 Hello, Bacchia. How are you doing today? Thank you so much for having me. I'm great. How are you, Chris? I am amazing. I was just, I just discovered who you were like a week ago, and I shot an email. You sent me the book. I binged it in like two days. So we're recording this months before it comes out. But but yeah, this is this is exciting. So I can't wait to talk to you about your your book. So real quick, the first thing I like to do is ask, what inspired you to write this book? Like I'm always curious because it takes a lot of work to sit down and write a book. So what's the book about? And why did you feel a need to write it? Okay, so my answer to this is a little depressing. This was not the book I wanted to write. I wanted to write a different book. I had been doing a lot of reporting in the south during the Trump administration. And what I found there really surprised me as a good liberal lefty socialist, which is that a lot more unites us as Americans than divides us. And I find that out. And I wanted to write a book called More Perfect Union about how Americans for the first time in our history are more united about the major most important issues upon which this nation was founded than ever before. And Chris, I could not sell that book. I couldn't get anybody to publish it. You have the proposal and everything. I was all I did all this reporting. I was so excited about this idea. I thought, Oh, my God, everybody needs to know this message. And I couldn't get anybody to to buy it. And so finally, like I was sort of meeting with editors and saying, you know, like, what doesn't work about this for for you? And one editor, a really kind editor said to me, Well, why don't we know that? Like, why are we so convinced that the opposite is true? Discovered is the truth. And she was like, you should write that book. And I think that's the book that I wrote, which is my attempt to understand why this myth of polarization is so powerful, like why the media is so entrenched in this polarization narrative, given that I don't think it's accurate. Although, of course, a lot of us who follow the media, we sort of tend to become more polarized, given what we're reading there. So I wrote that book. So that's what the book is about. It's about why Americans can't see the progress we've made on so many issues, so many of the most important issues. We're so convinced that we're sort of mired in our worst aspects, as opposed to the truth, which is that we are flourishing into our best selves. So that's the book I wrote. That's, you know, bad news, how woke media is undermining democracy. Yeah, yeah. And so you've been you've been in the the business and you're a journalist and stuff like that. So, you know, one thing I love about the book is like, you, you lay out the history. And I'm going to tell you this is not just because you're a guest on my podcast, but usually like when when I start reading about history, I'm just like, just get it over with. But you talk about just like the start of like newspapers and Pulitzer and his vision and philosophy and stuff. And I'm not going to spoil it. But you did that very well. I was like, Oh, this is actually interesting. So, so well, well done there. So I think the reason it works is because I became a little bit obsessed with like, I wanted to convey the sights and smells of 19th century New York. And I got a little bit obsessed with the smells like I write a lot about what New York smelled like I think in that first chapter. And I think there's something about that that is like, like I was obsessed with what happens to excrement. And so there's a lot about that because it's very relevant to like the lives of working class people. So that was sort of that was very fun to cover. Yeah, it was interesting. I learned a ton. And I loved it too, because I was able to see how how media has kind of changed because I'm so I'm 36 years old just had my birthday a couple months ago. And honestly, I didn't get into politics or news until 2016, when Trump got elected, I was just like, what's going on? Like what? Like I clearly I'm missing something. So I started trying to educate myself and then, you know, learning about all this. And, you know, your book is the first one where I saw like, you you focus it on media and journalism and how it's changed over time. So do you feel like that is the primary issue? Like there's a ton of factors, right? But do you feel that media is the main driving force and how things have changed? The argument I make in my book is that we are obsessed with race and a racial divide as a way of hiding, papering over the true divide in America, which is class based. To the extent that we cannot talk about class, I think that that is one of the biggest problems in America is that we are is that 90% of the population has no representation in government or in the media, the working class and the middle class has been totally abandoned by the powerful. And the powerful now includes educated liberals who have sort of a real elite in America. And to the extent that the media has played a role in that, I argue they played a very big role in that in using a woke culture to hide over class issues. To the extent that that is that I'm correct about that, I think that is a really big problem. Like, to me, the real problem is that, you know, 90% of Americans are downwardly mobile. Like it's a problem that, you know, 40% of Baltimore children in public school can't read. Like, like, that's, that's what keeps me up at night is those children who we have basically abandoned to this, you know, horrible fate while we all succeed. And but the thing that I sort of point out in the book is that the reason that keeps happening is because liberals have somehow managed to convince themselves that they're pushing a moral crusade while doing that, like while hiding the true class problems in America. So I would say, yeah, I think those are really big problems. Are they the biggest problem? I'm not sure. I mean, I think like there are bit, you know, like, like, for example, the genocide of the Uyghurs is probably like a much bigger problem on a global level. Yeah. Even like the fact that we won't do anything about that because we're so heavily invested economically in China, like I would say, like on a moral level, that may rate higher. I'm like bad at this. But like so, but so sometimes I think you spend so much time writing about the media. Is it really that important? Which is exactly the question you're asking me, like, really, is that really the biggest problem in America? But I think the extent to which a tiny elite has allowed itself to get drunk on its own virtues and thereby perpetuate inequality, I'm very angry about that. And so I wanted to I wanted to do something about that. Yeah, it's crazy. Something I've realized within myself, like as you're talking like, I start to get heated and bubbled up. And I think that's one of the reasons I couldn't put down your book, because it's stuff that I've noticed. And I haven't seen anybody talking about this, right? And what's nuts, like you mentioned, like you're a good little socialist, and I wasn't even aware, like I'm big Bernie fan supporter, you know, all that, let's give Medicare to everybody. But my girlfriend's currently getting her master's and she's gonna be drowning in student, you know, so like all these things, right? But, but yeah, this this classified and, you know, aside from, you know, the racial conversation, there's a lot of left versus right. And I forgot where I heard it, but they were talking about like, nobody's talking about the top first the bottom, right? And I guess I guess something I would love to ask you to is like, and we were discussing the amazing Megan Dom before we hopped on. But like, I was talking with her about this, like, is it weird in this current climate, like being a liberal and then like, talking about the liberal elites, because it's almost like a right wing talking point. So isn't it kind of weird to do that? Do you feel like, as soon as you use certain words like that, just people just tune you out, they're like, Oh, she's probably just some right wing lunatic or something crazy like that. Um, I don't mind being a right wing socialist, like I have you know, somebody calling me what I mean, like I have, I have more in common with, I feel sometimes that I have more in common with a Republican working class Latino in Florida who voted for $1 minimum wage, then I do with someone saying defund the police who doesn't care about working class neighborhoods where people of color are paying the price for that nonsense. So I don't care. I mean, I really don't care what people call me I care about. And I, I'm very much into this realignment thing. Like, like, to me, working class people tend to be more conservative for a host of socioeconomic reasons. And that's a kind of like, I feel like that's a very much like scales falling from your eyes. Like as soon as you see that, I don't know why so few people see this. But like, I remember the first person I remember talking about is Chris Arnaudy, who like the Rebbe, you know, like he's really, to me, it's like, you know, I think if Jesus existed today, he would be Chris Arnaudy, you know, author of the book Dignity, everybody should buy it. But yeah, you mentioned it a few times. It's on my list. Yeah, I think, you know, so working class people tend to be more conservative. And so an agenda that is geared towards the dignity of the working class, which to me, like the stability of, of our democracy depends upon that because, you know, depends upon sharing power. Please forgive me. I love it. She's just like, she's so cute. And I'm just powerless over her. She rules the house and she goes where she wants. So I'm really sorry about that. I can't do anything about it. Sorry. Oh, yeah. So, so, so to me, it's like, I want to be, I want to be the advocate of the working class. So if that means like, to me, that means bringing conservative voices into the public square. I don't have a lot of those conservative views. But I don't care if you want to put me in. Sure, I'll put me on that side, you know what I mean? I'll be on that side. It's so funny, because it comes up a lot like in Jewish issues where like, you know, like, if you're a Jewish lefty, right? You know, your instinct is to be like, well, I'm not like the bad Jews who support this or who support that. And I remember the day I woke up and was like, I don't put me with the bad Jews, like I will be with the bad. I don't agree with them. But I'm defending the bad Jews, because like when you start putting people in good and bad categories, like that's it. Like, and the people who think they're in charge of deciding who's good and who's bad, who's conservative, who's liberal, I'm not interested in their admiration. I'm interested in representing the people who I consider to be disempowered and disenfranchised. And that in America happens to be the working class right now. So a lot of them are conservative, not all of them, you know, it's like. Yeah, it's interesting too, because like at the time of recording this has been a interesting way, like I've been covering social issues such as unemployment and, you know, the the screwed up college admissions system. I talked with Dan Golden and and so many things. But, you know, when it when it comes to this stuff, and we're talking about like, I don't know, the class divide, it's it seems like it's getting worse. But the people with the voices and that's kind of what you talk about in the book is the liberal elites are kind of, you know, moving ahead and they have the voice and everything like that. And it's interesting because I don't know, it seems like not that many. Do you think that people don't recognize it intentionally or like we're in like willful ignorance? Like when I read your book, when I was reading the book, I'm like, I'm like, how come nobody's talking about this? Like, I was like, I thought it was just crazy for a while. So what do you think that that is? That's I think I have, I put out a proposal, I have a proposal in the book as to why it is, but I am not 100% sure I'm right. I'll tell you why, because my proposal is an analysis that's based on a kind of false consciousness, which is exactly what I call them out for. I can't stand when people are like, oh, working class people vote against their interest, like they have false consciousness, you know, they don't understand the truth about themselves. I hate that analysis. But then yet sometimes I turn around and do the same. My analysis of liberal elites is very much like that they don't understand what they're doing. So I have like, I have my own, like, I try to like, I'm trying to think my way through that, like, so it's some people have said to me, no, that's the weakest part of the book. I enjoyed it. Exactly. I was like trying to come up with a hypothesis for how it is that liberals can simultaneously be perpetuating a class and income inequality while doing it under the guise of thinking of themselves as the heroes. And like, I'm very open to all of the explanations for that. My personal explanation is that they are very entrenched in meritocracy and meritocracy is on the one hand, like this belief that liberals have, which is that they're they're good fortune, their success is based on their intelligence, their talents, which makes you think that it's earned, right? But that is an inherently unequal, like unequal proposition, because like the idea that, for example, we should be going into low income neighborhoods and plucking out the most brilliant kids, like, you know, the the the would be Einstein. But what about everybody else? So like, of course, brilliant children from poor communities must have a pathway to success. But the idea is then like the idea that liberals have gotten kind of very addicted to is that, like, the meritocracy will raise up the deserving, will raise up the smart, will raise up the talented. And that raising up is is, you know, there's been a funnel has to be like, you know, squeezed out. And that squeezing of the middle class, it has made liberals much more financially secure than they were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, like in our knowledge economy now, people who can hang on to these like, you know, can make it in these, you know, highly credentialed professions, they're going to be doing really, really well, as opposed to like, you know, because of that squeezing, right? Now, my husband is a libertarian. So he totally disagrees with me about this. He totally he hate. He's like, every time I say the word meritocracy, he's like, that's not what meritocracy is. How does he explain meritocracy? Meritocracy means the best doctor is the one who's going to be operating on you and you get the choice. You want the worst doctor, you want the worst dentist, you want the worst accountant, you want everyone get the he's like, no, it just means that like, you know, society rewards a certain kind of thing and that that should be. So we get into this a lot, we fight about this a lot, you know, but but this is so so my this is how I see it, which is that like if you and and here's the other thing is like in trying to have compassion for that point of view for that liberal elite point of view, trying to see it the way they see it. I think once you have children, like the idea that your children would be less successful than you, which is what millennials are facing now because of these, it's horrifying. So they will do anything to make sure that their children succeed and they don't understand that like they're playing into this very system that means that only a few can succeed. So it's kind of like a chicken and an egg, right? Because of that squeeze, fewer and fewer children can make it, right? And which means each parent has to try and that much harder, right? Which means that if they become the one who say, you know what, like, I'm not going to support this whole like nonsense private school, Harvard, whatever, my kid's going to go to state school and they're going to be fine. Well, how do you know they're going to be fine, right? Like given the direction that America is going in, which is like really towards an oligarchy. So I think that that really fuels it as well. But there's also like there's this kind of smug, like self satisfaction that you see that's like really been mainstreamed by a certain kind of online digital media that I'm sure offers you as much as it bothers you. And I do the book is very much about how that has influenced this whole discourse. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to I want to talk to you about I have a note right here. It literally says Vox appealing to the smug. So we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But but yeah, I am just I'm a huge psychology nerd and I'm fascinated by human behavior. And when looking at it, you know, I think about like cognitive dissonance and I've had psychologists on the podcast who have written books and on these topics. Like, you know, I love reading books about self deception. And there's so many things. And last year, I really got into this rabbit hole of books about the myth of meritocracy. Like one of my favorite books and we're trying to get them on the podcast when we can figure out our schedules, but Robert Frank's book, Success and Luck, right. And and I'm sitting there. I'm like, yeah, so, you know, I'm a recovering drug addict, right? Thousands of people are dying all the time. And when I got sober and I stayed sober, I'm like, I put in the work, I did this data, data, data, right. And when I was able to step back and look at it like there were so many things outside of my control. For one, my mom was seven years sober when I got sober, right? So she helped me get sober. So not everybody has that, right? I didn't have health insurance, so I couldn't go to treatment or anything like that. But my mom, since I was dying, offered to pay for my sober living, which helped me get sober. Not everybody has that. So these are just some examples when I sat back, I'm like, oh, there were things completely out of my control that gave me a leg up. But I wanted to believe like this is all me. This is my hard work. I was doing this and I didn't pick up a drug one day at a time and all these things, right? But looking at it, there's so many things outside of our control. And you talk about this in the book, like this kind of pathway. And so my son's 12 years old, right? I live here in Las Vegas. And it blows my mind because the research is there, right? Better schools are in better neighborhoods that influences house prices. So housing is more expensive. So if you want your kid to go to a good school and have a better opportunity, right? Like for the best kid to come out of one of those schools is an anomaly. But then they're not their parents and their family aren't able to pay for the same S.A.T. tutors, right? I had I had an India kundu on here the other day and we were talking about how think about some kid growing up in like Detroit or South Central LA? He's not going to be able to go to, you know, get a Harvard scholarship for sailing. You know what I mean? So there's so many things. So like, yeah, if your husband ever wants to chat, we can have a conversation about the very pregnancy thing. There's so many things that are outside people's control. But can you kind of really bothers me about it is like a lot of these things are embarrassing to liberals to talk about. And they would rather those children like fail than say things that are embarrassing. And I just I just woke up one day and was like, I'm not willing to. I don't care if the price is being called names like on social media. I'm no longer willing to not talk about that. Of course, yeah. And I can't remember if I if I mentioned that to you, but I was I was canceled in 2019 on my YouTube channel. And that's why I love talking with people like you and Megan and so many others because I need some of that bravery because I've been scared shitless, you know, just having some of these conversations. But I know I understand that backlash. But like at the end of the day, too, it's like, well, what are my values? What do I think is right? What do I what do I want to see happen? And we're not going to get to any solutions if nobody's identifying those problems. You know what I mean? Is that kind of how you're seeing it? 100% Yeah. So can you kind of explain like you outlined this in the book just chef kiss phenomenally, the kind of past like, OK, let's let's just say Washington Post, New York Times, 20 something early 30 year old journalists. What did their life look like from birth to this job? Can you kind of can you kind of lay that out for everybody out there? So first of all, it's very important that there are exceptions to this rule. OK, I'm not like, you know, people will be like, what about this one? What about that one? Like, yes, there are always like exceptional people who make it through. But so what people don't understand, I think is that journalism used to be a working class trade. It was a trade, you know, like like something like only a third of journalists in 1930 had a college education. Yeah, I didn't know that until I read your book. Right, it seems so crazy to us now. But journalists used to come for so there was a lot of journalists didn't finish high school. Like they it was it was a working class trade that you would pick up while doing it while going out into the world and trying to understand it, talking to people, trying to mass information. Now that started to change over the course of the 20th century because there was a status revolution in the trade of journalism in the profession of journalism. It had to do with a number of factors. Like, for example, TV showed up in 1964. That was the first year that most Americans were getting their information, their news from TV. So what that meant was that newspapers, they were not as fast and not as immediate. They didn't have, you know, they couldn't show you like moving pictures or whatever, right? Like they had to have a value add beyond that, right? So what they started to do is they started to be more interpretive, right? They started to try to interpret the news more. They became more analytic and less descriptive, which meant that you needed people who could really write. So at that point already, there started to be a shift in, you know, how many people had a college education. They also started to cater more to an elite audience. They started to abandon the working class neighborhoods. That they had previously been in. There was always kind of like racism in where they would, you know, where circulation was. But they had like a strong working class base. They abandoned them. They started covering labor and work, the workplace through a lens of like an upper middle class person and an office job as opposed to like labor unions, for example. And why is that? You're discussing the book, but can you let everybody know why, why do they start catering to that crowd? All right, so the dichotomy that existed in the business end of journalism from the 19th century, you've got a Pulitzer, right? So for example, Pulitzer, the guy before him who really started it was this guy, Benjamin Day. They had this like insight. So when Benjamin Day in 1833, he worked for a newspaper. And at the time, the newspapers only cater to elites. They cater to business elites and they cater to political elites. And they cost a lot of money for the average person. You couldn't buy them in the street. You had to go to the office and they really discouraged that. They wanted you to buy a yearly subscription which cost $10, okay? So now bear in mind at the time, like a domestic servant made $5 a month, right? Just not spend two months of her salary on a subscription to a newspaper written by people who have no idea that she exists. That Benjamin Day showed up and he was like, man, there are so many poor people. So many laborers and they have nothing to read but he knew that they could read because he lived in a poor neighborhood. And America was the first country in the world where like it was the average person could read. Literacy was always very, very high here. So he, and they were reading stuff like there would be pamphlets everywhere in the marketplaces, you know, with like adventure stories and gallows stories and romances and erotica, right? And religious tracks. So he saw these people reading and he's like, why is there no newspaper catering to them? So he invented the penny press. He created a newspaper for the working class by working class reporters and he charged a penny a day, which was, you know, as much as an Apple costs, you know? Like, and what I write is like to me, what he was trying to do was he was sort of conferring a dignity on these people. He was saying to them, I only have two pennies to your name right now, but I have something that's gonna be worth one of them. I'm gonna make it worth that one penny. You know, he saw them as consumers and like there's a real dignity to that, right? And so of course, what he wrote about reflected their concerns, their needs. He wrote a lot about crime because crime is local news if you're poor, right? He covered crime, he covered strikes. He ran, you know, manifestos in full. Like it was obviously for them and by them and about them. And they were, he became super rich. Pulitzer, same thing, next generation. He became super rich off of catering to working class people, poor people, creating a paper that would interest them, that would be for them. And because circulation was so high because there's always so many poor and working class people, they did really well. Now, at the same time, another publication emerged out of a kind of contrary point of view. So Pulitzer and Day were like, we're gonna have this model of inclusion. Like everybody's gonna show up and read this paper because there's gonna be something for everyone. This other journalist, this guy, Henry Jarvis Davis. He came and he said, you know what? I can't compete with them in numbers, right? But if I can convince advertisers that my clientele is upscale, I can charge more for ads. Why? Well, think about it, okay? If you have an ad for, let's say, a $10,000 watch, right? And your readership reflects, let's say, America today, right? So there's 1% who could easily afford it, 10% who could maybe afford it for a birthday once every two years or something like that. And 90% who can't even dream, don't even know watches exist that cost $10,000. Your ad, right? If your readership looks like America, is really catering to like 100 people are gonna read it, but really the market is only for 10 of them. But if you have a publication that signals through its content, through its tone, through its circulation, that 90% of the readers are in that top 10% bracket, right, that everyone who's gonna see this is in the market for this watch, that ad becomes much more valuable and you can charge a lot more for it. The paper that figured that out, Henry Raymond's paper was The New York Times. And so they were sort of built from the beginning on this sort of model of exclusion, on this model of like, we're gonna signal who we're for, we're for the upper crust, we're for the, not only the upper crust, but the aspirational elite, the educated aspirational elite. And that's really how the time sort of came up alongside the penny press, really as a counter-revolution to the penny press. And the thing that happened in America throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s, so that was an era of like the post-war era was one in which there was actually a lot of social mobility, a lot of working class jobs were really good, there was a lot of, the pay would increase like exponentially and how much the workers made relative to the CEOs. There was not that, obviously there was a difference, but nothing like today. What happened in the 70s was, all of that started to change. And I argue that a lot of that happened because most of the publications in America started following the New York Times model, started catering to this ever higher, more elite readership, trying to get those ads. And as a result, they abandoned the cause of the working class. And so in the 70s and 80s, the politicians in both parties, by the way, just followed suit. They were like, nobody's gonna care if we offshore all these jobs, right? Who's gonna write about that? No one's writing about working class life anymore. And so everyone sort of leaned into that model of like trying to get that same, cater to that same educated elite. And what happened with digital journalism was that just like, they just amp that up like times a million. Like you thought that the internet would have been this great democratizing force, but it's really been the opposite. It's just been like leaning into the most extreme, tiny micro populations of every corner. Yeah, and that perfectly goes back to what we're talking about. Who are the journalists now, right? They're these college educated and you talk about in the book, like there's a few like top tier schools that a lot of these journalists are recruited from, right? And it's bonkers. So I'm gonna tell you about this fun game that my girlfriend and I play, all right? So when we see somebody successful, whatever it is, we'll like look them up and see what their background is. And you can always find like, not always, like you mentioned earlier, there are exceptions, right? But you can typically find this chain of privilege and good fortune, right? Father was this person, mother was this person or grew up in like this very wealthy neighborhood. You know what I mean? And you just see, I'm just like, okay. And it feels like a lot of people don't notice that. And then when you're talking about it in the book, you're explaining how journalists, when they're raised in these areas where, like the average lower class income is like what, like 30 or $40,000. So you look at where these journalists are coming from, their parents, their families, their households are making hundreds of thousands, right? So what advantages are they gonna have? And then these publications are snatching them up to write to those educated people. So that privilege, it just spirals into these situations. Is that what I'm gathering from kind of how you put these pieces together? 100% and people will point out like entry level jobs for journalists today. They pay between $35,000 and $45,000 a year, which is very little, right? So people are like, they're making so little. And I'm like, yeah, who do you think is paying the rent? When you live in New York and you're making $35,000 a year, it's not you, right? Like come this, and because local journalism has really collapsed because of the internet, right? So journalism now, like it really exists in these kind of coastal corridors by and large, like something like 70% of journalism jobs are like now on the coasts. And so you have to live in these extremely expensive cities, which means your parents are paying the rent. You have to take internships that are often unpaid during college, which means nobody who's working during college can now become a journalist, right? Nobody who's in, and the internships, which you absolutely need to climb this teeny ladder now, they recruit by their own admission from like the top 1% of schools. So it's on this very, very elite profession, which is why it's gotten so woke because you have these kids who go to these Harvard and Yale and Princeton and all these elite woke schools and they get this ideology, then they come and they bring it to these publications. But the thing that's interesting is not just the, obviously young people are always like, like extremists in the way that they see things. The sad thing that's happened is that the elder generation, like the Gen X and above the boomers who are supposed to be the ones holding the line for journalistic ethics and values, they've totally capitulated. And I explained why in the book as well. That's really the thing that was shocking over the last like five years was to see that like all of these ideas are just being totally funneled and mainstreamed because there's no pushback. Yeah, and what's interesting too, I think your book just came at this perfect time for me because recently I've just been kind of keeping an eye out, you know? I've had journalists who have been authors and stuff on here and most of them are just awesome, you know? But like I've been looking and just kind of reading, I've been trying to read more articles because I'm usually just a book guy. And I look and I've noticed that, you know, the history kind of like what we were talking about where they came from and where they're at now. And I see them writing these articles, these kind of woke articles right about racism, sexism, trans issues, all these other things, right? And I think the perception is like the way, what that signals is, I care about these like oppressed communities, right? And I'm like, okay, that's fair enough. But when I see, you know, I see these, you know, these, you know, I go to their Instagram or something, I see these lavish vacations and I see, you know, these like meals that cost like what my rent costs here in Vegas. And things like that, I'm like, huh, right? So it's like, it's like, are you really fighting for the right people or are you like kind of not really focusing on these class issues? But here's what I wanted to ask you and press on you a little budget. So, and this is just like a philosophical question that I get, right? So I'm assuming like you didn't tell me your income, but you're doing all right. You know what I mean? So like- I'm definitely in the class that I am critiquing in my book. Yeah, so help me out there because like I'm like, am I too hard? Am I too hard on these people? You know what I mean? I'll tell you what it is. It's like, I don't have a problem with people making money. I don't have a problem with being successful. I have a problem with people getting rich, getting successful. And then having a politics that essentially protects their own income, right? A politics that is very much geared towards protecting, you know, the meritocratic elite and then calling anyone who disagrees racist. Like that's my problem that like open borders, right? Over the last five years, it has become like a pillar of the left, right? That to oppose open borders is a form of racism, right? That it's like racist to think you should have a national border or something like that. Now who's bearing the burden of that point of view? It's the working class, right? You cannot have a wage floor if you have a constant flow of, you know, illegal labor, right? Illegal low-skilled labor. You cannot have a wage floor. In fact, Bernie Sanders pointed this out on 2015, you know? Ezra Klopp at Vox at the time asked him, you know, hey, what about open borders? And Bernie looked at him and went, open borders. All the proposals, right? Like he knew that, that is a co-brothers' role. He's like, they would like nothing more than to have millions of people coming in and working for $2, $3 an hour. And Bernie said in further impoverishing our working class, he's like, I don't believe in that. Of course, by the time he was running in 2020, he had to support it as well because you were running against Trump, right? It is not like entirely his fault that he took on that. But so my problem is not, you know, people being successful and then voting in their own economic interests. My problem is that they have, they clothe voting in their economic interests as a form of social justice and call anybody who wants to protect the interests of the actual poor racists. That's my problem with it is like, I think everybody should get rich, you know? I think it's great. I mean, I'm definitely not rich, but like everybody should be secure. Everyone should be successful. Like, yes, I have no problem with that whatsoever. I have a problem with the way that our politics has emerged to protect the economic incentives of the elites, but that they dress that up as a form of social justice and use it as a cudgel to people who are actually suffering. That's my problem. Yeah, no, I think that's very well said. You know what I mean? Like, you know, when I, for example, I've never grown up, you know, with money or anything like that. And then when I got sober, I had nothing. I moved back to Las Vegas from California with $200 in my pocket. I was like, let's figure this out, right? And now like, I could pay my bills, I got electricity, I drive a car. You know what I mean? So like, I'm all about that. But, you know, I wonder, because now that I'm like financially stable, I've, you know, gotten into like, I actually have money in my savings account. I started investing and stuff. And when I look at, you know, policies and, you know, and things like that in the wealth inequality, I'm like, what if I lost a little bit of money to help others out? And, you know, we might be different on like these types of, you know, policies, but like it feels like a lot of people, like they're just like, no, no, we have to protect. We have to protect the money that we have and the people making this money. And the thing is like, it's not entirely their fault. So like, I'll think about, you know, like people, like a couple living in Park Slope, right? And their combined income is $300,000 a year. And they feel poor because they're barely making ends meet. And they are barely making ends meet. Their children are in private school. Their rent is astronomical or their mortgage is astronomical. They, you know, everything in New York is so expensive, right? Like they're not making that up the stress that they're feeling, but it is disgusting to make that much money and to feel poor. Like, like, so it's like on the one hand, like psychologically, like the feelings that they're feeling that like, oh my God, I'm like, you know, one second away from, you know, not being able to like make ends meet. Like those are real feelings, but it's sick that they like to endorse a system that sets it up that you can make that much money and feel that insecure is like, it's ridiculous. It's, there's something wrong with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I wanted to like. Nobody like sits back and kind of looks at it. It was like, wait a second, something might need to be, you know, adjusted with this. And, and something, you know, I kind of wanted to ask you about with, with all of this and like, you know, the money and, you know, the politics like, and the woke journalism you discuss this in the book like a lot of it is pandering to tribalism, you know, and things like that. The left and the right do it, right? They'll publish something like, I know who my audience is and they will love this. But what's interesting is we started this conversation where you had editors tell you, this book isn't gonna sell, right? So something that I've been asking people about and wrestling around with myself, is it, is it the fault of the journalists or is it human nature that they're, they're pandering with these, you know, the woke journalism and getting people angry and wild up and, you know, and all this, like, cause it seems like that's what we want because they just follow the money. Like I wrote a piece the other day, like, if Mark Zuckerberg got paid for spreading like great news on Facebook. And if people clicked and it kept them on there for like reading good, true news that wasn't polarizing, of course he would do that, right? But that's not what happened. So, so is this a journalist issue, a media issue or is it a human nature issue that we need to solve? It's a great question. It's a really good question. I definitely writing the book I've thought a lot about, like can like a kind of more capitalistic free market sustain the kind of journalism we need in America right now because it was that led us down this path. But then I go back to like Pulitzer and Day and I think about how rich they got just by treating poor people with dignity. And I think like, how is there no one who's willing to do that? And I, you know, it's funny. I write about this in the book. Like to me, you know, we tend to think about Fox News as being, you know, people are always like, Fox News is making people conservative, you know, like the New York Times or right, these are like Fox News ate my mom's brain or whatever it is, but I think the truth is that Rupert Murdoch, he realized that there was this working class audience that was up for the taking. I think Fox News is conservative because it caters to the working class and not the other way around. But obviously like, you know, there's, at some point, you're like, okay, somebody like Rupert Murdoch who's like, like how much more money does a person need at some point? Like there's no, like, I don't know how to, like somebody asked me this today, like we were talking about Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo, right? And how Santa Pete pulled out its viewers with this sort of corruption. And he was saying, well, don't you think the free market will correct this? Like it will lose, you know, people will stop trusting it or whatever. But I think the free market is what got us here. So to me, it's like, I definitely think there's a human nature component to it. Like, you know, I write in the end of the book, like you can solve this problem yourself by like, if you're on social media and you see something and you feel enraged, like someone's making money. Like that's someone making money off of that feeling. Like that's not, you don't actually have to allow your heart to be the hold of like their free market enterprise, right? Like you can take your heart back by thinking that the people who disagree with you are human. Like that is all you have to do is be like, that person is a human and deserves my respect. Like it's like, it is a spiritual practice. I agree with you. But at the same time, I don't understand why, like, like why a newspaper isn't content to just break even and then some like not like tend to just page. Like why does it have to be like this free market? Like it's, it is a higher calling. And I do think that the problem here is that there's no countervailing force. So it used to be that like journalists were always, you know, quite liberal, but their papers were either owned by, you know, the head of a corporation or a Republican or something was both, right? So there was this countervailing force to the kind of natural instincts to crusade that journalists have, right? So you kind of ended up in a good place, right? Then you would have the advertisers who wanted both liberals and conservatives buying their papers. You had this sort of like nice, like, you know, equilibrium for that kind of post war period where you were really trying to reflect like the people. But the problem now is that the journalists, the business side and the advertisers are all pulling in the same direction, which is in the woke direction, because that's where you get the most engagement and the most engaged people are always the craziest. Yeah. And what's tricky too. So I, since I got into just trying to stay up on the news, I got really into independent journalism, right? Like that other side and on YouTube, there's a lot of independent channels and stuff like that. But what I've noticed, and I kind of went on a couple of rants on Twitter about this, you know, the last week or two is, I've noticed that some of them are just turning into these little mini, you know, like elite companies. And I see it and, you know, it just, it feels like even some of the independent journalists I follow are turning into those liberal elites that from the mainstream media. And I'm like, okay, well, now I'm like, now it feels like we're all being left, you know, behind because I see them using some of the same strategies. It's like the same candy, just a different wrapper and it's kind of breaking my heart. But like you said too, it's up to us. I've had so many authors on here who have written books on like polarization. I had Andy Norman on here who wrote a great book called Mental Immunity. John Roush on here talking about, you know, and on an individual level, we have to look at these and calm down. And I think you just said it the best. You talk about this in the book, like who is making money off my anger, off my emotions, right? Like that's something that should make us all more independent when we realize that somebody is manipulating us for some reason. And I don't know if people are unaware about this or they don't care, because I'm really into like the social media and like, you know how they say like, oh, you know, the algorithms and the influence and the misinformation and stuff like that. But I'm like, doesn't everybody know about this? Now, doesn't everybody know that Facebook is mining our data to give to advertisers so they can find out what wealth class we're in and what political leadings, like, do you think that not enough people like understand how we're being manipulated for profit? Well, I'm a lefty, so I think that people do it because it's in their economic interests, right? Like to including liberals, like liberals, you know, they engage with this because at some level they understand that this is like pro-meritocracy behavior to be obsessed with culture war issues because it means that there's less redistribution. So I'm like, I'm still like a Marxist in that sense. You know, like, I think like, you know, yeah, you're describing the superstructure, look for the base, right? Like look for who sort of, who is the one who's sort of benefiting from this? And it's not just the media corporations, it's like that Park Slope couple, right? And so, but I'm open to maybe being wrong about that. Like people tell me like, like progressive friends who are in those communities, right? Like they to me, but everyone I know who's doing this, they think they're doing the right thing. Oh, yeah. Right, so it's like, do I really have the right to say, yeah, but like what I call that false consciousness argument, like, but they're wrong about it because they're really like, it's really about their pocketbook at the end of the day. Like, I don't know that I really have the right to say that, but that's my best estimate. Like as a lefty, and like this used to be like a liberal position, like, you know, as soon as you saw like the Black Lives Matter banner go up on Amazon, like, like that tells you something, like Amazon is doing nothing for like anybody's good, except Amazon's good, right? Like at times like seeding all of this power to like, you know, this kind of like woke sector of its workforce, like they're not doing that because they think suddenly we're gonna share power and share like money with like the, you know, people have nots, like they're doing that to consolidate power. Like that used to be a lefty point of view. And now if you say this, it's the left who gets angry at you for pointing it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see it like, well, we just had Pride Month, right? And you see how they, you know, they'll pander to that and stuff and it's just like, you know, someone's making a ton of money. And it's so interesting. I think I mentioned this in my review of your book when I read it and like, whenever I see like woke, like use, I'm like, oh, great, we're gonna have some. No, I know, I like that. And then like getting to talk to you and this is why we need more conversations. I'm like, you know, Baya is one of my new favorite people. Like just hearing, like, you know, just we agree and see things kind of similarly. And that's not, you know, why I like people, but like, it's comforting to know that I'm not this crazy liberal, like feeling like, okay, I can't talk about these things because again, like you talk about like, it's getting accused. Like if you disagree with something, it's like now you get the harshest label. And I'm glad that you kind of, you know, that you have that humility. Like, can you question it? Can you question someone's motives and intentions? I just interviewed a more philosopher yesterday about his book and we talk a lot about that stuff. Because a lot of it, it's difficult, right? And depends on what your priorities are and some of that's influenced by how you grew up, where you grew up, you know, and all that stuff. But then I mean, like when I see them like getting angry at black voters for picking more moderate candidates, like that kind of a thing makes me so angry. Like, you are woke shaming the people who your whole philosophy purports to be a defensive. That you really see through it kind of like, and that really bothers me a lot. Like if you're voting against like the black community, like you're on the wrong side. Like, you know what I mean? They know what's right for them. Like I see myself very much like on that level. And it's like, but because the black community is more conservative, the people that want to talk about it, they don't often pick the same people that the Brahmin left will pick, right? And you saw this in like, you know, the New York mayoral race, you saw this in the election, right? In the 2020 election. It's like, I don't, that just boggles my mind. Like how do you not realize like you're literally voting against the population? You claim that your whole philosophy is supposed to be benefiting. And then the answer being like, well they don't know what's in their, in their economic, no, shut up. I never want to hear that. Don't you ever talk about people that way? It's so demeaning. And do you hear that? Of course they think that because they have these elite educations. And so it's like, they think they actually learned something. You know what I mean? So it's that nugget of like a CNN almost made worth $25 million looking down her nose and working class people and calling them like names. That's why, that's really why I wrote the book. Yeah, no, that's perfect too. Like I wrote another book called Out of Our Minds and it's about mental health issues around the world and how condescending like when there was this tsunami in, I forgot, was it Sri Lanka? I doesn't matter. Anyways, they go there and they have their own ways and culture of dealing with traumatic experiences and stuff like that. But they, all these therapists went over there and they're like, oh no, you don't know how to properly cope. I'm like, sweet mother of God, are you serious? Like, and like kind of like what you're talking about like, oh no, these poor black communities, they just don't know, you know? And, you know, I hear these conversations because a lot of people don't realize I'm half black even though I look white as hell, right? But like, so I see these people, I'm just like, what do you talk, like do you even know what's going on? It should be a hard one I can tell. So recently you had an awesome debate with New York Times journalists and you talk about this in the book. So I think I listened to the debate before I read the book and then I got a more broad picture of it and everything. And I guess the first thing I wanna talk about with the New York Times and the evolution and you discuss this with how Fox catered towards like this working class type people, right? So with the New York Times, you know, you could probably write an entire separate book on that if you wanted to, but where do you think their steps went wrong? Like, do you think they're, you know, you talk about this in the book, like they're not showing both sides, different views. Do you think that they pushed people towards that side? Like you talk about it a little bit, but can you kind of discuss? Yes. So the debate wasn't actually with New York Times journalists, it was about New York Times in its way and it was with two other journalists. But so, yes, I argue that, you know, so, you know, as I said in the debate, like I think we can all agree the New York Times does still sometimes produce excellent journalism. And I think we can all agree that it's succeeding financially very well, but it's clearly lost its way because, you know, for example, in the run-up to the 2020 election, they didn't run a single op-ed by somebody voting for Trump, not one was defending voting for Trump. Like to me that they essentially deplatformed 75 million Americans. Like the paper record doesn't do that. So at that point it had chosen a side. And the reason that happened was because they had fired the guy who was in charge of publishing contrary point of views to those of the like 91% of its readers who are Democrats. And they had fired him because he had upset his own colleagues who then publicly took to Twitter to denounce him in the section. And so he literally got fired because the Times caved to woke pressure from within its own use. And I argue that that's not a bug. That's actually a feature of the New York Times as current DNA. And you know this because they did it again with Donald McNeil who was fired because, you know, well, he was pressured to resign is the right way to say it because he offended the woke segment of the newsroom. And the reason they're doing that is because in 2014, they came up with this Times innovation report to try to, you know, they weren't until 2014 was a bad year for the Times and they were trying to understand why they weren't more successful at digital journalism specifically. And A.G. Salzburger who's now the publisher, okay? So not some like, you know, Schmo on the side, the guy who's now publisher, right? He was in charge of this Times innovation report in 2014. And he came up with, you know, a theory about why they weren't doing well enough. And it was number one because the business side, you know, getting audience, audience engagement and the newsroom side where there was this Chinese wall separating them because you're supposed to have a Chinese wall separating business from journalism. And he said that had to come down. He integrated. He said that, you know, the job of growing the audience falls squarely on the newsroom. That's how he put it. Meaning that he wanted to see journalists engaged in thinking about the audience, thinking about money, thinking about engagement. And then the second thing was, he was, you know, he wanted to see journalists making a name for themselves, you know, on social media. He was like, you know, the report is like, there's this moment where they're like appalled to find out that a journalist didn't tweet about a story he wrote for two days, you know? Like, so they very much wanted, number one, journalists to be much more visible on social media, have their own followings, have a lot of power on social media, right? And number two, they wanted to start, they started measuring success in terms of engagement. That was the metric for success. So literally what they did was they outsourced the moral and journalistic standards to the worst place on the planet, which is the internet. And then the worst place on the internet, which is Twitter. So now they allowed, they consciously wanted that engagement to be the measure of success. So they ceded, you know, the authority to the internet. And that's why you're seeing all of this, you know, crap happening. Yeah, and you talk about it in the book, that's something else. I'm glad you brought this up because I didn't have it in my notes, but you discussed that in the book. And a friend and I were talking about this for months about how journalists are becoming almost part of the story. They're trying to, and it's pressure from, you know, like you explained, it's pressure for them to become influencers and all these things. And so how do I, how do I word this while being kind at the same time? So I come from the YouTube, the YouTube space and influencers, you know, you know, all those people, you've heard of like Logan Paul and all these others, right? But I would get interviewed, you know, by journalists about different things when I got canceled, I got interviewed and stuff. But as somebody who's just fascinated by human behavior, I've noticed this. I've noticed this, you know, not just writing but then bickering with people and, you know, going a little too far towards the opinion and bias side. And then what I never, when I do, this is like my almost 40th episode. I never quote any books, but you had a quote in there that I'm gonna try to remember. I have it here. But you said something along the lines of, there can't be this like moral panic without media, right? Like they kind of feed into each other, like the hate online and then the media like, oh, okay, they like this, okay, I'll keep doing that. And that's, I think I resonated with it so much because that's what happened to me in 2019 when I got canceled. There is a sector that on YouTube of drama channels. All they do is make videos about the latest drama going on. And when it was time to come after me, just videos popping up left and right, each one getting tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of views. And they could say literally whatever they wanted to about my character and all these other things, right? But part of it was, you know, you have these people who want to be those celebrities at their time. I wasn't a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination. But yeah, can you kind of talk about that? How like journalists are getting involved in the stories? Is that hurting like objective journalism and the integrity of it? Because one thing, and I'll shut up, that I used to say about these drama channels is that like you've been doing journalism for a while, right? You know about the ethics and all these other things. But when it feels like when these non-journalists like YouTubers or even journalists now, it feels like some of the ethical stuff is kind of drifting away to the background in favor of profit and attention and engagement. Have you seen that? Like, can you kind of touch on that a little bit from your perspective? Yeah, absolutely. What did they, but what did they cancel you over? That's so horrible. That's a long story. I wrote a book on it. It was therapeutic for me. Yeah, so it's called Canceled Inside YouTube, Cancel Culture. I love my audience have read it, but I'll send you a PDF of it. But long story short, and I'm sure people are tired. I'll shorten it. But I was working out of a luxury rehab, right? And like I said, I got sober through just 12-step meetings and the free stuff. And I realized, I'm like, man, there are so many people who will never have an opportunity to come to rehab. They don't have the insurance, they don't have the money, wait list for state-funded facilities, months or whatever. And I would do groups and everybody loves my groups and stuff. I'm like, well, why don't I try doing this for free on YouTube and helping people, right? Amazing. Yeah, you would think. That's the whole conversation I had yesterday with the moral philosopher too, by the way, about how this whole thing happened. And my channel started growing because I was taking pop culture and blending it because kind of like what I asked you earlier, like, is it the journalist or is it human nature, right? So I figure, so just say for an example, Kanye West wrote or he had an album kind of out of bipolar disorder. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to take this trending topic and educate people about bipolar disorder. And people are like, oh, I learned with something relatable. Well, I also started doing it with news within the YouTube community and stories that were going out. A lot of people loved it and it was okay until it wasn't, right? A couple of YouTubers were like, oh, you should have talked about other people and just all, even though it was all public information. So that's why I got into this kind of moral, I really got into moral philosophy and started learning about- I see YouTube videos doing that all the time. Like you said, like- Don't get me riled up. Don't get me riled up. Yeah, it was just my turn, you know? And yeah, but I stayed sober through it. I survived. I wrote a book and yeah, but it's one of the reasons why that experience led me to people like yourself, right? Because I'm very liberal and people were trying to de-platform me. People were threatening to rape and kill my mother, sending her messages. You know what I mean? And I'm just like, hmm, well, this isn't right. So I saw how kind of that woke idea kind of went because part of the, there's a whole community, right? And I get, I'm an advocate for mental health and decreasing the stigma and, you know, a lot of the drug policy and everything, but it can become a very touchy subject, right? But you're starting to see like, I can relate to these authors who are writing like, you've probably heard of Carol Hoeven in her new book, Tee on testosterone and trans stuff. I'm reading the book right now. She's very compassionate. She words things very carefully and people will label her a transphobic just for having conversations about the science. And that's kind of happening. So I relate to that because I see that happening in the mental health community too. So it's a weird long story, but. Yeah, every time I get canceled, I rely on wine heavily. And I don't know how you get that. I have two cats, an amazing girlfriend and a son I play video games with. So. I really like that. Yeah, but like I said, a lot of it too, I empathize. So earlier you were talking about how like, we look at people as others and we just wanna call them like stupid or idiots. Oh, you voted for this or that or whatever. While there is part of it, like you voted for someone who's not really in the interest, they're not really aligned with you, right? I empathize and I empathized with these channels because they were making a lot of money off my name, right? So I got it, they were incentivized. So that's why I somewhat hold YouTube accountable for how their algorithms work. You see what I mean, but going back to what we were talking about, it's turned journalists into these wannabe kind of influencers. You see what I mean, but so I guess with that story, have you seen that kind of happening in the traditional media space with journalists and things like this? And you mentioned every time you get canceled, so it's happening kind of everywhere. Yeah, and there's an anecdote in the book that somebody who works at WNYC told me, which is that he said, he knows who follows him based on the topic that he covers and he knows exactly what the liberal, what their kind of red meat is. And he thinks every time he shares a story, like how can I phrase it so that it'll appeal to them? And like he said, he is very conscious of like, he knows he's doing it and he tries to like, not pervert the journalism too much. He's like, they're not giving us training for that. They're not giving us training to stand up to the dopamine hits of being retweeted and told like, yeah, I don't boy with it. And you definitely see like, you see with journalists, you see them kind of getting pulled in a certain direction based on the positive feedback that they get. Like I can sit down right now and write five tweets that would get 10,000 retweets because I know exactly what works. And withstanding that is very, very hard. Like, obviously I've done it because like I'm extremely unpopular. But like you see the direction people get taken in, you know, like on these topics to get that following. And like you said, like, is it their fault that the business model like so clearly came? Yeah, yeah, like, so my mom, she's been sober 20 years. I've been sober nine years. Addiction runs in my family. And in my book, like I discussed like, I fell into some of that, the dopamine hits. I kind of like what you're talking about with your journalists, but like, I knew certain videos would get, you know, and part of that was my demise because they said, oh, look how many videos he's made on this topic because I knew that they would pop off, you know? So I try to recognize that and acknowledge that. But one of the issues with like cancel cultures, even if there is a discretion, like in my opinion, one of the signs of cancel culture is the punishment is disproportionate to the crime, right? And, you know, I believe people- I'm not curious about why that is, by the way, but go on. Oh, no, I was just gonna finish by saying like, I believe, you know, as somebody who's not only a recovering addict, like I used to be a piece of garbage. And now, you know, I have my son chilling over here. And I get to see him and me and his mom have a great relationship and I worked in treatment. I've met thousands of addicts. I know people can change. So I'm a believer in people growing and changing. That's why I don't think the punishment should be so disproportionate. And I'll end with this. You'll like this one. So what I find interesting is a lot of liberals, right? They believe in prison reform and everything. And it's like, why? Because you believe that people can be reformed and changed. But some of those same people will cancel you and think that you should never have a job. Shouldn't be on the internet because for some reason you can't change because you said something wrong, but a guy who grew up and got arrested for, you know, something else, we need to give that person another chance. So I'm like, do you guys not see how this ideology needs to spread across? But anyways, I would love to hear your theory about this punishment being far disproportionate to the crime, if you will. My theory is that what's happening is that they're trying to undermine your belief that you know right from wrong. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, because the punishment is so extreme for sometimes things that are just not that bad. It's supposed to destabilize your feeling and then you're right to say, no, I'm not right from wrong. I decided that, or to say, oh, wow. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. That was a mistake, moving on, right? They are sort of judge, executioner, and jury all in one. And the standard has to keep shifting because it empowers the mob. Like it shifts all the power. And just the act of saying, no, I know right from wrong. Like I, maybe I get it wrong sometimes. You know, maybe I'm wrong sometimes, but... Yeah, like a human being, you know. But I have a moral compass that God gave me and I'm gonna trust that and I'm gonna follow that. And I'm gonna keep doing what I think is right. And trying to get better. That's the thing that's being undermined. And again, there's such a class thing here because I think a lot of working class people are very religious and they really, they rely on those kind of commonsensical values and a lot of what's in the liberal value system today is very counterintuitive stuff that you can only pick up at university, where you have a lot of students telling you crazy things. But a lot of it is very counterintuitive. Like you said, like, oh, we're gonna forgive people who are murderers, but not people who like made an off-color joke, you know? Yeah. For example, like that there's no such thing as men and women, right? Like these kinds of ideas that are very counterintuitive, right, that like are sort of almost like, like Taylor made to kind of upset the more naturalistic, you know, sense of values that people who are uneducated have and rely on. Yeah, yeah. And it's just one of those things. Like that's why I got really, when all this happened to me, I just started reading books on like crowd psychology, human irrationality, and like moral philosophy. But like, you know, just for example, like you just mentioned, you drink wine, I don't. I'm not judging your moral compass for it. I've been a vegetarian for four years. I don't judge people. I know, right? Yeah, if you ever want to try to meet some recipes, but I did it for health reasons, not like a huge moral reason, even though I do love animals, but I'm not running around judging mediators. But anyway, it's given me this, you know, this kind of, you know, understanding that our morals might be different. And that's why I got into moral philosophy and stuff like that. And that's why I really hope with having offers on to discuss that, like you understand some of our morals might be different, but we can still coexist. But to kind of continue off of like, you know, separating like, you know, the lower class and, you know, even, you know, those who are religious in the lower class and everything, you talk about in the book, people, these media organizations kind of pushing people towards Trump. And there's a few moving parts to this, but one thing that I would love to chat about is how much they talked about Trump, right? So we've, we talked a little bit about incentives, right? The Trump stuff would get clicks and I was having a conversation the other day, like I don't like reading books about Trump because they all say the same thing. I read Mary Trump's book and I am not a fan. Like they're like, oh, she's a psychologist and the niece, I'm like, okay, this is the one Trump book I'll read except the same thing. Yeah, there was nothing. But anyways, anyways, they talk about Trump constantly. It makes money. That's why there's 50 million books on them too. And in your debate, it's almost like, it's almost like you were psychic because you wrote the book before the debate. But in the debate, when you were talking to them, the standard line they use is it's abnormal how much we talk about Trump because Trump's not a normal president. That's the justification they use. So can you kind of discuss how these different pieces and talking about Trump constantly, you have the statistics too. That's what I'm like, it was crazy. So can you talk a little bit about how much they talk about him and promoted him and all that stuff? Yeah, so Musa Algarbi, who's like a brilliant sociologist, he actually counted, I don't know, I think he built an algorithm to count it. algorithm is probably the wrong word, but how often Trump's name was used in the New York Times in 2017. And then, Lest you think that's just how often, the second year of a presidential term, that's how often you use it. He compared it to President Obama's second year. Yeah, yeah. And so Trump's name was mentioned 97,000 times, which is the equivalent of every 250 words in the New York Times, which is four times every article, as opposed to Obama's 37,000 times. So they really could not keep his name out of their mouth. And what I argue is, it's everything was pulling in that direction. The journalists know what stories would immediately jump to the top of the Google Analytics board, which once go viral on social media, just like that's what the advertisers want, they want their ad next to the article that makes you feel the most extreme and feel the most deeply. And just like the business side and the engagement side, they want the most engagement. And Trump's name just makes liberals super engaged, especially highly educated ones who live in like deep blue districts where they don't know anybody who voted for him. So they really, and my answer to that as well wasn't Trump an abnormal president. I have two answers to that, like meaning warranting that much coverage. The first is that is a journalistic question that was answered with a missed answer. So that was, you know, in the pre-2014, the pre-Times in Ovation Report, A.G. Salzburger, Life, DNA of the New York Times, that would have been answered from a journalistic point of view. We know now it was answered from an engagement point of view, right? So that's sort of the first one. And the second one is, you can cover a president who is doing stupid shit, I'm sorry, excuse me. No, no, hey, you got free range on here. Go for it. Terrible things, you know, who is clearly immoral, who clearly, you know, is problematic, deeply problematic in many ways. You can cover that person in a way that his supporters and his followers will be able to understand what he did every day. And instead they did it in a tone that was just dripping with this gleeful contempt, you know, in the best cases and the worst cases, you know, pushing that we were on the verge of nuclear war every minute of every day. And they made it impossible for anyone who disagreed with them to, like, isn't it important that his followers know all of the crazy things he's saying and doing? Like, if it's so important that everybody knows it, isn't it important that they know it? And if it's important that they know it, isn't it important you tell them that in a way that they can read it? But instead, 91% of the New York Times readers are Democrats because no one who's not a Democrat can read that paper and not feel insulted by the way they are cast. And I think that was just so gross. And then all of that being done, like, again, catering to their economic interests, making bank off of calling other people racist who have nothing, all with this aura of self-righteousness. To me, Chris, I can't stand it. No, the other day, I love to write and the podcast has been super busy, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna sit down and write, and I've been doing a little on sub-stack, but I wrote about something similar just the other day, like, you have to understand, I did this real in-depth critique of Robin D'Angelo's book, which we'll talk about in a minute, but you have to understand how to talk to people, right? Like, if I walk up to somebody and I say, hey, idiot, where do I think I'm gonna go from here? Or even if it's perceived as me saying that, you have to know, like, no matter how right you are, there's a way to talk to people, you know what I mean? And that was one of the issues I had with Robin D'Angelo's book is I discussed that, you know, she puts people in a lose-lose scenario. No matter what you do, you're gonna be racist, you can't learn, you can't grow, you're screwed. And I'm like, well, why is anybody gonna pick this up? And we'll talk about that more in a sec, but to what you're saying, I talked about this the other day in a sub-stack pieces, is how people are writing in a way that nobody's gonna listen to them. It's like, what's your end goal? Do you really, like, it doesn't seem like they wanna end polarization, right? It seems like they wanna talk about these things and talk about how they're an issue, but they're not doing anything to really bring people together. And I'm not some kumbaya type of guy, but just talk to people like they're people, you respect their opinions. And if you don't, try to get to know them, understand why, and I think you've brought up a great point, like, we have to give them a voice at a platform if we ever wanna understand them. You know what I mean? Or if you don't want them to go to Newsmax, you know what I mean? You're like, you can't publish in The New York Times, but if you go to Newsmax, you're terrible and like beneath contempt. It's like, so they want them to just be, they can't stand their views. And it's like, that's a losing formula. Like, so I'm not a Trump fan, but I think he exposed something really important about our nation that we really need to pay attention to, like really, really. And it's like, it's kind of depressing that that's sort of falling off again now that the threat is gone of like this crazy person. But like, that thing that was exposed that, you know, most Americans are experiencing downward mobility. They feel silenced and shut out of the hallways of power and their concerns are not being listened to. And the people who claim to speak for the little guy are actually protecting like this Brahmin elite. Like that is really, really, really important. And instead of like, encountering that and thinking about that and talking about it, they just called them all racist and threw them out, including all of the black people and all 40% of Latinos, you know? Or what is now like, it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's one of those things like, I hopefully when this book takes off, you could write that other book you wanted to, because I think that's important because like, for example, just, you know, we have more progressive members in Congress and everything like that. We just had Corey Bush camping out on the steps to stop the eviction crisis. And it's just like, yay, like that's good. But then like, if you just like go and label people racist, you're just gonna tune people out. So they're like, thanks for helping me out or like these, when the really progressive people help fight for the stimulus checks, it's like, cool. But then if you call me a racist tomorrow, I'm gonna be like, okay, thanks for the money, but then I'm gonna go away. So I'm like, don't you guys see how you're kind of doing this? But I wanna keep you here forever, but I'm gonna ask you two or three more questions, I promise, and to kind of talk about this and call it, you know, race, for example, Robin D'Angelo's blown up. So a couple of my questions are circled around this. My first one is it feels, especially because I read both of her books, she's targeting white liberals, seems almost like wealthy ones, right? Like, because whenever I read a book, I'm like, who's the target audience, right? And I'm curious like your thoughts about that because is that who she's targeting? What's it accomplishing? How is that? I don't know, I'm confused about it. Like what do you imagine her target audience being? Is it the kind of liberal elite type people you're talking about? Yeah, I think so, yeah. I think that's, I mean, to me it reads very much like she has written this for a number of like people of color that she has met in her life, who she's sort of trying very hard to impress that she's like on the right side, even though I think most people of color find this discourse very alien, this anti-racism discourse and insulting, based on polling. I'm not just based on my friends or the people I meet. Yeah, I think she is writing it for exactly the people that, but the thing that's funny is that you will see she's such a kook and it's so like clearly a racket. So you'll see some people like be willing to criticize her, right? While accepting the rest of the framework of anti-racism and equity and all of this stuff, you know, like it's like they pick the most crazy one and then she, you know, there have been articles like in the Atlantic like criticizing her, right? But it's funny how they do that. They pick one to criticize while like importing like actually everything there, you know what I mean? The whole, I find the whole model of like white tears really upsetting because what she's really advocating for is in white, I've only read white fragility, but it's that we should regard pain with suspicion and withhold compassion. Like the whole book is about how like white people being upset at being called racist is like, is actually racism. And we should like, you know, hold them up, you know what I mean? Like that, that that is racism and that is harming people of color. Like being upset at being called racist is harm for people of color. And I'm really, I think that any worldview that commands you to withhold compassion from someone who's suffering, even if they are privileged, even like, I just think that there's something morally sick about that. But in addition to everything everybody else has said that she sees people of color as like uniquely disempowered, having zero agency, needing, and that she has relocated the locus of activism to like white people's hearts and souls instead of like where it belongs, you know, like in Congress or like in a material sense, like all of those critiques are spot on, but the thing I never see people talking about is how like the term white tears is an attempt to withhold compassion from people who are suffering for the right reason because they don't want to be racist. Like that is... Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because like when I finally read white fragility and like my main takeaway, and I don't know if it's just because I try my best to give people the benefit of a doubt, but since then like, because I was so ignorant to like some of the stuff going on when I finally read white fragility just last summer, I was like, oh, oh, people don't like her and I started like researching and trying to understand why, but anyways, my main takeaway was part of human nature is we get defensive, right? So just for example, for example, like me and my son, we love cooking for my lovely girlfriend, right? And stuff like that. And if my son or she like critiques it, I'm like, oh, I put so much work into that. Like it's just kind of human nature. Like I don't want to be criticized, you know? So what I took away from Robin's book was, hey, like we're not very good at just like taking this feedback, but like I feel like she kind of drives it in a little too much, doesn't give people wiggle room, puts you in a kind of a lose-lose situation. I'm like, okay, now it's a problem because I'm a huge fan of science and the scientific method and something in order to be scientifically accurate has to be falsifiable. And kind of like you just mentioned like when there's nothing you could do to prove you're not racist, that's not really anything that we can take seriously. Like you have to have some kind of metric, right? And if not, like my argument is why would anybody try? Like again, I've worked with plenty of addicts. If I tell somebody nothing you can do will make your life better, why would they try? They're just like, screw this, I'll keep shooting dope. You know what I mean? So if I keep telling people nothing you can do can make you not racist, why is somebody even gonna try? Why are they gonna try to adjust their language? Why are they gonna try to be a little bit more compassionate? Why are they gonna just, why would they? But I wanted to ask one of my final questions is you mentioned how there's no action being taken place, right? So there's this term, I can't remember if you use it in the book, but slacktivism, right? Where it's like, they'll talk about it and there's a lot of what liberal type elites do. They'll talk about these issues. Oh, world hunger, oh this, oh racism, oh inequality, but they don't do squat. And you break it down a bit in the book, but can you kind of talk about what you've seen where people kind of signal, I guess they call it virtue signaling without really taking the action to like, what are they doing to get people in positions of power to end these things or make changes? Yeah, I mean, I think climate's like another one of those things where there's a lot of these issues where, well, like I said with Robin D'Angelo, like the locus of activism has been shifted to like white people's feelings and like what's in their heads as opposed to like, we know what the remaining places of racism in America are. Like there's like five or six areas where like, there still are structural elements at play, right? Like police officers actually not shooting, but they insult people of color more, they lay hands on them more. Like to me, that's bad enough, you know what I mean? Like the fact that like a black person is more likely to be insulted by a police officer is a huge crisis. Like it's really, really, really disgusting and it horrifies me and I think about it every single day, but like nobody's talking about like specific things. Like, you know what I mean? They say things like there's a genocide being waged on black men. That's not true, but they are being insulted more and that's bad enough, you know what I mean? Or like for example, the black white wealth gap, right? So it turns out that that wealth gap is like 90% of it is in the top 10%ile, right? So a black neuroscientist, right? Or a black biochemist, right? The average, you know, black family in the top 10%ile has $300,000 compared to 1.2 million that that white family has because of family wealth and because of yeah, racism. I mean like the legacy of, you know, redlining and all of this stuff, right? But that's bad, that's a problem, but like if you look, you get like it shrinks and shrinks and shrinks as you go down the income scale. So when you get to zero, right? 10% the bottom 10%ile, the bottom 20%ile, the bottom 30%ile, the bottom 40%ile, there's no difference because when you're broke you're freaking broke, right? There's no difference between black people zero and white people zero. And so like I wonder about like where all of the energy is like, yeah, it's really bad to touch a black woman's hair. Like even if you act, don't act bad, you know what I mean? But is that as bad as the fact that like the bottom 40%ile of black and white families are downwardly mobile and like their children can't read, right? So to me it's like about the energy and the focus and where you're putting it and where the, like where the real problem lies. So that's, and it used to be like, okay, fine, these people with their Twitter accounts who cares but you do really see not in elections and elections like normal people keep winning but like you do see very much like, you know, like Elizabeth Warren, for example, her entire campaign was waged at that like, you know, very online, you know, liberal set. She had good ideas, but it was like so clear that they were not gonna break through because she was obsessing over that. I think open borders as well is like very much an online campaign that is harming people of color. And like, so yeah, I do think that there's a lot of like, you know, faux activism. And then when you look at with you, if you're a person like me who wants to talk about the actual things like, you know, disparities in children's test scores, right? Like something we can fix very easily but we will not because liberals are a bit too embarrassed to even talk about it, right? So the things that are actual problems like intergenerational poverty that's driven by these test scores, that's driven by school, driven by inequality and education that liberals won't even talk about because it's too embarrassing to bring up. I don't know why they're embarrassed by it. It's not genetic, but they act like it's genetic. That's how embarrassed they are by it. Like that, you know what I mean? Like, and then instead you're talking to me about the board of Amazon or Google having enough people of color on it. Is that really the problem here? Like among the rich, there's not enough. Like to me, that's a protection of meritocracy is saying like the, obviously I want, you know, people of color to be rich and I want them to be in those elites and I want them to be at the top, right? But to me, an equally important problem, if not a more important problem is what is happening to everybody else and we're abandoning them because liberals like to talk about their feelings and like that's just to me not where the energy should be and it's where all the energy is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, something I left out. Part of what got me in trouble is because like me and you get along because I'm very tough lover and shit and stuff like that. Like, hey, like I'm a mental health guy. I'm all about like fighting depression, fighting anxiety. I'm there for people who have been through traumatic experiences and stuff like that. But, you know, there's priorities, right? And at a certain point, you know, like when it comes to being a father like I have to make sure like my feelings don't interrupt me being a good father to my son and stuff. But I think just this week at the time of recording this, I said this, like we're in the middle of this like eviction moratorium ending. And there was like maybe a thousand or 2,000 people tweeting about it. And then all of a sudden one of the, maybe it was Variety, someone ran that story about Matt Damon talking, his daughter helped him no longer say the F-slur. That has like 20,000 people talking about it. And I'm just like, are you guys kidding me right now? Like Cory Bush is sleeping on the steps of Congress and you're all talking about Matt Damon no longer saying the F-slur because of his daughter. And I see the celebrities talking about it and all this stuff. I'm like, hey, hey, over here, there's some important things going on rather than what Matt Damon stopped doing a few months ago. But yeah, yeah, I could go on about like the priorities are just screwed up. So let me ask, let me just, let me wrap this up with one final question. I might need to have you back on after your book blows up and we start talking about how we're getting your next book out. But through this conversation, there's so many issues, right? There's wealth inequality, your book, it focuses a lot on the media, how it's not doing us many favors and all this stuff. If you bought yet, like if I handed you a magical wand and we could start working on something, we're just talking about priorities. Where do you think we can start? Is it with the media? Is it more independent thinking? Is it more empathy? Is it more conversations? Is it leveling out the wage gaps? What is it? That's such a great question. I think education is really important. And for me, I would be out there empowering the economists who are talking about what I consider to be real solutions to intergenerational poverty, education. To me, that's, I mean, I recently learned that 84% of juvenile offenders are functionally illiterate. I get very upset thinking about that. Because it's just such an obvious place to start. And I would like to see us not abandoning children anymore for our own, to get high on our own supply of moral virtue. I think that would be a really big one. What about you? What would you do? What? Oh, I asked you, I wasn't expecting that. What would I do? I don't, my thing is, and it got me canceled on YouTube, but I come from a weird background. I'm a former drug addict and I'm a college dropout. I went to a semester of college and all these things, but I just happen to really be interested in these topics. So I try to bridge that gap. So I guess education too, right? When I learned, for example, the best thing for my mental health and addiction recovery was learning about it, right? Now it's not this kind of thing that I don't understand. When I learned about what's going on inside my brain with my anxiety or my depression, I'm like, oh, okay. What are my old meditation teachers? Actually, I, he's written a few books. Dr. Judson Brewer, he talks about the brain mechanic, right? And like, say you're driving in a car, you don't know anything about cars, the light comes on, you'll freak out, right? But if you have an idea of how cars work, if a light comes on, you're like, oh, okay. This is just low tire pressure. Oh yeah, that can wait, right? Same thing with our brain. So anyways, anyways, learning and education has saved my life kind of. So that's why I read, that's why I've read 230, I think seven books this year. I'm always trying to learn. And the more I learn, the more I understand and I can have better conversations, you know, but you don't know what you don't know and we're never gonna know everything. So I'm just a huge fan of always learning, whether that's in the education, I hated school, but we need to get people from kids to adults to just be curious and be interested and ask like, why do you think that way, right? Like, I wanna know why someone thinks the earth is flat. Like that's an interesting thing to me, you know? But anyways, so I guess we're on the same page with education. So my thing is with this podcast, with everything, like I'm trying to figure out how to get people who don't like to read into interesting subjects and maybe they'll just listen to this podcast and that's good enough, you know what I mean? So that's kind of where I start. And then I'd equal out the healthcare thing. So, yeah. Yeah, so those two things. What a fantastic conversation. And so I'm not sure when I'm publishing it this, but yes, do me a favor, tell me when the release date is for bad news, where's it gonna be available and where can people find you to keep up to date with what you're doing in between, like journalism, debates, the book that you're gonna write in a couple of years that you're holding off on when things get better. Where can people find all these things? So first of all, thank you so much for having me. This was a real pleasure, Chris. And I really admire you and I admire your sobriety and I admire your mind and what you're trying to do here. So thank you so much for having me and for your enthusiasm about the book. It really means so much to me. So the book is out October 19th and I hope your listeners will read it and enjoy it. I am at Newsweek in the meantime. We host a weekly debate on our podcast, which is called The Debate. And every week me and my boss bring on a liberal and a conservative to have a debate. The last one was about climate change. The one before was about guns. We're not shy about delving. Oh, you're good. Difficult topics. So you can find me there. You can find me on Twitter. And yeah, thank you again so much, Chris. This was really, really a pleasure. Absolutely. Well, we'll definitely have to do this again sometime.