0:01

Hello and

0:04

welcome to the Slate Political Gab

0:06

Fest. February

0:17

1st, 2024, the Will the

0:20

Carol verdict, her Trump edition. I'm

0:22

David Platts of CityCast. In

0:25

Washington DC, joining me is John

0:27

Dickerson of CBS Prime Time from

0:29

New York City. Hello John. You

0:32

know there is a guy named Big John

0:34

Dickerson. He's a blues player. I

0:36

would like for like a day to be

0:39

Big John Dickerson because that would mean I

0:41

was an accomplished blues

0:43

musician and that's kind of one

0:45

of the things I've always wanted to be and yet could

0:48

never achieve. Instead you are little John Dickerson.

0:53

From New Haven, medium sized Emily Bazlawn of the

0:55

New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School.

0:58

There's a big Emily Bazlawn and a little Emily Bazlawn.

1:00

You're the Goldilocks Emily Bazlawn. I'll

1:03

take it. Hi everybody. Can

1:05

I also just say Big John Dickerson has

1:08

a blues chamber, his band it's Big John

1:10

Dickerson and the blues chamber, which is not

1:12

only a guy named Big John Dickerson, but

1:14

he's got his own blues chamber. One

1:19

day when you've truly made it, we'll get you a blues

1:21

chamber. I don't even have an anti-room. I

1:24

don't have a vestibule, but he's got an

1:27

entire blues chamber. This

1:30

week on The Guy... The

1:34

violins are playing. Not

1:37

in the blues chamber they're not. There are

1:39

definitely no violins in the blues chamber. I don't think

1:41

there are violins anyway in the blues chamber. Eugene

1:44

Carroll wins an $83 million jury

1:46

verdict against Trump. Will it cost

1:49

him anything either financially or politically?

1:52

Then Emily's extraordinary history

1:54

of pre-1948 Palestine and the

1:56

New York Times magazine is

1:58

out. We will talk

2:00

about the 30 years that set the table for the

2:03

last 75 years of conflict

2:06

in that region. Then, what

2:08

is techno-authoritarianism, and is it

2:10

the ideology of Silicon Valley?

2:13

We'll have a conversation with Adrienne LaFrance

2:16

of the Atlantic about her interesting article about

2:19

that. Plus, we'll have Cocktail Chatter. Hey,

2:23

this is Mary Harris, host of Slate's

2:25

daily news podcast What Next? Slate's

2:28

mission has always been to cut through

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3:22

plus. Eugene

3:26

Carroll was awarded more than $83 million

3:29

by a nine person jury in New

3:31

York, much more than she asked for

3:33

really, as compensation for Trump's

3:35

defamation of her. Trump had already lost

3:38

a separate civil trial about whether he

3:40

had sexually assaulted her. The

3:42

jury had found that he had. This

3:44

trial had to do with his relentless

3:47

smearing of her after she had said that

3:49

he had done it. It's a huge

3:51

penalty in the only language that Trump

3:53

truly understands, but he doesn't have to pay it

3:56

just yet. There's plenty of time for appeals, though

3:58

he does have to post some bots. So,

4:00

Emily, what did the jury find and

4:03

how long till Trump might actually have to pay it? Lee

4:06

Jane Carroll's lawyer asked the jury

4:08

to penalize Trump in a way

4:10

that he would stop smearing her

4:13

and feel the consequences. And

4:15

he had given a deposition in this

4:17

case about how many kazillions of dollars

4:19

he has because he kind of can't

4:21

resist that, right? It's so core to

4:23

his self-image to portray himself as super

4:25

wealthy that he set himself up. So,

4:28

he was given a jury award like this

4:30

once the jury decided that he needed to

4:33

actually have consequences that would matter to him.

4:37

Like you said, he'll have to post bond during

4:39

appeal. And so, in

4:41

some sense, he'll feel the loss

4:43

of that money, at least temporarily.

4:46

It's possible that on appeal, the

4:48

amount will get knocked down. Although,

4:50

$83 million is actually within kind

4:52

of ranges of single-digit

4:54

multiples of the basic

4:58

compensatory damages and reputational damages

5:00

award that was like $18

5:02

million. So, $18 million

5:04

of it was for actual pain

5:06

and suffering and then the punitive damages are

5:09

on top of that as a punishment. What

5:11

is the pain and suffering? What is it that Trump is

5:14

now found to have done to Carroll that

5:16

is a civil tort that she deserves compensation

5:18

for? It's defamation. It's that

5:21

all of his saying that she

5:23

was lying about him sexually assaulting

5:25

her constituted defamation that it was

5:27

ruinous of her character and of

5:29

her reputation in a way that

5:31

was not warranted by the facts.

5:34

And I've seen some complaining about this

5:36

verdict, this idea that well, Trump has to be

5:38

able to profess his innocence. And sure, that's true.

5:40

But he went so far beyond saying,

5:43

I did not do this to super-scurrilous,

5:45

cruel kinds of statements

5:52

that went on and on that subjected her to

5:55

a normal amount of targeting and harassment. She now

5:57

sleeps with a gun by her bed, which... you

6:00

know, is not like a melodramatic response

6:02

to all the outpouring of hatred she

6:04

has gotten for his supporters. And obviously

6:07

he knows his power in this realm. He

6:09

was doing it during the trial. And it's

6:12

been interesting that since the verdict, he has

6:14

of course been complaining about

6:16

the case and claiming it's a witch hunt

6:18

naturally, but he has not been going after

6:20

her personally. And so it's possible that at

6:22

least at the moment, this is having the

6:25

desired effect. She's a brave

6:27

lady. When you say desired effect, I mean,

6:29

he's still defaming her. He is. I thought

6:31

he stopped actually going after her personally. Is that

6:33

wrong? He basically said the

6:35

he didn't do I mean, he

6:37

he didn't actually target her specifically

6:40

on Wednesday evening. But

6:42

he basically said everything else about the case.

6:44

Well, sure, that's fine, right? That's not

6:46

the commentary. Defamation is about going after

6:49

someone individually. And it's a kind of

6:51

speech that has been illegal from time

6:53

immemorial illegal in the in terms of

6:55

you can sue over it. Right. So

6:57

there's lots of room for free speech

6:59

that complains about lots of things, which

7:02

is not speaking lies

7:04

that are super ruinous

7:06

to one person. So, John, we've

7:08

talked repeatedly in the past few

7:11

months about polling suggesting a certain fraction

7:13

of the electorate would be put off

7:16

by Trump criminal conviction. This is at

7:19

least the third finding of civil misbehavior

7:21

by him. That was the original finding

7:23

with Carol. There's this finding that there is

7:26

the the Trump business

7:28

that is being sued in

7:30

in New York and

7:32

where he might face a penalty of up to three

7:34

hundred seventy million dollars. So the Trump organization might face

7:36

a penalty up to three hundred seventy million dollars and

7:39

be barred from doing business in New York because of

7:41

lies they've told. Do

7:43

any of these civil cases have political staying as

7:45

far as you can tell? Well, if any of

7:47

them do, this would be the

7:49

one because one of the

7:51

groups that Trump did poorly

7:54

within twenty twenty and needed to

7:56

win was suburban women. And

7:59

every time It's not just

8:01

the verdict. It's

8:03

the details of the case, and every time

8:05

he is asked about it, and every time

8:08

Republicans are asked about it, they

8:11

have to tie themselves into knots.

8:14

You saw Senator Tim Scott asked

8:16

on ABCs this week about

8:18

this. The

8:20

question was, does this give you

8:22

pause? And they basically spun

8:25

around and did everything that answered the question.

8:28

I self-hat all the

8:30

voters that support Donald Trump supports

8:32

a return to normalcy as it

8:34

relates to what affects their kitchen

8:36

table. The average person in our

8:38

country, Martha, they're not talking

8:40

about lawsuits. As a matter of fact, what I have

8:42

seen, however, is that the

8:45

perception that the legal system

8:47

is being weaponized against Donald

8:49

Trump is actually increasing his

8:51

poll numbers. I understand

8:53

that, but this was, they were

8:55

jury trials. They were jury trials. They

8:57

started when Donald Trump

8:59

was president. That

9:01

gives you no pause whatsoever. I

9:04

don't have a, the Democrats

9:06

don't pause when they think about

9:08

Hunter Biden and the challenges that

9:10

he brings to his father. The

9:12

one thing I think the electorate

9:14

is thinking about most often is

9:16

how in the world will the

9:18

next president impact my quality of

9:20

life? How will America regain its

9:22

standing in this world? They were

9:24

better off under Trump and they're

9:27

looking for four more years of

9:29

low inflation, low crime, low unemployment,

9:31

and high enthusiasm for our country.

9:34

Which by the way, and this is obviously one of

9:36

the major stories of the Trump

9:38

campaign, is that implicit in defending him and

9:40

implicit in saying you'll vote for him even

9:43

if he's convicted is

9:46

undermining the rule of law across multiple

9:48

jurisdictions. So that's required.

9:50

But Anyway, so all of this will continue

9:52

to be a relevant question from now until

9:54

the election, and each time it's asked of

9:56

either Trump or his supporters, it offers an

9:59

opportunity. To. Be.

10:01

A problem and to remind I'm an

10:03

obvious is the context of the ah,

10:06

Access Hollywood tape on to remind those

10:08

kinds of voters that that Trump needs

10:10

to that this is a core part

10:12

of his personality. There's the way he's

10:15

reacting to Nikki Haley and her challenge

10:17

to him. There's a long let me

10:19

have a Taxi has made on women

10:21

who have challenged him on perfectly reasonable

10:24

grounds in which he went after their

10:26

ethnicity, their lox and so forth. I'm

10:28

that tends to be a pretty mountainous

10:30

amount of. Effort that this

10:33

story. Constantly pokes at

10:35

and I would just remind that

10:37

there was a period in Two

10:39

Thousand Seventeen when. Trump was being

10:41

accused by a variety of you know, there

10:43

are lots of women who have accused him

10:45

of of bomb sexual assault and Nikki Haley

10:47

who's then the Ambassador to you and said

10:50

i'm. Ah, that these women should

10:52

be heard. Any caused. I'm. A

10:55

something mister at the time that

10:57

is the kind of stir ah

11:00

I'm. A By which

11:02

I mean it was a day long story

11:04

as as of people react to that. That's

11:06

the kind of thing that any day during

11:08

the campaign could come up and die and

11:10

that's not great of for Donald Trump. and

11:13

and obviously it's not the only thing that

11:15

could come up. He's got those other criminal

11:17

trials. And will do you think? Are.

11:19

You with John that this of all the

11:21

civil ones might stick or that hasn't all

11:23

been priced into Trump already? I.

11:27

Think it's fairly placed in that

11:29

I think said easing hell has

11:31

been. This. Really

11:33

strong cigars. Who is just.

11:36

Plotted ahead and challenging. Ham and there are

11:38

women who are going to identify with her.

11:40

I don't know if they're a nasa them

11:42

but it does seem like tend to rate

11:44

their exactly the people who some of them

11:46

I, the people who template need. and

11:49

if you're a trump supporter you don't want it

11:51

to be priced in because priced in was the

11:53

guy who lost in twenty twenty and the guys

11:56

candidates last and twenty twenty two i mean when

11:58

we say price in one of them questions this

12:00

election is whether he's

12:03

just winning a primary of a very small vote or

12:05

whether he can actually win in a general election. If

12:07

it's priced in the way it has been in the

12:09

general election, that's not good news for him. I

12:12

admire Eugene Carroll tremendously. I think it was really bold

12:14

of her to do what she's done, and I

12:17

hope she gets this money. But there's a

12:19

way, there's something

12:22

happening in the American system that is unsettling

12:24

to me. And you see it with Trump,

12:26

you see it with Alex Jones, you see it with Fox News, which

12:29

is that there are a certain

12:31

category of people, organizations for

12:34

whom, for which the

12:36

benefits of being monstrous and

12:40

attacking people and causing

12:42

people harm outweighs

12:45

the costs, the

12:47

potential costs, and the ability to put

12:49

off the judgment makes

12:51

it pretty easy. What Alex

12:53

Jones has done in the face of

12:56

the Sandy Hook judgments, the billion dollar

12:58

in Sandy Hooks is both, it's disgusting

13:00

and it's also incredibly demoralizing. The

13:03

incapacity of the American legal system

13:05

to effectively punish him is, it's

13:07

really confusing to me. So

13:09

you're talking now about him hiding his assets.

13:11

Yeah, I mean here's a guy who's been

13:14

found repeatedly to have

13:17

wronged people and to owe them, in the most

13:19

grotesque ways, and to owe them a billion dollars

13:21

and yet he lives high on the hog. They're

13:23

seeing none of it. They're seeing none of the

13:26

money that they are due. And

13:28

even though more or less final

13:30

judgments have been rendered, and I just don't understand,

13:34

that's one kind of case. The Fox cases

13:36

will pay a billion dollars, but continue, we

13:39

can continue to do whatever we want. And

13:42

Trump, I feel like, well, he may or may

13:44

not pay this 83 million dollars. I don't think

13:46

he's going to spend his life now not saying

13:48

disgusting things about people. I mean, I

13:50

think there's some different and interesting problems.

13:52

I mean, I love

13:54

this. This is such a great topic. You

13:57

know, the attack problems that

13:59

have some. I'd like how Alex

14:01

Jones is kind of slipping the news

14:03

of this judgment. The. Attack

14:05

problem is about speech rate

14:08

is your method of attack.

14:10

It involves speeds. And

14:13

we want to continue to give

14:15

broad protections for speeds. We have

14:18

Destiny Sen as a tool against

14:20

That's what we don't have a

14:22

really good way of grappling with

14:25

is setting a whole mob after

14:27

people. It's all the other people

14:29

who you instigate who then can

14:32

like, truly intimidate, threaten make people's

14:34

lives miserable Like that exponentially multiplying

14:36

sector is not something I think

14:39

that we have figured out how

14:41

to deal with in. The legal

14:43

system and. There would be

14:45

really, you know, a downside trying

14:47

to sit more right because then

14:49

you would be telling a lot

14:51

of speech. But there is no

14:54

question that if you're on the

14:56

receiving end of the kinds of

14:58

abuse verbal obviously abuse that someone

15:00

like eating, careless taking and conduct

15:02

of other examples of deaths, it's.

15:05

Really, really destabilizing and harmful.

15:08

The. Trump Defense. In

15:10

all cases is this is

15:12

a. Political.

15:14

Vendetta. Driven by Joe Biden. a matter whether

15:16

it's is a private civil case or it's

15:18

one of these promoters is. Discontinued

15:21

a fraction you know as as

15:23

the first pile up. Where. We

15:25

don't know with a distraction From what

15:27

we know is that that's where. That's.

15:30

Where Trump will always go. And

15:32

it was striking to see Langford

15:35

and. I'm Tim Scott

15:37

essentially. Play.

15:39

Footsie see with that idea because it's

15:41

so damaging a dangerous, because it it

15:44

undermines the rule of law everywhere. Arm

15:46

It reinforces this idea that if things

15:48

don't go your way whether it's in

15:50

the courts are within election, you get

15:53

to make up your own rules. And

15:55

that's the that opens up the lane

15:57

for violence because he posts kind of.

16:00

I'm pre approves of the violence in

16:02

it also suggests their dark forces and

16:05

people with power who are doing this

16:07

and breaking the rules themselves. I'm so

16:09

it creates a permission structure and then

16:12

motivates you. To act outside

16:14

the lanes so as them as

16:16

participant in a democracy you should.

16:19

Stay. Away from that. like violently stay away

16:21

from it. And yet it is the place

16:23

that. These. People who know

16:26

better. Are. Gravitating towards.

16:28

So. That's really that's extremely. It's

16:30

extremely dangerous. And it's also

16:33

dangerous because it's chilling for

16:35

anybody on. The

16:38

republican side, who might want to speak out? by

16:40

which I mean. Mitt

16:42

Romney. I will read Mckay coffins his

16:44

book of because I was interviewing him

16:46

for something and you know Rummy. A

16:48

defense Five thousand dollars a day in

16:50

security for himself and his family because

16:52

he voted against a he voted for

16:54

Trump conviction in the senate through the

16:57

legal mechanism of for punishing Trump or

16:59

something and all the leaders of the

17:01

Republican party said he was responsible for

17:03

which is the attack on the capital

17:05

and so he wasn't going around. It

17:07

wasn't Joe Biden making him, you know

17:09

Mitt Romney. I have a do this.

17:11

He wasn't. Joe Biden, who marched on

17:13

the capital on the sixth of January

17:15

and yet. He

17:17

had to spend five thousand dollars and he says

17:19

that other senator said I would have voted convict,

17:21

but I just couldn't do that to my family.

17:24

I was worried about my own personal safety. Arm.

17:26

That's the logical conclusion of these

17:28

claims. that dark forces are behind

17:31

all of these i'm ah indictments

17:33

and that the system for adjudicating

17:35

claims his phony and false. and

17:37

that's. Real. Bad Robot Emily

17:40

closes out with dusted update on

17:42

where these criminal trial stand to

17:44

eat. For. See any of them starting

17:46

in the near future. While. The Supreme

17:48

Court has stared at. Get rid

17:50

of the roadblock that's in front

17:53

of the Federal suit over the

17:55

overturning of the election. The Georgia

17:57

cases out further in the future.

18:00

The and the moral either case

18:02

has a judge who seems to

18:04

be in no hurry whatsoever on

18:06

his son new Us anti hurry.

18:08

Yeah exactly. It's the New York

18:10

Such Money case that is actually

18:13

like might be on Deck which.

18:15

Seems really out of order to Georgia. Prosecutors

18:17

need to get themselves the other and of

18:20

her trial knowing that someone has to happen

18:22

with the only one that. Can

18:24

reasonably happen again that we are still many. Defendants

18:27

in that case, I gets the big sprawling

18:29

one. A Dude. I still think it's the

18:31

case that of all the cases of your

18:33

Donald Trump like the case you want to

18:35

come up first is the New Yorkers many

18:37

travelers are. We did our absolutely sure. Owning

18:40

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podcasts. New episodes dropping every Saturday

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morning. Today

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is the beginning of a new year and a new

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for the next season of Slate's podcast, One

21:20

Year, we're slipping on

21:22

some incredibly baggy pants and

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taking you back to 1990. You'll

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hear about the single dad who fought

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back against big tobacco, all while hiding

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behind a secret identity. I'm

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looking around like people were at the

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bus stop looking at us, like, oh

21:40

my god. And here comes a

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police car. In Cincinnati,

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an art exhibit became a battleground

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over the First Amendment. I

21:48

remember one of my board members said, so what's

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this? And I said, well, it's called testing. And

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she said, oh, 50, what's

21:55

that all about? One Year,

21:57

1990, available now. wherever

22:00

you get your podcasts. Emily,

22:06

a few months ago you talked here

22:08

about a New York Times roundtable you

22:10

had convened where you moderated a

22:12

conversation among scholars about what had happened in

22:15

Israel and the Palestinian territory

22:17

since the 1990s to continue

22:20

such an irreconcilable conflict. Because

22:22

you are a masochist, you have now

22:24

returned to the well like the

22:27

Jewish matriarchs of yore. You've gone back to

22:29

the well and gone back deeper into the

22:31

history of this region. You've talked to six

22:33

scholars, three Palestinian, two Israeli,

22:35

one Canadian, or maybe not even Canadian,

22:37

American, about

22:40

the period between 1920 and 1948 when

22:43

the British mandate of Palestine, an

22:46

area inhabited by Arabs and Jews,

22:48

was divided up, was changed

22:50

by immigration of Jews fleeing from Europe,

22:52

was ribbon by various different civil conflicts,

22:55

was abandoned by Britain, was then divided

22:57

up by the UN and ultimately exploded

23:00

in the war that established, or a war

23:02

around the time of the establishing of the

23:04

state of Israel, which resulted

23:07

in 700,000 Palestinians being

23:09

driven from their homes and set the table for

23:11

the continuing conflict we live with today. That

23:14

was an ambitious thing you took on, Emily. First

23:16

of all, as

23:19

I texted you yesterday, I don't even

23:21

know how the fuck you did this because

23:24

I would not, this is not for the

23:26

faint of heart, it's thankless. Why

23:28

do you undertake this extremely thankless, thankless exploration

23:31

into history, which you will no doubt be

23:33

spend the rest of the week just getting

23:35

hate mail for? Wait, you mean? John, you've

23:37

had me here. I know, I know, it's

23:39

so- I mean, I'm thanking you. What do

23:41

you mean? I thank you. I think it's

23:43

amazing. I know, but I think people are

23:45

gonna be uncertain to follow you down the

23:48

garden path. I've learned so

23:50

much from these two round tables. I just think it's

23:52

journalism at its finest, but man, would I not wanna

23:54

do it. And the reason, David,

23:56

I think, and Emily and David, you can correct me

23:58

if I'm wrong, is that there- are so many pitfalls

24:00

because one of the things, even

24:03

in defining what would

24:05

seem like a historical fact in

24:07

a period in 1948, the first thing that happened

24:09

to me, or the first thing that happens is someone says,

24:11

no, no, no, you have to go back to 1920. So,

24:13

okay, well, all right, now we're back in 1920. Now

24:16

you are literally more than 100 years

24:19

ago. And each individual fact

24:21

that you might put forward as

24:24

the initial building block for further

24:26

learning about what is events taking

24:28

place 100 years ago is under

24:31

serious dispute and can cause real

24:33

misunderstanding. And then that leads to motive

24:35

judging and questioning. Is that what you're

24:37

saying, David? In other words, it's a

24:39

minefield everywhere. And now I'm with that's

24:41

very difficult to like the one from

24:44

8040 to 8062. Right? No, you're gonna

24:46

be back around table. I need a

24:48

round table. Right. The ultimate conclusion of

24:50

the call it ad can't even call

24:52

it ad. The conclusion of this

24:54

is that as sometime Emily is going to

24:57

start one by saying first the earth cooled.

24:59

And then, you know, you're gonna have

25:01

to go back to the very beginning of time. But

25:03

yeah, the region down there with Palestine.

25:05

So that's why David is saying this

25:07

is such a tricky thing is to

25:09

build a common vocabulary to go forward

25:12

is itself incredibly difficult and fraud and

25:14

human lives are at stake in the

25:16

most gruesome way in the present, which

25:18

freights all of this stuff, which was

25:20

already supercharged with extra extra emotional weight.

25:22

Is that what we're talking about? That's

25:24

a great segment. Thank you. Everyone,

25:27

do you like a word? Well,

25:30

I'm just trying to unfuck what you

25:32

said. Yeah,

25:35

okay. So, um, I hope that

25:38

we gave an answer to your

25:40

question about why, in the introduction,

25:42

where we said that one year in

25:44

1948 matters more than any

25:46

other for determining the current shape

25:48

of the conflict and its intractable

25:50

nature. And we wanted to

25:52

understand what happened in 1948. And

25:54

obviously, in order to do that, you have to

25:57

look at the events that are leading up to

25:59

it. could have started in a

26:01

lot of other places. Yes, we could have gone

26:03

back to ancient times. 1920

26:06

is when the British take over

26:09

and they are a really important

26:11

factor in what happens next. Like

26:13

their colonialism is this kind of

26:15

change agent. I mean, in a

26:17

sense, the beginning of the this

26:20

period of is

26:23

the history of Israel and Palestine is

26:25

about the end of World War I

26:27

mean, I frankly learned a lot

26:29

about this, like what happens at the end of

26:32

World War I and even during World War I

26:34

is that the Western Allied

26:36

powers, particularly Britain and France are carving

26:38

up the Middle East. They're coming in

26:40

at the end of the Ottoman Empire.

26:42

They defeat the Ottomans and

26:44

this vast expansive territory. You could

26:46

go from Damascus and Jerusalem to

26:49

Baghdad without crossing a border. They

26:51

are changing its entire makeup and

26:53

the British make deals along the

26:55

way to, you know, a Muslim

26:58

leader who helps them foment rebellion

27:00

against the Ottoman. They promise

27:02

his son a whole kingdom. Then that

27:05

guy ends up as this kind

27:07

of king of Iraq, but not

27:09

getting Syria and Jerusalem in the

27:11

way that he and other

27:14

Arabs thought they had been promised. Instead,

27:16

the British and the French get these

27:18

mandates from the League of Nations, this

27:20

first intergovernmental body. And that

27:22

kind of starts off this period of

27:25

these two competing narratives

27:27

of nationalism, the Zionist

27:29

narrative and the

27:31

Palestinian Arab narrative. The Zionists

27:33

have basically shown up starting

27:36

around 1904 and

27:38

they are trying to establish

27:40

a homeland for Jews in

27:43

their ancient, you

27:46

know, homeland. And they're responding to

27:48

global anti-Semitism. They're saying global anti-Semitism is this

27:50

enormous affliction. We need our own place to

27:52

go. We're going back to where we came

27:55

from. We left a long time

27:57

ago, but we're coming back. And that

27:59

is... It's like obviously something that the people who

28:01

are living on that land when they show up

28:04

are going to have a lot of feelings about.

28:07

And so when the British come as this

28:09

colonial power, these kind of three

28:11

different players start to fight it

28:14

out. And then you also have,

28:16

and this I also needed to

28:18

learn so much about, you have

28:21

the other Arab powers surrounding, you

28:24

know, you have Egypt in Syria,

28:26

Iraq, you have mandates for

28:28

the French in Syria and Lebanon, but you

28:31

also have these kind of regional

28:33

set of players who are also

28:36

really implicated in all of

28:38

the bloodshed and suffering that follows. A couple

28:40

of things that struck me. I mean, first of all, just

28:43

for those who were, I mean,

28:45

global antisemitism, just because antisemitism has all

28:47

kinds of definitions for people right now.

28:50

I mean, there were basically

28:53

efforts to extinguish and kill Jews

28:55

in neighborhoods in Russia and Eastern

28:57

Europe. In other words, it wasn't

28:59

just some college kids protesting,

29:01

you know, that was causing this

29:03

desire for a Jewish

29:05

homeland. And then

29:08

the second thing is the colonialism piece

29:10

of it, basically the British deciding on

29:14

the side of the Jews essentially

29:18

felt like in the conversation that you had,

29:21

it was like, like

29:23

the books were cooked from the start

29:25

in terms of the

29:29

Arabs in that territorial area not

29:31

having always being kind of on

29:33

the short end of the agreement.

29:36

Like the complaints that

29:38

exist today felt very consistent with

29:40

the complaints in 1920 in

29:44

terms of the British basically deciding the way things

29:46

were going to go and that the Palestinians were

29:51

again on the short end of that original arrangement and

29:53

could never get on the right correct side of it. Yeah,

29:56

I mean, there is this soft colonialism that

29:58

is going on. I mean, There

30:01

also are these fundamental

30:04

kind of misunderstandings, right? I mean, the

30:06

Palestinians, and they start, I'm using that

30:08

word because they start to have a

30:10

kind of sense of national identity that's

30:12

both pan-Arab and specific to Palestine in

30:14

the 1920s. They

30:17

have one leader from 1921

30:19

all the way to 48, the

30:21

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj

30:23

Amin al-Husseini, and he makes

30:25

a number of, there are a number of

30:28

moments where he could have tried to negotiate

30:30

in some way, tried to probably make

30:33

things better, and he chose not to. And

30:35

so there also are those kinds of moments

30:37

along the way, and you sort of feel

30:39

like there are these just fundamental cultural divides

30:41

that people cannot bridge. I mean, a

30:44

couple of things. I mean, one is I

30:47

ended up, huge admiration for this piece,

30:49

in part because I do think one of the things

30:51

it does is it does

30:53

give you a broad set of facts to

30:55

share. Even though the historians

30:58

you talk to do disagree on sort

31:00

of what some of these facts mean, there

31:02

is a consensus kind of about what happened,

31:05

which I thought was really admirable in this

31:07

roundtable. But I read it with despair because

31:10

depending on which perspective you choose to take in

31:12

the moment you're reading it, you can easily come

31:15

to understand why people are so

31:19

extremely unhappy, pissed, you know, feel

31:21

it as a cosmic wrong. Like

31:25

if you were a Palestinian, the

31:28

destruction of the Palestinian villages, the

31:30

driving away Palestinians from their homes

31:32

in what would become Israel, how

31:34

can you forget that dispossession? How can

31:36

that be forgiven easily? How

31:38

can that be lost? But similarly, if you're Jewish,

31:41

like the fact this loose

31:43

Palestinian alliance that the Mufti makes

31:45

with Hitler, the opposition to Jewish

31:47

immigration to Palestine, how can that

31:49

be forgiven? The refusal

31:51

of Arab states to accept

31:54

the mandate boundaries that

31:56

then turn, you know, like basically sets

31:58

off the sense within Israel. Israel, justifiable

32:00

sense within Israel that were surrounded and

32:02

beset by enemies, set under destruction. Like,

32:04

of course they feel that way. I

32:06

mean, you come away feeling like there

32:09

are everyone, everyone really does have a

32:12

reason to be so unhappy and they're

32:14

never like, unless they, unless, unless, you

32:16

know, they perform miraculous acts of forgetting,

32:18

which I think is really important, historical

32:21

amnesia in this case, I think would

32:23

be valuable. They are going to persevered

32:26

on this and never get anywhere. I

32:28

hear you for sure. I

32:30

thought a lot about the

32:33

comparison between the founding of our

32:35

country and the founding of Israel.

32:38

So this is, you know, obviously 1776 versus 1948. 1948

32:42

is much more recent, 75 years ago, give or take. And

32:48

also the demographics are really different.

32:51

So in our country, we decimated

32:53

the native population and subjugated them.

32:55

We did it longer ago. And

32:57

proportionally speaking, there just aren't enough

33:00

of them to pose any kind

33:02

of real demographic challenge to, you

33:05

know, American dominance, like

33:07

America is going to keep going, whatever

33:11

the Native Americans want to have

33:13

happen. Whereas what you have in

33:15

Israel, Palestine now are essentially these

33:17

kind of even split. It's about

33:19

seven million Israeli Jews. It's about

33:21

seven million Palestinian Arabs when

33:24

you count the West Bank in Gaza. And

33:27

that is the reason why this

33:29

all, you know, explodes in the

33:31

way that it does. Right. It's

33:35

not that the grievances are any worse

33:37

or better. And it's not that, you

33:40

know, our country was founded in a

33:42

more just way.

33:45

It's that the realities on the ground

33:47

continue there. And I mean,

33:50

because there doesn't historically, I'm usually right, David,

33:52

would be wonderful, but it's not possible. And

33:54

so then I think like you have to

33:56

be able to try to think about and

33:58

understand the other side. and reckon with what

34:00

has happened and then figure out what to

34:03

do with the current reality. I

34:05

guess, you know, my real goal for

34:08

this, my husband's an actual historian, I

34:10

of course am totally not. And

34:13

he was watching me do this and struggle with it. And he

34:15

said, you know, what you're doing

34:17

is trying to present history in

34:19

one take from these different

34:21

vantage points and try to get the opposing viewpoints

34:24

like on the page to speak to each other

34:26

and look at them up next to each other.

34:29

And that was exactly, it was what I wanted.

34:31

I wanted to see like, what did these arguments

34:34

look like when people actually have to make them

34:36

to each other and challenge each other? What are

34:38

the myths? You can see that in the piece,

34:40

some of the myths and then other people come

34:42

in and say like, no, that's wrong. And

34:45

I found that very helpful because I

34:47

think that since we can't

34:49

have historical amnesia, trying to understand

34:51

this is really important. Except,

34:54

of course, it's so hard

34:56

to think of

34:59

facts in their moment, which is part of

35:01

what you're trying to do with

35:03

our present mindset because they're

35:06

so close. The idea that the system

35:08

was rigged from the beginning of after

35:13

World War One against the

35:15

Palestinians is it's

35:17

so hard to think about that

35:19

clearly without the contemporary view that

35:22

that's the case. I would think for historians, I mean,

35:24

just that's always the trouble with history. It would seem

35:26

to be double hard here. Do

35:28

you think I got two questions,

35:30

Emily. One is, and specifically on

35:32

this question of history, there was

35:34

a brief little debate about whether

35:36

there was a clear expression of

35:39

Palestinian identity that predates World War

35:41

One, which I think is necessary because

35:43

the question is whether the British Balfour

35:45

Declaration and the way the Brits treated

35:48

the Palestinians after World War One created

35:50

the sense of Palestinian identity

35:52

and therefore gets

35:54

into whether they were

35:57

the causal force, the colonialism of the causal force,

35:59

or whether there's Palestinian identity before

36:01

it that might

36:03

have contributed to the circumstance.

36:05

Is that why there's a debate over

36:08

over that historical question? So that's

36:10

the first question. And then the second question is... No,

36:12

no, you're not allowed to ask that question. That's

36:14

a big question. Okay, go ahead. All right,

36:16

then answer that question and then I have a follow-up. First

36:19

of all, we should say the Balfour Declaration comes

36:21

from the British in 1917.

36:23

They say, we will view with

36:26

favor the establishment of a Jewish home

36:28

in Palestine. They're

36:31

no guarantees. It's kind of the usual

36:33

British ambiguity

36:37

in their diplomacy of the time, but

36:39

it sort of takes the Zionist idea

36:42

and gives it some kind of international or foreign

36:44

backing. It's the first time. It's the first major.

36:47

And then it gets written into the mandate from

36:49

the League of Nations. It's the

36:51

first major country to do that though, right? Yes,

36:54

absolutely. Okay, so now answer why this

36:56

question of Palestinian identity pre-World War I

36:58

is important. I honestly, to me,

37:00

this doesn't seem that important. Palestinian

37:02

nationalism is very clear, certainly by the 1930s.

37:05

And in the 1920s, it's both Palestinian. It

37:07

also has

37:10

to do with the kind of

37:12

Palestine-Syria notion, like a

37:14

broader Arab kingdom. The guy I

37:16

mentioned earlier, whose name is Faisal,

37:18

King Faisal of Iraq, he starts

37:20

off trying to be the king

37:22

of Syria. And there's a riot

37:24

called the Nebi-Muso riot in 1920,

37:26

which is like one of the

37:29

first outbreaks of violence between Jews

37:31

and Palestinians. And one of the

37:33

things that the Muslim demonstrators are doing

37:35

is they're carrying big signs,

37:38

pictures of King Faisal. So is

37:40

that Palestinian nationalism or is it

37:42

pan- a sort of Syrian pan-Arab

37:44

nationalism? I mean, I

37:46

think they're both threads going on there. And

37:49

what matters to me is that certainly

37:51

you have these major Arab revolts between 1936

37:53

and 1939. They are saying

37:57

very clearly, get the British out of

37:59

here. betrayed us, we want

38:01

self-determination, we want an end to

38:03

Jewish immigration and land purchases. And

38:07

that is like a very clear call.

38:10

Sure, some of it is in response

38:12

to Zionism, but that's because Zionism is

38:14

like the challenging factor here, right?

38:18

And then just to, I feel like it's

38:20

always important to kind of give another perspective.

38:22

From the Zionist perspective at this point,

38:25

it's the 30s, the Nazis are on

38:27

the rise. The threats that they see

38:29

to the Jewish population in Europe are

38:32

staggeringly about to come true. And so, one

38:34

thing you also have to think about this

38:36

is like, there is this moment in 1939

38:39

where the British basically

38:41

switched sides. They're very worried about Nazi

38:43

aggression, about another major world war, and

38:45

they need the Arab world to be

38:47

on their side more so that they

38:50

can keep the oil flowing and just

38:52

not have to worry about that part

38:54

of the world as well. And they

38:57

issue this white paper and they famously

38:59

basically throttle Jewish immigration on the eve

39:01

of the Holocaust. Nobody can come, hardly

39:03

any Jews can come anymore to Palestine.

39:06

And look,

39:10

as someone who's Jewish, you just look at

39:12

that and you think oh

39:15

my God, that was enormously consequential, that

39:17

decision. And where were those Jews supposed

39:19

to go? And yes, they were being

39:21

turned away from many other countries as

39:24

well. And as a result, six million

39:26

of them died. So there is this

39:28

incredible sense of like, loss

39:30

and urgency on both sides. Emily,

39:33

we could literally talk about this forever,

39:35

but we should wrap. Maybe people will

39:37

read it despite the intro. It's so good.

39:39

It's so good. It's like the first one.

39:41

It is so good. No, I mean, my

39:43

intro was not meant to be. It

39:46

was really about your willingness

39:48

to undertake an incredibly hard project.

39:51

But I learned more from this than I've

39:54

learned from almost anything I've

39:56

read in the last six months, except the thing you did

39:58

a few months ago. Well, I just want to say. the

40:00

six historians I worked with were

40:02

amazing. They were so helpful

40:05

and they had a really productive

40:07

conversation with each other even though

40:09

they do sharply and just deeply

40:11

disagree on certain points. They were

40:13

incredibly generous with their time and

40:15

in teaching me and I

40:17

super appreciate it. So I hope people read it

40:19

for their sakes and at this very moment if

40:21

you're listening on Thursday you may have to look

40:23

for this piece a little bit on the New

40:26

York Times website but hopefully it will be easy

40:28

to find on Friday. It's out there. There

40:34

are some weird ideas sloshing through Silicon

40:36

Valley these days. VC

40:38

giant Mark Andreessen wrote a

40:41

banana screed about techno-optimism.

40:43

Really called about, he said it was

40:45

about techno-optimism. It was not about techno-optimism

40:48

but it read kind of like what would

40:50

happen if John Galt and Donald Trump like

40:53

got loaded up on

40:56

methamphetamine and the metaverse and just

40:58

like started writing things down.

41:01

Elon Musk is getting more and more

41:03

alarming every week and even kind of

41:05

the gentler Silicon Valley billionaires are

41:08

weirder and weirder. I would point you to the

41:10

recent photos of Jeff Bezos where he looks like

41:12

Pitbull. Adrienne LaFrance

41:15

is the executive editor of The Atlantic

41:17

and she has written the rise of

41:19

techno-authoritarianism and she has an explanation

41:21

for what's going on. So Adrienne, welcome to

41:23

the GAFS. What is techno-authoritarianism and how do

41:25

you distinguish it from the

41:28

various other spasmodic ideologies that

41:30

have run through Silicon Valley

41:32

like libertarianism and transhumanism and

41:34

techno-utopianism? Right. So I think you'll see

41:38

sort of slickers of some other ideologies than

41:40

what I'm trying to describe here but the thing

41:42

I've been thinking about for a really long time

41:44

is that we

41:46

don't normally talk about Silicon Valley

41:48

ideology in political terms as if

41:51

it's its own distinct political way

41:54

of thinking and to me it quite clearly

41:57

is and to your point has

41:59

become become more aggrieved,

42:01

darker, and in

42:04

an interesting way to me, because as these

42:06

people have become more powerful, it's

42:09

gotten more strident. And so it

42:12

seems important to define that this is in fact

42:14

a political movement as well as a cultural one,

42:17

but it's not separate from politics. Is

42:19

it a political movement in the sense of an

42:22

organized political movement or is it a shared

42:25

set and way of thinking that

42:28

has just kind of conglomerated around a

42:30

certain set of ideas? Do you see

42:32

what I'm saying? One's organized and one

42:34

is shared values. Yeah, I

42:36

mean, I think it's more the latter if you

42:39

have to break it up that way. But one of the things that

42:41

I think we need to understand in 2024

42:43

is that the framework we've

42:47

used to think about politics for so many

42:49

decades is broken. Like

42:51

if that world doesn't exist anymore, there isn't

42:53

red versus black. And

42:55

so part of reckoning with the world we're

42:57

actually living in is understanding that there are

42:59

political forces that don't fit the frameworks that

43:02

feel most familiar to us. Although

43:05

in the past, when you had big

43:07

moneyed interests, they operated kind of outside the

43:09

frameworks too. But

43:12

what you're I think what I felt when I

43:14

read your piece was the

43:17

structure of our lives to the extent

43:19

that it's driven by algorithms and the

43:21

choices made by social media companies and

43:23

the bananas ideas of people like Elon

43:25

Musk about free speech in the public

43:27

square are encase

43:30

us in this ideology in

43:32

a way maybe that wasn't true of,

43:34

you know, Dale Carnegie and

43:37

Cornelius Vanderbilt, they had big

43:39

moneyed power that

43:42

they could use to influence the political structure, but

43:44

it didn't encase each of us

43:46

in our daily lives the way it is with

43:48

these folks. That is a really good point, John.

43:50

That is an interesting I had I've been trying

43:52

to think about why older versions of this don't

43:55

have quite the same balance and why

43:57

these guys might actually be more dangerous

44:00

and some of the, I'll

44:02

get to this in a second, then some of

44:04

the sort of reactionary utopians of the past. But

44:06

do you buy that, Adrienne? Yeah,

44:08

I think it's, I mean, yeah, I think you've

44:10

articulated it very well, and it's

44:13

partly because the power centers have all

44:15

shifted to them, right? So like, they're

44:18

the ones deciding the informational

44:20

environment, they're driving largely the culture.

44:23

And totally, you're right, this, you

44:25

know, intimate relationship we have with

44:27

the technologies they're building has crept into

44:29

every part of our lives in relationships. And

44:32

so, yes, I think encasing us is

44:34

a really good way of putting it, slash creepy. You

44:37

raise up. So I

44:39

was also thinking a lot about whether

44:41

they are merely rapacious capitalists, and like,

44:43

of course, we can't depend on rapacious

44:46

capitalists to have all of our best

44:48

interests at heart. And I mean, I

44:51

have been suspicious of them for a really

44:53

long time, and so I was like super

44:55

receptive to your thesis, and I thought the

44:57

evidence for it was great. It

44:59

led me to my usual thought

45:02

when capitalists are doing things that seem

45:04

like they could be really bad, which

45:06

is that, of course, they

45:08

have a financial incentive to build

45:10

the next thing. And that

45:13

it seems like it's the government's job,

45:15

it's the regulators who can have an

45:17

effect here. And I thought your piece

45:19

was important for trying to build public

45:21

support for that, but it

45:23

didn't end with a kind of, you

45:26

know, full-throated cry for regulation. And I was wondering,

45:28

you know, when you got to the more sort

45:30

of solutions part of the piece, like what

45:32

your further thoughts were. Yeah,

45:35

I think, well, so I'm not a

45:37

full-throated regulation kind of gal, is part

45:39

of the reason. And

45:42

I don't think, I mean, there are all

45:44

kinds of ways you can talk about the

45:46

flaws of capitalism, obviously, but I don't think

45:48

this is just like, oh, capitalism being capitalism.

45:51

I think it's something different and worse. And

45:53

I don't think capitalism is inherently bad. I'm

45:56

sorry, not to start like a new controversy, but just saying.

45:58

And so in the regulation. So

46:01

yes, as I for a long time

46:03

resisted that regulation was the right path

46:05

here, and it still makes me uncomfortable because

46:07

I honestly don't trust government to be powerful

46:09

and do it the right way. But

46:13

I've been persuaded that some things should

46:16

be done by government to certainly in

46:18

an antitrust sense and probably in some

46:20

other areas. But I

46:22

don't feel that I don't feel a full-throated

46:25

sense of regulation is the only

46:27

way. I

46:29

don't think it's going to solve the larger cultural problem

46:32

we have. So when you're watching these hearings

46:34

this week where Congress is trying

46:36

to build momentum for legislation that

46:38

would particularly address all the harms

46:40

to kids, and Zuckerberg, et cetera,

46:44

up there, there are five CEOs,

46:46

two of them, but not

46:48

Zuckerberg, came out in

46:50

favor of the Kids Online Safety Act. Are

46:52

you feeling nervous that this is too much

46:54

government, or do you think, like, yeah, it's

46:56

time for them to take some kind of

46:58

steps? And do you have any—I haven't looked

47:00

enough into the specifics of this thesis of

47:02

legislation, but I wonder if you have thoughts

47:04

about that. Something should be done, yes.

47:06

Like, if we're going to have a government, it should

47:09

do something. Like,

47:11

that doesn't sound overly cynical. But

47:13

I worry that some of these measures, if a

47:16

bill like this passes, that it will be considered

47:18

a victory and that some people will be like,

47:20

oh, we did it. We solved the problem. And

47:22

you're looking at the actual measures,

47:25

and it's things like, you know,

47:27

an age restriction to access certain features. Well,

47:29

teenagers are smart enough to lie about their

47:31

age on the Internet. So it's—I worry about

47:33

the substance of what's being proposed, and then

47:35

I worry about it in the other direction

47:38

in terms of your question about whether there

47:40

could be too much. I mean, you look

47:42

at—for good reason, people, you look at Europe

47:44

as a model for some of these ideas,

47:46

and there are totally different standards there for free

47:48

speech, and I would never want the United States

47:50

to follow in Europe's footsteps in terms of how we

47:52

view free speech. So those

47:54

are the concerns I have when it comes to the

47:56

government stepping in terms of what people are publishing. or

48:00

have the right to publish. There has

48:02

always been the case that very wealthy, very

48:04

successful political donor types have lots and lots

48:07

of bad ideas, ideas that are

48:09

totally inconsistent with the political world. And one of

48:11

the jobs of a candidate is basically nod politely

48:13

while they're waiting for the check to be written

48:15

for all of these awful ideas. And

48:18

the ideas are awful because the

48:21

smart, intelligent people have expertise in their lane

48:24

and think that that ports over to this

48:26

other world. Part of that is

48:28

because they can get stuff done quickly. George Shultz used

48:30

to talk about this when he came from the private

48:32

sector to the public sector. He

48:34

said, when I was in the private sector, I'd say,

48:36

get this done and we get done. I

48:39

come into government and it's just a

48:41

more complicated, funky system. This

48:43

is all leading up to a question, is

48:46

there something about the way in which Silicon

48:48

Valley companies are organized and these titans are

48:51

the way in which they're successful

48:53

that creates this mindset? And

48:55

what is implicit in it is if basically everybody did

48:58

what my smart thinking was, we'd all be fine. Is

49:00

that just regular megalomaniacal behavior that comes to

49:03

any of us who lead a thing or

49:05

is there a particularity in the way in

49:07

which it's manifested in

49:09

Silicon Valley organizations? That's

49:11

a really good question. I think the particularity

49:13

is they have more power and more

49:16

money. And

49:18

so if you're looking at traditional political power,

49:20

with the exception, maybe like the Supreme Court,

49:22

they're term limits. You're powerful

49:25

because of the position you have, not because of the

49:27

massive amount of money you have. And

49:29

so when you have sort of

49:32

the old model you're describing

49:34

is like a rich person has access to

49:36

political power, but political power still works the way

49:38

it always does in government. And

49:41

what I'm describing is a group of

49:43

people who can make decisions that change

49:45

the world more profoundly than government can

49:47

in a position

49:50

of power with like, I don't know if you're

49:52

allowed to first on this podcast, but like, just

49:54

like with fuck you money, who's like, they don't,

49:56

you know, they can do whatever they want and

49:58

they don't need to. appeal to anyone.

50:00

I mean, the reason they have all

50:02

this power is first, their international reach,

50:05

right? Because we don't have a strong

50:07

international body to deal with them. And

50:09

second, the fact that in the

50:12

United States, there has not yet

50:14

been a real domestic political push

50:16

to take them on

50:18

and challenge them. And so, I

50:20

mean, I guess I was paying

50:22

attention to these congressional hearings this week and

50:25

thinking like, okay, I hope some really smart

50:27

people are figuring out actual

50:29

good, smart steps to take. And

50:31

it's okay with me if it's just the first crack

50:33

and then they have to come back and try again

50:35

later. But

50:38

it seems to me really important to

50:40

be building political momentum to take

50:43

them on. And there's also some hope of

50:45

a kind of bipartisan challenge

50:47

here too, right? Though at the same time,

50:49

as I say that, I mean, I'm certainly

50:51

wary of the way that Texas

50:53

and Florida have taken on this issue

50:55

by basically like making

50:57

up this complaint that there's some anti-conservative

51:00

bias going on here because I don't

51:02

think that's a good diagnosis of the

51:04

problem. Totally. And again, like, do

51:06

we really want, like, we don't want to

51:08

text bros deciding the informational world we live

51:10

in. Like, I also really don't want the

51:12

government doing that. You know what I mean?

51:14

Like, I mean, so, and I'm focused largely

51:16

on social media here, but I agree with

51:18

you completely that it's like some things should

51:21

be done. And certainly when it comes to

51:23

the production of children online, I

51:25

also really think, and I tried to get at this in

51:27

my piece and it's a little bit, I mean, you guys

51:29

will tell me if you think it's naive. But

51:31

I think it's like we need individuals

51:34

to stand up and like

51:36

decide that they, like, okay, start

51:38

at the local level. If your

51:40

school, your kids' school has rules

51:42

about phones that seem harmful, like,

51:45

get involved and try to make, like, we get

51:47

to shift norms in how we have sort of

51:49

let this technology wash over us is my thought.

51:53

I mean, I guess sure, but I also feel

51:55

like that is asking so much of parents and

51:57

families. Like, you know, my kids are.

52:00

they're in their 20s. And so I

52:02

mostly raise them without this

52:04

being so front and center. And I

52:06

see the people with younger kids now,

52:09

like to go up against the culture

52:11

of phones and social media and all

52:13

the stuff, however harmful it is, it's

52:15

really hard. Like you, it's

52:17

hard to change when everyone

52:19

has embraced this thing. Taking it away

52:22

is really tough. And so it does

52:24

seem to me like we need people

52:26

in government to like step in here.

52:28

And yes, there are

52:30

better and worse ways to do that. But I

52:32

feel like just putting it all on individuals, when

52:35

you've told everyone in the world

52:38

like go participate in this thing,

52:40

then you're supposed to somehow, you

52:43

know, get your kid not to have it. It's,

52:45

it's, I don't know, it's not, you have to

52:47

be a real, you have to have a lot

52:49

of personal strength

52:53

and certainty about your own choices when you make

52:55

your kid do something that's different from all the

52:57

other kids. And oh, then you're supposed to convince

52:59

these other families to do something different from every

53:02

other place. I that's on. No, it's definitely hard.

53:04

And then to be clear, I don't mean like

53:06

we should all like throw our smartphones in the

53:08

ocean and turn off the lights or

53:10

whatever. I actually love that. I

53:12

mean, maybe we should. We're not going to

53:14

like maybe we would be better off without

53:17

social media writ large, right? Like there are

53:19

lots of good arguments that it's a net

53:21

harm, especially for young people. And,

53:23

and, and yet, like we live

53:25

in this completely different

53:28

culture that's become totally permissive about it.

53:31

I actually want to point to a different form of techno

53:33

authoritarianism. I just don't want us to lose track of it,

53:36

which is that our former colleague, Will

53:38

Dobson wrote this book, really

53:40

prescient book about a decade ago, maybe even

53:42

more called The Dictator's Learning Curve. Before

53:44

anyone recognized how authoritarian regimes were

53:46

going to, there had been this

53:48

sense that, oh, the internet, the

53:51

technology is going to make everybody

53:53

free. And it's going to

53:55

cause this efflorescence of liberty and human rights all

53:57

over the world. And he was like, and maybe

53:59

not. And we see it, and you

54:01

see it in the case of China, in this

54:03

rigid form of censorship that really has controlled what

54:05

can be said and what can't be said and

54:08

what can even almost practically be thought in a

54:10

nation that is a, you know, a fifth of

54:12

the world. And in the case of Russia,

54:14

of this endless floods of

54:16

propaganda and misinformation that are used

54:18

to sow doubt and disorder. And

54:20

those are forms of actual authoritarianism

54:22

where technology is used in the

54:24

– to implement it

54:28

very, very effectively. So I just

54:30

want to note that the techno-authoritarianism

54:32

can take this kind of crazy

54:34

Mark Andreessen form, but also we

54:37

see it taking these other forms around the

54:39

world already. Absolutely, and they're using the tools

54:41

that this group of people built. Adrienne

54:43

LaFrance's article in the Atlantic is

54:45

the rise of techno-authoritarianism. Adrienne,

54:48

thanks for joining us from the road, no

54:50

less. Getting up early on the

54:53

road. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having

54:55

me. Let's go to

54:57

Cocktail Chatter. When

55:00

you're chit chatting with a local

55:02

techno-authoritarian on your block over

55:05

a delicious beverage in your

55:08

post-dry January period, Emily, what will

55:10

you be chattering about? I

55:12

have started reading a book. I

55:15

really like – I mean, I'll explain why,

55:17

and listeners will, I

55:19

think, understand. It's called The Fight

55:22

to Save the Town Reimagining Discarded

55:24

America. It's by Michelle Wilde Anderson.

55:27

And Michelle is a local

55:29

government expert at Stanford Law

55:31

School. And what she's done

55:33

here is use storytelling about

55:35

four places in the United

55:37

States, which are Stockton, California,

55:39

and Josephine County, Oregon, and

55:42

Lawrence, Massachusetts, and then Detroit. She's

55:44

using storytelling to show how

55:47

the decimation of local government

55:49

has affected people. It's

55:53

hyper-aware, in a good way, of

55:55

the kind of policy moves

55:57

that have been made that have created the world.

55:59

the super big holes in the social

56:02

safety net, et cetera, that she's writing about.

56:04

And then she's telling you

56:06

the stories of real people as a way

56:08

of illustrating how that all plays out. It's

56:10

just a really smart interweaving of the kind

56:13

of governmental forces with

56:15

the actual impact on people's

56:17

lives. So the fight to save

56:19

the town. John

56:22

Dickerson, what is your chatter?

56:26

I have, I guess, two little chatters.

56:28

First is a super geeky thing that

56:30

will only matter to one person, but

56:32

whoever they are, I bet it really

56:35

matters. So we all know

56:37

the power of handwriting to

56:41

implant ideas in our heads. I think I've maybe

56:44

even chatted about this before that California has now

56:46

brought handwriting back because it's a better way to

56:48

implant ideas in your heads. What are you gonna

56:50

do if you use like an iPad or

56:53

some other tablet to write?

56:55

Because the glass of the screen, it's

56:57

impossible to use a stylus on it. Well,

56:59

there are these things called pen tips, which are if you

57:01

use an iPad, I

57:04

think the website is just pen.tips.

57:06

Anyway, it's a tip for

57:08

your pencil on an iPad that

57:13

makes it feel like you're writing on paper. Incredibly

57:16

useful for those of us who take notes

57:18

on an iPad and it's glass

57:20

screen. But the actual second thing is,

57:25

and sorry for the horn honking, but basically

57:27

all that happens in my neighborhood is people

57:29

leaning on their horns. What's

57:34

happening over two bipartisan pieces of

57:36

legislation that should not go unnoticed.

57:38

The first is that, and

57:41

we've talked about it, immigration legislation, which is

57:43

being worked through in just the way voters

57:45

say they want in the Senate, is

57:48

essentially being killed by the

57:50

not even nominee of the Republican

57:52

Party. There

57:55

was a time in American life when

57:57

the separation of powers suggested that Congress

58:00

not even treat the president almost as an equal.

58:03

Didn't want to hear his ideas that

58:05

Congress was the one that handled big

58:07

issues, and the president was definitely a second

58:09

player. Now you have the president

58:11

being so dominant in the American system that

58:14

a nominee for a party can

58:16

tell Republicans in the Senate what to do.

58:18

We also see this happening

58:20

in bipartisan tax legislation that was

58:22

passed Wednesday night. Big

58:25

deal, right? Democrats and Republicans getting together

58:27

to try to help small business with

58:29

tax breaks, but also help restore

58:32

the child tax credit, which

58:34

did extraordinary work alleviating or

58:37

lifting families above the poverty

58:39

line. You have Chuck Grassley coming in and saying,

58:41

you know, I think that like

58:44

passing a tax bill that makes the president

58:46

look good and mailing out checks before the

58:48

election means he could be reelected,

58:50

and then we wouldn't be able to extend the

58:53

2017 Trump tax cuts. That's

58:56

essentially a paraphrase of what he said.

58:59

So you have a powerful Republican senator saying,

59:01

I don't want to give a win to the

59:03

exciting president on a bipartisan

59:05

piece of legislation. These are –

59:07

it's not necessarily surprising, but when

59:09

you think about the structure of

59:11

politics in which presidents operate, one

59:14

in which basically all legislating has

59:17

to die the

59:19

year before an election because

59:21

it might help the incumbent president is going to

59:24

lead to a frustrated country. And

59:27

in this case, you're talking about major and

59:29

important legislation that's dying as a result

59:31

of this. So

59:35

it's good to keep your eyes out for that

59:37

as these pieces of legislation either

59:40

pass or don't pass. My

59:44

chatter – another

59:46

weird one. I was cleaning out – I

59:49

was in my parents' attic this week because we were

59:51

going through my father's clothes, my mother and I, And

59:54

one of the miserable sites in

59:56

my mother's attic is some of

59:58

my old paintings. In high school

1:00:00

I painted ah and a little bit after

1:00:03

high school to I had a great our

1:00:05

teacher I'm. Really? Great! Our teacher

1:00:07

and painted and I did pastels. I loved

1:00:09

it's ah. And once to

1:00:11

painting. So they came across I'd

1:00:14

forgotten was a young topless woman

1:00:16

holding a towel. That.

1:00:19

I had painted as a. Seventeen.

1:00:21

Year Old And Ninety Seven. Or eighteen Year

1:00:23

Old. Ninety Eight. And. It reminded

1:00:25

me that when I was at

1:00:27

St Albans an art class. They.

1:00:30

Brought in a live model a

1:00:32

young woman today in. twenties.

1:00:35

Thirties maybe who pose topless for

1:00:37

bunch of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year

1:00:39

old boys. And.

1:00:42

I was like thinking back I like

1:00:44

how did this happen. How did

1:00:47

she feel about this? Was it okay?

1:00:49

Ah could this happen today? I was

1:00:51

like no way this would happen in

1:00:53

a private school. Today a private boys

1:00:55

school and I've to. I was describing

1:00:57

this to my fifteen year old son

1:00:59

and he was. He was like he

1:01:01

burst and he giggles. He couldn't contain

1:01:03

himself. He thought is this is ridiculous

1:01:05

I was actually I couldn't have done

1:01:07

mass I do remember and eight the

1:01:09

blue one piece. I do remember that

1:01:11

that are teachers magnificent. Our teacher made

1:01:13

this part of the kind of seriousness

1:01:15

which which we should take. The Work:

1:01:17

If you wanted to be a true

1:01:19

artist, you treated a model with respect.

1:01:21

And. The human form has something to be

1:01:24

admired and studied and not weird at which

1:01:26

is a great lesson. It was a great

1:01:28

lesson. it's and of discipline and behavior And

1:01:30

be no, I don't recall. I you know,

1:01:33

I'm sure I've found it really embarrassing. I

1:01:35

probably never seen a woman's breast at the

1:01:37

times. Ah, A. But. I.

1:01:41

I. I. Just

1:01:43

am convinced that this whatever happened today. Where.

1:01:45

You're totally way they would never happen today

1:01:48

and there is something standard about it, which

1:01:50

is. Shirley Worth considering

1:01:52

there may have been I have to see

1:01:54

them may have been male models to. learn

1:01:56

the difference to me i mean the idea

1:01:58

that the human for is part of really

1:02:02

important for art instruction, really

1:02:05

important for art instruction, seems completely

1:02:07

worthy. I mean, I'm having, it's like an

1:02:09

age question you're asking, right? I mean, in

1:02:11

the college art class, I would hope that

1:02:13

that continues. And a couple of my good

1:02:16

friends in college were nude models for the

1:02:18

art classes at Yale, and it was like

1:02:20

their campus job. And I remember

1:02:22

we talked about it, but I think that

1:02:25

they absolutely did not feel exploited. In fact,

1:02:27

I remember them thinking like this was good.

1:02:30

For these future artists of the world, and

1:02:32

they were contributing in some way. So I

1:02:34

sort of feel like maybe it was

1:02:36

great. I mean, if you felt like the

1:02:38

lesson was one of discipline and respect, that

1:02:40

seems like really important to the

1:02:42

story. Yeah, no, I think I did. And

1:02:44

I do have a, I

1:02:47

don't have the painting or drawing. I

1:02:49

don't know if I didn't do a

1:02:51

male figure that was lost or it

1:02:53

was sold at Sotheby's for 60th Formula.

1:02:55

Surely the latter. But

1:02:58

listeners, thanks

1:03:00

for chattering. You've sent us a bunch

1:03:02

of good chatters. Please keep them coming.

1:03:04

Please email them to us at gabfestatflight.com.

1:03:07

And our listener chatter this week comes

1:03:09

from Jay Lloyd of Louisville, Kentucky. Hi,

1:03:12

Gabfest, this is Jay Lloyd from Louisville, Kentucky.

1:03:15

My chatter this week is from a report in

1:03:17

Ars Technica about an incident on a space shuttle

1:03:19

mission in 1985. To

1:03:21

conduct scientific experiments in space, NASA

1:03:24

flew crew members called payload specialists who

1:03:27

were less rigorously vetted and trained than the

1:03:29

professional astronauts who operated the shuttle. One

1:03:31

of those specialists became despondent when his experiment

1:03:34

failed. And he warned that if he

1:03:36

wasn't given time to fix his instrument, he wasn't going

1:03:38

to return to Earth. This evidently

1:03:40

worried the shuttle commander enough that he'd duct-nate

1:03:42

the shuttle hatch closed. Although

1:03:45

the situation was successfully resolved and the

1:03:47

specialist eventually managed to get his experiment

1:03:49

working, it resulted in changes on future

1:03:51

shuttle missions, such as the installation of

1:03:53

a lock on the hatch. And

1:03:56

the incident raises really fascinating questions about mental

1:03:58

health in the extreme environment of NASA. space.

1:04:01

Questions that are only more pressing now that private

1:04:03

companies are sending more people than ever into work.

1:04:13

That's our show for today. The GAP SPS news special

1:04:15

for all the researchers is Julie Hugin, her

1:04:17

theme music is live and the Giants'

1:04:19

Ben Richmond, and the cast operation is

1:04:21

the senior director.

1:04:28

For Emily Bazlawn and Jonathan Klinebabyslots, thanks for

1:04:30

the same emotional cue. Hello,

1:04:41

how are you? You may have heard,

1:04:44

you may have heard, if you're in

1:04:46

the know that a

1:04:48

certain celebrity,

1:04:51

singer, well-known singer, not going to

1:04:53

name any names. She's

1:04:57

been seen canoodling with

1:04:59

a football player and

1:05:02

the rumors are all over town.

1:05:05

So the

1:05:08

Travis Kelsey Taylor Swift romance has deranged

1:05:11

a certain small subset of

1:05:13

Americans and the

1:05:15

magma right. What is going

1:05:17

on here, John? Who's deranged? Why are they

1:05:19

being deranged? I mean, on the one hand,

1:05:22

having to engage with this story at all

1:05:24

is feels like a personal defeat for me,

1:05:26

and yet it is the height of bonkredom.

1:05:28

I mean, so it's also

1:05:30

one of the challenges of our times. What

1:05:32

amount of it is the online, the extremely

1:05:35

online and the influencers who

1:05:38

want to gig

1:05:41

the extremely online as a way of

1:05:43

building up their own platforms. But

1:05:46

then there, it's hard to disconnect

1:05:48

the extremely online from Fox

1:05:50

News and some of its personalities

1:05:53

who are flopping around on

1:05:56

this issue because they

1:05:58

want to excite their audience

1:06:01

because we're all stuck in a

1:06:03

stupid attention economy in which all

1:06:05

we do is poke at each other to try

1:06:09

to get people to pay attention and watch. So

1:06:11

it's really, it's just totally awful, but it does

1:06:13

exist. It's out there. And

1:06:17

that was just a snippet from our Slate

1:06:19

Plus conversation. If you want to hear the

1:06:22

whole conversation, go to slate.com/gab

1:06:24

fest plus to become a member today.