Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Up next, we discussed Zoran Mandami's win in the New York City primary and the freakout we've seen coming from all angles of people reacting to it.
Welcome to the Call I Got See it podcast. I'm James Keys. I'm here with Tunde Oganlana. And for our call out this week, we discuss the shocker that we saw last week in New York City and more so the reaction to it.
So last week, Zoran Mandami won the New York City mayoral primary, and boy, have some politicians and political observers from all angles lost their minds. Why do you ask? Well, you could say Mandami's win was a surprise. So, you know, like when you have an upset or a surprise, you know, people kind of like, oh, what's going on here? Also, he's a Muslim man, and that has contributed to it. He's a Muslim man, born in Uganda and spent his early years in Uganda and South Africa before coming to the US around when he was seven, I believe. So that's something that would cause people to freak out.
Also, he calls himself a democratic socialist, which in these here United States, that's more than a reason for some people to freak out. So there's maybe many reasons why different people have different reasons for freaking out. But we've seen it and we've seen it from a lot of different angles, which is pretty interesting. So Tunde, your thoughts on this freakout that we've seen and cause this has come from someone in the Democratic Party and also people in the Republican Party. Following this New York City mayoral primary and Mandami's win, Donis went.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: I'm just intrigued that finally a Democrat made headlines like, wow, so this has been pretty quiet from that side of the political aisle in the last six months. So, you know, hey, now everybody's talking about this guy. It's interesting. So I guess. I guess the system's working, right? Hey, and the other thing it made me realize in saying that joke is that, yeah, the system actually worked.
A Democrat who's not part of the establishment and been around for 30 years actually made it through and beat someone else who has that same track record. You mean he's been around for 30 years and he's. And he's part of the elite establishment.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Yeah, the establishment.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Someone. Someone new. Knock them off. And so maybe we are beginning to see maybe some organic change in the Democratic Party for the first time in two generations.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, well, you say that, but the subtext of that is that the Democratic Party in the Last generation at least has done a lot. The establishment party of the Democratic Party has done a lot to keep fresh blood from really taking leadership roles. It's been the same people in the leadership roles and they spent a lot of time keeping other people out of those leadership roles.
That's not a value judgement, that's just observing what's going on. So yeah, to see somebody here beat one of these establishment figures, I mean, it was shocking when Barack Obama took out Hillary Clinton in 2008 and along the same kind of lines. So it doesn't happen very often with this current generation. People in their 80s, 70s, 80s that have just kind of controlled the party for a really long time.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: So hold on, James, that's a great point because if you think about the last 30 years, Barack Obama was one of the few non coming from the establishment that broke through that. And you're right, because that was supposed to be Hillary's time. Yeah, right. And where did the party get itself in trouble is that in 2016 when Obama was finished, the party manipulated the primary in Hillary Clinton's favor because it was her turn. And so the Democratic Party, I find that it's lost a lot of its own integrity from its own behavior in that way.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: That's been its M.O. i mean, and I'm of the mind that they tried to set up Hillary to win in 08, but Obama was such a rock star that overwhelmed it and that actually caused them to be more egregious in 2016. Cuz remember there were some things that came out in 2016 where it was like, oh man, they were really egregious in terms of trying to set this thing up for Hillary and to make sure Bernie didn't, with his upstart popularity, didn't take her out, you know, so it was like, it's just been interesting to observe to see how much effort has been put in place to keep the status quo figures in, you know, the current leadership in place, you know. But yeah, this guy broke through, you know, so yeah, so it was that, you know, like kind of just your, your biggest thing that you took away was just like, oh, wow, somebody actually.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, the takeaway. And that's why my joke at the beginning was, oh, you know, Democrat made the news, you know, like, like, meaning, like, okay, like that's what I'm saying. I was kind of looking like, wow.
I'm more curious as to why is everyone freaking out about this guy. That was my first thing.
Democrats are freaking out and Republicans. Well, this is interesting. Let me go look at this guy.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: That was where I was gonna go. Like, to me, it was like, I wasn't following the New York City mayoral primary. Parent primary.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: But then everybody's like, oh, my God, what happened? It's like, I gotta go check this thing out now.
What happened? And then why are all these different people. I mean, they're freaking out for different reasons, but. Well, I gave some of the reasons, you know, like, whether those are explicit or implicit reasons why people have said that they're freaking out or whatever. But, you know, it's like, it draws him.
From what I understand, he did a great job during the campaign, bringing attention to himself, making people feel invested and involved in what was what in his campaign, which kind of is the point, what you want politicians to do. It shouldn't just be about, I got the biggest. Biggest wallet, I got the biggest bank, I'm gonna outspend you, I win. You know, which is kind of the. From what I understand, the strategy that Cuomo, you know, who was who we defeated, the primary competitor he defeated was Andrew Cuomo, who is, you know, former governor and a disgraced former governor, by the way. But, you know, had all the money. You had all endless money. And, you know, like, but. But. And blanketed the airwaves and did the traditional stuff. But, man, Mom, Donnie was able to get the. Get the energy going and use social media and things like that and actually to. To get attention during the campaign. And then. And. But that was local, you know, like, I'm in South Florida, you know, so that I didn't. That didn't get across my radar. It wasn't until the attention from the outrage and then also the celebration, you know, that it drew more eyeballs, even more eyeballs to it. So I would give him two thumbs up there, like, being able to generate and earn attention, because that's a big part of the political game now. Earn attention, not just buy it during the primary and then actually all the attention now. You know, I think both of those help him out, you know, and show his kind of. That this guy may be a formidable force.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And so there's so many interesting crosscurrents here because, like, you're saying, you cite Andrew Cuomo, and it didn't escape me that this is where the Democratic Party has lost just some of its integrity, I think, with the public. So, number one is, I think looking back now at the last decade, I think hindsight's always 20 20, a bit better. So the mainstream media, remember, was trying to figure out this magical voter who went from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump in 2016, remember?
And they were thinking with the lens.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: If you go back even further, a lot of those voters were Obama in 12, then Sanders, Trump voted for all three of them.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: But the idea is that from the surface looking at it, how could someone support the type of person that Obama was, right then maybe the type of, let's say, economic philosophy of a Bernie Sanders and then switch to Donald Trump? And a lot of the political elites were really stumped with that. And I think if you look back, I think just a lot of the working class voters that the Democrats seem to have lost were just very upset at.
Credit WikiLeaks for the hack and putting it out there in 2016 of how the Democrats handled that primary. And I think if you look at it today with Andrew Cuomo, you know, it doesn't get lost on me that the Democrats position themselves, whether rightly or wrongly, as the defender of rights for people. And one area that they've been very strong about, especially let's say during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings a few years ago, was things like women's rights and women not to be harassed and promoting the MeToo movement, which I'm not opposed to.
So the fact that the party is hand wringing over, like you said, a governor who was shamed out of office in disgrace in 2021 because of his behavior with women and the accusations that were leveled against him that were found to be credible by the attorney general of the state that he was governor in.
Again, it smacks of this like what are the Democrats really about? You know what I mean? Are they about women's rights and protecting women? If so, why are you going to put up a guy that was just four years ago labeled to be a predator and run out of being a governor over a new fresh face. You see what I'm saying? Who maybe people agree with him or not, but he's somebody who put his hat in the ring and he won.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Even whether it was him or someone else though, it could have been somebody else besides Mamdani. It could have been somebody else in the. But yeah, they chose in which what we're saying when we say they talking about the establishment wing of the party, you know, like the, the, the, the who the party is throwing its weight behind to try to, to prop that person up and to make that person win, which happens in primaries often, you know, in, in different parties it happens Democratic Party sometimes, Republican Party sometimes, where there's someone who the elites in that party Try to get behind and push up. And so, yeah, it was like, these guys are getting behind Cuomo. Like, yeah, that's. This wasn't that long ago that this guy.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: There's no other Democrat besides Cuomo that the elites could have said, hey, here's somebody in their 40s or 50s, younger who no one's not well known yet, and we believe that they could be a great, you know, blah, blah, blah.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Well, and that gets to the like. Like, kind of the joke we were talking about before is that the, the. We've seen kind of the. This. The mask has been taken off. You know, just that the. Where the elites and the, The. The people in the Democratic Party at the high end, where they are now is just about trying to keep themselves, whoever these people are and who they were 20 years ago. They just want to keep themselves in power as long as they can. Like, it seems like until they die. Like, they. They don't seem to be willing to.
You still have people in their 80s playing leadership roles on the Democratic side in Congress and so forth. And some of that, I think, is a incentive system that is just wrong in modern politics where seniority is everything. And so you get peed on your head your whole life with people that are more senior to you. And then when you finally get to the top question, of course you never want to let go because it's like, yo, I had to go through crap for 20 years.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: That's not pee, man. It's raining. Come on.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: That's what they think.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: You know, just to finish that thought real quick, James, but let me just finish that, because I think just to finish it, this is where the Democratic Party has sabotaged itself.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Yes, correct.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Because it doesn't like that guys like Mamdani have come up, but they forced the conditions for guys like him to come up because.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Well, but this is what I was trying to say, though, is that I don't. It's not that necessarily. And a lot of times, again, like people I know emotionally, like to find someone and say that person's a bad person or that person's a good person. I tend to want to look more at whether the incentives, because I think people respond to incentives more than anything. There are some bad people, you know, unequivocally, but generally speaking, most people just respond to incentives. And so I think the incentive structure in the power hall, the halls of power of the Democratic Party are delivering this result more than the individual people.
This seniority based, kind of. Your power is based on your seniority does encourage People to quote unquote, put in their time in their 30s and 40s and 50s, and then once they rise to the top to never let go because of all the time they had to put in to get to be able to wield some power. And so this does, I agree with you, reflect the kind of refresh that has probably been due for 20 years in this party. But they're not going to go quietly because again, these establishment people have, they've been the people at the top now. They, they work their whole lives to get there and they're not going to let go. You know, like, it's one of those, you know, like you from my cold dead hands type of thing. Like, they are not going to let go.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: That is, that it's, it's. And just like Charlton Heston was the head of the NRA when he was like 90. Like, he didn't want to let go. And look how that organization.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: That's. That's Charles Schumer right now. That's Nancy now and again.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: But look how the NRA ended up.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: I'm not attacking them personally. I'm saying that I see the incentives that they are. You know, it was Dianne Feinstein. It was like, you see this being a trend in the party where, you know, once you get to the top, you know, like, so, okay, so like, all right, so now we've looked at. So what do we think? What do you think so far of, you know, beyond the freakout? And then obviously, you know, we didn't mention it, but on the right, you know, people freaking out also. Same kind of thing as a Muslim or, you know, we haven't brought this up yet, but the Democratic Socialist thing has people on the Democratic Party and the Republican Party freaking out as well. So what do you make kind of what we see about Mamdani so far as far as, you know, like, not just his acumen, but also kind of his thoughts on governance.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: I mean, he looks like a normal, you know, progressive type of, you know, the way he's trying to title himself Democratic Socialist, I mean, he doesn't seem out of the norm for what I would think someone like that is going to propose. He's proposing, for example, in New York City for them to experiment with, you.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Know.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Publicly funded grocery stores, you know, or publicly owned grocery stores.
You know, that's not a surprise to me that someone who carries that mantle and that title of, of their politics would, would have ideas like that. So again, whether I think it's going to work or not, and all that is besides the point of my answer is just saying that I don't see him being outside the norm of what I'd expect someone who labels them themselves to be. What I find very interesting is the reaction of everyone else. So like you said, there is the xenophobic crowd. They're focused on the fact that he's not American born and that he's Muslim. So that's why you got to hear he's from Uganda and all that kind of stuff.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Right.
There are several groups that have some red.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: No, that's what I'm saying. So that's why to me it's more interesting. Like, okay, so that's like the birther wing of this opposition. Right. Like, all right, you guys don't care about anything, that he's just a non white dude that's not American and he's Muslim and that's going to be your thing. There's others who are, I think, a little bit more legitimately.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: They don't care about anything else, but they're emotionally triggered by that. So it'll override any other care about. It's. That's an emotional kind of. That person can be triggered emotionally with that stuff. And so. And that then will take over their whole mind. Yeah.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: The algorithms will make sure they're misdirected off the scent of whatever else this guy's talking about.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Whatever else he's talking about.
His platform could be to give that person a million dollars and they would never know because it's like all they, all they can see is the red of. Oh, you know, like. And there are other things.
Yeah. Muslim and not US born.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: There's, you know, he's been a bit eloquent. I've been listening to some of his stuff. But, you know, it's delicate topic. The thing about his support for Israel or not. So there is, you know, his, his, that topic has been also been used as another reason for some people, especially in the Jewish community.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: For some people. Yeah.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Who have felt beat up for, especially in the last couple years. So, you know, that's another legitimate area where he's got to address it.
But then you've got, like you're saying, then you've got the people who are scared of what would it mean to have someone with this label. Right. Of democratic socialists in power in a city like New York, which he's not a national figure, he's not the governor of New York, but the mayor of New York has a prominent position that if people see a democratic socialist can be mayor of A big city like New York or Wall street is maybe they can get funny ideas in other big cities in America and this trend could take hold. So that, to me, is like the fear that we saw during the Cold War of the people who are scared that if, you know, if Vietnam becomes communist, it's going to be this domino effect. And then we got to go into Vietnam and stop it. And, you know, and that became a huge disaster. Right.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: So there's.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: That's why, to me, this is very interesting because the fact that we have not seen, again, new blood in the Democratic Party like this, in a. In a win in a way like this, because I think AOC and some of those people, they're in Congress, but they're not. They didn't win.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: They're one of 435. I mean, that's kind of. That's a little different when you're talking about, you know, House of Representative, because House of Representative. And it's meant to be a little bit more like, you can be more outside, out of step in the mainstream and be in the House because these guys.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Mayor of New York's a big deal.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: That's.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: That's Wall Street. That's the center of the world, so to speak.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: I'll say I've had. My reaction has been one of both intrigue and kind of. I don't know if it would be disappointment or, you know, just kind of looking like, oh, man, this, this. He's going to. He's going to learn a tough lesson.
Because I'm intrigued by. I'm always when I hear people identify issues like affordability has been an issue that he's looked at and really drilled down on hard, which I think is a good idea. I think the affordability is an issue that politicians should spend more time on.
And I don't know that we have. I don't know that the solutions that we've always done are the ones that we need to try now. They may be, they may not, but we need to be doing something. And so I'm encouraged that at minimum, he's throwing stuff out and say, hey, we should try this, we should try that. And he's actually said part of, if it doesn't work, we'll just do something else. You know, but the idea of, let's try something right now, the situation is not getting any better. It's getting worse. What we're doing now isn't working as far as making things affordable. And again, what are we doing here? You know, like, are we trying to allow People to flourish or not. You know, so set up a system and again, set up a system to allow people to flourish. Set up, set it up in a way that you can work hard and then you can live a good life. You know, like, to me, the further those two things become apart, the bigger the problem we have from a systemic level. So how do we. How do we turn the knobs of the system to bring it closer to that? So the ideas that he throws out, which, again, I don't necessarily think they're great ideas, but I like that someone's thinking about it and thinking about, okay, well, what can we do here? We're going to freeze the. Or make the metro free, make the public transportation free, or rent freezes and so forth. And it's like, all right, well, you know, I'm sure that has some downstream effects that may not be great, but. But hey, you can try it and if it doesn't work, you can stop it if you're a flexible mind. So the idea we have a flexible mind there. The thing that, but this comes up for me from time to time that always kind of blows my mind is the use of the quote unquote, democratic socialist label. I think that that's the nuttiest thing that somebody could ever do in the United States.
I think that if he wasn't labeling himself that he actually would have less concerns about the other issues that people see him and see different. You know, like if he was a Muslim, but he didn't call himself a democratic socialist, I think he would have less issues. I think that the democratic socialist issue is going to be one that triggers people, and then they'll find these other things that they think other people will be triggered by. And then they say, hey, we got to pile on this guy extra hard on the Muslim thing or extra hard because it's, you know, he, he's, he's protect. He has made very clear he's about protecting the safety of Jewish people. But his views as far as what's going on in Gaza are more in Israel or more complex, you know, so we can. That complexity doesn't play well in sound bites. So I think that everything else he faces is much. Is going to be much sharper because he uses his socialist label. And I think that's just an error. That's a totally. Like, labels don't have to describe what it is that you're doing. I make this point to you all the time. The most radical people in American politics are. Call themselves conservatives, you know, like, so they want to change so much stuff. And they want to do things that we've never seen before. That it's like, we haven't done this stuff in 100 years. And that, that would, that that's not conservative. Doing something you haven't done in 100 years is not conservative. That's not conserving the status quo. That's not move making slow change. And you know, something not make. Not upsetting apple cart too much. You know, that's reactionary at best, you know. And so they call themselves conservatives though, because your label is more, in the United States is more of an identification of, you know, your affiliation. And it's like a gang sign. It's not about describing the nature of your policies. So people call themselves conservatives and are very, you know, very radical. You know, like they want big change and they want it very fast. This guy is actually using a label to say, hey, I'm different than all you people. And it's something that you may not be that comfortable with. And so I think, I think that's gonna come back to bite him. If he called himself, hey, I'm a New Deal Democrat, I think he would have a much better effect. Cause then he's actually tapping into something that some people have a positive kind of affinity for. At least some, not everybody. But now he's tapping into something that most people just based on the name, the actual text of it are like, oh, who's this guy? And it already creates a recoil.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So there you're going into really, I would say your world of trial lawyer world. Because for a non lawyer like me, when I was a kid, I'm talking like teenager, early 20s, you know, you're a little more naive about the world. I used to think actually lawyers were about, you know, telling the truth and arguing facts. Right.
It wasn't till I was older that I learned that. No, the goal is just to win the argument, you know, and it, and, and so it's like, who's got to.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Get a bad lawyer in that sense? But the goal is to present the facts in a favorable way. So to your point, it's the win the argument. But you're supposed to still be, you know, limited to the facts. But go ahead.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Well, see, Teddy, that's, that's a problem when I bring up a lawyer, that he's got to defend his profession. So. But you get what I'm saying.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: I'm saying don't speak in absolutes. That's all I would say. You wouldn't want to be the type of Entity that speaks in absolutes.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Yes, you're right. I can't be a Sith. I forgot to be a Jedi. So, all right, you got me back to Anakin from deathbed.
So let me be polite to the legal profession and get off you guys. But now on a serious note, so you're right, the joke I was going to make was that because it's about the marketing of it.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Yeah. The, the.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Clearly the Democrats don't understand the idea of marketing and the idea of human kind of like the psychology of certain words and symbols and signs of what makes, what sticks in culturally in people's heads. And it's a great point you make about those.
You know, the opponents of people like this guy Mamdani are smart enough to call themselves conservative no matter what they do. Yeah, right. It's, it's. I wouldn't say it's conservative to use the Marines in Los Angeles in 2025, but that was done.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: They were deployed into an American city. And that's one thing. I wrote down my notes while you were talking that it's interesting because America is so interesting as a country because we're so conditioned by our oligarch elites, and I hate to say it like that, and how, you know, their, their power through the media and all that kind of stuff, because, you know, we've been conditioned to believe that someone like George Soros is so evil as a billionaire guy and that funded, you know, left wing ideas and projects and things like that. But yet no one really recognizes that the right wing billionaire has been doing the same thing and a lot more of them.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: It's like 20 of them for every George Soros.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Exactly. It's like 20 for every one Soros.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: It's amazing.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: And that's what I got. I started writing down some notes while you're talking. I was like, so we're not allowed to explore things like universal health care or can a city like New York with 18 million people or whatever afford to have maybe five grocery stores that are publicly owned and all that? We're not allowed to.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Even when that happens. Yeah.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: You can't even experiment.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Try it out. Just try it out. We can't explore that. But I wrote down we've been asked to try privatizing Social Security.
I know the public rejected that under George W. Bush when he proposed it, but we have allowed corporations to invest unlimitedly in campaigns. I don't think that's worked out too well for the public, but that's continuing.
I mentioned the military and American Streaks We've been asked to overlook the emoluments clause of the Constitution. And we got a president who got a $400 million plane and $2 billion invested in his meme coin and things that again, I would assume that that could influence somebody's decision making when they're now going forward and making decisions about those who gave him gifts. But you know, I've been asked to accept that and all the cuts from Doge that were not part of the conversation in Congress, debated by political officials who represent constituents who were voted into office by the American public. None of that. I was asked to just accept all that.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: And I guess I had to try these things. We've been asked to try a, try a presidential office that's not restrained and checked by Congress and increasingly it's not checked by the courts either. Like, we've been asked to try a lot of things.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Let's give one of your favorites though. We keep being asked to try these tax cuts along with increased spending. Right. We'll spend an extra higher debt, $100 billion in the military budget this year to take it over a trillion dollars. So again, I can get off this high horse now. But that's my point is that, and that really comes back to us, James, because I know for, and I'm sorry, I'm just going to go on a quick rant here because now I'm fired up.
The article that you are going to put in the show notes that we are citing here is from the Washington examiner, which is a quote unquote conservative think tank and publication. They spend the bulk of the article complaining about woke professors at colleges that socially, you know, public education, socialist, all this stuff as to why young people in Gen Z and some of the millennials are into socialism and they're down on, you know, capitalism and certain things more so than in prior generations. I don't think it's a majority yet, but it's definitely more.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: So why are they into all these. Well, but it's kind of like why are young people not reflexively rejecting this stuff, you know, like the rest of us smart people do. Yeah.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: And so, and so he gets spends the entire article, you know, with all this misdirection and why, you know, we should be upset at Haitians who eat your pets and trans people and all this stuff. And then I'm going to quote and read it from the last part of his article. So the last paragraph, quote. Although public education contributes to their socialist leanings, what millennials and Gen Z identify as broken generational Compact also plays a role. The younger generation has been clobbered by student loans, Social Security system that will be bankrupt by the time they are old enough to colle, an unaffordable housing market and job insecurity. Without a stake in the capitalist system, homeownership, a stable job, a secure family structure, the younger generations are finding it harder to accumulate wealth and are turning against the free enterprise system they think is rigged against them. End quote. So really, after an entire article of beating up and misdirecting, looking at strawman, he actually identifies what the issue is. And then when I'm reading it, I'm thinking, well, I don't think trans people, Haitians who eat other people's pets, post doctors who do post birth abortion, immigrants or anybody in that category can affect the influence of private equity firms that buy up homes in the last 15 years to make it unaffordable, or who, you know, the banking system that has been given out private loans to students so they can go to school at inflated prices because universities in the United States have turned into quasi hedge funds. You know, those are all things that again, you know, I didn't know that it was all that wokeism that caused all that stuff. And just like we saw in the 30s, James, what's happened is young people are flirting with new ideas because they have not been satisfied by the way that us Gen X baby boomers, the older generations gave them our capitalism. Right? We gave them, that's what I'm saying. We grant them a broken, yeah, we gave them a broken free market system. And now I'm going to hand it to you because it's one of your favorite things. What did FDR say he was going to save the capitalists from themselves.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: From themselves. That was the way he sold a New Deal to the capitalists at the time because they weren't happy about it at the time when he was putting on 93% tax rates and sharing all this wealth amongst the population. They're like, what do you mean? He's like, I'm saving you guys from yourself. But no, this is, yeah, I, when I initially sent this to you, that would, that part, that would, that you quoted was the part I couldn't believe was in the article. I was like, because you just pass that acknowledgment again. I'm an attorney, so I, I'm familiar with persuasive writing. So the persuasive part of the, the piece was all that other stuff. Oh, this is why, you know, these young people are stupid. Basically. And that's why they, they don't understand this, they don't understand that, or they're misdirected by this, or the people that are teaching them are, you know, having these agendas. And this is why they, they are open to voting for somebody like this. And, you know, it was like, okay, so that's that person's point. It's lacks context, it lacks perspective, all that, but it's a persuasive piece. They're not, they're not offering to say that they're going to give you the whole perspective, but then they stick that paragraph in and then just let it sit. It. What. Normally, if you're going to do a persuasive piece and you want to say what the other side would say, you would then explain why that is wrong. But this article didn't explain why that was wrong. It just said it and then just moved on. It was like, okay, well, so all of the reasons of them being stupid or being taught by people with agendas, all that stuff is fine and good. But the, that little piece you read would explain very much easily why a rational young person would look at the system and say, hold up, why would I want to sign up for more of that? You know, like, why we definitely should try something else the way this is working, you know, and so, I mean, because again, remember, for the millennials and stuff like that, some of the first things they remember about capitalism is the socialism of it. And it wasn't called socialism, but that's what it was. When the bankers broke the economy, did we just do a free market solution with them? Did we say, hey, you know what?
Tough stuff, guy. You know, you, you, you, you broke it. You're going to have to, to, to be subject to the free market and capitalism, and we'll see what happens to you. Good luck, Chuck. No, we took government money, borrowed government money and said, hey, guys, we'll make it right for you. Let's do this socialist bailout. But again, it wasn't sold like that. And that gets into these labels that I'm talking about, which again, why is Mom Donnie.
Donnie. Why is Mom Donnie using this label? Because he can do all the same stuff without the label. But to me, it's one of these conversations I think you really put, made a good point.
I'm not a person that. I'm a person that believes that these economic structures, these economic setups, capitalism and so forth are the kinds of frameworks that you use as tools. So what we're told basically, right, the Only thing we're allowed to talk about is the one tool. And it has to be done in a way that prioritizes the people who have already are already the winners. You know, like, so that's kind of. And we're not allowed to have conversations outside of that. And so yes, if you're not in that winner's circle and you're not easily distracted by all these, by, by religion or racial minorities, if you're not easily. Some people are easily distracted by that stuff, so they can immediately just go off and you know, take, take that off ramp and then they're, they're not going to keep.
Well, why is this, like this in the system? Why is the, what system rigged against me? Why is the system rigged for the people who have already won? Those people are easily distracted. If you're not easily distracted by that stuff, then you will continue to ask questions not about whether. Well, if, if you're in the right mental space. The question isn't capitalism or the, the point isn't that capitalism sucks. The qu. The point is, is like, okay, well, are we using capitalism in the right way? Are we, are we using other tools like, like our socialist roads and, and our socialist police departments and our socialist fire departments? Are we using other tools where they may be more appropriate and so forth to again bring about a flourishing population and a flourishing society? Because that's what we're supposed to be trying to do here. So.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, hold on, let me, let me just jump on something you said because you said something very important, James, because I think that it's for older people. Like, like I'm 47 now. I'm not a young kid, I'm not a gen zer. But you said something that for the first time I could see a connection if I was younger.
So. Because in my financial planning practice, I have helped already some younger doctors, people younger than me, maybe someone who's 40 years old today.
But I know a young lady who, she's in New York. $550,000 in medical, in student loans. Sorry.
So she's looking at a 12 year payment plan of about 53,5400amonth. Right.
And she's making about 300,000 a year. So to have over 60,000 out of that go out pre tax, that's kind of demoralizing, right?
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: And I never thought of it until you said something because I would think that coming out of, let's say, school, maybe undergrad, someone like her in 2008, you're right, is watching socialism for corporate America. Yeah, let's bail out the banks with your tax dollars. Right. All you Americans, we're telling you that, you know, no one's smart enough to fix this except the guys that broke it. Right. So we got to give them all the money. Right. What a great con game that is. That's a whole nother conversation.
But then think about it. Fast forward 14 years later from after 2008. By 2022, we're having a national conversation about student loans. And there's $1 trillion at the time, apparently, of combined student loan debt that we're saying, okay, if you take this and help these students, it actually is a shot in the arm for the economy because someone like the young lady I was helping out, instead of paying $60,000 a year to a bank for 12 years, that $60,000 might go other places in the economy. The velocity of money, she might home so you can buy a nice car, blah, blah, blah.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: So we as Americans. But what happened is the, the, the, the narrative that was told at the time in 2022 was different from the narrative in 2008. In 2008, it was, you have to do this because the system's going to collapse if you don't.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: In 2008, it was class warfare.
Why, why should we bail out those uppity students?
Right. They decided they got themselves into debt. Da, da, da, da, da. So a lot of it is, you know, again, how we as the public, like, allow ourselves to be manipulated.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, manipulated for the benefit of the people who already have all the. Yeah. For control the resources. Yeah. I mean, for manipulating us is kind of the point.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: So, but think about it.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: We.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: We get manipulated for the banking sector. We got manipulated and given them all our tax money, and then we got manipulated into not having the students bailed out so that they can continue to pay the banks 9 to 13% for the private loans.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Because they're not paying that much on the.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Well, I mean, that's kind of like. That's kind of like organized crime, though, in the sense that, hey, you want to better yourself? You know, like, you want to better yourself, man? You want to go to college, better yourself? Well, here. I want 10% of your income for.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: It's a loan shark. Yeah, it is.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Like, yo, like, my whole setup is predatory, you know, like, hey, if you don't want to better yourself, then don't worry about it. You don't have to take my money.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: I just convinced myself, I'm going to go buy a bunch of bank Stocks now, all this money. They got a legal. They got a legal hammer.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: I want to end with this. I want to end with this because there is actually like, and I am critical of the use of the socialist, Democratic socialist term because I don't think that recognizes the way the game is played in America today. But where I will acknowledge is that or the point of it that I really acknowledge and I understand it and I get it. What the democratic label, what democratic socialist label is, is a way to indicate that they are not down with us. Like, yo, you guys call yourself capitalism capitalists. Well, I see the way you guys operate, whatever you are. I'm the opposite of that. You see what I'm saying? So I think that's what's happening here. And I'm not mad at it, you know, because to me, like I said again, that that's a rational reaction to, like the quote, the paragraph that you quoted from the conservative piece that you quote, like that irrational reaction to someone seeing that would be to say, all right, well, all these people that are in charge now, I'm going to be exactly unlike them, you know, So I think that's what we're seeing happen here. But again, I just think that caps your ability to succeed because you still got to play the game like you can. You can play the game. And I'm talking about the politic game in order to get the power. And because again, I can't get past this part, the most radical people, the people who want to make this most sudden and abrupt change in our society right now call themselves conservatives. That's like an oxymoron. But they get away with it. Why? Because, no, there's no label police.
There's nobody saying, oh, actually, you can't use that label. People might talk about it, but it's still the label that sinks in. So I caution people, you know, like, I can applaud the rationality of saying, hey, the way that things are going right now, I think we should do it differently. So I'm going to call myself something different than the way the people in power are doing it. I can appreciate that. But it's. That's a bargain. That's probably not going to get you ultimately where you want to get to, or it's going to put a cap on how successful you can be. So, you know, so, yeah, I mean, I got my popcorn and I'm ready to continue to watch how this unfolds, man. So, you know, it's going to be. It has been and it's going to continue to be interesting. So, you know, we'll see how it plays out in this.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: It'll be a show regardless. Yes.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So now we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode. On this call out call like I see a podcast again. I'm James Keys.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: I'm Tunbena.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: All right. And check out our earlier show as well, and we'll talk soon.
