 Welcome, Anna Loha. I am Mark Shklav, the host of FinTech's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going across the sea of current events with my guest, Joshua Michaels. Sometimes the polarizing noise of the world and even our Hawaii seems like waves pounding on the beach, drowning out the voices of those calling out to others. Josh Michaels is an attorney who has been shouting over those waves and get out his message concerning his view of current events in the world. To do this, Josh and his friend Ryan Little co-founded the Blue Hawaii podcast, which Josh says rants about the daily news. Josh has also written articles for various publications concerning many current issues, and he's not shy on social media. Josh wants his voice to be heard and to reach others in the community. And to be clear, all the comments that Josh makes today on this program are his personal views. Josh, welcome. Good to see you. I want to start off before we get into your views. I want to focus a little bit and talk a little bit about you. You're at the beginning of your legal career, having passed the bar in 2015, and you still find time to shout out to others about current controversial issues. And before we discuss your particular views on those issues, I want to ask you, why do you do it? We want more of these to shout out over the waves so others will hear you, especially in these polarized times. Oh, thanks so much for that gracious intro, Mark. It's great to be with you. I like shouting over the waves a lot more than screaming into the void, which is what it feels like sometimes. So on a blanket level, sure, there's a healthy dose, especially with the podcast with my friend Ryan and I, there's a healthy dose of overeducated millennial narcissism that drives a lot of it. And that's probably the social media too as well. But essentially, well, we found Ryan's more of an extrovert. I'm more of an introvert. For him, we need to reach out to build connections with people and help each other understand what's going on. For me, I need somebody to validate sort of like, am I seeing this? Is everybody else seeing this? Are we going crazy? And around the time of the false missile alert, that's when it occurred to us that like, well, as far as out in the world, you know, two random Howley lawyers from Hawaii sharing view, when, if at any time at all, could we be interesting to the outside world? And that's when we decided to take the plunge. As for the writing, that is, you know, as the, as the son of an English teacher, I've always, I've always turned to words to express myself. I never got the STEM gift for understanding how the world works. But for me, rather than, you know, I write, I write these things, I put them out there. I'm not necessarily trying to persuade anybody, but a lot of times that's how I think through issues myself develop, you know, develop the thoughts and sort of put it out there and hopefully get feedback. Good and bad. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of feedback, I mean, is it always positive or is there a negative feedback or both? Oh, sure. It's, it's yeah, a healthy, a healthy, robust mix of both. The, the, I would say the show, the podcast has been on hiatus since, since the turn of the year, but overall, probably I'd say 90% positive of that 90%, 85% was the friends and family, unremittingly positive. I'm not going to tell you anything negative about it, etc. Some positive, you know, the most helpful suggestion we got starting off was, especially for, for people listening in the car with their windows down on busy streets, you may want to start, you know, putting a little bleeper over some of the, some of the rhetoric of the, of the, of the few, you know, quote unquote negative comments beyond, beyond, you know, the, what's left on the internet anonymously describing, you know, opinions about some of our speaking voices or, etc. The constructive, there was a lot of constructive criticism at least. So people, you know, yes, the haters hate as they say, but even the haters, I think, wanted to see us try a little bit harder. So yeah, it's, it's, you take it, and that's, I'm sure you, you, you know, that as part of putting your, putting any opinion out there, especially in nowadays. And well, I guess the other good thing about this is people are talking. Sure. People are communicating with each other. And I think that's important. And so that, that's a byproduct in a way. Maybe it's the goal, but it's also a byproduct of your, of your getting out there and talking. Okay. Now, I want to focus on some of the particular issues that you believe are important to shout about. Sure. You know, you, you have shouted that there is danger in romanticizing history with reference, particular reference to MAGA. And there's also the danger in recency bias. Now I want, you know, what are you talking about? What, what is romanticizing history and recency bias? Explain those. Sure. So there's sort of, there's sort of two sides of a coin in terms of how history, historical memory influences culture, especially our political culture. You know, recency, the, excuse me, the idea of romanticizing history. It's obvious with, you know, the Donald Trump 2016 campaign MAGA. A lot of what Donald Trump did, he made a lot of the things that have been subtext in our politics for a very long time. He made them explicit text. And the, the, the clear romanticizing history, the idea that everything would be fine if we could go back to some imagined time in our history. When, you know, back in the 1950s, let's say everything was better, everything was gravy. And this is, you know, Donald Trump is not a unique phenomenon by any means. Just he's a product of this particular time and these particular moments that we found ourselves in. But a lot of these currents repeat throughout, throughout American history, you know, periods of expansion, liberalization, progressivism are followed by, some would say a backlash, some would, you know, some would say a reclaim, a reclamation of the way things ought to be. Recency bias is the, is the other side of that. Recency bias is the idea. And this is, it goes, this transcends politics and culture. This is, this is human psychology, the focus on our immediate experience, what we know about what is going on and what just happened, what is freshest in our minds, that is most informative to us going forward. So the, this is why, for example, this is, this is what enabled Hillary Clinton to, to rebut, make America great again with America is already great. And sure, in a certain school of thought, recency bias, that, that makes a lot of sense. But that, that did not resonate with nearly as broad spectrum of, of the populace as she would have hoped. And the, the Yale University historian, Timothy Snyder, explains these contrasting systems. On one hand, you've got the pre-2016, the, the Obama, Clinton, West Wing, Aaron Sorkin sort of model, recency bias, where history is linear. This is the, the famous Martin Luther King quote, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. The idea that there are some bumps along the way, but by and large history is constantly a series of us figuring out things, getting better, more and more people entering the marketplace of ideas, entering society, there's only one way to go but up. And the reason that so often, when society hits these breaking points, you know, every, every few generations, great recession, World War II, World War I, the reason that the people on the linear train don't necessarily see that coming is on the other side. And this transcends left-right ideology. This is, this is different people find themselves in different, this is just human, you orient yourself into one of two ways. The other side of that, the, the romanticizing history side, history is not linear. History is a story, a cyclical story of us versus them. And us, we are our people, our glorious history, both suffering, a lot of suffering is great for the narrative, but, but you know, also unredeemed promise. And if we could just get rid of them, if we could just keep them away, not let them into our business, everything will work out. And without history as a context, depending on where you are, Donald Trump, for a lot of people, he's, you know, he's an iconoclastic savior who's going to, you know, throw out the system, you know, the QAnon, he's going to bring the storm. He's going to be like the great redemption that, that free, you know, restores America. For a certain other side, let's say like the, the, you know, not necessarily grounded in history, but maybe a little, a little too much MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, he's, you know, he's basically the reincarnation of Hitler. And the idea that like the, this is, this is human, this is dualistic and this dualistic nature, our dualistic nature in general is exacerbated by this partisanship where it's all or nothing, it's everything is great or everything is terrible. There's no, and the idea of being aware of both of these biases and the goal, hopefully the goal is to try to assess the situation as clearly present situation as clearly as you can, knowing the history that led you there, how you got there. And, and what it means in terms of, you know, history is more than just facts, history is the meaning of like, what does it mean? What does it mean to be here in this moment where we are, rather than what does it mean for ideology? Like, what does it mean for all of us, irrespective of the view you take on it? And how do we figure out how to live together? Yeah, you know, you know, so what I hear you saying is that the danger of these, that neither of these are good on their own. And, and, and they, they create a polarization. And that's what I hear you saying. Some people want to go back in history. And some people say, I know everything's all right, but they're really probably is sounds like a middle ground that should be reality. Is that am I seeing that correctly? Yeah, I think so. I think the danger of any time. And, and again, on totally unconsciously, you know, nobody, nobody looks at situations and thinks themselves, I'm going to impose my ideology onto the situation for a lot of us, depending on, you know, our childhood, our backgrounds, our experience, our conditioning, how we've made our way in the world. A lot of us, most of us actually are just goldfish in a bowl, you know, the goldfish doesn't know what water is. It's just sort of that's the way things are. That's, you know, especially the more and more atomized and fragmented our communities get, and you only know your, your immediate surroundings. And so, and so, and it also sounds like Donald Trump really saw a avenue on this romanticizing history. I mean, that, I mean, he saw that there is a, a group of people in our country that that appeals to that that theory appeals Absolutely. Those buttons, he, you know, agree or disagree about a lot of things, but the man has a talent for identifying an audience's buttons, what buttons to push to invigorate the audience for good or for bad. But, you know, he did not happen in a vacuum. He had plenty of, probably the most, the best example of a model of how this thought, this, this ideology has been harnessed over the past few decades. Rupert Murdoch, his media empire throughout the anglosphere, the UK newspapers, our Fox News, the Australian, the Australian media ecosystem. The, he figured out pretty early on, there was a lot of money to be made stirring up a particular kind of nativist left behind grievance that feels under siege. You know, you know, this is really interesting. And, and it's, now it, it kind of comes together for me now that those are really good points. And I can now see what appeals to people on, on this idea of romanticizing history. And it actually has been taken advantage of and taken advantage really of people too, right? I see. Now, look, we can talk for hours on this topic, but I want to talk about a few more of the things that you've raised that you've shouted about and in our time here, just to cover a few of the ideas because, but that was an important one. That was a good one. Now you've also talked about something that's really interesting to me, and that's right wing populism. You say it's been exported around the world. What are you talking about? Again, tell me, explain that to me, because I do see a lot of oligarchs around the world and haters. And it's coming up in that, you know, I grew up post war in the United States and World War Two and trying to figure out how can this happen? So what are you talking about? Well, exactly like you say, you know, approaching the end of World War Two in the post war era, you know, when you're up in the idea of the old established international world order was left in tatters. It was a conscious and unconscious decision by America to sort of be the world guarantor of security and to uphold what, you know, the quote unquote, post war liberal international order, the idea, you know, without getting too much into this, the idea Western, the Western model of democracy is inevitable. That's going to hold up forever. And this is sort of redoubled upon once the Soviet Union falls. Francis Fukuyama famously declares the end of history. Right wing populism, we've seen this resurgence, you know, not just Trump, even before Trump, the Brexit vote in Britain. We've got cousins, similar around the world, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, Orban in Hungary. The idea is right when right wing populism is, it moves beyond simply conservative rule. You know, we've seen, you know, the George W. Bush administration, for example, the quote unquote neoconservative following in a tradition, still, you know, plenty of violations of international law, international norms, but within a, you know, within a more traditional model of what was acceptable governance of the right wing populist model, we see it's not just that the people, you know, the voters are getting those emphasis on, you know, this is what the people want, et cetera. And that's what enables them to sort of rally around a leader who will say, ah, the elites will never accept you. I am your voice. What the right wing populism really does, it empowers the leader as the sole representative, the true voice of the people. And those people empowered, who are empowering that leader, those are the only true people that matter in the, in the, in the, in the country or in the state or in, you know, the only true patriots, the only real Americans, so to speak. There's that, there's also a misinformation, like you say, like, you know, a lot of oligarchs are involved, a lot of money is moving around in the media. There's a lot of, you know, whether it's the Fox news model here, where for long, you know, where there's a direct feedback loop between the White House and what's going on in Fox friends in the morning. And then when Fox decides, you know, a little too close to reality, they move into Newsmax and like OANN, or whether that's, you know, Sheldon Adelson, who, you know, one of Trump's biggest donors, also explicitly setting up a daily newspaper in Israel, hi, I believe it's, hi, I'm daily day, specifically, you know, for pro BB coverage that gets, you know, and, you know, a free newspaper being disseminated. This ties into a whole other conversation about declining trust in media, but I won't, but yeah, this, this, these, these, all these things come together in this sort of stew of, you know, right-wing populations to the point where they're not all identical, but there's a lot of rhyme, a lot of rhyme in the reasoning and how these, and how these systems come together. And I see there might also be kind of a connection between romanticizing history, and I mean, it's kind of connecting to me a little bit, I think, and the rise of populism, where I hear you saying that, that the leaders take advantage of that in order to gain power. Sure. And, and, and so, why do people accept that? I mean, I guess, I guess, I, all right, I understand you're saying they were romanticizing the history, so people are accepting it because of that. I think that possible, is that, is that, am I on the right track? I mean, these fractures, these, these, you know, these big movements, they don't happen in, in healthy, well-running societies, you know, the, the, it's only in, in the dire, in the direst straits, so to speak, is when these opportunities, you know, is when people will turn to the promise of, the promise of security, the promise of stability. And also, by that same point, and this ties into all sorts of things like QAnon, like trying to get people vaccinated, the idea that like, you can't really convince anybody with facts anymore, because facts, like the intellectual knowing of a fact, you know, approval fact about politics, is not as important to folks. Folks don't want to be actually informed, folks want to feel informed, and even more than wanting to feel informed, people want an ideology, and especially ideology, a coherent way of understanding the world that's tied into community. If you can provide somebody community and meaning, even more than, you know, food, water, shelter, sex, people with meaning and community can do a lot of great things. They can do a lot of terrible things too, depending if you activate those base human instincts, those human emotions, those human needs. And again, when, you know, when, there's a reason these things happen, you know, at particular moments, you know, whether it's financial crisis, some other, you know, enormous political disruption leading to a loss of faith in the established order, it's only that, or those dire circumstances that even make these alternatives credible to the average person. And you say that people are trying to feel basically secure in their community and in their country. And then, and you also talk, you mentioned that it doesn't happen, maybe in a place where they are already in that category where they're feeling healthy. Now, is there a, is there a, is there an example of that or a world leader that is in that situation? I think in terms, in terms of creating a healthy, like, I guess, the opposite of a of this right wing populism. For a long time, you, a lot of people could have pointed to the Scandinavian style democratic socialist welfare states. But even those are starting to, to get a lot of friction in terms of a populist pushback anti-immigrant sentiment rallying of us against them. Probably in terms of lead models of leaders who are willing to sort of try to transcend the political skirmishing that makes, if your only concern is getting re-elected and staying popular and inflaming your base, that's one thing. Politics by media. You could point to Finland, you could point to New Zealand, you could point to, it's really the countries that don't make the news, I imagine, are the ones that we would want to look to for models of stability. Okay. All right. Now, I want to move on now. It's all starting to connect, you know, all these issues. It's funny. You got to be careful, though, because then it, then eventually, it sounds like its own, like, conspiracy level QAnon, like, I'm in front of my whiteboard, like, gesturing frantically. So there's, you know, it's all about, it's all about balanced perspective. Okay. Well, you also shouted out a question. How can we learn from the past and prepare for the future while living in the present? I mean, I think that addresses what you just raised. So what's the answer to that? Is there an answer? I think, you know, unfortunately, as far as, like, big society level changes or big political changes, you know, the political will, the political capital simply isn't there, like, look at the skirmishes over, quote, unquote, critical race theory in classrooms right now, you know, it's the latest iteration of school board teaching, evolution, sex ed, anytime that politics and education mix, you know, especially, especially in the, whether public sphere or private sphere, it's, it's stymie, it does stymie progress. So really, I think it comes down to the, at the individual level, reading, trying to find out as much as you can, doing it like your show, building these connections, building bridges among like-minded people, and hopefully, building enough consensus about among the folks who are not already agitated, the folks who are not, are not fired up, you know, criticism is loud, but, but respect is quiet, as they say. So like, I guess, I guess it's hard to, it's hard to avoid, you know, it seems, it seems like I might, on some level advocating for like, going monastic or going into like a hermitage in the woods, like, no, but like, we still have to engage in society, but we have to do it in a way to sort of transcend the, the, the political media kerfuffle. It's a dead end, I think. Well, I hear you saying this is like an individual personal obligation of everybody. And I, and in order to, and not abandon society, we have to think about it some more ourselves, and make some distinctive choices based on our own thoughts, not just go along with a mob, if you will. It's not, it's not easy. It's, it's not easy at all. Much easier to join the crowd. Yeah. Or to tune out all together. Just to say, a pox on, a pox on everyone's house. Yeah. Is, is there anybody in the world today that is a teacher that is putting forth these ideas out there? Or is, I mean, is this something that we all have to learn on our own? I think, I think a teacher can be wherever, wherever you find knowledge, you know, the saying when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and that can take a lot of different forms. And sometimes it's a, it's a, it's a human source. It's maybe, maybe it's a YouTube video or something on think tech, or maybe it's you encounter a, an old, you know, philosophical text or a spiritual scripture passage that you haven't encountered since you were a kid and it speaks to you. It can be any number of things that we encounter. And I think, you know, different things are going to speak to different people and, and, and that's going to be, I think up to the individual to decide what teachers they want to look for, what they need to be taught more and knowing, knowing where their, where their gaps, their own, their own deficiencies, not deficiencies, that's a little harsh, knowing where one of the hardest things we can do is being, is becoming aware of where we need improvement or where we can improve. Okay. So that is a intellectual consciousness choice. Now we, in a couple of minutes we have left that you've also mentioned, I know you, you like Martin Luther King and you mentioned a quote from him. And one of the quotes that you mentioned is we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Now that is, that, that's not necessarily intellectual. It's, it's almost spiritual or internal. What do, you know, what does that mean to you? And is that really possible? I mean, is that naive? It's absolutely naive. It's, it's perhaps hopelessly naive. But at the end of the day, I mean, you could, one could argue that the, the, the bleakest horrors of the 20th century and some of the bleak ones of the 21st are, were caused by the human attempt to focus purely on intellectual, intellectual improvement or self-improvement or to the point, to the point of fervent purification without any counterbalancing of spirituality, of psychology, of empathy, of the things that make us all so desperately human and ordinary and flawed and in need of community, in need of all these things that politics alone cannot necessarily provide. And yeah, I mean, you know, part of the, part of Dr. King's legacy, you know, when the, I mean, the man, I mean, the man was killed, the man, at the time he was shot, you know, polls had, you know, suburban whites, you know, in a not insignificant amount saying, you know, it's their glad saying, like, that was the best thing for race relations. And the, you know, to the little, it's a little distasteful to use the term whitewashing of that history. But when the only quote being trotted out consistently is like color of skin, not content of character and the idea that like, and that, that, that segue, I don't want to segue us all the way down back into romanticizing history and we're running out of time. But we have to look with, there's, there's something beyond there's, and whether it's, whether it's Dr. King or any of the stories we think we know, there's, there's history beyond that, that we can all look to and be inspired by and learn from. Well, I want to thank you for talking with me today. I've learned a lot and I hear you saying that there's really, we have to somehow combine intellectual and human spirituality together in order to maybe cross the seas together. And I hear that's what you're, I think that's what you're trying to shout out across the waves. And there's, there is noisy waves out there. How hard it could be, right? But thank you, Josh. Good, good to have you. And thank you so much, Mark. It was a real pleasure. Aloha. Take care. Bye-bye.