Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello.
Welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at Liz Cheney's public calling out of her Republican colleagues over the continued support of Donald Trump's ongoing effort to undermine our democratic system.
And later on, we're going to consider the extent to which convenient things like GPS navigation are making us all dumber and less capable individuals.
Joining me today is a man who may move slow, but that's only because he doesn't have to move for anybody. Tunde, Ogunlana Tunde, are you ready to bring some insight for all the nice ladies and the good fellas?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Always, Always.
And by Moving slow, does backwards count?
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Depends on how fast.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Sometimes I do that, too.
All right.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: All right. Now we're recording this on May 10, 2021. And this week it is expected that Wyoming congressman woman Liz Cheney will be removed from her leadership post as the third ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.
Now, this all comes from or culminate is a culmination of Liz Cheney publishing an op ed in the Washington Post last week calling out the Republican Party for not standing against Trump, as he has continued even after the January 6th insurrection to, and I quote, unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make our democracy work.
It appears that a lot of Republicans just want her to move on and not talk about this anymore.
And it looks like they will be successful in removing her from her leadership position this week as a result of that.
And it has been made clear that also they're going to be looking to get her out of Congress altogether by having another Republican run against her in the next election cycle.
So you could say in a sense that the Republican Party is trying to cancel Liz Cheney, the second generation politician daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
So tune that this fight actually harkens back to our first podcast episode where we express concern that the American experiment was being threatened by Trump and his cult.
So let's start at the beginning here about where we started. You know, just this, this American experiment. And what is what, what to you is this American experiment that we and possibly or apparently Liz Cheney are trying to protect?
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Great question, man. And I want to get back to something in a minute, but to answer your question directly, my opinion, what is this great experiment we're trying to protect is something that has been rarely done in human history, which is trying to balance the needs of the individual versus the needs of the collective in a large Society based on reason and not based on tribalism, emotion, or authoritarianism.
And by reason, I mean that's what the idea of political debate is. And again, I think this is why civics is something that we are missing in our educational process, because a lot of people don't know how our system works or how it was designed to work. And this is information that's available to all of us. If you go back and read the debates of the founding fathers while they were forming the Constitution and our nation and the rules and the laws, if you look at, you know, there's a reason they call the US Senate the most deliberative body in the world. If you look at the way that the US Congress is established between the House of Representatives and the Senate, all that is, and you've alluded to this a lot on various conversations we've had, that it's purposely messy so that different parts of the system are forced to deal with each other and supposed to negotiate so that it's a fair outcome for the society as a whole. So I think I probably sound mechanical the way I'm saying it, but it's an important thing to break down, I think, because a lot of us, you know, I used to hear these things when I was younger about, oh, democracy is not easy to keep. And even if you read the words of people like Benjamin Franklin, one of our great founding fathers of this country, all of them, him, Thomas Jefferson, the rest all expressed the concern that what they were building, they understood how fragile it was, not only then, but in perpetuity.
And so that's what I feel we're at. I think that important things like the Bill of Rights and things like that are part of that idea of trying to make sure that the individual has rights.
And things like the Constitution, when you look at things like the Fourth Amendment, these all came about from men who had lived in a society that was dominated by what at the time was the European monarchy and feudalist system. And so when. When you think about the type of society they were trying to create, it was to prevent, over time, the reformation of central authority. When you're talking about a government, and so I think that is. When you're talking about the experiment that we're trying to protect, that's it. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: I mean, well, I think. Yeah. One of the things I think is a key takeaway from what you just said is that the debate that the disagreement is a feature, not a bug.
And a lot of times right now, the debate becomes about villainizing whoever you're Debating against. And it's like something's wrong because these people aren't just doing what we tell them to do or and so forth. And so, yes, that's a part of it. And I look at the experiment. It's of the people, by the people, for the people. And a government that is accountable to its people, it's not run by the military or a religious body or, or just a hereditary king or whoever. It's all of those things set up where the people are the ones that the government's accountable to. And this is within the constraints of rule of law, meaning you're also. The majority. Can't just take away the minority's rights, in theory is the way it's set up. So essentially, I've said this before, the Constitution actually sets up a liberal form of government by any measure. It's a liberal form of government, free religion, free speech, things like that.
But it operates conservatively. So the operation of it is very conservative in the sense that it's biased to make it difficult to change.
And that's checks and balances. That's the bicameral Congress, as you pointed out. It's hard to make things, hard to change things, because all of these levers are in place before you can make changes. And so that experiment that makes it very deliberate, excuse me, and not subject to the whims of people very much. And so that's the unraveling we're happening, we're seeing right now because this experiment in America has been defined by the ongoing struggle between the people who want America to be exceptional. As you pointed out, this type of governing is an exception to human existence. This is not the norm. It's an exceptional form of government by law. It's what, in my view, American exceptionalism should be based on, is that we're trying to do something that is the exception that most people, most societies have been unable to do or even haven't tried. But there's been an ongoing struggle between the people who want America to live up to this rhetoric and its stated ideals and those who want America to be like every other place in the world where one group just tries to dominate everyone else by any means necessary. And that is actually what we're seeing. So I thought that was important for each of us to kind of just lay out briefly, hopefully, how we saw what's going on here from a big picture standpoint, because looking at what Liz Cheney's saying, if you don't come from a basis of what's actually happening here, then it can really seem esoteric. And it can seem like, oh, what's she talking about? So what stands out to you right now in this battle that Liz Cheney and the establishment of the Republican Party is fighting?
[00:08:30] Speaker B: I think it's a lot stands out to me. But I'll try and be succinct here. I think going from the 30,000ft, this is the regular, like we just talked about, the regular fits and starts of humanity.
You've got changes over the last couple decades, economic changes, demographic changes that we've seen in other periods in other societies also lead to things like populism and the ability for those who have simple solutions and simple sounding solutions. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That sound easy and straightforward, like let's just build a wall or let's ban all these people from coming here.
Those people resonate with the population versus
[00:09:16] Speaker A: well, also that also have led to kind of the dear leader type of approach in people. Whether you look at, I mean, you can look at Mao, you can look at a lot of places where unrest and uncertainty have led people. Again, these are all human beings have led people to look for some savior, some leader that's going to solve their problems and so forth. Those pressures, you could definitely say that those pressures have been concentrating in America over the past few years.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that like you said, right. The ability to reason and debate our way out of these is messy, boring, it's frustrating for a lot of people.
So it feels a lot simpler when you have one person coming in saying, like one person did in recent years when they were running for office in our country for the leadership. They said, I alone can fix it.
What happens. And we had this conversation in a different way about when we had a different show recently about stress and certain things, like the human mind wants the simplest answer when things otherwise in our lives are very stressful.
And so if somebody said, well, you know, I don't like the way this is going in the country, I don't like the way that. But here's what we're going to do. We're going to convene a committee and, and have a debate about how to change. People don't want to hear that.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: They just want to hear, hey, is that guy's fault? Or I can fix it this way. And so I think that's. So I feel like we're in that moment here as a country. I think it's symbolic of the schism that I always wondered when this would happen. And this is the Southern strategy of 68. That brought certain voters together with certain, you know, political classes.
I think we saw that schism develop and that fracturing on the Republican Party side post George W. Bush. And I think the symbolism today is the Republican Party specifically is now in a battle to figure out where they're going from here.
Are they going to be the party of conservatism like Liz Cheney types, or are they going to be this new version of themselves, which isn't necessarily conservative, it's not necessarily populist, it's not necessarily, it's not liberal.
It's just, and you alluded to that actually on a prior show. And that's why I'm not, I'm not saying this in a joking way. I'm just going to allude to the fact that the national party platform in 2020 was we don't have a platform as a party. It's whatever Donald Trump says. And that's why I'm saying it's a serious point to point out that we only have two political parties in this country.
And so by definition, roughly half of the population would be on either one. So now we have one that's decided to make it all about one man. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That's where we're at. That's what the schism is here.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Yeah. What stands out to me actually goes into that. It's just how invested the party, the Republican Party is in Trump and in the big lie that the election was stolen, like the national party. And you see this play out in the comments made by Kevin McCarthy, who's the minority leader, which is the Republican Parties and the minority leader in the House, that they want the party to move on, focus on Joe Biden, focus on trying to stop Joe Biden.
But they only want to move on actually, in a way. They're not telling Donald Trump to move on and to say, stop saying lies. They're telling people who are calling out people for telling lies, saying, you guys need to stop calling people out for telling lies. And so it's a one way kind of move on type of thing. They want to move on and try to consolidate support in the party and have everybody just focusing their fire, so to speak, on the Democrats. But and Adam Kinzinger, who is a Republican as well and out of Illinois, said that basically what the national party wants to do is to, he calls it capitulation to crazy. And it's like, so it's not both sides move on. You guys stop talking, stop saying the election was stolen and you guys stop trying to get people to investigate the insurrection. It's like only one side needs to stop. And part of that is because they know they can't control the side that's saying that the election was stolen. It's lying about that. Now, the other piece, though, that's interesting is statewide, what we've seen a phenomenon is a lot of the Republicans in state offices, statewide offices, are actively still promoting the big lie that the election was stolen and actually using it as a pretense and as a tool for a power grab. That's where we see. We spoke last week about all these voting restrictions and what they're doing to reform the electorate and reshape how the votes are counted and who can step in during the counting of the votes to change things.
It's a power grab, basically. And the pretense is, oh, yeah, we have to make people feel comfortable about elections again, when it's like, well, yeah, you made them feel uncomfortable about elections, and then you're going to. You create the problem, and then you come up with a solution that gives you more power. And so their interests are kind of divergent in that sense, and their conduct is kind of divergent. They're not saying, move on, but they're just saying, no, no, no, let's use this. Whereas the statewide, they're saying, let's use this.
Nationally, they're saying, let's move on so that we can try to win more elections in the future. And the push to move on is similar to what we saw when we did the Reconstruction documentary. And it, like, certain segments of the country just stopped talking about the fact that people just committed insurrection and declared war on the United States and then they seceded. Stop talking about that. We don't want to talk about that. We don't want to go into that anymore. And so. And we saw how that ended in. It ended poorly, basically, for the country being able to come back together because people didn't want to deal with the causes that caused the Southern states to secede. Just like right now, people don't want to deal with the causes that caused the insurrection and the conduct that Liz Cheney says is leading back towards that.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I think that's where. That's where the schism is, really. It's. This is a Republican Party issue, which is now obviously a national issue, because they're half the country.
And. And. And Liz Cheney is. Is basically pointing out what you just said, which is, you know, are we here to show fealty to a man or is it yours. And it goes back to what I started with. Right. The experiment of the United States and even what I said at the beginning, the founders of this country specifically, we're attempting to form a society that wouldn't be ruled by one monarch, dictator, king, whatever you want to call it.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: And that's why, you know, just to add to that, that's why elected officials, military officials, everybody in our country, they swear their oath to the U.S. constitution. That's supposed to be not a person, not to the President, not to Congress, not to. It's to the U.S. constitution. Which is another fact that Cheney and Kinzinger and all those, you know, Mitt Romney, the people that are on one side of. Yeah. This is a Republican intra fight. Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland said this weekend that it's a circular firing squad.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, look, obviously people care. It's like a family feud. No one, you know, Democrats aren't going to come and fix this for Republicans. And obviously Democrats come from overseas. Yeah, I mean, that's what I mean. Like you can't. Right. It has to be done internally, just like a family feud. So the thing is, is that, but here's another part of it because to me, that's all the human being part of, you know, we know that a large society, there's going to be random types of people that might, you know, I'm sure that President Trump isn't the first president that some people looked at like he's, you know, walks on water. I mean, I remember there were people that thought that Obama, you know, could do no wrong and that he was, you know, next to Jesus or something and that that's why he was elected, because God ordained him. But the difference is it wasn't a majority of people in a certain party that thought that way. And so.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: And the leadership of the party.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah, and exactly. And exactly. The man himself wasn't behaving that way.
And so what?
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Well, also though, Nancy Pelosi wasn't behaving that way.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's what I was gonna get.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Wasn't behaving that way.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: No, but you actually went right into where I was going, which was I was gonna read a quote from Liz Cheney because she quoted Kevin McCarthy and that's where I was going. This is where this is becoming messy is because like you said, obviously it's a big lie on January 13. She says it here in her op ed that we're kind of basing this conversation around.
She says, and I quote, she quotes McCarthy here, that McCarthy said the president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw that what was unfolding. And she says now McCarthy's changed the story. I think that's the big issue that people like you and I might be a little more surprised about. Meaning I'm not surprised people did the insurrection because I understood what was fomenting under the surface of this country.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Promoting and Correct.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: And what people were promoting.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Like, we, it wasn't a secret.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well. And we had precursors of it. Right. What happened in Michigan in 2020 with the storming of the state Capitol. So, you know, like the fact that it could happen in our national capital.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Well, it's just another level up from that. But I think to your point, right, like, it wasn't just about let's go get the libs and the Democrats or something like just only your political opponent, they were trying to hang Mike Pence.
They were going after people that weren't showing fealty to the leader. And so because like you said, and you said this in other conversations we've had on air, Mike Pence was actually fulfilling his oath to the US Constitution,
[00:18:49] Speaker A: which made him an enemy of, which
[00:18:51] Speaker B: made him an enemy of the Trump folks. And so in Liz Cheney cites here in her op ed to that over 60 courts in the United States, many of whom were presided over by judges appointed by this administration or judges. The Trump administration, including the supreme court, which had three judges and a 6 to 3 conservative majority, all have certified this. We've had hand recounts in states like Georgia and Arizona. And so the point is, is that, you know, at some point, and this is where my questions become, is at what point do people who've been elected in office to protect the Constitution, and I think that's where Liz Cheney's at.
At what point are they seen as part of, like the sedition, like the problem here and kind of like, I mean, at least the Confederacy announced they were going to hit, eject and go to war. These people are actually more dangerous because they're not trying to say we're going to stand on this side of the line and go to war with you or whatever.
And this is the other thing. And then I'll pass the baton because I'd like to get your thoughts on this about the tribalism part of it. This is no longer about being a conservative.
First of all, what happened in January6 was radical. That wasn't conservative. Second of all, the person who's been picked and who Kevin McCarthy as the leader of Republicans in the Congress has said he's going to support as he helps oust. Liz Cheney has a 35% conservative record from, you know, the major conservative watchers and media where are with the government stuff versus Liz Cheney who has a 98%.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: So she's considered much, much less when
[00:20:31] Speaker B: you look at voting records, when you look at all that. So the.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Well that's the point, man.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: You know, that's why I wanted to hand it on to you. For. That is. What does that mean? Yeah, for, for, for this whole conversation which is this isn't really about conservative
[00:20:45] Speaker A: versus well, you answered that though in terms of when you were saying that it's not about being conservative or these principles that have been espoused as far as the conservative movement, as far as the intellectual principles they talk about. Liz Cheney's talking about that stuff. This is about are you sufficiently loyal or have you professed fealty to Donald Trump? And that's the concern that the Liz Cheney or the Larry Hogan's or the Mitt Romneys or the Adam Kinzingers people, Republicans are saying that's them against everybody else basically. And I wonder as a part of this, like what's going on with people in the Republican Party who are seeing 60% of who don't believe that the election was stolen, who aren't in the alternate reality that is run by Trump or whoever else on Facebook or whatever, but they see the majority of the people in their party do believe that stuff.
I would not like if, like the people who I like, I personally would like if I'm voting in the same block with people who believe, for example, that Martians had come to Earth and are walking among us, I would be concerned about that. Like, what am I seeing? How am I like, am I wrong? Why is all the people that agree with me on stuff in La La Land, like that's a part that I don't, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. You know, I don't know, but it's, I wonder like, well, what are the people who haven't gone off the deep end from an alternate reality standpoint, what do they think about their party mates being in this, like in this Trumpish world? And I wanted to get to you to answer your question though I actually wanted to get to our next thought, which is this approach, this Trump centric approach to the party, to the Republican Party or that the Republican Party has, does that make them, you know, we saw Trump as openly trying to attack rule of law and in democratic elections and all these like he openly did that. But if the party's gonna then become Trump centric, then does that make them a threat to rule over law and democracy? And I'll start here going into where you are going. And I think that the answer is yes, because what you just said, that it's become a matter of tribalism. What we're seeing here is the Republican Party, not be a political party where you have different ideas and people, but getting together and to form coalitions, to work together towards certain things. But it's okay if we don't agree on everything. There's different coalitions in the Republican Party, there's different coalitions in the Democratic Party as far as what people's main issue or main issues are.
But this is becoming more of a tribe where they're. And they're openly telling us actually that defending the tribe, that's move on, don't make us look bad. Defending the tribe is more important than, than defending the American system of democracy, the American Constitution. The tribe is taking rule. This is the ultimate political party over country. This is not country first.
And that to me makes it a threat. Because once you've decided that your interest as a party outweigh the interests of the U.S. constitution or outweigh the importance of democratically elected officials being able to concede elections that you don't win, that's one of the big things Liz Cheney's talking about, is that if you don't win, you have to be able to just pass off power. She quoted Reagan saying, that's the American miracle. So all of these things people have throughout time understand are not easy to do.
And right now, one of the two political parties pretty much looks like they've decided they're not willing to do it anymore, or at least that's the direction we're going to. And I want to get your thoughts on that and get your answer to that question. Because one other point I wanted to make on this though, was that you have to keep in mind that having a democracy, in a sense, is kind of like being in a marriage. Like, you can't be in a marriage where one side basically says, all right, everything has to be my way or we're done.
Or like, you make all the compromises, I make none, and then that's the only way we're going to survive. Once you get to that point, the marriage is heading is going to be over because the other person, the other person's left with the choice of okay this person is just my dictator or we can't do this anymore. So my concern is that this has become so zero sum that people are unwilling to lose elections anymore. They're unwilling to.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: You know, let me pick it up, because I was going to say a joke that, yeah, you can be in a marriage like that. It's called a bad marriage.
You know, what I was thinking about was just like, we all learned after 9, 11, like, you know, we went into Afghanistan and all that. Yeah, that sounds like being married to a guy from the Taliban. You know, if I was a woman,
[00:25:23] Speaker A: you know, like, hey, man, you throwing stones, man? Yeah, he's gonna.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: No. Well, I don't make my wife dress in a burqa in 105 degree heat.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: No, no more. So the political machinations in Afghanistan. There's a resemblance to the Taliban approach to. Hold on. There's a resemblance to the Taliban's approach to governance to the one we're seeing here that Liz Cheney is pushing back.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: I know, but that's where I was gonna go with it on a serious note, is it reminded me, as you were saying, it goes back to your point about the Taliban. Right. We think of that as such an abstract way of people to behave, but it's not.
I would probably say that the majority of societies still operate that way. Maybe not the majority population in the world anymore, because China and Russia and India and the United States and Brazil probably make up 60%, 70% of the world population at this point. But if you look at the smaller areas of the world, developing areas, there's still a lot of that just tribalism, like you said. And so the thing that I thought about when you were speaking was the truth to the statement of the. Again, why is this an exceptional experiment? Is because of, like you said, we're one of the few countries that has a change of power, that has not been violent. At the change of power, I know we had a civil war, but even then when, you know, Abraham Lincoln was still present, and then when the Union won the war, there was still a peaceful transition to the next person. So it made me think of a book I read in the last year that after George Washington ceded power and John Adams became the second president of the United States, many of the European nations, the French, the British, they actually for months thought that this was a hoax being perpetrated by the. By the United States, that it was some sort of espionage or psychological warfare game. Because they literally think about Europe at the time. Yeah, they had never, like, heard of a peaceful transition of power back with all the fighting, you know, the Catholics and the Protestants, you had the Catholic Church, you know, influencing monarchies. And, you know, so this was, you know, you're talking about the old, you know, game of Thrones here. People would, siblings would kill each other to get to the throne. So the idea of a peaceful transition of power was actually foreign to them. And so that's why, again, to your point, right, we run the risk for the first time since the civil war in our country that at least we've seen that this is a potential that we have enough Americans that don't want to play in the sandbox with people that may not agree with them and don't want to acknowledge that in a fair election that they lost power for a period of time. This is where I think Liz Cheney is right.
These aren't natural laws like gravity.
These are norms. The ability to accept an election and to move forward and say, okay, I'm going to go back and win with my ideas. Let me go win the population and get them to vote for me. Not let me go make it harder for the population. That's why I don't think there's going to work long term, because you alluded to this too. What's going on in these states legislatures is not about election security.
Stopping people from getting bottles of water in a line is not election security. This is about not even voter states.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: Like, that's not even possible.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: This is voter suppression. This is just saying we don't want this many people participating. And the sad part is, and then I'll get off my high horse is this affects Republicans too. A lot of Republicans mail in their votes and they do. They vote in the same way Democrats do. So I don't know why, like, well, but I don't know why.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Well, think about it. They're trying to take away, if they can take away four Democratic votes by taking away two Republican votes, they're okay with that. And that's.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: I know, but that's not right. Like those two Republican votes are important.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: You know, why they legitimate should be counted as well. Like. Yeah, so it's. Well, of course, but we don't agree with that approach. I mean, so we would of course look at it like that. I mean, I think that going back to just the nature of this threat, I think you have to look at the aim of the Republican Party and part of it is if you're going to take the position that you are the only party with a legitimate claim of power and that if you're not in power, then it's somehow illegitimate. And this is, you can put just back to 2008 with birtherism. You know that you have to delegitimize the other side. If they're in power, then that actually is going in the direction of what, let's say what China does. China is single party rule. That's what they believe. That's what the leadership of that party believes, is that they're the only political party that's legitimate. And so that actually shows how you are trying to get away from the American system where you have two major parties and they go back and forth and they transition power back and forth and they don't undermine the legitimacy of each other as opposed to where you're just gonna say, hey, no, this one is the only one that's legit. And anything that's not, this one is, is not a problem. That shows you kind of the direction that's being going or that is trying to be taken as far as that the party, if you're going to take this approach. And you noted that we have leadership in the party that, in the Republican Party that has done a 180 as far as what they were saying after the insurrection. And Liz Cheney actually gave a hat tip to that as well because she pointed out how then I'll quote her, while embracing or ignoring Trump's statements might seem attractive to some for fundraising and political purposes. And she said that that approach will do profound long term damage to our party and our country.
That tells you why. You know, there's the fundraising aspect.
Clearly the throwing out there that the election was stolen has been very profitable from a fundraising standpoint, which is still screwed up because you're duping the your own supporters to giving you money by telling them some bs, which is kind of messed up.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Remember what Mitt Romney said that night of January 6th, the best thing we can do to our Republican voters is to be honest with them. And that hasn't happened. So sorry, go ahead.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Because it's not as profitable to be honest with them. And so I think that one other thing I would say, and I'll let you know, I want to know you wanted to wrap with.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: Hold on. I just want to say this. That's why maybe we need real rich guys back in power like Romney that aren't looking, going to grift off, right? Like not like, not like guys like, like that have advisors who are indicted for stealing 25 million off voters for building a wall and they catch him on the, on a $30 million yacht owned by a Chinese billionaire. I mean, you couldn't make this stuff up, dude. So, sorry, go ahead.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Grifters are rolling right now.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: Can't make it up.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Well, but also, there's a fragility at play here that I just. I don't know what to make of as well. Like the.
I've noted that a lot of people frame Liz Cheney's efforts as she's doing something because she hates Trump.
And I see that. And it always strikes me as, like, when. When someone disagrees with you or says that you've done something wrong, that doesn't always mean that they hate you.
It's possible in the world that somebody's done something wrong and somebody else says, hey, you shouldn't have done that. That doesn't mean that you hate the person. And so the fragility I see is that there is a effort, and this was similar also to what we saw in the aftermath of the Civil War, but an effort to not ever have to acknowledge that, hey, seceding from the union because you wanted to keep slavery was not cool. It was a bad idea.
That's bad. They couldn't live with that. And so they had to come up with other justifications for that. In this case with the insurrection, they have to come up with other justifications because they can't just say, as Mitt Romney would say, hey, wasn't a good move. We shouldn't have done that. You can't just say that. You can't tell. For whatever reason, the political party does not believe they can tell their people, like, hey, that approach was a bad approach. We shouldn't have done that. Now we should try to do something that is actually more positive, that builds America and so forth. They don't believe. It looks to me that they don't believe that their supporters can take that or are willing to take that. And so that part, I don't know what to make of it because I would want leadership to level with me.
But for whatever reason, you know what I mean?
[00:33:29] Speaker B: I think it's a tail wagging the dog. I think it's.
Look, unfortunately, we are not in terms of the political class that we have today, outside of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, people like that on the Republican sides are not profiles in courage.
And unfortunately, they are scared to lose their power. They're scared to lose their seats. So they're now being manipulated, basically by the donors, and they're not telling truth to people, and they're worried about losing their seats. And so this is all about power.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: I think there is a definitely, yeah, all about power. But I think there is a component which we don't think we've unpacked plenty of times. But there's a component of the media and how the media profits from these type of narratives. The media profits from making people feel like they're under attack all the time.
The, you know, like it's the approach
[00:34:25] Speaker B: and actually I want to speak to that. You make a great point because I saw a few Republican Congress people interviewed that voted for, that voted not to start against certifying the election on January six.
But when asked why, they say I believe that, you know, Joe Biden won the election, but I'm getting calls from my constituents and you know, if 80% of my district believes this, then what am I supposed to do as an elected official that's supposed to represent them?
I can appreciate that dynamic. That might be the only excuse I'd be willing to listen to. I still.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Well no, but that goes back to your not a profile encouraged thing.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was saying. I would still say it's not a profile encourage.
But that to your point is I can see where the media and the ecosystem on what I would say the conservative or even more right wing side of the media ecosystem, it's a tail wagging the dog. They're telling the voters what to believe and then they're going hammering their Congress people and threatening.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: They're telling the voters to believe this because it's profitable, because it keeps their attention and it's better for advertisers. And then those voters who are told that for profit reasons are then going to their congressman and saying hey, we believe this. So therefore we need you to represent our interest in that. So that's why I said you can trace it back to the kind of profit the way that the media is behaving in ways to keep us in rabbit holes to, you know, to inflame our passions for the purposes of ratings. But you know, I do want to move on. But I know you wanted to get to that.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: I've just got two more for this One was just on Liz Cheney because she said something in the op ed I want to quote. Well, two things. One was she stressed for the commission, like a bipartisan commission to study what happened on January 6th that's not made up of current politicians but of maybe retired politicians and leaders that the country would accept their end finding.
And I thought to myself it's amazing how much more dangerous for when to go back to the Original question about this beautiful experiment or the American miracle, as she says, Ronald Reagan called it, this is so much more of a threat than 9 11.
And like you've alluded to how we don't, you know, our political leadership just doesn't seem to take that serious. Maybe because these guys, you know, the people that didn't aren't Arabs and from the desert, that they're Americans, they don't think it's as serious. But from my understanding, as of our recording here, about 40 current and former military officials have been arrested from the insurrection. I don't remember 40 military officials joining bin Laden to attack the United States.
And this is an internal insurrection, not something from outside. So I'll.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Which is always going to be more dangerous.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: More dangerous. As I read that, I kind of realized, wow, this is actually a lot deeper than I think we are giving it credit. I think we've all been conditioned to kind of look the other way with this. And it's interesting.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Yeah, man, it definitely is.
Now, we also saw this week that, I mean, I think you send this to me and I just, like, I gave you back the mind blown emoji because we saw a study and just literature on how GPS weakens our memory. And this was in Scientific American. And it goes through just how the process of trying to get from point A to point B is something that engages our brain. And we learn before GPS we would either chart it out on maps and then do it, and then our brain would kind of internalize that and we remember it and our memory gets better and all those other things. And now basically you type in an address, you get turn by turn navigation, and you, you just turn your brain off, you know, like, you just follow the direction and so. And how that weakens us. And so I was like, definitely we wanted to talk about this because it's just kind of thing that you and I oftentimes laugh about or ask questions about. Like, well, hold on. So after seeing this study, do you think we should be more concerned that like our technology that we use every day that makes our life more convenient or easier is diminishing us as individuals, as people? Yep.
Explain, explain.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: It's funny because I've thought about this for years.
I remember.
So I'm born in 78, so I started driving in, let's say in the mid-90s. And I remember I used to have this book that was like the map book and it was a big thick book and it would have, like, it would have a grid and the different pages were different Streets and all that. And if someone, let's say I had a friend that lived on, you know, 1, 2, 3, XYZ Street. Right.
I would have to look in the back of the book. I'd have to look for the town they were in, then look for XYZ Street. And it would say, go to page 94.7B on the grid.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: It's like a puzzle.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
And then I had to go find the pages that would get me there.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: And it's interesting because I thought about that years. I'm talking over 10 years ago when we started having the GPS and all that.
And that's what. It's funny that this article confirmed kind of my suspicion that I was like, am I going to diminish a bit that part of my mind? And the answer is yes. And I think this is where we can make mistakes. It's interesting we're talking about this on the heels of us doing a topic on memory and the computer, our brain being like a computer.
Because this is another example how it's not right. Because if I could, I mean, save for, let's say, corrosion, like rusting of the server or some of the hardware, if I left my computer off for 10 years, turned it on and tried to go look for a file, I mean, if the computer is working properly, it's going to retrieve it immediately.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: But my brain doesn't work that way.
And I also thought about. Sometimes we use the analogy of the brain being like a muscle, that it needs to be constant. So I'd say in this. I mean, I know the brain isn't a muscle, but in this example or this topic here, it's a little more like a muscle in the sense of atrophy, where if we don't use certain parts of our brain, maybe those neural connections begin to atrophy. And I think that is what happens, you know, like. Yeah, but as you said, so your.
It's funny how my brain tied this in as you just led up to this. And maybe because of the topic we just did, the first thing I thought of is, yeah, this is probably affecting us in the way. This might be another reason why our society feels a little bit frazzled and crazy.
Because I think we are at that point where we have enough technology doing so much for us that we have enough time to spend kind of looking at bs, which could end up being conspiracy theories.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: And not just looking at it also, but ruminating on it, just letting it grind the rumination.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: But I think that, and I've seen this in Other studies, and we've talked about this, even when things like working right, like why communism doesn't work, you don't just give things to people. There's a certain part of our mind that needs to be challenged.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: And that, that, that allows us to feel happy and fulfilled.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: Wow. And I think that that's exactly where I was going. That's, that's good stuff.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: No, and because that's what I'm thinking, like we think of happiness as like the end of something. Right. Like, oh, if I just, if I work hard all these years, I'll retire, I'll be happy or I'm going to buy this, I'll be happy then.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: And yeah, but I think what, you know, those of us trying to live in the moment and I think scientific, the community with all this stuff they can do with the brain research now what we're finding is that happiness is more of a, of a perpetual state. Happiness or misery, let's put it. And I think part of being just generally content as a human being is by having little challenges and completing them, you know, like these little tasks. And I think.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: Well, let me tell you, that's exactly where I was going to go with this. Like, we don't remember phone numbers anymore. We don't.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Calculators help us with everything.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: Also we don't go into grocery stores. We don't really do that anymore.
We don't pick up our food anymore. That can just be brought to your door. All of these things. And yeah, without struggle, our capacity, our ability for satisfaction is diminished. And so not only is it making us lazier because we don't have to do things anymore, it's making us less happy, conceivably. And yeah, I took the same leap that you did. Like, well, hold on, we know. Remember they talked about this in the Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. The book we did where he was talking about how accomplishing things that yeah,
[00:43:00] Speaker B: it's like a hurdle on a day to day basis.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: You get satisfaction out of that. And so yeah, when the GPS just takes the satisfaction of finding a way here or finding a way there or remembering this or remembering that. And yeah, it's like, whoa. Like we are kind of in a sense, I mean this is kind of extreme, but we're kind of digging our own grave, so to speak in a way to be, to be able to get happiness out of the little things day to day in life.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: Yeah. No, and I think, and I think that's where it's actually fascinating. We're having this conversation, because you're right, we've kind of traded in for the ease and simplicity to kind of move in our modern world. We've traded in the actual steps that we did every day as just humans.
That, and I think that's probably what, what it is. Right. We've evolved a certain way, meaning our brains, our neurochemistry have evolved just like we've talked about the fight or flight stuff and all that, have evolved to deal with the world around us, our environment. And I'm sure that one of the evolutionary traits is that these little hurdles on a regular basis keep us in a state of mental normalcy, let's put it that way, because I'm sure that if it wasn't the case, then hunter gatherers and farmers back in the day and all that wouldn't have survived. Right. Yeah, well, but I think that again,
[00:44:16] Speaker A: that there's just a lot of little things, a lot of little accomplishments that weren't heavy lifting, so to speak, but that were small and that gave you a notch in your belt, so to speak, that we've just lost in our day to day lives. And then people are unhappy, you're unhappier and ever. And we, but we never try to make or we never think to make the connection between all of these little problems that we don't solve anymore. And I think the big thing is little problems like we're not talking about, Hugh, like, oh yeah, like we should get rid of. Or we should question whether it was a good idea to have a pulley help us lift a 300 pound rock. Like that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about little things that aren't really like, you're not making your life that much better by, oh, you just want to do this. But remember, we're also wired from an evolutionary standpoint to try to do less work a lot of times. So these options are. They kind of fit with our human nature, so to speak. But there's a trade off, and that's kind of what you come back to a lot of these things, is that there's a trade off that is in play when you get things or you give up things. And we oftentimes, a lot of times with these technological conveniences, don't even consider the idea of there being a trade off.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I know, and I think that because it's an interesting point you make there with regards to the trade off because it, and it's something I try and stay conscious of and I've thought about this over the years that, well, if I've got a calculator doing something or if I have, let's just say I had a dictation machine reading to me. Let's say then that that energy, I, I should, I should probably try and find something else positive for my brain to fill that space that it's not working now hard anymore to figure out what one plus one. And that's what I think is, you know, a lot of people don't think like that and they'll just go down a rabbit hole of something else.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they'll just spend. And spend the extra time on Facebook or on you going down.
Actually, I'll say this, that actually is the excellent way to look at it because like, for example, public transportation could be seen as a convenience that makes it so you don't have to drive or whatever like that. And if you sit there and just scroll your phone, looking at social media, whatever, that's one thing. But if you actually take that time to do work or to meditate or to read, then actually that might be a net positive because you're fulfilling yourself in a different way. You're repurposing the time in another positive direction. So. But that's normally, that's not what we do.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: We could say that about our health too, about mind and body connection. Right. Like we have ways of transportation now that aren't just our legs. So people like you and I take a point and say, okay, I drive around and maybe I do have access to public transportation, but I'll still take 30 minutes a day and make sure I do the exercise that my body might need. You know. And I would say that what we're talking about is maybe the ability to do mental exercises.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: And I'll give you a quick. I know we want to wrap here a quick personal example. It's happened to me just in the last few weeks. So my youngest kid who just turned 10, he noticed something in my clock I have in my bathroom that I have it on the 24 hour time, the military time. And he says, daddy, how come you've got on this? And I think it was like 4:30 in the afternoon. So it said 16:30.
And I just told him that specifically what we're talking about. I said, just because daddy wants to be able to, you know, I want my mind always to just have to do a little bit extra, you know. And I said, even just looking at that clock, I gotta do a quick calculation just to see, okay, 1430, 1630, that's 4:30, you know, like. And I said so that's my little way of just hacking my brain.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Yeah, man, I think it's like, I think that's an excellent point. You know, like keeping our minds engaged as we introduce more and more conveniences that require less, you know, small, again small things, less brain work, I think is something that it's good to be aware of at minimum.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: And so, you know, we may want to slow down this march to having everything solved and easy for us because we may want to recognize that challenging ourselves makes sense. Like parking your car far away from the entrance of Walmart so you can walk a little more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just challenge yourself a bit.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, I think being aware of those, those trade offs though, I think will allow people at minimum being aware of them and then yes, if we can build in, we can build in more productivity or you can say, hey, this one's not worth it. So yeah, I mean it's from that I think we can close this one up. But we appreciate everybody for joining us as, as we work through both of those topics and until next time, I'm James Keys. I'm t.
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