a chinese dress, or like something like, or just saying, you know, I like the new, goes to the shell movie. He was a time of remarkable unrest. And I would never want to blame this all on Donald trump.

You know, had Donald trump never been born, IT still would have been a time of unrest. And you can, you know, this took the unrest to again before trump really was a major figure on the national stage before twenty. The unrest began in twenty fourteen, right when trump was just, you know, some like reality showers.

And you had gamer gate, you had the microbrew shooting at ferguson. You had months long protests. You had, you know like friends of mine who were you know lefties, whatever, would go protest in the streets in twenty fourteen and there was no trip protest right? They're protesting White supremacy of you know the cops or or god knows what um and so that so that began before trumping out.

That's part of the cycle. But I see amErica having you every every so often woke ness, if you want, call that researchers. And and we've seen that we've talked about that along the podcast, and i've written about that a lot, but I think that trump was a reaction to that you know people embrace trump as as a reaction to that, but he really exacerbated a lot of this um trumps daily twitter outrageous just he talks differently than any other politician.

He just uses all caps and screams levels just you know non stop just attacking and insults and stuff. It's different right, than other politicians. And IT was in your face all day, every day on twitter.

And twitter was more important than than in is now IT was the place where all the journalists and politicians and intellectual s and scientists and academics and just anyone in public, any electoral person, congregated to get their news, to get their views, to get see, what people talking about is the watercolor dorm room hall of america. And trump dominated IT. You know, he dominated IT much more than like elon must dominates IT.

Now, even though elon must owns the platform, promotes itself with algorithm like trump dominated IT much more because people cared about what he said so much. Pan IT was just such an outrage and um so so that was true and then um you know trump is always like trying to trump t governed by rally is really the rally is in the aggression he received that these rallies with a bottom up phenomenon no, he didn't invent that that he became the focus of IT. He loved IT and he reflected that back and he encouraged egg people on you.

I don't think he called up that people told them do the january six thing and maybe did, but I don't know if he did. But then certainly his rhetoric egged people on to violence, to the attack on congress. And so I think that trump was not the cause of the unread, but he was an exacerbating factor.

And here's the important part, the fundamental causes of the unrest. Welker, at saturday, all these, the social movements of the twenty times have to decided they haven't gone away. You know, woke attitude is still exist.

You you still hear them. You will still hear some schoolboy in IOS talk about White supremacy, the competitive ark ababa. You still have D. I.

And the number of institutions use, you know, even though it's going down like boing, just to stand at their di department, I think yesterday. So you see this is receding. It's going away, but he hasn't yet gone away.

But but the unrest is is receding. And you see of the like wall activists, you see ninety five percent of them just went home. They went on to other things.

They went on to like, you know tiktok jokes and and you know k pop or or like whatever the thing of the new ages, right, where as five percent really hard core. And those are the polls stine protests and they all went in hardware pollstar and they're just protesting. They are just they're nuts that they're more nuts than the people in the twenty hands are.

But it's because of a evaporate pooling. You know, if you have a evaporate pooling of group beliefs as the norm's leave, the people who remain are crazy. And so the palestine protesters are talking about, like america's, you must be destroyed and and White people clean from amErica because they are colonizer like, people in twenty fourteen didn't talk like that, you know, my my friends were activists in twenty fourteen are out.

They're all out. I don't have a single friend, is still an activist, you know, and all these people were, you know, like tying themselves together to block roads over White supremacy in forty forty, these lefty humanity majors that I knew. And I still know some of them, some of the people.

And I did not lose many friendships. I lost, I think, one friendship over saying, I like, uh, ghost in the shell movie or goes to the shell I didn't like, goes to the shell movie, but I thought I was acceptable to screw your handsome like that charter and saying, that lost me one one french. That was that.

But now, like none of these people are at with, they're all just like sitting. They're saying about the radical in their humanity apartments and like the number of radical are shrinking and they've been sort of pushed out. You feel this this stuff recede.

You felt IT in the late seventeen ties, right? I think this is like equivalent of one thousand hundred and seventy six, along with the bumbling assassination attempts by random crazy, which we had two of one thousand hundred and seventy six, and short succession, which are early parallel, the exact same once now on on trump. But but they were on je four, who was like, you know, the most modern guy.

You could imagine the razi try anyway. So but if we're one thousand and seventy six, you can, you can feel the crazy eight away, even as the hard core crazy is still there. You had left to trying to blow shit up in like one hundred eighty five, right? But they are only like five of them.

okay? And then the evaporate, cooling happens. The nation, calm down. And by the late seventies, people just wanted to like, listen to queenan. And like you know um dance to disco and whatever right like like weather bell bottoms on on on. I don't know, I was not around for something, but the point is that he come down and coming down.

Now trump is sort of the trump is still going that's the thing like trump in in part thanks to the sort of shot in the ARM from from some people in tech, you know, who were sort of late to the party because they those guys hit out in the twenty ten, right? The people are writing in tech people now. They mostly hit out and avoided politics like you on musk wasn't begin politics in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen right um or or any of these guys vivid ramos, I was he um J.

D. Vance, I wrote Hillary ology, I guess he he was sort of in the public a little bit, you know, but but he was much more, you know, moderately, wasn't trying to like, capture the writing and energy. This is the right wing.

The right wing outlasts the left in the mirror. They they have more staminate. The left gets started quicker, and they burn out quicker. And this happened in the sixties and seventies. You saw the right, the anger of the right, last at all the way into the eighties, while the anger, the left Petered out in its seven. The right outlast the left.

The left comes on very strong, what riot, you know, like social change in Bobbye and like a few years, burns itself out and then goes back to the congress, right? Goes back to being a countercultural movement. And then at with with a few crazy, trying to do a few crazy thing to the right, outlast the last and the right is that left the left now. And trump is the basically the last major chaos agents prominent in amErica like today. Common Harris just released an ad saying, two hundred and fifty years ago, what was this could hold on?

Um let me let me nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, amErica was born when we rested freedom from a petty that sounds like something i'd hear bill clinton in the nineties you know there's all these people weigh in american flags and Harris rallies like hope this bus dude like people in two thousand seventeen were saying that the fourth of july was a White national national holiday and everyone was cheering him on now it's like and then sixteen one thousand nine project. The true founding of amErica was slavery i'm stupid but but now it's two hundred fifty years ago our country rested freedom from a petty, that's the birth of our country. That's what that's what democrats are saying now.

And the palace in actives didn't even get a fucked and speech at the democratic convention. They were like, why don't you let a palestinian k fuck you by no one cares. We we just lost like ten viewers who are really into police's but the point is that like I deeply feel for the people policy getting bomb policy activists anyway um so that's that's where we are now you know trump is the last major chaos agent the post and protesters are out there and you know lefty academics are still saying luny things and you still see, you know, like some schoolboy I but trump is the last major irritant.

He is the last major stone in the shoe of american society in terms of the political cast. 2， he's really the twenty if we elect him. We don't bring back to twenty tens because wellness is still receding and IT will continues you, but we bring back some of that, right?

We extend the decline instead of this sharp decline like we've been having. We extend the decline haven't been a slower decline from the unrest of the twenty ten. And we have to deal with four more years, maybe more.

But four more years, I think of just this this this repeating pattern that we that was in our face every day in late twenty tens of, like, did you hear what the latest outrage trump said and like, oh my god, violated this norm and there's a mob storming global. I don't want, I want to go back to talking about economic. And in my off hours, I want to go back to thinking about start continue and culture and fluff y animals.

I want to go, you know I want to go back, uh to to, you know I want to go back to twenty so you know how like and and the decline of weakness is allowing me to do that much more, right? Like it's it's allowing me to to do that more. Uh, and and trump would stop me if he get elected IT would you would make my return to twenty twelve harder for four years? And I think for everybody else, and that's my that's my case, I know i've just rattled on for like fifteen minutes, so that's my basic cases as to what .

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so my question, I obviously trump is a chaotic figure and you know, it's hard to agree with your claim that he rose up to both the right and the laughter, just exactly ate some of the chAllenges, you know, some which existed even before him.

My question is, do you think another candidate would be very different on the right? Because is IT possible that just in the social media era of politics, you know, if jd vans were running for president, or elon musk we're running for president, or a vague we're running for president, is IT possible we might have. Is that possible? We're just so polarized as the people you probably you perhaps trump is the worst offender. But would be we be seeing perhaps similar chaos if even if one of the three people I mentioned, partly because that's how politics works in the social media era, but maybe partly because the right in the left is so divided culturally.

yeah, I mean, they are divided culturally. And I think that, no, it's it's a problem. But yeah, I mean, I think I think trump is is a unique figure. He's I think that all the other people, including the tech people you mentioned, they well, they don't have the Chrism have done for one thing I think you know elan's obvious ly respected, but I I think that he's not unnecessarily loved by by the people and then know trump is a very charismatic figure. He know, yes, he goes on these these crazy rants, but he speaks in a in a way that really resonates.

A lot of people, especially like, you know older sorts of folks who who watch a lot of cable news, know he's a reality show host and he's in tune with sort of a mass media culture that almost no no longer exists, but able to create some of that. There is rallies. And so I don't think, you know, vivid s obviously not going to catch on like that.

I think je vance is obviously not going to catch on. You know, he's you know can be present about the way unless someone makes a constitutional moment what I want but then like vance man's awkward, like he he can do OK, you know but but he's nothing. He's not he doesn't electrify crowds any more than like oran to scientist does or or whatever like and so yeah I don't know that common hair is the most electrifying person either, but she's just a Normal.

She's a Normal politician. I think jd vans would become a Normal politician without trump. I don't think he's gonna be special. I think trump is still a unique, special individual. I was special, individual and completely different ways .

is special in india. IT is interesting to note about island that he he was Normal in twenty sixteen. Or would I like or more not know, he wasn't the device of figure that he was today, that he today.

And it's worth just speculating on why why that is in the case. You know I think partially is he realized that that kind of like a currency in a social meeting is just the platforms reward IT. And he he's gotten you know so much of an audience because of IT.

But also IT seems like, you know, there were some events maybe that he felt he was demonized by by you know that one governor elected or sort public official told him to get out of california there, this kind of negative loop between him and the left. But I also wonder if if it's not just some celebrities in general realized that the more you can lean into controversy, the more more you get rewarded because of IT. And I wonder if that has helped IT, you know, sort of change the lack of Normal.

This should be the sort of Michael Jordan idea that republicans buy sneakers too. You know that that you appeal to both sides. But now that seems like in our sort of fragmented the ecosystem, you want to be more people want to be a cult leader of one side than a unifier.

That's right. I think that's true cult. Is that interesting? Is the interesting word here because I think you can common Harris is movement is fundamentally not a cold. You know she's got all these republicans for for haris. You know like every week in the republican says i'm supporting hair or whatever, the rhetoric is very like sort of standard politician I love amErica if you just did this release, this ad that said, two hundred fifty years ago our nation was conceived in freedom you we rebuilt against a petty know, very like this is this is the stuff that you said, like in the ninety nineties, if you want to be a standard politician, you could call, you know, some work stuff are called.

Like you add people in the twenty twenty projects, like, literally like you are White people needing in front of random black people and asking for, I gets obviously religious, whether you want to call that a cold, it's obviously a religious impulse. And I think you could call paleo ever code trump m is definitely a cult like it's basically the idea is is just to replace every single institution with with you know love far Donald trumpets. It's know they just said were going to cancel the chips act.

Why would you cancel the chip sec? Is a bunch of manufacturing jobs which trump that I one of the a bunch manufacturing jobs mostly for red states. Like, why would you deprive arizona of all this money? Why would you do, you know, all these, like, or, or, or texas, or whatever?

Like, why would you deprive red states of money to rebuild american manufacturing, which trump is always said that you want to do? The answer is because it's something that is not IT is not of trump you know, it's IT is not of the personality called to came from someone else and that's why theyll kill IT. I mean, also they're beholding to you foreign enemies and all that stuff that would like.

But fundamentally, this is someone else's deal and therefore it's not part of the tropical. So yeah I mean classic culture personality. And so I think if trump goes away and a lot of that goes away, you know, I think politics will continue to be partisan and very divided.

And we'll still have very divided media. You know cbs evening news didn't come back. We're still going to have fox news saying one thing in m bc saying other will still have you know writing accounts making one kind of tiktok video and left accounts making very different kind of tiktok video.

We'll still have this polarization in these different media years. This is not going to go away. But I think that yeah so it's not polarization that I want to get rid of. It's not that trump is uniquely divisive figure.

You know in some ways he's not nearly even the most device of figure because I think he's caused some some racial depolarization cause I think a lot of you know his panic guys without college degrees or sort of like interested voting for him, where's White people with college degrees of all shifted to like heroes? And so I think he's called some racial depolarization there I I don't seem is necessarily the he is a device of figure because like a lot people just don't like them. But but in terms of divide, you know, pressing on the fundamental divides of our country, I don't buy that story.

I think he just rails everybody up and I think that he provokes people. So so you know, IT wasn't just IT wasn't just walk people on the left. He went nuts.

In the twenty ten there was the right two. So he saw shill. Remember the male bomber who sent all the male bombs to the liberals and democrats and stuff seizure saac, or whatever name is his band?

A guy from florida, of course. And you saw the, remember the pitzer g cinna's g shooting and the power snag shooting. So two guys shootings. You saw big shooting people in our passo like like you know some some White to premises rain and shot some like guys he thought were immigrants who probably just some like writing his panic goods from our passo. He didn't know the difference but anyway shot them and then and then some people shot up two synagogue.

Ding, I think the worst synagogue ting in our history of pittsburg, like the worst masser of jew's people in america, is pitcher g nagoya ot by guy who, like, you know, in his manifesto, like trump this, trump that, and so trump to real people up. I don't, you know, not saying trump is responsible for that attack and like trumps dangerous, retorted he should bob a, maybe yeah, maybe yeah, but i'm saying that trust presents clearly real people up and the the kind of stuff that he says just the natural person he is, rise the country up. He's not the only one who does that.

He's not the only reason we are riled up in the twenty times. But you know, when I look back in history, I think that if you look at the nineteen ten, like one thousand nine and to one thousand twenty two wish, right, you saw a massive outpouring of rightest energy. You saw the new K, K, K.

Taking over whole cities and marching on washington would like five hundred thousand people or something. You saw writing to the the washington memorial, streets of the streets, washington in their hoods, the K, K, K. And you saw, you know, riots in hundreds and hundreds of american cities that killed the hundreds and hundreds of black people.

And you know, everyone knows about the one in halsa a right? You ve heard about the tulsa one. That was one of two hundred of those.

Like this was a Normal occurrence. That was the slightly bigger. And they use an airplane which got a lot of people to attention.

But they this was common thing in amErica at that time. You didn't really see as much left his energy output oring, right? You didn't see that.

You would see that before the civil war, but you didn't see that. And like the early twenty years, then in the sixties and seventies, you saw a lot of of leftist energy. You know you saw riots.

You know, this time, like, love these riots. You saw vm more protests. You saw leftist terrorism. People were blowing up, like, aren't mostly argued by buildings, but like, know, just blowing up a bunch of stuff that was just crazy leftist span rest in america.

And you saw, you know, black power movement and a bunch of other radical, super radical movements. You didn't see as much energy on the right. The right didn't go crazy then.

And that's why when we Normalize during regan IT was the right that sort of brought Normalcy back where as when we Normalized in amErica after the twins, IT was really r who who really brought Normal sea back. But IT was regan in the eighties. Because conservatives is Normal.

Conservatives like i'm just sitting here, war and jesus while you're blown up. Buildings like that elt Normal. The people i'm too Younger member, I just read about this, but then I talk to people you know who are there.

And so he was like the comes we're going to do the revolution IT was the the conservation through the norm's, right? With the exact opposite of how had been the twenties. The thing about the twenty tens is that both sides went nuts at the same time, which had not happen since the american civil war. Now maybe we're too fat and happy to have another civil war, but we bit, but you definitely saw this alright explosion at the same time, you saw the world explosion .

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I thought, I thought I was a few years after, like, well, maybe the same time you like, I thought the life was like two thousand, twenty twelve and the right was like twenty fifteen and twenty fifteen or something. But maybe that's close enough to be the same time.

Yeah, no, I think I mean, I think that that to some degree, right. But you would seen this, the stuff that eventually became like, alright, you had seen since the two thousands, like I had seen that I I was unfortunate. I know I seen a bubbling and up right and if you're on tumble, which I wasn't, you could see the left of stuff bubble up to well before that.

And so you saw yeah twenty twelve, especially two thousand thirteen. I think you really saw that the increase in this kind of stuff. But twenty fourteen was, I think when you saw game of gate and you did see delon roof, right? You saw done roof was, what was that? Twenty, thirty and twenty? I remember, you know who that is, don't roof .

that name sayer was can remember what .

he did a shooting.

Oh.

that he was in twenty fifteen actually did that shooting. So oh yeah so let's say twenty fourteen, twenty and fifteen when you started to see a lot of like retest stuff, but honestly, like the the you didn't see that much of in twice. I was a professor during those years, right? I never saw workers on campus.

I I love being professor in two thousand fifteen. I never saw, well, as even once didn't see a student protest at all. Zero, right? This in new york.

And and if you wait, a large minority population starting working university, and I never saw I never heard people these work terminology. I never heard anyone try to cancel anybody. I never heard anyone talk about this ever until like you know, twenty after I left, people started talking about IT.

And I would hear about IT. But then but I would say that the chronology, I would say that both really went crazy in twenty fourteen. You could you could see that sort of rising in twenty twelve thirteen, but I think both went crazy in twenty fourteen.

Gamer gate and the microbrew stuff. When were when were the proud boys formed? I mean, I know that Gavin against was like of the problem when until twenty sixteen, Gavin again, he was doing, he was doing right when stuff before that he was just IT came ahead. You know, these things come to ahead like you could see a lot of that these these tendencies gathering in the nineties.

right the substrate was being .

built ah yeah and like then they came to ahead and finally they broke the into the mainstream and they fought right it's like when bans breaking .

into the mainstream yeah ten year overnight successor something yes interesting because yeah I write in your writing as you are hoping that twenty twenty five to twenty forty will be like like nothing happened you know like a sort of a return uh to to Normalcy and you know it's interesting. I I hope for that too.

But I wonder, you know, I remember when George bush was president and people really hated him, and and now he kind of seems like a quint old guy beat the trump. And I wonder if in twenty years from now, there might be a similar effect. Maybe not.

Maybe I just don't have enough data points, but that's like a pat on a job, like things always get crazier or this in my own limited experience. And so are they always feel crazier. And so twenty years from now is possible. You know, people might be like, go, you know, jump, you know, ah he did some wild wacked y things, but you know, the next guy is even crazier.

The purpose of every republican candidates is to make us miss the older publican. It's possible he did, you know, economically, he did some more progressive stuff like student loan cancellation than other people. But I know he's no less moderate to guy than than clinton, right? In many ways, obama is a more conservative democrats than clinton, a Carter, you know, obama. Obama deported four hundred thousand people in the .

first time rap that there was the sort of he coin's with some of the, some of the rise Walkers stuff, some of the you, the O M stuff. You know, you gay marriage.

Trump is a special guy.

right? sure.

I would not, if run the sentence with the presidential nominee. I won't be worried about this at all if if I don't even know who's another prominent republican politician whose who sort of right wing .

also ted crews make robo.

I don't know. I don't know. Like if any these guys, even even if jd vents, if jd vans were the presidential candidate right now.

So the vice presidential candidate, I would not, I wouldn't think J D. Vance is going to just keep the country insane for for all these years. I might not.

I wouldn't necessarily both for j events. I wouldn't necessary like j events, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't think that he has a unique effect. I think if you look at statistics on education polarization, you know the idea that that educated people vote democrat and uneducated of people of republican, that is true.

But IT hasn't that actually really started that the big divergence is in like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, one truth came on the scene like trump, alien, educated people and was attractive to people's out of college degree education polarization. You know, maybe there is a racial depolarization, at least in the second term, at least in the second, not term election, but but definitely education polarization became a worst thing. I guess a lot of this is because the left is coming down, like the hard core palestine left is not coming down.

But the democrats as a whole, and your average, like, you know, progressives in your institutions, wherever, are coming down. Like, I won't say workers, not completely gone, but if you look at the charts of, like, most of garbage has done these shorts, right? You look at terms in the media, how often did the media talk about racism? You see rise, rise, rise, rise, rise.

And then like a big collapse the day biden gets on office and IT hadn't collapsed all the way. But it's like a lot like a big you know drop super big drop in academia, like the degree to which like White supremacy is mentioned in papers and stuff. It's going wait down like since twenty twenty one like twenty twenty one was the height of IT. I'm not creddle by necessarily with all of this, but i'm saying that had trump ed in an office, I wouldn't have expected to see you go down so fast.

right? So it's no surprise that you know, trump is a reality star, right? That is superpower. He's outrage machine. That's a reality stars do and it's no sort of a surprise that when he's an office he continue to be an outrage machine.

Obviously, you know he this tweet every day are unhinged and you know he's moved them to truth social, whether or less prominent um and perhaps it's been one of the best things that that happened to his sort of ability is sort of his muscle ness and and maybe if you get if he gets an office that will go away, people start to pay attention to truth social or who just do them more frequently on twitter. That said, and then there is no debate that IT shows a lot of the internal chaos. I do wonder if you're sympathetic to the this is you know take away from the negative effects of the internal chaos.

But if there is some version of IT ever this argument, that kind of thing that there's some version of of his sort of unpredictably that is maybe an asset in foreign policy, maybe it's a mess internally, but foreign policy perhaps sort of you know willing to say ridiculous things like you know tariff on everything or a few other like play hard ball as a way to you know you don't want to know of negotiate with the with a mad man and you know of course that goes both ways. There's a lot of risks, you know, higher variants, but IT seems like he's been effective in some negotiations. Would you do you agree with that, that line of thinking? Or do you think, hey, even still even just on a foreign policy perspective, it's just it's not worth well.

okay. So when negotiations and that we're talking about, let's let's go through some specific ones. Let's talk about north korea. North korea is one where trump, you know, promise to stop the north queen nuclear program and basically got nothing that like, you know, kim going basically ignored mp and to do whatever he wanted after trump said, like he's my friend bob up know he was not china negotiations.

So SHE dian promised to buy a whole bunch of american farm products and trump promised to, like, you know, cancelled some planned terrace that he additional terrific is going to do. We can we did indeed cancel those plan. terrific.

And do you think they bought any agricultural products? No, they do not buy any trumpet expert controls in china. And then later was sort of pushed to drop some of the expert controls that put on china, which but not about put sort of russia.

ukraine stuff. Do you think that would have happened?

Trump didn't really engage in any negotiations like hyper found negotiations and putin.

but sort of the threat of like is, is some people say, o that might might not have happened to the trump because is just, you know, who might have been concerned?

I don't know. I mean, I think that part of the reason craine what happened was because putin was getting old and you know was scared of death by covin and just decided he didn't know much time left to do this. But I think he was planning to do with this at some point, whether or not might have been the afghanistan withdrawal that prompted putin to do IT, because that happened pretty shortly afterwards, made of, made the united states look weak.

In fact, IT was the united states withdraw from the n ARM that made russia the so union feel confident in trying to basically take over afghanistan back in the day. So there's a president for that but I will also say that the the withdrawal of american troops from afghan's an was scheduled byo ald trump buying agreement with the talian. So had unless Donald trump cancelled that after, you know, had done ald trump one and twenty twenty and he I had got in office, maybe he would have cancelled that or but he definitely may be agreeing with the taliban withdrawal troops at the certain time.

Certainly putin, you know, was already involved in in you know, warfare in part of ukraine. There was like a limited war. Ukraine in before twenty twenty two resulted of a low intensity war.

But that had been going on for years, and that was going on during obama years, is going on during the trump ers. Pun didn't exactly back off back like he didn't. There is no, there was no backing off of that.

I don't think trump wanted to make him backup either. You know, trump withdrew troops from germany and withdrew troops from europe. And basically.

Know, set a bunch of stuff about withdrawing from nato, although we ultimately didn't do IT. I feel like united states withdrawing from nato is not a deterrent. Move to russia, to put IT very mildly.

So if we look at the counter factual, would put, have been afraid in video craye if trump within office, I don't know, but my instinct is no, but I don't really have a way of knowing, right? And they definitely the armenian as a region war did break out while trump s an office. The russian india had a border fight, which we actually did help india win in twenty twenty.

That happened. China, to became far more aggressive himself, try to see, like pressing its claims, taking territory from the Philippines, which so, so I will know, by the way, china has been trying to take all these reefs from the Philippines, these shows, to assert its claim over phillipines waters, and self trying to see this is very close to Philippines islands. And during trump's m.

Office, they did IT, and we didn't do a thing. During biden term, they tried. And we like back up the phillipines and they haven't been able to take that.

Ref a. So that happened. Iran's nuclear program did advance under trump. I guess we cancel the nuclear deal that we're going to have to get them to stop. I don't see.

You can always say, you can always make a claim about madman theory, right? Which nicks and I think invented is like they don't know what i'm going to do. I could be a crazy like a bomb, you know like I don't think nx wasn't at now.

I think he he played one on TV. I don't think trump is a man and either I think trump is is honestly well, I don't know. I mean, like he killed sam, sol, moni, the running guy.

He did order that hit. So he's not always just like a cowardly, do nothing kind of guy, although iran is a lot simpler to pick on and to pick on russia, china, right? Like he picks an easy targets.

But still he did. He did do that. He did.

He did try to deny the the election loss. He went for IT. You know, he went for that. So he's not he's not always like, you know, just a cowardly when he does nothing but at the same time know he could have gone more all in on that election denial like he could have like launched a hard queue. But I think he was too, too cautious for that.

Well, on that, what do you say to the you one issue voter that is the you know the ten seven israel voter. It's a small percentage people but is it's an influence group of people you know some of them might say something like, you know trumper krista, you know made some progress in the insert, you know, peace negotiations, are you boston as all alliances in the region, where is bite in? You know I I don't like camera for the exact that did you give ten billion to iran or something or something .

lifted ten billion?

I can't remember .

the on give away X, I miss that one.

I can't remember exactly what what he did. But some, I guess. Okay, U. S. Grants around such.

Biden gives ten billion to iran. U. S. Grants, iran, sanction waver OK OK. Okay, I see.

why? What is this? Yes, we iran, as I help, we need money to buy food. They're sections are starving our people and like, okay, i'll give you a little bit of money as long as you use IT to buy food only of course you know money is funeral.

right?

But yeah so we we have humAnitary arian exceptions for the sanctions. That's why we we didn't we didn't give them ten billion dollars, by the way. We we let them like sell ten billion dollars of stuff or we yeah so we didn't. We didn't we didn't just tell them ten million dollars yeah.

yeah. Like.

yeah. Tell me this. Tell me this. So, so you went to this thing called her radicals last week.

Tell me what what you heard there, what was going on there? Like what? I got invited her edon once and was unable to go.

But the conference organize didn't invite me this year. What what what is that? What what would you say there?

It's a bit IT actually wasn't as like election focus as I would as you would guess. My my my guess is that IT was what's a called you know eighty percent trump or something. But you know, purchase urban had to talk called the monarchs case for cella. You know, bright one, seeing how to talk was IT called.

yes, queen, the monarchs case for commonly because of not. I feel like I can prove this.

Yes, no, that would be a good one. I was a bread wine, seen how to talk called, is the song going to make us extinct? There was a lot of like size.

I like, you know, super babies, you know, total count, sort of the safety verse acceleration debate. You know, I an hersel. I am sort of muslim immigration to europe, you know, ella gave a talk on or on or and sort of her so of sex research. IT was a lot of like, IT was almost like a carnival, sort of intellectual carnival. And I was like these wild and wacky sort of fringe sort of cultural or technological sort of the things that are happening not as much like, you know who's going to win the election or policy debates is kind of it's kind of a .

festival yeah got a and a bit conservatives it's .

it's yeah mostly conservatives but I think interesting also culturally like you the sort of the common news wasn't there but like but he could a bit like cultural conservatives who write for on heard you know, Geoffrey Miller, Diana flash man.

Harry wise, JoNathan height .

yeah they themselves were there but people from .

from the free like maxell yes.

yes, of course Chris robo, I didn't see him, but he up sure he was invited. But yes, it's interesting with, you know, we've eluted to this in the past in the conservation movement, there's a big is sort of faction between there's the traditional conservative right and then the sort of like trans humanist right with that.

the other faction, the trans humanist .

or sort of like tech protect progress. You know one group of people wants to like shut you know talk of calls and talk about like blowing up a data, something so like he wants to stop progress.

like talk of carls and talked about blowing a, he went to horican and talked about blowing a here.

He said this on his podcast to on job. He was like job from replace who runs an AI companies like way isn't going to take over and we blow this up, like stop this immediately.

And and you know there were talks about like trade wives and sort of like like there's the trial conservative faction that wants to like bring back sort of in one hundred and fifties and then there's the there's the I think the mixed anda right there is sort of that want artificial womb and want sort of like, you know a tech forward, but still a higher article. And you have strong order sort in non religious sort of society. And that was on debate. No reca god.

did you give a talk?

No, I I didn't give a talk. If I didn't give a talk, though, I would be that charter cities and network states are unlikely to, unless they are near same to go or major city unlikely to get like I don't think golds, gold just happening. I don't think billionaire are, you know, most interesting people are going to move.

And thus I think more people should just be moving to same disco or existing cities and making them amazing, almost like a free state project. But for a bunch, people tried to, you know, organize to change kind of new hampshire politics. So they said, hey, if twenty thousand of us move, libertarians that will agree to move, then will all move.

And we could influence of politics. I think that's a lot easier to do than to get people to move to hondas or africa or wherever people are trying to create these these charter cities because, you know, it's what we learned. The social media, twitter is a know elan could have tried to start a with twitter, but it's really hard to start in as blue sky.

And others have learned no network. Vets are really powerful. And I think cities are even more powerful. And we saw that during covered that if if there was a time where people were going to leave in, you know, in in droves, IT was, coit was when the city was shut down. And even during that time, you know, most people stayed.

We lost one hundred thousand people, right? I mean that's a lot. But yeah like I think most people stay in um I mean IT would have been weird for more than one thousand people like that would have been really empty at this town. I would have been like you know like premodern .

era level everybody. If you made a list of like the top thousand people in tack or something, I suspect most of them like nine hundred you know plus stayed they .

just went out their second homes in utah.

you know yeah either stayed or return or came back or came back.

Network effects are very powful. So so his second, I mean, herrera is basically isn't really herrera anymore. Or is this like basically the the right in amErica because I mean, you know Christian conservatives gone like the old conservative m collapsed in terms of and education position means there's relatively few you know educated people who are really on the right is hermetically IT. Is is this is this our new right? intelligencer?

I think so. Yeah, I think it's it's it's less herrera and more like what was that conference in florida, the new conservative and forget what I was called. But yeah, it's it's it's more like the new right, at least the tech right. It's the tech right?

That's what IT is. IT is tech. But he said this a non tech people there too yeah.

there is non tech people, but it's not like there were politicians. They are something like, not politicians. No, no, there wasn't like ted crews or you know any these guys who who do go to this. I think it's a national conservatism conference in in in florida here there were cultural people, but I would say I was like eighty and ninety percent tech people and then you know people like Sarah ter or you know clare from collect or you know a bunch of these sort of writer to cat rosen field you know default friend, a ever of these culture writers but um yeah I think I think it's less recall because who's did .

we give our friends Cathy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a parenting big fan of mine.

Yeah i'm sure i'm sure there are a bunch of a bunch of no Smith fans. I think you, I think you are fans on both sides of the isle these days as good yeah, anyway, yeah, I think it's it's less so radical and because these ideas have kind of you confused our circles a bit.

Yeah, I always thought, you know IT was very important for these people to call themselves conservatives or the right or or something you know some some know obviously liberals change their name of progressives, but comfort some name at least to say that you're on the same side as, like all the oceans of, like you know, non college republican voters out there.

It's I think it's bad for a movement intelligencer to be orphing from its working class base. I think you need that those who be united as much as you can. And of course, it's bad for the democrat too.

Like you know, the democrats there. I I think a lot of progressive intellectual als are pretty out of touch with the people that they claim, represent or want to represent. But I think it's important for foreign not to be able to touch.

And I think that the the concede, I think that the concede during the twenty tens of a lot of these people who go to herd on the herd on crowd, the idea that they are somehow i'm not you know, i'm great tribe, okay? I'm not conservative. I'm not progressive.

I'm nothing. I'm just off here making attack and just won whatever. Like, no, no, you have conservative beliefs about things like family tradition, western civilization, something like you these conservatives would not be alien.

A conservative one thousand nine hundred eighty three, right? There are not that different. And yet, you know, I think I was just the force, the force of wildness in intellectual circles that that scared these these folks.

They don't want me to say that their bunch of cowardly and so scared of works, but like they IT was very ubiquitous, right? Like if you if you said like i'm on the i'm on the right in twenty seventeen, like you'd depended, exiled whatever. Or maybe you wouldn't you at least think there you might be right?

There is a chance with dangerous because of the elite consensus, because of education polarization. So even want to say so. So these guys like invented the third category, intellectual dark web.

I'm not conservative. I'm part of the intellectual dark web. You know, i'm great tribe. You know, like really they were just the, you know intellectual conservation and the conservative a meant a different thing like OK fine. Maybe you like gay marriage, maybe think gay marriage is fine, but like all on almost every issue, you you press people and they they'd say some conservative stuff, you know even concerned of gay people and you know Peter tio obviously is gna say cause so he's he's a concerted guys gay. But I always thought he was important for these people to say, you know, I yes, I am conservative.

Some other equivalent term to come up with because then then you know we need, we need smart people on both sides, right? Obviously we don't need smart people doing bad things, but I think need if there is going to be you know conservative ideas, writing ideas that are more that are smarter than like, you know, just like let's ban some work textbooks or whatever, like cultural verbal shit like that didn't catch on, right? Trump is coming with terrorist teris terrorists.

But terrorists s are actually a little dumb, you like, terrorist and china find terrifying like everybody else. So we can even buy kids for many batteries. Dumb please.

Like, you know and I I think you can see some of this with with you on you know kind of saying, actually, we're not going to do seventy five trillion dollars of deficit spending. We're going to do austerity. We're going to cut the deposit and may involve temporary being.

Some of you may have to die. But like you on saying this, and that's actually I am making fun of IT but but it's smarter like it's what a smart person would think, not what what a smart conservative think not what just a dumb populist conservative we think, right? Because like, yes, we are going to need austerity IT is Better for republicans to go for austerity than to go for intimate deficits.

I would know that doesn't me. I like to see like tax cuts for the rich paired with cuts for things for the poor. I don't like that because that's you know that's pretty like guilty age stuff, you know it's it's but it's Better than venezuela, right? So I said d rather see that.

So so I think you know if if guys like elan shadow president theory, I I don't believe that I think doubles probably fire him. But I think if he is there, but I think if I were true, I think that elan would do, you know, like deregulate tech, just do a bunch of the irregulars ory stuff, and then that would actually be unbaLance. Ed, helpful.

Yes, that sometimes these regulations need for safety and stuff. And so so know some consumers to get equal, I don't know. But like I do think that in general, elon and gender would be a lot smarter than whatever trump would do just instinctively from like watching CNN in the nineties and you deciding on his care of policy by bad are and after, you know, like whatever.

So so conservatives needs smart people. We can, we can shame every smart person into not being a conservative. Are right? That was tried.

I never tried that, but I was tried. We, we, you can shame a lot of them, right? You can get education polarization. We got education polarization.

We got seventy five percent or whatever large percent of educate people to go be democrats, right? But that just means that when the republicans win, they're not going to be smart about what they do. okay?

So like education bordier ation was bad because IT meant that when the republicans win, they go dumb and terms first, administration was dumb. You know, I didn't have like, fortunately, I had I had enough people like in the military doing the corporation word speed that they were able to to sort of get that done and hold together. And he had Steve manu chen, who was able to actually put together a pretty good cover release package, which yeah did contribute inflation, but overall was the right thing to do.

And so that, yes, they had some confidence. But overall, I conservatives have not government competently because of education position tion. Smart people left the party so maybe the hedon guys can bring back.

do you think I think that's what's happening and needs to happen more. So ah I don't think that I think that's exactly right. Maybe we could close with just because our next episode come out after tuesday is is IT just a coin flip?

Is IT like any any thoughts on on how should we interpret where we are at with elections OS at this moment? How do you think about our our ability to even understand you know what's likely happened? Is that really just nobody knows. We're just guessing.

Yeah I mean, nate silver, you know, spend he his smart guy, spends just an absolute ton of mental energy and stuff tweaking all these models and looking the quality of polls and trying to shift every little piece of information again. And his his forecasts today, says Harris, forty eight point five percent. Trump, fifty one point one percent.

The two people that we're winning fifty and four percent. That's a percent of chance. That's not polls, okay? We don't know if the polls are like like polling has gotten bad, you know, because first of all, everyone got a cell phone so you can't reach anybody when I see a post or I hung up, you know like you can't reach, you can't reach people now.

Yes, so there's that. And so so you try to correct this with fancy statistics, just, but that always involves a lot of assumptions. Like, are resealing too many White people? Are we sapling too many black people? Are we sapling too many old people? Well, are too many Young people? whatever.

Like, you have to make these assumptions, rites of point socks. And then so all the forecast models are based on polls, and there's hurting nates over just right up call about how people add these flags factories. And so they heard and so you know in in twenty sixteen, twenty twenty people underestimated job support.

If you think that the same old polling errors are underestimate the shy trump voters, trumps going to kick us is going to win. But if you think that the pollsters, if you think that they overcompensated their polls so that they were like, well, we missed all these trump voters, let's just assume there's last more trumPeters. There are, which is one possibility and eight con of of york times seeks that's a possibility.

Then comment is going to a stop, right? Of course, other republicans will say, but the poll said we were gonna in IT must be stole and stop the steal. You know, like, how about two thousand sixteen? Bra, like two thousand and sixteen.

All the poll said jobs is going to lose anyone. I didn't here you complain and then I didn't see, see, you say, stop the steal in twenty sixteen. But anyway, so that could help right come could win. We just don't know because polling is polling is fucked in ways that are not just random but are structural. It's structurally fucked and we don't know which way is structurally fuck and know the prediction markets like have now reverted.

I think now it's fifty fifty in the prediction markets suddenly after like one french guy would get the entire life savings on trump on poly market, like round of the cat to keep doing this that one french guy, he wasn't even that rich. He just like Better his entire life savings on trump and then, like, and then then IT collapsed and his way under water. Like trump losers that got like, you're going to have one poor frenchman.

Fortunately, they have a welfare in france. But anyway, I guess like, so we don't know and I don't know what's going to happen. I wish trump or not a strong I think he's just like just clearly bad choice.

I am very happy with sort of a lot of the changes that commonly harasses made in terms of, you know, patric sm and and and loving amErica and and just being moderate about your stuff, you know, being pro entrepreneurship and all these things like there's still progressive, but that, you know, progressive means a different thing than I did four years ago now. And I think commonly here is part of that. And I think I would like to see her win.

I don't if you would be like the best present we ever had, i'd like to see her win. I think that four years of trump s is something that I, you know, like I I dread having to write about that every day because that's my job. Like, I want to write about economics.

I want to write about correct, optimal tax policy. I want to write about optimal, careful. I want to write about industrial policy. What is an office? I will.

I only be able to write about these once every other thing, or once every three things, because trumps just can cancel the chips act is going to raise these stupid turfs. I'll be able to write these dry pieces saying, I here's why everything trump dude is wrong or or whatever. Or maybe i'll do something right now.

I will actually, trump do the right thing. And i've been there. I wrote for bloomberg.

I wrote five things week for bloomberg. I did this the whole first term in office. I know what this is like.

And you know, often I would even lose the chance right about berny stuff because that was just a break in the know writing about trump stuff like I don't want have to write about that insanity day after day about like, you know, god don't want have to write some like dark, dire post about like another synagogue's got shot up. I don't want to write that. I want to do my job of writing about economic policy. And I feel like common Harris is a person who will just let me do my damn job in that sense, if that makes any. I mean, what do you think?

Uh, what do I think? I may? I think that I think that trump will will be a crazy time.

I you know I do worry about people also you know contesting the election if comella wins like we had in twenty, twenty, i'm a little bit more cynical. I am cynical, were like less optimistic that either way will be a return to Normalcy. I do agree that trump will present, you know, a crazy your time for sure.

Then then camera, but I do think, you know, carmilla doesn't tweet dumb things everyday. But every time he speaks, people do take clips of her and you know, sort, present them in a way that makes her look really bad and, you know, sort of undermines confidence in her. And so I think that if SHE wins, I think that actually, like, you know, people will be complaining about sexism and racism because there will be a lot of sex and racism because people will be OK. This person is just not, not, not great.

So you think I will do bad job? Sexist races may think he is doing the worst job than SHE is. And this causes like a bunch of work people to like really nice because they'll be a clip of this race.

Well, I think, I think both sides will be mad no matter what, and this sort of ongoing war will continue. You know, in either case, I hope that I can be contained to just the online world and not sort of riots or protest. I actually think we have.

I think people are tired of rives of protesting either way. So so i'm not as concerned about the affect our you know what we see in our fees, but I think you know the republic is strong or at least it's is stronger than any other countries sort of internal. You you know some of our average series as sort of internal systems like I think you know, I think we're gonna fine.

I would not to be singing or sort of blaze about IT, but I I think there are unique risks. I really don't want to see what has come back. I don't want to see us rehash these stupid fights. I don't want to see crazy people get reenergized.

I do sympathize with with the argument that that could made and you made in a different way or more flush out way of like, you know, trump hurts his friends and helps his enemies but yeah, I don't know. I mean, this is the greatest reality show on earth and you know what level? See what happens?

All right. I can I say one more thing for you, which is that I believe that you're probably right that american society will and maybe even our economy will ultimately be fine, but I think the international situation is more grave. I think that much of the united states, the ability to resist the economic and military coersion of russia in china, especially china, I mean, russia is a satellite state of china.

We just say russian in china, but of of china, its, its satellite conStellation of proxies, russian, north korea, on much of our ability resist all this stuff is because we have especially important, reliable allies, a germany, japan, especially south korea, and some others too. I say taiwan's important because of chips, obviously, and then other european countries are important. These are import.

These are key allies. And I think that if trump gets in power, there's much bigger chance these allies fall to our enemies, that japan's south korea will become essentially satellite states of china, that the states of europe will become essentially satellites states of russia, and thus property satellite states of china. And the essentially china rules your asia eaja a is more powerful than north america.

Look at a man, you know. And so if china rules your asia, the idea that amErica can see here behind our oceans in splendid isolation and not be, not be affected badly by that is foolish. You know, some people thought that before there were two and they were wrong.

Then unfortunate we had F, D, R. power. Who knew they were wrong, right? But I think that letting china like dominate you know japan, south korean, taiwan and india too. I'm and letting you know china through russia dominate germany, france, poland and other countries of europe. This is a very bad idea for us because we're already a lot smaller than china.

We can stand up to them if we have all our allies on our side, but without our allies on our side, if we just ignore our allies and kick out the lions trumps at the other day, our allies are worse than our rent so called enemies. Well, that's a really negative signal. And people who are not afraid of china are complacent.

And I am. And trump uses bluster against china. Maybe bluster will be effective, I don't know, but I do know that without those allies, the united states is just too small.

Like I said, north amErica is weaker than your asia. Look at a map. And so if we have north amErica and china has your asia, they win. Alright, we lose. We can't eraser.

Is the big company? Is that the big one? And so like, and us losing means that china will then do everything can to weak us to make sure we don't like, come back and win around two.

They don't want there to be around too, right? And you can even be really cynical about this as they look what we did the russia after the cold war. Well, ready for that we ve done to us.

Well, I don't want that. And so I think that that's my biggest worry with regards of trump is not obviously, I don't want the hassle of having the right about tom every day. I don't want this unrest.

But if IT is there, i'm prepared to do IT. It's not going to destroy my life. Alright, i'll do IT.

I'll write about IT more people will subscribed to no opinion, you know. I'll get more money to just like give away to rabid rescues, which is what I do with money. And then that's cool.

fine. All right. Maybe I go live in japan, right? right? I don't enough to talk to people about politics all day, and I can write about IT instead. But internationally, we could be in big trouble. I just really, I really worry about the international situation under trumpet because he's so like, he's so friendly to like the uranian empires, you know, and heroes is not.

I think that is a really fair critique that I resonate with this, agree with this sort of idea that trump is needlessly tagish towards our own allies. And you know, a different approach would be preferable and if he wins, hopefully he doesn't make the same state twice though he doesn't seem like becoming that you just made relate that he he said that that his M O.

yeah on that note no.

this has been a great discussion. And the next time we we might have a new president. So lets to be the next time. So the next step, so that releases will be in a new era, will will talk about that.

We will definitely have A A different president. IT will not be. I mean, joe biden will be president, but he will not be the president elect, I can guarantee. Hundred, and was always a good conversation. And until next time, until next time.

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