E106: Can Populism Beat the Administrative State? | Samo Burja
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For today's episode, we're featured a discussion between sam o and I about populism, evolving role in modern politics, expLoring how social media, administrative power and popular movements shaped democracy. From trust, political strategy to the future of both parties, we examine whether populist Victories can translate into lasting governmental change and what that means for the emerging era of digital democracy. If you want to understand how modern, popular m actually works beyond the surface level headlines, this is a muscle stem conversation.

Hello, oh, hi erick.

Hi sam. How you do pretty .

good to talk about the chAllenges and the strength and limitations of popular m as a political strategy.

Let's get into you know, it's faster. There's this famous Steve ban in interview where he's in oxford talking to students, the pbs interview and they are saying, hey trump, is this, you know, the end of democracy and he saying, the end of democracy, there are more people voting than ever before. And they say, democracy is just people voting.

They say, oh, I am a simple guy. I think democracy at people voting. But you know, IT just goes this idea of like, you know, democracy is when people vote for the candidate who people want to win.

Popular m is win. You know, people vote for the candidate that that you don't want to win. But IT seems like there was also talking about is what happened in the us.

Is is kind of happening all through out europe and in other place in the world, which is sort of the rise of this population movement. And he's to be tried to stoke IT. So why do you give some context for this in? And lets unpack further what's actually happened to here. What's happened?

Well, you know, it's it's my wonderful democracy verses your corrupt populum, obviously. And that's always the standard right. And I think that the right also had its own critique of certain very popular movements that happened in, let's say, say, the third world.

So here's perhaps the surprising point here. When hugo chavez ascended to power for the political context of his country, he was kind of a populist. He was sort of proposing, hey, let's increase living standards.

Let's do things differently internationally. Let's commune with Simon bolivar, you know, actually leaving a seat open for similar of our at every presidential meeting. And that sounds like, you know, mildly insane.

It's like as he does, he think he's communing with the dead. Now he's just sort of appealing to this kind of like concrete national mythology that the country in question has. And I think that a factor that underlines populism that is, I think, basically sort of universal, is disappear to popular sentiment.

Now, popular sentiment can be right or can be wrong. I happen to think that a lot of popular sentiment on questions like free speech or the chAllenges, how the process, immigration, I think it's correct. But in the case of in ezela, IT was not correct in terms of what to do with the extremely functioning, extremely well functioning before take over oil company.

And I think that the view there is that you acquire power or popular Mandate through basically popular support. So populism is democratic power most directly understood. And IT has been a strategy that we have seen throughout political history. We started talking about IT in the last decade or so. But if you look at basically any historical republic, you could have the optimates in the popular as right as you had in the roman republic, and you could have your own version of, say, one thousand nine century version of, say, the culture war and so on. What is perhaps different though, is that I think the last time populism was truly used when the popular Mandate was the basis of political reform, the sort of opponent of populism, which just basically foodless ism, are almost monarchy.

If you look at eighteen forty eight and europe, or even, you know, seventeen seventy six in the united states, the popular Mandate, legitimately a break with the previous establishment and its replacement, and say the american case is not quite rebellion against feudalism, I think it's more sort of like a breaking from from a kind of mercantilist republic, a merchant republic crowned one, but still, and creation of the new republic. And I think in the european case of eighteen forty eight, with the revolutions in germany, france, and there's more straight forward at the toppling of futurism. And I think what's different is that for the first time ever, democracy is fighting the twenty years century administrative biocon tic state.

People do not understand how extensive and expensive modern states are. If you compare the united states today versus one hundred hundred, you could sort of fund a one hundred sized state through terrace. And you didn't even need an income tax.

There was no income tax. actually. You cannot fund, uh, a state that sort of half of GDP in that way. But of course there you know people who float an idea of a return to that. I think I think Donald mp in playing round with with that idea or this mentioning IT in the us context. So the baLance of powers profoundly different from when democracy or a democratic force reshape politics last.

So the baLance of power, politically, in an eighteen century state, in an american colonial context, is already different from a sixteen century fragmented small european state that started industrializing like a place like the vary, for example, right? Or a place even like, you know, away france, which is a bit bigger. And that's very different from a place where the administrative state already exists.

Now, the interesting part of this is that, arguably, populum is sort of what created the administrative state in the first place. Rather, wrote the political truck that allow the state to exist. There's this whole forgotten period of early twenties century american politics where, you know, you have politicians like huey long.

I think it's like probably decently correct to describe you as a populist, right? He was the governor lousianner from one thousand nine twenty eight to one thousand nine thirty two. And then he was a senator for another three years. He basically assembled with popular Mandate, a full on political machine. And this was try driven with a kind of redistribution ist agenda. And at the end of the day, fs america, while IT had significant to latest elements, was also populist in the most straight forward sense of, like promising people things that they wanted, right? Basically, he was supposed to alleviate the aftermath of the great depression once the administer state was assembled.

Those this long history of sort of tweezy IT from, like the nineteen forties, all the way to the present era, you could consider IT sort of like A A seamless transition from the cold war era to the post, to the post nineteen nineties, near liberal, fully globalized areas you have, like the cold war period where it's basically the military industrial complex on steroids, complex game of international diplomacy. And then post nineteen nineties, it's sort of this attempt to basically allow enough economic growth to fund the massive states that have come into existence, right? So I I think for a while in the nineteen nineties, that seemed to kind of work, even in places like britain that have since fAllen and off IT seemed like economic growth would be fast enough that the ever increasing spending would be baLanced.

But this seems less than us likely over time. So eventually I think europe will have to basically abandoned the kind of social democratic model. But the social democratic model is just a variant of the administrative state, like I said, the serve national security state, the like hyper bureaux tizer hyper regulatory agency of washington, D.

C. Having a deep philosophical sense, a closer similarity to brusson than they do to one thousand nine century american governance. I think that sort of brings us to the paradox, the national myths of not just the united states, but all liberal democracies were made in a time before there was a bureaucratic entr anche establishment and out their husband one for eighty years.

So will the same tactics actually work against IT? Unclear, it's clear, can win elections, right? Arguably politically, let me give an example of a cultural win and maybe a political win where I think that say vitor urban and hungry has not managed to solve the fundamental problem.

Hungry faces hungry economic growth is no Better than say, poland or other eastern eupeptic tries. The migration is a bit lower. Um they're interested in expanding nuclear power but haven't done so ready yet at every level of government. The main conservative party sort of has a profound bench of people working in government. So hungaria government is not smaller than a polish government or check government, but it's staff ed by cultural conservatives.

So they tend to focus on things that promote basically middle class lifestyle, even when we think of something like the children's subsidies there are given in the form of like extra loans for a car and like discount some baby car seats and tax breaks. So very much in a way aimed at developing not just higher fertility, but like just up a middle ass society, right, that that hungering conservatives that are modestly pro market, modestly socially conservative, not even that religious, somewhat nationalist would like. So that perhaps a cultural win, it's not a developmental win.

And IT involved the corrupting of the administrative state by fedex, slowly painstaking kingly with orbans reforms. They have not yet succeeded at raising fertility. By the way, despite that being through of the flagship policy, they've raised fertility a little, but and every little bit helps.

But while spending several percentages of GDP, they have not managed to get IT above replacement. Now arguably, it's totally worth that because a hundred percent of GDP only exists because people are there, right? A one hundred percent of GDP is because of the humans who live there.

But still. So I would call that a cultural win. But then i'll give an example of populist failure, which was successfully mobilizing against the bureaucratic and political establishment of they vote for braxy in britain and breaks.

I did happen, but I don't think the outcome is one the population is happy with. And I don't think britain then charted a new course. There was no british renaissance for a little bit, seemed like there might be.

So we see here that like merely meaning winning an election does not automatically resolved in either figuring out an alternate political economy IT might just result in you picking up the same sort of big government approach in making that the foundation of your power and IT remains kind of middling, not necessarily that effective. Or IT might result in events changing, but you didn't even defeat the old establishment like braxy did not actually change the british establishment or break IT. Anyway, i'm of course, raising these in context of the Donald trumps recent election went where I think many people are very excited about the possibilities of the future.

I mean, I am hopeful, but i'm noting that these outcomes exact track we have political science, case studies or even a big electoral win, seemingly driving a big change, kind of dissipates when hitting administrative power. And like deep bench of people to hire from the opposite team. And you can call them unelected IT, and it's true.

But what are you you going to do? They have government salaries and authority. And they can disobey your orders and sometimes the courts are on their side.

right? And then there's a question we we looked to IT in our last conversation of, okay, you can either rebuild the bench from scratch, but then is a question of is that possible that the existing so officials can be converted in the sense? And even in twenty sixteen, this was unfathomable because the resistance was so strong, the ID logical sort of hatred of trump was so strong.

But eight years later, IT seems like there's this been this preference specification. We were bunch people who are secretly supporting him for a lunch of years, or these people who are neutral towards him are now, can now say so, and maybe now will have the exist people who served by, in, or who wouldn't have served trump in years ago. Maybe they had have no problem serving for serving trump. Now IT feels like the resistance just isn't as as strong.

You see that that is. I think there there will be more CoOperative to a great degree. But I don't think, say, elisabeth warn and her allies would easily give up and if I count the number of life players it's serve, like, you know, I think the democrats actually have more, the democratic party has more and the U.

S. Deep state has more. I mean, the other side, of course, you know, trumps elon, you should never underestimate that. That's that's pretty amazing in elon seems to be at least for now, like more obviously influential than say, perhaps Peter till might have been in the twenty sixteen administration in the two thousand sixteen election that might have been a more subtle form of influence. And perhaps it's related to the fact that x dot common is a form of populist power.

At this point, he can shine the spotlight of public opinion on all sorts of problems, all sorts of issues that otherwise would not have forgotten airtime. Like in twenty sixteen, there was no comparable social media network. Any right?

I mean, if you said, hey, i'm doing this fellowship where i'm going to take a thousand people, you know of the best people in in sort of business, tech, whatever, to work at the White house for a year to alongside me know to get some great, great people point.

of course, but would he do IT? And can they be confirmed? Will the G, O P actually CoOperate, for example, with you on mosque?

Very unclear, like the significant chunks of the republican party are still deeply hostile trump. So they are not even enabling him politically. He is not in a position of close alliance.

As, for example, between fetus and hungry and Victor orban, urban built that party over many years from scratch. IT wasn't like a hostile takeover, right? And the problem is trump ran a hostile takeover in two thousand sixteen.

The voters love him, but a lot of this deep republican establishment doesn't. And you know, you can have examples of people who cannot be confirmed. And are they given this title of azara? Okay, what is azara? Will you have an office in the White house and you have the power to convene people?

Okay, you convene the .

people for whatever bureau's are supposed to handle, like immigration. You talk to them. You told him the president really wants this. They hear you. They not.

And then they go back across the street and go to a back to their office, and they do whatever they wanted to do. So the difficulty here is that not having the direct authority to remove people or manage people is a severe impediment. And I think the confirmation process will be contested from within the republican party. And you might ask, but why would why would the republican party pass up this perfectly fine opportunity to Carry out a program similar to what I said, again, st.

The picture, urban program and hungry, where your point, people, you fire opponents, maybe give, maybe you shrink the size of government a little bit, maybe reduced the number of civil servants by great degree, maybe with else help to identifying things, maybe you just do IT, you know, assign all the people, each, their own department and relevant agenda. However, they do not see a trump administration in embedding into the deep state as a win for them. We see IT as a win for trump, and they see IT as a win for elon.

While they might like elon, I guarantee republicans probably see him as an outsider, the republican insiders. They don't like him any Better. So I think if he could get through confirmation a bunch of people from tech and from government, this would work very well, and he would work Better than the urban strategy. Hey will continue interview .

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Now let me explain why I think the urban program is kind of basically uh A A socially conservative program where you're basically appealing to the hungarian baby boomer and you're appealing to their preconceptions. And in a way, there is no deep bench of highly educated, intelligent people.

You have highly intelligent people in business, in tech who, however, have very little political experience that is not necessarily bad, but only if you can replace whole sale aspects of the function of the previous political establishment. As soon as you are in a room, you know, a persue marco rubio. Does that sound like a name that's like a very different foreign policy?

I I think people are frustrated, annoyed that IT seems like business as usual or confused as to why he picked rubia.

I think it's just the republican party. I don't even think it's the donors like Donald trump percent significant cyp T O. Donations, by the way, I do believe this is a reason to be bullish hunchy pt u, you know, not investment advice.

But I do in fact to think that you know, even at the end of the day, while len icon was not ideal, linkin was like not urp was not terrible. And the now in fact, it's very likely that they have tried to replace a replace ftc and so on. So expect the us to take a number of stances that are going to be very positive on crypto u.

Any one, of course, is pro gypo. So I think that'll do well. And you know in a way, it's cool that you allow you on to sue what was a the federal aviation.

I get the a yeah. It's cool. You can sue the F, A, A. And that like they let up on making you like chased down seals and and torture them with sounds of rocket launches.

Did you see that? Yeah, when they had to like, demonstrate how distress the seals are, you have to kind of abduct the seal and they had to like play this audio that's kind of been saying, but that's cool, but would be even cooler if you task the F, A, A directly to increase the number of launches that their Mandate and their new KPI is the number of successful launches like that's cooler, right? And I think to do that, you would need someone to run the thing and you need to fire a bunch of people.

And you know, I think that the call could be made. And the key question is, can they get IT through the republican party? So I think perhaps not to downal trump surprise because i'm sure he's seen this before, but perhaps elon surprise the bible in in about a months or two it'll turn out to the biggest obstacle, tiny, great dreams of reforming the american government. He has, as at this point, will be the extensible allies of the republican party, right? Because they you you can convince me that it's not that say the mark ruby appointment is not straight ford, the republic lan party business as usual and the republican party business is usual.

You know I kind of don't massively care if they run the country or if the democrats business democratic s party businesses usually run the country because I think while some things will be slightly different, it's much like hungry, right? IT doesn't outperform the counterfactual that much, right? Slightly more baLanced budget may be slightly higher fertility, you get to the same plate, such as going with a slower speed.

Hey will continue interview in a moment after our worth.

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And when I think about sort of democratic party as usual, I mean, some people say it's like obama people is like poli summer sort of an excess of power. What what is sort of the equivalent on the republic lan side? Like what is republican business as usual?

I mean, first off to acknowledge IT was actually unclear whether president Harris would have been the democratic party is usual. I think both sides are perhaps seeing a slow motion succession failure. There's a reason all the like very formidable democratic party politicians, except maybe Gavin newson is nounce the left in A O. C. They're all old.

Like elisabeth Warren is getting quite old now compared to the peak of her career, like in six seven years should be like an anti policy like figure, an anti policies dislike, you know, l elder statement from the twin th century, just still pulling all the strangers king maker of who gets to be the democratic party's president. This is a presentin candidate. So I think that the republican ty side is sort of, you could imagine some people like maybe and paul doing something interesting, but outside of trump himself, there are shockingly little last last week, the most interesting rightful political figure right now is a sand right is like the on mosque.

And second most interesting one is Donald trump. And I almost don't care who number three is. I don't think they're there.

It's sort of like maybe the mavericks, right? The people like like literally tell sa R V K, but none of those people are going na get confirmed. It's not looking currently like they're even gonna try to get them through.

So personal is policy. And I think if one were to pursue, pursue this for real, I think what one is really doing is trying to recruit, first, trying to be your own, a sensible political allies. So they allowed the appointment of true outsider talent. Number one, one, sd has done use the outsider talent to actually key chunks of the administrative state, because the real power in the united states lies in the administrative state, not in the elected office.

It's very telling, for example, that you know, when I talk to my conservative friends that convinced joe biden was not running the country, but as a jill biden leaves to see and Donald trump enters, that they are convinced Donald trump is running the country, maybe the country is not run from that sea. Maybe IT hasn't been in decades. And you know, maybe that sounds like to my conservative difference, that sounds like cold water.

To my liberal friends, that sounds like a fresh hope. The resistance isn't going to be like as loud, and people will play on the republican team now, right? So previously, the resistance was almost plica vely democratic party code.

IT was to never trump stuff. But IT was nominally, was the democratic party restraining Donald trump? IT was the serve left side. And I think currently the right side is going to be constraining Donald trump. And then as soon as you have party infighting in a populist context that gets very tRicky, you can say that this person is like, you know, not actually a loyal republican. You can pull your support from them running in the race, uh, but that doesn't mean you can put your own candidate to win that constituency. Let's think about things like mitt terms so you can have a disloyal, sensible ally if you try to replace them in their elected position for the purposes of pushing them to agree to the confirmations, you know, they would just be replaced .

by democrat yeah, it's actually .

like the game theory is not that clean and you know perhaps and this sounds as kind of funny, but you know, as kind of expensive. It's sort of like if you wanted to have, say, a proper tech takeover of the united states. I was alone. I would open this fund and I would go to all of my friends or now so you know, they're congratulating me for my genius to congratulate. They're all down for IT.

They're wearing the mega had they are saying nice things about trump, they're excited to go to mars, you know like, oh, this is so good, will you pledge two billion dollars or five hundred million dollars to this fund of creating? And this funds purpose is literally to go around and buy republicans from their older donor based best and get them off their old donor base. Like actually target targeted bribes.

You are dropping too much interesting ideas.

You got censored. Cl a.

yeah. You same targeted bribes?

No, you know, I I would just say, be an alternate constituency, right? Be alternate founders of political campaigns, be alternate lobby ists. Just raise, let's say, forty billion dollars or twenty billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, but twenty to forty billion dollars to buy the republican party.

I guarantee no one has attempted to that. I think of the day, you know, there's a question, while washing elon funded at psych, will he already spend forty four billion buying twitter? And you know, clearly this did not seem like a great financial source at the time. Now perhaps still turn out to in a great financial choice, I guarantee you IT would not have been had this election.

Has the democratic party won this election? So you want to do this so that people are committed and you know, it's not like the other team ever had difficulty raising ten or twenty billion dollars donations from silk valley people once they put their name and money on the line cannot walk IT back. So that's that's that's a big deal.

Like that's a big deal. Basically, you want other people to stake on your team. So too, you know, basically provide what I think would be a winning strategy for a proper fast growth. us. I think the solution is to have all of the affair weather trump enthusiasts among silicon valley elites commit a significant amount of money to a fund.

And the fund is used to lobby establishment republicans and wind them off their preexisting donor base because they're preexisting donor base is tied basically to the paper belt, right? You know, we might not think of wall street is the paper belt, but a kind of is and wall street raison and so on, the classic defense industry, even parts of sort of oil, right? I think this this kind of has to be done.

That would be one possibility. There are other ways, but I think that's the best one. I think the the carrot might work Better than the stick because the stick is, you know, trump announced you and you lose the election. Well, if you do that to me, then my seat goes to the democratic party so is a very limited strategy .

yeah one thing elan is good at doing is putting pressure on, you know, was a good a lot of thing thing I see raising money, vanishing and putting pressure. So I suspect if the republicans are acting out of line and really trying to sort of form him, he will put them on blast um in a way that perhaps .

i've mean Donald trump s never bad at that either. But we saw what the first administration was like. IT was a constant sort of like trying to work with establishment figures who three months later, inevitably betray him.

And then all of the trump supporters inevitably telling me that this is actually brilliant, and was the plan all along, and that the next ones gonna different. There were just four years of that. Did people forget you.

but trumped in own twitter. And he is not a lot, and that's true.

But you could get truck, could get back from twitter alone, cannot get ban from twitter. And you know, trump doesn't get man from twitter .

now either yeah and and also the social know zc complimented trump in even like even the social networks or this matter is not beholding to the democrat party anymore. Maybe google, as I don't know, but it's it's a new sort of battlefield. There is a new digital sort of space, and we will see will see what that well.

I do think that the digital space and the popular support are important and controlling perceptions is important. However, I want to point out that, you know, the new york times is still there, harbor is still there, administrative status still there. I think there is a post election high, but I don't think it's gonna.

I think that the members of this politics is gonna show that there is a limited amount of things you can achieve with populism, right? At some point, you cannot just pressure every single republican lawmaker and party Operative. You have to have your own people out of people who are loyal to you.

And that is not the current republican party. Now, from the democratic party side, from left man perspective, this is sort of good. Turns out the real checks imbaLances in the american system was internal party fracturing.

Maybe the U. S. Can really have a one party state, left or right, because too many people defect on their own team all the time.

You know, in china, they have to use pretty extreme measures to get the ccp to stick to itself. But I I do feel that the chAllenge of governing a country after one has achieved sort of the populist success. The first step is securing control of the administrative state.

And then only after you have really the step of properly shrinking IT, right? I feel like first you have to have control, then you can maybe shrink. And I just think that there isn't theory a good opportunity to do that over the next four years.

And I would almost to be excited to see IT because I think the U. S. Government kind of needs a partial reform and reset of its key institutions. Like, you know, all of the regulations gone too far and the ambitions gone out of government has been a very long time since anyone was excited to work in government. So maybe there's an opportunity to do that. But IT involves the transportation of popularity into basically legal power and essentially like just having the people who want to do the work for you to keep paying someone a salary to do a job and they're just possibly sabot your policy agenda. That's a big problem.

Isn't did yeah IT is worth me about popular pulse. You started the conversation I talk about. There's nothing popular mention. Chav, as A.

I mean, the united states. A O C, would I would qualify her as life in populism?

Yes, but but the love and populism is about sort of the government doing things for you, where IT seems like this populism is unless if libertarian socially. But it's like, you know, get opens out of our of schools, get out of the trans stuff out out of the schools. Know it's sort of like it's somewhat like, you know, get this sort of I get out of our spaces basic, let us live on a lot, know it's like let us sort of no, not be like is a gas later. It's like a reactionary popular iced, but IT doesn't seem to be asked and doubts in the same way.

right? Well, you know there there's a few differences here. It's sort of like in a way, a direct handout is perhaps more politically powerful ery than getting out of someone's way because they are directly dependent on you.

And in the other one, you are protecting them from a lau usial danger from the other side or from somewhere else to medal in their affairs again. And I think people are more grateful for an existing dependency. Then they are afraid of, you know, meddling that hasn't get materialized.

I think that politically, there is a difference, but key the key similarity is that you are trying to build like vast popular appeal. You're trying to build popular appeal for a measure and bring popular opinion as a form of pressure. Most the unelected officials, but even, for example, on companies like boy carding, concrete companies, right, concrete companies fearing bad P R.

And finally also just sort of social pressure because no one likes to be unpopular even if the public has no direct mechanism to remove you from your possesion if they really dislike you, uh, you're gna try to work on your pr just because they'll be unpleasant to be the head of a of a university or a school or a federal agency or whatever exposed to that and you might be closed opportunities in the future because of IT. I I think this sort of like difference that is this more libertarians strand, like what I worry about about IT is that it's it's trying to achieve a vacuum. And I think that if you say what say what would you mean to get woo of schools? Does that mean like firing eighty percent of academics? Does this mean that people would be happy to not send their kids to college because they're now fewer colleges? Or does IT mean that you fire eighty percent of court and code?

Wow people, and then people care from the same social class, educated with the same degrees, have the same opinions. But now no to shut up about about them for about four years. Get hired in and sure maybe you know your daughter's son has like a slightly less left wing college experience and you're a little bit happy about that as a conservative parent.

But don't we just end up at the same spot? You would have to have fundamentally, like shrink the number of people going to college, for example? Or you'd have to figure out, hey, what does like a right wing university exist? Like how can someone make a career out of being like, I don't know, like a free market guy, for example, or being a pro tech guy in technology studies or whatever in the university? And that be a good career move, and that will promote them off. And someday they'll get to teach harvard, because then you'll spend their entire intellectual career doing that, right?

This was curtis the urban critique, Chris wos activism against critical race theory. We say, hey, you can out lock critical its theory, but people are still going to believe the same thing that has call IT something else and that will find ways to to spouse. But I, but I wonder if if the difference here is, you know, democrats just got just lost, you just got the lost popular float.

And I think this consensus, that weakness is not working. And so maybe there will be internal pressure to stop sort of conceding. So so maybe to call hana Jones has way less power than he used to have a way less sort of credibility and people say, hey, like even internally on the dead, like, you know, we don't need to listen to this and so and maybe that will sort of, you know who was .

out this election as a means to reform the democratic party, I think might just work, but that's very different from what I think people talk about by default. No, I would totally agree with you that within the democratic party, I think marginally, the faction that supports the most, the deepest push for culture war, I think that factions been disappointed. I think like the anti crime, more socially moderate one has some advantages.

I don't think that the big government one has been like really disabled within the democratic party do so it's sort of like imagine like Gavin newsome, big government but now it's like this now with fifty percent less crime. It's like, you know I can't believe it's it's it's not butter this sort of rebranding where it's like, oh, we really want is like, you know clean streets in a clean environment and you know we we're going to make american cities like thrive at at a now if if they actually did that in california know that's actually a solid argument for the presidency. It's not clearly that's going to happen, but I don't think that the democratic party is moving away from managerialism or from the administrative state as the means to implement policy.

Like like does that make sense? Some like evaluating in from dislike kind of like from the hey, I want people to leave me alone perspective and they're like, well, we're gonna leave you alone. But the things we're going to tell you to do are going to be less owners, right, to see that the kind of perform, I expect on the democratic .

party side, it's interesting because there's anyone sure if we talk about this before, but this sort of the you the newest Smith as reclined dark Thompsons you like abundance point left tim movement, which to me kind of seems like conservatives we were at least three market like what you they want to reduce housing. They want to where they they got supply side liberalism, but basically to deregulation eo housing.

And they want to get rid of sort of laws that prevent us from building, being able to build. They want to free up sort of the building. I guess they would say they want to know, increase state capacity or industrial policy, just like much more effective government, and they want to focus on this. You know, health care is that are as opposed to some of the culture stuff because they realized that they're losing on the culture stuff.

I think that that's like in a way promising, but I feel that's a very intellectual and coherent response. Then the question is, who is the power base within the democratic party that makes this like I could see like say, a pragmatic given new some sort of embracing Andrew Young as his like ideal list side, right? And then like IT may be inviting nose Smith to write a policy paper, but then as soon as no, Smith is like inconvenient. And I imagine gabin news, like dropping him in an incident. What never knew you?

I could see, justice s. Ve, it's read hoof. And I think these are no technical okay yeah in current you know you know ul toria and to sort of a pragmatic to some degree ate um and so I could see them getting behind such day. I think what question is, does that have voter appeal?

But era would be still technology entering politics, just technology entering politics on the democratic party side, which arguably was sort of attempted in different ways by basically by bill gates, arche again, rehab and so on. The hofman seems extremely motivated primarily by an antitrust p agenda, rather than a let's make the democratic party work agenda.

Yeah and I am a big fan of a reads does the .

mosque is is is a good suggestion because we know for a fact that, you know, he has donated huge amounts of money, which is very ignitable for something key believes in, even if one disagrees with what he believes in. I think that it's like he has basically, if someone is willing to give a lot of their personal money to reshape society, like almost think that's legitimate actually it's like it's like you're putting you know its skin in the game, right? Like if you have like twenty twenty billion dollars and all you do is tweet, I really shouldn't take your tweet that seriously.

If you have twenty billion dollars and you give a billion dollars and create a thing called the open philanthropy foundation and you like you hire the smartest nerds you can find to, like, prevent the AI apocalypse, look, I can respect that. There's no bullshit. I just believe you did that.

You actually think this is extremely good for society. So so I don't know. I think that there is there is something there, but I think someone would have to seize the narrative and say, hey, we lost because the people want to electricity, they want abundance.

They want clean, safe streets. And on top of that, we can, of course, have all these classic progressive policies. You want to have a welfare state, that's great. We will fund through exports, will fund IT through cheap energy, which is grow enough, right? And in a way, that was kind of the bill clinton promise, if you think about at the modern democratic party, is way less technical tic, way less primac, way less interested economic growth than, say, the bill clinton arrow once.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very interesting. But I I I think we need kind of a attack life player to organize, let's call the tech left even though calling IT the left almost implies that it's progressed. That was called him.

Let's organize the tech liberals to pursue this agenda and just actually delivered on these goods because I think if they delivered on these goods in california, look, the rest of the country would want to be california. The democratic party has a state where they have free rain. They should use IT.

They should make IT the most desirable place in the U. S. And I guarantee other politicians will then run on, hey, r state should be just like california. Currently they are running on our state will never be like california then goodness.

yeah, if you had to guess what the candidate looks like in two thousand and twenty eight on the on, on the left or the archetype of the candidate, would I guess me?

Okay, I think A O C with kids is actually an extremely, yes, extremely poor political candidate. Here's a vision of the future. I'm just telling, you know, air quate, I think could work with the messenger yeah ah I don't shoot the messenger so aoc has like one or two beautiful children SHE shows up in happy photo ops SHE says how after you know the trump election, SHE really listens to all those podcasts people recommended.

And you should realize that the establishment was out of touch. And you know that americans like, you know, espana americans and wet americans and and everyone, right? We really need what we really, really need is to have an amErica where, you know, families can be prosperous again, working class families can be prosperous.

okay. And then that retard C, I think you can just literally do her entire agenda. You could just do, you know, the Green new deal or whatever after, and no one would stop you lubis.

I think people very fundamental to respond to the ops. And I think aoc in the public public perception is almost a single woman. But if the aoc in the public lx perception is a married mom, then I think she's conservative enough to win.

okay? I think the first woman whose going to be president in the united states will be a conservative, socially like, like, personally conservative woman. True, like, seem like a family woman.

You have to push a little bit. So i'm not a state home mom, but I am a mom. I'm a family woman.

My family's the most important thing to me, and i'm to protect your family. I'm not your H. R. lady. I'm a concerned mom.

Why do you think that would have more appeal than like joa. P. C, well, I think this is the .

most charismatic democrats, and the second most charismatic democrat is Gavin newson, who's a shark. But they kind of have to run A A dark Brandon style campaign. You have to run a like, like dark newsome.

It's like, sort of like, oh, you know, there guys crazy, but our guys, our guys sharper or guy can be him in debate and he's gona protect he's going to protect the excEllent people doing good work by being absolutely worthless. And look at him, he's so competent. And again, the optics are just say what you will, but the photo op of gap newson's family with the dog is just like beautiful, right?

The the the the core thing here is that I think americans want to feel a personal connection with their like, head of state. And I think that's very Normal. In all of human history, people have wanted to feel a personal connection with their head of state. I think that makes us feel safe. I think on a subconscious level, all humans are really .

terrified of government.

And you know, if the king or the ZARA or the farrow is the father of the nation, well then I don't need to be that scared. This is my dad, right? He's going to protect me on a subconscious level.

And you know, the reason you I don't know, eric, like in terms of pure isma, who not who agree or who you like, but in terms of pure isma of the current field of democratic party politicians, elected officials, is there anyone who's in the same cage is, let's say, A C and IT maybe gave s more like a slick politician. He is not quite harissa, but it's so practice and so done perfectly. He feels like, you know, a height late like we ask gene chat B T generate a california democratic party president. Like what do they look like? I think they would just, who would probably generate something close to get a new some like like optically, he just looks that way.

Yeah I I don't know if it's could there be a trump of the left? I could mark cuban or someone like that come out of nowhere and you know, build I mean, maybe because republicans are well.

well, I think that they would have to be have a social media following course, right? And that's why, again, sorry, I hate to bring you back to A O C. But A O C does do the social media game super well. I think behind trump. Second, the most skilled personal social media.

Yeah, cuban is not bad, but he's no, he's no O C.

exactly. But but maybe he'll get Better, right? Like people can get skills and and I do think like for example, there's this whole generation of if I have to predict with the next generation of democratic party politicians come, I think it's after the baby boomers.

All the part, I think that you will see a second upswing in millennial social media personnally ties running for office. I think we might yet come to see the influencer era of congressman. So but I expect that more like ten years out because the german topsy in both, both houses is just very severe. It's still getting slightly older every year, but that can only go on for so long like the current incumbent will just you know nature will take .

its toll yeah maybe as a last question, do you think blue cities will now be more empowered to sort of be a little more conservative or a bit more hard lining now that we shifted a little bit?

I think so I think some mayors will take the opportunity to understanding their cities in a very different way.

Yeah that makes sense. Is there anything yeah covered in this conversation? Or maybe as any last points.

I think that we have seen populism emerges a phenomena in the last decade because traditional media has been bypast. In fact, this was a phenomenon of the internet. IT will continue to be transformed by the internet.

So minor changes in what happens to tiktok, what happens to x dot com, what happens to facebook and instagram, what happens to youtube moderation policies. These will have a disproportionate effect on the success of the popular strategy. The popular strategy is essentially gather a lot of attention first, public attention first, public support second, convert that into offices and positions of power.

This is what allows party outsiders across the western world to enter, enter politics. It's the same in italy, britain, poland, the united states and so on. And populism is a strategy in this sense, in this narrowly defined sense, where we're not talking without saying this is small government, where this is socialism because each of those, depending on to how you frame them, both of them actually have a lot of popular appeal.

If you look at general opinion polls, you can like slightly rephrase how you are in favor of this or that policy. And it's swing set sixty percent vote, sixty percent of the population either way. So what I think we're going to see in the western world is this question of, can we survive life? Players entering into politics and being in constant friction with the administrative state.

Is this the new baLance of power, where it's productive and where these states actually become Better and more adriel? Or is this a transition period between one form of administrative state to another and left or right? Eventually people will have to embrace, let's call IT, the E.

U. Approach of just censoring the internet until the populists go away and let the insiders run their things the way they have run them. To be clear, I don't think that would work super well.

I am not convinced, ed. The constant bumping in friction between, we can almost call the deep state if we want to IT, let's call the deep state, and populist upstarts empowered red by social media. I don't think this works very well.

So I think we're struggling to find a model of digital democracy that actually works. And perhaps the digital democracy procedure software in the minor chest version, maybe I can replace the ministrations state, but then you need a deeper vision of reform. You need a new political economy. You cannot just be using the will of the people as this constant mobilized to check on the administrative state, because when the people aren't paying attention, the minister, what IT does, and thereby defense of your enemies. Es, so we need to find a new political harmony.

That's a first note to to end on. Some of this been a great discussion, as always. And all next time, next time.