#137: James Thurber / Political Polarization / Elite vs Americans / Understanding Lobbying / Gov’t

0:01 Welcome to another episode of Come Together, Jim Thurber. Professor Jim, how are you? Good to good to be speaking with you today. Thank you for taking the time. Good to speak with you. Thank you for having me on your podcast. I'm really, I'm really excited to talk. As I mentioned, while we were talking on our phone call the other day, I, I came across your name and the references of some of the work that you've done in John Perkins book. And I reached out and, and then I did a little bit of homework about your career and the work that you do and the research that you do. And I, I knew that I, I knew that I wanted to hear and learn as much as I can from you in the time that you have. So I would love to dive into things. It's an honour to be invited.

0:52 Thank you. Very much sure, sure. Of course. So, so we have a lot of different directions that we can go because you've had quite a career and there's, and there's quite a bit that I think that I want to educate the audience on as far as the way that the, our government works and, you know, practicality, reality, your experiences. And I know that one of the main things that you, that you work on is, is understanding the roots of political polarization and methods that are used to kind of keep us at one another's throats. And nothing feels quite as prevalent as, you know, it does today. Even though I feel like every, I feel like every time I read in, in the history book, they, they say that every time, you know, at the date of publishing too.

1:32 So I'm not sure if that's something new or not. The polarization has been here since the founding. Obviously, we had a revolution. Yeah, I. Guess the king and we were highly polarized then and and sometimes we forget that we are polarized not only by the colonies, but between the colonies and England, United Kingdom, but also within the colonies. We were polarized because of the the stain of of slavery and the fact that African Americans did not have the vote, women did not have the vote. But also sometimes we forget about the polarization with the people who lived on the land when we came here, indigenous people in all of the colonies, especially east of the Appalachian Mountains.

2:29 But let's bring it up to date. We had a highly polarized democracy when we had a serious disagreement between the South and the North over the question of slavery in an economic system based upon owning people who would work for you in the South. And that polarized period stays with us today. It broke out in war, hundreds of thousands of people died. But today we still have a form of polarization based upon geography, the based upon personal values, based upon the way our leaders lead in terms of sometimes pulling us apart rather than pulling us together. But let's go through a few of those things right now. One is there's very differences between great differences between the traditional South and the Rocky Mountains. They are basically red areas except for Colorado in New Mexico and the urban areas in rural areas, rural areas in America, 94% of them voted for for President Trump. And the, the polarization within the Republican Party is important to focus on also because there's MAGA people, but then there's conservative

4:02 Republicans and they're very different. And many traditional Republicans feel a little alienated from what's going on with this president now, especially in terms of his actions with respect to Minneapolis, but also. Iran and Venezuela has been a been a point of conflict between the Republican Party for sure. Yeah, and the rural areas are very different in terms of their values. They're there for, they aren't for gun control. They they want responsible use of guns. They need guns in Montana and Wyoming elsewhere for a variety of reasons.

4:48 That's one source of polarization. But also they have more traditional values when it comes to religion and and other values, the role of government. It's, it's OK to, to debate and go and have a strong opposition to the size of government and these and the amount of taxes we have. And no one likes taxes. But people in rural areas are struggling and they, they would like to have lower taxes. They'd also like to have good health care. And that's that's another problem. Can I ask, I'm sorry, do you think that it's an issue of paying taxes or feeling like the money that the taxes are going isn't being well enough spent?

5:32 Well, there's always that. Better, no matter who you are, Democrat or Republican, you. Well, Sir. You worry about how the money. Is being spent whether it's. Being wasted, whether it's corrupt, whether you're spending too much on on national security and war and not enough on other things, or maybe that you feel it's not the role of government to be involved in in healthcare or retirement, etcetera. The the voters are are polarized and when voters are polarized based upon some of these values that are mentioned, then leaders take advantage of that polarization frequently. But it also is a structural phenomena in America where the real election for the House of Representatives, for example, but also in many state legislatures is the primary election. Whoever gets, whoever wins in the primary basically will win in the general election because there are very few competitive districts right now.

6:33 We're going into a midterm election this year in November and it's estimated that there's probably only 30 seats in the House of Representatives that are competitive where you win by by less than 5%. That may go up. It does in certain years when there's looks like there's going to be a huge turnover and when there's a lot of retirements. There are 41 retirements so far. So the point is that if you want to get elected, you appeal to the far right and far left, depending on the nature of your district or some other issue that takes you away from the from the middle, from the norm.

7:14 Sure. In America, so when you do that and you have people elected, say to the House of Representatives, but also the Senate, you have people that are that in order to get elected, they're pretty far left or right. And then when they come together, it's very hard to compromise. And our, our whole democratic system is based upon compromise. Our foundation of our Republic is based upon compromise. Wasn't very nice about the way we treated African Americans and Native Americans, but that's, you know, that's the foundation. And we, we've evolved, we're better. But when you get elected in the far right, far left, it's very hard to come together and agree on things like right now we may have another short term shutdown a government. And as you know, we had a very long term in the fall. And one of the reasons is that the that if you're a hardcore Democrat or Republican and you're elected by people on the far right or far left, it's very hard to come together and say, OK, we'll take care of your issues of pro-life right now, or we'll take care of try to improve ICE and what they're doing.

8:32 But if you come from a district that disagrees with that and you want to get re elected, that's the big drive. You're going to appeal to your base. So polarize voters, create a situation where leaders make it makes it very hard for leaders to come together and compromise. Now there are very few people in the middle. There used to be Blue Dog Democrats, moderate Democrats in the middle. They're gone. Really. There used to be. Would you call a gentleman like Ro Kahana one of those type of guys or the Thomas Massie's or the Paul's on the on the Republican side or you wouldn't even call them that? Yeah, they they're more in the middle. They are more in the middle. Yeah, there's some issues where they're not in the middle, but they're in the middle.

9:16 They're willing to compromise it really to come together. And that's a problem for our democracy. It creates difficulties for the leadership to get people together to lead. So we have polarized voters, polarized members getting elected, and then we have polarized leaders because the leaders are the people that the caucus wants in the House and the Senate. They get the leadership that they want. And if they don't, they're out like McCarthy or or others in the past, riot, etcetera. They fire them, they get rid of them because quote they were too moderate. Really. Yeah. And so like Ryan, former speaker from Wisconsin, had 28 bills when he was speaker that where he needed Democratic votes.

10:05 He got roundly criticized and pushed out of office for being too moderate by his caucus. People saw that McCarthy had a similar situation, even though even though he criticized Trump, at the end, he flew down to Mar a Lago and said, you know, we're going to support you and everything because he was the elected person. Then he got pushed out. So you have these polarized leaders that come from districts that are safe. And we redistrict usually every 10 years, but now we're having mid, mid densest drawing right now in Texas, California, maybe Virginia, maybe Illinois, maybe maybe Florida that put they draw lines around the source.

10:57 Yeah. I redistricted the state of Washington many years ago, in 1972. I was a statistician then. I merged census data with election data and I wanted more competitive districts because there's empirical evidence that if you have more competition in the general election, you get more moderation by the people in office. Makes sense? We're going in the opposite direction. Yeah. I became a reformer after that because the people who hired me to redistrict where the state legislature run by Democrats and I said I kept pushing, no, we need more competitive districts. They wanted more. They wanted more districts that were non competitive.

11:39 So I pushed in my career for for commissions to do redistricting with the idea that most of those commissions, there are seven true commissions now in the United States and a bunch of others that say they're commissions, but they're highly partisan. I pushed for them to draw the lines. We'd have more competition and we have more competition in some states. But now we have this mid census drawing in California to create even more districts that are safe for the Democrats out there and in Texas more for the Republicans. So it's going in the opposite direction. So the foundations of political polarization come from the voters, the leaders, regional differences, urban, rural differences that are very different.

12:30 And we have partisan sorting, meeting people sort and they live in places where they agree with people. And if they don't, they keep their mouth shut or they change. If you're if, for example, if you're a union member, pro pro Democratic and you come out of Detroit, MI and you're a strong Democrat, you move to to the suburbs of Phoenix or some or South Florida. You don't go around knocking on doors, getting people to try to vote Democratic. You, you shut up. You reduce cognitive dissonance with your neighbors by not saying much except people who are real community organizers. They'll do it and they'll do it.

13:14 They keep doing it. But, but most people just want to have peace. And so they sort, they agree with the people around them. In rural America, in urban America, it's primarily Democratic. And in the suburbs, that's where there's a lot of battle and, and there are a lot of people who are becoming independents. They're more independents in the United States now, if you ask in surveys than there are Democrats or Republicans. Those people are not voting. They're young. Maybe they'll change. I hope they change because the way out of this is to vote and to vote people, and that you think will represent your interests.

13:54 We also added to it. I'm sorry, there's a lot. No, I love this is this is wonderful. This is wonderful. There's a lot in the foundation of polarization. We also have a polarized media. Yeah. Podcasts, social media, Newspapers, radio programs, all kinds of things are highly polarized. And, and frequently these sources of media media are, you know, on multiple levels. There's different kinds of media, but, but many of them are polarized and they, they're polarized to attract more eyeballs if people are watching it or more ears if they're listening to it. And they ream podcasts sometimes, for example, you know about them.

14:42 I don't think this is one of those. That's why I said yes to the podcast. I try not to let it be. Yeah, I think it's more objective than you looked at some of them. You have people all over the map in terms of ideology and their values and their research. That's important. That's not always the case. The polarized media reinforces the polarization of the of the people elected and the voters and it makes it more difficult. And then we have this phenomena that's been going on for 30 to 40 years. The missing moderates. There used to be many moderates. I, as you know, I work in the US Senate for then Senator Hubert Humphrey from Minnesota and his, his best friend was Dirksen, a Republican who's the Republican leadership.

15:33 They used to get together, have a little Scotch, figure out what they agreed on, what they didn't agree, go to the floor and very respectfully debated an issue. Not attacking them, their family, but with respect to base, and they knew where the votes were. They'd have the vote and then leave the floor with their arms around each other, chatting, going back for a little more Scotch. That's beautiful, but when's the last time you saw people do that? Very rare. There are some issues that are bipartisan, but very few. There's some. It used to be that we had bipartisanship when we left the United States and hit the water.

16:18 In other words, when there was a when there was a a threat to the United States, when there was a war and then Vietnam happened and Iraq and Afghanistan and they ever named wars in the Middle East and all those things ripped the parties apart. And that you've seen that right now you'll see it in in the run up to the midterm elections and and in 2028 for the presidential election. Back to the point, moderates are not around anymore. People don't run and say I'm a moderate elect me now when when Obama ran, he said I want to change the way Washington works. He was referring to corruption, but also he wanted to change it by bringing people together.

17:07 And he had people together because he had a huge majority the first two years together in the Republic and the Democratic Party. But then he lost overwhelmingly the midterms, and he couldn't really bring people together. I think all modern presidents, from FDR to, to to Trump's first four years in office said those things. We want to bring Americans together. We all believe in freedom. We all believe in in our democracy, in our in our capitalist system. But Trump did not have that message. He didn't say, I want to bring people together.

17:49 And he never has that message, which is a problem that is throwing gasoline on the embers of polarization. And his base likes it about a third. And then others didn't like Biden that much or they didn't vote. And and he won overwhelmingly, OK, for the second time around, but he won with a highly populist and polarized message. Now he's governing on that also. And support for him keeps going down in the polls because Americans are, I think, getting tired of the chaos. Tired, tired of the polarized language.

18:29 They care about cost of living, whether the kids can go to college or not, whether they whether the kids can have housing, whether they can have housing. They care about these bread and butter issues. And in the polarized world, polarized rhetoric, that is not always the case. And there's extreme statements on the left and on the right. And we have a president that has some pretty extreme, extreme statements. And that's very hard. He is not saying let's all pull together. Can I can I ask if you don't mind? I just have a couple of follow up questions because I think that I think a lot of what you said really clarifies a lot and explains a lot, especially as to why it feels like everywhere you look, people are just so extreme and obviously that's being fed to us.

19:26 I, I think that I have so many the problem. I think that potentially, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this as someone that I guess I just turned 30 and I think I mentioned to you that I mentioned that to you as well. And, and there are a lot of concerns or issues that Trump ran on that it felt like was unilaterally appreciated and cared about by everyone, right? For example, the Epstein, I think was a problem with that, that whole being swept under the rug and this whole operation just constantly being, you know, I, I mean, there's no solid story for anything.

20:11 And everyone left and right wants to hear, and you hear situations where the House and Congress passed, sorry, the Congress and the Senate passed, you know, this remarkable vote where they want to allow everything out and. Everything becomes redacted. And I feel like anyone that had hoped that this was going to be the case is now disappointed. And the same thing applies, I feel perhaps to the to the economy, right? Trump and Biden both walked around saying the economy is great, the economy is great. The America everyday Americans, from my understanding, didn't feel that way. And then, and one thing that John Perkins pointed out in in his newest revision of Confessions of the Economic, Economic Hitman was that if there's three people with approximately half the wealth in America and they make 10% on their investments and everyone else loses 3% or stays at stays, you know, just about the same, then as a whole, the economy went up, you know, And so they're always, you know, there are always ways to, for, for leadership or politicians to be able to say that things are good and to able to try and convince the audience or convince their bases or convince anyone that things are the certain way.

21:26 But I think that it's become so blatant recently that the conversation for a lot of people isn't a question as to whether or not politics are left and right. It feels more elite versus everyday people, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good, that's an accurate position. Let me reflect on some of the things that you said, Sir. Trump ran, ran on the economy. He ran against Biden being too old and not with it. He ran on immigration and many immigrants, recent immigrants agreed with him that there should be a a legal pathway to citizenship. That's changed a little bit in terms of his implement, serious implementation of it now.

22:19 But he also ran on a strong defense, but not getting into wars around the world that were directly related to us. So this is a lot of popularity there. But he also said things about when it came to the economy, the division, the difference of wealth in the United States. But he didn't hit it real hard. And then he forgot about it once he got into office and brought in all kinds of CE OS. And. Basically, they gave him all kinds of contributions, not only Musk but others for his campaign, but also for for the ballroom, all kinds of ways to to be in a transactional situation.

23:09 Politics is transactional, but not as blatant as his transactional things. Behind that is what I call the norm of reciprocity. Now, what's the largest, what's the most important norm in one's life? Love. OK, in my opinion, it's behind all kinds of religions, love and caring for each other. But behind that is reciprocity. I'll help you if you'll help me. You hurt me. I may not get mad, but I'll get even. He is very blatant about that. And that affects our relationships with the world, but also people's relationships when they see this in the United States. There's a lot of transactional things with respect to lobbying. There always has been, but this is much of it, in my opinion. I write about ethics and lobbying a lot A. Lot of it is, I hope after.

24:04 It's it's it's ill. Many things are illegal in my opinion. If you look at the standard laws, which I know pretty well back to the point he ran on things that were popular. He but most importantly, remember there were 3rd of America are a lot or more felt left out. That's related to the division of wealth. They felt left out. They thought he would come in and help them. They felt that the elite in the media and he attacks the media, the elite in the media, the elite in in elite institutions of higher education. The elite in government were not to be trusted. And he went after them.

24:49 Yeah, in a very populist way. And that was popular. Yeah. But that's related to your point of this distribution of wealth. It's getting worse and worth. Very few people are in the billionaire category and they owned, you know, half the wealth or more in the United States and others are struggling and some are not struggling that much, but they're, they see their kids struggling, they're adult children that people want to go to college, etcetera. So then when Biden, but also Trump says, well, geez, the stock market's doing really well.

25:31 Look at the data on unemployment. It's well baloney. It's, it's what it costs to buy some eggs. It's what whether you can have healthcare, whether you're going to afford healthcare insurance, whether your kids are going to have a future and most of them are are saying, well, we're our future is not going to be as good as what you had. That's a very serious problem in our democracy. And I think the same language from Trump going further now about, oh, the economy is good, don't worry about it. It's similar to Biden's he but but the strategy of Trump is to flood the zones with zone with all kinds of issues every day. I don't know what they'll be today. And that controls what the media are doing to a great extent, you know, the general media.

26:26 And that's a strategy. He's he's not stupid that way. But the question is where does this strategy lead us as a democracy? And I think it's leading us in a way that is not very democratic, it's not very equitable in. Terms of quite frankly. Pardon me. It's terrible, quite frankly. Yeah, it's terrible. I mean, I, it's, it's and, and I think, and I think something, I'm sorry to interrupt, but something as glaring as Epstein, which is an like an exact, exact example of literally the will of the people that are supposed to be keeping the executive branch in check. That is the checks and balances in checks and balances is that every single person except for literally one person in Congress and the, and the Senate voted for something and for the people not to have that and for 50 days or 45 days, whatever it's been to go by without any repercussions. And with the fact that Bill and Hillary and Hillary Clinton had just decided they got subpoenaed and just didn't show up shows that the institutions don't really have one tier of justice. And I think that it's so blatant now that it's, it's really, it's upsetting.

27:37 But I think a lot of people just throw up their hands and say, yeah, you know what? It's not really democracy anyway. You call it whatever you want, but like, no one really feels like they're getting what they voted for at the end of the day a lot of times. Well, the Epstein situation is terrible. I mean, if you had a daughter that got caught up in this, you'd be furious. You'd, I'm curious, just thinking about what happened. And in your in your statement, you refer to the Congress article one of the Constitution creates a very strong Congress, but it has to act. It hasn't acted. And one of the reasons it hasn't acted very, very firmly is that we've got a president who's dominating it in terms of what he wants.

28:25 Yeah. Now LBJ did that, Johnson did that. Lots of people do that. I've written a whole book on called Rivals book, our President of Congress and it it changes. But this is to the extreme in terms of really forcing the Republicans in the House and the Senate not to challenge him on a variety of things, even even on Epstein and what happened with Epstein and, and, and the papers there, he has said terrible things about it, like, oh, it's, it's an extraction. This is distraction. Pardon me. It, it, it doesn't, it, it doesn't help us address the real problems of immigration. The criminals that are immigrants, well, they're very few criminals that are immigrants. There are some, in my opinion.

29:20 I mean, the data show that. So we have a democracy that's a pluralist democracy, meaning groups are very powerful. If they organize and push things, they have some impact, but our pluralist democracy sings with an upper class accent. Yeah. Pluralism sings with an upper class accent. It's and it has a patina of elitism and certainly Epstein is about that. It's about the elites. We have another world that can do anything they want. They can do disgusting things with with young women that are underage and get away with it. Black market deals between governments and, and I mean, I mean, you know, arms deals between governments. I mean, we know that Epstein was related to Iran Contra and we know that I mean, there was quite a bit that he was that he participated in as far as as far as Internet global politics, you know, and.

30:20 Yeah, but it's not only Epstein. It's it's we have a history of that, Yeah. Certainly. Under Reagan, you know, under every president, yes. Therefore, there's distrust of the elite in Washington. By some, they're not, you know, a core of his supporter. Trump's supporters distrust Washington totally. He distrust professors like me. It's good, even though I come from a small rural community in Oregon, you know, they, they think I'm an elitist that went to one of the Ivy League schools. And by the way, many of the people in his cabinet went to Ivy League schools, as you know, and they don't talk about it. If there are elites, there are elites always in government because we have a meritocracy.

31:09 If you do well in a particular area, you get selected. And that's still true. Yeah. Under. Under Trump, Although you have to he totally loyal to Trump, there's nobody really standing up to him. You saw it happen with Marjorie Taylor Green. The second she stood up to him, she was she was out. That was it. Yeah, but she may, she may not be out. The party is splitting a little bit. And she's America first type. And he's getting us involved in a variety of external things. Bombing. Yeah. Iran going into Venezuela. I'm not making a value judgment about those things. But he's, you know, he's, he's expanding. You believe that he should have had to go to Congress in order to do in order to do the Venezuela strike to kidnap Maduro? Do you think he needed Congress's approval? I think under the War Powers Act he should have gone to Congress more quickly.

32:04 He should have had a, He should have met with the 8 leaders, House and the Senate in a top secret meeting to let them know what was happening. And then he, and then he should go forward with Congress to approve or not approve the continuation of the use of force against another nation. I, I think that we have a major drug problem in the United States. But those boats that he's bombing were not going, You know, they, they let me put that in perspective. My son has lived in Ecuador for 30 years. OK. So he's seen what happened to Ecuador.

32:45 He'd like to have a stronger force going after the six major gangs that really transformed that country into a very dangerous place on the especially Guayaquil and all the coast. And he's influenced me. I've been there many times. I can see what it's done. They shoot mayors, all kinds of things. There should be some action inter, you know, inter interjecting our force with the approval of Ecuador that Ecuador wants it to deal with that. But to but to go after these boats the way they are without due process, in my opinion, without the rule of law is not right.

33:30 We had the Coast Guard stopping these boats for many years and submarines and and arresting people when they saw evidence and due process with those people. But but if you're going from Venezuela to Trinidad in a little fishing boat. With some trace amounts of marijuana and like, nothing to do with fentanyl or heroin or cocaine or anything like that. That's right. Used to be it was fentanyl, but it wasn't. None of it was fentanyl. Then it was cocaine. Oh no, it's not cocaine. It's something else. It's. It's just something's legal in half the states of the country and medicinally available and like that and like another 10 states. It's it's, it undermines trust in government, It undermines what's going on. Although there are a lot of people say, yeah, we got to go after drugs.

34:17 This is going after drugs. It's symbolic more than real. Right back to the point. Yes. Where we were about what he ran on and what he's doing. I think that he most importantly, he didn't run on this. He's really wiped out Article one of the Constitution primarily on the on the power of the purse. And we still don't have a major case before the Supreme Court decided yet about whether it is OK for him to impound money unconstitutionally, in other words, not spend it. That's been authorized and appropriate. Congress needs to get together to push back on that. But the Republicans are not with the Democrats on that. So that's the problem.

35:02 I helped draft part of the Budget Impoundment Control Act of 1973. Title 10 of that act is on impoundment. There's ways to impound money legally. Recisions and deferrals. Recisions rescinded completely. Deferrals defer for a year. He's only had one rescission message that went to the Hill. It barely passed by one vote the rest of the time. Vogt, who's head of the OMB, executive director of OMB and and editor and author of many chapters of the Heritage Foundation's 2025 plan, has done it unilaterally. He has cut off money for AID Luke unilaterally.

35:44 You may disagree with the AID, but there's a way to change it. There's a way to change the law. They've shut down the Peace Institute created through a partnership by legislative action and private sector support and cut off money for it illegally under Article One of the Constitution. The power of the purse belongs with Congress. The Congress currently has had no oversight hearings on these things. They have no, they have no guts to stand up against him behind the scenes and I know this because I have over 200 former students working on the Hill.

36:25 Wow. For years and four members of Congress behind the scenes, the Republicans poor mouth him all the time and they, you know, they say he's terrible, he's a dictator, he's fascist, He's not doing Republicans are saying this, but they're not willing to stand up against him because they're worried they'll get primary. They're worried that the base, which is far right in their case, will come out against them. Sure. Like with Congresswoman Green. And so they don't do anything about it. So I see cracks in that right now in terms of what he's doing and how he's behaving. I think most Americans you'll see did not want us to invade or buy Greenland.

37:11 I mean, that's that's gone now. Maybe they don't want us to break up at 80 year successful coalition of western democracies. Under NATO. Under NATO. OK, OK. I could hear, I could hear arguments both way about that for sure. Sure, but but this, I'm saying this, polls show that most Americans want to continue. OK, cool. OK. And then also change it, you know, but not blow it apart. So we're sorry. So we end up with partners from China and Russia. Some people say, I don't think I think that's an extreme, although his position with Putin certainly is very different than previous presidents.

37:54 Sure. But where am I going with this? Not only the Poor Powers Act is being ignored by the executive, the power of the purse is being ignored, and also the power of Congress over. Over. Trade policy over. Tariffs. Tariffs with our friends as well as with our enemies like China. They have the right, but they also have the responsibility to stand up and do something. They haven't. The Supreme Court's going to come up with a decision about that. It looks like from the questioning about the tariff issues and the role of Congress that they're leaning against this president's position, although they've been very timid about about challenging, right.

38:47 But he didn't run on getting rid of article one of the Constitution. Although Congress is always a very unpopular institution generally except for their member, you know, if you come from a district. Oh yeah, we love our member, but Congress is the problem. Because how much blame corruption that people just see it? Yeah, and it's the corruption. You're not going to like this, but the corruption is not as deep and as extensive as it seems. Because the headlines When you see headlines about what ICE is doing or headlines about FEMA's mismanagement, that doesn't mean the whole thing is that way. Sure.

39:29 So I know many, many members so who certainly never crossed the line in a shade of grey ethically or any other ways, but there are some, they're really pushing it. There's some people that it seems to be not the sharpest tool in the shed that you know, you know, that speak out. And those are the ones that speak out frequently. You don't know the the workhorses behind the scenes. So it's unpopular for me to do this, but I'm going to stand up for the institution. I love the institution, OK. We just need to have better ways of getting more moderate selected and better ways for them to get some guts and stand up. Yes.

40:10 For the rights of the people through Congress, and they're not doing it right now. OK, wonderful. I think that's and I actually, I really do appreciate your optimism. And I like that because I've spoken to a couple of people, for example, after, you know, Trump had gotten shot at and after Charlie Kirk got assassinated. And I was asking, you know, everyone's making a big deal. What's Secret Service doing? And it's the failed year of security. And I said for every, every failure, think about how many hundreds of thousands of cases that they had prevented that you don't hear about, that you don't know anything about, you know, and the same thing goes with our institutions. Think about, you know, that, that the, the, and this also goes with polarization, I suppose that polarization is the stuff that grabs people's eyes. And so the people that are doing the good, quiet, healthy work aren't getting that same level of of speculation, I suppose. Yeah, they don't get the news.

41:01 No, they. Don't get the headlines. And I'm glad you said that about the Secret Service. They they've had some problems. I used to be an outside speaker that came in to speak at the Secret Service Academy. I did that for 15 years. So I've met a lot of those people. I learned from them about what they're doing. You are absolutely right. There are 10s of thousands of threats every month just on presidents and former presidents. And now there are thousands of threats on members of Congress. They're overwhelmed. They're under budget. They have a, a new world of threats coming online that they have to deal with, a huge bureaucracy to deal with that.

41:48 It's amazing that we haven't had other really tragic situations and we may have more. So I, you know, most of them are doing, doing a very good job, but sometimes one or two don't and then that becomes the headline. That's my point. Yeah, excellent. Can you actually explain for anyone that doesn't understand? You mentioned this a couple of times the midterms and how that works please? Sure, the midterms are elections between the elections of presidents. They come up every two years. Every member of the house is up for for re election and 1/3 of the Senate. There are 34 this time that are up for election, and this time we have a situation where the incoming party controlling the House and Senate and the presidency, unified party government is under threat of a huge turnover of of New Democrats. So on average from 1946 to present, the midterms have shown that in this situation, there's a turnover of 27 seats to the out to the out party 27.

43:06 This time there'll there'll be a huge turnover unless things can happen. I mean, things can happen with this president every day. It may help him, it may not help him. And with respect to ICE and a variety of other things, right now he's his popularity is, is going down. He's very His popularity has gone down, as most presidents do the first term. They've just gone down. Yeah, Obama happened to Obama too. Yeah, that's right. And in the midterm, he lost over 50 seats, and so that's set a record. What? What causes that what causes something such dramatic turnover is that policy is that impressions is that, you know, running based on idea and not being able to quite didn't happen yet and so you lose people become disenchanted.

43:59 What causes such a dramatic overturn? All of those things, Obama's case, it was a perceived overreach in terms of new policies that he was pushing through like the Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare. People didn't understand it and, and the opposition went against it in simple ways. They like certain things. But for example, right now, if you call, if people say do you like Obamacare, there's a huge percent say no, but it's the same thing as the Affordable Care Act. And they say, Oh, yeah, we're for the Affordable Care Act, you know? So that's right. We don't like surveillance, but we like the Patriot Act.

44:40 Right, exactly. So you've got it. So it's policy, it's it's also style of leadership that maybe people don't like. It's Vince internationally, it's the economy stupid. If the economy doesn't don't go well, you're going to it's going to hurt you. There are a variety of reasons for for the in, in party in the White House losing seats in Congress. Now, right now, it's all of those things with respect to Trump. And I'm not going to predict what's going to happen, but all of the data show that it's that he's in he's in serious trouble and he's he's flooding the zones with all kinds of new ideas and things to get people to focus on that, not focus on Epstein, although he gave in on that, but now he doesn't. Oh, why are we still talking about that? Focusing on things like Greenland, which, you know, why don't we?

45:46 Why don't we? You know, I go to Iceland often because I knew the ambassador, he invites me to give speeches. This thing, we gave up a base in Iceland and they protested us leaving. They wanted us to stay. And now I know from briefings that the Soviet, pardon me, the Russians are fishing in their in their fishing area. They have overflights. They have military ships that come within their boundaries, have all kinds of problems. But we're talking about Greenland. Why don't we talk about Iceland? You know, and that happened under a long time ago. It happened under George W Bush when we got rid of that base. But at Keflevic is the name of the base. So that doesn't come up in the press. At all, Not at all.

46:34 And if you're if you're what's now known, like what's now, it's almost a derogatory term these days, but a neo con and you're making an argument for, hey, if America is not the Big Brother, then like you know, then there's a power vacuum. This would be a case in point for them, wouldn't it? Yeah, well, yeah, Neo Con made a lot of difference when we had the Soviet Union. Yes, a huge threat. Sure, now Russia is a threat. Certainly, I have 21 former students that are Ukrainians that are suffering in Ukraine right now. Some of them have been fighting since 2014. I get emails from them so I'm biased about Ukraine. OK.

47:17 I, I want to, I think we should help them and NATO should help them stand up against, against a bully against, against Putin or he'll go after Lithuania. I've been to Lithuania also, and 1/3 of their population is ethnic Russian. And he's going to say, oh, just like in your game, we're going to go for that. Back to the point, we can't be the cop everywhere in the world, but we can set up certain positions where we should, where we should stop aggression. And that's certainly happen happening in Ukraine.

47:58 I I certainly hope that we have peace there because the people that I know have families, Yeah, they've been seriously hurt. Their property's been blown up. And of course, we don't hear about Ukraine anymore. No, it's that no white light. Anymore. The white light of of the media is was on Greenland. It's on, you know, it's on Minneapolis, it's on a variety of other things, but they're still fighting and suffering. Yeah, yeah, it's terrible. Where? Was I going with that? I'm sorry I slipped off. That's OK. We were talking about how the neocons would would the neocons? Yeah, as as Iceland as as a case in point for their philosophy.

48:39 Yeah, Wait a minute, neocons. Yeah, it's it's an unpopular position. It is the. Position within the jail track part pre to a certain extent was the neo body was tough on communism and tough on on Cuba, tough on on Soviet Union. Now it's different. It's really people that say, OK, if you don't stand up now with bullies like this one circumstance in in Ukraine, then then he will then take over another country.

49:24 Now sometimes that's right, sometimes it's wrong. In the the Domino's theory in in Vietnam was wrong. Yeah. And we lost a lot of American, Great American soldiers there for what? So they can sell Coca-Cola and build our Nike shoes? I mean help, I mean so. That's that's always the consequence post war. You know, throw a dart at a map and you can find out where we put, you know, we're even to 1 where Nike and Coke and and Chevron have all filled in the, you know, the empty areas that got bombed out. And where? And then in Washington, DC area, we get all kinds of great restaurants, Vietnamese restaurants. Oh my goodness.

50:13 Iranian restaurants. Can I ask? Afghan restaurants. I'm serious. You. Know. Yeah, Yeah. Can I ask your opinion? And this can be brief, but I just want to know your thoughts. I know that it's it's a famous story or relatively, I guess infamous, depending what perspective you're looking at it from, but that Putin actually asked to join NATO. He asked George Bush to I think junior to join NATO. And what do you think would have happened if he if that if that was accepted? I'm not capable of. That's not my area of expertise. I don't know what would have happened. OK, that's fine. Watching his behavior, he's broken all kinds of treaties and agreements, First taking, you know, 1/3 of Ukraine in 2014.

51:05 There were agreements, you know, that he wouldn't do that. So I wouldn't trust him. OK, bottom line, I wouldn't trust him, but I don't, I don't know what would happen. I know that war is is absolutely terrible and you should try to avoid it. And I think that maybe Obama was trying to do that by not pushing back on Russia 2014 because absolutely that's that was their major naval base that that for Russia. And that would have maybe triggered a major war. And I think he was being very careful. But also, you got, you know, looks what look what happened. I mean, it continues and tragedy continues. Yeah, for Ukraine, but also for Russia and Russian troops. Yeah, certainly.

52:00 But this is an area that I'm not an expert on. No problem. I was just curious. Yeah, sure. From the perspective of former students, I've been to Ukraine four times, OK? I'm very concerned about corruption in Ukraine and I have been involved in in with Ukrainians in trying to try to go after corruption. And now that the war has been going on, people haven't thought about it. But you know, it's it's still corrupt. Sure. Not everywhere, but it's pretty corrupt. And that issue will come back once the war is over with no matter what. Yeah, and we should not forget that.

52:42 We need to clean up, no matter what kind of regime it is. We need to clean up corruption because then the people don't trust government and you know, you have huge problems, turmoil as you know. Yes, as I do. And that's where actually I want to lead into, if you don't mind. I think there's a perfect time to lead into lobbying and ethics because I think everyone hears the word lobbying, you know, lobbyists and lobbying in the news and people, I don't know people really how it works or what it means. Or, you know, and people hear about this evolving door that happens between all sorts of industries that an industry that has relation any kind of regulation and, and you'll see, you'll see a revolving door there.

53:24 So can you maybe explain in a little bit of depth how lobbying and ethics works, especially, you know, within the political system? Yeah, a lot of people laugh when I say that I teach a workshop, a research workshop. I'm teaching now on ethics and lobbying and students are looking at ethical problems and what the law is and how to improve it. I've been doing this for 16 years. I've had a grant to do this and even though I'm Meritus, which means I'm retired, I've the Dean said no one can teach this class. You have a grant. We're going to lose the grant unless you do it. So I'm doing it and I enjoy it. Great. Lobbying throughout the world is a dirty word. In France, it's a dirty word.

54:09 In Italy it's a dirty word. It's not a nice word in the EU. And I've taught for 16 years on the European Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute, lobbying in in a workshop there for two weeks every year. So I got to know the problems of advocacy lobbying there. But you know, lobbying is a necessary function in democracy. It is protected under the 1st Amendment of our Constitution. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly freedom, freedom to petition government for grievances without being arrested and thrown in jail.

54:55 That's under freedom of speech, all that. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion. It's it is there. It's it's protected. But when you look at the norm of reciprocity that I talked about before, scandal is often related to lobbying. The norm of reciprocity often drive scandal and then therefore reform. What is the norm of reciprocity? It's quid pro quo, a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something, something for something. Now we have the perception that, oh, you give a lot of campaign contributions to somebody, they're going to do something for you. And it's blatant.

55:41 Right now with the president, with many members of Congress, there are rules and regulations, but some of those rules and regulations are very, very vague. We have super PACs that are secret. You don't know who's giving money to them or how the money is spent until later. It's controlled. It's regulated under the IRS, not under the Federal Election Commission. And so we have the perception as, oh, all you have to do is bring in like Musk, bring in $250 million and you're going to buy an election. Well, even he even he failed in many cases where he was supporting people in primaries that that lost money is not always power. Political power in America is taking resources. It could be money, it could be mobilizing people, it could be knowledge, it could be a variety of things. And being able to transform those resources into an action that you want, minus a resistance. Frequently in a pluralist system, you have people on either side fighting each other with lots of money, and they're fighting each other to gridlock.

57:04 Now we have gridlock, much of it is partisan gridlock between the two parties, but we have gridlock between, between hospitals and doctor associations and insurance companies. We have gridlock of the, the cane sugar growers in Florida and the beet sugar growers in Idaho. You know, it's, it's throughout our system. And when you throw in the question of reciprocity, well, we're going to give you a lot of money to run because you're doing the right thing for us legally. We're going to do this. Then the public begins to think, well, it's all about money.

57:46 It's all about these guys. No, you can more money's wasted in Washington, DC of the of the $5 billion or more. It's no, wait a minute, it's 14 billion now in lobbying then is used appropriately. Money just flows in here, but it's on either side of the of the issue. And many times firms take it's, I think it's unethical. They take people on either side of an issue and they take the money. Now, there was a guy by the name of Jack Abramoff. Now, Jack Abramoff was a guy who did a whole bunch of illegal things and went to jail for for five years and 10 months, who triggered ethics and lobbying reform in 2006 and seven. I worked with then Senator Obama on the reforms, helped draft some of them and it stemmed from Abramoff, but lots of other people who were doing things that were illegal or in a shade of grey ethically.

58:51 What would be the? Example One example is there are two Native American tribes in the South. One had a had a a license for a gambling Oregon, a gambling institution, which they had and it was doing very well. And then these are ways to make a lot of money for tribes and they use it in a variety of ways. Another one was geographically close to this tribe in Louisiana and it wanted a license. Jack Abramoff took both of those as clients. Unethical, he said.

59:31 Well, there was a Chinese wall between the two. We didn't, you know, we had different people in the firm dealing with it. Well, baloney. They had a conflict of interest. I had, I taught for 40 years a a seminar called Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute. It was an institute about treating, teaching people how to do ethical lobbying and all the strategies and tactics of direct lobbying, grassroots social media, all kinds of elements in it. I had a student who told me at the end of this two week thing, he said.

1:00:14 Professor Thurber, if I'd only known what lobbying really was, we would not have given Jack Abramoff $25 million to support our our cause. The one who wanted a. A license. Now this is interesting because Abramoff used that money not for them, but to illegally fly a delegation of people paid for by Abramoff to London and then to play golf in Scotland and back, paying for everything on the trip as long as well as other things not related to the lobbying for the Indian tribe, the Native American tribe.

1:00:58 He that's what got him in trouble and got members of Congress in trouble. In fact, just one example, there was a conviction of Representative Bob nay Nye, pardon me, He was chairman of a committee. He went on this trip, everything was paid for. That's illegal. He and then the, the laws were changing even more, but he wasn't allowed to receive more than $50 a year from one source. And this was thousands. He went to jail, got convicted, went to jail. And it was related to Abramoff bribes also directly to him. So back to the point, the norm of reciprocity often drives reforms, OK? Abramoff would help members with campaigns, give them things, these trips and things, but they would give him information about what was going on on the committee. He would offer them jobs also before they left the Hill, which now is ill.

1:02:02 You can't do it. You got it. The Ethics Committee is watching this theoretically, and there the reciprocity was. OK, Chief of staff of the Appropriations subcommittee, you can have a job with me. Just help me out a little bit on this. OK, So that triggered a lot of scandal. One more scandal and then I'll get back generally to ethics and lobbying. Another example was a was Representative Duke, his nickname Duke Cunningham. OK, Duke Cunningham came from San Diego. He was chairman of the defense subcommittee of Appropriations.

1:02:44 They used to call it the candy store, meaning most of the earmarks setting aside money out of that committee for corporations, for example, within members districts came. Most of the earmarks came out of that subcommittee. He was chairman of that committee. He set aside a $250 million earmark for a corporation in San Diego to do what to digitized top secret material for the Army. I had students who were in that division in the Army. They didn't want it done.

1:03:29 He asked that this corporation do it and they got a sole source contract for that. The corporation bought his house in San Diego for $750,000 over market. They also got him. They bought him a Rolls Royce used, but a Rolls Royce and a lot of antiques and things. Well eventually a local reporter from the San Diego Union saw the sale. This is weird. What's this corporation? Well the corporation got this sole source contract and therefore there was publicity about it. So therefore, the US District Attorney was forced to do something about it.

1:04:16 They didn't want to do it, but they they indicted him. He was convicted. He went to jail. Good I. Don't even. Think that the digitizing necessarily a problem, you know, I mean I, I, I, I'm sure your your army contracts would probably know better than I do, but. Well, they didn't want it. They didn't want it done. It wasn't needed. It was marginal stuff to digitize a bunch of old army top secret stuff. They had other priorities. What it did is it took other priorities that were more important in their in their division away from them and they had to do this other thing thing with a sole with a sole source contract. No, yeah, that's. That's more of a problem.

1:04:57 That's more of a problem to me. Serious problem. So anyway, there were lots of causes for reform, but much of it dealt with reciprocity and scandal. I won't go through all of them. The latest, I'll go through one more. Senator Menendez, New Jersey. Yes. Yeah. He broke rules of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He broke rules of not paying taxes. He had bars of gold hidden throughout his house. And he blamed his wife, you know, for it, for setting this up. The connection was with Egyptians who were. Who were importing beef?

1:05:39 I won't go through all the details, but he. I remember this story. Yeah, he's convicted just recently, and his wife was convicted. He's asking for a pardon now from Trump, even though he was the Democrat. He was chair of the Foreign Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate. It was a big deal. Yeah. So it continues. It's not widespread in my opinion, from knowing the institution really well, but it continues and people never learn and they get they get corrupted because frequently an elected public official doesn't have a lot of money. You. Know and they're living on the margin and they have this opportunity to help somebody and that person will help them So one more. Yes.

1:06:29 One more is that there were dozens of people that should have registered under the Foreign Nations Registration Act. There are two there are two laws that apply primary laws that apply to lobbying in the United States. One is the Lobby Disclosure Act as amended in 2007 and the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Manafort Paul Manafort was was chair of Trump's campaign committee. He was campaign director. He had clients in Ukraine but also several in Africa. He did not register on the foreign as Foreign Agents Registration Act. That is a felony.

1:07:11 OK. He was convicted and convicted of a felony. Then Trump pardoned him afterwards. Manafort is still around and lobbying, but he was convicted of felony what's what's the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It started in 1938 because there were Nazis in the United States around lobbying to keep us out of World War 2. And they had rallies at Madison Square Garden, all kinds of things. We didn't know what was going on. So this requires them to show who they are, how much money they're spending on what. And that's what we have now.

1:07:51 But now the president has said, Trump has said, well, we're not going to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act except in cases of espionage, not in not in cases of of lobbying, only espionage. So now the Saudis have over 100 firms in the United in Washington, DC that they've hired, including Ballard from from Florida, hired to represent them. And they're not registering under the Foreign Registration Act. So the the ethical issues and law illegal activities continue anyway. We still need it. We just need to enforce the law under the LDA and, and, and Farah and have more transparency about what's going on and clean things up because we need the expertise and information coming from lobbyists in the process of making decisions in a democracy.

1:08:53 So a lot of people say no on that unless it's about their, their, their group like AARP. No, no, they aren't lobbyists. They're lobbyists. The Catholic Church is a lobbyist. Sure, sure. You know, we have 10s of thousands of lobbying organizations. We need them. We just need to enforce the law with respect to what they're doing. I'll probably talk too much about things that you don't want to hear. But no, not at all. Not at all. These are great. These are great case and points. But I would, I think it would be remiss to to point out that and perhaps we need some kind of like middle ground or solution, just like we don't live in a pure capitalist society, because that would be just a mess. We need to, yeah, there has to, yeah. Lobbying.

1:09:42 Lobbying as it stands continues down that same issue that we discussed earlier with with the elite versus the regular folk, which is that if it's just going to be a matter of dollars and cents, then then you can just keep looking the other way as long as you know, as long as people are. Corporations and unions and individuals can give an unlimited amount of money to campaigns if the if, it's if, if, if it's regulated under the IRS. So what's happened is that that just opened the doors. It's like a Mississippian flood stage that people stopped giving regulated money they'd still given.

1:10:25 There's limits on what an individual can give and limits what political action committee can give. And I won't go through all of those. And it was working pretty well until the Supreme Court said, wait a minute, corporations can can give them and unions and individuals can give an unlimited amount in a different regulatory process through the IRS, OK, through the Internal Revenue Service, that opened the gates to super PACs, huge PACs that had hundreds of millions of dollars. And you don't know where the money came from. It could come from Soros on the left or come from Musk now.

1:11:07 Now they're openly saying how much they're giving, like Musk did it and he gets credit for it. With Trump, it's no longer a controversy. We're going in the opposite direction now. I feel that there should be limits on contributions, as we had for many years under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. It was bipartisan, and that's what that's what got changed by the Supreme Court. I think that needs to be clarified. So with respect to money, it's not only money. We have shadow lobbyists there. There about 14,000 federal registered lobbyists.

1:11:48 And by some estimates, the metropolitan area, Washington has as many as 80,000 people involved in advocacy because there are many things that are not regulated under the Lobby Disclosure Act. So the question is, what is a lobbyist? And it's it's defined clearly in the LDA. And there's lots of loopholes if you, if you are a strategic advisor, if you're a grassroots organizer, if you're a coalition builder and you need all those things to win, if you're a pollster, if you run an association here, if you are in a law firm and you're doing regulatory lobbying before, before an agency or you're a think tank in the think tank like Heritage Foundation or AAI or Brookings or others are advocating, you don't have to register under the law. So 14,000 registered lobbyists has been a level for many, many years, for 20 years, but we have huge amounts of lobbying going on.

1:13:00 Yeah, far more than 14,000, yeah. Yeah. And so it's the tip of the iceberg and the money is the tip of the iceberg cause only those who register. So how much money that they're spending? It's a lot of money. So we need, I think, a little more regulation over who's lobbying, who isn't lobbying. Now the definition of a lobbyist. I'll go. You know, I go through it very quickly under the LDA. It's two contacts with members of Congress and staff, anybody on the Hill that's paid. It's two contacts with political appointees in the executive branch. It's about 8000 people and it's spending 20% of your time on lobbying in contacts and efforts to support those contacts quarterly. Well, so there's this phenomenon in Washington and it's called the 19% club.

1:13:56 OK. If you meet these other criteria and then you only are spending 19% of your time, you don't have to register. So there's a whole lot of people not registering and they watch that very carefully because it's audited by the GAO and there's a limit 3500 income per lobbyist quarterly and 16,000 for an organization quarterly. Look at Ballard, it's a firm, you know, out of Florida, $16,000 quarterly is nothing. You know, there's billions flowing and including from Harvard.

1:14:37 I had a call from people at Harvard saying students for the Harvard Crimson. They said, well, you know, why are they hiring Ballard? Because it's associated with with Susie Wiles and the chief of staff and the president. That seems crazy. And I said, well, half of lobbying is figuring out what's going on. Yeah, sounds like it. And that's they hire people, hire firms just to tell you what's going on. And then you can make a decision about what you're going to do. Most people think lobbying is you're going and out of the lobby. You go in and talk to a member and try to persuade them. Well, no, it's, it's figuring out what's going on. It's doing policy analysis, it's doing opposition research. It's grassroots, it's coalition building. It's using social media.

1:15:29 You have to have all those things now. Probably what Harvard was doing is they just wanted to figure out what the hell was going to go go on in the department of of Education with respect to higher education. Boy, me on the mind. Yeah, right. Yeah. So I can go on and on. I just gave you half of a semester of a seminar. I love you. That's amazing. It's amazing. We're going to have to quit here in a second, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. If I can ask for your last thoughts on positive steps or helpful steps that you think people can take to try and to try and have a positive influence or impact.

1:16:09 Can I, can I, can I bother you to for your thoughts on that before you go? Well, first and foremost, everybody should get out and vote no matter what. Even though they think it's a fixed deal is not It isn't always a fixed outcome in the primary of the general election vote OK. And so people your age and and younger that are eligible vote they're voting at very low rates. They're they're alienated. My granddaughter, by the way, goes to school at Eckert College in Tampa and she is a political science major. She's going on to law school. I tried to talk her out of it, but she's law school always by beta capital all that.

1:16:51 So anyway, she in the last election when Biden was running against Trump, she said I can't vote for those two old men. They don't represent what I want. So there's a whole lot of that. She eventually voted, I think, you know, but but there's there's an alien nation that's there breakthrough the alienation, have hope, have faith that it makes a difference. That's the that's the most important thing. I also think hope comes from there are guardrails in our democracy still, even though it seems like there isn't, even though a lot of people saying our democracy is failing, certainly it's challenged. Guardrails are the courts, the federal courts, but also the Supreme Court, but also the guardrails are to organize, organize, organize.

1:17:40 Saul Alinsky of Organizer in Chicago in the 30s forties said organize, organize, organize, and he helped do community organizing to push back, to change things. Become involved. Don't become so alienated that you're not involved and you just say it doesn't make any difference. It's all bad to become organized. Also, make sure that you go and it sounds silly, but go to the town meetings. Stand up to people who are who are running that maybe you disagree with in a respectful way.

1:18:21 Don't squirt things on them. You know, don't be violent, but stand up and in a respectful way and push back. That makes a difference. I hope so come. Back from those town meetings and say, well, wait a minute, there are a whole lot of people who had good questions. Humphrey used to get a lot of good ideas from going to town meetings in Minnesota but also around the United States. And Thurber, take care of that. That's a great idea. And so we go with an amendment or something. So get involved that way. Also there was the phrase all politics is local by Tip O'Neill, former speaker, speaker of the House from Massachusetts. Well, now all politics seems to be national. These national things overwhelm, but all politics, in the end, it's it's local.

1:19:11 Yeah, there are these national issues. And so get involved locally with elected public office. That's where the hope comes from. Or people like you and people your age. It's time for you to take over from the old white men or now women in many cases, or African Americans that are in their 80s. It's time to push them out and and change things. I think our democracy is being challenged, especially article one of the Constitution. The Republicans have to stand up and and go forward with what they believe in.

1:19:52 And they are now they're cracks with respect to the shootings in Minnesota. They are with a variety with respect to Greenland, a variety of other things, but they got to do with respect to the bombing of ships. Off of Venezuela, there are little things here and there, but behind the scenes, quietly, there are the workhorses that are coming together and working together. We have a grant from the Hewlett Foundation to train people on the Hill about how to how to come together when you disagree and go forward. It had a major impact on the infrastructure bill when Democrats and Republicans came together, quietly compromised and went ahead with a bill.

1:20:42 Now, you may not like the bill, but it was an example of of some bipartisanship. There's some of that going on now with respect to China and a variety of other things. So, so reward people who are moderate and reward those who stand up for the institutions that are guardrails in our democracy, I think will overcome some of the things that have that are happening now. I think the midterm election is going to put a big check on some of those things. There'll be oversight hearings. Maybe they'll be too extreme, maybe they won't. But the next presidential election is going to be very important in terms of whether we get it, get candidates or say that, say, wait a minute, let's bring us together. Let's work together, Let's work in the middle to solve problems. That's what America wants.

1:21:34 That's what Americans want. They don't want to be preached to like I'm doing right now, but they they want you to listen to them. And then they want you to come together and come together with solutions to serious problems. It almost feels like it that that this past, the reason why I was hopeful this past time was because I felt like people that were historically left like Tulsi and RFK and and even Elon, You know what historically I think voted more left than right, He. Was a Democrat, yeah. Yeah, you know, I think. And Trump was a Democrat. Too. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. But but my point, but my point being that, you know, you have, you have a you have a you have, you have a, you have a guy running for president that seems like he is trying to unify the two sides. And you have people jumping from one side to the next to be part of this quote UN quote populist movement. It didn't happen.

1:22:24 So, I mean, I hope it does in the future and I hope that we can keep on doing that. But I'm I I was that's really what's been the hardest about the part about all this for me was I was so hopeful and I was so excited. And then if and then, you know, like I heard it put very astutely. It's funny. It is. You would never have guessed the RFK is the least controversial member of Trump's cabinet at the moment. You know, and you're so you're right. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't never have thought that. But that, yeah, that's, that's what we are saying. Don't give up hope. OK, OK. Good for you to. Have hope and to continue to stay engaged like you are. That's very important to get information, different views out and get people to talk. And thank you very much.

1:23:06 Professor J, Thank you. This is such a pleasure. Yeah. Good luck. I appreciate this. Take Care now. All the best, bye.