Dhru Purohit Show - How to Talk About Politics and Other Difficult Topics without Losing Your Friends or Selling Your Soul with Denise Gitsham

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Whoop, Beekeepers, and Cozy Earth.  Nowadays, discussions around politics and viewpoints have become increasingly divisive and hostile. Often, differing perspectives are immediately shut down or met with personal attacks, even when we know that progress and growth come from listening to other viewpoints and approaching topics with curiosity.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with his good friend and author Denise Gitsham to discuss politics, polarization, and critical thinking. Denise shares experiences and lessons she learned while working at the highest levels of the federal government and how those experiences helped her change her mindset. Dhru and Denise discuss the importance of listening with curiosity and engaging with people with differing viewpoints to seek out the truth. They also discuss how polarization has disrupted civility and what we can do to bring it back to our conversations even when we disagree.  Denise is the founder of Vitamin D Public Relations, a boutique communications firm that operates at the intersection of law, policy, politics, and the media. She has worked at the highest levels of the federal government, including the White House, the US Department of Justice, and the US Senate, and she's also run for Congress. A recovering attorney and long-time politico, Denise's passion is bridging division and fostering unity by emphasizing principles over partisanship. She recently released her first book, "Politics for People Who Hate Politics: How to Engage Without Losing Your Friends or Selling Your Soul."  In this episode, Dhru and Denise dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): Why it’s important to engage with people from different political views and backgrounds (5:10 / 5:10) The true story about polarization (6:23 / 6:23)  The importance of skepticism and critical thinking in seeking the truth (19:17 / 16:53) How opinions are more visible (29:52 / 27:10)  Why people are so triggered in day-to-day conversations (31:40 / 28:50) How do you stay informed by staying curious (37:00 / 32:33 ) The importance of having multiple perspectives  (39:45 / 36:00) Yearning for unity (53:50 / 49:30)  Purposely engaging with people who have different viewpoints (57:43 / 53:15) The Third Option and committing to what is in the best interest of us  (1:13:48 / 1:09:36)  Bringing humanity back into the conversation (1:28:34 / 1:24:20)  Where to follow Denise (1:35:05 / 1:30:54)  Also mentioned in this episode: Politics For People Who Hate Politics  WHOOP is a personalized digital fitness tracker. To get yours, go to join.whoop.com/dhru and get your first month free. Go to beekeepersnaturals.com/DHRU and enter code “DHRU” to get Beekeeper’s Naturals' exclusive offer of 20% off sitewide. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com and use code DHRUP. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, Drew Prode here today, and we're doing an episode on politics with a dear friend of mine, Denise Gitsom. I'm not talking about traditional Republican, Democrat, independent politics. I'm talking about an episode about how we can rise above so much of this lack of civility that we have today. And it's not just with traditional politics that we have here in America and increasingly around the rest of the world. It's about every aspect of our world has become tribalized. politicized and we're losing civility. You know, I want to read something to you that I wrote last year. And it's something that a lot of my friends reshared. It was one of my most popular things that my friends reshared and my fans reshared on Instagram. I'm going to read this to you. And I think you're going

to resonate with it. So here we go. If you're my friend, I want you to challenge how I think. I want you to help me see what I can't see from my limited viewpoint. And even though it might be tough, I promise to stay open-minded, especially when I think I already have things. I want to be quote unquote figured out. As your friend, I promise to speak up when I feel I have a valuable perspective to offer. I won't do it to be right. I'll do it because I know that dialogue helps us both grow. I'll do my best to both be kind, number one, and direct. Number two, and I'll apologize when I fall short. Most importantly, though, above all else, even if we disagree on something, I promise to always see the humanity and goodness in you.

Drew Pro at podcast fans, this is a lot of what we're missing today. We're missing people seeing the humanity and goodness in each other even if they disagree. And by the way, I love having people on this podcast that I disagree with. Hearing their arguments about health, nutrition, whatever might be, politics, this, that, whatever, different approaches to life. Hearing their side, I've learned from them. I've changed my mind over the years. I've seen things differently.

and where I genuinely still may not disagree with them now because of my lived experience, my viewpoint, my advantage point, my perspective, their different viewpoint and us having a friendly debate, it helps me strengthen the position that I'm coming from and helps me stress test my argument. You know, in high school debate, a big part of what would happen and what typically happens in high school debate is to get better at debating and to be a better orator, a better debater, you have to debate somebody who has a different opinion than you. And it's sport in traditional debate sense, but really it's life lessons. It's helping you understand how to make your argument in a better way. And even though in health and nutrition, people are feeling all sorts of different ways about all different types of topics, you hear it on this episode. Some people say lower proteins. Some people say this.

Some people say that. It's good to hear the perspective as long as people don't try to diminish the other side, dehumanize the other side, and stay open-minded to learning something that they may not feel like they understandfully. Well, this is going on for sure in our world of politics. And here in America, if you're in America, the United States of America, you know that we're ramping up for that with the political season that's coming up. And a dear friend of mine, Denise, is here on the podcast today to talk about a new book that she has on this topic.

It's called Politics for People Who Hate Politics, How to Engage Without Losing Your Friends or Selling Your Soul. I've known Denise now for probably a good six, seven, eight years. And Denise has a really interesting background. She's served at the highest level. of the federal government, including the White House, the U.S. State Department of Justice, United States Senate, and she's also made a run for Congress previously in San Diego, Southern California. Denise is also a recovering attorney at a longtime politico. You know, politics is in her world,

and, you know, she's deep in it. Most importantly, she's passionate about bridging division and fostering unity by emphasizing principles over partisanship. You know, we don't do episodes about politics. Every so often, somebody might share their political viewpoints about one-sum, or another, but why I think that politics is important to talk about at least for one episode here on the podcast and why I hope you would be interested in checking out Denise's book, Politics for People Who Hate Politics. It's in the show notes. Is that increasingly everything in our world, as I mentioned before, has become politicized. And even when it comes to civil engagement, voting, and supporting one side or another,

we've lost a lot of that civility. As friends of mine have heard my own interest in different candidates as we gear up for elections next year, a lot of them have been shocked. How could you give that person support? How could you be interested in learning more about their viewpoints? How dare you? And it's like, wow, let's have an honest conversation one by one about these principles rather than just dehumanizing each other.

And that's what today's podcast is all about. A little bit more about Denise. She's the founder of vitamin D public relations, a boutique communications firm that operates at the intersection of law, policy, politics, and the media. And I hope you enjoy my conversation with Denise, Gitzham on today's podcast. podcast. Denise, welcome to the podcast. Drew. I'm so happy to be here with you. So great to have you here. We're going to be talking about a whole bunch of things today. Let's start off with something simple to open up. I like simple. Why is it so important for us to learn how to engage with

people that we have difference of opinions with? Because everybody is different. None of us have political twins. So assuming that we have someone out there who's like the snowflake that we we are, right? The same unique person with the same experiences and the same perspectives is a fallacy. It's just not true. And so it's so important that because even if you look at the Republican Party of the Democratic Party or anyone in between, you've got intra-party fighting like never before. Just look at the Civil War and the Republican Party right now, right? It's so important that we learn how to honor and appreciate and respect what other people think, regardless of whether we agree or not. It makes you a happier human, which is a really important thing.

That's probably the reason that I want to do it. But it also makes you a productive, contributing member of society. And America is only as good as we make it. And so we've got to show up as our best selves, curious, humble, and really wanting to understand what other people think. Do you think that we live in a more polarizing time today than, let's say, the data on how things were 24, 60 years ago? I think every generation thinks that this is the worst it's ever gotten, right? I mean, I'm sure we'll be telling our kids one day that we walked uphill both ways to school

and the snow. Everyone tends to think that things were better back in the day. People are looking for truth in a way that they never have before. In this post-COVID time, we're all questioning what we're seeing and what we're hearing and wondering if we're being fed a lot of nonsense or if, this is something that is actually true? Like, is it objectively true? And the answer and what we believe in actually has real life consequences like never before, like with our health, with regard to COVID and regard to vaccines. Every hot button issue out there right now with a war, like are we going to go to

war? These are all things that we're thinking, like the stakes are higher. So I think we're thinking more deeply about them. So there's no short answer to your question. But I think that whenever we have heightened sensitivities around a topic or something really important is happening in our world, we're going to see people kind of stand up for what they really believe in, as opposed to when things are just kind of chill, and we can all afford to just give a little. So we just crossed Thanksgiving. You know, today's the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday. So many people were intrepidation of what were conversations going to look like with their

family, whether people are into politics or not, or whether they, Any topic, any area that you go into, there's politicalness in it. There's debates in what type of diet is the best diet. There's debates in all sorts of different things. How was your Thanksgiving? Oh, mine was great. I mean, I was with my mom. We just lost my dad a couple months ago.

And I think people are just gentler, you know, when you've lost, you've had experience some loss and people understand. So we deliberately surrounded ourselves with friends and my dog and just spent a lot of time outside. It was a gorgeous day here in California. So, but I've definitely been in situations where people that I deeply love really care about, I disagree with. And, you know, in my 20s, early 20s, I worked in the White House for W.

And I was dating somebody whose entire family was very liberal. And they would question things and ask me hard questions and I really loved them. And it didn't change how much I loved them. I think I was a lot more immature back then and much more politicized. So I've definitely experienced feeling, you know, I think everyone feels this way, but especially when you're in your 20s and you so badly want to make a good impression and you're not sure of everything that you believe and you haven't lived that much. You just have maybe your greater sensitivities and more reactionary sort of responses to things that you might feel are personally offensive. But mine was not like that anymore. I'm 46.

So I moved beyond that. Doesn't mean I can't snap back into it at times, but this was a good Thanksgiving. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. Now, who doesn't want to feel great, live longer, and perform at their maximum potential? I know I do, which is why I started working out on the regular. But so much of getting fitter and stronger comes down to personalization. This is why I love, love, love, Whoop. Whoop is a fitness wearable and companion app that specializes in breaking down your recovery,

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Can you just give us an example of what you were talking about? So am I hearing that? you were afraid to kind of speak your mind when you were in that relationship? So not really. I mean, I'm always been pretty outspoken, especially when you're young and dumb and you're in your 20s and you think you know everything and, you know, 9-11 had happened and I was dating a Marine at the time. And so he was off fighting the war and I was opining about the war, right?

I had feelings about it, but he was actually doing the hard work. So it was hard for me because my whole life was invested in. supporting this country and supporting this president as we, I felt like America came together for a moment to fight evil. And it was hard for me to understand any perspective other than that. And when I look back at how I dealt with the disagreements that we had over the Iraq war, over Afghanistan, I dismissed how important his perspective was as somebody who was actually on the front lines, like the tip of the spear. And, you know, I wonder our relationship ultimately ended because I felt I felt like he disapproved of who I was instead of, it's almost like that

phenomenon where when we disagree, it's not that you're wrong, it's that you're bad. And I think both of us felt that way at the time. And it was really painful for both of us, but we couldn't get past that sense that the other one was betraying me or vice versa. And I wonder now, looking back, how things would have been different if I'd had some of the skills and learned some of the tools and had a little more maturity and wasn't just 26 mouthing off or feeling things, how that relationship would have turned out. Only because you brought it up and feel free to go into it or not, right? Was it that your, because you were in the White House at the time, right? was it that your view was like the sort of you're either with us or against us.

And then his view being somebody boots on the ground was like something different. Like you are risking the lives of young. What was his view? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was a show called Generation Kill that was done on his platoon. It was on HBO. Yeah, it was a great show.

And he wrote one bullet away. It was a New York Times bestseller. It was the first person memoir of the war. And, you know, just reading. the manuscript was actually, I mean, it brought tears to my eyes. It's actually was the impetus for why I ended up saying, you know, I don't think we can be in a relationship. And it was a very mutual feeling because I felt like everything he was saying was pointing at me as the epitome of everything that was wrong with America. And I was just, you know, I was there to support our country

and to be proud of this person who I loved who had gone off and fought in the war. And everything that I thought I was doing to help was actually just really difficult on him and offensive. And so it was definitely like an emotional time because both of us were so entrenched. And I think any time you're fighting in the trenches, you feel like whether it's actual trenches or in the White House where you feel like everyone's throwing darts at you. And poor Biden right now, everyone is throwing darts at him, right? Like every president feels like that. That's why they go gray in the first term.

People, when you're on a team, whether it's in a potential. platoon, you know, as a Marine like he was, or you're in a team at the White House where you're working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help protect your country. You're going to feel things. And those are legitimate. And I think that sometimes that's when it makes a lot of sense to say, you know, let's not talk about these things right now because neither of us can be objective about it. That's what I've learned with maturity and time and with lost relationships. Did you, on a practical level, was there anything about that time period and then, you know, now being the age you are and looking back, was there any party that felt like these are the things that I have changed my mind on, right, that I viewed or this is a different perspective or that I can hold his perspective and I can hold my perspective? I think that's what it is.

I think now that I'm, and it might just be because I'm not in that situation now. I'm not sure if it's because I've matured and I've become much more capable of holding different perspectives at the same time when it doesn't directly affect me. I would like to think that that's the case, probably somewhat untested. But I do think that I'm more capable of being objective and at least being curious as to why people feel strongly about the things that they do. I realize that I have blind spots in my perspectives and that I'm actually more well-rounded and understand an issue better if I ask questions and not just surface questions to just

sort of check the box and act like I'm, you know, a thoughtful human. But actually, I actually pray. I'm like, God, is there something in this situation that I'm not seeing that you want me to see that would help me understand what the truth is in this situation? I just know that we all have different perspectives on the truth based on our experiences. And in that situation, you know, his experience, mine was unparalleled, you know. And I just couldn't see it at the time. And I'd like to think that now things would be better.

Yeah. I think a lot of people probably on my podcast, you know, we have people of all different, you know, political leanings and beliefs and other stuff. And we generally don't necessarily get into any kind of politics on the show, unless if it's through usually the health lens. You know, sometimes there's, you know, health has really become a bipartisan issue. It is. You know, there's more people than ever.

It used to be like, oh, if you were into health, it's like a crunchy granola, green party thing. You know, like 20, 30, 40 years ago, the hippie movement, et cetera, you know, that sort of thing. And nowadays, when you look at the, and you hear from people and just even looking at my friends, you know, everybody from every background, you know, they care about health because they see this as just being a core value that we need, especially to like protect the country, protect the kids. And even if you're not in America listening to this, you feel like the world is literally at an inflection point. Like people are in some cases living longer, although in America we've had a decline, primarily through opioids and suicide rates and a few other things. COVID seems to play into that.

but like we have to do something, you know, and that's typically how people look at, you know, the lens of politics. But generally, I would say that if I would speak on behalf of my audience, a lot of people are, have, even if they pay attention to politics, they're a little skeptical of politics because they feel like, you know, am I getting the truth in the way that it's being disseminated out, whether it's through politicians or whether it's through as would be. typically branded like mainstream media sources versus like independent media or other things, right? Even though there's a recognition that everybody would have their bias that'd be there. I have my own bias that's there. So I think that there's that skepticism of, I'm not going to take politics so seriously because if you identify too strongly with one side or another, you can end believing all the talking points without thinking for yourself. You have any thoughts on that? Absolutely. Well, first of all, you're really smart. Everything requires skepticism. It doesn't matter who tells it to you, whether it's a politician or your third grade teacher or your parents. I think we should always question everything, recognizing that and having a lot of grace doing it, right? It's not, I think motives are so important. Like, I think it's really important to ask ourselves, are we seeking truth or are we seeking to be validated in what we think is true? Or are we seeking to prove somebody wrong?

I mean, those are all sort of, it's one of many options for why people, you know, question things in politics and outside of politics. I think that having been a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., on K Street, where all the lobbyists are, I learned firsthand that you can follow the money and usually you can find out why somebody says what they do. having run for Congress in San Diego in 2016, I can tell you that a lot of people came to me and said, hey, we want to fund your campaign. And you have to really think about who is it that you want behind you? Because if you're too dependent on them, politics is expensive. I'm not independently wealthy. I didn't self-fund. Some people can afford to do that. But if you, and I think this is something that a lot of politicians get into the habit of. I think I understand why. But they get into an ends justifies means mentality, which is really dangerous. And it's something that I

really had a fight against when I ran for Congress. I didn't always do the right thing. I don't think when I ran in the sense that there were probably people that I should have turned down and probably things that I should have said that I didn't. Because in order to win, you have to raise a certain amount of money because you have to raise your name ID, which means you have to be on TV. It seems so archaic for our generation to be like, oh, we have to be on TV, but the people who vote watch TV. And my district happened to be one of the most expensive districts, media markets in America. And so I had to raise extra. And that's just millions of dollars. And, you know, I could have, I think the temptation is to think, I'm going to take this money now and do what it takes to get in.

And once I get in, I'll change things. Yeah. I can do the right thing then. And I see that. I don't even know if people go through that many mental, you know, that much of a mental gymnastic exercise and even getting to that point. But for me, because I ran for a certain purpose, because I wanted to stand for things I believed in, I had to challenge myself to say, are you going to be that consistent throughout

the whole process? There were times when I'm very proud of the things that I did. And there were times when I wasn't that proud of the things. that I did. And I was me being a first time candidate. And I wonder how I would do it if I did it again, which, by the way, I'm not planning to. But you get an insight into like the thinking of it. And it's, it's just so all of us can justify ends by means. But what kind of a world would we live in if we were just making excuses for the things that we did all the time? Let's give a little bit of background. You have a new book out. Yes. The book is called Politics for People Who Hate Politics,

how to engage without losing your friends or selling your soul. Why is this book so important right now? Gosh, because everybody hates politics right now. I mean, I have a love-hate relationship with politics. I think it's very tempting to just say we're going to piece out of the whole process at times. I mean, when I lost my race in 2016, I think I took a year off and didn't do anything. I just went into a hole because I was just tired of all of it. You know, it was an ugly year in politics. The presidential race was so ugly in 2016. And I was just tired.

And that's okay. I think it's important for your listeners to know that you don't have to be on 24-7. I think our brains are only able to process so much acrimony and so much anger. And I think it's actually a really good mental health exercise to take a break from things that are constantly coming at you. But I also think that if we don't recognize that politics does in fact shape our lives and the lives of our children and the lives of the society that we live in, politics can be, it's like tofu. I always call politics like tofu.

It takes on the flavor of whoever's shaping it or, you know, cooking it. And we get a chance in this country, which is something, you know, you're an immigrant, or your parents were immigrants, my parents are immigrants. So we have a different perspective on what it is to be an American. And I've always so valued the ability to shape our country because it's something, it's a privilege that most people in the rest of the world don't have. And my parents reminded me of that since I was a little kid. And so I think it's important that we do have a voice and that we learn as much as we can without being overly consumed. You, you know, with a presidential election around the corner, there's actually, I feel like this incredible momentum where a lot of people, not everybody,

But a lot of people are like very excited, especially about some of like the independent candidates that are there. Right? You have this increasingly, I don't know the exact polls, you probably know, but there's a lot of people who are not excited about the traditional mashup that it looks like we're headed towards. Yeah. Right. And then there's independent candidates that are coming up, whether it's something like Vivek or Kennedy or Marianne or anything. You know, some of them higher, some of them lower. And a bunch of others that are there too. Not that Vivek is independent. I meant more sort of not sort of standard mainstream individuals that are there. And you look at some of the polls and you see more and more people than ever identifying as an independent in some of their voting. And PP, no party preference.

Right. No party preference. And I think there's a couple elements where people realize like politics is so important because a lot of what happens even nationally sets the tone for things that happen locally. Yeah. Right. and also too that they want to step out of the sport of politics that that politics can be two things there's the local sort of politics and the influence that it has and the decision making that's there and then there's an understanding that hey listen a lot of what you see on TV a lot of what you see from candidates that's like the sport of politics and the sport of politics is there's a

winner and there's a loser it's the good guys versus the bad guys and every team thinks they're they're good guys. And we're pulling back from that a little bit. But there's an urge and an excitement to want to actually hear from all candidates in a longer format than what they typically get from TV. And I'm really excited about that. I'm excited about Twitter. I'm excited about podcasts because people actually genuinely want to hear what people's stances. So I don't know if there's a question inside of that more than as much as, well, here's why I know why I'm bringing it up. You said that people hate politics. And I actually think that there's a growing number of people who are realizing I need to get involved in politics if I care about how my city is being shaped, what my perspectives

are about crime in the place that I live in, how I feel that the education system is happening, but they're seeking out more mediums to want to hear from the person in the full context of their ideas. Do you see this trend playing out? It is interesting. I think we've always thought in terms of like TV, right? Because TV was the dominant way we got our news. And before podcasts like yours became a huge success. And most people in our, like our friends, yours and mine, they don't really watch TV. They listen to podcasts. That's where they get most of their information. And I think that's actually a healthy thing to have a mix of both. I think that because people are wondering what the truth is. They actually care now. They're willing to invest more time and energy

into looking beneath the surface. And I think getting away from the 30-second soundbites on TV, the DNC and RNC talking points, is a really healthy trend for all Americans. And I do think that because there's such a mistrust, the government disinformation campaigns, which every administration, whether you're a Republican, Democrat or anything in between, has a self-interest once they get in and promoting a certain conversation or narrative. And recognizing that and then seeing kind of following the money trail, when you put it all together, it doesn't look super great for truth. And so the fact that people, again, want to dig in a little deeper and want to listen to a long

form podcast or interview is very, very healthy for our democracy. And it's interesting because RFK Jr. actually has the highest percentage of support of any independent candidate ever, 20%. Yeah. And he's drawing from both parties. Like, you know, everyone was speculating as to who he would pull from. And it's actually both evenly.

I think that's great. You're excited about more options for people. Yes. You're excited for any way that people get more access to more information that's there. Yes. Now, as everybody gets access to more information naturally, and they also have the opportunity

for expressing those, I think that what a lot of people think of as polarization is really just more people expressing how they feel. We didn't really have a lot of the tools, you know, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, people had opinions. Yeah. They had thoughts. They had all sorts of different thoughts,

but they may have not had their own way to publish those thoughts in the world. Right. So now a lot of people are dealing with any kind of world event, which sort of shifts every few months. Yeah. And they're feeling like this person that I love and care about, all of a sudden they have

difference of opinions than I do, right? Which is actually a normal and healthy thing. I think so. I mean, look at Hamilton, right? Alexander Hamilton got killed by Aaron Burr because of politics. You know, it's like back in the day, they would just pull out a gun and shoot each other. or I think Andrew Jackson was allowed to cane somebody like in Congress. You know, there's other unhealthy ways that people dealt with things before they had Twitter

and could like troll you on social media. I think I'd rather have a mean tweet than being caned or shot. So I think that's because I think more speech is always good speech. This is where, you know, I went to law school for a reason. And it was really because I really am a huge proponent of the First Amendment. Free speech is the foundation of a free society. And whenever we start putting parameters around free speech, I think that we slide and it's a slippery slope. And so more opinions, more ability to get access to more information from different sources,

that's the democratization of information. And that's always going to, it might be more confusing at first. And, you know, there's a level of maturity that's required in being able to discern. And you have to want to discern right from wrong. But it also just shows that there's such a diversity of. like just perspectives and sources of information that we can get things from. And I actually believe that there's a lot of truth in all of it. Why are people so triggered today?

You might have to ask someone much smarter than me to get a smart answer on that one. You know, I think the biggest reason that I can only speak to myself. And this book is really, let me just say, if anything that I'm saying in this interview or this conversation that we're having sounds self-righteous. I am the worst offender. I wrote this book because I spent a lot of my political career being a partisan hack for the Republican Party. I still believe just as strongly in all of those perspectives, but the way that I engage now has evolved because I've got some years under my belt. I've seen that having that approach to speaking your truth is actually counterproductive and it divides our country. And I believe that

our country isn't as threatened by external things like China or a war in the Middle East as we are by the division in our own communities, in our churches, in our schools, and the way we treat each other. So I can say that when I'm triggered, it's because I've somehow misidentified who I am. when what I believe becomes my identity, there's such an importance to defending what you believe because, like I said earlier, it goes from you're wrong to your bad, right? If somebody says, you're wrong. If I think that my identity is what I believe, then I'm going to interpret that as you're bad. You're a bad person.

And who wants to be called bad? I mean, that will set anyone off, right? So maybe not you because you're more evolved. But certainly me. I mean, I'm hot-tempered. I'm a lawyer. I like to win. And you tell me I'm wrong and I'm going to give you 30 reasons why you're wrong.

And so, you know, this is all part of us. I think this is what really at the end of the day for your mental health and engaging in an American society where free speech is a thing and it needs to be. We all have to learn how to disassociate what it is that we believe from who we are. We really need to root our identities and the things that matter, our relationships, you know, the things that we do that are productive in society versus an ever-changing and ever-evolving perspective on what a party believes. I mean, the Republican Party now is so different from the Republican Party that I joined. If I were to peg my identity to something external, anything, it really just becomes an idol that I worship and is then able to, influence what I think about myself. And I think that whatever that is, whether it's politics or your job or anything else that you put up on that pedestal, you're in deep trouble when somebody

shakes that foundation. Yeah, I think that's the fear for a lot of people. It's like telling somebody, listen, you can go to McDonald's and eat healthy, right? Just ask for a salad, bring your own dressing, do this. But it's like, okay, you're putting somebody in the environment where you're having them order for McDonald's. It's going to be tough. You're going to want fries. You're going to want a hamburger. You're going to want to overeat. You're going to want soda. And so politics is a little bit like that in the sense that on both sides,

there's always somebody that wants to make the other person wrong. So that's the concern that people have is jumping in and getting caught up in the tribalism that either side wants to take you on. So I can imagine why so many people feel like, F that, like, I'm not going to let you make me into your thing. So how do you stay informed, be a part of the process, but not gets caught up in sort of the, you know, you're either with us or against us, the right and wrong kind of component. This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth. You know, something I've been really thinking about lately is the fabrics I bring into my home. If you've been watching the headlines or looking on social media, PFAs, plastics, and other toxic chemicals are freaking ubiquitous in our clothing.

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I can honestly say that I've noticed a different. in my sleep quality after I started using them and my friends and coworkers who have tried them totally agree. Right now, Cozy Earth is offering my listeners 40% off sitewide with the code D-H-R-U-P. That's my first lame and my last initial at checkout. Just head over to cozy earth.com and use the code Drew P at checkout. That's cozy earth.com slash dhruP for 40% off. I wish that I could say I'm good at that all the time and not getting caught up. I'm telling you like, you know, I think it's so important to consistently say this because I don't want anyone to think that I'm preaching at them. I'm preaching at myself.

Like, you know, I'm on TV all the time talking about partisan issues as a Republican strategist. I want to win that argument and I want to be seen as smart by all the viewers. And so that's just something that I have to deal with all the time. the way that I separate myself from what people think about what I say, because sometimes I say dumb things. I mean, you can't nail it 100% of the time. And I look back and I think, I could kick myself. Why did I say that? That was so wrong. But I think that just having a lot of grace with other people asking that next level of question, right? Like, what did you really mean when you said that? Because I value this relationship so much. And I have a really, really dear friend who is,

I wouldn't say she's 180 for me. I don't think any of us are like 180. We're not that extreme, especially if we go to other countries and you see what they actually believe in. They're actually like 180. In America, we're just shades of gray in the middle. We're not really that different. But I have a dear friend, you've met her, Andrea Haley, she's the CEO of Vote.org. She's brilliant. I love her. She threw my bridal shower. And one of my closest friends. And we disagree on a lot of issues. Abortion is one of them. I'm pro-life. She's pro-choice. She's on the board of Nairal. And we sit down and we have these conversations and we value our relationship.

So when sometimes we get hot and sometimes I cry, I mean, it happened last 4th of July. And we just come back together and we say, you know, I know that you're a good person. I know you so well. Help me to understand why you land on the issue this way. because I know that I'm misinterpreting something in here. And the relationship that we have is more important than me trying to convince you that I'm okay. So let me just get into my I'm okay mode. So I don't have to come at you looking for you to validate that for me.

Yeah, it almost is like a little bit of that small town approach. You know, if there was any sort of, if people romanticize the past, really what they're romanticizing is the fact that, you know, you would have to be neighborly a certain degree because there's no running away from each other. Survival. You are going to be in this town. Yeah. With this person. And there's bears out there.

You have each other's back. You got to have each other's back. But even if it's the basics that you're going to go to their general store. Yeah. And you got to buy and you got to interact with them. Right. You know, or they got to come to you to buy tires or get their car fixed or whatever. You know, there was a certain level of, hey, look, no matter what you feel, there were still human

beings that have to deal with each other. Absolutely. And today we don't really have to, we're not really forced to deal with each other, right? Because of the way that our economy works and how we all live and how spread out we are and how often people move. And so really we're not, you know, I think like even in health, polarization is a good thing because let the best ideas fight for and then we benefit, right? Right.

For a long time in the world of health, there was this whole train of. of, hey, we shouldn't be having too much protein. Protein causes all these issues with longevity, and it raises mTOR in the body, and that is linked to inflammation. And so there was this whole trend of people advocating for a low protein diet, right, or a moderately to low protein diet.

And based out of some research that was here out of USC and some of the work that Walter Longo did, longevity researcher. And then there was a group of... The prolon guy, right? Yeah, the prolog guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's brilliant. Brilliant guy.

Oh my gosh. Smart guy. Yeah. And he had a perspective. Yeah. Right. And a few other people, a bunch of individuals, and then largely through the work of individuals like Peter Atia and a few others, who you know well.

Good friend. Yeah. Peter Tia. There was a sense of, look, we understand where Walter is coming from, but you are missing out on all these other things that are there if you don't get adequate protein in your diet. And naturally, you know, both of those individuals are very, are people that are civil. They're not calling people out.

They're not doing that. But naturally, as ideas go further and further, it turns into like the vegans versus the carnivores versus this versus that. But that polarization of different ideas, it makes the community stronger and people benefit. I used to think, oh, wow, yeah, too much protein is bad for your liver. Oh, I shouldn't be doing that. And then, you know, learning from my friend, Dr. Gabriel Lyon and her mentor, it's like, oh, my gosh, through these debates and watching these debates,

I got to choose what was right for me. Right. And so what we're not, we don't really care. My sort of theory is that people say, why is the world so polarized? Polarization is actually a good thing. What we're really looking for is civility. Right.

I think you've nailed it. And, you know, I'm still kind of stuck on the fact that you called Peter Civil. Well, he's not like publicly like name-palling people. Peter is so brilliant. He's one of the smartest people I know and he's very opinionated and I love that about him. He's very opinionated, but he's not out there like calling people out by name or like saying like

Vultur Longo, why, which by the way, I don't know how he feels about that, but just talking about it generally. Like he fights for his idea. Yeah. He's being civil in the process. Yeah. He has his style and there's other people. I'm not just want to focus on Peter, but he's not afraid to speak up and say what he wants in this world.

Right. And and and and and but he's he's he's he's he's he's not an asshole yeah the process and again I'm not just talking about Peter I'm just talking about you know just in general yeah well I also think I mean I know Peter's you know story because I was one of his first guinea pigs when he started going down his route and actually our PR firm did his first um I think it was called Nucey and it was you know this grant that they got to actually challenge everything we thought we knew about nutrition and so I've kind of seen his whole journey.

at least in the very beginning stages, not as much anymore. He's gone into another stratosphere. But, you know, I think that the curiosity that Peter always impressed me with, like the foundation of what makes him so successful. And I think something that we should all learn from is to question everything. Let's question everything. The free market of ideas is brilliant. Whenever we decide, anyone decides, whether you're in the majority and the minority,

that we need to shut voices down, you veer into really dangerous territory. And I said it earlier, it's a slippery slope. And everything's fine until all of a sudden you're missing an entire perspective that probably holds some part of the truth in it. And we're all drinking the Kool-Aid. Yeah, you saw that during COVID a ton, right? Oh, my gosh. I mean, how many really smart people felt that the world was worse off.

Are you familiar at all with like the Great Barrington Project? Not really. So there's this group of scientists, one from the U.S. at Stanford University, Jay Baracharya was his name. And then there was two others that were from England. And early on in the pandemic, they got a group of vocal voices together. And they signed this declaration that was signed in Massachusetts in the city of Great Barrington, which is where they all met up.

And they called it the Great Barrington Declaration. And it was that we as a group of scientists are publicly coming out and saying we are so worried about the way that this was super early. And I don't even think a vaccine was out at that point in time and stuff. They're saying we're so worried about the way that the government, especially in the United States, is saying that they want to approach this pandemic. Yeah. Lockdowns, this, that. It goes against everything that we knew. Right.

the scientists were saying about the history of sort of epidemics and virology that we don't want to lock people down that will actually make them sicker we don't want to isolate uh yeah sure we have to protect the elderly that are there but they had all these things that were the things that we didn't end up doing right right as a nation and other countries ended up following as well and I can remember that there was early articles that were coming out, and I even sent it to a few of my friends because I'm not a scientist, but I'm paying attention to these guys. And like, I'm hearing the way that they're talking and I'm seeing the references. And there were so many places and people. I think even the New York Times wrote an op-ed and other scientists from institutions said, to even give these

guys a voice is such a dangerous thing. And you know, when you're in the midst of it and everybody's talking about like they have no idea how many people are going to die from this thing, how bad it is, is this thing, Ebola? Is it like the flu or less than the flu? Like, people didn't know in the early days, right? There was a lot of people that were just. I remember. Yeah. Right? Everybody remembers. And, um, but to hear people say that we can't even let this conversation take place. I think now I'm so glad that I'm so sad for everything that happened during COVID, all the lives that were lost, et cetera, the damage, the damage to kids that is there, you know, since the pandemic. We don't even know. We can't even quantify it. We can't even

quantify. But the silver lining that happened is that the entire world largely got a chance to see that many people who say that they know the answer maybe don't know the answer. And I think that was an important lesson for us all to realize. Well, and you know, my mother escaped communist China. And, you know, the thing about communist regimes, just like fascist regimes, is the foundation is that you can't have a voice. That's so fundamental. That's why they burned all the books. That's why. where they banned all, they sent all the educated people who knew something about the world to labor camps. Because whenever you're told that your perspective is dangerous, you become the thing that you fear, right? You become a dictator.

You become somebody who's afraid of being challenged. And if you're afraid of shining light on the truth and this person brings a flashlight, you're going to go put them somewhere where they can't shine it anymore. I think that speaks to the importance of Americans where we have a society that's still relatively free, obvious exceptions being sort of what happened in COVID, we have to fight against that instinct to say, hey, we have the answer. This is the only truth. We have to make our society, and this is something all of us have to play a role in because if any of us or a majority of us decide that this is not the kind of the sort of the route we want to go. go that we're just going to cancel culture everyone we disagree with. It's not going to be good. We all have to fight to make space at the table, pull up a chair for people that we might even find to be super obnoxious, you know, because whatever it is that they bring, however they

bring it, there's some validity to what they're saying. And it's our job to really welcome people and say, explain to me why. And then other people can, people are smart. People will figured out for themselves. But we have to make it a safe place for people to come and express their opinions. But that's incumbent on us. Remember, America's only as great as citizens allow it to be. We get exactly the kind of democracy that we want. And that's the beauty and the danger of the type of society that we live in. And our founding fathers established a society like this on purpose. They put checks and balances in our constitution so that no one voice could drown out the other. No one part of the country could overpower the other. And I think there was so much

wisdom in that. And that's what allowed us to maintain these freedoms as much as we have. But we as a generation have to decide if that's the kind of society we want to have moving forward. And that's why this book, for me, it's really like a labor of love. This is not about Denise and her experiences. This is just, I screwed up a lot. Don't do what I did. Here's what to do maybe instead. And I'm not fully evolved. There's probably a lot better ideas out there than what I've written in that book. But to have that conversation, if you take nothing else away from this whole conversation or if you get my book and you read it, walk away, I hope that the walk away, the takeaway is that

we have to be united. We have to create room for people to have differences in opinion because it's essential to our survival as a nation. So do you feel that one of the core ideas inside of that is that, you know, this first idea of like not being so offended the second that you hear somebody or something that's different than your opinion. Is that one of the core tenants? It really is because nothing can set you off like a spirit of offense. You know, we live in an outrage economy now. Cancel culture is based on outrage. Our response to cancel culture is outrage. We have so victimized ourselves that

that we see ourselves as small. And when you see yourself as a victim, and listen, there are people who are legitimately being victimized. I'm not minimizing the pain that they've gone through. But when you take that on as your identity instead of a transitory state or an experience or a situation and you just decide that you want to be a victim and that's going to be your title moving forward in life, you have nothing to lose. One thing that Jordan Peterson says that's so interesting is you should never fear the

strong man. It's the weak man that you really need to be afraid of. Because when someone believes that they're weak, they have nothing to lose. And so they'll just do whatever to destroy everything around them when they feel threatened. But a strong person, they're constantly tested and they have to restrain themselves because they can wipe out people. Right. So their limits, their boundaries are constantly being tested. So they have a restraint that they've built within themselves and resiliency that enables to show up in the world and not just destroy everything willy-nilly because they have something to lose. And I think there's so much wisdom in that.

That's psychology. That's not Denise, you know, thinking and coming up with these brilliant ideas. But it's, I've thought about that. And it's the same analogy for victimization and our outrage culture, outrage economy, and really are trying to shut down voices that aren't in the mainstream out of fear. It's almost like the more, I think there's even a quote. on this. I don't know who it's attributed to. Normally we have my assistant

Tessa here who can pull up the screen and Google stuff for us, but I'll look it up afterwards. The easier you are offended, the easier you are to control. A hundred percent. I mean, it's like a puppeteer in the background. It's interesting because CNN was, it might still be, I don't even know

if they're still in trouble financially. But they became so consumed with being anti-Trump. And they made so much money during COVID being the anti-Trump that became kind of their obsession. This is not like insider knowledge. This is, these are facts that they actually almost went bankrupt. And there was a time when there was some people that I know that were talking about, you know,

CNN needs to be bailed out. We should go in with a bid and try to buy it and, you know, take it over. And they ended up surviving. I had a little bit of insider information, you know, into the perspective of the chairman of I think it was 18. Whoever owns CNN as to why they kept it going. It was making money on the international side and on the headline news side in the airports. But in and of itself, CNN was going to die when Donald Trump died.

So who was being controlled by who? Right. If your obsession with somebody, even in a relationship, in any situation, it doesn't have to be a corporation, it can just be in a personal relationship. If somebody can tell you how to feel and say one thing. and they just know how to just get that one jab in to make you lose your mind, well, who's controlling who? Yeah, I mean, that's why so many people are turning off the news in general. You know, no offense. No, none taken.

None taken. Talk about some of the other core tenants of how we step into a place and idea where in the beginning of your book, you talk about we're more partisan than ever, yet more Americans on both sides of the aisle. say that they want unity, right? So there's a, there's a yearning for unity. There's a yearning for civility. Right. People may not know how to get there, but there's a yearning for it. So I think that people want the world to get along. Yeah. And yet they're not sure. So one of these first ideas, and you have it as a chapter in your book, you know, you know, unoffended, right? Chapter number five. What is another core tenant that we step into to start to become more anti-fragile that actually you, in a way, look forward to healthy conversations, even with people who disagree with you

because not only does it help you stress test your own ideas and thoughts, right? This is why they have debate class in school and in college. They used to. They don't have it as more. Yeah. But it's not only makes our ideas stronger, but it also gives us a perspective that maybe one day we look back and say, you know what, I change my mind on something. Yeah, which happens. It should happen all the time for healthy people who aren't, you know, close minded.

I mean, we should all be constantly evolving in our understanding of what truth is. I actually think that there is truth. I just think we have different perspectives on it, right? And so, you asked, you know, what is something that you can do? One of the things that my pastor does, I wrote a book with him in 2017, I helped him put his thoughts into a book. So I was really more of a ghost writer. But I got to walk with him through the way that he thinks and what his life experience was

as a black man who was an NFL charger, but grew up, you know, in New York. And he's multiracial, but identifies as black. And what it was like to not be black enough, but also not white enough and to be called names on both sides of that conversation as a child, you know, running for your life from kids who are trying to beat you up. And one thing that he does as a, he challenges a lot of people in our congregation at my church. We're called the Skittles Church. It's the Rock Church in San Diego. And our congregation is interestingly, almost down to the percentage, a direct representation of San Diego County. And so we have everyone from every background. And he does this exercise called walk a

mile. And he challenged his assistant, who was this white kid, great guy from the Midwest, to go into a black barbershop and have and start to make, like go into a community where you're the minority and actually experience what it feels like, like sit with what it feels like to be the minority for once. And it changed so many hearts because once you experience what it's like to not just surround yourself with people, not immerse yourself in the usual or the normal, you start to say, okay, I may not agree with how they come about to this policy idea, but I can relate to the feeling of being an outcast or in the margins. And if I were in that situation, I would also feel this way and maybe have that perspective. And then ultimately

figuring out, how do we not let people feel that way? Right. Like, that's the goal is like, okay, let's actually help people feel like they're valued citizens in America, part of society, that have something to contribute so you can show up as who you are. And it's not abnormal. So take that into like somebody who's listening, their life, right? A lot of us have groups that we're part of that are primarily similar sort of identities and views on the world. Yeah. Right. So how do people go out of their way to seek out the experiences of people and actually start to widen their horizon, like on a practical level, does that mean that we start legitimately like hanging out in different areas and starting conversations with people that we wouldn't normally start up

conversation with? Yes. I mean, the only way to do it is to do it, right? I mean, if we're as committed to what we say, look, obviously, you know, you want to be safe, you want to be careful, but I think it's really important to be intentional about being friends who are different from you. of the five bridesmaids I had in my wedding, three of them were Democrats. The closest people to me are people that challenge me all the time. And I've had many friends say, Denise, you're so much better than what you just said, right? Like, you're actually like that mean tweet that you just did back when it was a tweet before it was X or whatever it's called now. You know, I gave into that social media trolling.

You know, I think I called Jill Biden's dress ugly at the state of the union or something way, back when Twitter first started. And my friend Andrea said, hey, you're better than that. We went to girls' schools. We are pro-sister. She went to Miss Porter's. I went to Wellesley. We believe in sisterhood. And so she said, I just think that you're so much better. Don't do that. And it was such a rebuke that I needed and I'm so grateful for. And if I don't have people in my life like that, then I'm just trying to, like, what's the point? Like, I'm never going to grow, right? And so I'd like to say that that growing, that growth process is really a two-way street. I hope that she would feel the same way when I challenge her. But I know, I only know how I feel. And I can tell

you, having friends like her in my life makes it farmer rich, challenging at times, but so worth it. And we fight for our relationship all the time. Yeah, it reminds me of my men's group. You know a lot of the guys in there. Yeah, such good guys, the best. Yeah, really sweet guys. And I think that not only have people inside of the group, you know, we evolve. And so we get things wrong.

We change our mind on stuff. We have different perspectives. But we have people from all over, you know, the country that just handed up happening to live in L.A. at the same time. And now a few of them live in different areas, Tennessee, Florida. Florida, et cetera, Texas. And it's so great to get people's perspective on all sorts of different topics.

But then to know that the thing that brought us together is that brotherhood that we want each other to be, we want each other to succeed. Right. We want each other to grow. We want each other to be strong men in this world. It's a men's group, right? And that's why, you know, it feels like a place

where it's like, hey, even if I don't get your perspective, like sit down and like talk with me a little bit. it. Help me understand that. And I think that's one of the challenges that a lot of people today feel is that they feel like sometimes legitimately and then sometimes not so legitimately that the other side doesn't actually wish me well. Right. Right. And I think that's a byproduct of again when we attach our identity to a third party that ends up in a way like micro radicalizing us. Right? They get us all riled up to make the other group the other.

Right. And when we do that, we make somebody less than human. And that's when we start, you know, there was so many friends that I had that would never like fat shame somebody. Right. Like that's just not their style. Right. And then they were doing that against Trump. Right.

And it was like because he's the other. Right. I didn't vote for Trump. But it's like they were doing that and they felt that that was justified. Right. And anybody can get radicalized if they start to drink the Kool-Aid of the tribe, which is why it's so important to have people from all different walks of life in our world to do that and to check us and say, hey, listen, you're better than that as your friend did to you. And I'm sure you've

done that for other people as well. Yeah, I mean, it's outgrouping and in-grouping, right? It's a psychological or I guess sociological term of how we call people the other. When we start seeing people that way. I mean, this is what they've done to people. And anytime there's genocide or ethnic, you know, any sort of ethnic warfare, dehumanization is the first place they have to go to get people psychologically okay with eradicating an entire group of people based on something that they were born into. It's incredibly dangerous. And we have to fight against that. And it's very hard to do it when there's so much at stake. And you feel like, you know, I've got to fight for me. my survival. Right now, what you're seeing, the intensification of so much of what's happening

in America in terms of politics, the division, is because people feel like in the higher, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that first layer of like food, security, shelter is being threatened because the economy is not strong. I mean, here we are sitting in L.A. and we're doing fine. But the reality is that most people are not. Most people are struggling. That's why the economy is the number one issue that's dominating the polls. And it's why Trump's competitive and ahead of Biden in all of the swing states. Because it's not because they love Trump or they hate Biden. It's because they feel like I'm desperate to feed my family.

And I'm making hard tradeoffs to do so. And I don't know how much longer I can do that. So when we get that sort of survival mentality, it's even more important that for the sake of our country, for the sake of our ability, for the sake of our ability to survive as a whole, that we resist that zero-sum game mentality that allows us to dehumanize other people. But I think that's when it's the most difficult. Yeah.

Are you familiar at all with like the work of Ray Dalio? Yeah, principles. Yeah, principles, right? And have you seen his YouTube videos where he talks about sort of nations? I forgot the exact title, but he talks about like over the course of the last 500 years, starting with groups and dynasties

that he looked at in China and like who excelled and who came further and why did this group conquer this other group. Some of the core principles and themes that he saw that ended up happening is that when a country starts to become great, largely because they invest in their economy and they focused on developing the middle class, which the United States did, you know, World War II and after that, they end up becoming strong. And in that strong, you know, you grow your military might. to protect yourself.

You end up having bases all around the world. You spread your resources super thin. And then because the elites on all sides of the aisle end up becoming and learning how to entrench the system through laws, taxation, etc. You have the have-nots starting to feel that their money is not worth the same, right? Inflation. And through that process, you have an internal political division, and that internal political division starts to weaken the strength of a nation. Yeah. And when that weakened strain of a nation progresses at a certain state, then usually an up-and-coming country, nation group sees that as the weakness.

And then they excel. And this has played out over the last 500 years in different cycles. Yeah. And it really goes back to, you know, you were talking about people feeling like the economy. and everything like that. I think that there's also a lot of people that are waking up where they realize that

there's good and bad people on all sides and there's entrenched people, right? Some people call them elites. It doesn't mean somebody who's doing well. Right. It means somebody who has established themselves in some sort of protective trench and does not allow the progress of other groups that are there.

And then people are waking up and realizing that, hey, there's people on all sides. There's, there's, you know, some core group that's out there groups who are writing the checks for both sides of the aisle. Absolutely. And at the end of the day, it's the middle class that feels like, hey, my money isn't worth as much. And both Republicans and Democrats have printed crazy amount of money.

Yes. Over the last. Both parties. Yeah. However many years that are there. And that there's a vision for wanting. something different. Now, whether or not that difference can actually end up happening actually goes back to this core idea that you have to have people have a conversation who agree on so many

different things. Right. But they're saying like, we need to stick together to fight for something different. Whether that's, and I'm not saying that we're going to break out of this two-party system, you know, sometime in the next generation. Yeah. But there's a possibility of things looking different. Who knows what can happen in the future, but anything that is possible for our country, it's going to happen because people who were told to hate each other are now starting to come together and talk about different ideas that make everybody's life better. That's so true. I mean, I don't know if you saw that like surprise country hit that came out the guy who's saying Richmond north of Richmond. For sure. And, you know, he's expressing something that you just heard Cardi B talk about when she went out.

after Mayor Adams this week and was like, you know, I want you to focus on making my family that's living, as she said in the hood, safer. Like, I don't want there to be rats there. I want you to stop giving money to other people from other countries. It was a very, like, I mean, populist perspective that you're hearing in the Republican Party with the Trump base. And Cardi B endorsed. She campaigned for Biden last time.

And she said, I'm not voting for that guy anymore because he's not taking care of my people. And that sentiment is something that you're hearing echoed throughout. And it's a very anti-establishment, anti-swamp, if you will, that's like a Trump term, perspective. And I think whenever people in Washington, now that I'm not there anymore, I spent 10 years there, when I was there, I thought I knew everything. I was also dumb and young. And I was in my 20s. I left when I was 32.

But having come out of the Beltway and then kind of going back and, forth, I see sort of, I see what's happening in Washington, which is that you can't get a reservation. This actually happened to me in the first quarter of 2000, must have been nine, right when the economy really just tanked. And everyone in America was suffering. And I remember watching the ticker on the bottom of my TV and it said Exxon had profited more than it had record earnings that quarter. And I was on hold trying to get a reservation at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

in Washington, and I couldn't. I couldn't get in because there were so many people in town, and D.C. was thriving when the rest of America was sinking. And so you get in, it's truly there is like a Washington Beltway mentality, and it's a bubble where we think it's almost like you get there. And I can say that from my perspective, and you're looking at chest pieces, like this is a game. But all the people who are chess pieces are actual people. And every move you make has an impact on them. And so I think it's really dangerous, truly, when people go into Washington and they stay and they never get outside of that bubble. But that's what you're seeing is, like, you see the seniority of members of Congress who stay in them, and I'm a huge fan of term

limits because you have people who are there for, Biden's been there for almost 50 years. He's not the only one. It's just an easy target because they talk about it so much. But so many people are there on both sides of the aisle that have no grounding in reality. reality. And here are people who are screaming to get the attention of these policymakers and they're like, you know what, we're done. And that's when revolution happens. I just saw Les Mis in London with my mom. And I've watched it a million times. But I had never felt like it resonated so much what was about to happen with the French Revolution as I hear like echoes of the sentiment here in America of like we've got to take the system down. Yeah. I mean, there is a little bit of, you know,

bit of a silver lining that's there is that I'm starting to see for the first time whether it's like legislation on psychedelics, you know, some bills that are like bipartisan that are coming up. Then I also saw one recently that I believe it was some bipartisan support around preventing congressmen and women from trading stocks. So smart. You familiar with this? Yes. Yeah.

Like why isn't that early a thing? Yeah. Which is for those that are not familiar. Yeah. The members of Congress beat the market all the time. Of course. They beat the market. And they have known for making, and there's this very famous Twitter page, it's

called Unusual Wales. And they were the first one to talk about this. They would track the trades of congressmen. And they would show that this congressperson who sat on this committee and it's not against the law for them to be able to trade, they're just supposed to be, you know, disclose it. Yeah. And sometimes they don't even get disclosed. Yeah.

This account on Twitter, Unusual Wales, was saying, like, look, you literally see this person in the year where the market was down like 3%. All these members of Congress, you know, they're at 12%, 13%, 8% returns. They're consistently beating the market, of course, because they have insider information. And again, I don't remember who it was and we can't look it up because my screen is not connected over here,

but I'm sure we'll find it afterwards. And it was exciting to see some like bipartisan, whether or not it ends up passing. who knows, initiative to say, like, no, like all congressmen and women should be, like, banned from trading stocks, right? That should be something that we don't allow to take place. It's not even a partisan issue, and I don't get why it's politicized. For example, the Supreme Court ethics code that just passed.

Like, I mean, how is that? That's not a partisan issue. It's sad that we have to have a code of ethics, but I think it's smart to have rules around, you know, what you can and can't do when you get to decide as a Supreme Court justice, what the law of the land is. Like, what does constitutional mean, right? Like, is this constitutional or not? Well, if you have interests that are funding you or taking you on vacations,

you shouldn't be able to weigh in on whether or not that issue is constitutional. And I just think that we need to have much, I think we need to be first and foremost, self-regulating because you can't catch every rat out there, right? Somebody is going to do something wrong and we're not going to catch everything. But I think that we have to value wanting to do the right thing. And I don't know how you get people there other than to speak to their self-interest, which is much greater than what they see. It's like the marshmallow test with a kid who's got like marshmallows in front of them.

And his dad's like, hey, I'm going to totally jack this up. But, you know, if you can have one marshmallow now or you can have like the whole bag, if you just wait five minutes until I come back, you know. And, you know, so many kids, I mean, we act like the kids, right? We're like that five-year-old who's like, but the marshmallow is in front of me and I really want it. Instead of thinking long term, like, I get the whole bag if I wait. And I think that's how we play politics is we say, I want to win this now because this is important to me right now. And this is a near term win for me as opposed to thinking the actual win is that we get to have a society that's free and thriving and that it's not going to just swing.

180 the opposite way when the people that I'm voting against take over because that's how it's always going to be. Talk about the third option. Yes. So the third option is the name of the book that my pastor wrote in 2017 right after I lost my congressional race. I was kind of trying to figure out what do I want to do next? And that was the beginning of 2017. And I went in to see my pastor after one of the sermons one day that he gave and he said, hey, I'm going to send you this manuscript. Like, this is rough draft. Somebody ghost wrote it for me, but they're all my ideas. Can you just give me like a Republican perspective on how to heal the racial divide, which is what he was writing about?

So it's important to remember the time frame. This is 2017, not 2020. And so I said, well, I mean, I'm technically a minority. I'm half Chinese, but I don't really think that I understand your purpose. perspective as a black man that grew up in the 60s and 70s in America. And he goes, no, no, no, I really just want your perspective from like a Republican perspective, like a conservative, sort of more white mainstream perspective. And I said, okay. And he said, I kind of need it back in 24 hours. And then I'm a lawyer. So I can read fast and I'm good at editing. And so I took it and I do what I do

when I was, you know, editing in law review and things like that at Georgetown. And I just made bleed because I'm like, no. Like I just had these reactions to the things he was saying, not because they were wrong, but I'm like, if you want to get people, if you want to speak to the people that you're trying to move the needle with, you can't say it like that. One of the chapters of his title initially was white privilege, which for him, I mean, he explains it beautifully in the chapter. But I said, you know, if you're trying to appeal to people about how we bridge the racial divide in America, coming at them with a charged title like that is just going to shut off a lot of people that you really want on your side. So let's rethink what you're really trying to say

and package in a way that doesn't compromise the truth, but actually helps you convey it to them without seeming offensive or shutting them down. And we actually got in a lot of sort of, we had tense moments where I think, I don't think he hung up on me per se, but let's just say like the phone went dead one time when I said, do you really believe that? And you know, he's my spiritual mentor. He's the one that cares. I love, I think he called me to a higher place in terms of believing that there needs to be unity amongst people. And that's who he is. So I knew his heart. And so I wanted to pull out what his heart was when he wrote this book. And so the third option was saying, it's not about us versus them. It's not about partisan agenda.

as, you know, Republican versus Democrats. It's about the principles that we stand on. And actually, the third option was about whose side are we on, right? There's this Bible story that we really pulled it from. It's in the book of Joshua, which is an Old Testament story. And Joshua, you probably heard, everyone's probably heard of the story of the Battle of Jericho. And in it, Joshua is this great, you know, leader from Israelites, and he's getting ready to go and take the promised land. and the night before the battle, which is going to be a huge battle in his mind,

someone walks up to him and says, and he pulls his sword and he says, who are you? Are you with the bad guy? Are you with us? Are you on their side? Are you with us? And turns out this guy, it's in the Bible, was a messenger of God. And he says, neither, but as a messenger of the Lord, I come. And so Joshua immediately put down his futile like weapons against someone who's like a messenger of God.

And he says, then I want to be on your side. And if you take out the faith element of it, what you're saying is, you know, I want to be on the side of truth. I want to be on the side of love, on the side of righteousness, which is what all of that stood for in that messenger of God. and put aside this divisive man-made things of like you versus me and let's come together on the principles. And so I talk about that a lot in the book. I say, let's get past the partisan. It's okay to be partisan.

It's okay to fall on one side of the day. I think it's great that you have really strong perspectives and they align with someone that you think represents what they are or a party. But let's be more committed to the principles that we all stand for than the partisan talking points and the agenda. this because those are always going to change. So the third option is us, like standing on the side of what's in the best interest of all of us. Does that eventually require like letting go of camps, right? I wrestled with this a lot because this is what everyone kind of feels, right? Is like, do I have to become milk toast?

Do we have to be someone who's constantly suppressing? how I feel. But if you go back to what we originally started talking about, Drew, it's that you're so grateful for the diversity of opinions. Like we all are, right? It's like this full circle conversation where we can just kind of talk ourselves out of having any opinion when in fact it's the diversity of opinion that enables us to have so many perspectives that can help shape what we actually believe. So if we start to dim our own light, then, and by that I just mean muscling ourselves. Again, when you speak, it's important to do so with wisdom and discernment.

But if you're always saying, you know what, probably the smartest thing is for me to not just say anything. You're literally robbing the world of that perspective that you might be the only one who shares that, has that perspective, or you might be the most eloquent person to articulate that perspective. And you just robbed everyone around you from hearing it. and literally elevating the tone in the room. I think one sort of parallel to that, not a counter, but a sort of a parallel is like, you know, I say like, where do you live?

Right. So if I ask you like, where do you live? What do you answer? Right. Like, where do you actually live? Oh, I live in Northern California. Yeah, in the Bay Area. You live in the Bay Area.

Yeah. Right. I'm like, where's the trick in this, Joe? There's no trick in it, right? So where do I live? I live in Los Angeles. Yeah. Like, I'm not, I'm not Los Angeles.

Like people may vote more Republican. They may vote more Democrat. Yeah. But it's always funny to me when people are like, I'm a Republican, I'm a Democrat, I'm this, and that. I understand that we need identifications to understand some basic kind of components that are there. But the more that I feel like we could slip that in

in which just all of our identities, right? Like even how we eat, again, it's not unique to politics. It shows up in a lot of different things. And then I'm not trying to take it away that I don't want people to identify themselves by what religion they are. Right. But I think we I think that that's where politics sometimes feels like it is a religion. It's like I am a Democrat. I am a Republican. And it's like, okay, great, you just told me how you look at the entire world. Yes. Through this lens that's there. And it's like how useful is that

as we start to end up in these more blended spaces. And even, you know, previously I remember growing up, My dad, I said, Dad, are you a Republican Democrat? I said, you know, I mostly vote Democratic, but, you know, we voted Republican, and here's the elections that I voted this way. And our local representative in Delaware that I volunteered for in high school was a Republican. I'm flanking on his name, but there aren't many in Delaware, so I'm sure. There aren't many, but he was in our area. And I was like, okay, cool, I get it.

Like, you know, there's that fluidity that's there. But I think that you can still, again, nobody wants to be. milk toast. Right. Which I never heard of that before, but I know it now what it means. Yeah. So you can speak up for who you are and you can still also like not have that identity. I feel like that's naturally the more you progress in sort of your wisdom. Yeah. The more it's going to be like, why would you be beholden to anybody else's view that they would be shaping upon you? Yeah. Versus just your own independent view on things. I hear you on that. I think in politics, specifically, you end up in binary choices, right? You're either voting for the Republican or the

Democrat. So in a sense, you have to ascribe to one candidate or the other. As long as you're still talking about the things that matter to you, I think that Americans have so much power than they realize to actually hold strong to principles and force the candidates. Because again, we get the democracy that we want. We get the candidates that we choose. We have primaries where we get to choose who we want to be in our party of choice as the representative or the head of that party. And so if we say, you know, we're not voting for you unless you believe in this or you represent this, just standing together. I mean, I think the people in the middle could probably pull all of the candidates sort of into a more centrist perspective, or at least I don't want to

say centrist because that does seem somewhat watered down, but maybe more, okay, we bring all of this and you bring all of this. Now let's give and take, right? So you're not compromising the strength of what you believe, but you're also giving and taking so that both of those perspectives end up on the ballot together. And most people are centrist. Like you're talking about the silent majority. Absolutely. Most people are centrist.

We're not that divided. And we get pulled in one direction or another because it's just the way that elections are set up. Yeah. What do you think? Is there any chance of the United States ever having ranked choice voting? You know, I've read a lot about ranked choice because it seems like so smart. But then sometimes you end up with like everybody's second choice, like being first, right?

And it's like there's so many, and I don't know it super well, but I've seen, I've read articles on the pros and cons of that. You know, I always think that there's, you know, you've got the mansions out there talking about running. You've always got Sununu in the background. All these like people from these interesting states, New Hampshire in particular is always interesting because everyone's just like, you know, live free or die. There's just their own brand of politics. The thing is, at the end of the day, you always end up having people who have. It always ends up being two camps. It just does.

Even if you look at countries that have a thousand political parties, they have coalitions, which end up being what? Two camps. Two camps, but they end up being leaning a little bit more moderate because you have to work with other side of the group. Sometimes. Sometimes. I mean, if you see what just happened in Sweden, I mean, a far right, it was like a huge backlash,

right. I think it's Sweden. I hope I got that right. Gosh, I should be more up on the news. But I think it was Sweden and it was they went from a very progressive government to Argentina, the guy who looks like the wolf man. Yeah, former soccer player. Yeah, he's like, he doesn't care about anything. And he took like, I mean, he swept.

Yeah. The election. This is a huge backlash. So the libertarian. Yeah. Whatever, wherever you end up feeling like, you know, oh gosh, it would be so great if we could have more of a thoughtful sort of let's all trend together kind of perspective. You see that countries that have a bunch of different parties all end up still having the same trends because humans are humans or humans regardless of what society they live in, what country, what boundaries they're within and what they agree to sort of live with as a form of government. And so I think I go back to sort of what you initially asked, and I was just thinking about it as you were talking because you make some really, really good points about, you know, do we need to be that committed to something?

What I found in watching my dad, he just passed away in July at the age of 86, was that he was really kind of like us when I was growing up. He didn't, he was a Republican, but he wasn't like this diehard partisan. And you're seeing these trends as people get older and presumably more wise. They start to be really clear in what they believe. And I wonder if in 20 years we were here having this conversation if we would actually think that being sort of more. I don't want to say open because it sounds like they're closed. But to be more sure of what you believe after having lived another 20 or 40 years wouldn't make you just kind of say, you know, I just know what I believe and this is what

I stand for without any reservations or apologies or even concern about what other people think. And I don't think we can have that perspective until we lived till we're 80 something. But I do think, again, going back to my original premise, I think I'm better off when I'm able to say how I feel in the moment with, you know, all the degrees of respect and in a manner that encourages other people to say the same. And I hear what somebody has that says something very different from me. It really makes me think. And I appreciate them showing up as their true self. Everything is time and place dependent. Different kinds of conversations are relevant

depending and fruitful based on the type of relationship that you have. I couldn't have the conversations I have with my friend Andrea, who's a Democrat, with someone off the street that I didn't know because they don't know my heart and I don't know their heart so I can't make the same assumptions about them. So I won't naturally be as open to their perspectives as I would to somebody that I really love. So Arthur Brooks says this brilliant thing and love your enemies. It's a great book. He says, every time somebody comes or has a conversation, it comes at you and says, those people, the Republicans, those Democrats, they're idiots, personalize it. Think of the person that you love the most that represents the person

that other speaker came against and make it personal and say no no you can't say that about those people because those people is the person that I love the most and that's not who they are and when we start taking personally what people say about people we disagree with you're going to start seeing a change of heart and change in the way that we engage each other well said uh Denise has been The Brooks said it well. I'm just repeating. It's the sense of it's so easy to call the name when we depersonalize. But the second that we make it human about a coworker, a friend, a situation, a family member,

you know, I had a mentor who said that take somebody that you disagree with. And if you saw their entire life, even if you don't know them directly, They saw their entire life from the time that they were born to how they grew up, the influences, the things that happened, the things that didn't happen for them, what worked out, what didn't, when they were bullied, when they were lifted up, when they succeeded, when they failed. You saw every moment and it sort of, you saw everything, every second, but it was fast forwarded in a way that you could understand. He saw it as a 90-minute movie. You would leave that movie feeling two things. sure, there may be areas in their life decisions. So you say, okay, I wouldn't do that or I don't condone that.

But one thing that you wouldn't be able to leave with is you wouldn't be able to leave with the sense of I don't understand them. I don't understand them. Because when you actually walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, when you actually see everything that they go through, so I understand them. That doesn't mean I agree with them. Right. I understand where they're coming from. Yeah. It's like one of the things that I look forward, like look forward.

in any kind of conversation, even if people are not talking about politics, is that people often set themselves up in conversational say, I just don't understand. Now, sometimes it's a euphemism. It's just something that people are saying. But oftentimes people do mean it. I don't understand when my mom said this. I don't understand what my cousin did that. It's like, that's actually it. You don't understand. If you did, if you did, it'd be different. So now the next question becomes, okay, yeah, I don't understand. Right. What could I understand? What could I possibly assume people are not, the vast majority of people are not crazy.

Right. They're doing things because of a particular reason. Again, that doesn't mean that you have to agree with them. And then the compassion that comes from, as you've mentioned many times in this podcast and I have two, we've both changed our mind on things. Oh, gosh, so much. And people who are older, I often see this situation. As we get older and we've become more refined in our views, sometimes, not always. If the wisdom is there and the inside, it's like, wow, I was young and dumb and thought this,

XYZ. Yeah. I was, you know, a staunch X, Y, and Z because I thought I understood the world and it all made sense. Let me have some compassion for people who are in that situation now. Sure, they might be doing it in a different way than I would do it. Right. But let me have at least some compassion that they see the world the way that they do, even if I disagree with them.

Because I've been in that situation before. But sometimes as people become more refined in their views, it's like, how could anybody think that way? Right. How could anybody think? We forget. We forget our past. And that's the nature of humanity. Yes.

It's the nature. And that's why young ideas, young beliefs, young thoughts ultimately end up shaping the world and sort of changing the world eventually. And we become an amalgamation of older generations and young to hopefully move society towards the better. But I think it's really that sense of maintaining that compassion, whether it's an individual conversation, whether it's before we tweet, before we chime in on stuff. And just to understand, like, if you think you weren't crazy with your views previously, you're either lying. Right? Delusional. Or delusional.

Yeah. Right? It's one of the other. have some compassion for people, even if you so firmly believe in this idea. And I hope the people that are listening out there that you have an idea, you believe it, you're fighting for it. You're going for that thing that's out there. And again, we could all learn from the folks that, you know, do it with a little bit more compassion. Yeah, because at the end of the day, this book is about politics.

I said this earlier, but it bears repeating. But at the end of the day, this is about how we treat one another. politics is just one way in which we have become, we've really given a voice to the contempt that we feel for one another. If you do any relational, if you write any books by John Gottman about relationships, and he talks about, you know, the four horsemen of the relational apocalypse, one of them is contempt and that's the worst feeling that really spells the doom of a relationship. So these principles that I write about are really just extensions of how we relate to people interpersonally, which usually goes back to a biblical principle that I think bears repeating, which is Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you don't love yourself and you're looking for your identity in other things because

you don't have compassion for yourself, it's going to be impossible for you to have compassion for other people. It's just, it's not in you. And so I think the best thing that all of us can do, regardless of where we sit on the political aisle or in any relational situation, is to really continue to grow in love for ourselves, compassion for ourselves, grace with ourselves, so that I can look back at this book full of my mistakes and all the things I've done wrong without any shame. Because I say, those were all steps that I took that helps me become the person I'm still trying to become. the aspirational things that I write about in here that I still struggle with, but I'm so much further than I was back then. And so read it for what it is, a guidebook to politics, why you should get engaged, and there's

a lot of practical things in there. But at the end of the day, love yourself, love the people you disagree with, but make sure that you're really holding space for, at the end of the day, what it is that you believe and really holding space to believe that you could potentially also be wrong. That's called humility. The book is out there, politics for people who hate politics

or love politics. Everybody can benefit from it. If you want to help people see a different perspective and engage and create a better nation, regardless of where you live, but especially most of my audience here in America, this book is for you. We'll have the link in the show notes.

People can get on Amazon and all the bookstores that are out there. Denise, how can people keep in touch with you? Well, I'm on all the socials. Denise Grace gets them. I think you can just do a little Google search out there and you'll find it all. But I really enjoy hearing from people and what they think about the book because I've found that people on both sides of the aisle, just the feedback that I've gotten has been to say, you know what, this just helped remind me of first principles.

And really how much I do love people that I disagree with. And this is going to help me in my personal relationship. That's really the stuff that's been most life-giving to me. And so I'd love to hear from you if you end up reading it or just listening to this podcast and just hear what you think because I'm sure that my views need to continue to evolve. And I'd love to hear your perspectives on how I could get better too. All of us. All of us.

Denise, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been a pleasure. I love talking to you. I appreciate you. It's been fantastic to know you over these years. I know. And thank you for having this dialogue with me. Thank you for giving me a platform to speak.

Hi, everyone, Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do

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