0:02

Hi this is and and

0:04

this is t know the

0:07

day now.t V chat show

0:09

with some of the world's

0:12

leading thinkers. Hello!

0:18

Everybody it is Tuesday. April.

0:23

The. Sixteenth. Twenty

0:25

Twenty Three, Not a day seems to

0:28

go by without us during something on

0:30

the inequalities and divisions in America. Yesterday.

0:33

We did a show with

0:35

the conservative journalist Bacha Unga

0:38

socgen. I'm who believes that

0:40

American elites mostly liberal elite

0:42

as that happens. Ah,

0:44

and have you at least have

0:46

betrayed the country's working men and

0:48

women? She leaves out class in

0:50

terms of defy defining. The

0:53

Working Men and women as the Working class

0:56

but a book is called damn. Second,

0:58

Class: How the Elites betrayed

1:00

America's working men and women.

1:02

One. Man. Who's

1:05

spent his career looking

1:07

at the travails. Of

1:10

the American working class on it

1:12

think he would be uncomfortable using

1:15

that term is dale. Marriage is

1:17

a very distinguished writer, journalist, essayist.

1:19

He teaches at Columbia. Journalism.

1:22

School is one all sorts of awards. He

1:25

was on the show a couple of years

1:27

ago talking about. At that point

1:29

at least his new book fact

1:31

at birth recalibrating the American Dream

1:33

for the Twenty twenties me as

1:35

a new book out today. it's

1:38

called American Doom Loop. Dispatches.

1:40

From a troubled nation ninety eight,

1:42

the Nineteen eighties, to the Twenty

1:45

twenties. I. Which he revisits a

1:47

lot of the themes and individuals his covered

1:49

over the years and he's joining us from

1:51

his office. At. Columbia University

1:53

Day. I'm not sure if you've had a

1:56

chance to look at second class. Ah,

1:58

but it into In terms of your analysis of

2:01

what's happened over the last 40 years,

2:04

does, in your view, Anga Sargen, does

2:07

she have a point that

2:09

American elites, perhaps of the left or

2:11

of the right, conservative

2:13

or progressive elites, have betrayed

2:15

America's working men and women? Yeah,

2:19

I blame both parties. Of

2:21

course, I blame Republicans a little bit more

2:23

for some things. So

2:26

many of the policies that are affecting

2:28

what's going on in America today, the

2:30

anger, the rage, discontent,

2:34

started when I started

2:36

as a reporter in 1980 with the

2:39

shutdowns of the industrial heartland.

2:43

I went to Youngstown, Ohio, and documented

2:46

the death of the steel industry, 50,000

2:49

jobs lost. And that was

2:51

a decision made by both parties. Basically,

2:54

we wrote off the middle of the country.

2:57

It was a corporate takeover.

3:00

So I have blame on both sides, although

3:04

Democrats have a little

3:06

kinder, gentler, but

3:08

not much so, touch

3:11

than the Republicans. You're

3:14

not the type of person to

3:16

toot your own horn, but it's worth noting that you're

3:21

very one of the remarkable things about your

3:23

story is you inspired Bruce Springsteen in

3:26

terms of your description of the

3:28

middle of the country. Your work

3:30

inspired his great song, Youngstown. Tell

3:32

me about that relationship and

3:35

how you got on Springsteen's radar. Well,

3:37

the book came out in 1985. In 1995, I

3:42

got a call from somebody who worked for

3:44

Bruce Springsteen who said, Bruce wants to meet

3:46

you. And when we

3:48

met, eventually we were in

3:50

Youngstown together when he played there. He picked

3:53

the book up 10 years later off his bookshelf. He bought it

3:55

when it came out. And

3:58

the song Youngstown The

4:00

Chronicles The The Marshal family. They.

4:02

Worked in the eye of of she

4:04

into that's I'm sorry the Us Steel

4:07

google planting youngster. After

4:09

thirty seven and a half years Mr. Marshall

4:11

who landed at Norman Need D day was

4:13

one of for survivors and is landing craft

4:16

and they making forty four of the blew

4:18

it up and basically he and a summer

4:20

out of work so it was very difficult

4:22

but I asked the the father and son

4:25

the give me a tour of the ruins

4:27

are all blown up and as he's walking

4:29

through the ruins. Mister Marshall

4:31

said with hitler couldn't do they did it

4:33

for him. You. Will Bruce

4:35

uses that in his song. Or.

4:38

Or them big boys did was hitler couldn't

4:40

do it used to the full band version

4:42

of Bruce's song. On. Here

4:44

in captures the rage that I documented

4:46

in the eighties. That song. Don't read

4:48

my first book, just listen to his

4:50

song. It's two hundred and forty words

4:52

are so. T T sums up on.

4:54

you know what happened to the working

4:56

class in America? Yeah,

4:59

we should read burger of you use

5:01

never disguise people down from reading your

5:03

own book. I saw Springsteen actually in

5:05

San Francisco couple of weeks ago. And.

5:07

He added plan yeah, that stuff which was.

5:10

Rather disappointing, but that's another

5:12

show, another narrative I'm let's

5:15

get to it to to

5:17

the booklets out today. Congratulations

5:19

America! Doom Loop dispatches from

5:21

a troubled, nice nineteen eighties

5:24

to the twenty twenties. Tell.

5:26

Me about this book to the kind

5:28

of book it is because it's not

5:30

just a collection of essays and. That.

5:33

Much of it is a narrative of

5:36

people that you mess in the eighties

5:38

who you return to. Yeah

5:41

I I've only doing and of

5:43

it really deep type of work.

5:45

I don't like just going to

5:48

somebody. Putting. your story between the

5:50

pages and and moving i go back

5:52

and back back and in this book

5:54

i went back to the victims of

5:56

violence that i covered when i was

5:58

in sacramento california on the police large

6:03

and small. For instance, a real quick

6:05

story. I covered the very first schoolyard

6:08

shooting in Stockton, California.

6:11

A man named Patrick Purdy went into

6:13

the schoolyard and opened fire and killed kids and

6:15

wounded a whole bunch of others. And that

6:18

led Congress to pass a law

6:20

banning military-style assault rifles and

6:23

large capacity feeding devices

6:25

like 100 shot drums. I grew

6:27

up deer hunting. I had nothing

6:30

against hunting or rifles used for

6:32

hunting. But this was military weapons

6:34

that were banned. And then in 2004, the law

6:38

was allowed to expire. And

6:40

we know what happened since 2004. Every

6:42

year there are more and more mass

6:44

shootings with large capacity feeding

6:47

drums. So

6:49

that's just one doom loop I covered.

6:52

Another was homeless in Sacramento. In 1980, when I

6:54

first got to the paper in 1980, I was

6:59

captivated by public inebriates.

7:01

At the time they were called winos.

7:04

We wouldn't call them that now. But

7:07

these were just poor guys who were on really

7:09

hard times. And so I documented

7:11

them and there were 900 according

7:13

to officials and they mostly lived in SRO

7:17

hotels, those cheap flophouse hotels.

7:20

I walked in the woods along the rivers

7:22

in Sacramento and found a few pieces of

7:24

cardboard and newspaper in the

7:26

bushes. Well, two

7:29

years later, there were suddenly a whole

7:31

bunch more people in the woods. In

7:33

my first story, I did not use the word homeless.

7:36

By 1982, I was using the word

7:38

homeless and I just dove into that story. Really

7:41

went deep and deep. I rode the rails with the

7:43

new hobos in the early 1980s. 1986, I did a

7:45

survey. I walked all

7:50

10 miles of the river banks in Sacramento

7:52

and found well over 100 camps

7:54

with tents and such. Well,

7:57

I went back during the pandemic and

7:59

there were five to ten

8:01

thousand homeless people in that area.

8:03

So in a span of those

8:06

years we had homeless just went off the

8:08

charts. I

8:10

can go into the blame for it. For

8:12

many years, going back where we started

8:14

in this show, I blame Republicans,

8:16

conservatives, but I've come to

8:18

realize good liberals, and I put that

8:21

in quotes, are equally to blame.

8:24

For instance, here in New York City

8:26

they tried to get affordable housing in

8:29

Westchester County, north of New York

8:31

City, which is a wealthy county. They've

8:33

resisted it for years. Governor Haulkles,

8:36

a measure failed dismally. 80% of

8:40

the voters in Westchester County voted for Biden.

8:43

They put Black Lives Matter signs in their

8:45

front lawns, but their message

8:48

is, we will support you, but just don't

8:50

live near us. Don't

8:52

fuck near us. Don't fuck with

8:54

us. Perhaps that could be the title of your next

8:57

book. It's interesting that

8:59

you're clearly on the left, and

9:03

Sargon, Ungar Sargon

9:06

is clearly on the right, but you seem to agree

9:08

on much of your critique of liberalism.

9:11

Let's talk a little bit more about this homelessness

9:14

crisis. You're an interesting piece. I think

9:16

it's derived from the book in the

9:18

LA Times. What

9:23

has happened there? We've had this

9:25

enormous rise in the

9:27

value of homes. You note

9:29

this in the op-ed in

9:32

the Times. Your

9:34

class, my class, we're all rich because

9:36

of our real estate, and

9:39

younger people, whether or not they're well employed

9:42

or not, they can't afford their

9:44

own homes. What is this narrative? Why

9:46

has it happened? And coming

9:49

back to your point, why are liberals as

9:51

much to blame? Because they're so much opposed

9:53

to development? Well, I've

9:55

got mine. I'm

9:57

in my middle class, upper class, and

10:00

neighborhood. I don't want

10:02

affordable housing near me. Well, in California,

10:04

that means units costing $800,000. We're not

10:07

talking ghetto housing. But

10:09

there's been resistance in

10:11

many communities, the east-west coast against

10:14

building more affordable

10:16

units. I believe that

10:18

in Los Angeles we have to

10:21

go up, not keep going out. Sprawl is not

10:23

the answer. And there was a bill

10:25

a few years back that would have allowed for

10:29

apartment buildings, high-rise apartment buildings and

10:31

transit corridors. And that fails miserably

10:33

because people don't want that

10:36

quote-unquote bad housing in

10:38

their neighborhoods. Well, I live here in New York

10:40

City. There's a lot of high-rise buildings with

10:43

wonderful, vibrant neighborhoods around them.

10:46

But this resistance has

10:49

limited the housing supply. So the

10:51

children of these boomer nimbies, and

10:53

I'm a boomer, I'm

10:56

kind of tired with my generation, have

10:59

basically refused to allow affordable housing to

11:02

be built. That

11:04

is, apartment buildings or condo

11:06

units that are high-rise that their

11:08

children can afford. I had

11:10

a student last year in my

11:12

class who didn't believe me when I said

11:14

there was never home. Homelessness has not always

11:18

existed in America. She didn't believe me.

11:20

She just assumed homelessness had always been

11:22

with us. Then I realized she's like

11:25

22, 23 years old. And

11:27

I started covering this in 1980. Basically,

11:30

twice as long as she's been alive, there's

11:32

been homeless. So of course she thinks it's

11:34

a normal situation. Yeah, I was

11:36

down in LA last

11:39

month. I wanted

11:41

to visit the RFK school now,

11:43

which had been the

11:46

location of the Ambassador Hotel where

11:48

RFK was assassinated in 1968. And

11:52

what astonished me was there was this new school

11:54

that looked pretty nice. It's surrounded by a huge

11:56

wall. It could have been a prison or a

11:58

mental asylum. It was a city. school. And

12:01

surrounding it were all these

12:03

homeless encampments, but they weren't

12:05

housed, so to speak, by

12:09

what you would sort of conventionally associate

12:11

as homeless people as vagrants. They were

12:13

housed by young people. Is that increasingly

12:16

becoming normal, Dale,

12:19

that young people are living in

12:21

homeless encampments? Oh, absolutely.

12:24

When I started out back in the early

12:26

80s, it was mostly men on the road

12:29

looking for work. We actually looked for women

12:31

and younger people and didn't really find them.

12:33

And then you started seeing the change. Whole

12:37

families, the families though, have to

12:39

hide because the social services will

12:41

take the kids. But you see

12:44

lots of young people, and it's

12:46

become a, well, it's a doom

12:48

loop. It's become a cycle. And

12:51

for the critics who say that, oh,

12:53

they're just all addicted to drugs. And

12:55

you hear that. I

12:58

point in the article I did for the

13:00

LA Times, in

13:02

Jackson, Mississippi, which has

13:05

one sixth the homeless of Los

13:07

Angeles, rents are $800 a month. The

13:10

average rent in LA is $2,800 a

13:13

month. So if you can't

13:15

afford the apartment, you end up on the

13:17

street. And I've been out there reporting enough

13:19

to know that if I were homeless for

13:22

a year or two, I'd probably be drinking

13:24

and using drugs as well. I

13:26

mean, they're self-medicating. Yeah, I was just in

13:28

a couple of months ago, I was in

13:31

Jackson and come to think

13:33

of it, I didn't see a lot of homeless people.

13:35

I didn't see a lot of people anyway. San Francisco,

13:38

along with New York and Los

13:40

Angeles is the home, so to

13:42

speak, of homelessness. We did a show

13:45

actually late last year, a live show with

13:47

Kevin Adler at Green Apple Books. Kevin, I'm

13:49

not sure if you're familiar with his work,

13:52

Dale. He's a homeless

13:56

advocate activist. He has a

13:58

new book out When We Walk By. forgotten

14:00

humanity, broken systems and the role we

14:02

can each play in ending

14:04

homelessness in America. He has a kind

14:08

of humanistic approach to this, is that

14:10

we should all befriend homeless

14:12

people. I'm guessing that for you,

14:16

that's a little too feel

14:18

good of a solution. What are

14:21

your thoughts on Adler's argument? And

14:23

I don't want to put Kevin

14:25

in a box. He's a remarkable guy.

14:28

And what he does is amazing. We

14:30

should be nice to these people because

14:32

they are us. And

14:35

that's his point that any of us could get

14:38

in. It's kind of like a rules

14:40

in situation

14:42

where if we

14:44

draw one short straw, one unlucky number,

14:47

then we could end up in that

14:49

car or that tent. Absolutely.

14:53

I've seen it over and over and over. And frankly,

14:56

in my early years reporting

14:58

on this, I really

15:00

lived in terror becoming homeless. I

15:03

was young. I had didn't have much equity. I did be

15:06

a house when I was young. I was able to. I

15:08

was not going to afford it, unlike

15:10

today. But when I

15:12

came back from that reporting trip, the one

15:14

that inspired Bruce Springsteen, I had $5 in

15:16

the bank and thousands of

15:18

dollars in my credit card. And

15:22

one layoff, something could have happened to me at that point.

15:24

It would have tripped me up. I'm

15:28

fortunate, but I'm also very lucky. I don't

15:30

count on anything. I got

15:32

an email after the LA Times piece from a

15:34

man who had a house in Malibu who has

15:37

some medical condition that wasn't covered. This

15:39

is many years ago, and he had a downward

15:41

spiral and now he's homeless. And

15:45

what you know, what's interesting, sorry to jump in

15:47

here in your Times piece and in the book,

15:50

is if you can get even on the

15:52

bottom rung, then you're pretty secure. You know

15:54

that you bought your home for a relatively

15:56

small amount of money. And now you're part

15:59

of this privilege. It's not because you've

16:01

done anything wrong, you just happen

16:03

to get on the chopper before Saigon

16:06

fell. That's a

16:08

good way to put it, Andrew. I tell

16:10

my students, it's like I ran across a bridge that's

16:13

blowing up and burning behind me. The

16:15

young people are on the other side. I got across,

16:17

but they're not going to get across. And

16:19

that's not the America I want to live in.

16:21

But do you have kids there?

16:24

I do not. I did not

16:26

go there. But at some point,

16:28

even the great-dale marriage will die

16:30

and your wealth will be redistributed.

16:32

I've got kids. My kids may

16:35

not be able to afford homes

16:38

of their own, but when I pass on,

16:40

they'll get mine. Won't it just be a

16:42

generational thing that the baby boomers will eventually

16:44

die out? I think most people will

16:47

be reasonably pleased with that, even baby boomers.

16:49

And then the wealth will just, so

16:52

to speak, in Reagan terms,

16:54

get redistributed, trickle

16:57

down. It's trickle down

16:59

home equity. Yes.

17:01

It's becoming like the

17:04

United Kingdom, where inherited

17:06

wealth. I

17:09

have friends who have children, and they're passing their houses

17:11

on to them, especially in California. That's

17:13

the only way they're going to be able to get

17:15

a house. But it

17:17

just further entrenches the two-class society.

17:21

Home ownership, as you know, is a

17:23

vehicle for becoming

17:25

part of the system, for

17:27

caring, for having equity in

17:30

yourself and in the country. This

17:33

is why I advocate we

17:35

have to change our

17:37

zoning and allow affordable

17:39

houses that the children of the boomers

17:41

and the children of exers, I mean,

17:43

the exers are getting older too, can

17:46

afford. And those who can't inherit it

17:48

will end up just

17:51

poorer than we are now. We're

17:55

speaking with their marriage. Many of you will be

17:57

familiar with his remarkable general... He

18:00

has a new collection out, American Doom Loop,

18:03

a very important collection which he's focusing, as

18:06

he's done over the last 40 years, on the

18:08

inequalities, inequities, injustices of America. American

18:12

Doom Loop dispatches from a troubled nation, 1980s

18:14

to the 2020s. I

18:18

want to remind everyone that great guests like Dale are

18:21

brought to us because of our

18:23

friends at Libertées, the Quarterly Journal of Culture and

18:25

Public Health, and the American Museum of Public Health.

18:28

They're a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Going

18:30

to run a short feature on Libertées. And

18:33

then we'll be back with Dale to address what

18:35

can be done to address all the inequities of

18:37

the America of the 2020s. So

18:39

don't go away. Anyone will be back with Dale Maharaj

18:41

in a couple of seconds. News,

18:45

the noise, there is nuance,

18:47

insight. Libertées is not just a

18:49

journal of ideas. It's a meteor

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is a triumph for freedom of thought. A

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immaculate prose. It's invaluable. Subscribe

19:10

now or find Libertées at your

19:12

favorite bookseller. And you can

19:14

subscribe to Libertées at LibertéesJournal.com. We're

19:16

speaking with Dale Maharaj, the author

19:18

of a new collection, American

19:21

Doom Loop. Dale, before

19:23

the break, we were talking about the housing crisis. Last

19:26

week we had a couple of housing

19:28

experts on. They have a new book out, Housing

19:30

the Nation, Social Equity, Architecture

19:32

and the Future of Affordable Housing,

19:35

edited by Alexander Galin, who runs

19:37

the Galin Architecture

19:39

Company in

19:41

New York and Victoria Newhouse, a

19:44

powerful woman in New York. They

19:47

talk about rebuilding, not just New

19:49

York, but America. Is

19:51

that the solution? Just more

19:53

housing? It's a

19:56

help, but my reading list is going to increase

19:58

after this show. It's

20:00

part of the solution. There's other elements.

20:02

We have to have well-paying jobs, of

20:04

course, so you can afford to pay

20:07

for those apartments. But apartment rents have

20:09

gone way, way, way high. It's

20:12

become way beyond out of the reach of

20:14

people who work at fast food places and

20:17

other low-wage jobs. So I'm

20:20

not an absolutist about it, but I know

20:22

this for sure. The answer is not building

20:26

little shacks and such. There's so

20:28

many stories of they'll

20:31

spend millions and millions and millions of

20:33

dollars to build a little village of

20:35

basically tool shins that cost a quarter

20:37

million dollars each. I'd rather see

20:39

that money go into real housing where people

20:41

can really live and have dignity. There

20:44

was, of course, the great rebuilding

20:47

at Levittown after the Second World

20:49

War, an attempt very

20:51

flawed, certainly given its racist

20:54

elements to house Americans, middle-class

20:56

Americans, lower middle-class Americans, to

20:59

enable the American dream. Do

21:03

we need new Levittowns, Dale?

21:05

I'm not sure. Levittowns

21:07

were sprawl. And as you noted,

21:10

they were very racially

21:12

segregated. Well,

21:15

blacks were essentially not allowed access to

21:17

Levittowns. It was a white-only zone. It

21:20

was rather apartheid, right? Yeah,

21:23

there were covenants written into the contracts that

21:26

you would not sell to somebody who wasn't white.

21:29

That's crazy. No, I think

21:31

we have to become more like Japan or New

21:33

York City, where we go up. We just can't

21:36

keep going out. We

21:39

have to change how we live. And again,

21:41

that doesn't mean building slum housing. If

21:43

we have high-rise corridors, like

21:46

we have in New York City, the

21:48

Upper West Side and Upper East Side are, I

21:51

don't know how many tens of thousands

21:53

of people are per square mile.

21:55

It's humongous. And

21:57

we have vibrant neighborhoods. It's a different way

21:59

of living. It isn't the lawn that you

22:01

mow. And to pick

22:03

a fence, although a lot of these new developments,

22:05

there's not even any lawn. The houses are so

22:07

close to each other. It

22:10

could be, it has to be a mix of housing. All

22:13

I know is that the present

22:15

policies and it really ties

22:18

into zoning are not working, because

22:20

we're here. I

22:22

am not a housing expert. It just

22:24

seems logical, though, that if you create

22:27

more housing, prices will

22:29

become more affordable. But when you have

22:31

a rare commodity, the prices just

22:33

keep going up. Is it realistic,

22:35

though, for the

22:38

middle of the country, the center

22:40

of the country, which you argue

22:42

we Americans wrote off in the

22:44

1980s, to start trying to build

22:47

high rises in the middle of Milwaukee

22:49

or Cleveland or Akron?

22:53

The problem is, if you go to Cleveland

22:55

or Detroit, where I've been, east side of

22:57

Cleveland or much of Detroit, there's

23:00

empty housing, abandonment.

23:03

You can drive in Detroit for 40 minutes

23:05

and just pass up ruins and abandonment. I

23:08

documented people who were just taking over houses and

23:10

squatting in them and making them nice a

23:13

few years back. So the

23:16

problem there is a whole different story. Jobs

23:18

are needed there. So the housing is

23:20

not a universal American issue. Right

23:23

now, if you go to Detroit, you can homestead.

23:25

I think the city will give you

23:27

the house if you pay the taxes, some

23:30

minor amount. You can homestead a house

23:32

that's been abandoned. So it's not

23:34

structures that are needed there. It's jobs. Dale,

23:39

we were promised that it wouldn't matter where

23:41

we lived with the digital revolution. Anyone could

23:43

live anywhere. You can work from anywhere. The

23:45

local Starbucks. Everyone has

23:47

Wi-Fi. What's happened? Why? It's

23:51

odd. On the one hand, places

23:53

like New York and San Francisco

23:55

and Los Angeles are increasingly unaffordable,

23:57

which accounts for the terrible homelessness.

24:01

On the other hand, everyone still wants to live in

24:04

these elite coastal places.

24:06

Why? Well,

24:09

I guess that's human nature. The

24:11

thing you mentioned though, you know, we

24:13

all work online. I remember

24:16

a study that came out during the

24:18

pandemic. Only 9% of

24:20

Americans could work from home. The

24:23

rest of Americans have to drive the

24:25

trucks, have to pick the fruit, have

24:27

to deliver the materials and

24:30

so forth. So it's only a fraction of

24:32

us who can work online

24:34

and live remote. Again,

24:38

the truck driver can't do that

24:40

remotely, although they're trying to take that truck

24:42

driver's job by making trucks self-driving. But that's

24:45

another story. So

24:48

where's the innovation going to

24:50

come from? The nostalgia believe

24:52

that there'll be a Marshall plan for

24:54

housing, which isn't going to come. The

24:56

American government's weaker and weaker, more and

24:58

more dysfunctional,

25:01

doesn't attract smart people, doesn't pay

25:04

properly and gets quite

25:07

literally raped by politicians like Trump.

25:10

Where's the innovation going to come from? Wow.

25:13

You know, I think it's going to be have to

25:15

be the states. It's not going to be the federal

25:17

government. When I

25:19

started doing this work 40 years ago, I thought

25:21

I was naive enough to think that I'll put this

25:23

work out there. It'll be like the 1930s. The

25:26

federal government will come in with some plan,

25:29

the new deal, a new new deal.

25:32

I was naive enough to think that was going to happen. That

25:36

is not going to happen. It's going to

25:38

be states. The

25:40

Governor of HOCO tried that measure

25:42

a year ago to keep zoning

25:44

and force affordable

25:46

housing, which is again

25:48

not cheap housing, and it's failed. But

25:51

we're getting incremental change. There were

25:53

60 bills passed in the California

25:56

legislature last year dealing with housing,

25:58

some of them very good. speeding

26:01

up environmental reviews, for instance, a

26:04

lot of NIMBYs were using

26:08

environmental laws to block the most the

26:10

most specious of ways to block of condo

26:13

from being built down the street. So

26:17

things like that are incrementally helping, but we

26:19

do need a Marshall Plan. Unfortunately,

26:21

it's not going to come from Washington. Not

26:25

everyone on the left, I

26:27

think Dale would agree. Last week,

26:29

we also had Natalie Foster, Bay

26:31

Area based political activist. She

26:34

believes that there is a new New

26:36

Deal. She believes that the arc of

26:38

the 21st century American moral universe

26:40

is bending towards justice. She said that

26:42

the COVID years prove that the American

26:44

government spent tens of

26:46

billions of dollars fighting successfully

26:49

the virus. How would you

26:51

respond to people like Foster who suggest that

26:54

the architecture of this new

26:56

New Deal already exists? Well,

26:59

the architecture exists, but are any bills going to

27:01

pass in this Congress the way

27:03

it's going? And no matter what happens in

27:05

November, it's going to be

27:07

very contentious. The Republicans have become

27:09

a party of just saying no, they're

27:12

not going to vote for a bill that's going

27:14

to create another New

27:16

Deal. I

27:19

wish I could be as hopeful as that author. I

27:22

want to be pessimistic. I want to have hope. But

27:25

I think a lot of fighting is needed

27:27

between now and the time that we actually

27:29

do something. Dale,

27:31

I'm guessing you're no great

27:33

friend of Donald Trump or the MAGA

27:36

movement, but you're equally critical of

27:38

liberals. You said good

27:40

liberals, and I'm using your language here

27:43

equally to brane for

27:45

ourselves, for our audience, what can

27:47

good liberals do to

27:50

start rethinking America, given that

27:52

they have equal,

27:55

at least in your argument, equal blame

27:57

for the situation in the in

27:59

2020. What do you think?

28:01

Look in the mirror. You

28:03

put your Black Lives Matter sign in the front

28:05

lawn, and then you

28:08

go to a council meeting and

28:10

oppose the apartment building a mile

28:12

from your house. I know some

28:15

people in Sacramento were opposing some

28:17

apartment buildings that were two and three miles

28:19

from their houses, saying that

28:21

the quality of life was gonna change.

28:23

And they use euphemisms like traffic. They

28:26

don't like more, they don't want more traffic. And what

28:28

they're really saying is that we don't want people of

28:30

color nearby. So people are

28:33

gonna have to assess within

28:36

what are we doing really here? And

28:40

I think there's a growing

28:42

sense of this happening. In

28:45

my sense, I mean, I

28:47

haven't gone down random streets and

28:49

talked to nimbies in these

28:51

neighborhoods just doing a poll, but I

28:53

get a sense there's more awareness. But

28:56

we have to change ourselves if we're

28:58

gonna change society. And if you're gonna

29:00

call yourself a good liberal, think

29:03

about what that means and how you live your

29:05

life. If

29:07

you're gonna oppose that apartment building a mile from your

29:09

house, what's really going on inside

29:11

your head? Darryl,

29:14

you teach at Columbia Journalism

29:16

Schools. So you're very familiar

29:18

with young writers, young journalists.

29:22

We talked earlier about the

29:24

generational quality of

29:26

the real estate crisis, of not being able

29:29

to afford one's own home. Do

29:32

you see much manifestation of a

29:34

generational political shift where

29:37

people are rethinking everything, not

29:40

just real estate, but economics,

29:43

tax, even

29:46

capitalism itself? Absolutely.

29:48

I've been teaching now for 32 years. And

29:53

I would say the trend is way

29:56

more socialist. Socialism is

29:59

not a bad... From a my my

30:01

students are course I have some European

30:03

students here. And. Ah my

30:05

American students are very much in agreement

30:07

with them on many many things and

30:10

so the the climate is changing and

30:12

again I'm sima a select group of

30:14

have kids but but also middle of

30:16

the country has changed I mean just

30:19

going around when I started reporting back

30:21

in the eighties you know gay marriage

30:23

was was vilified in lot of places

30:25

and he's been mobilized I mean I've

30:28

given you know I've been a very

30:30

conservative places and then and groups with

30:32

Iraqi people in st people and. That

30:35

we've we've talked about this and there's much

30:37

more acceptance. Of. Of these sorts

30:39

of things that were not accepted forty

30:41

years ago. so they're nervous. Bennett, A

30:43

type of a generational shift for the

30:45

better. I said. Yes,

30:47

Asher, it's coffers been on the shower.

30:49

He wrote the book the Engagement Where

30:51

about the. Remarkable.

30:54

Shift in the country's mood

30:56

over over gay marriage from.

30:59

The. Possibility to I'm thinking.

31:02

A Acceptance. Where's.

31:04

The story then in american

31:07

dal for. Some. Unwanted

31:09

into your office and someone write a

31:11

book about Hope in America. Promise in

31:13

America You been. Reporting.

31:16

Robin Doc A in some ways on America

31:18

and and and this is covered in your

31:21

new book American didn't Blue. Dispatches.

31:23

From a troubled nation nineteen eighties to the

31:26

Twenty Twenty. Zip back. To escape

31:28

the doomed open and right about the Twenty

31:30

twenties? and the twenty first is, where's the

31:32

story? Where would you send people to look,

31:34

to report, to talk to? All. there's

31:36

all sorts of good things going on

31:38

and i've written about some of them

31:40

i mean in cleveland there is the

31:42

every corporation it's a it's a it's

31:45

us it's a socialist big business model

31:47

that based on the mother the don't

31:49

a corporation in spain where it leaks

31:51

east these companies are beaten created that

31:53

are worker owned there's a lot they'll

31:55

know what they have a laundry in

31:57

cleveland where they're employing several hundred people

32:00

Paying them very good wages and the workers

32:02

owned the company up

32:04

in New England. There's coastal enterprises incorporated

32:07

It's a it's a B corporation model

32:09

where it's a hybrid of capitalism

32:12

and socialism I interviewed

32:14

a Water woman. She

32:16

was a fisher woman and the

32:19

fisheries tanked and she she was the first

32:21

kelp farmer they were funding she

32:24

was raising kelp and It's

32:27

used in many products in America. It's not just

32:29

you know what you eat in the Japanese restaurant

32:31

It's in toothpaste, etc She was gonna

32:34

have a whole new living on this the sustainable

32:36

way of Farming the

32:38

ocean. So there's these job models

32:40

that are happening around that are

32:42

just amazing and again I find

32:44

hope in youth the

32:46

number one issue among Young

32:49

people is climate change It's

32:51

taken over everything and I think they

32:53

realize that if The

32:55

earth is inhospitable for us every other issue

32:58

doesn't really matter And so

33:00

I would focus on the young I would

33:02

focus on some of these places that are

33:04

doing innovation And

33:07

there are places doing housing innovation as

33:09

well in Texas So

33:11

there's plenty of good stories out there to

33:13

write about