0:00

Hey there. Everybody. Talking

0:02

about the Iowa Caucus is disgusting. Who

0:04

won and what it means for the

0:07

Twenty Twenty Four election. Except

0:09

for me. That's. Not what

0:11

this episode is about. Hello

0:21

and welcome to the political

0:23

Orphanage. A home for Paki

0:25

misfits and problem solvers. I'm

0:27

your host Andrew Heaton Live

0:29

from Des, Moines, Iowa. That's

0:34

right, I have journeyed to the

0:37

Hawkeye state itself to check out

0:39

the Iowa Caucuses, the first in

0:41

the nation election for choosing presidential

0:43

candidates. I. Journeyed many

0:45

miles to the strange and

0:47

foreign realm with one burning

0:50

question. Not

0:52

who be our next President?

0:54

Not? what are the fault

0:56

lines within the Republican party?

0:58

I wanted to know. Why

1:02

Iowa? I

1:04

can hear him column hogs

1:06

and the clear I like

1:08

I was specifically agreement with ah

1:11

then I'll a row. Yeah,

1:13

might Nebraska I were my boss

1:15

die or want my hair. I've

1:17

got I away and my ears

1:19

and eyes and know. For

1:22

that matter, why are we doing state

1:24

by state primaries as opposed to having

1:26

them all happened at once? Do national

1:28

primary day and then later on we

1:31

do national election and subsequent disappointment day.

1:33

Where are we doing? that? To this

1:35

episode and probably next week's episode as

1:37

well in conjunction with it is something

1:39

of a. Thinking travelogue

1:42

episode in which I literally

1:44

fly to I was to

1:46

unravel some of America's electoral

1:48

works for Iowa, Iowa more

1:51

than like. And that. And

1:54

an episode in which I finally

1:57

become one of those gray haired

1:59

dude. The leans back in

2:01

his chair and says, will

2:03

you have to understand We're

2:06

not a democracy were Republic.

2:11

In my experience, usually when an old

2:13

dude says that it has nothing to

2:15

do with the actual conversation. Oh

2:18

Zeke will kick back in the rocking

2:20

chair and say we're not a democracy

2:22

were republics Like you said, something very

2:25

sage in expects all of us to

2:27

not our heads and say well, good

2:29

point Zeke, but were actually just talking

2:31

about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or

2:34

something like that. Well today at long

2:36

last. I am become zeke

2:38

destroyer of worlds because that tension

2:41

between democracy and republic is at

2:43

the heart of not just the

2:45

Iowa Caucus which I have attended,

2:47

but the presidential election we are

2:50

kicking off at this time, and

2:52

the electoral college that will settlement.

2:55

So before we go any further this episode right

2:57

now I want to establish something. For.

2:59

The rest of our time together today. whenever.

3:02

I say republican or

3:04

democrat. I. Am using them

3:06

as. Lower. Case lowercase

3:09

are lower case d adjectives

3:11

that have nothing to do.

3:13

With. The G, O P, or

3:16

Dnc in fact, get very

3:18

specific with you. I am

3:20

using democratic and Republican as

3:22

shorthand for direct democracy. And

3:24

representative democracy two variants of

3:26

how we apply a democratic

3:29

system. If. You're like ninety

3:31

nine percent of the population, including myself.

3:33

Your subconscious mind. Is

3:36

going to desperately want. To.

3:38

It define which is these terms

3:40

corresponds to read team or blue

3:42

team and then the did a

3:44

fine which one you think is

3:46

the irritating team or the scary

3:48

team and then start constructing rationales

3:50

for why your adjective. Democrat.

3:52

or republican is superior to the other one

3:54

i want to strongly advise you to fight

3:56

that impulse point of this episode is not

3:58

to say that day democracy is good

4:00

or bad, or that republicanism

4:03

is better or worse, it's

4:06

to flush out what these mindsets are

4:09

and see where they are best

4:11

applied. Because by the end of today's

4:13

episode you're going to be able to look

4:15

at the way our democracy

4:18

functions and you'll be able to pick out

4:20

that bit's direct democracy and

4:23

what that means. That bit is

4:25

representative democracy and what that means and

4:27

you'll know what both are trying to

4:30

accomplish. So rather than thinking about these

4:33

terms as political parties,

4:35

I want you to think about democratic

4:38

and republican today in terms

4:41

of ancient Greece and

4:44

ancient Rome. The

4:49

ancient Greek city-states were direct democracies,

4:52

literally rule by the people, the

4:54

demos. The ancient

4:56

Greeks would have thought about democracy

4:58

in contrast to rule by monarchy

5:00

or rule by aristocracy. The

5:03

hereditary kings that many of the city-states overthrew

5:05

were called parents, which is where we get

5:07

that word from straight up. Prior

5:09

to the advent of democracy, people

5:11

in Greece would have used the word tyrant very

5:13

matter-of-factly just as we say president or king. They

5:15

were so unpopular during

5:18

the democratic era that they now have

5:20

that aura of evil

5:22

about them. But when

5:24

we're comparing direct democracy to representative

5:26

democracy relevant to our show, the

5:29

operative term here, the main differentiating

5:32

characteristic is participation.

5:36

Democracy, again in the ancient Greek sense of the

5:38

word, is all about the assembly,

5:41

the people, capital P, getting

5:43

together to make decisions. Picture

5:48

all the voting males of Sparta coming

5:51

together in the amphitheater to argue about

5:53

where to locate a new cistern, raising

5:57

taxes to erect a temple, or whether or not to

5:59

declare a new cistern. war on

6:01

stupid, backwards, hayseed Argos.

6:04

In Athens, each year 500

6:07

names of citizens were randomly chosen,

6:10

and those selected had to serve in government for the

6:12

year. That method of selecting

6:14

leaders is called sortition, and we actually do

6:16

the same thing in our country through jury

6:18

duty. Athenians believed that

6:20

every citizen should be capable of

6:22

executing any office of state and

6:24

willing to do so. To

6:27

mitigate against incompetency, which was clearly going

6:30

to happen, most of the offices in

6:32

the Athenian democratic city

6:34

state were boards with a few

6:36

people on them rather than a single person. They

6:39

believed that by making selection entirely random,

6:42

rather than having elections for most offices, would be

6:44

leaders would not be able to bribe their way

6:46

into office, so it would cut back on corruption.

6:49

That the system would be equal and fair to

6:51

everybody from rich and poor alike, because every citizen

6:53

had an equal chance of getting their name drawn

6:55

out of the hat. They did

6:58

elect generals, which is an interesting

7:00

way to run a military. I think that would be

7:02

fascinating if we were doing that in our

7:05

country. They elected some financial officers as well,

7:07

but most of the government of ancient Athens

7:09

consisted of these 500 annual

7:12

leaders who would run the government and draft

7:14

laws, and then the entirety

7:17

of the electorate would assemble

7:19

to vote on those laws. By

7:22

the way, you could just raise your

7:24

hand and propose laws in the Athenian assembly. You

7:26

didn't have to be one of the 500 people

7:29

drawn out of a hat. A ho

7:31

bulomenos, or he who

7:33

wishes, was a citizen who raised

7:36

their hand, even if they weren't in government, and

7:38

could stand up and say, hey, these idiots want

7:40

to build a cistern over by the temple of

7:42

Hakate, but I think it's pretty obvious we should

7:45

build it uphill from the Agora. Who's with me?

7:48

You could get your cistern relocated

7:50

over there, very direct from the

7:52

floor participatory democracy, although careful because

7:55

Greek democracy had stakes in a way

7:57

that don't exist in our culture. It

8:00

wasn't just a direct democracy, it was

8:02

an accountable democracy. Whoever ran

8:04

the government was responsible for its

8:06

outcome. If you decided to step

8:09

up as a private citizen, as a

8:11

whole balamoneos, I don't know how to say that word by the way,

8:13

and push a reform through, you

8:15

are then the government. You're on the hook for

8:17

it. If the cistern ends up cracking all the

8:19

time and it becomes a big municipal boondoggle, someone

8:22

might step up in the assembly and accuse

8:24

you of screwing up our city. In

8:27

the year 406, after a horrible

8:29

defeat in Sicily, the Athenians won a

8:31

naval battle over the Spartans. Good for

8:34

them. But a storm arose afterwards,

8:36

and six of their generals were

8:38

tried and sentenced to death for

8:40

failing to collect survivors. Anyone

8:43

active in governance, be they the 500 randomly

8:45

selected leaders that were drawn out of a

8:47

hat, or just the very

8:49

active citizens in the assembly, could

8:52

be prosecuted for damaging

8:55

the city through misinformation,

8:57

incompetency, or self-interest. Usually

9:00

that involved reputational damage because you embarrassed

9:02

yourself and were the town moron, and

9:04

a fine. A court could sue

9:07

you for incompetency. But

9:10

if you were particularly odious or

9:12

incompetent in what you did, you would

9:14

be ostracized. Ostracism,

9:18

getting ostracized in our parlance

9:20

today, comes from ancient Greece.

9:22

It comes from the word

9:24

ostracon, which means a shard of

9:26

pottery. I know you're

9:28

disappointed. Ostracon sounds like

9:31

an ostrich made out of

9:33

obsidian or something. Nope, it's pottery shards. Each

9:36

year, the Athenian assembly could

9:38

decide to hold an ostracism.

9:40

If they did that, citizens would

9:43

write the name of whoever they

9:45

particularly thought screwed up last year

9:47

on a pottery shard, on an

9:49

ostracon. If

9:51

6,000 people or more wrote your

9:53

name down, you were exiled

9:55

from the city for 10 years. And

9:58

this was purely and entirely political. This

10:00

was not a due process court of

10:02

law. In fact, it did not imply

10:04

criminal wrongdoing or conviction. After

10:07

10 years, you could return to the city without

10:09

loss of property. You could reclaim

10:11

whatever legal status you were entitled to. It

10:13

was a social banishment

10:17

with real consequences enacted

10:19

to punish anybody who damaged

10:22

the police through self-interest or

10:24

bad decisions. And I think

10:26

the ancient Athenians would have viewed finding

10:29

their leaders when they stepped down

10:31

or finding their active citizens who

10:33

wrecked some particular project or potentially

10:35

ostracizing and exiling their political leaders. They

10:38

would have viewed that as a kind

10:40

of checks and balances system

10:42

in their society the way we do

10:44

with three branches today. Direct

10:47

democracy is a

10:50

highly participatory system. And

10:52

built into citizen involvement

10:54

is an immediate obligation,

10:57

a corresponding obligation of duty.

11:00

When all the Athenian males get together to argue

11:02

about whether or not to levy taxes to

11:04

build a new trireme fleet, the

11:06

dudes who show up have a responsibility to be

11:09

in the know. We got rid

11:11

of those tyrants and now the demos are

11:13

in charge. That means the demos got

11:15

to step up. A voter can't

11:18

poke around the assembly

11:20

and go, you know, I

11:23

haven't really been paying attention to trade relations

11:25

with mice and A. I

11:29

don't care about trireme payments, so I don't know. I'll

11:31

just vote with my friends. That

11:33

is a dereliction of duty. And

11:35

you certainly couldn't say, I'm

11:38

not really into politics. I'm just going to go olive

11:40

picking with my girlfriend. Let me know what y'all decide.

11:43

If you told that to a Corinthian, they

11:46

would say, our

11:48

forefathers fought and died

11:50

to banish the tyrant Sipcilis from

11:52

our soil, and we have

11:55

inherited the mantle of freedom from their blood

11:57

and efforts. Freedom isn't free.

12:00

Hello, Hellenian. All

12:02

able-bodied men must honor their obligation to

12:04

defend Corinth in times of war, but

12:06

to wisely and competently vote on matters

12:08

of importance in times of peace. We

12:10

have inherited freedom, and the price

12:13

we pay for it is our personal

12:15

responsibility and our engagement in our community.

12:18

Pericles, the most famous

12:21

statesman of ancient Athens, once

12:23

declared, We do not say

12:25

that a man who takes no interest in politics is

12:27

a man who minds his own business. We

12:30

say that he has no business here at all. If

12:34

a citizen of Athens failed to

12:36

participate, he would be fined, and

12:38

sometimes marked with red paint. In

12:41

the fifth century, slaves that were owned

12:43

by the government were ordered to go

12:45

to the Agora and whip derelict citizens

12:47

with red-painted ropes and drive them to

12:49

the Assembly so they could participate in

12:51

democracy, and anybody that was caught there

12:53

with red on their clothes was fined.

12:56

And then later, in 403 B.C.,

12:59

Athens replaced that stick method with a carrot, and

13:01

they started paying the first 6,000 men

13:04

who arrived in the Assembly to get everybody over there. The

13:07

word idiot, a word

13:09

I use a lot, comes to us from

13:11

this era of the Greek city-states. Its

13:14

original meaning was private

13:16

citizen. Those

13:19

who refused to participate in the

13:21

governance of their society were idiots.

13:24

A derisive term which implied that

13:26

you were either too self-interested to

13:29

want to participate in your own community or

13:32

too imbecilic to be capable of it. Now,

13:35

if we want to modernize and

13:37

project that ancient Athenian-Greek

13:40

direct democracy impulse into

13:42

an American context, picture

13:46

a town hall. At some

13:48

point, you've probably in a civics book or

13:50

a coffee table book, you've

13:52

seen Town Meeting by Norman Rockwell from

13:54

1943, where there's just a bunch of

13:56

regular folks that are sitting in the...

14:00

the seats in a state house or a jury

14:02

or something like that and one of them is

14:04

rising to speak. It's folks coming

14:06

together as a community to make decisions for

14:08

their community. Four years ago, I

14:11

went to New Hampshire. I'm gonna go to New Hampshire this

14:13

next week, but four years ago I

14:15

was in New Hampshire and most of the

14:18

governance in that state is concentrated at the

14:20

town level. There's very little power in New

14:22

Hampshire invested in the state legislature

14:24

or in the governor. It's

14:26

probably the most localistic state

14:28

in the Union. In

14:30

one of the towns I visited, which I

14:32

think is fairly common throughout New Hampshire, everybody

14:35

in town gets together once a year to

14:37

make proposals on what the town should spend

14:39

money on and once they've drafted that

14:42

list of we need a

14:44

new fire truck, we ought to get some

14:46

more snowplows, they meet a few

14:49

weeks later and everybody votes on whether or not to

14:51

spend that money. Direct

14:53

democracy, all about participation.

14:56

It's about an informed citizenry that

14:59

keeps up with the news of

15:01

the day and politics and policy

15:03

and shows up as an active

15:05

guiding force in the administration and

15:07

steering of the state. A

15:09

great example around the country right

15:12

now are ballot initiatives and resolutions.

15:15

My home state of Oklahoma was, it's

15:17

the holster of the Bible Belt today,

15:19

a very committed deep

15:21

red state, but it was in

15:23

its infancy a cauldron of rural

15:26

populism. So while the state

15:28

legislature can make laws, if a

15:30

private citizen in Oklahoma can get a few thousand

15:32

signatures for a ballot initiative, they

15:34

can fully bypass the state legislature and get

15:37

their question onto the ballot come election day.

15:39

And if the people say we want

15:41

medical marijuana to be legal, they

15:44

overrule the legislature and that becomes law.

15:47

In Austin where I now live, when

15:49

the city holds elections, it also has

15:51

resolutions on the ballot. Prop

15:54

5, the city of Austin should outlaw

15:58

turtle racing or Subsidize

16:00

ukuleles or something again

16:03

democracy direct democracy all

16:05

about Civic participation

16:08

the City Council doesn't make all the

16:10

decisions Some of the decisions are made

16:12

by the people at large and

16:15

that participation comes with Obligation because

16:17

for democracy to work the people at

16:20

large must be educated

16:22

and engaged and knowledgeable enough

16:24

to make informed decisions if

16:27

you want to picture that sense of corresponding

16:30

sense of obligation I Think

16:34

in a lofty way we could we

16:36

could remember that JFK quote of thank

16:38

not what your country can do for

16:40

you But what you can do

16:43

for your country But if

16:45

that's if that's too abstract or you you

16:47

you're thrown off by my JFK impression just

16:50

picture jury duty That's a very

16:52

good civic obligation that I think

16:54

is fairly unanimous within the country Imagine

16:57

if when the doors close on the jury

17:00

Just you and the other jurors you go ah That

17:04

wasn't paying attention I think you guys should just

17:06

vote on what you think is best on whether

17:09

this guy goes to prison or not I

17:12

I don't I don't like legal stuff I just zoned

17:14

out the look of disgust the

17:16

other jurors would have for you the contempt

17:19

knowing that you failed a basic

17:21

civic duty with real consequences that

17:24

that is the intense

17:28

Social pressure and norm

17:31

that existed in ancient Greece and

17:34

that same Heritage intellectual

17:36

lineage of direct democracy is

17:38

baked into our country's

17:41

ideological DNA Ancient

17:43

Greece ancient Athens there's

17:45

lots of different direct democracies, but the Athenians kept better

17:47

records, which is why we know more about them They

17:50

are one of our ideological grandparents

17:54

but the other Ideological grandparent

17:56

is not direct democracy. It's

17:59

republicanism And that

18:01

grandparent from whom we inherit a

18:03

system of representative democracy is

18:05

the Roman Republic. The

18:10

Roman Republic also shared a very deep

18:12

sense of civic obligation and civic duty,

18:14

but it did not have the same

18:18

concept and enthusiasm for direct

18:20

democracy and participation that the

18:22

Greeks did. The

18:25

word Republic comes from the

18:27

Latin concept of res publica,

18:29

which means literally public affair,

18:32

as opposed to res privata,

18:35

the private realm or private affair. They

18:38

had an inbuilt concept of a public

18:40

sphere and a private sphere. Whereas,

18:43

democratic Greece wanted to kind of solve

18:45

everything by arguing about it

18:47

in the assembly and having everybody take a vote on

18:49

it. The Romans didn't

18:52

want everything to be settled by

18:54

the group voting. They developed contract

18:56

law to allow private individuals to

18:58

work matters out between themselves, and

19:00

family law, which deferred insane

19:02

amounts of power to the head of

19:05

a family. It's difficult to even comprehend

19:08

the kind of power that a

19:11

patter familius had in the early Roman

19:13

Republic. Like, I don't know,

19:16

in the 20s and

19:18

the 50s in the United States, dad

19:20

had a lot of clout within the

19:22

family, but the patter familius in the

19:24

early Roman Republic could execute his wife

19:26

for adultery. That was legal. He could

19:28

abandon newborn infants that he did not

19:30

think were fit for the legacy of

19:32

his family to the elements. There was

19:34

a tremendous amount of autonomy

19:37

that was built into

19:39

the private side of life in the Roman

19:41

Republic. So whereas

19:43

direct democracy is about participation,

19:46

republicanism is

19:48

about delegation. In

19:51

this model, in the Roman model, an

19:53

ancient Roman might say, look,

19:57

I don't want to have to go to the forum twice

19:59

a week to survive. squabble about politics and

20:01

laws and where to build cisterns

20:03

and whether or not to declare

20:05

war on those hillbillies and backward

20:07

sister diddling Argos. My

20:09

farm and my family take up all the time I

20:11

have. Whatever little energy I have left I want to

20:13

spend enjoying life, not reading scrolls

20:16

about whether or not to pro-rogue the

20:18

pro-consul of further Spain or grant religious

20:20

exemptions to those guys in Judea or

20:22

whether we should title the new temple

20:25

to Jupiter, Jupiter Optimus Maximus because

20:27

he's king of the gods or

20:29

Jupiter Capitolinus because he's leader of

20:31

the universe. I don't care. So

20:33

here's what I want to do. How about this? You

20:36

guys find a nerd who actually does

20:38

like that kind of stuff and is better than

20:41

me at it and use him as

20:43

a proxy for my vote. My eyes

20:45

glaze over whenever people start talking about

20:47

where to install the latest aqueduct. I

20:49

don't have a good mind for aqueduct.

20:51

They're like magic to me. But my

20:54

buddy Octavius, he loves crap about aqueducts.

20:56

He has diagrams in his house. He

20:58

makes models. And he spends all of

21:00

his time yammering about

21:03

levies and taxes and road building

21:06

and pro-consuls and stuff over at

21:08

Yonder Tavern. So it seems

21:10

to me he has the same

21:12

values and interests that I do. We grew up

21:14

together. We're in the same neighborhood. We have basically

21:16

the same level of income. How about I just

21:19

give him my vote and he

21:21

can have his vote and he can

21:24

have my vote. I don't know. He

21:26

can let me know how he voted for me once

21:29

in a while when I actually

21:31

care, which if things are going

21:33

well is never. Okay, if

21:35

you don't like him, what about this? My Uncle

21:37

Julius. Do you know my Uncle Julius? Okay, he's

21:39

retired but he's sharp. He's a

21:41

very wise man. And his kids are grown and they're

21:44

running his business now. So he has a lot of

21:46

free time and he wants to dedicate it to public

21:48

service because he's at a phase in his life where

21:50

he wants to think beyond himself and

21:52

beyond his immediate career to the

21:54

greater good. In fact,

21:57

the word Senate comes from

21:59

Latin cynics. politics, which means old

22:01

man. So can I

22:03

just let my old man vote for me? Please

22:06

don't make me spend all of

22:08

my available free time learning about cistern

22:11

regulations and aqueduct policy. Just let my

22:13

nerd buddy Octavius or my wise Uncle

22:15

Julius vote for me on

22:17

my behalf. If

22:20

you want to picture the Republican impulse

22:22

in American politics, think of

22:25

Congress, which incidentally meets

22:27

in the Capitol named for

22:29

the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Or

22:32

your state legislature is a good example.

22:34

Your state representative is your proxy in

22:37

the government. You were electing them

22:39

to work as a specialist and an

22:42

advocate on your behalf. Hopefully

22:44

they are a smarter, nerdier,

22:47

feistier version of you

22:50

who represent your values and needs at

22:52

the Capitol. So that

22:55

you don't have to. And the

22:57

idea here is in Republicanism, you get

22:59

to delegate your vote to an

23:01

expert in governance precisely so you

23:03

don't have to worry about energy

23:05

law or surveillance ordinances or patent

23:07

regulations. They are your proxy and

23:10

your advocate so that you can

23:12

spend your time not paying attention

23:14

to politics. You can spend your

23:16

time going to your kid's baseball game

23:18

or running your staffing agency or whatever

23:20

other myriad things in life give meaning

23:23

to yours. You have

23:25

to be well informed enough to be a judge of

23:27

character and to know a

23:29

few crucial issues but just enough

23:31

to select somebody to vote for you. You don't

23:33

have to be a policy wonk yourself. You don't

23:36

have to be an expert at anything. So

23:39

noting that these are

23:41

the two dueling impulses in

23:44

the American democratic tradition,

23:46

participation and delegation, ancient

23:48

Greece and Republican Rome. Let's

23:52

strap on our seat belts and

23:54

head to the air of these

23:57

two grand progenitors

23:59

of democracy. democracy, Iowa.

24:09

If you're like me, up until last week,

24:12

the only things you knew about Iowa is

24:14

that it's flat, full of corn, and also

24:16

full of conservatives who themselves are full of

24:18

corn. So let me tell

24:20

you some interesting facts about Iowa you may not

24:22

know that I have picked up as your dutiful

24:25

observer in this state. The

24:28

great state of Iowa killed

24:31

Buddy Holly and the

24:33

big bopper when their plane crashed into

24:36

it. So if you were worried about those

24:39

guys, Iowa did you a solid.

24:42

Iowa nearly, I'm not making this up by the

24:44

way, Iowa nearly went to war with Missouri in

24:46

1830 in the honey war when

24:49

a federal surveyor got the state boundaries

24:51

wrong so Missouri tried to tax some

24:53

of the Iowans who

24:56

very understandably raised a militia to

24:58

fight Missouri. Which

25:02

what do you think Missouri did? You

25:08

think Missouri got that ordinance

25:12

surveyor to correct his stuff or do you

25:14

think they raised their own militia to fight

25:16

the Iowan militia to get that tax

25:18

money? You're right it was the latter. The

25:21

federal government had to step in after these

25:23

two militias burned down an apiary which is

25:25

where it gets its name the honey war.

25:27

The federal government went simmer

25:30

down y'all. Listen, just

25:33

wait another 30 years and then you can really blow off

25:35

some steam. You can really start shooting at each other in

25:37

30 years. Ozzy

25:40

Osbourne bit the head

25:43

off that bat in Iowa.

25:46

You ever heard about that, the heavy metal guy who bit a

25:48

head off a bat? That

25:51

world changing event happened

25:53

right here in Iowa. One

25:56

of the most impactful humanitarians who has

25:59

ever lived In the history of mankind,

26:01

I will argue one of the most important people

26:03

to have ever lived is a

26:06

criminally unknown agronomist named

26:08

Norman Borlaug. In the

26:11

1940s, Norman Borlaug developed a

26:13

disease-resistant high-yield strain of wheat,

26:15

and it's estimated that his research saved

26:18

a billion, B-billion

26:22

lives from starvation, from

26:25

wasting away children dead

26:27

on the streets. Norman Borlaug saved

26:29

a billion people from starving to

26:31

death. Yet,

26:34

most of the statues you see around cities around the world, what

26:37

do they have? Generals? People

26:39

that were good at killing other people? Norman

26:41

Borlaug is from Iowa, and there

26:44

is a museum to this woefully

26:46

unknown figure for whom 10 percent

26:49

or more of the people alive on

26:51

this planet right now owe their very

26:53

existence to. Well

26:56

done, Iowa. And...

27:01

And... There is...

27:05

Get ready for this. In Iowa,

27:08

there is a Hobo

27:12

Museum. I just

27:14

learned about this yesterday. Iowa has

27:16

a Hobo Museum and

27:18

an annual Hobo Festival, which apparently

27:21

involves a lot of stew. Between

27:24

Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off that bat

27:27

and the Iowa Hobo Museum, I think

27:29

it's safe to say that Iowa is

27:31

one of the greatest states in the Union and

27:34

is hands down better than Ancient Greece

27:36

and Rome combined. I

27:45

got into Des Moines at midnight, and

27:47

I immediately liked it. I hailed

27:50

from not too far away Oklahoma, and

27:52

the Greater Heat and Family Stronghold remains

27:54

in the farms and fields of western

27:56

Oklahoma. So

27:58

I get... Iowa. I

28:01

resonate with friendly, conflict

28:03

diverse, flat, agricultural and diabetic. A

28:06

lot of bearded

28:08

white guys with pre-diabetes bumping around these parts. So

28:10

except for the fact that I tend to wear

28:12

a necktie if it gets below 70 degrees, I

28:15

blend in perfectly with the locals

28:17

here. I lived in Washington

28:19

DC for a couple years and I would describe Washington

28:22

DC as a, I'll

28:24

be happy to transfer you sir, kind of place. Whereas Iowa

28:26

is a, I don't

28:30

know, maybe, yeah I got one in the back

28:32

of the truck, I'll fix it, kind of

28:34

place. Can-do industrious

28:36

folks, I dig it. The moment I stepped

28:38

off the plane here in Des Moines, I

28:40

was like, ah, an

28:43

allied people, I shall have

28:45

no trouble here amongst the cousins of mine

28:47

kinfolk. You there friend, pass me a young

28:50

fried hot dog donut and a turkey gun.

28:54

Des Moines strikes me as Alva Oklahoma on

28:57

steroids. When you're coming in from the airport,

29:01

you see the Des Moines skyline, which

29:03

from what I can tell consists of three

29:06

to three and a

29:08

half skyscrapers. You go to

29:10

Dallas, Dallas has a big old clump of buildings.

29:12

Even Tulsa has a dense urban core with a

29:15

lot of art deco towers poking out. You drive

29:17

up to one of those cities bursting

29:19

into the sky from the surrounding prairie and you

29:21

think, wow, we're here

29:23

in the city, let's go to a mall. Whereas

29:28

I get the impression that at some point a

29:31

guy with a top hat just strolled into

29:33

Des Moines and was like, hey, you guys

29:35

are technically a city now. The

29:38

locals were like, what? Have our transportation pickup

29:40

trucks and the other half is tractors. Our

29:42

mayor is a donkey. We're not

29:44

a big city. The guy was like, well, hey, somebody

29:46

in this state has to be a big city, so

29:49

you're it. These can-do people,

29:51

these Iowans with tools in the back of their trucks,

29:53

they said, well, okay, we'll erect

29:56

a couple of buildings then. Also,

29:58

I'm a big fan of places where you can talk to strangers

30:00

and they don't think you're trying to sell them insurance

30:02

or convert them to another religion. I love

30:05

New York City. It is a great city. I love visiting

30:07

it. But after living there five

30:09

years I realized I was never going to

30:11

fit in because I don't consider direct eye

30:14

contact a prelude to murder. I realized

30:17

I was irritating a lot of people by

30:19

trying to strike up conversations with them in

30:22

an environment which is totally overloaded

30:24

with stimulus and distractions. There's

30:26

time and money and attention.

30:29

Big cities are attention poor. There's so

30:31

much noise and flashing lights and strangers

30:33

mucking about that whatever attention you focus

30:36

on a particular person or task is

30:38

deliberate and precious and under threat. Big

30:42

flat agricultural states with donkeys

30:45

for mares they are attention rich. When you

30:47

say hi to somebody you're not stealing their

30:49

limited attention you're just being friendly. They got

30:51

plenty of attention to go around. I like

30:53

that. This is a state where you

30:55

just walk up to strangers and say, hey man cool

30:58

belt buckle where'd you get that? And if they're

31:00

friendly they'll give you directions to the

31:03

belt emporium and if they're really friendly they'll just

31:05

give you the belt. Maybe

31:07

marry you. I've been married three four times since I

31:09

got here and I got here on Saturday. So

31:11

I'm loving Iowa and frankly when

31:13

I come back some day to visit

31:15

the Norman Borlaug Museum and more importantly

31:17

the Hobo Museum I cannot

31:20

express how much joy

31:22

entered my life knowing that there

31:24

is a thing called a Hobo

31:27

Museum. Well done, Iowa. There

31:30

is one small downside to Iowa at this time

31:32

however. The Iowa

31:35

weather was 13 below

31:40

and that is that it was negative 15 degrees

31:45

when my plane touched down and

31:47

my first full day in Iowa the

31:49

high was negative seven in

31:52

Fahrenheit because America. Monday

31:55

the day of the Iowa caucus itself the

31:57

temperature crept up to zero degrees

32:00

degrees, a balmy zero

32:02

degrees by four o'clock, and around negative seven

32:04

degrees at the time of the caucus itself.

32:07

Weirdly, I can't get

32:10

a straight answer out of locals on

32:12

how long you can go

32:14

outside in this sort of weather before

32:16

you catch frostbite, which you'd think they'd

32:20

have a handy guide to by now. You'd think

32:22

that that would be drilled into

32:24

the kids in public school. One guy

32:26

told me, oh, in this kind of weather, in negative 15, you

32:29

go outside for approximately 10 minutes and then you get

32:31

frostbite. You've got to be real careful. Whereas

32:34

the very next guy I talked to, a

32:36

guy I bought batteries from at CVS, I

32:38

asked him, and he told me you can

32:40

walk around for two hours as long as

32:43

you have a good hat, which

32:46

frankly, I think, is

32:49

a misplaced faith in hat

32:51

heat retention. Don't get me wrong. I'm

32:54

sure Iowa has vastly superior

32:56

hat technology compared to the

32:58

rest of the country. Space

33:00

aged head girding technology. Just

33:03

saying 10 minutes and two hours is a lot

33:05

of latitude when it comes to frostbite. What I

33:07

do know is that if you

33:09

walk around outside for five to

33:12

30 seconds in this weather, your

33:14

breath freezes in midair and

33:16

instantly frosts your beard, which

33:19

looks super cool, very grizzled. It's

33:21

a neat feeling. I like it. I recommend it. But if

33:23

you stay outside for more than a minute and a

33:25

half, just a minute and a half, you walk around three

33:28

minutes, you get an ice cream headache

33:30

because your sinus cavities freeze up. So

33:33

this is a go outside and get an

33:35

ice cream headache kind of weather, which

33:38

to be very clear, I am not

33:40

complaining about. I think you get to pick one

33:42

season to bitch about in life. And for me,

33:44

that's summer. I am not going to tempt the

33:46

gods by complaining about the cold, given how much

33:48

I complain about the heat. That said, last

33:51

time on this program that I did

33:53

talk about the heat and I talked

33:55

about the abysmal climate in Texas, a

33:58

bunch of people wrote in offended. when

34:00

I called it carny weather. So

34:02

let me be very clear. I

34:05

have the utmost respect for itinerant

34:07

circus folk and the hot,

34:09

moist weather carneys thrive in. I

34:12

tend to make my own body heat, like

34:14

every other self-respecting mammal on this planet, but if

34:16

I ever get some kind of debilitating blood

34:18

disease, which precludes me from doing so, as

34:21

a debilitated lizard person, I am sure

34:23

I will be very glad for the

34:25

relentless balmy armpit weather of central Texas.

34:28

It's just for me, I would

34:31

rather have a month of negative fifteen

34:33

degrees than nine months of

34:35

carny weather. And I

34:37

get it. Yay, hammocks. Yay,

34:40

frisbee golf. Good stuff. I'm

34:43

not saying you're a bad person if you

34:45

love hot weather. Justin

34:47

Robert Young, who I'm traveling with this trip,

34:49

is a colleague and good friend of mine,

34:52

and he keeps the upstairs of

34:54

his house at seventy-six degrees like

34:56

some kind of pervert. Which

34:59

is fine. This is America.

35:01

If you want to be some kind of deviant

35:04

who keeps their house at seventy-six degrees, it's

35:06

a free country. And as long

35:08

as you're not hurting anybody, society has a

35:10

lot of latitude for reprobate lifestyles like that.

35:13

It is a foundational principle of our great

35:15

country. It's called pluralism. You

35:18

need the seasons to remind you you're going to

35:20

die. There are all these

35:22

dudes in Los Angeles, and they wake

35:24

up at forty-six and go, I'm forty-six?

35:26

How did this happen? I own

35:28

a beanbag? I'm a forty-six year

35:30

old man that has a beanbag? I'm using a frisbee

35:32

as a plate? How did

35:34

this happen? Because it snuck up on you,

35:36

eternal summer. You're going to die. You're

35:39

going to die. Places without winter suffer

35:41

from insufficient reminders of impending doom. So

35:43

old age sneaks up on you. You

35:45

need that winter to tell you you're going to die. And

35:49

I am keenly aware, at this moment

35:51

here in Des Moines, that if I

35:53

walk outside to go get some Doritos, and

35:55

I slip and fall and hit my head behind a

35:58

hedge, I am dead. within

36:00

10 minutes or

36:03

possibly two hours if

36:07

I have a particularly good hat. Now

36:10

you might be thinking at this point and I know several

36:12

of you are thinking at this point. This is

36:14

a very long diatribe about the weather. I

36:17

don't like weather monologues. I do not like them

36:20

Sam I am. Okay, fair

36:22

enough. But do you

36:24

know who loves the kind

36:26

of weather

36:29

monologue that

36:31

I just

36:34

gave? The

36:36

good, unborn, fed people

36:39

of Iowa. So

36:41

that's not actually why I brought it up. I brought

36:43

it up because of the whole Democratic Republican thing

36:45

we kicked off the episode with. So let's gently

36:48

bring my climatological tirade back into

36:50

the realm of politics. The

36:53

political implication of this very

36:56

brisk weather is that

36:59

it might well suppress voter turnout. The

37:01

immediate implication is that people who love a

37:04

candidate are impassioned and enthusiastic

37:06

about their campaign, will be

37:08

undaunted by ice cream headaches and

37:10

deadly black ice and they will rock up

37:13

to the high school gym and vote anyway.

37:15

Whereas candidates whose supporters view them

37:18

as pretty good,

37:20

least bad option, settled on

37:22

them last minute, those people might

37:24

very well look out the window and go, yeah

37:26

I'm not gonna risk frostbite for Nikki Haley. Let's

37:28

just stay in and play shoots and ladders or

37:31

whatever married people do on Mondays. Democratic

37:34

and Republican sensibilities take

37:37

very different views towards voter turnout. The

37:39

Democratic impulse is society

37:42

functions best when everybody comes together to make

37:44

a decision as a community. Everyone

37:46

has an obligation to participate and educate

37:48

themselves in civic life. The

37:51

higher the voter turnout, the more

37:53

civic engagement and the healthier the

37:55

system. Lower turnout

37:57

is always bad. It signifies voter suppression. or

38:00

apathy as voters disengaged from a

38:02

rigged system or candidates that don't

38:04

represent them, or a deep

38:07

kind of spiritual torpitude, a

38:09

moral failing of the people

38:11

to do their civic diligence

38:14

and vote. The old sense

38:16

of the word idiot. Whereas

38:19

the Republican inclination views

38:21

voter turnout more like a thermometer. A

38:24

higher voter turnout means the system is

38:26

working so poorly that people are angry

38:28

enough to bother voting. Lower

38:31

voter turnout means the system's working well enough nobody

38:33

cared to show up. They have better

38:35

things to do with their time. Now

38:37

I realize this sounds counterintuitive, if not

38:39

outright blasphemous in our society where we

38:42

talk about voting as if it's a sacrament. We

38:44

have a very we have a very Greek way

38:47

of thinking about voting. So allow me to illustrate

38:49

what I mean in this Republican mindset. If

38:52

everybody in a city knows the name

38:55

of the director of the water treatment

38:57

department, chances are

38:59

it's not because everybody dutifully read up

39:02

on sewage policy out of a sense

39:04

of civic obligation. It's

39:06

because the water treatment system has gone

39:08

so off the rails that people started

39:10

going, God damn it, why is this

39:13

water? I gotta read about

39:15

this now? What moron screwed up the plumbing? Okay,

39:18

well let's vote that guy out next November. Bob?

39:20

I hate Bob. Whereas

39:23

a city where nobody knows the name of the water

39:25

treatment director probably means that the

39:27

department has operated competently enough that nobody ever has

39:29

to think about it, which

39:31

is kind of the point in a

39:33

Republican mindset. The Democratic mindset

39:35

has a very healthy appreciation for the

39:37

group as a whole and a

39:40

reverence for the prowess of the people

39:42

when we come together to make decisions.

39:44

The town hall, Norman Rockwell. A

39:46

Republican wants most of the energy in society

39:49

to be direct and

39:51

localized. Society is

39:53

a balance between res publica and

39:55

res privata. With A lot

39:57

more momentum in Res Privata, they want the

39:59

majority. Activity in society

40:01

to be defused amongst

40:03

families, businesses, schools, clubs,

40:05

nonprofits, charities, strip clubs,

40:07

churches, Ideally.

40:10

Republicans would like government to be

40:12

small enough and competent enough. That.

40:15

You would never think about it on a daily basis. "A

40:19

lot of the arguments the we have

40:21

ah in in politics and society are

40:23

about the size of government or whether

40:25

something should" Private. Sector or public

40:27

sector. But I don't want this episode to just

40:29

be a proxy for progressive versus conservative. and I

40:31

want you to fight that impulse to try to

40:33

would defy which is of the Greeks to the

40:36

Romans that would have been my enemies. I don't

40:38

want this to be a blue team read: same

40:40

thing So. Let's. Focus on

40:42

the competency side of this republican

40:44

analysis for a moment. A

40:46

little are. Roman Republic,

40:49

Republic and Representative Democracy. Time

40:51

would wanna government which is competent

40:53

enough. The. Mostly tune it

40:55

out. The. Bus system works so well

40:57

you don't think about the bus system. Ideally.

41:01

Whoever. Is running for Agricultural Commissioner is

41:03

decent and skillful enough all three of em

41:05

that you don't really care who gets elected.

41:07

Either way, The. Trash service and

41:10

your neighborhood is so reliable you don't even

41:12

know if it's a public utility or of

41:14

the city contracts to private company. Because

41:17

you don't really care. Seems to be working. In

41:19

the direct democracy model, we have self rule

41:22

and that means we have an obligation to

41:24

participate and to be educated and engaged in

41:26

the issues which affect society. So.

41:28

Before you vote, you should read up on the

41:30

candidates and the propositions which pure on the ballot

41:32

so that you can make an informed decision. And.

41:35

You shouldn't vote straight party either.

41:37

that is abdicating your responsibility as

41:39

decision maker to hurt instincts and

41:41

naked tribalism. You should be thinking

41:43

for yourself: Educate yourself. You should

41:45

vote accordingly. You as an individual

41:47

are a part of this apparatus

41:49

and you should definitely vote. In

41:52

much the same way that a Catholic should

41:54

regularly take communion. Where's.

41:56

the republican mindset would lend itself

41:58

to who really

42:00

care should shine up. But

42:03

if you don't care or you don't know what

42:05

you're talking about, feel free

42:07

to stay home. Don't worry about it. If you're

42:09

gonna read up on Prop 8 for 36 seconds

42:11

in the parking lot before you go into the

42:14

voting precinct, it would be better

42:16

for you to just give yourself a mulligan and let

42:18

the people who are really fired up on that issue weigh in

42:21

than to otherwise dilute it with a vote

42:24

and an uninformed decision out of a misplaced

42:26

sense of civic responsibility. It's better for lightweights

42:28

to leave politics to the wonky. You

42:31

know all those judges who show up on ballots

42:33

like judge retention? And you don't know who they

42:36

are, but you're supposed to vote on

42:38

it. So like the Republican mindset would be

42:40

don't vote on that. You don't know what you're doing. That

42:42

kind of thing. Now again I remind

42:44

you the point of this episode is not to say

42:46

Greek democracy is good or Roman republicanism is better. It's

42:49

to show that there are two

42:51

strains of thought that duly comprise

42:53

the American experience. It is not

42:55

an either-or proposition and it's certainly

42:57

not a cosmic battle between two

42:59

mutually exclusive ideologies locked in perpetual

43:01

warfare for the soul of mankind

43:03

or some other ridiculous nonsense that

43:05

gets regularly trotted out in

43:07

our hyper-partisan system. And I'm gonna prove it to

43:09

you that it doesn't have to be. That

43:12

these two systems, direct democracy and

43:14

representative democracy, can actually be in accord

43:16

with one another. I

43:18

think most Americans would say low voter turnout

43:20

is an indication that the system is rigged

43:22

or that the people using it are lazy

43:24

and ideally we want to have high voter

43:26

turnout. And we can safely say that

43:29

America has a very democratic notion about the act of

43:31

voting. It is a civic duty. You should kind of

43:33

feel bad if you don't. There

43:35

are simultaneously plenty

43:38

of people who prefer the Republican

43:40

model of society at large in

43:42

which government is so small and

43:45

well-run you barely think about it. And

43:48

I think these two sides of

43:51

democratic systems could both be served

43:54

at the ballot through something

43:56

called quadratic voting. ancient

44:00

Sparta. They

44:02

did not do a head count to arrive

44:04

at decisions. They did a volume analysis. If

44:07

60% of the assembled men preferred

44:09

one proposition but they weren't very

44:11

fired up about it, but 40%

44:14

of the men were really, really

44:16

animated and their shouting drowned out

44:18

the majority, they would err

44:21

on the side of volume. But that

44:23

might seem anti-democratic, but consider the following.

44:26

You and your spouse are deciding where to get dinner

44:29

and you say, I'm kind

44:31

of neutral, maybe pizza, and your spouse

44:33

says, listen I have really

44:36

been craving Chinese food all day. I

44:39

just I really want to eat Chinese food. Can we get Chinese

44:41

food? Nobody

44:44

in a functional

44:46

marriage at that point is gonna

44:48

say, well there's only

44:50

two of us, there's no way to

44:53

resolve this issue democratically. You would, I

44:55

think, calculate how much

44:57

both people in this equation actually

44:59

care. You would you would give weight to

45:01

the importance of the issue, not

45:03

just the vote. One of the built-in

45:05

problems we have in democracy in the United States

45:08

is that all of the votes on our

45:10

ballots count the same amount. Have you ever stopped

45:12

to think how weird that is? Like I didn't think about this till

45:14

I was in my mid 30s, but it's a

45:17

very odd way of doing things. Who you're voting

45:19

for for president counts just as much

45:21

to you as a voter as

45:24

Prop 9 be it resolved

45:26

that crude oil transmission junctures shall be overseen

45:28

by the State Department of Energy rather than

45:31

the State Petroleum Commission. You

45:33

can select between available options but there's no

45:35

way at present to signify which issues you

45:38

actually care about and the things

45:40

that you would just happily defer to other people on.

45:43

Inevitably there were a bunch of things on any

45:45

given ballot that you could go either way on.

45:48

So you either A, you don't vote because your

45:50

Republican impulse tells you not to gum up the

45:52

system or you just can't be bothered or

45:54

you shrug and go I

45:56

don't know Barry Johansson?

46:00

The Johansen once you seem like a good guy of also

46:02

that guy. If. We had

46:04

quadratic voting. You would not just make

46:06

decisions, but you would personally allocate your

46:08

own Spartan volume about how you feel

46:11

about each of these decisions. Let's say

46:13

that there are forty. Forty.

46:15

Entries on your ballot: there are

46:17

forty candidates and propositions and resolutions

46:19

you would get. Forty. Votes.

46:22

And you can just allocate him however you

46:24

want. I live in Texas where I am

46:26

fairly confident the G O P candidate will

46:29

win the presidency and the governorship. so I

46:31

would use my votes on niche issues that

46:33

I know about my care about like zoning,

46:36

And. My guess is only people who really

46:38

care about zoning regulations would want to

46:40

waste their votes on that. So me

46:42

and the other him bees and homeowners

46:44

who were directly affected by housing density.

46:47

If there's a statewide ballot initiative that

46:49

affects we farmers, but nobody else. They're.

46:51

Going to weigh in on that more

46:53

and it's probably going to reflect a

46:55

system that is actually allocating those decisions

46:57

to the people affected by them. Parents.

47:00

Would disproportionately vote on schooling

47:03

issues and travelers sex icons

47:05

like myself. Would. Hold back a little.

47:08

The to be clear, if you could vote for every

47:10

single issue if you wanted to just as you can

47:12

now you could. You could vote every single one one

47:14

vote per entry just as we do it now. But

47:16

you also would have the option of taking. Those.

47:18

Six judge retention votes and putting

47:20

him on charter schools. Were.

47:22

Taking the six votes and saying I put

47:25

in six votes behind building a public clinic.

47:27

Or. Something that you know about some of the turbo. If

47:30

we had quadratic voting, you would find that

47:32

people way their votes on the stuff they

47:34

truly care about. In. It does

47:36

get a little bit more complicated than that if

47:39

you're talking to a policy wonk. The proposals that

47:41

I have seen. You the

47:43

with the way the usually set it up as

47:45

when you vote your you transfer your vote. It's

47:47

worth a little bit less so that it it's

47:50

kind of has some inertia to it. It's expensive

47:52

and it's more expensive the more you doubled down

47:54

on a single issue. But the basic idea is

47:56

that each voter gets to our take their clamped

47:59

on a given. I

48:01

look at that and it

48:03

seems to me that that appeals

48:05

to both my Spartan inner direct

48:07

democracy impulse and

48:09

my Roman just leave

48:11

me alone and let people who know what they're

48:14

doing handle it republicanism. So

48:17

anyway it's very cold in Iowa. Man

48:19

I got a lot out of that. It's very cold in Iowa. But

48:22

that didn't stop Justin Robert Young and myself

48:24

from bravely schlepping

48:27

through these frozen streets and patches of

48:29

black ice and that thing

48:33

from Hoth that nearly kills Luke and Han.

48:35

Hats off to Justin by the way. He

48:38

did a remarkable job of not getting us

48:40

killed. Not with the Wampa but just driving.

48:44

Very difficult driving conditions and I tried to be as

48:46

supportive as possible. So on at

48:48

least three occasions Justin hit a patch of ice

48:50

in the whole car fish-tailed or

48:53

drifted into another lane or just slid

48:56

past a red light like you would

48:58

on a kitchen floor in your socks

49:01

only for him to right the

49:03

vehicle at the last possible moment before we

49:05

got into an accident to which I would

49:07

go he did it again.

49:09

Huzzah! So

49:11

yes your intrepid journalists were undaunted

49:14

by the weather but it didn't pose

49:16

some limits on us. It limited

49:18

us to the greater Des Moines area which

49:20

unfortunately cuts off from a lot of campaign

49:22

events that were happening elsewhere in the state

49:24

with Nikki Haley and DeSantis and Trump and

49:26

so forth. Not to mention

49:30

kept me from going to the Norman Borlaug and

49:32

Hobo museums that I desperately want to go to.

49:35

We were able to attend a Vivek

49:37

Raswami event in Ankeny on Sunday morning.

49:40

I'm not going to detail my impression of Vivek

49:42

as a candidate here as this is a fairly

49:45

Heady travelogue episode with nary any punditry

49:47

at all.. If You're interested in the

49:49

punditry side of things. you can check

49:51

out We're Not Wrong which is where

49:53

Justin and I went into great detail

49:55

at a live show on the Iowa

49:57

caucus and its ramifications on. For

50:00

a one point somebody's but the bike on mean

50:02

forced me to say who I would vote for

50:04

if I were republican in Iowa. You can check

50:07

that stuff over there. We had

50:09

launched a place called Pizza Ranch. Which.

50:11

Is basically Thanksgiving dinner as

50:13

a buffet plus pizza. And.

50:16

At this point the episode. I. Have

50:18

to step away. From. Our conversation

50:21

about direct democracy and republicanism. To.

50:23

Quickly weigh in on. Iowa

50:26

cuisine. It's.

50:29

Amazing. The

50:35

sixers hard ratio of this

50:37

is phenomenal. For every one

50:39

degree celsius temperature you suffer

50:42

through, you get a faggot.

50:44

zone us for the fried

50:46

oreos for a sculpture of

50:48

a cow made out of

50:50

butter is magical. Yesterday afternoon

50:52

just and I went to

50:54

place called want pizza where

50:56

I had a crab rangoon

50:59

pizza. So I ask you

51:01

this coastal elitists would a

51:03

culture lists fly over state

51:05

quote Unquote Possess the commentary

51:07

innovation name the bravery to

51:09

combine Chinese and Italian food

51:11

into a single heart stopping

51:13

frisbee. If not for world

51:16

class chefs I submit that

51:18

it would know. Guess

51:20

what I have? for dessert? who

51:23

had Guess Raspberry cheesecake, egg rolls

51:25

and for dinner I had Macaroni

51:27

and Burton's I what is Amazing.

51:30

Now. Listening. List. Dot listen

51:32

to me guys. Iowa.

51:36

Has breakfast pizza. For.

51:39

Centuries, mankind.

51:43

Has struggled. With. How to eat

51:45

pizza in the morning? When.

51:47

It so clearly a lunch dinner and

51:49

drunken post dinner sop up food. I.

51:52

Bet you Cicero. Talked

51:54

about how badly he wanted to eat pizza. When he

51:56

woke up he couldn't. he had to wait

51:58

till noon And

52:01

yet, Iowa chow

52:03

wizards have invented

52:05

breakfast pizza, and

52:08

in this winter wonderland that I

52:10

find myself in, breakfast pizza is

52:13

so abundant and plentiful that you

52:15

can buy it at gas stations.

52:19

Sunday night Justin and I did a live show for We're Not

52:22

Wrong. Thank you to the 20 or so

52:24

people, maybe 15, 20 people who braved the

52:26

elements to come out, by the way. I don't remember what kind of

52:28

burger I had, but it involved some sort

52:30

of jalapeno sauce and chips that came with spicy

52:32

corn dip. I cannot

52:34

overstate Iowa is

52:37

a culinary palace. I

52:39

haven't even checked out the donut scene, but I bet you it's mind-blowing.

52:42

If you live in Iowa and you

52:44

don't have diabetes, I

52:46

frankly think you're wasting your life. Give

52:49

in. Eat the carbs. They're glorious.

52:52

And if you're worried about your weight, go shovel snow. There's

52:54

a lot of snow here. There's four feet of snow.

52:57

God gives us carbs, but He also gives

52:59

us snow because He loves us. Amazing.

53:04

Where was I? What was I talking about? Right.

53:07

Okay. Yes. Yes.

53:10

Okay. Let's discuss what is the difference between a

53:12

caucus and a primary. Basically it's this. Primaries

53:14

are when the state government takes

53:16

over administering and counting an election on

53:18

behalf of a political party. Caucuses

53:22

are run by the party itself, and

53:24

at their conclusion, they let the state know what

53:26

the result is. When states run

53:28

a primary election, they do so. You've

53:30

been to these. You go in, there's a

53:32

secret ballot. You fill out the ballot. You do

53:34

it quietly behind a curtain or at a console

53:36

or something. Maybe you mail it in, and

53:38

you can do it whenever you want. It's throughout

53:41

the day. It's clean, individualized, quiet, orderly,

53:43

unless something goes wrong. Caucuses

53:47

by comparison are

53:49

far more participatory. In

53:52

GOP caucuses, surrogates from all the campaigns meet

53:54

at every precinct, so every precinct has a

53:56

surrogate from each campaign, and the surrogate gives

53:58

a speech on behalf have their candidate.

54:00

And then all of the voters shuffle

54:03

around the room to stand in the

54:05

area for their respective candidate. Haley people

54:07

over there, Trump people over there, that's

54:09

the first round. Then there's a second

54:11

round where voters are allowed to switch if

54:14

they feel inclined. So for example

54:16

in the Iowa caucuses which just concluded,

54:18

Asa Hutchinson received a grand

54:21

total of 190 votes. Presumably

54:24

those die-hard Asa supporters knew that

54:26

they were gonna lose but they wanted to vote for the guy

54:28

anyway. But theoretically you

54:31

could prefer one candidate. You could be in

54:33

favor of Asa Hutchinson but you see

54:35

the writing on the wall that only two of you

54:37

were standing for him and everybody else is between Trump,

54:40

DeSantis and Haley and you go okay round

54:42

two I'm gonna give up on Asa, I'm

54:44

gonna go over here and I'm gonna go

54:46

to the DeSantis camp. Blue

54:48

team also has caucuses like this

54:50

but with indefinite rounds. The Republican,

54:53

trying to be careful with my wording here, red

54:55

team GOP has two rounds,

54:58

the first round and the redo. Blue

55:01

team has as many as they want and

55:03

they have a minimum threshold for votes which

55:05

makes all of this a lot more chaotic

55:07

because it can go on for a very

55:09

long time round after round. I think you're

55:11

allowed to give speeches, they didn't do a

55:14

caucus this year they're doing it by by

55:16

mail later it's not a disputed caucus. I

55:18

think you're allowed to give speeches in

55:20

between every round. I'm

55:23

gonna ask you do you think people prefer

55:25

not to give speeches or to give speeches?

55:27

I'm guessing probably the latter. I

55:30

would love to watch a blue

55:32

team caucus in a precinct populated by

55:34

college students. That sounds amazing

55:36

to me. But the big takeaway that

55:39

I want to communicate to you, the shorthand for

55:41

this is a caucus is an internal party event

55:43

run by the party and at the end they

55:45

tell the state this is who we chose to

55:47

put on the ballot, whereas a

55:50

primary is when the state runs the whole

55:52

thing. And that might seem

55:54

like a technical distinction but I don't think it is

55:56

and I'll tell you why. We

55:58

have the nature of primaries exactly backwards in

56:01

our country. We empower the

56:03

GOP and the DNC to act

56:05

as quasi-government gatekeeping entities

56:07

who pick two candidates for

56:09

everybody else to choose between.

56:12

All right gang, this year you get

56:14

King Joffrey and Ramsay Bolton. Congratulations

56:16

Westeros, this is the best we

56:19

could do. The way

56:21

this ought to work, and could potentially

56:23

work, is that political parties

56:25

endorse candidates the same way anybody else

56:27

does, from teachers unions to the

56:29

Freemasons to Emmily's list. That is to

56:31

say, political parties ought to endorse candidates

56:33

that are already on the ballot, not

56:36

be the gatekeepers for everybody else to get to

56:38

the ballot, as they are now. A

56:40

saner, better option would be the following. If

56:43

a candidate can get campaign signatures

56:45

totaling, I don't know, 5% of however many

56:48

people voted in the last election, they're

56:50

automatically on the general ballot. And

56:53

then, red team and blue team, and the

56:55

libertarians and the greens and whoever else, the

56:57

Freemasons and the agricultural

57:00

co-op, whatever, they can all endorse

57:04

and support whoever they want, just

57:06

like any private club can. But

57:08

they don't get to restrict the voting options for everybody

57:10

else. I

57:14

have wind-bagged

57:16

a lot and I'm about to be kicked out of my

57:18

hotel, so I'm going to take off. My

57:21

time here in Iowa is,

57:23

sadly, coming to a close. But

57:29

next week, on your behalf, if you're

57:32

listening, I will fly, actually not next

57:34

week, this week, this Saturday, I will

57:36

fly to New Hampshire to observe the

57:38

first primary in the country and then

57:40

cobble together an episode about that. If

57:43

you are in New Hampshire this Saturday,

57:45

please come out to our live show,

57:47

We're Not Wrong, on Saturday, January 20th

57:49

at 7 o'clock p.m. at the Shear

57:52

Brewing Company in Manchester, where I will

57:54

be joined by Justin Robert Young and

57:56

Ken Briney, and I will be playing

57:58

a hunter. I will see you

58:01

there. For

58:09

everybody else, I

58:13

invite you to help pay

58:16

my gas money on that trip and

58:18

coming back from Iowa and to help

58:20

me continue visiting these places and waxing

58:22

eloquent about them. This is a listener

58:25

supported show and you can support it

58:27

by going to patreon.com/Andrew Heaton. You

58:30

know CNN, that channel, those guys? They

58:33

flew a private jet from New

58:35

York to Des Moines. They had

58:37

a tweet about it. They're all grinning because they're

58:39

on a private jet. They feel like hot shots.

58:41

They're probably drunk. Not me. I

58:43

sat on the back of a plane in the middle,

58:46

in row 34. Middle

58:48

and two legs of this trip. It might have been

58:50

a propeller plane. I don't know. The

58:53

point is, it was definitely a screaming baby. The point is

58:55

this. The political orphanage doesn't

58:57

have corporate backers. It doesn't have advertisers.

58:59

It doesn't have media infrastructure that everybody

59:01

else going to these events has. What

59:04

it has is you. And I'd like

59:06

to think that we're bringing something unique

59:08

to the table in this otherwise

59:11

dumpster fire of an election year. Most

59:15

of the other shows this week are exclusively

59:17

talking about Trump and Nikki Haley and Ron

59:20

DeSantis and political ramifications, which is great. But

59:23

I'm pretty sure this is the only

59:25

show, literally the only show

59:27

in the entire world this

59:30

week where you could

59:32

learn that the word idiot

59:36

comes to us from ancient

59:38

Greek democracies castigating uninvolved citizens

59:41

and that

59:44

Iowa has a hobo museum.

59:47

So if you like the show, if you like what I

59:49

do, and if you wish there was

59:51

more of me and less bile

59:53

everywhere else, please head to patreon.com/Andrew

59:56

Eaton and help pay for my

59:58

gas money to go. New

1:00:00

Hampshire. I will see you there.

1:00:08

That's the show! Thank you for listening.

1:00:12

Thank you Justin Robert Young for being

1:00:14

my loyal traveling companion to the wilds

1:00:16

of Iowa. And

1:00:19

being forced to watch fans

1:00:21

come up and talk to me and acknowledge them.

1:00:23

That was great. Thank

1:00:27

you patrons who let me do this. And

1:00:29

a big shout out to everybody who came to our live show.

1:00:31

I appreciated that. It was great meeting everybody. Until

1:00:34

next time. I've

1:00:38

been Andrew Heaton. And

1:00:41

you've been Iowa. Thank

1:00:56

you.