What the Heck Just Happened?

0:01 We are live.

0:03 I always feel like I have to say that because there's a sign that appears.

0:08 Hello everyone.

0:09 We are indeed here and live.

0:11 Um and Heather and I were just maybe almost live in my case.

0:16 I still I still Live is doing a lot of work there.

0:21 It's okay.

0:22 Semi-alive.

0:23 Um Heather and I were just talking about what we wanted to talk about.

0:28 And um we basically started out by talking about how angry we are.

0:37 And by talking about the pattern,

0:40 we kept naming things that happened in this last week or so and going, "Yeah.

0:47 Yeah." And it it kind of adds up.

0:50 It does add up to a pattern.

0:51 It doesn't even kind of add up to a pattern.

0:53 But so we thought that was where we would at least start.

0:57 We'll see where we end up, but that was where we'd start.

0:59 Well, I have to add um what Joanna is not telling you is that she has

1:04 suffered terribly this week because my way

1:07 of handling that anger is to get really silly.

1:10 And she has been on the other side of my texts.

1:14 And all I can say is the this morning show may not last

1:18 all that much longer because I am going to drive her over a cliff.

1:23 Oh, what is that?

1:25 My little pepper pot?

1:28 My little kumquat?

1:32 Every time I communicated with her this week,

1:34 I gave her some silly nickname It was my little pot, kumquat, mussel shell.

1:42 This morning This morning was mussel shell.

1:44 So yeah.

1:46 But don't worry.

1:47 You don't have to You know you don't

1:49 you won't have to deal with this much longer.

1:50 I mean, I probably won't do it, you know,

1:53 and you know, until after Trump is out of office.

1:55 So you're good for 3 more years, right?

2:00 Oh, good.

2:03 Well, yeah, this this was a this was a week.

2:05 I got to tell you, on Tuesday, I was like, "Oh, thank God,

2:09 it is Friday." And then I looked and I'm like,

2:12 "Oh my God, it's only Tuesday." The never-ending week.

2:15 It felt like the never-ending week.

2:18 It did.

2:19 Well, big biggest, I mean, biggest, of course,

2:21 are the are the decisions about voting.

2:24 Um Louisiana v.

2:25 Kelly, which I guess technically was last week,

2:27 but we're still we're watching all these southern states suddenly jumping

2:31 in and deciding that they're going to get rid of majority black districts.

2:35 And basically, I feel like I'm reliving reconstruction.

2:38 But then there were so many ways in which it was just such an in-your-face week.

2:45 thing.

2:45 And well, and even that was in your face, because it's not even just that they

2:50 rushed to eliminate black majority districts.

2:54 They Like, did you hear about Alabama with the tornado?

2:59 No.

3:01 There was a tornado warning and a big storm coming,

3:03 and they were debating debating this.

3:06 And the building started flooding.

3:10 And they kept debating until the alarm went off in the building,

3:15 at which point you would think they'd leave the building.

3:18 No.

3:19 They stopped debate so that they could vote before they left.

3:23 That to me is the spirit of this, right?

3:26 It's like, how fast can we rush to eliminate black majority districts?

3:31 Well, um and and a point about that is the fact

3:36 they had this legislation ready to go the instant Yeah.

3:41 that, first of all, the Supreme Court made this extraordinary decision,

3:44 which we can walk through,

3:46 but also even in Tennessee, where they took the city of Memphis,

3:50 which is a a majority black city, and they divided it into thirds so

3:54 that they would get rid of that black representation,

3:56 and therefore there will probably be no

3:59 Democratic representation in the entire state of Tennessee.

4:03 And before Excuse me, before the ink was dry, somebody you know,

4:09 one of the MAGA guys had already declared for the the new seat.

4:13 I mean, within within literally minutes.

4:16 And you look at this, and you know,

4:18 one of the things about Reconstruction is that you if you study it,

4:23 you watch it happening, right?

4:25 You watch the dominoes falling.

4:27 But even though I think the impulse was the same,

4:31 it did not you know, it went a little bit more slowly.

4:35 And you look at it now, and all those people saying,

4:37 "Oh, well, we're not doing it for the reasons you're saying.

4:40 We're not doing it cuz of racism.

4:41 We're not to you know you look at them, and you just think,

4:44 "This has been part of a concerted effort since

4:48 at least the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to hammer

4:53 through um laws that the vast majority of Americans

4:58 do not like and that privilege wealthy white men.

5:02 And you just can't look away at this point.

5:04 It's I mean, that you could for a long time, obviously.

5:06 You and I have both made our careers about writing

5:09 about this, but it it's just so freaking in your face.

5:13 It It's in your face.

5:14 It's It's gleefully gleeful gleeful.

5:18 That's the word.

5:18 They're like Did And I think it was in Tennessee that one

5:22 of the legislators tried to enter the chamber wearing a Trump flag as a cape?

5:27 Yeah.

5:28 Yeah.

5:29 So So they're enjoying this.

5:31 And the thing is, and this is obvious, but I'm going to say it anyway,

5:35 what we've seen in the last week is precisely why we had the Voting Rights Act.

5:41 And And why these states had to actually

5:44 get check in before they changed voting districts.

5:48 Because it was known that they were going to do this.

5:51 So, the Supreme Court says, "No, that's a thing of the past.

5:55 We're not going to worry about racial redistricting

5:58 anymore." And as like the drop of a hat, boom, it comes right back.

6:03 So, they just proved the need for the Voting

6:06 Rights Act and we're living that out.

6:08 And you're right, that the I don't know if I want

6:10 to call this an irony because it's too frustrating and and and sad,

6:15 but it's like these guys learned from the past.

6:18 You're right, it's been a concerted effort and and they've

6:21 been waiting waiting waiting to be able to do this.

6:24 And they saw there's already been an instance.

6:26 I When I spoke yesterday morning um on my uh history podcast,

6:33 I said the re-rise of Jim Crow.

6:36 Because you know, they learn from history, essentially.

6:41 They know how to do this.

6:42 Except you know, I don't think they learn from history.

6:44 I think it's a pattern of the rise of authoritarianism.

6:47 I I I you know, when you hear these guys,

6:49 they absolutely echo the former Confederates,

6:53 but I just don't think they're that deeply read

6:55 in especially in Reconstruction history, where I am, right?

6:58 And you know, for those of you who

7:00 don't know this, that is my area of expertise.

7:02 And um and I don't think they know that.

7:05 But I will say one of the pieces of this, and I wonder what you

7:08 think about this cuz I'm interested in how

7:09 this reflects back in the founding era,

7:12 which I have not studied from this degree, in uh English settlements.

7:17 I have in Spanish settlements in the American West.

7:21 And that is one of the things that I think

7:24 people miss when we talk about voting rights and about things

7:29 like the taking away of voting rights is the really

7:32 tight link between an economy that's fair for everybody and democracy.

7:40 So, when I think about where we're seeing the taking

7:43 away of the voting of voting rights across the country,

7:46 we're looking primarily at the former states of the Confederacy.

7:49 And my guess is we're going to see some western states if old patterns hold.

7:54 But, what is characteristic of those states is an extractive

7:58 economy in which a very few people got very,

8:01 very rich because of the fact they could um they these industries

8:06 that were highly capitalized like cotton or like mining in the west.

8:10 And you could basically enslave workers

8:14 or treat workers really badly in the mines,

8:17 for example, and you could continue to get all the wealth.

8:21 And that's really not like the way the economy

8:24 worked in the north and east of America

8:27 where they really developed a an economy

8:30 that worked pretty well for a lot of people.

8:32 And that, you know, when I'm watching the south lose

8:36 and and my theory is that once you've got those economic systems in place,

8:40 everything starts to spin around them.

8:42 Land ownership, religion, um literature, newspapers, social relations.

8:48 So, it's really, really hard to change that because

8:51 it kind of gets ingrained in the society.

8:53 And when I see people in the south sort of gleefully taking away the right

8:59 of people to vote in a democratic setting and and I look at that and I think,

9:04 I really kind of wonder if you know that you are consigning

9:08 yourselves and now they're trying to consign the entire US to a system

9:13 that really benefits a few oligarchs and you guys are going

9:16 to be the ones doing the equivalent of working in the cotton mills.

9:21 Right.

9:22 Is that, you know, did they talk about that at all in the founding era?

9:25 Well, so where my mind went um when I connect this to the founding is,

9:32 you know, it initially um there was a property requirement to vote.

9:38 Uh so even if you were a white male,

9:40 there was still a property requirement to vote.

9:43 Um and the you know, the idea was you needed to be literally

9:46 invested in the community to be able to vote.

9:50 What just went through my head?

9:51 So the way that I typically um understood the collapse of that requirement,

9:59 which happens in the early 19th century, was um you get the you know,

10:04 the the elite Federalist Party goes away,

10:07 the more democratic small d friendly uh

10:11 Jeffersonian Republicans and what comes after them rises,

10:14 uh and you no longer have that kind of requirement.

10:18 More and more and more white men can vote.

10:20 But it just dawned on me that one of the most striking things about, let's say,

10:29 the late 1820s and and the rise of Andrew Jackson, we'll throw him in the mix.

10:34 One of the most striking things about it

10:36 is the degree to which having lots of people

10:40 of lesser status and lesser money in the network

10:44 of politics wasn't just only politically useful.

10:50 It was It was helping the people who already were on the top and had power.

10:55 So it very well may be that what Americans

10:58 tend to think of as the democratization of American politics,

11:02 that the underlying engine of that is

11:05 big powerful people thinking this is great, right?

11:09 So that you have people like the star

11:11 of my most recent book, who's like a clerk.

11:14 He loves it cuz he has a network and he rises in it.

11:17 But the people on top who want to have the kind

11:19 of power you need to manipulate and move things around,

11:23 it's working pretty well for them, too.

11:25 Okay, that's really helpful because what you are describing,

11:28 I think, is a central issue with the concept of populism.

11:32 Because, you know, I can't tell you how many

11:34 books are sitting in this study around me about populism,

11:37 which always kind of bothers me cuz nobody can really define it except it means

11:41 that ordinary people are involved and sometimes they're

11:43 involved for good and sometimes they're involved for bad.

11:46 And it feels like we've wasted an awful lot of ink about that.

11:49 And I actually have a theory about populism that I won't go

11:52 into now that has nothing to do with any of those things.

11:55 But in fact what you're saying about the rise

11:58 of Jacksonian democracy in the 1830s is absolutely true.

12:01 Basically Jackson convinces everybody he's a man

12:05 of the people and he's a southern enslaver.

12:08 And you know, he's a cotton guy.

12:09 He's rich.

12:10 But what do we get from that?

12:13 We get that period when you know,

12:16 the the big D Democrats rising in the country take over the whole system.

12:23 They take over the the oligarchs take over the Democratic Party,

12:25 then they take over the country and then

12:27 they're running us toward an oligarchic system

12:29 across the entire North American continent and then

12:32 they're also looking at conquering the world.

12:34 But then we get the rise of other Americans in the 1850s saying NFW,

12:40 not happening on our watch.

12:42 Right.

12:43 Right.

12:43 It would Well, which is the response to the extremism.

12:46 Right.

12:46 It goes and goes and goes and goes till it's extreme.

12:49 And then there's a response in which people say, "You know what?

12:53 We've had it.

12:54 It's It's It's in our face.

12:57 They're enjoying it.

12:58 We need to to stop this." And I think you know,

13:02 the power inherent in the system when it's working

13:06 that way for the people like Jackson, the people on top.

13:10 It's easy to miss that.

13:11 I think all the time of um Sorry.

13:14 Thomas Jefferson.

13:16 I think of a Jefferson example only because it so strikingly shows

13:20 the power of the kind of coordination of a person like Jackson.

13:25 Jefferson wanted to spread a pamphlet around before an election.

13:32 But he doesn't know how to do it.

13:34 He's like Okay, like there are clubs meeting in various places.

13:40 Like maybe we could use the clubs.

13:42 He's like trying to create a a network that he

13:46 can use politically in some way and there isn't one.

13:51 And that kind of power we don't connect

13:56 that with the the story of the rise of democracy, but that's part of it.

13:59 That's what I was saying before.

14:00 That's part of it, too.

14:02 And you're right.

14:03 Once that system gets going, it's a system and there are people, you know,

14:08 on the bottom and in the middle who

14:09 are in the system and are benefiting from it,

14:11 but the people on top the the wealthy,

14:14 you know, enslavers like uh Andrew Jackson,

14:17 they are on the top and they are enjoying all of the benefits of that.

14:22 So, no.

14:22 I agree totally with what you're saying.

14:24 It's just the the sort of I don't want to say dark underside,

14:30 but it comes along with democracy is the fact

14:34 that even when you think you're in the middle of it,

14:36 you run the risk of being under the thumb

14:40 of someone on top and that you need to always

14:43 be aware of where the power is and how

14:46 much power you have and what it's based on.

14:48 Well, I do think it's important for people

14:51 to recognize the economic piece of this.

14:54 Because there are certainly people who

14:56 don't care at all about racial solidarity.

15:00 Um and, you know, are probably sitting there saying,

15:03 "Well, it doesn't matter to me what happens in Memphis,

15:05 Tennessee." Which by the way, is one of my favorite cities in the country.

15:08 It is a truly beautiful city.

15:10 I've never been there, actually.

15:12 Do you know, I love it for many reasons.

15:13 I love it um Well, first of all, um Graceland is interesting.

15:19 Um the you know, everything going on in Graceland,

15:22 but it's one of those cities that that really kind of missed the renovation

15:26 period in like the '70s when they tore down all the beautiful old buildings.

15:31 And you know me, I love brickwork,

15:33 and the the buildings in Memphis are just really spectacular.

15:38 And the setting, of course, is gorgeous as well.

15:41 Um, and, you know, anyway, I I'll stop waxing poetic about Memphis,

15:44 but I think there are a lot of people who may say,

15:46 "I don't care what happens in Memphis." But you may care quite

15:49 a bit about what happens to a country when it's controlled by MAGA Republicans.

15:55 And all I can think about is when you

15:57 think about the American South after the Civil War,

15:59 especially at the turn of the last century, you know, if you think about voting,

16:03 you think about the the fact that black Americans lost the right

16:06 to black men lost the right to vote because women weren't voting then.

16:11 But what you forget is that white

16:13 Republicans also lost their right to representation.

16:17 And when you think of the Lewis Hine photos from the early 20th century,

16:21 those are white children in the factories, getting their fingers in the mills.

16:26 And um, and that that economic destruction in favor

16:31 of a small oligarchy is part of the story.

16:35 It it shapes small d democracy.

16:38 Mhm.

16:39 And that is that is us.

16:41 Inevitably, that is that is precisely what it does is it is it shapes democracy,

16:47 and we are all bound up in it, for sure.

16:50 Well, and so so one of the things that as I said to you when

16:53 we started talking before we did this, many

16:56 things jumped out to me uh this week.

16:59 Um, don't even start me on that reflecting pool.

17:01 I was just in Washington, and um it's awful.

17:04 I should pull up a picture on my phone, but Please do not.

17:07 But the the golden statue of Donald Trump in Miami

17:13 on one of his golf courses that cost $450,000,

17:18 and the money was put up by cryptocurrency

17:20 people as advertising for their new meme coin.

17:23 Well, we now know that Trump's meme

17:24 coins have basically fleeced ordinary investors um

17:29 and the money's all gone to a very few people including the Trump family.

17:33 Um I looked at that statue and I I'm just

17:37 really interested in it because I was saying to you, I don't do you know,

17:40 I study religion historically but I'm actually I've read the Bible.

17:44 I've you know, I've read texts.

17:45 I've read the Book of Mormon as well.

17:47 But um but I don't I don't I don't have a really religious people that stuff.

17:53 But isn't like a golden statue really a big deal in the old test A golden calf

17:59 so the when the Jews are wandering in the desert

18:04 uh they begins to worship a golden calf.

18:07 That keeps them in the desert for an even longer amount of time.

18:10 Yeah, it's it's the sign of going astray.

18:13 It's the sign.

18:14 Anyone who has seen um the movie um The Ten Commandments has the Hollywood

18:19 version of that with the golden calf and everyone sort of you know,

18:23 idolizing the golden calf.

18:25 Yeah, no, there is a a biblical component to that and to get back

18:29 to the word gleeful that is it's it not even just in your face.

18:35 It's we've seen for a long time the ways in which

18:40 people who were sort of hiding under rocks with their racism

18:44 now are out in the open because it's all fine

18:46 and it's all good and the people in power have it.

18:49 It's one thing to be bold and out in the open with it.

18:52 It's another thing to be jumping for joy.

18:56 And it's that gleefulness that that is the like

19:00 I don't want to even say the final step

19:02 to ultimate outrage because it's not the final anything

19:06 yet and we're going to be more outraged, right?

19:08 So, I can't I can't say that.

19:11 But um at this point, it it really is the attitude of what they're doing.

19:17 But, here is the thing, and this is what I've been thinking in my head

19:20 since I was watching what was happening in Memphis.

19:23 Um this gets back to something we talk about a lot,

19:25 which is um what is the good of protest?

19:28 Memphis is Minneapolis.

19:31 Memphis is people standing up in a visible way, an aggressive way,

19:37 and out of the ordinary way, and showing people precisely where this regime is.

19:45 Minneapolis, at least for many people, alerted them to what was going on.

19:49 Memphis, the protest going on in Memphis,

19:52 and if you folks um haven't gone and looked at some of the footage of it,

19:56 it's very much worth going to look and see because

19:59 it's people who are really really protesting with with righteousness.

20:05 Memphis is Minneapolis.

20:07 Um I I want to come back to Memphis,

20:10 but I'm still stuck back on your saying gleeful.

20:13 I think one of the words that jumps out to me is

20:16 the idea that they can demonstrate

20:19 their dominance without any fear of repercussion.

20:24 No accountability.

20:25 No accountability.

20:26 And I just want to point out that while

20:28 that is um certainly couched in racism in this moment,

20:34 um a significant part of that is also sexism.

20:38 Because really American women have been especially black

20:41 and brown women have broken for the Republicans,

20:45 I'm sorry, for the Democrats since the 1980 election.

20:48 And now the gender gap in voting, I think is 24 points.

20:52 It's really really high.

20:54 So, by silencing black Americans in the South

20:58 and taking over the system for the Republicans,

21:03 there is, I think, an element there of of sexist domination of women as well.

21:11 And that, you know, when I look at that and you think back to reconstruction,

21:15 one of the things that I've always said gives us a leg

21:17 up on the people from them is that women couldn't vote then.

21:22 And women are pretty clear that they don't want mega Republicans.

21:25 And you know, there's I'm sure there's going

21:27 to be in the comments someone someone saying,

21:29 well, white women do.

21:30 Actually, that's if you look at the where the if you break it by region,

21:34 that's a southern white thing.

21:36 I'm not necessarily a northern white thing.

21:38 Not to say we don't have more work to do there,

21:40 but that really jumps out to me that this is about domination.

21:46 It is.

21:46 It's gleeful Well, I was going to say gleeful domination.

21:50 It's domination and they're gleeful about it because as you just said,

21:54 it's out in the open and as with so many other things in this era,

21:58 there's no accountability.

22:00 There's the opposite of accountability.

22:02 You do January 6th and then you get pardoned.

22:05 Right.

22:06 Well, elected to press.

22:07 And you get and you get money from the treasury.

22:09 Exactly.

22:10 So so, you know, and that's a fundamental feature of democracy.

22:16 I will state the obvious.

22:18 Accountability, right?

22:19 The the rule of law,

22:20 free and fair elections and accountability are are the essence of democracy.

22:25 That the people you give power to are accountable for how they use that power.

22:31 And we're watching, you're absolutely right.

22:33 I totally agree with what you're saying.

22:35 Um we're watching people who are celebrating their own

22:39 dominance and their assumption that it's theirs to keep.

22:44 Because that's the way it's supposed to be.

22:47 That's it's the way it's supposed to be and they

22:49 are in the process of making sure it stays that way.

22:53 That is what we are watching at the moment.

22:56 Well, so so you said something else I think that really

22:59 jumps out about the images coming out of both Minneapolis and Memphis.

23:03 And that to me is um key because one of the things again

23:10 that we have that they didn't have

23:11 during reconstruction is we have really quick communications.

23:16 And the truth is that if the MAGA Republicans

23:20 are not going to continue to dominate the United States,

23:23 those people who are not MAGAs, and that's Democrats, independents,

23:27 and traditional Republicans,

23:30 are um are going to have to turn out in huge numbers at the state

23:35 level doing things first of all like taking back state Supreme Court uh races.

23:40 There's that big one coming up on May 19th

23:42 in Georgia um where two Democrats uh Democratic-backed people,

23:46 it's a non-partisan election, are trying to challenge a court

23:50 that is currently overwhelmingly MAGA Republican.

23:54 Um we're just going to have to to mobilize people in huge numbers.

23:59 And one of the ways we can do that is through photographs, footage, Exactly.

24:04 sharing that stuff.

24:06 Exactly.

24:06 Because what motivated um How do I even want to put this?

24:12 What helped to fuel the civil rights era was

24:15 that people could see the fire hoses being turned on people.

24:18 People could see on TV what was happening

24:22 and they understood it in a in a different way.

24:24 I totally agree with you because the fact of the matter

24:26 is um technology and democracy are absolutely bound together.

24:31 And um if democracy is essentially grounded on communication between

24:38 the people who have power and the people who give that power,

24:41 any technology that changes communication is going to change democracy.

24:47 And so in this moment,

24:48 you're totally right that that's that's something that was not there before,

24:54 and that could have a big impact Now,

24:58 we just you know, we're also watching things like in Virginia

25:02 where voters vote for something they they they voted for redistricting.

25:07 So, unlike places like Texas, they actually opened it to a vote.

25:12 And then the Virginia Supreme Court basically said it was invalid.

25:17 So, yeah.

25:18 Four people.

25:19 Yeah, exactly.

25:20 So, so yeah, we're going to have to turn out in huge numbers,

25:24 and we're going to have to really do that on a local level.

25:28 But we're we're going to have to find other ways to mine mind,

25:32 m i n d, the system.

25:35 Because they are so focused on making it

25:39 so that not not only do they have power, but it can never go away that they it's

25:44 not even like they're not following the rule book.

25:47 There is no rule book.

25:49 There are no crimes, and there's no accountability.

25:51 They just do what they want, which then leads to the interesting question

25:54 as to what the Democrats do in this climate.

25:58 So, so the and we're back to the 1850s, you know,

26:00 the Dred Scott decision and the tarring

26:02 and feathering of opponents and and and, you know,

26:05 that's going to go into late 19th century

26:06 and the lynching of black and brown Americans.

26:09 Um for sure.

26:12 Um but I have to laugh though.

26:14 You know, one of the things about being a historian

26:17 is you you watch terrible times in our past,

26:20 and you think about what people were thinking and what they were doing.

26:23 And I am interested in the degree to which

26:27 um I think I shouldn't speak for both of us, but I wonder what you think.

26:32 Um the process of watching a country get radicalized along with me, by the way.

26:40 You and I both said our happy place is sitting

26:42 in a basement reading I'm for me reading the Congressional Record,

26:45 for you reading whatever your papers are.

26:47 But you look at it, and it's just so outrageous that people

26:50 who in the past would not necessarily been paying attention suddenly

26:54 are and I am reminded of I'm not going to use

26:57 this name because I it's not a it's not an appropriate place

27:00 for me to do it but somebody who talked about the fact

27:05 and and I'm going to people who are historians will know

27:08 about whom I am speaking who was a physics graduate student

27:12 at Berkeley in the 1960s and had his eye on a woman

27:18 that he thought was very attractive she was going to a protest

27:23 and he went along with her and it was shut

27:27 down by the police in Berkeley and he told me once

27:31 that he found himself and he was completely a political he was

27:35 a physics graduate student he was just interested in this cute

27:38 girl and he said all of a sudden I found myself

27:41 on the stairs of Bolt Hall you know with his fist

27:45 in the air in the air screaming fight fight fight and he became

27:49 a historian and I I I think about that in this moment

27:52 because I think you know we wanted to we're introverts we

27:57 wanted to be living under a rock right and right

28:00 and and I like that idea because the degree to which we are

28:04 in the middle of this is a sign of how truly

28:07 radicalizing it is we we have been pulled into where we are

28:12 because of the urgency and because of the emotion and because

28:15 of the visceral understanding of precisely where we are as as people

28:19 as Americans as citizens and as historians I totally agree

28:22 with you and I think about this every now and again not

28:27 only do I want to be somewhere looking at you know

28:30 manuscripts and coming up with ideas about what they mean about politics

28:35 in the past I didn't think I was going to be

28:38 an activist of any kind I didn't think I would be here

28:41 every night beaming in you know a few thoughts for those who

28:44 can't sleep that on a certain level this is bonkers, right?

28:49 That that that this is where we are.

28:50 But the fact I like thinking of it in a sense

28:53 as the fact that you and I are where we are.

28:57 It's how bad it is.

28:59 It's absolute.

29:00 If you can get two historians here in this way so consistently,

29:05 that's the radicalization of what's going on.

29:08 I I like the way of putting it.

29:12 Yeah, you know, I wonder um the books

29:16 that are going to be written about this time.

29:18 I I actually do think the story is not the um I think

29:26 the bigger story is not the MAGA people trying to control the country.

29:30 I do think the bigger story is the American people reclaiming democracy.

29:36 And it's so hard to see when you're in it because you're you're overwhelmed.

29:40 And you know, when that so many people sent me news about Virginia yesterday.

29:45 And and I sort of ran out of expletives to reply with.

29:49 And um and yet if you again think about the larger movement under the surface,

29:58 um that's the you know, when we think about the 1850s,

30:01 we see the dying of the oligarchy and the rise of an entirely

30:05 new concept of government under then

30:07 the brand new Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln.

30:10 And I think we're probably looking at the same thing now.

30:13 But it's hard to see when you're in it.

30:15 I Well, right.

30:16 But I I agree in a sense the rise

30:20 to authoritarianist Let's just say authoritarianism and not even ist.

30:25 Um in a sense, that's lazy and unexceptional.

30:31 Exactly.

30:32 That's a default.

30:33 That's a thing that it's going to happen.

30:35 What's different and what takes energy,

30:38 but what is special and what is really the story is the response to that.

30:44 Exactly.

30:45 I would say exactly.

30:46 The rise of authoritarianism is textbook.

30:49 You and I could we could write

30:50 that text People have written that textbook, right?

30:53 Right.

30:53 Again and again and again and again.

30:54 We know how that goes and we know what people

30:56 want and we know how they act to get it.

30:58 We know that story.

31:00 The variable and the part that requires some creativity and the part

31:04 that is the real story is how people decide to respond to that.

31:10 So, the real story is us.

31:13 So, so when I said earlier I didn't think the people in Tennessee,

31:16 for example, were reading reconstruction, that's what I meant.

31:19 They don't have to because we know exactly what the next move is.

31:22 But yeah, the the place where you change the world is and I would say

31:26 not just in certainly in the creativity and so on, but the you can't you know,

31:32 I'm I know this is a word you don't know,

31:33 Joanne, but there's something called contingency.

31:37 She's in her She says contingency all the time.

31:40 I barely do actually.

31:41 But you know, one of the things that's jumped out

31:43 to me lately is that Trump's war on Iran has really um

31:50 added extraordinary power behind the move to renewable energy because even

31:55 though he is trying desperately to reclaim the fossil fuels market,

32:00 countries who could buy from the US are like, "You guys are wackadoodle.

32:04 We're not doing that.

32:05 We're going to come up our And so, you look at that and you think, 'Okay,

32:08 that's a changed circumstance that we can respond

32:12 to.' And the other one is data centers,

32:16 which suddenly are people are reacting to on a bipartisan fashion.

32:20 Right.

32:21 And also um AI and surveillance.

32:25 All of those things,

32:26 remember I've talked a lot about how in the um in the going into the Civil War,

32:33 there's this whole mix-up among the parties and the the alliances on the other

32:36 side are entirely different that you couldn't have predicted 10 years before.

32:41 Because you get the rise of all these new issues and I'm watching the rise

32:44 of these issues and for example the surveillance

32:47 that the Congress has been fighting over.

32:50 And you know the two leaders of that are a very staunch right-wing

32:54 Republican and a very staunch left Democrat

32:58 because the the the equations have changed.

33:02 And so it's partly our creativity in dealing with the crisis at hand,

33:08 but also our creativity in figuring out what we want the future to look like

33:13 and that is not going to have the same

33:15 kind of partisan divisions that we have now.

33:18 There will be partisan divisions, but they're going to be entirely different.

33:21 Well, right because it's it's it's creativity in structure.

33:26 Meaning it's creativity in figuring out how we're going to do what we're going

33:31 to do not just like how do we get around the the you know racist redistricting.

33:37 But just as you're saying, how do we come together to do this thing?

33:42 Whatever happens, however we come together to do

33:45 this, that will shape where we're going politically and otherwise.

33:50 It will.

33:51 Because we will be learning in the process what works

33:54 and what doesn't and the process of engaging in that fight,

33:59 the process of working for our rights and against an oligarchy.

34:06 That process in and of itself will bring

34:08 people together and you're right, not just Democrats.

34:12 People of all kinds.

34:13 It's another way in which there's

34:15 strength here that probably people are underestimating.

34:18 Okay, I feel better now.

34:21 Well, I think we're less than we were before we beamed in.

34:28 I think that might be true my little fiddlehead fern.

34:31 Oh god.

34:33 Why did I not see that coming?

34:36 Why did I not see that coming?

34:38 Um I guess that the only thing about

34:40 that is that um you haven't mentioned running yet,

34:43 so maybe that's the trade-off.

34:45 So fiddleheads.

34:47 Did I tell you you love fiddleheads?

34:49 Oh my god.

34:50 So so we have them here and they're so hard to clean,

34:54 but it is fiddlehead season, so Yes, no, they're hard to clean,

34:57 but then once you clean them and cook them, they're really good.

35:01 You're looking very disbelieving me if you are.

35:03 They're like eating the bottom of the forest floor,

35:05 but but yeah, we'll go ahead and No, they're good.

35:06 Anyway, okay, I won't No, actually I'm teasing.

35:08 They are they are good.

35:09 They're a nuisance, but they're good.

35:12 You'll come you should come sometime in the spring

35:14 and I'll I'll take you out foraging for them.

35:16 Good, and then you'll watch while I clean them.

35:18 It well, yeah, it's not a short process.

35:22 No.

35:22 For sure.

35:23 Um I was going to tell you something else and now I

35:25 can't remember what it was cuz we got sidetracked on the fiddlehead ferns.

35:29 Don't remember.

35:30 Oh, running.

35:31 Somebody told me that they um that they looked up on AI something

35:35 about when we do these these talks on Saturday morning cuz the truth is,

35:39 folks, we try to do it at 10:30,

35:41 but Saturday mornings are not good for either of us.

35:44 And apparently some AI thing told them that we

35:47 have to schedule it for AFTER YOUR RUN.

35:53 I AT THE LAST SECOND I THOUGHT THAT IS WHERE this is going to end up.

35:56 I Okay, that that I am actually laughing at AI because of that.

36:01 That is hilarious.

36:02 Well, this And this goes to show you why you should never ever trust AI.

36:09 Well, they mention running ALL THE TIME.

36:12 THAT'S RIGHT.

36:13 YES.

36:14 Um all right, well, I guess we should go.

36:17 You Are you going to the apple guy?

36:18 Uh I am not.

36:19 I am going out to brunch with a friend.

36:22 Oh, nice.

36:23 Yeah.

36:24 Um and I'm I am indeed I've already sprayed the bathroom, so we're good.

36:28 Wow, okay.

36:29 So, we're both ahead of the game.

36:32 Uh and somebody just said by the way that your um

36:36 uh your next book has to to has to talk about running.

36:43 I I um there was a someone who um had to find a way

36:48 to mention Franklin Pierce in every book they wrote um for unknown reasons,

36:53 but it was always Franklin Pierce.

36:54 Um you never know whether running will become that thing for me.

36:58 I'm not sure.

36:59 I put jokes in my books, don't you?

37:01 Yeah, well, yeah, but but not like Usually in the index.

37:06 Or footnotes.

37:07 Yeah.

37:07 Yeah.

37:08 Yeah, no, I don't know if you guys know that.

37:09 Most people do in fact throw um jokes in their in their books, I think.

37:15 Um certainly I mean, I always have.

37:18 Little ones, but um often inside jokes to friends or whatever.

37:23 No, and I I think there was one time when

37:25 I stuck a um Monty Python joke in a footnote,

37:29 and I was so pleased it didn't get pulled out.

37:31 It was an article, wasn't even a book,

37:33 and I thought they're going to take away they're going

37:35 to take I can't remember which what what it was, but it made me very happy.

37:38 Yeah.

37:39 Well, you and I both got to get writing.

37:41 All right, I hope you have a great week.

37:43 And um um and thanks for doing this as always,

37:48 you know, it's worth getting out of bed.

37:50 I love you.

37:51 Love you too, Joanne.

37:52 Thanks for coming, everybody.

37:54 Thanks, everybody.