Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the extreme reactions we saw following Zoran Mamdani's election as NYC mayor. Both on the side of people that were just freaking out and also on the side where people were very excited and hopeful for the future.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I see it Podcast. Podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man who from time to time will drop something in that's so clever, it'll make him say, ogonlana Tunde, you ready to break him off something today?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yes, sir. I'll leave it at that. Let's go.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: All right, now before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe like the show on YouTube or your podcast app. Doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on November 11, 2025. And Tunde, I suppose that the sky is officially falling now because last week, Democratic socialists Zoran Mamdani won the New York City mayor election.
Since then, you know, we've seen, you know, that night, you know, when he gave his acceptance victory speech and you know, it was like WWE style. He's in there and the people are charged up and happy. And we've also seen, you know, in many media spaces and all over, you know, a lot of people freaking out. You know, we've seen steady stream of rich people, politicians on both sides of the aisle, media elites. I mean, just, just telling us that the sky has fallen and this is all going to be so terrible and we need to all be so afraid.
You know, that's really the message from these elites is that regular Americans is going to mess everything up, you know, and that all these things that have been put in place to make regular Americans so prosperous these days, I suppose, you know, he's going to just mess all that stuff up and so that we need to be afraid of that. So, Tunde, what do you make? Let's start on the freakout side, you know, with this, this nationwide freakout that we've seen. Again, this is people from most. A lot of these people aren't even in New York, you know, but some of them are, you know, but this freakout that we've seen over the election of Mamdani and you know, like, also look at, you know, I want you. I want to ask you about his proposed policies as well. Like, are they really that scary or is there something else going on?
[00:02:15] Speaker B: So that's a lot. So let me start here.
This whole experience makes me realize that politics is not local because as we discuss it, you and I are sitting Here in South Florida, we're actually geographically much closer to Havana, Cuba than we are to New York City, but yet we are inundated with news about the mayor of New York. So, yeah, that's why I start with that joke that politics isn't local, because there used to be a saying that all politics is local.
So I tend to know what's going on more in New York City's electoral race than I do in the city of Fort Lauderdale, which I live in, or what's going on in Miami, you know, is very populated. So and, and probably affects my day to day life much more than what's going on in Miami. So I just say that for us here to kind of set the stage and for the audience that I think that we all have to be reminded that this is. I mean, I guess this is my answer. James. This is hysteria. I think, obviously way more hysteria from people that are concerned and nervous about whatever this election means. And also that's a minority of hysteria from people that support it. But at the end of the day, it is what it is. I think what we've seen is representative government. Right. It seems like the citizens of New York, which he represents, wanted him to be mayor after he had a primary challenger who's the former governor of New York, whose father was the mayor of New York City 30, 40, or let's say 40 years ago, and, and who spent $400 million against Mr. Mamdani and still couldn't earn the respect to New York City voters.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Cuomo. Cuomo lost to him twice because he lost him in the primary and then he lost him again in the general. So let me comment on the hysteria thing real quick before I let you go, because I think the hysteria thing was a really good point, but there's an added piece to that that's very important, and that is that in many respects it's this hysteria over things that are remote from you. It's not hysteria over something that's happening down the street from you or something that's going to affect you. So to connect the two points that you made, we're seeing, you're talking. We're seeing a lot of hysteria and people being so upset and so angry or afraid about this thing that's happening somewhere else, 500, 1000, 1500 miles away. And, you know, it's being made to consume them. And I think that's a creation of the media, basically. One to get their attention. That, that gets their attention. Your, your attention is monetized. So if this is something that can be used to make you afraid. Then it's, it's very profitable for the media in order to put it in your face all the time. Even though, as you said, it doesn't affect your day to day life at all. And then, you know, like, so you look at that level of hysteria, some of that. I think a lot of that is generated and I want to get to the underlying root of it. But I wanted you to continue on, you know, with your, with your thought.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And so no, and I think, you know, that's a good point you make about the media. That's why, that's why I make that joke at the beginning that, that's what I'm saying.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: I was connecting those two things you said bas.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: It's, it's, it's that we, we are all now, you know, deciding who should be mayor of a city that we don't live in.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: And all that kind of stuff.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: And, or more we're all very, very, very, very passionately concerned about it. Like why are we, why do we care so much about what, what's going on, you know, with the mayor of New York, like generally why, why anyone who's not in New York City or maybe in a suburb of New York City, why are they, why is that taking up any space in your emotional.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: It's all about tribalism and it's all about divide and conquer, which we times of dividing the American electorate so that they're not united to kind of see what the real threats are that they all complain about. Right. Like higher prices and all these things. And, and we don't seem to really get people in power who address those things directly. And whenever someone does like Mr. Madani in a way that's different, then they are seen as something to be feared and something other. And I think Mr. Mamdani represents a lot in that case.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: He calls himself a socialist, a democratic socialist. So we've got the marketing slogan that is unpopular in America that just, just whether people who believe in socialism get it or not, that term in the United States isn't, isn't going to fly. So, so, you know, that's one thing. The second thing is he's born in Uganda, he's Muslim, he's of Indian descent from India. You know, like he, there's a lot of other ism that, you know, is great for American kind of hysteria and division when it comes to the media and how to fracture the American people. And so I think it all, it all comes into, you know, everything that we are Seeing in terms of this hysteria.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think that one thing, another thing I piggyback on what you said is kind of, you know, the distraction element. I don't want to go down that path. But the thing actually that stands out to me is when you look at the two candidates like, so the surprising candidate, the. The out of the ordinary candidate was Mamdani. The quote unquote, normal candidate was Cuomo. And Cuomo is a disgraced former governor. You know, like this guy is not like, the fact that he was the white knight to a lot of these people that are freaking out is mind boggling to me. Like, let's. So, so if our politician is corrupt, that's the norm. If our politician has done all this crazy stuff or been accused of all this crazy stuff to the women in this campaign and stuff like that. Oh, yeah, we're comfortable with that. That makes us feel safe and normal, you know, but if a guy is talking about, is giving voice to the anxieties and the fears of people and an approach, trying, trying a different approach, whether you agree right now with what it is that he's saying he wants to do, you have to acknowledge that one, he is acknowledging a problem that many Americans feel me and many Americans see, and that he's doing something other than recycling the same old solutions that have failed over and over again over the past few decades. He's doing something saying, let's try something different. At its surface, you can stop there and say, okay, that's not crazy. That sounds pretty normal. If you have a problem, it's been getting worse for decades, and one person selling you the same old solutions and another person say, hey, let's try something different.
If you just put it, if you stop it there, it's obvious you go for the person to say, let's try something different. So, but this freakout is like, hey, we should have elected the disgraced guy, the guy that got ran out of the governor's office. Then we'd all feel cool, we'd all feel safe, you know, so it really does kind of illustrate where we are in our politics that, you know, the guy who has been accused and allow these alleged problems and stuff like that, that's the guy that many people feel comfortable with. And the guy that's saying, hey, we have some problems here that aren't being solved by the existing approach, let's try some different stuff. That's the guy that everybody's freaking out about, you know, or not everybody, but a lot of people are freaking out about and to the voters of New York, to their credit, it's like, hey, let's not beat our head on the same wall again. Let's not look for the comfort of the familiar, but the allegedly corrupt and, you know, let's do something. Let's try something new. And so, like, on one hand, I understand it, because trying something new, like many people in life, you know, like, make the same mistakes over and over again. Because trying something new a lot of times is something to be afraid of for a lot of people. So I get it on just that level.
But the fact that, like, if it was Mamdani against another fresh face person who, you know, was just kind of, maybe even if it was a fresh face person who was recycling the same old ideas, I would understand kind of the freak out and saying, oh, we should have gone with the guy who was just more conventional. More than.
Say it like, the freakout is basically saying we should have went with this disgraced guy over the new guy. You know, it is like, whatever the disgraced guy was, we want that. So that to me was just like, we're in a bad spot when the safe pick, according to a lot of these elites, is the disgraced guy. You know, like, that just blew my mind. And so I did. I know you. You touched on this a little bit, but I wanted to hit it very directly.
I wanted to ask you, you know, your thoughts on Mamdani being able to have so much success running as a democratic socialist, like, socialist is in the name. And you're like, do you think that is something where. Because many people around the country are, like, freaking out because he calls himself a socialist, like, and that I've heard that many times. I know you've heard he's a socialist. He's called himself a socialist. And, you know, like, that labels, you know, you and I have certain feeling, you know, feelings about how these labels are used nowadays. But nonetheless, does New York. Do you think, you know, like, they have something for socialism maybe? Like, maybe they're not as fearful of the socialism tag as a lot of us are.
Or maybe Mamdani is such a magnetic guy that, you know, he overcame that. Like, he actually may have done better if he didn't use the socialist tag. Or, you know, maybe, you know, this is something where maybe the system's out of whack and people are starting to look around for alternate ideas. And the idea of a socialist may not be as toxic to many people as it has been maybe throughout our lives. So, I mean, what do you think? You Know, on. On the fact that a guy who calls himself a Democratic socialist was able to win.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: I don't think much about the label and the title in that sense.
I think that there's a lot of other factors that played into him when. And like I said, it seems to be a magnetic guy.
I think that he did the exact same thing that Donald Trump did in 2016, which is using the new technology to leapfrog the existing hierarchy and structure within his own party.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: And money. And the money kind of, you know, the fix money. Yeah, that's a good point. Correct.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: So Donald Trump used Twitter at the time, and you're right, he ran a campaign on a shoestring budget in comparison to the other nominees in 2016 who had the more traditional campaign apparatus where they are fundraising and doing those kind of things through the old means, you know, the regular old means of political class.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: So, like, instead of buying ads, he would do things on Twitter that would get news coverage and then that news coverage. He didn't pay for that, but that was. That served as ads for him, basically. And Mandani did the same thing with all the viral stuff. Exactly. With TikTok.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Exactly. So. So the point is. Yes, I think that's why, James, I think, you know, I started thinking about it, preparing today and being like, yeah, everybody is.
People don't see the same patterns when it comes to those kind of similarities, even between two very different people. Right. Like, Madani and Trump are very opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of who they are as people, but yet they use the exact same tactics to leapfrog the apparatus of the major political party. Right. And so I think that's a big part of it, just going directly to people. I think that the American electorate has been looking for change for a long time now, starting in 08 with Obama. Eight years later, Trump represented a lot of change.
Biden represented change from Trump, and now Trump was changed from where people felt the country was going under Biden.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: So we don't want to change every time there's an election.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: But here's the thing.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: But, James, think about it. 08 being an anomaly because of the worst financial collapse since 1929. But starting in 2012 or 16, with the advent of the money in politics, this is why, going back to what you said, this is very important, James, what we just saw from this mayoral race, from the Democratic Party as a DNC and a party establishment, speaks to what you said about elites.
Cuomo acknowledged that he has the Same donors as Donald Trump in this race. That's probably one of the things that hurt him, the fact he opened his mouth and said that in front of New Yorkers. And the point you made is very clear.
He was run out of town as the governor of New York four years ago in 2021 for sexual harassment of women.
So what is the Democratic Party telling its, its base? Like, are they about protecting women, which they spend a lot of time publicly, you know, marketing, or are they going to be about protecting money or perceived protecting money by electing in this guy back?
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Yeah, but this guy's the safe guy. He was the safe.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
And then, and then think about this. For a party that has made its case that they don't like Donald Trump, we watch in public the Trump administration dangle an ambassadorship to the country of Saudi Arabia for the current Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, if he did not run again, so that he would step down to clear the way for Andrew Cuomo. So what it appears to me to Democratic voters in New York would be that the Trump administration, along with Mario Cuomo and Eric Adams, both who are seen as not the best Democratic cleanest politicians in New York, are colluding to maintain a certain level of power for elite donors and influence and pushing out the guy that's talking about affordability. So what it tells me is the Democratic Party has lost its base in terms of labor, working class, and it's also losses based in terms of protecting women. At least what it says it was about.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: What you're saying, though, it's not that the party has lost. That remains the party's base to some degree. But the people who are making decisions for the party and the direction of the party have lost that like they are. There's a disconnect basically between the party elites and the rest of the party, where the party elites look like they just want to be Republican light or Republican nice. And then you have this, this group of people in the party that are saying, no, no, we want to try to make the system work better for people. And I think that's actually, I mean, I think you raised a good point as far as how Mamdani got his messaging out and how he made himself able to compete and beat people with much larger budgets than he did. But I think, I think that there are two things. One, I think that where he really was able to connect with people is that the things he talked about were things that did affect their day to day life. And so to me, it was encouraging to me that people will still respond to things that, you know, the kitchen table issues, you know, affordability, you know, hey, let's have a little bit better of a life, you know, like, not saying we need to give everything to everybody all the time, but the way things are being run right now, it makes it overly difficult for you to live your life. Let's see if we can do things to lessen the burden a little bit, you know. And so I think that him talking to those concerns and presenting ideas, new ideas again, whether or not those ideas are good ideas, whether those ideas would work, but just presenting, not saying, hey, let's just keep doing what we're doing. Hey, I'll give you a tax credit, like, but presenting an idea, you know, like thinking outside of the box. I'm happy that that was rewarded, and I think that's helpful that he's speaking to those concerns. On the flip side, I think that him using the socialist term was a blunder. Like, now, you know, and I've said this before, I'm going to lay it out again. I think that the labels people use in politics are only gang signs, basically. They're only signifiers of kind of what team you're on or, you know, they're there to elicit an emotional response to people. That's it. The labels are not descriptive of what you want to do. My example of this, the best example, I think, is the fact that the people in the United States who call themselves conservatives are radical. They want to change everything. They want to change everything very fast. That's not a conservative ethos. Conservative ethos is preserve the status quo. Any kind of change moves very slowly because you, you have to be skeptical of big changes because big changes can create, you know, unintended consequences, and we want to avoid that and so forth. That's a conservative ethos. The people who call themselves conservatives here want to change things quickly. They want to say, hey, let's just put tariffs on things all the time, you know, or let's, you know, let's. We're not happy about an election. Let's, you know, rush the Capitol. That's not a. Even if you're not happy about an election, if you're a conservative, you wouldn't rush the Capitol. You would, you know, step by step, procedurally try to unwind things and then have a report or a lawsuit few years later or something like that. Like, so, you know, Merrick Garland is a conservative, so to speak, and the way he approached his attorney general job. So the fact that the, but the wording conservative Makes people feel comforted. It's like, okay, we use conservative to make you feel like we're okay, we're with you, you know. And so I think that the idea of Mamdani using the term socialist to describe himself and is only. It's kind of like a thumb in the eye of people, because that's a word that people have a feeling about, a certain feeling about. Even though there's so much socialism built into the American system right now. You know, like a long time ago, FDR incorporated elements of socialism into the American system to, quote, unquote, save capitalism. Much to the chagrin if you learn your history, much to the chagrin of the real socialists that were like, oh, capitalism was about to fail. You just saved it with some of our ideas.
Now we're going to be on the sideline forever. But using the word socialist to describe yourself, even if that you think that you're describing the nature of your approach or your policies, all you're doing is angering and making people afraid. People who think that these are the people who don't think about that these terms are descriptive, but just use them as an indicator of emotion. And so that, to me, I think, is in the same way that Bernie does it. I think it's unforced error on his part. He could say all the same policies. If he called himself a New Deal Democrat, he would be a much. He'd be viewed much differently. And I mean, so I think that on, on both hands, I'm happy that he's reaching out to people's kind of real concerns as opposed to just, oh, trans people, this and that, like all that kind of reaching out to people's fears. But on the other hand, I think that the use of the label is.
It pulls him in the wrong direction.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: So, yeah, you know, it's interesting because here's the thing, James, because you bring up a good point about, you know, this labels and then how people get their mind gets distracted off of what they originally were concerned about. And so remember the why? I like to ask the question, why? Why did he. Why was he popular? Why this?
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Why that?
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Well, the why was, like you said, affordability. Yeah, right. And so instead of people focusing on even the Democrats, Right. That don't like that he won, they should say, well, why did he want, oh, affordability. And then talk about the young people that can't afford to live in their own city in New York. Right. And many young people feel that way in a lot of cities. I mean, because South Florida is very unaffordable for young people coming up now. So the bottom line is, is that instead of looking at the why, which would then force us to have to look at other things and even. Let me, let me say this. We can even disagree about what those things are. I have some friends that would tell you that the reason why the housing prices are highest because, you know, we have millions of illegal people hoarding in houses and that's driving the price up. Other friends of mine will say, oh, it's all the evil private equity guys on Wall street like Blackstone buying up all these houses. So we, we know that that's politics just for.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: For completeness sake. And other people will say, because you're not building enough houses, you know, in these areas where.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. That's the point is there's a lot of reasons to.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Your point.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's. That was my point is that's the politics of it. Right. Part of the arguing and debating as to what is the cause. Let's do the research, let's investigate. But as my point is saying it's interesting because Mamtadi is such an other meaning.
He's from Uganda, sorry, born in Uganda, but Indian descent. And it's kind of like Barack Hussein Obama. Right. He can be made to be this other. And it's kind of murky and where's he from? And then people can fill in those voids with the xenophobia. And then you've got the issues that have been fomented about, well, how does he feel about Israel? Is it just the Gaza war? Does he actually anti Semitic? And all these other things that people try and throw in there as part of the conversation. And my thing is this, James, because I started thinking about things I know about other elected officials around the country that I think, actually I feel more hysterical about than whether a guy wants to try having a grocery store or two that's owned by the city. I would be like an example would be that in Oklahoma and Texas they have the Ten Commandments now in public schools.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: I believe that's a violation of the First Amendment.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: It's a violation of the Constitution. Let me tell you something, that the government doesn't own a grocery store. One grocery store in a city is not part of the Constitution.
But. Yeah. So your point about the priorities of those is very well taken. Go ahead. Yeah.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Or how about we live in the state of Florida where the government has, or the governor has made it illegal to draw rainbows on state property.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: You know, so.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: So now a rainbow is My enemy. Right. It's like, what I'm saying is we could look at elected officials all over the place and start picking at what they're doing and a lot of it is ham fisted and a waste of time. Right. I could also say that I'm offended that in my state two years ago, the governor blamed the discussion of black people's contribution to the American history and story. Right. That's to me a little bit more offensive. And I got to now teach my kids stuff on my own because they can't go talk about it in school.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: So concerned about that than the people in New York getting a free bus ride.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So, so, yeah, you're right. My fellow Floridians are more concerned about. Yeah, exactly. People in New York getting a free bus ride. That has nothing to do with us than what our kids get taught in school or don't get taught. All the books that have been banned since 2022. So that's what I'm saying. It's, you know, people want to be distracted.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: I think that that stuff, a lot of that is, you know, like, and we talked about that Righteous Mind book and the elephant and the writer and so forth. And so someone or not afraid of them or are welcoming to that person, they look for reasons to like them. And when they, when they are afraid of someone or they dislike someone more at a core level, they look for reasons to dislike them. And so I think a lot of that stuff with Mamdani, like if he was over here talking a pro business, you know, hey, let's just make the rich get richer, poor people, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll help you out where we can, but otherwise you're on your own. Then a lot of Americans would be looking for reasons to like him. They would be looking for reasons to say, oh yeah, this guy's okay. Let me figure out that, let me fill in the blanks on why he's okay, you know, oh, he's hard working and you know, yada, yada, yada. I went to this school. And so the, the general orientation when you turn people, when you use descriptions of yourself that generally will orient people against you, then of course they're going to look around and try to find as many reasons that they wouldn't like you anyway as possible to convince themselves that that's just on the merit and not because they just did they have a bad feeling about you. And using the term socialist in the United States will give a lot of people a bad feeling. About you. It's just. That's just the way it goes. And so, again, I just think that smart people need to start recognizing that the labels that people use are not descriptive. They're not descriptive labels. They are signs of their gang signs. That's it. You know, so you call yourself a socialist, you don't have to do that. No matter what your policies are. You call yourself a conservative. Apparently you can be radical, and you don't have to be a conservative, you know, so you better use those. Those. Those labels wisely, is kind of my point. And so I want to wrap us up, but there's one other thing I wanted to get to with this, which I think is very important, and that is the enthusiasm, the level of enthusiasm which we saw for Mondani, which I think is a good thing. I mean, people should be happy. If more people in a city or more voters in a city vote for someone and that person wins, you should be happy. Like, that's kind of the point of the election.
But I wonder, and I want to talk to you about this, I wonder if that puts him in a tough spot because he sells a campaign on affordability. But this guy's not a king, you know, So a lot of what he wants to do, he needs to be able to work with the council on. He needs to be able to work with the state government on, you know, maybe the federal government on. And there are a lot of people in all of those places that want him to fail. So are we concerned or should we be concerned? Not you and I, but should. Should he be concerned? Should the people in New York be concerned that he's kind of set up to over promise and under deliver with these things and leading to a disappointment. And I say that in the sense that we actually saw this in 08 with Obama and he got people so charged up about the possibilities of things, then he gets bogged down for the first few years and it's like he were all of the hope was kind of. And he was able to win again because he was a magnetic personality also. But like, you saw the kind of air deflate from his coalition, like, oh, this is going to be the same old, same old. He's not going to make, you know, change our lives substantially to make it better. So, you know, like, what do you think about, you know, like Mandani now going into this. This land of compromise and the land of rule and law? If you. If you are in rule of law, as long as you don't try to get around that, like Some people do. Then they're going to have to end up being compromised. There's going to be all this other stuff. Progress is slow. So is he setting up his people for disappointment, man?
[00:26:38] Speaker B: I don't think he personally is. I think he probably whatever he got in his head, he wants to go do. I think you're right though. The system of checks and balances and the fact that we are a representative government, democracy, republic, whatever you want to call it. But the fact that you're. What you said is correct. He's not a king, he's not a dictator. He's not President United States. He's not in a level of power that he can, you know, I don't think we should.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Taxes by himself, you know, I'm not willing to put president of the United States with king and dictator yet. I'm still hoping that we don't. Haven't gone there yet, but go ahead. I'm sorry.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Well, we kind of have after last year's Supreme Court ruling.
If a man is immune from the law while he's in power.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: So. So, so anyway, I know that's not art.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. This side. Yeah.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: But, but no but just the idea, I think, but that's my point of saying that that's why I wouldn't be hysterical about any of it.
But I do think that yes, there's going to be people disappointed because they think that he's going to come in and. And break the oligarchy of New York City, which ain't gonna happen, and that all the hedge fund billionaires are gonna move out and leave and that everybody's gonna be some utopia for people that think that that would be a utopia. And I think that the people that are so scared that he is gonna become this socialist do to make everything free, they're wrong too. And he's not going to do all that. And he's probably just going to be somewhere in the middle and disappoint a bunch of people. And he's also going to be a target of a lot of attacks, especially early on, as those who are scared of him wait to see how much he scares them. And I think we see this a lot, James, in American politics. And I don't know if it's the hyper partisanship or the media or the siloing of it or maybe it's all of it. I'm not sure. Maybe chicken of the egg at this point which one came from first. But what I mean, James, is think about even this current presidential administration. There's a lot of Americans that have this fantastical belief that by, by this administration coming into power, it would usher in whatever they think the past of America was. Maybe some are extremists thinking that it's, you know, segregation and kind of the laws change to support white supremacy. That's not gonna happen.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Right. So now you've pointed out to me though, remember, like people thought that there was Madden inflation was magically gonna go away, you know, and prices were just gonna come down.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not gonna happen.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Or that the swamp would be drained or that we'd find the Epstein files. Right. Or when it was Obama, that somehow we'd have a new FDR and a new deal and the 99 percenters in Occupy Wall street would actually benefit from having a Democrat that's, that's, you know, progressive. None of that happened. Because why? Because the real power is in the money, you know, at the top. And until we deal with that like it was dealt during the first gilded age and the famous guys we like to talk about in both Teddy Roosevelt and then, and then Franklin Roosevelt and really like you said at the beginning, having a system that puts the guardrails on capitalism, when those guardrails have been taken off over several decades recently and capitalism has gone a little bit amok. Right. And has caused some imbalances. Where last week, Friday, I'm seeing headlines that we're going into a weekend that potentially 40 million Americans may lose food assistance at the same time. I'm looking headlines that one human being just negotiated the world's first one trillion dollar pay package. I'm not here to criticize any of it. I'm just saying it's an observation that this is where we're at as a society. Society. And these are choices we're going to make as voters.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: And everybody's afraid of Donnie, as that happens.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, not.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Not the Kyle guy who's making.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: I was going to say, James, hold on.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: The guy that gave us two Z Kyles on the inauguration night is going to be worth a trillion dollars. But, but don't be scared of him.
So, you know, I mean, the guy.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: That'S going to give people free bus rides, that's the be afraid of the.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Socialist who's going to give people free bus rides.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: So until we don't change that dynamic of who is our boogeyman, I don't see how we can expect anything different. And people got to stop complaining. And just then, well, I mean, it.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Has to get worse, basically. It has to keep getting worse. And I mean, obviously that's the risk. As things get worse and the wealth class gets more entrenched, then they'll start being more extreme in terms of their. What they do in order to keep power. You know, troops might be involved in all this other stuff because people will get angrier and then potentially start electing more mom Donnies to say, hey, we got to. This thing is out of balance. It's out of whack in terms of how the capitalist system work. And, you know, like, you and I both, I mean, I know like, are not down on capitalism, but I think if you understand the way historically it's proven to work, capitalism will eat markets, Capitalism will eat a lot of things if it's allowed to run amok. It has to be constrained to some degree. It's a great fuel. It's a, it's great engine. You know, you, you fuel it up and it can go, but if you don't restrain it some, then you end up with one rich person and everybody else has nothing to like. That's just the end game. Because the way as you win, you buy up competitors and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, this is why we have antitrust.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Because actually the game of Monopoly, like.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: For real, if you don't have the guardrails and things like that in place, things we've already learned in society in the 30s, 20s, 30s, 40s, but, you know, we're conveniently forgotten and taken apart, you know, starting with the 80s. And so we end up back in the same kind of.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: You know what's interesting, man, think about. It's the. What we talk about, the man with the trillion dollar pay package. I just find it fascinating that we are. And I don't need to name names. The audience can all fill in names. But there's so many foreigners who've immigrated to our country and made vast sums of money off of the old system. Right. And now that they're in power, they want to now dismantle it for the rest of us Americans. I just, you know, and I'm not even.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Once they won.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: They want to be America first up in this piece.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Yeah. No, no, I mean, that's, that's again, another one of these slogans that people, some people think it means what it says, but it actually doesn't. It's just meant to evoke a certain feeling in certain people so that they'll look the other way or whatever. But to me, I think for Momdani I mean, I think he is.
Anytime you sell change, you have to then either deliver change and. Or be so magnetic that people are willing to overlook. Be so magnetic and then make people feel good about what's going on enough that they'll overlook the fact that their lives haven't changed that much. And so there is a dance, basically, that has to be done. I think he should. He does need to try to at least do some things, whatever's in his power or whatever. He can negotiate compromise. Coming in, talking big is helpful for a subsequent negotiation. If he's going to come in saying, I'm going to do this, this, this, this, and this. If he can get two of those done through compromise, then, hey, he's winning, you know, because he had none of them done beforehand. So I think the big talk can be helpful if it's used to force concessions into compromise. So I think he needs to accomplish something. But I also think, and this is where a lot of times I see politicians, especially executive politicians, miss the boat on, is that he also is going to have to continue to try to make people feel better about what's going on, make people buy into what's going on and what he's doing and so forth. He seems to have the personality and the approach to be able to do that. But I think it's very important, like, if you just disappear now and you're not connected to the people anymore, you're not actively tending to try to make them feel better about what's going on, then you're going to lose them and then you're going to. It's going to be a hard fall because their hopes were so high. The higher your hopes are, the lower they can drop once you lose them. So, I mean, I think he's able to do it. I'm happy that you have somebody who's actually going to try to make people's lives better. You know, the contrast, I would say, and I'll finish up after this, is that a lot of times you see politicians in the United States that try to make their constituents feel better by actually making other people's lives worse. And that's. That's been proven effective in the United States. So, you know, over the years and presently, like, hey, I'm going to make these other people's lives crap, and then I'll make you feel better that way. And talk. I'll show you. I'll take cameras with me and stuff, like when I go and, and try to make these people feel like crap. And so at least in with the mom Donnie situation, it's. It's encouraging that he's saying, I'm gonna try to make your lives feel better by trying to make the system more fair.
And that is that. That's much better than, I'm gonna try to make your lives better by trying to make these other people feel like crap or go, let me go step on these other people so that you could feel better. So it's better than that alternative, and we'll see how it plays out. But it's definitely a tightrope that he has to walk because the people's hopes are so high that he's rolling or that are rolling with him. So anything before we close?
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Yeah, man. That division of making other Americans feel good by stepping on others is what's going to allow me to take great advantage of bonus depreciation for more tax cuts.
And I'm going to buy a new S class and fully deduct it because people want to be distracted and be told that someone else is coming in to replace them or to take their job or whatever. And so that way I can ride the coattails of the billionaire class that gets the tax cuts, even though I'm not a billionaire. I'll play the game. And that's exactly what I'm going to keep doing until people want to figure it out. So that'll be my America first rank to finish this discussion.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Well, I mean, if you see the game that's being played, you know, like, nobody's. That's it. Man of poverty here, you know, like. So that's the game.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: That's my nihilism.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Yeah. You can try to make people a little wiser, but, yeah, nobody's asking you to think about poverty here.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: I can't. I gotta use my brain for something positive and to, like, do calculations and keep myself busy. So it might as well be working as tax code then. You know, watching this disaster we call American kind of culture and politics in public, so.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Well, it's messy, man. It's always going to be messy.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. But I think we do like the concept. I said that we live closer to Havana than New York. I didn't think about that until the show. That's kind of cool.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: So. But yeah, we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I said, subscribe to the podcast, Rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: I'm too Derek.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk.
