Politics, Burnout & The Great Unraveling with Evelyn Quartz

Episode 19 • 9th October 2025 • onefjef • Jef Taylor

Speaker: 00:00:01

We never actually met in person until I think it was maybe one of the debates or one of

the elections or something.

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But I remember meeting you and you were just as jaded about the whole thing as I was.

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And that's why I liked you.

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We were authentic, Jef.

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I always like to gravitate towards the authentic people.

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Right, were the two people who were like, what is all this bullshit, This is episode 19 of

onefjef.

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19 is a prime with a mystical streak.

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It marks the 19-year metonic cycle that sinks the moon and sun, structures the Baha'i

calendar into 19 months of 19 days, and features in the Quran's cryptic line, over it are

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19.

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In tarot, it's the sun, symbolizing renewal, and in numerology, one plus nine reduces back

to one, suggesting completion and rebirth.

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a number that quietly closes a loop while beginning a new one.

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Hello again my friends.

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I'm not going to apologize this time because I've decided that I Don't need to release the

episodes every Tuesday.

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I can release them Whenever I want during the week As long as they come every week, that's

good enough for me and hopefully it's good enough for you It'll be a surprise.

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So that's exciting.

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Who doesn't like excitement?

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Little excitement in your life gets the heart pound in

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Little sweat on your brow to wipe off dramatically.

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I have still been sick though.

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I've been sick for like a week and a half now and uh it's starting to drive me slowly

insane.

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I think that knock on wood I'm finally like coming out of the woods.

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Is they say?

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Is that what they say?

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But like Monday I felt great.

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I was like, I'm done.

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I'm cured.

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I'm fixed.

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I'm better.

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And then Tuesday I woke up feeling fine.

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And then by noon I was feeling like shit again.

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So.

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But today I feel like I've blown all the remaining snot out of my head and I'm feeling I

would say 85 to 90 percent better.

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So here's hoping that tomorrow gets me up to 95 or 100.

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Anyway, today's guest is Evelyn Quartz.

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Evelyn Quartz is a political writer and former Capitol Hill staffer known for sharp

critiques of the Democratic Party and U.S.

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political establishment.

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Based in Oregon, she's written for outlets like Jacobin and Courier Newsroom and runs a

sub stack focused on democracy, inequality, and elite capture.

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Her work blends insider experience with an outsider skepticism about how power and

messaging operate in American politics.

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Evelyn and I worked at a high profile super PAC together.

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I cannot name the high profile super PAC because we both signed non-disclosure agreements.

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I think I do actually slip and mention the name of the organization at one point during

this podcast.

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So if you're a good listener, you'll actually be rewarded in a sense.

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Maybe I should cut that out, but I don't know.

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It's like a little Easter egg for the careful listeners.

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As always, thank you to my new Patreon subscribers for supporting the show.

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I've been releasing some Patreon only episodes on there and people have been loving them.

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So if you'd like to enjoy them as well and support the show, please go to patreon.com

slash one F Jef and sign up for as little as $5 a month.

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You can help support the show and get some extra exciting content.

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I'll be putting out extra content fairly regularly.

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So if you love the podcast and want more, patreon.com slash one F Jef and add infinitum.

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Thank you for listening.

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Thank you for being here.

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Here's my conversation with Evelyn Quartz.

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with Evelyn Quartz.

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Thank you for coming onto the podcast.

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I know Evelyn from a job that will not be named.

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We both worked at a political job that I worked at for four and a half years.

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How long were you there, Evelyn?

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Um, a year and a half.

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Wow, you're only there a year and half, that's crazy.

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And you came on my radar, like I didn't really, I mean I knew your name, because we never

actually met in person until I think it was maybe one of the debates or, don't know, was

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it the debate or one of the elections or something, but I remember meeting you and you

were just as jaded about the whole thing as I was, and that's why I liked you.

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We were authentic, Jef.

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I always like to gravitate towards the authentic people.

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Right, were the two people who were like, what is all this bullshit, dude?

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uh Yeah, yeah.

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So anyway, uh thanks for coming on.

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How has it been since you?

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We also got laid off at the same time.

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We also got laid off uh earlier this year, both at the same time, and we were both equally

pissed off about it.

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uh And we kind of formed a support group, the two of us, about getting laid off.

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And I think it worked out well.

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I mean, I think we did a good job supporting each other during that horrible period.

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Yeah, I think anyone who's had that experience, which unfortunately is like more and more

people these days, ah knows that it's very cathartic and nice to have a friend who you can

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talk to.

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So yeah, I appreciate you, Jef.

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I feel like we got to know each other even better just because we both got laid off at the

same time.

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Yeah, it's a bonding experience, no doubt.

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was.

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Yeah, yeah.

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were basically just shitting on the organization on text messages all the time.

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I remember I would text you and be like, Jef I'm going to yoga class, I'm going to be off

this for an hour and you were like, good for you.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was very cathartic.

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Yeah.

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So uh how's it been since?

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How have you been doing since?

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I've been doing actually pretty well.

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I've been in this kind of weird like career transition, I guess you could say.

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I think like due to the nature of our jobs, right?

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Like it was quite just the history, like the time that it all went down.

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This was like around the 2024 election.

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And we were working for a group supporting the Democrats.

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I, in January, when it all kind of ended,

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went on kind of a personal like journey to figure out.

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uh So, okay, so I'll back up.

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I started a sub stack like, everybody does when they get laid off.

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Sure, started a podcast, you started a sub-step.

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Yeah.

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And first I'm like, this will just be kind of cathartic and I'll just like, you know, have

something to do and whatever.

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Um, and I started writing about politics.

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kind of thought it was going to be like a resistance kind of like Trump 2.0.

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That was very much like the worldview that I was in.

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Um, but I now am, uh, very far from that.

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I'll say that we can get into more about that.

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but I think I feel like I've gone through quite a political.

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transformation just like intellectually.

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Um, it's been really interesting.

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Um, in college I studied, uh, philosophy.

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Yeah.

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And I was really interested in a lot of these things that I write about now.

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Um, and, instead of going to graduate school, which I was not, it was not something at the

time.

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I kind of regret it now, but it was not something at the time that I wanted to do.

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I wanted to like be, um, I was so set on being like in the like quote unquote real world.

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So I moved to Washington DC and started working um for, I worked for like a polling firm

and then I worked on Capitol Hill for six years.

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m Yeah.

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So I feel like I spent most of my twenties kind of in this world of sort of the DC scene,

I guess you could say like.

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What did you do in capital?

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What were you doing?

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I started off as the press intern.

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did communication stuff.

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And then when I left, I was the communications director um for a progressive member of

Congress.

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You would go to the, you would like work in the Capitol every day.

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Yeah, yeah, it was.

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Wow.

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Yeah, I mean, for when you're like 24, that is, you you feel like you've won the lottery

in a way.

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Yeah, yeah, you get a job like that.

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And I had a lot of reverence for like the institution.

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And I think this is something I've been trying to figure out.

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Like, did I start believing in all of it?

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Because I definitely, you know, I went into it skeptical.

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think.

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I know we're slightly different ages, but I grew up in the kind of Obama.

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um Everything was going to be managed and fine.

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It wasn't too dark.

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And I graduate.

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Yeah.

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So that was kind of my like worldview and politics growing up.

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Not super political.

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Right, mean there was no need to because it wasn't like a political time.

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was like everything's just kind of working it seemed like.

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Yeah, like it's like hope and we're good kind of thing.

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But when you're when you're like, you know, a teenager, like I wasn't explicitly

political, I think it would be different now.

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And I know that like in the Bush era, a lot of young people were.

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But it just felt like more of like a until the Occupy kind of movement.

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Nothing really felt particularly dark.

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Yeah, and even during Bush, like I, you know, kind of grew up during that era and like

even during that, certainly there was like a lot of like protests and stuff, but it was

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nothing like what's going on now.

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Yeah.

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Exactly.

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So I ended up uh starting in the Capitol Hill in March of 2017.

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So that was like two months after the first inauguration of Trump.

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Yeah.

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So that was like all I really knew.

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uh And it felt like there was like amongst the liberal kind of progressive uh people who

worked there, there was like a renewed sense of meaning almost.

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know, if they were like

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I think they were shocked, but they were also mobilized pretty quickly.

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And you know, remember that whole era we had like the resistance movement and the women's

march.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Like I really believed all that ah up until pretty recently.

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Yeah.

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And I've, I've started to kind of unravel a lot of these, em I guess, beliefs that I used

to have.

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It's like the best analogy I can come up with is like the matrix, I think is like in

retrospect, one of the best works of art when you're thinking about this kind of stuff

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where you take like, I don't want to say I take the red pill because I haven't become a

conservative, but I've become very jaded by like ideology and pro politics.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And why did you want to go into politics in the first place?

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I think I saw, I always really liked political philosophy in college.

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And I feel like um the kind of big questions about how society governs and just being able

to work like in this sort of halls of power of the government, it just was very enticing

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to me.

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But I was under no illusion that like the system was broken.

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think I always thought the system was broken and I, but I became a believer and it's

really interesting.

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I think that's what happens.

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Like a lot of idealistic.

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young people think they can go in and still hold on to this sort of radicalism that they

have.

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But what happens is you become absorbed by the system.

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Well, it's like Obama.

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It's like Obama, right?

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Yeah, it's kind of like the entire story of Obama who you know His campaign was all hope

and change and truly stuff that was really inspiring to me I mean, I remember like crying

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watching him get inaugurated exactly, you know He got sucked into the system and it all I

mean there's more more at play there than that But I think a large part of it is just the

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system, you know You know makes you conform to the brokenness I suppose

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Yeah, it's like somebody comes in with a binder and is like, no, this is the way it is,

you know, or

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well there's a Bill Hicks joke.

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He's like, think when every president gets elected, they put him in a room with a bunch of

like industrialist smoking guys in a dark room and they pull down a screen and they show

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him a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle that he's never seen before.

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And they're like, any questions?

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Exactly.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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And then he starts supporting all the like Bush era surveillance and wars.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And I think it's a bigger question of it.

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Like how the system, uh how you get sucked in and then you become like the kind of uh just

pageantry of it all.

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You become like very much.

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That's very enticing, I think, to a lot of people.

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And I certainly found that too.

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It's a lot of like...

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you feel like important, right?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And I think that once you walk away from that, you see it all as just so disconnected from

what politics should be for.

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And when you talk to people like right now, I live in the middle of Oregon and by no means

is like politics,

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a part of my daily, like it's just, just have conversations with people and if it happens

to come up, it comes up and it just feels like, you know, when we talk to people, it's so,

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DC feels like such a insular and almost self-obsessed kind of world.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Thinking back to your days like working on Capitol Hill, like what was it?

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I mean, you were probably starstruck when you started, of course.

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And then was there anything that I guess ah was surprising to you or was or was profoundly

like, was there a moment you remember being like, oh, that's that that's not what I what I

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imagined this would this would be.

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I think there was a really interesting moment when I got to go to a meeting that was like

the Democratic leadership.

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So it was like Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and then all of the committee chairs.

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So it was like the most powerful people in the house.

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Yeah.

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And it was like a small, small meeting in the Speaker Pelosi's office.

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There's something about that moment that I always think like, they're just human beings,

know?

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I mean, a lot of that place runs on just, um, like human interactions, where like all the,

kind of behind the scenes stuff.

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It really is.

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I mean, a lot of people make the joke that it's like Veep, but that's what I think of to

be honest, when I like look at those.

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sort of interactions and like we would staff members uh and they would all like, you know,

it was very political of like who gets to stand where and like who gets to talk first.

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So you think like on TV you see them, you know, just speaking at these press conferences

and stuff, but behind the scenes you're like, wow, that was a very scripted, you know, set

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of talking points that had to be approved by, you know, seven different people and.

232

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Right, right, right.

233

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You see.

234

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Yeah, you see it just really for what it is.

235

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Was it a slow process of getting jaded by it or was it kind of just I mean did you go in

starry-eyed You know everything and then kind of as you were working there You started to

236

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see things or was this all that happened after you got after like the in this the past

year?

237

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Was it most of it?

238

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I think that makes sense

239

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Yeah, I think it was both.

240

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Like, I think I went in jaded and then em bought into the system.

241

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So I was like, then I became a defender of the system.

242

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And then I got jaded after doing that for two.

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think during COVID really was when we all like, were forced to, you know, sit at home and

kind of ponder if there's a meaning of life beyond work.

244

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Those of us who were like, especially me, like, I like come from a generation where we

were told as like young women that

245

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You work was the most important thing.

246

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So you're sitting there and like, my gosh, you know, I've really let this absolve so much

of my personality and like life.

247

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Uh, and then that's where I think I became, I was like, this place just feels, um, it

feels really hard to impact.

248

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Like you can have an impact.

249

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I'm not saying that there aren't well-meaning people who are necessary for that place to

run.

250

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And there's something like really important about people who

251

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are still there doing that.

252

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But I think if you really zoom out, you think like, you know, am I really having an

impact?

253

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Is this really what I want to be doing?

254

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And so, yeah.

255

00:16:55,670 --> 00:16:56,703

What was the goal though?

256

00:16:56,703 --> 00:17:00,404

Like where did you see yourself when you first started working on Capital Hill?

257

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Um, well, I think everybody, every young staffer just dreams of like, you, you, it's very

hierarchical.

258

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So like you start as like a staff assistant and you get paid nothing.

259

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Um, and like a lot of people work at like the bar down the street so that they could make

enough money.

260

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Um, and then the chief of staff is making, you know, I think the max salary is like

$210,000 or something.

261

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Yeah.

262

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So you, it's like a wild and the majority of people there, I don't know the exact age

breakdown, but it's run by people under 50 basically.

263

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Like it's a lot of young people.

264

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You'll see chief of staffs who are like, you know, late twenties, early thirties.

265

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That's very common.

266

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Yeah.

267

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So it's a bizarre, the incentives are a bit bizarre and there's really no, I don't know if

people know this about Capitol Hill too.

268

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There's no like HR.

269

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Every office runs like a small business.

270

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Um, so you have a lot of offices, where the staff and the members, becomes very toxic and

there's no, um, sort of one to, like, there's no formal system, uh, necessarily.

271

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So a lot of the time it's, it's a bit of a mess.

272

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Mean that explains a lot about the organization that we worked at together because that

was the same kind of situation for most of it and and there was a lot of pageantry about

273

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HR but Yeah, it never was actually enacted in any real profound way uh So that's

interesting, but it makes sense because these are all people coming from politics going

274

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into politics So I always kind of wondered why there was never any Thought put into like

HR or anything there and then now that you tell me that I was like, now it all makes sense

275

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You know, they didn't

276

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work in HR stuff, why would they have HR?

277

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Right, and I think there's another thing that in these types of, think it's very common in

like high level political, whether it's like the super PACs or the, you know, elected em

278

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offices or campaigns where there's like a sense that you should just be grateful to be

there.

279

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Right, right, that was the same with the organization we worked for.

280

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Yeah, yeah.

281

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And so you think, well, you know, I get to do this really cool job and like it's

prestigious and whatever.

282

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uh Yeah, like it's OK.

283

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I can deal with this.

284

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But yeah, obviously no workplace should run on toxicity.

285

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So why did you decide to get out of Capitol Hill?

286

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What was the decision there?

287

00:19:27,438 --> 00:19:37,678

Um, well, I had been wanting, I grew up in California, been wanting to come back to the

West coast, um, just for kind of a change of, you know, pace.

288

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And I've always felt more at home on the West coast.

289

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Um, and so that was partly it.

290

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And, um, yeah, I just felt, it felt like the time I had just turned 30 and spent all my

twenties in DC and just was ready for something different.

291

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Right, right.

292

00:19:54,651 --> 00:20:06,597

So then you ended up at the organization that we worked for which seems weird to say I

don't we should have a different like group or something, but whatever uh How did you were

293

00:20:06,597 --> 00:20:11,770

you looking to get in back in politics in some way or did it just kind of fall in your

lap?

294

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fell in my lap.

295

00:20:12,530 --> 00:20:15,418

So I have no idea how you came to it

296

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I think it fell in mine too.

297

00:20:16,811 --> 00:20:23,368

I think it's interesting like what happens when you acquire a set of skills, right?

298

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And then in this kind of job market, it's almost like your options are selected for you in

a way, I think.

299

00:20:32,578 --> 00:20:34,600

I know your story was actually kind of different.

300

00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:36,724

You'd never worked in politics, right?

301

00:20:36,724 --> 00:20:43,530

Yeah, no, I was just I had moved to Columbus for a job as an art director at Hollister,

the teenager clothing company.

302

00:20:43,530 --> 00:20:45,862

Yeah.

303

00:20:45,862 --> 00:20:52,717

And doing video stuff because I went to school for video stuff and got laid off during

Covid and was like, well, shit, I moved to Columbus.

304

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Why did I move to Columbus now?

305

00:20:54,659 --> 00:20:55,850

What am I going to do?

306

00:20:55,850 --> 00:21:02,575

And then, like, I don't know, couple, two or three weeks later, a friend of mine from New

York called me and was like, hey, I know this guy at the Lincoln Project, which at the

307

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time was like blowing up like this is 2020.

308

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and this is just when they were starting to explode.

309

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ah And they was like, I know what guy works for LingQ, they need a new editor.

310

00:21:12,653 --> 00:21:18,795

And so before I knew it, I was signed on to like a three month contract and then it just

kept going.

311

00:21:18,795 --> 00:21:20,596

It just kept going and going and going.

312

00:21:20,596 --> 00:21:21,396

Yeah.

313

00:21:21,396 --> 00:21:23,623

Yeah.

314

00:21:23,623 --> 00:21:25,898

And now I never want to work in politics again.

315

00:21:26,690 --> 00:21:36,735

What has your journey been like I've talked a little bit about how I am I consider myself

now like I guess the word I would use like heterodox I don't really like any sort of

316

00:21:36,735 --> 00:21:50,241

ideology em and I think I mean that's not to say I don't have like beliefs right and like

moral right and moral orientation around this stuff, but I think that em When people

317

00:21:50,241 --> 00:21:53,016

adhere to ideology as like

318

00:21:53,016 --> 00:22:10,830

dogma like in a like almost a religious sense they become like The the amount of things

that you're able to think about becomes very Like a closed feedback loop ah and I mean, I

319

00:22:10,830 --> 00:22:21,478

think the echo chambers on the sort of center left Are often just as bad if not worse as

those on the right?

320

00:22:21,664 --> 00:22:22,194

Absolutely.

321

00:22:22,194 --> 00:22:31,420

think that yeah and the 24-hour media companies are to blame for a large large percentage

of that Yeah, anyway, don't get me started on that Because it makes me upset to think

322

00:22:31,420 --> 00:22:33,671

about that ah But yeah, yep.

323

00:22:33,671 --> 00:22:34,458

Sorry you were saying

324

00:22:34,458 --> 00:22:45,152

I was gonna ask you, like, how do you see your role as just like a political, like, a

citizen in this country post working at that job?

325

00:22:45,378 --> 00:22:46,998

That's an interesting question.

326

00:22:46,998 --> 00:22:53,640

Growing up, I remember seeing, I saw Bill Clinton um speak in Cleveland when I was

younger, and we were all very inspired by him.

327

00:22:53,640 --> 00:23:04,903

um And I was a liberal growing up, was all, you know, very, because it was, I think it was

uh early internet, pre-internet, there was so much less, I really think the internet is

328

00:23:04,903 --> 00:23:14,246

the cause of most of the things that are happening now, because we just didn't have the

amount of information that we have now, and they didn't have the tools, the algorithms to,

329

00:23:14,286 --> 00:23:17,946

to siphon us into our own little silos like they do now.

330

00:23:19,086 --> 00:23:31,486

And I think that, I don't know, working at that organization for four and a half years, at

first I was very excited and it was a fun job for most of it, honestly, because I got to

331

00:23:31,486 --> 00:23:34,726

make just wacky Trump videos for a lot of it, which was super fun.

332

00:23:34,726 --> 00:23:38,326

And then they were on MSNBC and it was like, you know?

333

00:23:38,566 --> 00:23:41,666

It wasn't until he won again.

334

00:23:41,918 --> 00:23:47,863

in 2024 after everybody at that organization said he wasn't gonna win, like everyone.

335

00:23:47,863 --> 00:23:51,346

And I thought, and when they said that I thought, well he can't possibly win.

336

00:23:51,346 --> 00:23:53,588

These are people who worked in politics for years.

337

00:23:53,588 --> 00:23:55,089

Of course they would know.

338

00:23:55,089 --> 00:23:57,591

And they didn't seem to have any idea.

339

00:23:57,591 --> 00:24:06,718

uh But yeah, that really was a, I mean, it wasn't a profound surprise to me, but it was

also a profound surprise to me.

340

00:24:06,718 --> 00:24:07,999

I don't know how else to put that.

341

00:24:07,999 --> 00:24:11,142

uh And that kind of shifted my thinking at all.

342

00:24:11,142 --> 00:24:11,852

343

00:24:11,852 --> 00:24:15,264

Honestly, the shift had already been happening because COVID, I think, shifted a lot of

things.

344

00:24:15,264 --> 00:24:20,407

But like, I'm at a place now where I can't, I can't subscribe to either of these parties.

345

00:24:20,407 --> 00:24:29,652

And I kind of think that, I mean, in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm kind of nihilistic in

the sense that I feel like it's fairly broken at this point.

346

00:24:29,652 --> 00:24:34,265

And I don't really know how we're going to find our way out of this.

347

00:24:34,265 --> 00:24:39,628

I'm actually curious to hear what you think, what you think might get us out of this,

because I really don't.

348

00:24:40,278 --> 00:24:50,091

And that's what scares me the most is I'm like, how do we get out of this hole that we are

digging ourselves into without like a profound economic crash, some disaster or some war

349

00:24:50,091 --> 00:24:52,461

of some sort that shifts society in some way?

350

00:24:52,461 --> 00:24:59,463

I just don't know how we suddenly get turn the turn the ship around in a way that's going

to uh rescue us.

351

00:24:59,463 --> 00:25:05,125

So I forget what your question was, but yeah, I'm pretty cynical about the whole thing

now.

352

00:25:05,125 --> 00:25:10,358

And mostly I think that it's fascinating uh

353

00:25:10,358 --> 00:25:13,889

A great show like I don't get I don't get emotionally involved in it anymore.

354

00:25:13,889 --> 00:25:17,471

Um, I think working in it for so long did that to me.

355

00:25:17,471 --> 00:25:19,872

So I don't I don't think that I do anyway.

356

00:25:19,872 --> 00:25:21,563

I don't really get triggered or upset by it.

357

00:25:21,563 --> 00:25:24,144

I'm just kind of like, whoa, how crazy is this getting?

358

00:25:24,144 --> 00:25:25,204

This is getting nuts.

359

00:25:25,204 --> 00:25:30,246

I mean when I start being affected personally by it, that's when maybe I'll start to get

truly emotionally affected by it.

360

00:25:30,246 --> 00:25:39,298

But, um, it all seems like a weird reality show at this point, which makes sense

considering the president, but I don't know.

361

00:25:39,298 --> 00:25:40,230

362

00:25:41,799 --> 00:25:47,862

I don't feel a lot um of hope at this point and I don't know if there's any real...

363

00:25:48,123 --> 00:25:58,570

The fact that the organization that we worked at that I truly believed in for a period of

time, truly turned into, I mean, it was always probably in my mind a profound grift.

364

00:25:58,751 --> 00:26:03,364

That to me is like a microcosm of the bigger picture.

365

00:26:03,364 --> 00:26:06,577

It's all kind of a giant shell game grift.

366

00:26:06,577 --> 00:26:08,704

uh Yeah.

367

00:26:08,704 --> 00:26:10,535

I mean, Trump's the biggest grifter of all time.

368

00:26:10,535 --> 00:26:15,387

So, of course, he's the one who's now in charge because like, of course, right?

369

00:26:15,387 --> 00:26:17,058

Yeah.

370

00:26:17,258 --> 00:26:18,999

And yeah, I just don't know.

371

00:26:19,854 --> 00:26:28,684

I mean, there's so many levels of it right now, like there's so much going on that's so

bad that I don't even know where to begin sometimes.

372

00:26:28,684 --> 00:26:31,465

Like, I don't even like to talk about politics on this podcast because it's like.

373

00:26:31,465 --> 00:26:32,966

374

00:26:33,546 --> 00:26:37,848

It's so many, it's like layers and layers upon layers of fucked upness.

375

00:26:37,848 --> 00:26:47,682

You know, I don't know if you saw that article in the Times today about with the justices

who they'd interviewed like early on in his term and they asked like how much, how bad

376

00:26:47,682 --> 00:26:49,733

they thought it would get, how bad, blah, blah.

377

00:26:49,733 --> 00:26:52,914

And then they interviewed him now and there was like nonpartisan group of judges.

378

00:26:52,914 --> 00:26:57,516

And like now they're like, it's way worse than we ever could have possibly imagined.

379

00:26:58,696 --> 00:27:02,968

And that's, that's hard to, you know, but we hear these things every day now.

380

00:27:02,968 --> 00:27:03,589

That's the thing.

381

00:27:03,589 --> 00:27:15,112

Like it's not just once in a while that like it's like day after day after day of America

falling to pieces and And yeah, I don't you know, I don't know.

382

00:27:15,113 --> 00:27:16,334

I don't know how you stop it.

383

00:27:16,334 --> 00:27:21,140

I don't know what you do I don't know if that answered your question, but how do you think

this ends?

384

00:27:21,140 --> 00:27:23,082

How do you think that we get out of this mess?

385

00:27:23,628 --> 00:27:25,479

Yeah, that's no small question.

386

00:27:25,479 --> 00:27:29,240

um So it's funny, it's interesting.

387

00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:37,504

I am finding myself in quite a dark head space a lot of the time.

388

00:27:37,504 --> 00:27:47,328

um But it's not for the reason that I used to be um when I believed the stuff that you

were just talking about.

389

00:27:48,288 --> 00:27:53,004

This kind of worldview where

390

00:27:53,068 --> 00:28:12,383

The system was presumed to be pretty much fine under someone like Biden and probably

someone like Harris, but Trump was seen as the, um, and the big bad evil.

391

00:28:13,464 --> 00:28:19,305

and if we had just read the system of Trump, would be democracy.

392

00:28:19,305 --> 00:28:22,680

Um, that's the narrative that I've become.

393

00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:37,124

quite skeptical of because em when you look at the history and there's a lot of people who

have uh been doing really good work and writing on this often pretty thanklessly for,

394

00:28:37,124 --> 00:28:52,226

excuse me, for a long time, you start to learn about the ways in which over the last 40,

50 years, the economy has taken a turn towards what

395

00:28:52,226 --> 00:29:07,619

people would often term neoliberalism, this sort of Reagan, Thatcher uh idea of this very

kind of twisted idea around free markets and individualism.

396

00:29:07,619 --> 00:29:20,650

uh When in fact, the state ends up just kind of reverting into itself and uh basically

like getting into bed with.

397

00:29:20,652 --> 00:29:24,735

with corporations and with globalization, right?

398

00:29:24,735 --> 00:29:29,108

So it's not so much that there is like the free market thing is in that way very much a

myth.

399

00:29:29,108 --> 00:29:38,354

uh The state is quite involved uh in the sort of the financialization of uh different

sectors of our society.

400

00:29:38,354 --> 00:29:41,917

uh Then you had the nineties with globalization.

401

00:29:42,262 --> 00:29:49,376

And then you have Trump who was speaking to a lot of the pain, the very real.

402

00:29:49,376 --> 00:29:55,681

economic pain that people felt as a result of those policies, which were happened under

both parties, right?

403

00:29:55,681 --> 00:30:01,015

They happened under Reagan, um Clinton, Bush and Obama.

404

00:30:01,015 --> 00:30:07,639

uh And the sort of liberal, I call it liberal.

405

00:30:07,639 --> 00:30:16,886

um But what I mean by that is the sort of centrist kind of Harris voter, which it

incorporates a lot of the

406

00:30:17,314 --> 00:30:23,857

conservative and new conservatives, kind of old one, the old ones, the older like

generation ones, not, what it's become now.

407

00:30:23,857 --> 00:30:34,022

Um, so that's what I'm talking about when I mean that, but yeah, if you frame Trump as the

singular villain, you absolve, em

408

00:30:35,892 --> 00:30:49,622

everyone who has been complicit in upholding a system that has been em inherently

undemocratic and very unfair for a long time before Trump.

409

00:30:49,622 --> 00:30:53,754

to me, Trump is the results of these policies.

410

00:30:53,995 --> 00:31:05,006

And I have a lot of regret in amplifying narratives in which em we called his voters em

411

00:31:05,006 --> 00:31:09,188

kind of irredeemably racist and stupid and ignorant.

412

00:31:09,929 --> 00:31:26,080

We did that in service of this greater narrative that was basically just all a pawn, like

a ploy to give the keys back to this old group of elites, basically, whether that be

413

00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:34,772

financial elites, political elites, this consultant class who had really wrecked the

system in a lot of ways.

414

00:31:34,772 --> 00:31:38,645

Even if that was not their intention, that was the outcome of their policies.

415

00:31:38,645 --> 00:31:44,370

ah And in doing that, we dismiss sort of the humanity of millions of Americans.

416

00:31:44,370 --> 00:31:49,174

And I'm not saying that Trump is not racist and fascist.

417

00:31:49,174 --> 00:31:54,438

There are certainly elements of his personality and his movement that are.

418

00:31:54,438 --> 00:31:58,151

I'm saying that we really missed the point, I think.

419

00:31:58,151 --> 00:32:04,546

And now my work tries to look at this a lot more critically.

420

00:32:04,622 --> 00:32:08,260

um and outside of these sort dogmatic worldviews.

421

00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:10,291

I don't feel like they wanted to see the point.

422

00:32:10,291 --> 00:32:21,216

I kind of feel like some people saw the point but deliberately like ignored it or

obfuscated it because it worked better for their political ends really.

423

00:32:21,216 --> 00:32:24,897

Like you can like to paint Trump as the the the creed.

424

00:32:24,897 --> 00:32:26,148

I I hate Trump.

425

00:32:26,148 --> 00:32:28,709

He's a fucking like he's I just don't think he's a very smart guy.

426

00:32:28,709 --> 00:32:29,139

Number one.

427

00:32:29,139 --> 00:32:30,520

But whatever we can go on and on.

428

00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:35,544

But yeah I think that both sides I mean you look at the media companies too it's like both

sides made

429

00:32:35,544 --> 00:32:39,566

Remember when he first came out, they were showing his speeches on MSNBC the entire thing.

430

00:32:39,566 --> 00:32:41,613

Yeah, because their ratings were through the roof.

431

00:32:41,632 --> 00:32:42,522

Exactly, right?

432

00:32:42,522 --> 00:32:44,854

So they made a fortune off of this man, right?

433

00:32:44,854 --> 00:32:56,431

They all did right and so I think that ultimately maybe a different level it's like The

legalized bribery that's been going on for the last 50 years and gotten worse and worse

434

00:32:56,431 --> 00:33:04,435

and now you get Trump's inauguration And it's just right there in the open It's just like

the people who are getting who are bribing the government are right there in front of you

435

00:33:04,435 --> 00:33:09,738

And it's just like my big issue is like money getting money out of politics getting all

the bribery out of politics

436

00:33:09,848 --> 00:33:11,239

How do you even do that?

437

00:33:11,239 --> 00:33:12,441

You get a constitutional amendment?

438

00:33:12,441 --> 00:33:12,942

I don't know.

439

00:33:12,942 --> 00:33:14,735

um I don't know.

440

00:33:14,735 --> 00:33:18,349

But I agree with what you're saying, even though what I just said didn't really relate to

it.

441

00:33:19,363 --> 00:33:24,626

I'm trying to, I remember you asked me like that really big question about where we go

from here.

442

00:33:24,626 --> 00:33:26,588

Yeah, that's the million dollar question.

443

00:33:26,588 --> 00:33:31,992

I don't have the answer to that obviously, but I do have some sort of inkling of like

where I am now.

444

00:33:31,992 --> 00:33:46,562

I think I've come to the point where it'll take some sort of redistributionist agenda um

that will expand the social welfare state in this country.

445

00:33:47,116 --> 00:33:56,173

I think if we can't advocate for socialism, People say, yeah, okay, that's utopic.

446

00:33:56,173 --> 00:33:59,046

I kind of understand where they're coming from.

447

00:33:59,046 --> 00:34:14,358

I think if we have some sort of concrete demand or political project, it has to be around

restructuring, rebuilding the social contract between the state and the people in which

448

00:34:14,358 --> 00:34:16,850

people are not given these kind of...

449

00:34:17,302 --> 00:34:30,749

almost insulting programs like snap, which you have to be incredibly impoverished to even

qualify for or the ACA expansion or Medicaid.

450

00:34:32,450 --> 00:34:46,414

an actual robust social em safety net that empowers people to live m like a dignified

life.

451

00:34:46,414 --> 00:34:47,214

Sure.

452

00:34:47,236 --> 00:34:49,320

I guess my question, go ahead, sorry.

453

00:34:50,805 --> 00:34:54,668

Exactly, like how on earth are we gonna like, yeah, exactly.

454

00:34:54,668 --> 00:34:56,259

so am I thinking about this?

455

00:34:56,259 --> 00:35:01,341

think it's, I mean, this is all, obviously this is not super pragmatic, this is pretty

high level.

456

00:35:01,341 --> 00:35:09,465

I think it's gonna take, people asked me a lot when I started writing about the Democrats,

a lot of the stuff writing I do is about sort of the ideological bankruptcy, moral

457

00:35:09,465 --> 00:35:10,926

bankruptcy of the Democrats right now.

458

00:35:10,926 --> 00:35:14,567

uh People ask me, how are we gonna solve it?

459

00:35:14,648 --> 00:35:20,238

I say that I think it's gonna take some outside force to take over the party like...

460

00:35:20,238 --> 00:35:22,298

what happened with the Republican Party and Trump.

461

00:35:22,298 --> 00:35:26,158

think they need sort of a left version of something like that.

462

00:35:26,858 --> 00:35:30,790

And I'm not saying that any of this is like, or like,

463

00:35:30,792 --> 00:35:32,920

right, I just don't even see it, yeah.

464

00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:38,797

but I think that's where I've come to in terms of the practical.

465

00:35:39,150 --> 00:35:48,570

think the Democrats had their shot with Bernie Sanders and they just kind of, because I

think Bernie, I mean, I'll say it, Bernie Sanders would have beat Trump in 2016, I think,

466

00:35:48,570 --> 00:36:00,530

because he spoke to the same anger at the elites that Trump does, and I think a lot of

people voted for Trump because of the anti-elite sentiment that he preaches, right?

467

00:36:00,530 --> 00:36:04,210

Whereas, you know, had Kamal Harris, you know, dancing with Beyonce or whatever the hell.

468

00:36:05,190 --> 00:36:08,630

And I think Bernie Sanders would have won, and I think it's

469

00:36:08,878 --> 00:36:10,338

It's like, this is what you get.

470

00:36:10,338 --> 00:36:11,938

You had your chance, Democrats.

471

00:36:11,938 --> 00:36:12,538

You had your chance.

472

00:36:12,538 --> 00:36:15,698

You had your big shot and you decided to blow it.

473

00:36:15,698 --> 00:36:27,678

in that sense, I guess I don't see, I mean, if this kind of opportunity comes again with a

Bernie Sanders candidate, are they gonna jump on it or are they just gonna be like, no,

474

00:36:27,678 --> 00:36:32,404

no, no, no, no, want, what's his name in California, the slick Willy, whatever.

475

00:36:32,404 --> 00:36:34,175

yeah, Gavin Newsom.

476

00:36:34,175 --> 00:36:37,597

I have no doubt, yeah, that the Democrats will choose someone like that.

477

00:36:37,597 --> 00:36:41,469

uh I guess I back up a little bit and say two things.

478

00:36:41,469 --> 00:36:44,041

The first is um if...

479

00:36:44,041 --> 00:36:53,576

uh Sort of eras, like they do this a lot in other countries, like in France, they call it

like a new republic.

480

00:36:53,576 --> 00:36:55,707

So it's like the fourth, fifth republic.

481

00:36:55,847 --> 00:37:00,230

I think the era of sort of neoliberalism as the...

482

00:37:00,750 --> 00:37:13,610

bipartisan governing consensus, which you could say ran from like 1980 to probably 2008

when the financial crisis, but then it was kind of revived until 2016 when Trump broke it

483

00:37:13,610 --> 00:37:14,510

open.

484

00:37:14,850 --> 00:37:28,610

some people will argue that Trump is because his policies like the, um, the tax bill

largely do uphold sort of this corporate friendly environment.

485

00:37:30,414 --> 00:37:31,840

think so it is.

486

00:37:31,994 --> 00:37:33,016

also

487

00:37:35,407 --> 00:37:42,819

a break, and this is where the like democracy people, I think they're, they've quite

really maybe thought this through.

488

00:37:42,819 --> 00:37:51,920

think the pro-democracy movement is kind of surface level where it focuses on this narrow

definition of democracy as like, right.

489

00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,382

It's this institutional preservation.

490

00:37:54,382 --> 00:37:59,342

Um, it doesn't focus on sort of the more economic aspect.

491

00:37:59,342 --> 00:38:02,949

Right, quote unquote democracy is what they're trying to say.

492

00:38:02,949 --> 00:38:09,972

Right, the democracy we never actually really had in this country, but still we'll hold

onto that as an ideal and a goal, but yeah.

493

00:38:10,006 --> 00:38:10,316

Right.

494

00:38:10,316 --> 00:38:14,849

And you can think that Trump has really not a lot of regard for that.

495

00:38:15,930 --> 00:38:27,058

you know, for all of the like Trump's a fascist, Trump's a fascist, which was kind of, I

think, very overblown for a long time to the point where now that you mentioned earlier,

496

00:38:27,058 --> 00:38:30,741

we're seeing these pretty remarkable turns.

497

00:38:31,021 --> 00:38:31,941

think.

498

00:38:33,543 --> 00:38:38,246

And you think for me, like the ICE em

499

00:38:38,850 --> 00:38:43,710

what's going on with ICE and Trump trying to deploy the military to cities.

500

00:38:43,710 --> 00:38:47,988

That seems to me seems to kind of be like a secret place, know, sort of fascist.

501

00:38:48,810 --> 00:38:50,330

Yeah, a little bit.

502

00:38:50,330 --> 00:38:51,168

A little bit, yep.

503

00:38:51,168 --> 00:39:01,700

Yeah, and so I almost feel like we're a bit desensitized now to the idea that this could

be a turn towards authoritarianism that actually is kind of revolutionary.

504

00:39:01,700 --> 00:39:02,806

505

00:39:02,806 --> 00:39:03,527

Right, right.

506

00:39:03,527 --> 00:39:07,801

think he's deploying military to these cities so that they get kind of used to it.

507

00:39:07,801 --> 00:39:14,276

So when the next election comes and he loses, he can just send the military in, you know.

508

00:39:14,357 --> 00:39:16,669

I think there's a lot of bad things that could come from that.

509

00:39:16,669 --> 00:39:23,980

I'm not exactly sure what the goal is there, but I think that's definitely part of it em

to help out with the next election.

510

00:39:23,980 --> 00:39:26,674

Right, like who knows?

511

00:39:27,116 --> 00:39:31,402

The problem is that the democratic establishment, people like Gavin Newsom,

512

00:39:32,362 --> 00:39:39,718

also don't really seem to care to take on sort of the neoliberal consensus and to me

513

00:39:39,718 --> 00:39:48,198

if that has died and you're trying to revive it, I'm just not sure that that's gonna work

ah in 2028.

514

00:39:48,198 --> 00:39:51,621

I have been watching a lot of, I don't know if you watch any Tucker Carlson.

515

00:39:51,621 --> 00:39:56,438

ah Yes, yes.

516

00:39:56,438 --> 00:39:59,323

A lot of people are saying, wow, know, like he's making sense.

517

00:39:59,323 --> 00:40:09,666

uh Tucker Carlson to me is a really interesting brand of maybe sort of some sort of look

into what a future kind of

518

00:40:10,284 --> 00:40:11,990

Right populist movement could.

519

00:40:11,990 --> 00:40:12,580

That's interesting.

520

00:40:12,580 --> 00:40:13,824

Yeah

521

00:40:13,824 --> 00:40:14,674

Yeah.

522

00:40:14,674 --> 00:40:17,837

So Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan does this too.

523

00:40:17,937 --> 00:40:29,287

They both have this kind of shtick, which he, Carlson made that speech at the Turning

Point USA speech a couple of months ago that got a lot of attention where he said

524

00:40:29,287 --> 00:40:37,513

something to the effect of, I'm an American citizen and I, uh, you know, I should be able

to just ask questions.

525

00:40:37,513 --> 00:40:41,856

I should, you know, we should know these things, like what's going on.

526

00:40:41,897 --> 00:40:43,682

And he plays this kind of like,

527

00:40:43,682 --> 00:40:47,618

befuddled kind of everyday guy talking to these experts.

528

00:40:47,618 --> 00:40:52,435

And he's just done a new series on 9-11 on YouTube.

529

00:40:52,776 --> 00:40:57,823

it's got like five, each episode has like four or five million views.

530

00:40:57,944 --> 00:40:59,392

And it's this.

531

00:40:59,392 --> 00:41:01,611

It's this idea that actually used to be.

532

00:41:01,998 --> 00:41:16,258

much to the left, which is this like deep skepticism of this sort of bureaucratic state,

whether that's the intelligence.

533

00:41:16,918 --> 00:41:19,758

I think you see it in a lot of institutions.

534

00:41:19,758 --> 00:41:30,258

That's why I think Trump has put people in charge of most of his agencies who kind of have

the intention of like dismantling them.

535

00:41:32,363 --> 00:41:34,028

And yeah, so I think that's this

536

00:41:34,028 --> 00:41:46,123

all a very interesting, em and to me, somebody like Tucker Carlson is going to be much

more, I'm not saying I endorse it or I would vote for him.

537

00:41:46,123 --> 00:41:56,658

I'm just saying that that message is much more resonant um than the kind of Newsome, em

know, Trump's taking down our democracy.

538

00:41:56,658 --> 00:42:03,030

Although it might work if we go so far, you know, if Trump goes so far in this direction.

539

00:42:03,234 --> 00:42:04,910

don't know, but I just think the...

540

00:42:04,910 --> 00:42:20,690

policies that the Democratic establishment is going to try to put up for like towards to

the people in the midterms and in 2028 are not gonna fly like they're even talking about

541

00:42:20,690 --> 00:42:32,310

running Yeah, it's just it's incredible so I like there's a zeitgeist thing going on

that's that's moved Yeah, and it's moved past the Democrats, right?

542

00:42:32,310 --> 00:42:32,998

543

00:42:33,204 --> 00:42:36,016

Nobody, their approval ratings are terrible.

544

00:42:36,394 --> 00:42:44,524

It's a their horse to this idea that Trump can get so bad that the pendulum will just kind

of naturally swing back to them.

545

00:42:45,765 --> 00:42:46,466

Right.

546

00:42:46,466 --> 00:42:47,757

I just don't think it's going to work.

547

00:42:47,757 --> 00:42:58,777

And so if I have any hope, I guess what I'm trying to say is that there will be more of an

opening this time for a left populist candidate to kind of infiltrate the Democratic Party

548

00:42:58,777 --> 00:43:00,678

and make a more serious

549

00:43:00,846 --> 00:43:12,997

I just think it's going to be the Democrats are going to do what they've always done and

they're going to use every tool at their disposal ah to preserve this kind of status quo.

550

00:43:12,997 --> 00:43:13,930

551

00:43:13,930 --> 00:43:19,190

And the question I always have about a populist candidate is like, where are they going to

get their money?

552

00:43:19,190 --> 00:43:22,670

know, like 99%, 98 % of the time the candidate with the most money wins.

553

00:43:22,670 --> 00:43:31,390

like you run a populist candidate running on like an anti-corporate ideology, which kind

of you'd have to do, like where are they going to get money from?

554

00:43:31,390 --> 00:43:37,530

They're not, mean, the corporations are so involved with the billions of dollars to fund

these elections.

555

00:43:37,530 --> 00:43:39,670

Like the winner is the corporate winner, right?

556

00:43:39,670 --> 00:43:43,270

That's the one who's, you know, been paid off the most to

557

00:43:43,499 --> 00:43:45,684

to follow the corporate dogma.

558

00:43:45,827 --> 00:43:49,661

That's what scares me the most is that you can't even get your foot in the door, right?

559

00:43:49,661 --> 00:43:50,561

I mean.

560

00:43:51,196 --> 00:43:53,656

Yes and no, think, I mean I do think with...

561

00:43:53,656 --> 00:44:04,422

New York City election, we saw the power of a candidate who was em not in the pockets of

the oligarchs.

562

00:44:04,450 --> 00:44:05,680

That's true, where did he raise his money?

563

00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:06,456

Did he raise it all?

564

00:44:06,456 --> 00:44:07,788

Was it all grassroots?

565

00:44:07,788 --> 00:44:15,401

I think a lot of it was, I'm sure, I don't have it off the top of my head, but I can't

imagine that he took corporate money.

566

00:44:15,401 --> 00:44:23,975

oh They do have ways to get around that certain politicians do with like, ah but I mean,

that's the question I guess too with ma'am Donnie.

567

00:44:23,975 --> 00:44:34,870

And I made this point in a, I wrote a piece for the lever with David Sirota actually of

the night that he won where we made the comparison to Obama having.

568

00:44:35,106 --> 00:44:38,327

the populist message in a lot of grassroots.

569

00:44:38,428 --> 00:44:41,530

But he also took had the of the oligarchs in his tent.

570

00:44:41,530 --> 00:44:45,352

um Ma'am, Donnie seemed to do it without the oligarchs.

571

00:44:45,352 --> 00:44:50,474

But now people are raising the question of, he going to be able to govern like that?

572

00:44:50,535 --> 00:44:56,478

Is it going to turn out like AOC, who's pretty much kind of capitulated to the

establishment?

573

00:44:56,738 --> 00:44:57,248

Yeah.

574

00:44:57,248 --> 00:45:00,740

And so I think these are all questions that are interesting.

575

00:45:00,740 --> 00:45:03,810

Like, can a self-funded president, I mean,

576

00:45:03,810 --> 00:45:06,010

The reason that Trump also was so successful, right?

577

00:45:06,010 --> 00:45:08,962

And like Michael Bloomberg is there already billionaires.

578

00:45:08,962 --> 00:45:17,776

don't really, that's why Trump could go on stage at the RNC and say, you know, we're done

with these forever wars because he need their money.

579

00:45:17,776 --> 00:45:22,358

And so, yeah, it's certainly, it's a big problem in politics.

580

00:45:22,407 --> 00:45:29,924

Yeah, I mean, I guess what we need is like a, you know, extremely wealthy uh progressive,

but like that's

581

00:45:30,906 --> 00:45:33,697

We've been trying Jef.

582

00:45:33,697 --> 00:45:44,861

I've been to people about em doing like a media organization and it's funny we see that

every day there's like this new liberal em sub stack or something that has like a five

583

00:45:44,861 --> 00:45:49,812

billionaires bankrolling them and really if only there was like a socialist billionaire.

584

00:45:49,932 --> 00:45:51,023

They just don't exist.

585

00:45:51,023 --> 00:45:55,754

It's really like it's really money is very tight on the on the left.

586

00:45:55,998 --> 00:45:56,629

Right, right.

587

00:45:56,629 --> 00:46:05,786

Because, you know, do you think there's any hope for like the I have an idea where, you

know, there's two ways to get a constitutional amendment and you have to do it through

588

00:46:05,786 --> 00:46:06,977

Congress, which is never going to happen.

589

00:46:06,977 --> 00:46:08,979

But you can do it to two thirds of the states, right?

590

00:46:08,979 --> 00:46:10,079

You to have a vote.

591

00:46:10,079 --> 00:46:12,391

Two thirds of the states have to approve it.

592

00:46:12,391 --> 00:46:17,275

I feel like I feel like money in politics is an issue that both sides agree upon.

593

00:46:17,315 --> 00:46:23,050

Generally speaking, I think that like most people, if you ask them if we need to get the

money out of politics, they would be like, absolutely.

594

00:46:23,050 --> 00:46:25,102

We need to get corporate money and all that crap out of politics.

595

00:46:25,102 --> 00:46:26,102

Yes, we do.

596

00:46:26,354 --> 00:46:36,121

And I feel like if there was somebody who came out, and I don't know who that would be,

but like who was able to take this message and pull people together with this message and

597

00:46:36,121 --> 00:46:44,577

actually get this kind of election to happen where we can actually get an amendment to

get, I don't know what it would say of course, but to get corporate money and just all the

598

00:46:44,577 --> 00:46:51,672

money basically out of politics and have publicly funded elections, et cetera, et cetera,

which would be a huge change in America of course, but a necessary one.

599

00:46:51,672 --> 00:46:55,244

uh I think you would get that vote, but again.

600

00:46:55,374 --> 00:47:01,062

It's another dream the moneyed interests would tank it em

601

00:47:02,470 --> 00:47:04,032

Which again brings me back to that.

602

00:47:04,032 --> 00:47:14,322

I don't know how you're going to fix the system that has been so corrupted by money

because money is always going to corrupt any effort to fix it.

603

00:47:14,946 --> 00:47:15,946

Yeah.

604

00:47:16,287 --> 00:47:24,414

Yeah, there are a lot of people who've dedicated their kind of activism on the left to

this issue that I find very admirable.

605

00:47:24,414 --> 00:47:29,459

um Yeah, I mean, I agree with you, though.

606

00:47:29,459 --> 00:47:41,339

think the electorate, the voter is overwhelmingly in favor of uh policy, of getting rid of

money and politics.

607

00:47:41,339 --> 00:47:42,990

There's no question about that.

608

00:47:43,714 --> 00:47:45,276

And it's just gotten worse and worse and worse.

609

00:47:45,276 --> 00:47:50,562

ah To the point where, you know, now it's just basically out in the open.

610

00:47:50,562 --> 00:47:55,046

mean, wasn't it at one point Nixon got like bags full of money or something and that was a

big, big thing?

611

00:47:55,047 --> 00:48:00,063

Now it's like they could just write him a check right in public in front of him for to be

like, all right, there's Elon Musk giving him a little money.

612

00:48:00,063 --> 00:48:00,980

That's fine.

613

00:48:00,980 --> 00:48:12,153

Yeah, I mean, I think when a Musk, before they had their whole falling out and he was

closing up to Trump to get all these contracts and stuff, it was just out in the open.

614

00:48:12,153 --> 00:48:16,354

That's how the government and businesses have been running for decades.

615

00:48:16,775 --> 00:48:27,437

The corporations have benefited enormously from the state, whether that's through

subsidies or tax credits or the...

616

00:48:29,518 --> 00:48:33,398

availability of like lobbying.

617

00:48:34,758 --> 00:48:52,178

Yeah, that's, guess, going back to like, that's another thing that's hard to get across

sometimes with people who are more kind of married to this idea that Trump is the bad guy.

618

00:48:52,538 --> 00:48:58,778

You can say, no, this is a much greater problem with the system that both sides have been

complicit in.

619

00:48:58,882 --> 00:48:59,563

For sure.

620

00:48:59,563 --> 00:49:01,624

And Trump is just sort of the...

621

00:49:01,624 --> 00:49:11,751

actually think a lot of people's anger at Trump, a lot of the uh liberal elite and

conservative elite anger at Trump is just that he breaks the decorum of a president.

622

00:49:11,751 --> 00:49:17,575

It's like a lot of the policies and stuff are actually quite similar to things that have

happened in previous administrations.

623

00:49:17,575 --> 00:49:24,520

uh When he went into uh bomb Iran, the neocons were thrilled, right?

624

00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:28,502

Sure, sure, mean, yeah, there's a lot of policy continuo-

625

00:49:28,602 --> 00:49:40,746

continuation that m they actually like, but the fact that he puts such an ugly face and is

so brash and doesn't follow any of their kind of elite norms, I think is actually what

626

00:49:40,746 --> 00:49:42,257

upsets them the most.

627

00:49:42,420 --> 00:49:51,974

Yeah, I mean, although I would say like the the the the attack on the judiciary is is

really a problematic part of his administration that seems very organized and deliberate,

628

00:49:51,974 --> 00:49:59,688

uh a slow dismantling of what we understood the judicial system to be and the judiciary to

be and what they were supposed to do.

629

00:49:59,688 --> 00:50:00,538

Sure.

630

00:50:00,538 --> 00:50:02,329

Perhaps to, you know, to go after your enemies.

631

00:50:02,329 --> 00:50:03,049

We haven't seen that.

632

00:50:03,049 --> 00:50:09,042

mean, Nixon maybe did that, but I don't think nearly at the at the level that that Trump

seems to be doing it.

633

00:50:09,042 --> 00:50:10,342

634

00:50:10,540 --> 00:50:13,542

And yeah, we've lost, I think, like a third of the judges in the country.

635

00:50:13,542 --> 00:50:15,773

I mean, it's incredible what's happened.

636

00:50:17,114 --> 00:50:19,155

And that concerns me.

637

00:50:19,175 --> 00:50:24,918

So Evelyn, what do you do when you're not thinking and writing about politics?

638

00:50:26,850 --> 00:50:28,952

Well, that's a good question.

639

00:50:29,098 --> 00:50:32,374

What brings you joy in this dark time that we live in?

640

00:50:32,374 --> 00:50:33,094

Yeah, that's it.

641

00:50:33,094 --> 00:50:34,015

That's nice, Jef.

642

00:50:34,015 --> 00:50:40,097

Um, I would say, well, I live in a beautiful place and I'm very grateful to live where I

live.

643

00:50:40,097 --> 00:50:47,269

live in a place that has a lot of forest and mountains and, ah I take my dogs.

644

00:50:47,269 --> 00:50:48,009

have two dogs.

645

00:50:48,009 --> 00:50:52,341

I take them every day for an hour long walk in the forest.

646

00:50:52,341 --> 00:50:55,266

And that is the best part of my day without.

647

00:50:55,266 --> 00:50:58,018

Is it the same path every time or is it a different route?

648

00:50:58,018 --> 00:51:00,266

We have this beautiful big pot.

649

00:51:00,551 --> 00:51:01,215

I think it's.

650

00:51:01,215 --> 00:51:02,655

a couple hundred acres.

651

00:51:02,655 --> 00:51:09,718

And I kind of just get there and decide which path I'm going to take that day, how we're

feeling, how the weather is.

652

00:51:09,738 --> 00:51:14,360

If it's hot, then we need to go to the path that goes down to the river so they can get

some water.

653

00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:15,941

Um, it's beautiful.

654

00:51:15,941 --> 00:51:18,662

And yeah, for me, like that's very centering.

655

00:51:18,662 --> 00:51:22,583

Um, I also find like exercise has been very grounding.

656

00:51:22,583 --> 00:51:25,375

Uh, I know we talked about this.

657

00:51:25,375 --> 00:51:29,206

What's your, what do you do to get away?

658

00:51:29,860 --> 00:51:33,241

I mean, honestly, this year I've been traveling a lot.

659

00:51:33,241 --> 00:51:35,672

I'm trying to figure out I'm in a pretty transition.

660

00:51:35,672 --> 00:51:40,443

I still don't have a job and I uh need to find a job of some sort.

661

00:51:40,443 --> 00:51:48,245

I'm hoping to get remote work so I can like do the digital nomad thing because I'm not

attached like in Columbus to anything really.

662

00:51:48,245 --> 00:51:52,613

You know, I have some friends here, but you know, I'm not really and like I'm not married.

663

00:51:52,613 --> 00:51:54,567

I don't have any kids, which most people at my age do.

664

00:51:54,567 --> 00:51:57,056

So it's like, why am I not, you know,

665

00:51:57,056 --> 00:51:57,944

Didn't you go to

666

00:51:57,944 --> 00:51:59,460

to Mexico City.

667

00:51:59,574 --> 00:52:07,386

I did, was gonna go, I was gonna like, so I've been working remotely with the organization

that shall not be named.

668

00:52:07,386 --> 00:52:10,855

You know, for four and a half years, and I never really took advantage of it.

669

00:52:10,855 --> 00:52:14,548

I did a little bit take advantage of the work remotely thing, but not as much as I wish I

had.

670

00:52:14,548 --> 00:52:23,891

So finally, like when, I think it was before the election or after the election, when we

were told you'll all have jobs going forward, I thought, well, this is great.

671

00:52:23,891 --> 00:52:27,406

I'm actually gonna do the em digital nomad thing finally.

672

00:52:27,406 --> 00:52:30,486

And so I booked this trip to Mexico, but then of course, you know, got laid off.

673

00:52:30,486 --> 00:52:32,486

So I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna go anyway.

674

00:52:32,946 --> 00:52:35,066

And, yeah, it's been like, it's great.

675

00:52:35,066 --> 00:52:36,974

I've never been to Mexico City, it's amazing.

676

00:52:36,974 --> 00:52:41,102

I've heard amazing things, it seems to be a very hot destination these days.

677

00:52:41,102 --> 00:52:46,422

It's very trendy, But I really loved it.

678

00:52:47,382 --> 00:52:52,842

I'm thinking I'm gonna go back either in a couple months or I don't know when.

679

00:52:53,062 --> 00:52:54,322

But yeah, I really loved it.

680

00:52:54,322 --> 00:52:56,382

And it's much less expensive.

681

00:52:56,382 --> 00:53:00,802

I mean, the things you would hear, I have asthma, like childhood asthma.

682

00:53:00,802 --> 00:53:05,682

And so I have the albuterol inhaler that I get here with my insurance.

683

00:53:05,682 --> 00:53:07,142

It always goes back to politics, Jef.

684

00:53:07,142 --> 00:53:08,562

Why do you always do this?

685

00:53:09,346 --> 00:53:10,606

but that's America.

686

00:53:10,606 --> 00:53:12,546

It really blew my mind though.

687

00:53:12,546 --> 00:53:16,366

I get this, I'll be able to, I get through insurance, have to have a prescription of

course.

688

00:53:16,406 --> 00:53:22,346

Get through insurance and I get, pay like 10 bucks for it, but I'm sure that it's being

billed at like $120 or whoever knows how much.

689

00:53:22,346 --> 00:53:24,566

This stuff is like basically free to make.

690

00:53:24,706 --> 00:53:30,586

In Mexico, I can buy them over the counter in the pharmacy for $10 a piece with no

insurance.

691

00:53:31,466 --> 00:53:32,226

Yeah.

692

00:53:32,226 --> 00:53:37,386

I'm told that the most expensive health insurance plan you can get in Mexico is $2,000 a

year.

693

00:53:37,386 --> 00:53:38,446

A year.

694

00:53:38,604 --> 00:53:49,582

This every other country, I have a friend who just moved to Costa Rica and they also have

a similar universal healthcare, much more affordable, much more accessible.

695

00:53:49,582 --> 00:53:52,162

I mean, you don't even really need healthcare in Mexico because it's cheap.

696

00:53:52,162 --> 00:53:53,902

You can just pay out of pocket.

697

00:53:54,702 --> 00:53:58,822

And like you start to wonder why are we still in America?

698

00:53:58,822 --> 00:54:02,122

Because like it's not serving us as a place, right?

699

00:54:02,122 --> 00:54:04,202

Like it's not serving me very well.

700

00:54:04,582 --> 00:54:12,782

I struggle to come up with a thing that like, mean, aside from friends and family and

stuff, why I'm staying here, you know?

701

00:54:12,782 --> 00:54:17,996

Not to say that there's not bad things going on in Mexico or wherever else, but I just

feel like

702

00:54:17,996 --> 00:54:19,734

I can't afford this country anymore.

703

00:54:19,734 --> 00:54:33,328

It does feel like the future in America is like for the first time in my life as a young

person, it feels very desolate in a way that I never, we never were told, you like you

704

00:54:33,328 --> 00:54:39,480

were never like indoctrinated to think that America would be a place of failing

opportunity, right?

705

00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:42,441

I mean, you were told to believe the opposite and you're right.

706

00:54:42,441 --> 00:54:47,470

mean, yeah, the, we've got an extremely oversaturated.

707

00:54:47,470 --> 00:54:50,710

job market for people who have four-year degrees.

708

00:54:52,150 --> 00:54:56,910

The housing is unbelievably expensive.

709

00:54:57,970 --> 00:55:05,310

We have this whole class that benefits off of us basically just being lifelong renters of

everything.

710

00:55:06,862 --> 00:55:09,973

I mean, they get six, in Europe they get six weeks of vacation.

711

00:55:09,973 --> 00:55:12,284

Everybody does, six weeks.

712

00:55:13,285 --> 00:55:23,190

Like, I mean, it's all at the same time too, which is even more amazing in a way, like, I

just start to wonder, and then I start to like, I've really gone down a rabbit hole since

713

00:55:23,190 --> 00:55:32,492

I got laid off, like with too much thinking, like, what are, like, you know, I wanna work,

do, I wanna contribute something, and like, but I don't.

714

00:55:32,492 --> 00:55:34,863

wanna have to just do something for a paycheck.

715

00:55:34,863 --> 00:55:37,524

And I know that's a privileged place to sit here and stay.

716

00:55:37,524 --> 00:55:41,516

And frankly, in three months, I'll probably be like, actually, no, I take that back.

717

00:55:41,516 --> 00:55:43,567

I need some money.

718

00:55:43,567 --> 00:55:47,849

But like, I just wanna be able to make money on my own terms, you know?

719

00:55:47,849 --> 00:55:54,351

ah And that also seems privileged, but I don't think it's uh unattainable.

720

00:55:54,912 --> 00:55:56,512

And I just need to figure out how to do it.

721

00:55:56,512 --> 00:56:00,546

And I think that part of that is like, that I won't make as much money.

722

00:56:00,546 --> 00:56:04,692

but I can live somewhere else and then not have to make as much money, you know?

723

00:56:05,026 --> 00:56:06,067

Exactly.

724

00:56:06,067 --> 00:56:12,026

think I've come up, I've come to the realization that I might never have a single employer

ever again.

725

00:56:12,026 --> 00:56:25,965

I think for me right now, like having multiple streams of income feels like the best way

to kind of make it in this economy because you, if you diversify, you can kind of lean on

726

00:56:25,965 --> 00:56:27,716

whatever's going well at that time.

727

00:56:27,716 --> 00:56:33,612

Um, like granted it's, it's still really hard to, to make it all work, but I think

728

00:56:33,612 --> 00:56:36,364

I see this too, like young people seem to like Gen Z.

729

00:56:36,364 --> 00:56:40,207

I'm like a prime millennial.

730

00:56:40,628 --> 00:56:48,103

Gen Z people seem to, I'm a prime millennial who went into the workforce thinking I could

work at one place.

731

00:56:48,103 --> 00:56:56,670

Which to be fair, like I probably could have had I stayed in Washington, but then you have

to make other sacrifices and you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, like what

732

00:56:56,670 --> 00:56:58,882

kind of life do I want to live?

733

00:56:58,882 --> 00:56:59,628

Right?

734

00:56:59,628 --> 00:57:01,526

Right, live the work or work to live, right?

735

00:57:01,526 --> 00:57:02,266

Yeah.

736

00:57:02,266 --> 00:57:02,676

Yeah.

737

00:57:02,676 --> 00:57:08,468

And so I think that like this front of freelance self-employed, it's a different

lifestyle.

738

00:57:08,468 --> 00:57:21,711

It's definitely like, I feel like I'm working and reading and writing and thinking and

talking to people like seven days a week, but it's that to be self-directed is like, it

739

00:57:21,711 --> 00:57:23,882

feels like such a privilege in a way too.

740

00:57:23,882 --> 00:57:30,104

It's like such a, I wake up every day and I think, my goodness, like I get to decide what

I'm going to focus on, right?

741

00:57:30,104 --> 00:57:31,584

Or what I'm going to work on.

742

00:57:31,784 --> 00:57:32,907

And I

743

00:57:32,907 --> 00:57:36,175

And it's something you're interested in and passionate about.

744

00:57:36,175 --> 00:57:37,368

And you want to do it.

745

00:57:37,368 --> 00:57:40,951

I never had that kind of autonomy when I was working for other people.

746

00:57:40,951 --> 00:57:48,058

And I think that's a real problem too with our work culture in general is most people's

jobs are not really that dignified work.

747

00:57:48,058 --> 00:57:51,111

They're sitting at a desk being told what to do all day.

748

00:57:51,111 --> 00:58:03,374

And if more people had the ability to have more kind of ownership and control over their

days and their time, we would have a lot more freedom as a society.

749

00:58:03,374 --> 00:58:10,394

When I worked at Hollistoke, we'd have these division-wide meetings and they would talk

about how many jeans we sold to teenagers.

750

00:58:10,514 --> 00:58:13,914

And people around me would go, woo!

751

00:58:14,214 --> 00:58:17,634

And I would think, what on earth has happened to you?

752

00:58:17,954 --> 00:58:22,494

I understand you, everybody wants to be part of a club, but what on earth?

753

00:58:22,494 --> 00:58:22,974

Do you ever?

754

00:58:22,974 --> 00:58:23,754

Yes.

755

00:58:23,774 --> 00:58:29,942

Anyway, and at that moment I think I realized I can't, corporate things don't, it doesn't

work for me.

756

00:58:29,942 --> 00:58:31,771

You can't get excited about it.

757

00:58:31,854 --> 00:58:43,714

I mean I can't get excited about selling how many jeans we sold how many distressed jeans

we sold right in the last quarter and but a lot of people didn't get very excited and I

758

00:58:43,714 --> 00:58:46,014

Yeah, and watching like a year or two.

759

00:58:46,014 --> 00:58:49,734

I'll have I'll be like I'll be like doing ads for Hollister on my podcast

760

00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:54,382

Well that's the dream though, in a dark way too isn't it?

761

00:58:54,382 --> 00:58:56,242

Which kind of is actually a weird sort of way.

762

00:58:56,242 --> 00:59:01,614

Not for Hollister necessarily, but I would like some advertisers because it would help

with, you

763

00:59:01,614 --> 00:59:04,547

Do like a new mattress or some athletic green?

764

00:59:04,547 --> 00:59:09,443

Right, believe me, I have mentioned many different products in this podcast just to see if

I can get on the radar, you know.

765

00:59:09,443 --> 00:59:10,254

766

00:59:10,254 --> 00:59:13,814

Do you think I've been free about podcasting?

767

00:59:13,814 --> 00:59:29,394

I feel like I've gravitated away from the really scripted one and into probably this is,

know, podcasts like yours, Jef, where it's a conversational and it's just, it doesn't

768

00:59:29,394 --> 00:59:30,654

feel forced.

769

00:59:30,654 --> 00:59:38,414

So much of the time that I worked in democratic politics, like your boss would go on a

show and

770

00:59:38,414 --> 00:59:40,954

have super rigid talking points.

771

00:59:41,314 --> 00:59:43,114

And it just felt so fake.

772

00:59:43,114 --> 00:59:50,514

to me, like, yeah, and it's funny when Democrats will say like, oh, we just need our own

Joe Rogan.

773

00:59:51,034 --> 00:59:55,714

they can't succeed on Joe Rogan is because they can't speak beyond talking points.

774

00:59:57,134 --> 01:00:05,294

Like the media landscape has just completely evolved towards these more like honest

conversations.

775

01:00:05,294 --> 01:00:07,714

it's so funny to me to watch the

776

01:00:07,714 --> 01:00:13,110

kind of consultants like scratch their head and say, why can't we have this?

777

01:00:13,110 --> 01:00:15,142

But it seems so obvious.

778

01:00:15,384 --> 01:00:24,156

But I mean, to be fair, don't think that the Republicans generally outside of Trump and

maybe a few others are able to talk very well outside of their talking points either.

779

01:00:24,340 --> 01:00:33,423

Yeah, I think that, I was thinking about this where you have to be really confident in

like what you're saying and you have to be interesting.

780

01:00:33,423 --> 01:00:35,870

I just listened to James Taylor Rico.

781

01:00:35,870 --> 01:00:36,498

you followed him?

782

01:00:36,498 --> 01:00:38,450

He's the new guy from Texas.

783

01:00:38,759 --> 01:00:42,328

No, no, I've kind of checked out to a degree.

784

01:00:42,328 --> 01:00:43,288

That's fair, so have I.

785

01:00:43,288 --> 01:00:51,136

I'm like not super excited about anyone, but he was on Joe Rogan and they had a beautiful

like two hour conversation about like spirituality and stuff.

786

01:00:51,713 --> 01:01:03,234

Yeah, Joe Rogan's an interesting one like I've kind of come and gone from his show but

like I Don't know what I used to really like about that show is it felt like a am radio

787

01:01:03,234 --> 01:01:10,254

I'm gonna date myself but like a am radio back in the day Used to tune in the middle of

the night and there was like this Art Bell guy and there was a few others but Art Bell was

788

01:01:10,254 --> 01:01:17,474

the big one and he was just this like to call in show that he would kind of just go

anywhere and talk about the craziest shit have UFO people on all these kind of things but

789

01:01:17,474 --> 01:01:20,418

just like agree with them and not mock them, you know

790

01:01:20,418 --> 01:01:32,712

And I think Joe Rogan at his best has, uh or at least used to, legitimately, like people

with legitimately uh crazy beliefs uh that they believed in fervently and he would just

791

01:01:32,712 --> 01:01:41,224

say, yes, tell me more, tell me more, and give them a place where they can just be heard,

right, over and over and over, and never make fun of it but say, yeah, I agree, you know.

792

01:01:41,224 --> 01:01:46,686

uh To a detriment, to a degree, but then he had RFK on and said the same thing and that's

not good.

793

01:01:47,512 --> 01:01:53,667

But yeah, it was fascinating because I love to hear somebody who believes, know, he was on

a UFO and got probed up the ass or whatever.

794

01:01:53,667 --> 01:01:58,240

I love to hear him just can talk for three hours because he's gonna go way deep, right?

795

01:01:58,240 --> 01:01:59,331

He's gonna go all the way in.

796

01:01:59,331 --> 01:02:09,718

uh But when he went to the inauguration, I started to have issues having Trump on, I

guess, I don't know.

797

01:02:09,979 --> 01:02:12,280

I like Joe Rogan, but I don't like Joe Rogan.

798

01:02:12,601 --> 01:02:14,114

An analyst known for years.

799

01:02:14,114 --> 01:02:19,916

Yes, I feel the same way and I like to listen knowing that I'm going to disagree with some

of the stuff.

800

01:02:20,151 --> 01:02:20,684

And I think.

801

01:02:20,684 --> 01:02:21,385

He's kind of an idiot.

802

01:02:21,385 --> 01:02:22,637

He's kind of an idiot is the thing though.

803

01:02:22,637 --> 01:02:27,916

He's not that I mean he's smart in this some ways, but he's not like smart in any

804

01:02:27,992 --> 01:02:38,648

But if he makes some sort of blanket statement that I think is, you know, like offensive

or wrong or whatever, it's just like shallow and whatever, I can hold that next to maybe

805

01:02:38,748 --> 01:02:45,842

something he says that I find to be correct or interesting or has some sort of point to

it.

806

01:02:45,842 --> 01:02:56,876

I think that like the problem is we're so siloed and I agree with you, there's a line, but

if we can listen to something and you actually have to think about it, you disagree.

807

01:02:56,876 --> 01:02:59,390

It's not like preordained at the start.

808

01:02:59,531 --> 01:03:03,422

I think that's good overall for people's.

809

01:03:03,422 --> 01:03:10,466

Yeah, my issue with Rogan, though, I think a vast majority of his listeners are getting

their information from his program.

810

01:03:10,507 --> 01:03:12,528

And that's where I have a problem with it.

811

01:03:12,528 --> 01:03:16,691

But that's also so then you say, OK, what do you do about that?

812

01:03:16,691 --> 01:03:18,392

And I don't think that there's anything to be done about it.

813

01:03:18,392 --> 01:03:21,895

How does Joe Rogan have to be more responsible in his show?

814

01:03:21,895 --> 01:03:24,156

I don't know that we can say that.

815

01:03:24,156 --> 01:03:32,662

But I also think that it is a problem when you have somebody like RFK on and he just

spouts nonsense and Joe Rogan says, yeah, that's yeah, totally.

816

01:03:32,662 --> 01:03:34,123

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

817

01:03:34,123 --> 01:03:44,100

Like I had a lot of friends who liked RFK because like they believed the nonsense he was

spewing on things like Joe Rogan and that starts to ask the question of like, I don't

818

01:03:44,100 --> 01:03:44,700

know.

819

01:03:45,294 --> 01:03:46,874

No, that's how.

820

01:03:47,876 --> 01:03:49,146

Yeah, that's a great point.

821

01:03:49,146 --> 01:03:50,438

You're totally right about that.

822

01:03:50,438 --> 01:03:52,900

I think there's a really good book about this.

823

01:03:52,900 --> 01:03:56,893

If people are interested, it's called Revolt of the Public by Martin Gury.

824

01:03:56,893 --> 01:04:10,334

And he talks about how in sort of the information era of like, you know, basically when

the internet started until now with the digital era of information, the.

825

01:04:10,334 --> 01:04:11,174

826

01:04:12,206 --> 01:04:21,126

He calls them like center organizations, but kind of the like hierarchical authoritative,

um, like the government is a good example, or like, right.

827

01:04:21,126 --> 01:04:28,086

A central organization used to have a monopoly on information.

828

01:04:28,226 --> 01:04:40,750

And so the media and the could kind of work hand in hand, uh, to amplify whatever

narrative was, um, you know, convenient.

829

01:04:40,750 --> 01:04:52,643

uh And then you started to have ruptures in that, like with Vietnam, where when people

start seeing what's actually happening, uh that's information that's not being mediated by

830

01:04:52,643 --> 01:04:56,874

like uh a news organization or something, they can actually see it.

831

01:04:57,275 --> 01:05:01,256

Then they start to question the legitimacy of the information.

832

01:05:01,256 --> 01:05:09,388

And now we're at a point where institutions in general have lost so much legitimacy with

the public.

833

01:05:09,516 --> 01:05:14,165

that information has become so, what's the word?

834

01:05:14,626 --> 01:05:15,574

What's the truth anymore?

835

01:05:15,574 --> 01:05:16,301

I have no idea.

836

01:05:16,301 --> 01:05:16,694

Yeah.

837

01:05:16,694 --> 01:05:17,104

Right.

838

01:05:17,104 --> 01:05:28,394

Like it's available in so many different ways through so many different channels that

everybody's trying to make sense of what's legitimate and what's not, what's real and

839

01:05:28,394 --> 01:05:29,064

what's not.

840

01:05:29,064 --> 01:05:37,050

Uh, that there's, there's almost like the silver lining that yeah, you have more access to

information so you can question.

841

01:05:38,131 --> 01:05:44,156

But at the same time, you have less resources to understand and figure out what's true.

842

01:05:44,156 --> 01:05:46,678

And at a certain point, I think people just tune out.

843

01:05:46,678 --> 01:05:52,618

and they start listening to people that they trust regardless of whether or not it's true.

844

01:05:52,618 --> 01:05:55,500

And it becomes very hard to verify truth.

845

01:05:55,758 --> 01:06:05,629

I also think that that's part of the whole game though is to flood information into the

things to keep the real stories from being, you know, uh amplified, right?

846

01:06:05,629 --> 01:06:06,862

You can hide the real story.

847

01:06:06,862 --> 01:06:07,872

They've been weaponized.

848

01:06:07,872 --> 01:06:09,090

849

01:06:09,090 --> 01:06:11,372

Yeah, no, it's really problematic.

850

01:06:11,372 --> 01:06:17,173

And I don't even know, I don't know about you, but like I read articles now and I'm like,

I see something like, I'm like, is that true?

851

01:06:17,173 --> 01:06:18,258

Is that actually true?

852

01:06:18,258 --> 01:06:25,194

And then I'll have to like check two or three places just to see if this article that back

in the day, I would have gotten a magazine like the New Yorker wherever and just been

853

01:06:25,194 --> 01:06:27,005

like, that must be true, true, true.

854

01:06:27,005 --> 01:06:32,090

But now anything I read now, I'm like, and then I'm and then at the end of the day, I

still don't know if it's true.

855

01:06:32,090 --> 01:06:37,734

And yeah, I don't know how a society continues to function when

856

01:06:37,858 --> 01:06:41,080

there is no agreed upon reality anymore.

857

01:06:41,401 --> 01:06:49,887

And maybe that's the thing that worries me the most is that, and that's the thing that

maybe that should worry us the most aside from all this, all the politics is just like

858

01:06:50,068 --> 01:07:00,456

when reality becomes impossible to agree upon, how do we even come together at all because

we're all siloed up so much in our own different pockets of, uh and they're all making

859

01:07:00,456 --> 01:07:03,848

money off of it too, so ah that's what.

860

01:07:03,958 --> 01:07:05,069

outrage has been monetized.

861

01:07:05,069 --> 01:07:08,982

You know that Twitter got more downloads in the week after Charlie Kirk's death?

862

01:07:08,982 --> 01:07:11,224

More new downloads than ever before.

863

01:07:12,245 --> 01:07:12,536

Yeah.

864

01:07:12,536 --> 01:07:18,070

Yeah, how much money, I wonder, did Elon Musk make off of his death?

865

01:07:18,198 --> 01:07:19,198

Yeah.

866

01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:27,476

And yeah, we've also got that new billionaire, US billionaire Zionists buying TikTok.

867

01:07:27,926 --> 01:07:32,452

Yeah, no that's not gonna cause any press not gonna cause any problems there at all Yeah,

that's right.

868

01:07:32,452 --> 01:07:40,544

I mean there was I mean I heard the inner of the Netanyahu thing where he was talking

about how great it was Like if he's saying it's great, you know, it's Yeah, if Netanyahu's

869

01:07:40,544 --> 01:07:42,348

saying it's great, you know, it's to be bad

870

01:07:42,348 --> 01:07:47,211

You know, he's basically our de facto president, but maybe that's uh a podcast for

another.

871

01:07:47,211 --> 01:07:49,174

that's a whole rabbit hole that you've opened there.

872

01:07:49,174 --> 01:07:52,048

Yeah, no, uh you're an anti-semite, Evelyn.

873

01:07:52,048 --> 01:07:54,220

I didn't know I was having an anti-semite on the show.

874

01:07:54,220 --> 01:07:55,695

Right, there you go.

875

01:07:55,695 --> 01:08:00,706

There's the close epistemic feedback loop of the liberal worldview that I'm trying to...

876

01:08:00,706 --> 01:08:01,287

Exactly.

877

01:08:01,287 --> 01:08:02,768

See, we circled the square.

878

01:08:02,768 --> 01:08:03,168

Yes.

879

01:08:03,168 --> 01:08:05,660

ah That was a Hollywood Squares reference.

880

01:08:05,660 --> 01:08:06,801

Good Lord, help me.

881

01:08:06,801 --> 01:08:07,732

Do know what that show was?

882

01:08:07,732 --> 01:08:09,372

Do ever seen Hollywood Squares?

883

01:08:11,014 --> 01:08:13,436

God, I can't believe I just did a Hollywood Squares reference.

884

01:08:13,436 --> 01:08:15,077

Oh dear.

885

01:08:15,077 --> 01:08:16,538

Well, this is what happens.

886

01:08:16,538 --> 01:08:22,102

Evelyn, tell people about your substack and the other things that you're writing for.

887

01:08:22,124 --> 01:08:23,155

Yeah.

888

01:08:23,155 --> 01:08:30,157

So if you're interested to do this stuff, I write uh usually once a week, sometimes twice

on Substack.

889

01:08:30,238 --> 01:08:36,500

It's just Quartz Evelyn at Substack.com or dot, you'll find it if you just search Evelyn

Quartz on Substack.

890

01:08:37,061 --> 01:08:39,492

And I have been doing some freelance writing.

891

01:08:39,492 --> 01:08:43,633

A lot of my interests are around these questions that we've been talking about.

892

01:08:43,633 --> 01:08:48,425

I'm really interested in political legitimacy at this moment.

893

01:08:48,425 --> 01:08:49,954

em I think it's

894

01:08:49,954 --> 01:09:03,798

more than anything we have a crisis of legitimacy um and faith in our ability to, em I

guess, figure out whatever this moment is.

895

01:09:03,798 --> 01:09:13,730

I'm really interested in sort of this whole realignment issue, um how the kind of next

populist, these movements build, things like this.

896

01:09:13,730 --> 01:09:19,922

So yeah, if you're interested in any of that, on Substack and I've written periodically

for The Lever.

897

01:09:19,982 --> 01:09:21,582

and Compact magazine.

898

01:09:21,582 --> 01:09:25,202

highly recommend both for people who are interested in this too.

899

01:09:25,202 --> 01:09:32,482

Two really good independent media publications that are very critical.

900

01:09:32,782 --> 01:09:40,714

The lever focuses a lot on what we've been talking about a little bit, Jef, the issue of

money and corruption in politics.

901

01:09:40,714 --> 01:09:41,502

no, they're great.

902

01:09:41,502 --> 01:09:42,502

They've done a ton of good.

903

01:09:42,502 --> 01:09:43,002

Yes.

904

01:09:43,002 --> 01:09:43,403

so forth.

905

01:09:43,403 --> 01:09:44,144

Yes.

906

01:09:44,144 --> 01:09:54,096

And I will say that compact is much more of kind of like a heterodox intellectual eh

outlet and it's also very good.

907

01:09:54,096 --> 01:09:56,178

So yeah, you can find me.

908

01:09:56,394 --> 01:10:00,449

Yeah, Evelyn's one of the few sane voices on Substack anymore.

909

01:10:00,449 --> 01:10:03,944

So if you're on Substack, check her out.

910

01:10:03,944 --> 01:10:05,025

Has that been lucrative for you?

911

01:10:05,025 --> 01:10:06,346

If you don't mind me asking.

912

01:10:06,711 --> 01:10:11,570

I mean, no, not a little bit, but not that's not the main point

913

01:10:12,040 --> 01:10:13,605

I know I'm just I'm just I'm just curious.

914

01:10:13,605 --> 01:10:17,582

Yeah, I mean everybody's got to make money if you can make money doing your writing on

substeck That'd be amazing

915

01:10:17,582 --> 01:10:18,624

I know, some people do.

916

01:10:18,624 --> 01:10:21,737

You do have to quite a bit of subscribers, paid subscri-

917

01:10:21,737 --> 01:10:24,566

you're building you're still building it's like six months now you've been doing that

918

01:10:24,566 --> 01:10:33,795

Yeah, and yeah, I've been very grateful of the support and I've been able to connect with

a lot of really great em people who are writing about similar things.

919

01:10:33,795 --> 01:10:37,478

I think Substack is overall like a really positive.

920

01:10:37,720 --> 01:10:40,007

I think it's better than better than most of the places.

921

01:10:40,007 --> 01:10:42,315

Yeah In terms of social media.

922

01:10:42,315 --> 01:10:45,122

Yeah, because it is social media like let's be

923

01:10:45,122 --> 01:10:47,116

They've kind of gone in that direction,

924

01:10:47,116 --> 01:10:47,838

Yeah, for sure.

925

01:10:47,838 --> 01:10:49,684

Yeah, it's got a feed and everything now.

926

01:10:49,684 --> 01:10:54,880

The only thing they don't have is like vertical videos that you can swipe up on repeatedly

with your.

927

01:10:55,656 --> 01:10:57,774

god, Jef you're giving them ideas.

928

01:10:57,774 --> 01:10:58,496

929

01:10:58,496 --> 01:11:00,525

Even LinkedIn has that now too, think, don't they?

930

01:11:00,525 --> 01:11:01,710

think they have the swipe up.

931

01:11:01,710 --> 01:11:06,577

One of the nice things about doing this work is I have not got on LinkedIn in a long time.

932

01:11:06,734 --> 01:11:07,714

Oh, good for you.

933

01:11:07,714 --> 01:11:08,654

had to go on LinkedIn.

934

01:11:08,654 --> 01:11:14,874

I actually got my free trial to LinkedIn premium today so I can use their AI features to

amp up my resume.

935

01:11:14,874 --> 01:11:20,574

Oh, no, Kill me.

936

01:11:22,634 --> 01:11:24,094

Yeah, God help us all.

937

01:11:24,094 --> 01:11:25,494

God help us all.

938

01:11:25,614 --> 01:11:32,214

Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen, but I need to get a job because or more I need

to get a job or more.

939

01:11:32,226 --> 01:11:33,877

Patreon subscribers.

940

01:11:33,877 --> 01:11:35,898

if you're listening, go to my Patreon.

941

01:11:35,898 --> 01:11:40,970

After you go to Evelyn's sub stack and subscribe to hers, then go to my Patreon and

subscribe to mine.

942

01:11:40,970 --> 01:11:46,492

And then you'll make us both happy and you'll feel better too because everybody gets joy

from helping other people.

943

01:11:47,772 --> 01:11:49,093

See what I did there?

944

01:11:50,754 --> 01:11:51,804

I made it impossible.

945

01:11:51,804 --> 01:11:55,335

It's impossible not to accept that pitch.

946

01:11:55,956 --> 01:11:59,077

Now the ad companies are going to come running.

947

01:11:59,077 --> 01:12:01,958

Anyway, Evelyn, it was wonderful to talk to you again.

948

01:12:01,958 --> 01:12:10,532

I'm glad that you're, you know, doing what you want to do and writing about what you want

to write about and asking the questions that need to be asked in this dark time of our

949

01:12:10,532 --> 01:12:21,546

Lord 2025 because personally I'm confused so it's nice to have people uh writing about and

addressing this confusion in a way that seems sensible.

950

01:12:22,168 --> 01:12:22,739

Thanks, Jef.

951

01:12:22,739 --> 01:12:23,601

That means a lot.

952

01:12:23,601 --> 01:12:24,964

And thanks for having me.

953

01:12:24,964 --> 01:12:25,976

And this is awesome.

954

01:12:25,976 --> 01:12:27,510

Congrats on the podcast.

955

01:12:27,510 --> 01:12:29,184

Of course, thank you for coming on.

956

01:12:32,854 --> 01:12:37,036

And that was some political heterodoxy from Evelyn Quartz.

957

01:12:37,036 --> 01:12:45,310

can and should follow Evelyn on Substack at QuartzEvelyn.Substack.com I'll put that in the

show notes along with all the other stuff.

958

01:12:45,310 --> 01:12:46,910

You should read the show notes, by the way.

959

01:12:46,910 --> 01:12:51,662

They're fascinating and they're well written and they are succinct.

960

01:12:52,623 --> 01:12:57,045

If you do enjoy this show and you're still listening, please do like, rate, subscribe and

review.

961

01:12:57,045 --> 01:12:58,545

It helps so much.

962

01:12:58,545 --> 01:13:00,166

I'd say this every week.

963

01:13:00,268 --> 01:13:01,368

And I will say it every week.

964

01:13:01,368 --> 01:13:02,479

wish there was another way to say it.

965

01:13:02,479 --> 01:13:04,019

Maybe I should have a song.

966

01:13:04,579 --> 01:13:07,180

Like, rate, subscribe, and review.

967

01:13:07,180 --> 01:13:09,541

Like, rate, subscribe, and review.

968

01:13:09,541 --> 01:13:11,572

Like, rate, subscribe, and review.

969

01:13:11,572 --> 01:13:14,443

You gotta know that's what you gotta do.

970

01:13:14,903 --> 01:13:15,703

That's not bad.

971

01:13:15,703 --> 01:13:17,123

That's gonna be a hit.

972

01:13:17,544 --> 01:13:20,045

I'm quitting podcasting and going into music now.

973

01:13:20,045 --> 01:13:21,145

But please do.

974

01:13:21,145 --> 01:13:22,245

All of that.

975

01:13:22,866 --> 01:13:24,686

And send this to a friend of yours.

976

01:13:24,694 --> 01:13:32,778

Somebody who likes politics and who's interested in new ways of thinking about politics of

solutions to the problems of our time Send this to them send this podcast to them.

977

01:13:32,778 --> 01:13:36,799

They will love it and they will thank you for it And they'll be like, thank you so much

for that podcast.

978

01:13:36,799 --> 01:13:47,604

I love it so much It made me think about things in a new way and I really appreciate you

for it And they'll get you a better gift for Christmas probably You can follow the podcast

979

01:13:47,604 --> 01:13:51,534

and you should follow the podcast on Instagram at 1f Jef podd

980

01:13:51,534 --> 01:13:53,734

You can, what else can you do?

981

01:13:53,734 --> 01:13:57,274

You can email the podcast at 1fJefpod at gmail.com.

982

01:13:57,274 --> 01:13:59,794

Again, now that the episode's over, now you have a chance.

983

01:13:59,794 --> 01:14:06,774

You can turn the episode off now and you can go to patreon.com slash 1fJef and subscribe

to make this podcast go boom.

984

01:14:06,914 --> 01:14:10,874

I can't believe I've made 19 episodes.

985

01:14:11,150 --> 01:14:12,530

What was the statistic I heard?

986

01:14:12,530 --> 01:14:17,010

It was like only 5 to 10 % of podcasts ever get to like 10 or 15 episodes.

987

01:14:17,010 --> 01:14:21,350

And I think if you get to 20, you're at like the top 5 % of all podcasts.

988

01:14:21,350 --> 01:14:22,930

So go me.

989

01:14:25,582 --> 01:14:33,699

And thank you for continuing to listen because I mean honestly I would still do this if

nobody was listening at all but it'd be harder if I looked at my stats and it was like

990

01:14:33,699 --> 01:14:37,292

zero zero zero zero I'd be like what the fuck am I doing wrong?

991

01:14:37,352 --> 01:14:42,126

Because there's like a lot of people in the world so somebody's got to be listening to it

right?

992

01:14:42,126 --> 01:14:43,137

Somebody.

993

01:14:43,758 --> 01:14:44,738

Alright.

994

01:14:44,879 --> 01:14:46,640

Time for more Theraflu.

995

01:14:46,841 --> 01:14:49,583

Maybe just one more batch before I go to bed tonight.

996

01:14:49,643 --> 01:14:52,005

Thank you guys again for listening.

997

01:14:52,005 --> 01:14:53,366

I love you all.

998

01:14:53,708 --> 01:15:07,030

If you're struggling to get through these dark times, my advice is always to put your

fucking phone down, go outside, feel the sun on your face, hug a tree, lie down in the

999

01:15:07,030 --> 01:15:12,534

grass, close your eyes, and pretend it all isn't happening.

1000

01:15:14,156 --> 01:15:15,578

Because it really isn't.

1001

01:15:17,036 --> 01:15:18,805

Very good, Jefrey.

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