The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 342 (Best of 10/07/24-10/11/24)

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 359 (10/07/24-10/11/24)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Jess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Beau. Hey, Matt.

Are you ready to tell the readers about the extra special episode we have coming up? I think we have to let them in on our little surprise. Yeah, if you haven't already figured it out, the queen of Christmas herself, can't believe this, Mariah Carey, will be joining us this week. Wow. Readers, publicists, caties, and finalists,

tune in to maybe the most unforgettable episode of Lost Culture Eastus yet. Listen to Lost Culture Eastus on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sheryl Swoops. And I'm Tariqa Foster-Brasby. And on our new podcast, we're talking about the real obstacles women face day to day.

Because no matter who you are, there are levels to what we experience as women. And T and I have no problem going there. Listen to levels to this with Cheryl Spoops and Tariqa Foster-Brasby, an iHeart Women's Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One,

founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Julian Edelman. I'm Rob Gronkowski. And we are super excited to tell you about our new show, Dudes on Dudes. We're spilling all the behind-the-scenes stories, crazy details, and honestly, just having a blast talking football.

Every week, we're discussing our favorite players of all times, from legends to our buddies, to current stars. We're finally answering the age old question. What kind of dudes are these dudes? We're going to find out, Jules. New episodes drop every Thursday during the NFL season. Listen to Dudes on Dudes on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I'm the host of On Purpose. My latest episode is with Jelly Roll. dudes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. biggest artists. I was a desperate delusional dreamer. Be a delusional dreamer. Just don't be a desperate delusional dreamer. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Trust me, you won't want to miss this one. Hello the internet and welcome to this episode of the weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one non-stop infotainment, laugh, stravaganza. So without further ado,

here is the weekly Zeitgeist. Anyways, Miles, we're thrilled to be joined in our third and fourth seats by the co-hosts of the wonderful podcast that you must go listen to right now, the Future of Our Former Democracy. They are the executive director and the director of policy and outreach respectively for the racial justice organization, More Equitable Democracy. Please welcome George Chung and Colin Cole.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, welcome. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for stopping by. It's really bright in here, wow. Yeah, you know, we like to keep the lights on. We like to keep the lights on. We have invited you into just a blank white space. We record in heaven.

A void. The heaven, the white void of old Mac versus PC commercials. Or what was the one, in Willy Wonka, where are they at when they go into that all white space? Oh, they're in the TV, I think. Oh, that's in the TV. Inside the TV. Yeah, well, inside the TV.

Colin Cole, AKA Mike TV. Oh, you're Mike TV? Yeah. Well, that inside the TV. Hey, Colin Cole, AKA Mike TV. Oh, you're Mike TV. Yeah. I've always been a little bit of whatever the guy is who gets sucked into the tube. Oh, something German. Yeah. Augustus. Yeah.

Augustus something. Come on. Nail it. Come on. It it. Come on. It'll come to you. I said Google Willy Wonka German. I mixed it up. My brain is a glop and there it is.

Shout out to super producer Victor bringing it. Yeah. Liked the gloop a little too much. Maybe someone said that is a movie I recently watched with my children, and it has 30 really good minutes. It is just coasting off of our memory of those 30 really good minutes. Oh, really? Yeah, there's a lot of it that's just like, ''Uh-huh. All right.''

After they leave the big candy world and go on the boat ride, it does kind of grind to a halt a little bit. There's other moments, but like they are fleeting. And that's just my opinion. A shame. I just remember always hating when he got all mad at Charlie. I was like, dude, what?

You're supposed to be cool. And as a kid, I didn't know what to make sense of that character's experience. I'm like, dude, this guy's an asshole. Let's just turn this off. I thought you were turning off. You never saw the end. Yeah. I was like, what an asshole.

Now, did you see him? That took a real turn. Yeah. Yep. George, Colin, thank you so much for joining us from the great Northwest. Yes. You guys are in Seattle. Is that correct?

Yep. Am I pronouncing that right? Just keep going and take a left. Past Reading. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Yep.

Yep. Keep going. Keep on going. Is it, is it called the five up there or what? No, it's I-5 up here. It's just I-5. Yeah. It's an LA, maybe San Francisco.

Nobody else awards highways the importance of being V-5. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but it is an important interstate, you know? We love our interstates, don't we, folks? Yeah, we love them. That's why the 10 also deserves respect, going from sea to shining sea. Oh, right.

They're all given the the the, I think in, in LA and only at LA. I've never heard of it. What the history is of our inability to just, I guess it, because we always want to speak differently than other people. It's a remnant of surfer culture. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Take 101 dude over to the 405. Yeah. Take the 101 dude over to the 405. They catch the 118 over hit me meet you up in Granada Hills. Uh, but yeah, anyway, that's probably not as important as about then what we're about to talk about today, but I still wanted to mention that.

Yeah. What is something from your search history? I was so when I, when they sent this question over to me, I was like, Oh Lord, let me not go back and look at incognito mode, but I am going to go right now. To my phone and wow, we're getting the live results. The results are coming in as we speak miles and adulterated. Yep. And I feel like, you know, there's always this divide with what you search.

It's like the default browser on my iPhone is Safari. So I think my first searches come there, but my favorite saved tabs are in Chrome. So my third, fourth wave searches live there. Right, right, right. But we're going to start with my recent Safari Google searches. How do I? Okay. I Googled Roquefort cheese.

There you go. Oh, I was talking in another podcast this morning about one of these far right conspiracy theories about some people on the right saying that Biden has been slow on hurricane response because he's been at his beach house sunning his testicles. So that led me to Google the time that Tucker Carlson was pushing testicle tanning on his show. So my last real Google were the three words, Tucker Carlson testicles. Yes. Fantastic.

And how are we, how are the results? What do we, what do we want to go down that path? Really? You don't want to go down that. I know that is surprising to me. It just kind of outlines how this dude was like fully crazy. And like two years ago, he was telling people to sun their testicles to up their testosterone and he had someone called a bromio therapist on or something

to talk about all this stuff, just cook science, cook science, Bromia opathy or something like that. Br Bromeopathy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Bromeopathy. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. There's a Vanity Fair headline that reads, Tucker Carlson, colon, tan your balls if you want to be a real man. Wow. Wow. And while we're here, and I can say this because I'm gay, so I can be offensive to straight men. Who on the, what straight man in the world is taking how to be a man lessons from Tucker fucking Carlson? Not only, well, only how's the most?

Yeah, the most misguided, I think. Hold on. Yeah. What did Tucker say? It's like, I guess, do I keep my bow tie on? Yeah. When I tan my balls. Because I remember, wasn't there someone like around like at the start of the lockdown, someone was talking about like sunning your butthole too and like your I don't remember wasn't there someone like around like at the start of the lockdown Someone was talking about like sunning your butthole too and like your taint was like another that was a thing Also, then for a while Gwyneth Paltrow was like stick this jade egg up your noni. Yeah. Yeah

I think there was some noni sunning as well on the side if I'm not mistaken And for a second there was noni steaming Right, and I know this because. And for a second there was noni steaming. Right. And I know this because years ago when that was a trend, I was like, oh, they can't keep this from the men. So I went to a spot in LA that did the vaginal steaming. No. And in all earnestness, I went with my former partner

and I was like, well, can you do it for us too? And they were mad that I would even ask. I was like, well, steam mine too. They're like hopping. They wouldn't steam it. What, alas, they wouldn't steam me. Why? It's probably for the best. It's just for vagines. But I mean, like, is the techno I mean, what I'm picturing just maybe someone having like a garment steamer, like underneath a sheet. And then like a barbershop like capes that you put like around your waist. Right, right, right. Huh? Yeah. Okay. Well, right. Huh, okay, well.

Yeah. Hey, for those of us being- So one day I'll find out. Yeah, if you're being discriminated, just get yourself a garment steamer or maybe a humidifier, and wrap yourself in a towel. We legally cannot give this advice on the spot.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Anyway, check out my live stream on Saturday morning, but don't do what I do. Do as I say, not as I do. That's right. Also, Gwyneth, if you need a male volunteer as tribute. Right. Yeah.

I like you Gwyneth. I think you're cool. I volunteer to be steamed. It does suggest that the people who are doing the steaming are like in it for the wrong reasons. Like what, why are they discriminating between, you know, like, hmm. Cause if, cause I'd imagine, right. Like if, are they saying like the bet you just won't get the benefits from it. Is that a way of saying, you know, you're not going to be able to do that? You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that.

You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that. You're not going to be able to do that.

You're not going to be able to do thated as I was going to that storefront, they probably were like, is this guy pranking us? So I go, right, right. I get it. Sure. I get it. Yeah. Yeah.

You did have an entire YouTube video crew with you. I had James O'Keefe right behind me. Yeah. Wearing a pimp costume. Yeah. That's great. Hey, Chris. Yes. What's right. Hey, Chris. Yes.

What's something you think is underrated? Thank you, host of The Daily Zeitgeist, Jack O'Brien. I think that something underrated is the movie Devil at Your Heels. It's a documentary I've mentioned, I think, before on this show many, many years ago, maybe. I feel like an early reference to this. Yes. It's one of my favorite things. It turns out it's almost impossible to make someone watch a documentary.

You can tell them about it over. You can tell them about it over and you can make it your life's mission to use every breath in your body to tell people about this movie, Devil at Your Heels. And no one will watch it no matter what. I just love that as a truism about human experience. No matter how much you fucking love a documentary, it is almost impossible to get somebody to watch a documentary. I feel like the only way I've done it is to be like,

it's gonna fuck you up. There's such a twist in it. I feel like the only time I've gotten people to watch a documentary was that one about like the tickle tournaments. Oh, yeah, yeah. It started one way and then goes, yeah. Another way. Every other time I talk about it's true.

Like they're like, oh yeah, I check it out. Well, what makes me mad is American cinema tech in LA. Like somebody just showed it. They just showed devil at your heels. The only, the only print in the world, they showed it in LA and like my friend Seth, who I've told about who's directing a documentary about me, ding, and it's done. It's done. I'll mention that. Maybe I'll mention that'll be underrated. So, or overrated. So overrated will be like

not knowing about that documentary or something. So yeah, see what I did? So I do it every time. It's amazing. We do it every day. Oh, so cool. So cool. So anyway, The Devil at Your Heels is just a great movie about a guy who's who's like a dreamer. And he's trying to jump a car over the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is like a half mile to a mile wide. And he is so damn genuine and, and, and earnest that he manages to get the ramp built. And he sort of gets it to happen in a roundabout way.

But there's a twist in the movie too. And the movie also includes why he's bound to Downs main character's name, Kenny Powers. Cause Kenny Powers is without a doubt the reference to this movie, which is Kenny Powers is the guy who ends up jumping the car. But the way that we end up with that is like so neat. But also I'm just hoping on this show, you guys will see it.

And now that American Cinematheque has gotten on board, whatever, you guys will all be like, oh, my gosh, you'll smoke pipes and talks about it. And I'm so mad. Yeah. So Seth finally went and saw it when it was in L.A. and he's like, that documentary was incredible. And I was like, you know what? Fuck you.

Like, I feel like I can't watch this now. Like, there's no win win for me at this point. I watch it now. You're gonna be like, Yeah, exactly. No, it's not. I thought no, that's what I thought. You need to know this is a perfect vehicle. So let's roll the very beginning. It's just it's a it's a Connecticut. It's a Connecticut. It's a I'm from Connecticut. It's a Canadian broadcasting company. So it's public domain.

It's a great, great resource. Also Canadian, Canadian broadcasting company posts all their great stuff. I just want to show people the ramp. And I feel like then people will be on board. People will understand. Yeah. As soon as do you see. When you see, yeah.

Do you see how reckless we were? But are you guys gonna? Here we go. Oh, sorry. No, I didn't know. Sorry, without further ado. No, no, But are you guys gonna? Here we go. Oh, sorry, I'm sorry. No, I didn't know. Sorry, without further ado. No, no, no, no, no, do the adieu. The show is the adieu.

No, many apologies to you Chris Crofton. Welcome to the Canadian Broadcasting Company podcast. Yes, here we go. Oh, I love that logo. National Film Board of Canada, okay. Wow. That's a poorly built ramp. Now that doesn't get you interested in watching a documentary. I don't know

what to tell you. I'm sorry. Try and jump that body of water with that ramp. Yes. On what? In a Lincoln continental with wings on it. And he gets pretty damn far and he gets a lot of experts on board with them. He gets someone to put the wings on a car. He gets this expert guy to say that he's like, well, I don't know how he can do it, but once he's up there, these wings will work. He can steer them in the air. I don't see how he's going to get up there, but these will work if he does. I mean, he's like, I don't, this whole thing sounds unlikely to me, but if he

does get up in the air and he is cruising, he will be able to move the car with these wings. Wow. So it's like also he can't swim. What can Carter can't swim? So the guy is getting in a winged Lincoln Continental and trying to jump across a fucking river. Do you know what? I'm sure you've seen the documentary. What is that distance exactly? He has to go across like a half mile a mile or something. Yeah, it's

impossible. Well, he's planning on going 600 miles an hour off the ramp but he has a jet car. Yeah, it's a jet car and it does go like 290 miles an hour off the ramp when it eventually goes but that's not nearly enough to get to cruising altitude. It turns out. So so he never gets but anyway, it's a great it's a Ken Carter is just awesome. He he's he's like a grade school dropout or like a high school maybe he says fourth grade but I think in Canada that

means something else. So I think it's like maybe he dropped out of high school. I don't know. But he's like year four or something in Canada. He's really confident and for no reason he calls himself a healthy specimen when he's broken every bone in his body. He's just great. He says, I'm a healthy specimen, standing on the threshold of life.

He's like 42 and has broken every bone in his body. I just love, it's inspirational. All right, here we go. And then what am I? My God, it's Kenny Powers. It is Kenny Powers. This guy, the full goatee, the curly hair, possibly permed. It was this man is a lovely man. This guy is a lovely man. He's insane.

But this he's about to tell you all in me what I'm like, he admits what what the quest for fame is all about. But he doesn't he says something so earth shatteringly honest right here. But it's just amazing anyway. And I'll show. Oh, no, no, no. This is the guy who tries to jump it and this is can like long quest. It has been to try and jump. Yeah, and he does other I mean, he's been also doing stunts along the way. But he wants this big monster stunt. Because he wants to be the greatest daredevil of all time.

And right before this clip, evil Knievel comes out and checks out his they were going to broadcast this on wide world of sports, but then they decided not to because they thought he was going to die. So Evil Knievel is in this documentary, Evil Knievel is in this documentary and he comes and assesses the jump and talks to Ken and Ken's thrilled. You know, Ken, he was a relentless human being and he had two personalities that he talks about. He's like, there's Ken Polichek and then there's Ken Carter because his real name is Ken Polichek.

He's like, Ken Polichek is the one who says, maybe you shouldn't do this jump. Maybe it's not a good idea. But then Ken Carter says, what are you talking about you pussy? So it's like a very, very, there's so much. Inside of you are two wolves. Both of them have pretty normal last names. Yeah. Polichek or Carter.

Yeah. Ken Carter, a cooler name. That's so funny. Yeah. What did he call him? Ken Jump or Carter. Ken Carter, a cooler name. So funny. Yeah. What did he call him? Ken jump or something. Yeah. So Kenny Powers.

Okay. So this is him. This is on fame. You said this is him sort of speaking. Yeah. He's going to talk about why he jumps and it turns out this is why you do stand up, why you play music, why you, I mean, it's just amazing. Some work harder at some things.

Some sacrifices are a little more than others. So therefore they deserve more You know It's money if it's glory no matter what it may be I always said that when I first started I always I said it's money But years years went by and I knew that wasn't it. I then begin its challenge. It's it's all the challenge It's a challenge and it's a starvation for popularity is what it is. It's a challenge. It's all a challenge. It's a challenge. And it's a starvation for popularity is what it is. It's an.

That's it right there. Shit, dude. You had just been liked by three more people in high school. I love it. You know, I just love it. It's race. And he throws that in. You know, he's like, first, I thought it was money. You know, yeah. And then then then I thought it was the challenge. know? And then I thought it was the challenge.

But then I realized that it's a challenge. And a starvation for popularity. Moving along. I just love that. I want to start doing that. Everything I do when I get if I ever get interviewed about anything, I'm just going to be like, listen, it's a starvation for popularity, primarily. I also like to paint.

Like, yeah, I like to paint. If Van interview with Van Gogh. Yeah. I like to paint, but I also, I'm also starved and popularity. Fucking dying over here, man. And I'm doing it. You like me already? Right.

So that was like, we're amazingly honest. Right. Right. Right. He's an endearing guy because I'm so invested. Now I'm like, I just want to go to the part where he jumps the fucking car. But it's so complicated. Give it the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like there's a corporate guy who comes in and tries to make him jump when the ramp's not ready. Amazing. And he's like, I don't want to die. You know, he's like, I don't want to die. The ramp's not ready. And he's like, yeah, it is. I think it's going to smooth out once you get up to speed. And once you get up to speed, smooth out.

And this guy who says it's going to smooth out once you get up to speed and once you get up to speed, smooth out. And this guy who says it's going to smooth out, he was trying to kill Ken Carter because the money men are like, get him to fucking jump the car. We got film rolling. I was just costing money because there was a production crew to shoot it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they were from Hollywood for real. They were like, came in from Hollywood. They kept saying in the documentary, these Hollywood guys and they were like, the Hollywood guys were like, listen, man, we're burning daylight, get him to jump the car.

And so there's all this. Intrigue. And then there's just like, yeah, things like that. Like, uh, and there's also tons of people misusing, um, metaphors and old sayings and stuff like that guy right before, you know, he'll say, like, they were like, you think Ken can do this? And he's like, well, a man's got to bite off a hunk and fight it till he can. You know, like he uses a lot of misused sayings in it.

You got to fight that hunk you bit off. Yeah. What is something that you think is overrated? I think independence is overrated. I'm like really anti being independent these days. I don't think you should be codependent, but I think there's this sweet spot called interdependence where like you let yourself depend on other people,

they depend on you, but you also go out and have your own life. And I think that like, especially American culture is just like, no, you must be able to do everything on your own. And that's just like not nice and often not feasible. So I'm anti-independence. Sure, sure, sure.

Not according to this little declaration of independence that I keep on me at all times. We need a declaration of interdependence. Interdependence. Yeah. Yes. Like, you should be along to a club. You should have friends. Yeah. You should have friends.

Yeah, we just have trouble asking for help. You know what I mean? That's where the independence mindset comes in. It's like, I don't need help. Exactly. I can do this. Where that's, to your point, that's the most fulfilling part

of having relationships with people is that you can be like, I need help. And then you have people who are like, hi, can I help you? And you're like, wow, this is this is cool. I don't have to bootstrap my way out of this terrible. When that person shows up, I'm just smoking a cigarette saying to the person next to me, who's this guy? Who's this guy?

Who's this guy? Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it, creep. I need help. May I help you get the fuck out of here? Whoa, look at this creep. What do you think? I mean, like our is that sort of like the accepting the help and then also like being comfortable relying on somebody. Right. So as we talked about before we started recording, my mom passed away like two and a half weeks ago and it was horrible. And she died from a very rare, awful disease called CJD. But like so many people showed up for us and helped.

And like my sister's friends were like taking care of her children. Like my friends were like doing stuff for me in Los Angeles. Like it was just like a period of time where like we just like actively needed help and then to like realize that people not only could do that, but like wanted to do that there were even times where like I didn't necessarily need someone to do something, but I could tell that, but like wanted to do that. There were even times where like, I didn't necessarily need someone to do something, but I could tell that they would just want to do something so badly. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Like, do you have garbage you need taken out? Yeah. I'll fucking come throw your garbage out and bring some whatever. Yeah, yeah. Like literally, yeah. And so I think it just like really,

I mean, it was something I'd obviously already been thinking a lot about, having this whole book on marriage coming out and been researching, you know, marriage for the last few years. But this just like really, you know, solidified for me that like none of this is really worth it if we don't have people in our lives that we like care about and connect with and show up for. Yeah. Yeah. And at a like Zeitgeist news level, I mean, as we're recording this, Hurricane Milton is a few hours away from making landfall. We talked about yesterday that while the mainstream media wants to focus on looting and acts of

violence that happened in the wake of these hurricanes, really the overwhelming account that you get from these sorts of disasters is like other people helping one another. Like you said, like in a disaster, in a really difficult moment, like people show up for one another. It's just like when it's at this level of like abstraction of, you know, institutions that things start to get fucked up. But yeah. And just like with the way society is built, like you can't just like go get a regular job and then buy yourself a house the way that you used to and or like that some people were able to. And so now there's this like, I don't know, there's just like this weirdness

around like depending on your parents or depending on like your extended family, but you have to. Like a lot of times like that's the best option. And I think that like we've built so much guilt around that when like in reality, like it's like a privilege to be able to maybe depend on your parents, even though you grew up thinking by 35, I shouldn't have to anymore. Right. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We need the help.

That attitude. The system is fucked. We need the help. So take it. Yeah. People want to give it if you can to give the help if you can too. Yes. People want to give it. Give it if you can too. Give the help if you can too. Yes.

Absolutely. Because somebody is definitely willing to accept it usually. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and we'll talk about somebody who took some help from her father-in-law. We'll be right back. Hey, Beau. Hey, Bo. Hey, Matt. Are you ready to tell the readers about the extra special episode we have coming up?

Yes. I'll see you soon. But you can do that kind of spooky scary. Well, yeah, but it's also because it's a ride. Yeah, I know. But you're in it, you know? You're in the spook. I think we have to let them in on our little surprise.

Yeah, if you haven't already figured it out, can't believe this, Mariah Carey will be joining us this week. I say, oh, I wanna go work with such and such from across town. Yeah, from across town. My girl across town. Yeah, across town.

I know a guy across town. I know a guy. Readers, publishers, Cateys, and finalists, tune in to maybe the most unforgettable episode of Lost Culture Eastus yet. There's one more question, which I promised myself I would ask. Can you drop that grunge album? I'm so mad that I haven't done that yet.

But you don't have to be mad because you're in control. I am, but who do I drop it with? Should we start a label? Maybe. Wow. Listen to Lost Culture Eastus on the iHeartRadio app, Who do I drop it with? So should we start a label? Maybe. Wow. Listen to Las Colteristas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian, Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Piece, the Elian Gonzalez story as part of the MyCultura podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Cheryl Swoops, WNBA champ, three-time Olympian

and basketball hall of famer. I'm a mom and I'm a woman. I'm Tariqa Foster-Brasby, journalist, sports reporter, basketball analyst, a wife, and I'm also a woman. And on our new podcast, we're talking about the real obstacles women face day to day. See, athlete or not, we all know it takes a lot as women to be at the top of our game. We wanna share those stories about balancing work and relationships, motherhood, career shifts.

You know, just all the shit we go through. Because no matter who you are, there are levels to what we experience as women. And T and I, well, we have no problem going there. Listen to levels to this with Cheryl Swoops and Tariqa Foster-Brasby, an iHeart Women's Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

You can find us on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty and I'm the host of On Purpose. My latest episode is with Jelly Roll. This episode is one of the most honest and raw interviews I've ever had. We go deep into Jelly Roll's life story from being in and out of prison from the age of

13 to being one of today's biggest artists. We talk about guilt, shame, body image and huge life transformations. I was a desperate delusional dreamer and the desperate part had me in a lot of trouble. I encourage delusional dreamers. Be desperate delusional dreamer, and the desperate part got me in a lot of trouble. I encourage delusional dreamers. Be a delusional dreamer. Just don't be a desperate delusional dreamer. I just had such an anger. I was just so mad at life.

Everything that wasn't right was everybody's fault, but mine, I had such a victim mentality. I took zero accountability for anything in my life. I was the kid that if you asked what happened, I immediately started with everything but me. It took years for me to break that, like years of work. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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We're back. And this is the time of year where everybody, there's a lot of nervous energy. People want to know what's going on with the election. This is when you start getting the stories about the store that sells merch from both, like I think it was like t-shirts from both campaigns and every year, whoever they sell the most of or like cups, whoever they sell the most cups from ends up winning. People are just looking for any story that will tell them who's going to win the election. The reality is absolutely nobody knows.

Yeah. Except. I mean, I think, well, the thing is too, there's also this thing that the right is doing in the buildup to this election, right? There's like constant alarmism from conservatives or it's like illegal voting. Especially when you're looking at things like Mike Rogers, who's running for the Senate in Michigan, he may have illegally voted by claiming an address of like a place that was uninhabitable. That's another news story that, you know, will probably develop over, you know, the coming weeks or not. But they're also like, you know, it's about seeding this idea,

the narrative that this election has already been won by Republicans in their supporters' minds. So if they begin to contest things, they sort of, the framing is there to be like, what the fuck, they stole it from us. But it's the anecdotal stuff that you hear a lot of, like you're saying, Jack, like there'll be people like, I was just with 9,000 black cops and they are all voting for Donald Trump. They just told me

this is going to be a huge win. I was with 42 cricket farmers and they said they, they went from Biden to Trump. This thing's in the bag. Like, okay. I did this the other day. I don't know if we ended up talking about it on Mike, but I talked to you miles where I was like, I just saw this tick tock. I don't know if we ended up talking about it on mic, but I talked to you, Miles, where I was like, I just saw this TikTok. Oh, yeah. The guy was interviewing people at an Arizona State Fair, and everyone was saying Trump.

We're fucked. I know. Like, come on. It's over, man. Oh, my God. It's fucked. So Laura Trump was recently on Laura Ingram show. Uh, and if you know, Laura Trump, she is the wife of Eric the lesser.

And she also got her hands dirty with a bit of anecdotal forecasting. And I just want to play this because this is a very, this again, Oh man, hold onto your butts. If true, um, it's over if true. If true, it's over, folks. If true, pack your bags up. Start making your escape plan. Yeah. Yeah, please pack your bags up for Canadia if true. So here she is talking about the secret sauce

and the tea leaves she's been reading out there in America. No one buys that Kamala Harris has the capability to do that job. And polls like that I think think, are absolutely ridiculous. I get slip beverage napkins every time I get on an airplane saying, we can't wait to vote for Trump. Go Trump, Trump 2024. Or people just coming up to me these days, Laura,

everywhere I go saying how excited they are to get out and vote and vote early when you go vote for Donald Trump. Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow. Every time she boards a plane, people are sliding her airplane napkins. Just before they put the beverage on top of it. Here's where the story falls apart.

Yeah. Nobody carries pens anymore. No. No one has the ability to write on your napkin anymore. Using the same communication method that people who are being held hostage use to alert the authorities that they're in danger. Like, why a refill? Also every, every plane you're on, like maybe because maybe because you're flying

on private planes specifically chartered by the fucking campaign is that what you're are you flying commercial all the time i don't know i'm just from what i understand i believe that they're flying on you know uh campaign chartered aircraft but that okay that works too and it is it is wild to think it's like someone who would recognize you and would even want to get near you in public would also be a Republican. Right. And that you would let anyone get near you in public. That I also. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Did you ever are you guys Nathan for you fans? Oh, love it. Love it.

Okay. I figured because I like Kenan. But you know the episode where he engineers that whole story that he can tell on late night shows? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's not lying. Yeah, so he's not lying, but he sets up this elaborate thing to happen to him so that he can say it. I feel like this is what they're doing.

They're hiring people to give them napkins saying they're voting for Trump. Could you imagine that scenario though too? She's like, she boards a plane. She's like, do you mind handing me these napkins? Yeah. When I'm coming to take my drink order? What?

Just please hand it to me. I'll give you 500 bucks. Okay. Right. Here's your napkin, miss. Oh, wow. Oh, do you see this? It says we're voting early for, oh my God, bless your heart.

So that happened and I'm not lying. Is that a way that people communicate with each other? Like sending notes, like in a way that isn't, unless they're like in trouble of some sort. I mean, that's like millennial Gen X, like that's school note passing was obviously a thing. Like, you know, you would write a long winded, remember when you would just communicate in notes in school

and you would fill out like a line sheet of paper front to back with like, the thing is, man, like I know you asked her to, I know you asked her to homecoming, but like the thing is like, we have something going before you asked and like doing all this kind of weird shit. That feels like that.

Do kids do that? Do they, do y'all pass notes still? Is that a thing? Like, no. I don't know. I mean, are they on their laptops and then they can just yeah, they just like yeah Yeah, I'm revealing my age yeah, okay. Thank you pretty super producer Victor said yeah, we texted okay, that's fine I was whatever that 11. Yeah when 9-eleven happened. I was a junior in high school. Okay, so hold that Yeah, that that makes sense that makes sense. But yeah the pen thing too. I mean, I was a junior in high school. Okay, so hold that. Yeah, that that makes sense. That makes sense. But yeah, the

pen thing too. I mean, I guess you might have a pen. I'm always like forgetting to pack a pen. Whenever I travel, I always try to make sure I have a pen. And it's an international flights. I've like not had a pen and the flight attendants like don't have pens when you have to fill out that form. Oh, like any kind of paperwork, right. Because they probably get stolen all the time. They're like, yeah, man, these motherfuckers stole all my pens.

What do you want me to do? But again, anyone who recognizes her is probably a fucking Mont Blanc-wielding Republican piece of shit. I can imagine that one person person per flight. Right. On board. It is still kind of mind blowing. We'll get into this and like the political donations section. Let's just move on to that. But it's wild.

Like one of the Mellon people is like full boat, a hundred million dollar donation to Trump. Like it, it does seem like the rich have just openly declared war on all of us at this point. Yeah. They're really the fucking worst. It's because they started moving at light speed during the pandemic with all that wealth accumulation.

And now they're like, bro, this party can't do not pump the brakes on this thing. I'm sorry. Like, you know, what, what was it like? It went up 88% or something. Their wealth. We talked about some just 88%. The billionaire wealth went up 88% in the past four years.

Like host everybody being like, this is, this is an unbelievably huge problem. They have way too much money. Their wealth has gone up 88%. Yeah. They have way too much money. Their wealth has gone up 88 percent. Yeah. They've just gotten. Yeah. But it's like along with this, huge amounts of money affecting political outcomes.

Right now, Senate races are tightening in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio. If things go the wrong way, this would potentially give the Republicans a majority in the Senate. They haven't had since 2016. If Kamala ends up winning the White House, that would be disastrous for any kind of confirmation process of cabinet positions or judges, because at that point, you don't really have control over it in terms of Senate confirmation.

She's going to have a Republican in her cabinet, though. So it's okay. I was going to say, what do you think about that? I hate it. I don't think anything good. I fucking hate it. I hate it so much. You're not moving to the right.

You're blowing it so hard. Don't move to the right. I was trying to be fucking crazy. I was trying to be crazy. I don't think anything good. No fucking hate it. I hate it so much. I hate it blowing it so hard. Don't move to the right. Fucking crazy. I was so coconut-pilled like back in the summer, and now I'm just like, oh my God, please let this be over. Yeah, rat-pilled. Look, it was a brat summer and now we're in the hangover fall

and we're moving to the right in every. Rapidly, rapidly moving to the right. Yeah. Purely listening to the same Democratic strategists who have fucked the Democratic Party for the past. However, you know, since Obama got into office. Don't get progressive. And it's interesting because it's like in the moment she chose walls, it was like,

and now I shall mess everything up. I know everything else bad. Yeah. From this point forward. Whoa, whoa, pretty good rollout. And yeah, I will continue to this point. So anyway, one race, I think that should be getting a lot of attention. And it is, I think purely because of the Senate math, but the why I think is

important is Sherrod Brown's reelection campaign in Ohio. So he is the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, and that's a very, very powerful position when it comes to the financial sector, and he's been a vocal critic of cryptocurrencies and the need for regulation, and it is for this very reason that a crypto pack is spending $40 million to unseat him.

$40 million to unseat him. Fair Shake, which is the industries like crypto super pack, they have raised just over $200 million this cycle. To put that into perspective, the next industry group that comes in second place in terms of money raised, that's Coke Industries. We know them them the big boogie men they've raised a paltry 26 million dollars for this cycle and we're talking 200 million from crypto and it's right now crypto is accounting for almost half of the

corporate spending this election cycle so their tactics are just a carpet bomb the airwaves with ads but But in some races, like in shared Browns race, like it's just non stop ads, and they have nothing to do with crypto. It's just they're just helping merino his opponent, they're just trying to help him win as much as possible. So that so aside from the airwave stuff, sometimes they don't even have to spend money to get people to bend to their will. They'll just

threaten to make it rain on a politician's opponent to get them in line. So the earlier this is from slate quote, earlier this year, fair shake indicated it would enter the spending arena without announcing which candidate it would support. Soon after this is like in the in the Montana race. Soon after vulnerable incumbent Democrat john tester who has criticized the industry in the past, voted to pass pro crypto legislation.

So their big pet project here is to try and get this crypto friendly legislation passed in order to sort of gain legitimacy as a financial product and escape the oversight authority of the SEC. And this is again from the same slight article. In 42 of the primary races where crypto backed super PACs intervened, the crypto sector won its preferred outcome in 36. In just two cycles of spending crypto

corporations now ranked second in total election related spending and over the in the over the past 14 years, the entirety of the citizens United Era. Okay, they've just two cycles it took them to fucking hit like just to get to second place. They quote, they trail only fossil fuel corporations, which have spent 176 million over that same period. And it's not just Republicans that are benefiting Democrats are also getting hit with cash in other races. If they've been friendly towards these kinds of bills, then they are being rewarded with financial support. but it's clear the Republicans are much more

willing to help here. So therefore they're getting a larger share of these dollars. Yeah. It's just, it's just the future is so yeah. Like if you want to see what the industry, what industries are going to run slash ruin the future, you just have to look at who is donating the most across the board and the future is going to be so stupid, like crypto. I just can't understand it.

And at times I'm like, am I just like too old or, or are stupid to just understand what the appeal of crypto is? But what if maybe I'm not, and it just doesn't really make much sense? Yeah, I mean, I think for those in the beginning, it was very idealistic, where sort of like, you know, this is a decentralized form of currency that can operate outside of these, you know, like the World Bank and these forces of corruptive forces. And now, if they're just becoming centralized entities, it's yeah, so that's gone. But I think the other part still being influenced by like the greater markets, right? Right. And I go up and down and up and down. And I think what's interesting here, though, too, is because a lot of people have made money on cryptocurrencies, it's more people

are trying to get in on it. And now they see it as a way to protect their investors and investment. So now they're now motivated to also to protect their investor. It's an investment. So now they're now motivated to also vote. Like, let me just play an ad. There's like a thing where they're come, they have like things like I'm a crypto voter and that's kind of, I'll just play this so you can understand. This is kind of the messaging to people to understand, like to say, like, we also have numbers out there and this is how we can sort of of get them we can turn that into votes in an election.

To be an American is to embrace innovation. And that's where blockchain and crypto come into play. Crypto equals innovation, innovation equals jobs. That's why I'm a crypto voter. Don't let anyone else decide your future, make a plan to vote. your future, make a plan to vote. That's from Stand With Crypto, which is another pack. But again, and you, and you see this with people that are invested in cryptocurrencies to get this sort of legitimacy as a financial product would be huge for their investments. So now people are incentivized with their own investments to vote. So it's, it's a huge thing. That's why I think big tech is realizing they have a lot of numbers for people that are invested in their platforms

or use their platforms that then they can, you know, turn that into a formidable voting block. And yeah, the money being spent is just like, will cause it would cause people's eyes to bleed 20 years ago, even because yeah, a lot of people are like looking at like, I've never seen people just put this much money towards just getting one bill passed. And you know, the like to your point, Jack, you can see that other industries are looking at like, oh, you know, we used to just keep like friendly politicians there and give them

sort of bills that they can vote on or whatever. But now just to go whole hog to say, we need to get this one thing done and make everyone bend to our will just may become even more so than new normal. I think it was just happening at a smaller rate than what we're seeing. Yeah. And now with citizens United, it's just open robbery. Right. And I think another reason why people are always calling for election reforms

with this kind of thing, because yeah, it allows someone to just step in and say, I will spend $40 million to get you to scare you. Are you ready to now play ball? And yeah, and it again seems to work. Yeah. Open Secrets did a dive into like who is donating to the Republicans and Democrats this time around. And like I said, one of the Melon Scions

is donating $100 million to Trump. Which by the way, that is a great example of a thing where if you look at how money is being spent, you can see the future. The money that was spent by these dynastic, these families with dynastic fortunes, like the melons and the getties and all those people. Since the late 70s, they've just been spending, spending, spending in politics. The rate of that those types of people have been taxed has gone way, way down to now the average tax rate of the top 0.01% has fallen by more than half to about 30%. While rates for the bottom 90% of people have climbed slightly.

So they are getting better and better deals and the rest of the world is getting fucked. And so that it makes sense that that these people are continuing to spend and get trying. Yeah, it's an investment that actually gets you a return. Yeah. I just like can't even imagine the need for like more than a hundred million dollars. Right. There is none. Like I'm not above a hundred million dollars.

I'd love it. I welcome it. But at that point, it's like, OK, cool. Yeah. You won't hear from me anymore. I'm fine. Right. I'm chilling. Yeah, I will lay down for a long time. That's that's probably what I'll do. Yeah. I mean, I think that's why it's always just, you know, like when you get like these billions of dollars in wealth, you're just like this there's this isn't sustainable because if it's all about this like explosive growth, it that that that comes from somewhere else that comes out of other people's pockets or rather the inability of other people to fill their own, well, they are, but there's no way to make that much money and have been ethical throughout the whole process. And have like had every single person working for you been paid fairly and you still have

that much money. Yeah, exactly. And this is Selena Gomez. And she doesn't want to talk about being a billionaire. That's just so funny to me. She's like, I'd rather not talk about money and being a billionaire, please just let me be Selena. Even though they may be given away and then you won't have to talk about it. Yeah, that's the wildest thing. Give away $900 million of it and we'd be fine with you. The goodwill these fuckers would generate from just being like,

you know what, dude, I only need like, fuck, I don't even need like, I think I just need $80 million for the rest of my life. I'm 70 years old. I think I'll be fine with $80 million for the rest of my life. I'm giving the rest away. People would be erecting fucking statues for that kind of thing. But no, it's more just like, how do we protect this? How do we create more loopholes to keep our wealth? And how do we, again, cozy up to people that are fine watching everything fall apart? But hey, cozy up to people that are fine watching everything fall apart. But hey, we get to keep our money.

Like OpenSecrets has like the, just these industry breakdowns and like air transport donated $10.5 million to Trump, like real estate, 10.4 million. But I just like, I can't, I can't believe that it's now just like is Delta airline, like I didn't dig in deeper, but like are these like major corporations just like donating? Yeah, that's like Boeing. Boeing is the large like in that category because then within transport, there's air transport. There's also airlines, which would be like the Deltas of it all. But they also give money.

Yeah, like UPS. They they're all I mean, because that's just how it is. You have to get in bed so you can get favorable looks when it comes to regulation or not regulating stuff. Even when one of the options is just like Nazis, they're just like, yeah, well, at Delta, we believe in everybody having a free. Price gouging. Yeah, yeah. We believe in both price gouging and everybody having the freedom to express their beliefs. Exactly. It's a corporate kleptocracy. Yeah.

Well, what's happening with Milton, the fact that these airlines are literally raising their prices so that people cannot die and the government is just like, okay, no problem, that's capitalism, baby. Like, I'm hoping. They have the freedom to evacuate and we have the freedom to get rich. Right. Just like at what point will people be like, huh, this doesn't make sense.

Maybe we should change this. Well, I think that's where, I think people know it doesn't make sense, but enough people who have like the microphones to sort of shape public discourse, they're not saying it right. Like, the American prospect, I think reached out to a couple of the economists who are like slamming Kamala Harris, because she deigned to say like, it's

corporate price gouging that's driving up prices, we need to get a handle on that. They asked them like, in the in light of what's what happened in the aftermath of Helene and with Milton and price gouging happening, they're like, do you think that this is bad now? Like, do you think this necessitates some kind of intervention? And they kind of were like, well, I mean,

you know, kind of like, they just were not very forceful on it, which, you know, I think is pretty revealing because, like, their whole perspective is sort of aligning with what a corporation would want to do, or what the free market should be doing. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break, and we'll come back and we'll do the sports section. We'll go to our sports guy for some sports updates. We'll be right back.

Hey, Beau. Hey, Matt. Are you ready to tell the readers about the extra special episode we have coming up? Yes! I'll see you soon! But you can do that kind of spooky scary. Well, yeah, but it's also because it's a ride. You can go up and down on it. But you're in it, you know? Yeah, exactly.

You're in the spook. I think we have to let them in on our little surprise. Yeah, if you haven't already figured it out, can't believe this. Mariah Carey will be joining us this week. I say, oh, I want to go work with such and such from across town. Yeah, from across town. My girl across town. Yeah, across town.

I know a guy across town. I know a guy. Readers, publishers, Cateys, and finalists, tune in to maybe the most unforgettable episode of Lost Culture Eastus yet. There's one more question, which I promised myself I would ask. Can you drop that grunge album? I'm so mad that I haven't done that yet. But you don't have to be mad because you're in control.

I am, but who do I drop it with? Should we start a label? Maybe. Wow. Listen to Las Colteristas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian.

Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation.

Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Piece, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Cheryl Swoops, WNBA champ, three-time Olympian and basketball hall of famer. I'm a mom and I'm a woman.

I'm Tariqa Foster-Brasby, journalist, sports reporter, basketball analyst, a wife, and I'm also a woman. And on our new podcast, we're talking about the real obstacles women face day to day. See athlete or not, we all know it takes a lot as women to be at the top of our game. We want to share those stories about balancing work and relationships, motherhood, career shifts. You know, just all the shit we go through. Because no matter who you are,

there are levels to what we experience as women. And T and I, well, we have no problem going there. Listen to Levels to This with Cheryl Swoops and Tariqa Foster-Brasby, an iHeart Women's Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Julian Edelman. I'm Rob Gronkowski. Guess what, folks? We're teammates again. And we're gonna welcome you guys all to Dudes on Dudes. I'm a dude, you're a dude,

and Dudes on Dudes is our brand new show. We're gonna highlight players, peers, guys that we played against, legends from the past, and we're just gonna sit here and talk about them. And we'll get into the types of dudes. What kind of types of dudes are there, girls? We got studs, wizards, we got freaks. Or dudes dude.

We got dogs. Dog! We'll break down their games, we'll share some insider stories, and determine what kind of dude each of these dudes are. Is Randy Moss a stud or a freak? Is Tom Brady a dog or a dudes dude? We're gonna find out, Jules.

New episodes drop every Thursday during the NFL season. Listen to Dudes on Dudes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty and I'm the host of On Purpose. My latest episode is with Jelly Roll. This episode is one of the most honest and raw interviews I've ever had. We go deep into Jelly Roll's life story, from being in and out of prison from the age of 13 to being one of today's biggest artists.

We talk about guilt, shame, body image and huge life transformations. I was a desperate delusional dreamer and the desperate part got me in a lot of trouble. I encourage delusional dreamers. Be a delusional dreamer. Just don't be a desperate delusional dreamer. I just had such an anger. I was just so mad at life. Everything that wasn't right was everybody's fault but mine. I had such a victim mentality. I took zero accountability for anything in my life. I was the kid that if you asked what happened, I immediately

started with everything but me. It took years for me to break that. Like years of work. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Trust me, you won't want to miss this one. And we're back. We're back. And so, yeah, I just wanted to hear kind of from you guys

what your vision is for how that system that is currently a representation, a representative democracy, like how that could take hold in the United States. Just let me throw one quick historical footnote, I'll turn over to Colin. Actually, their implementation of what Colin will refer to shortly actually started in 1921. Northern Ireland and as they were partitioning Northern Ireland away from the south, which then became the Irish Free State, basically, the British said, okay, well, why don't we agree as part of this end of this war with the Irish that both sides will have some form of

power sharing built into their systems because both sides have minorities that they wanted to protect. Northern Ireland gets rid of it as soon as they can because they see the writing on the wall they're like one party control let's do it. Ireland actually keeps it for a full hundred years and that's still the system that they use today. So actually in 1998 when they actually re-implemented it, something that they actually had for about roughly 10 years beginning of the 1920s. So I'll kick it off Colin. Well, and we'll come back to the sort of forgotten history question in a moment too. Right. Yeah.

So the system that they use in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is a system of proportional representation, so-called because each segment of the population has the power to win their fair share, their proportion in government. So if Irish Republicans, who are different from US Republicans, they want to join the Republic of Ireland, Irish Republicans or Irish nationalists win 33% of the vote. They're gonna win about one in three seats in Parliament. And what you might have happen is you might have say 40% of the vote go to Irish Unionists, folks who like being part of Great Britain. Maybe 40% of the vote goes to Irish nationalists. And

another 20% of the vote goes to people who say, oh we don't really care about that. We care about jobs or we care about housing. And then that ends up being the makeup of your parliament. And in terms of what that could look like in the US, it's interesting. So there's a path to get it here. There's an act that's been introduced in Congress every year since 2017, the Fair Representation Act,

that would just move the US Congressional seat system to that system. So instead of Massachusetts electing 10 Democrats, they would probably elect six or seven Democrats and three or four Republicans. And instead of Alabama electing all Republicans, they would elect two Republicans and a Democrat or whatever the population might be. And you could have these smaller chunks break through. But what's really interesting is that the specific version that they use, that is proposed for this bill that they use in Northern Ireland, it's a form of

ranked choice voting. And I say a form of ranked choice voting because a lot of folks might have heard of RCV, ranked choice voting, but there's a bunch of different ways to do it. The way they do it in Minneapolis is different than the way they do it in Maine, which is different than the way to do it in New York, which is different than the way that they do it in Ireland. But back in the 1910s, 20s, 30s, 40s, cities in the US actually used this Irish version of proportional rank choice voting. Cities like New York City, Cincinnati and Cleveland, Sacramento and California.

And you saw, again, back in the 40s at the height of Jim Crow, well before the Civil Rights Movement, you saw black communists from Manhattan get elected to the New York City Council. And that's just sort of, it's hard to imagine today, let alone during the Red Scare. Yeah. And it is, we always talk about the way that these facts that aren't part of the system as currently constructed

get just memory hold from history and kind of erased from history. So that's super interesting. If you said that, someone would be like, what is that from a Marvel reality? Or is it a black communist from Manhattan? Is it City Council in 1940? Man in the high castle or some shit?

What is that? Yeah. You're like, no, that's real. In the context of racial justice and equity, in the US, when listening to your show, I was thinking about we had a lot of energy behind that cause in 2020, but we, it feels like we no longer have the attention of the mainstream democratic

party right now and, you know, having a party that is focused on that cause and is always there, even if, you know, they're not be people doing work for racial justice and equity in the US, like in government. Right. It's wild that that is such a basic idea. But like it's just. Yeah. Because you think of how like platforms change every year, like the Democrats platform looks completely different now than it did in 2020. Like, well, you know, I think we use too much like political capital to be talking about police reform this go round.

So let's put that on the back burner and become fully pro cop this year, because you know, we kind of are a little our policies can be nebulous at times. And I think that's like, it really gets to what really affects voters and makes people so disapget that you just get to this point where you're totally disaffected, you become ambivalent to the process, because you feel like, well, what about all these other real problems? And the only way to enter the conversation is this very rigid system where unless you're reading from the same hymnal, your chances of getting elected aren't really possible. And I think that's really a great way for, I think that would help a lot of

people also become much more involved because what we're talking about is something that does give people a fair shake where it's like, no, if you have the numbers, like you can get a seat at the table. That's just, it is what it is. And then guess what? People will have to have coalition governments where they are going to have to work with you to get the kinds of majorities you need to achieve certain things. And I think that's super, I think underrated, an underrated thing about it, because I think most people will just go to the fact like, Oh, so what you want

more Republicans? And it's like, well, no, that's not that's really not the case. You just want something you want it to actually be representative of what's there. And I feel like it sounds like to and just listening to the show like we had a moment when we were writing the Constitution where they're like, what if Congress looked like everything we see out there in America? And it's like and that's like one of those forks in the roads where our destiny is like. And we decided it's not that new of a concept.

Like these are things we've been grappling with since the beginning of this country. Absolutely. There's a few other things that are kind of mind blowing when we talked about Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland. One story that keeps coming up is that whenever we talk to folks on the ground there, they kept saying, you might have some concerns in the US about getting far right parties elected and taking seats. And that might freak some people out.

But in many ways, that's important. Because in the Northern Ireland experience, they saw that there were people who were shut out of the political system that they had no alternative but to be violent. And so when you have people win seats, their fair share, maybe they win one or two in a city council, and they have to grapple with balancing the budget,

closing a hospital, dealing with pensions, then it's harder to be completely anti-government when you actually have some power and you have to grapple with some collective decisions that you just can't just throw rocks at the house. Right. One other interesting thing that we learned about that kind of blew my mind is how power

sharing was taken to the logical extreme in both Ireland and to more so in Northern Ireland. So our winner take all system, we understand it, particularly in our electoral system in terms of there can only be one winner when you have one member per district. But when you think about the winner take all system in terms of legislative governance, we understand like, if you're the majority party, you get to pick all the committee chairs. It's like to the winner go the spoils. That seems obvious to us, right? Right. That's not how neither Ireland nor Northern Ireland does it. If you win 40%

of seats in the Parliament, you win 40% of committee chairs. They have this process that's called the de Hont method whereby it's like the NFL draft. Your party, as like the team, gets to pick in a particular order which committee chairs you want. So if you're the first pick, you'll probably get to pick like the Taxation, Ways and Means Committee because it's likely the most powerful, Justice is usually second, something like that. And so you just kind of go down the list in terms of who deserves the next pick. Added to that logical extreme in terms of Northern Ireland, if once again, if your party is 40% of the seats in parliament, you get 40% of the cabinet seats in government itself, as a way to

make sure that everyone has a fair share. There are critiques in terms of sometimes it grinds to a halt because those parties almost never agree on lots of big things, and so sometimes it shuts the government down, which is its own problem. But the idea that they are committed to power sharing in order for everyone to feel like they have a stake in governance. That's a really key idea that's really missing in our debates here in the US. And it's something that Northern Ireland folks we talked to kept emphasizing that like, oh, like there's a lot of critiques about power sharing, the specific model we have, who gets how many seats, but the elections being proportional, like that's a no brainer, like no one, no one debates that at all. Like that's obvious.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, project 2025, the thing that's scary about it to people is that they're planning to like clear house and just make all the cabinet entirely one thing. So that, That's interesting. I feel like maybe after this next presidential administration, there might be more appetite. It could be the last one, folks. It could be the last election ever.

Not for the reasons he's saying, but. Oh, yeah. Well. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, Miles, I interrupted. Oh, no, no, no. I was just saying, and also the visibility, because I think especially in the United States, we have this version of the amount of extremists there are in the United States You would think depending on where you're watching news like your foot or outnumbered

There's seven billion of these people and it's always interesting to see like when people like are like in in in Europe when they're having Their elections you're like, oh, they're far right parties only got like a fraction of what people thought they were gonna do. And I think that's also helps too for people to understand like, okay, there is this group of people that exists but they aren't nearly as large or influential as they would want you to think, which I think also helps people have a little bit of a clearer understanding of like, truly like

what we're dealing with in the country in terms of like, who sort of like where everyone's ideologies sort of lie because yeah, I think it's very easy to sort of obscure that with our media in this country and have people kind of thinking like, oh my God, like what's all happening? Like what are we up against? And yeah, knowing that I think putting,

being able to quantify that I think is a big benefit. And that's part of the risk of a winner take all system is you can have a fringe element right that wins it all. People forget that back in 2016 if you looked at polls, most Republicans didn't actually like Donald Trump, but they were split between Chris Christie and Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and John Kasich and Mitt Romney and Romney wasn't running in 2016 was he? No, he's no he was not running. The spirit of Mitt Romney was running. Yeah, was he? No, he was not running. The spirit of Mitt Romney was running.

Yeah, right. Spirit of hot dogs. John Huntsman. Point is, like, the winner take all system lets a fringe element, if they win more than others in the primary process or whatever, win everything, the proportional system caps your ceiling at your actual support.

So you never have a fringe party Take over every chamber of government I do want to just go back to this idea that you know it doesn't say anything about two parties or parties of any sort in the in the Constitution and Yet and like George Washington was like kind of against parties in general. He was just a downer, didn't like to party, but he, like America just kind of snapped to a two party system and like kind of keeps going back to a two party system and like staying in this two party system. And so for me, that's one of my big questions is like, is there just something about America

and our, at the central lie at the heart of America, where it's like we're, we are a representative democracy and also the system is completely designed to keep the dispossessed without power. Like that's been the deal kind of from day one. Like when you look at the wording of the constitution and then like what, who those words actually applied to, I'm just, I guess that's the big question for me is like how, you know, in the experience of granted a winner take all primary system, but like the primary system of a progressive and

widely popular Bernie Sanders getting a lot of attention and enthusiasm, and then it just felt like you were always up against this entrenched machine. I'm just curious how you guys think about the existing kind of inertia and money and power of the system as it currently exists and how you could potentially see this idea overcoming that over time. George, can you mind meld with me real quick? I'm going to go back to French class. Yes.

The name is Duverger. Yes. I of course know what that means. The listeners. George, Colin, it's been great having you. That sounded beautifully. No further questions, my honor. All right. Duvergé was a French philosopher that

basically came up with this theorem or this law that basically said, any winner-take-all system is going to end up with only two major parties that can contest for power. Because when there is another faction, another party that tries to vie and play within the confines of a winner take all system, they almost never win. And if you try several times, you'll have to just give up because how do you tell people to vote for us if you can never turn their votes into actual seats? That is actual political power. You actually increase the odds that your opponents win. Like if Bernie Sanders runs a viable candidacy that increases odds Republicans win.

So like it just turned, the logical conclusion is only have two candidates. Yeah, seems like a bad system almost. And so you see this playing out in basically the UK and the other former British colonies that have kept this system. In Canada, there's essentially only like the conservative and the liberal slash moderate party that can win ever any election. They only have multiple parties because they have kind of regional politics of like a Québécois separatists that has its own political party.

But for the most part, nationally, they are a two-party system because they have the exact same system that we have. The UK is pretty much the same. Uh, you have labor and then you have the Tories or conservatives. Sometimes the liberal Democrats play that kind of, uh, in-between role, a spoiler role, but for the most part, uhvergé's law plays out very clearly in all of these systems. And so being able to start with, you know, what is the electoral system that we want for our society? Is it something that is very simple and that forces a majority, even though it doesn't reflect the majority interest? Or do you want to make sure that you have a minority representation built in to our electorate? And so by picking a proportional system, whichever

flavor, because there's definitely variations on a theme, the fact that you will get, you know, three, four, five parties means that there are coalitions. There is kind of like a shifting, depending on which issue that different parties can coalesce and get legislation passed. So there is nothing structural or cultural about the US that pushes us towards a two-party system. It is the system that pushes us awkwardly into these two camps that don't fit us. And actually, there's some really interesting political science. I'll give it a very high level. We can put a link in the show notes if you all want.

But there's some political science that's been done that shows that effectively in the US right now, there are six political parties. There's six ideologically consistent and distinct ways of being, basically, that most people subscribe to. And it's just that they're jammed into the two parties like Alexander Acasio-Cortez said a couple years ago in any other country on earth Joe Biden and I would not be in the same political party but in the US we have to be and so when you think about like, you know You're you're Mitt Romney Barry Goldwater John McCain type folks and your evangelical Christians and your like Mago wing of

and your evangelical Christians and your like, MAGA wing of American Nazis, like they don't actually have anything in common politically and it's the same parallels on the left. And so whether or not these six parties emerge or they become distinct factions within the two parties as we have them, those are probably the coalitions that we would see emerge if we moved to a proportional multi-party system.

I think the other part about this too is like, I think at this point we see that there is a way to do it. It is being done. We've dabbled in it in the United States before, but right now in its current form, it seems like intractable, like this is, it's stuck. And I know when we were speaking a little bit earlier before we even recorded, I remember Jack and I were like,

boy, how do we, is it possible? And I felt like you brought up a few good points was to think about a lot of like the major changes we've had in the United States across, you know, the storied history of this place. The years preceding those changes, it felt like this is going to be how it is forever. And then boom, we have rights, we have universal suffrage, we have civil rights, etc. We have marriage equality and those kinds of things.

And I think for a lot of the times, too, we're also the I feel like the de facto way we speak about it in very early kinds of political conversations when you're younger and getting into it is like It feels everything has to happen from the top down and when you look at the current system like there's no way these freaks Are gonna be like yes, I would like to dilute my power But it seems like this is the kind of thing where we can create upward pressure from a more local level and that is happening in the United States a more local level and that is happening in the United States. We like to make things about personality and individualism in the US.

So often the answer is actually structural and we don't like to admit that a lot of the times, because it doesn't allow for us to be the heroes of our own narrative. Can you just point to some examples of how this is, not just Cincinnati decades ago, which were things like that were happening, but like even in the year of 2024, there are there are movements being made that are approaching something like this that could potentially help, you know, drive the conversation on a national level. drive the conversation on a national level. Yeah. I'll start and I'll kick it over to Colin. I think the most exciting thing for folks to watch in the 2024 elections besides the presidential is what happens in Portland, Oregon. It's on the five.

If you'd go north on the five, you get off before the- Yeah. What was really exciting, and this goes to some of the work that we do as an organization, more equitable democracy. We support people of color led groups on transforming our electoral system

in order to advance racial justice. And so our colleagues there were doing a lot of advocacy work in communities of color trying to bring more resources to their communities. And they always hit like this huge buzz saw their city commission. It was a commission whereby there was no separate executive branch from the legislative branch, they were one and the same.

They were all elected at large, so you essentially had to win like a congressional race in order to win a city council seat. And that always favored big moneyed interests, usually folks who had relationships with developers. And so they understood, we did a lot of research to kind of back this up, that breaking up that system was important, but that going to the most obvious solution in the American kind of context is to go from all at large to single-member districts, just like cut up the city into five equal districts, maybe we'll be able to get two seats out of the five that are responsive to our community's needs. Though communities of color are about 25% of the population in Portland, because of a really long anti-black history, there is no one particular area that is heavily people of color.

There isn't the same type of segregation that there is in other cities. And so just drawing those single-member districts was not going to solve any of those problems. And so... In any configuration, I'll highlight. Like we said, what if we move from five to seven to nine to 12 to 15 city councilors? You just could not do it. Not possible.

And so that's why we introduced the Irish model to them. And they started to think, oh, OK, well, if we had a larger district where we elected three, maybe we can win one or two of those that are in neighborhoods that we do a lot of organizing. And so what was really exciting was that, and this sounds, when I say exciting, this will sound boring for just a second. There was a charter review process. Please don't fall asleep. Oh, I love that.

This is not exactly important. Hell yeah. CRPs, baby? That's me all day. Joseph, we got an air horn in there when it's a charter review process. Awesome. Baked into their charter, their constitution was this mandatory about once every decade-ish process, whereby folks from the community were invited in to kick the tires of their system, their structures of government, and asked to come up with ideas

to change it. For 99% of the time when local governments do this, it's just window dressing. They don't really mean to invite people to change things. But to their credit, everyone understood in Portland, this antiquated system that had been designed about more than 100 years ago wasn't working. So everyone understood something needed to change. And so the ability for our partners to organize around a process where people were supposed to be invited in to come up with ideas and to really flesh them out. That's what allowed for that deep conversation about what does it mean to have an election and have everyone represented? How do we integrate or prioritize racial equity within these structures? Can a

winner-take-all system ever be equitable? It's kind of like at odds with one another. And so that's how they came up with this design of essentially the Irish system. They ran a campaign to support the recommendation that came from that city charter review process, and they won 5743. This is the first city that has adopted this form, the first major city that has adopted this electoral system since New York City did in the 1930s. So it's been a hundred years of that kind of hidden history that it's been kind of outside of our imagination. Colin, do you want to say any words about like how things are going at this point? Yeah, well also a lot of folks might be like, oh yeah, okay, Portland did it. But like I've seen Portland, it's crunchy liberal hippies who... Damn, uh, Kyle McLaughlin is a good mayor, it turns

out. That's right. But if you talk to some of the activists and colleagues of ours in Portland, what they would tell you, and I think what like looking at the election results would tell you, is that Portland is like most major cities in the U.S. in that that has not been the people winning elections. The city council has largely been the candidates most preferred by developers and big business. Like George mentioned, they're all folks from downtown or west of the river, which is where all the really rich people live. Like the established political, I mean, the political establishment that's entrenched in Portland is the same as it kind of is anywhere. And one in four

Portlanders is a person of color. So yes, it's pretty white, but it's not just a white utopia like people might think. It is a multiracial community. And if Portland can do it, I actually think anywhere can do it, at least on the city level. Four of the five city councilors came out against the reform when it was being considered. The former mayor came out against it. The Chamber of Commerce came out against it.

They were fighting every single established interest that existed and they still managed to win. Wow. And yeah, now they're doing it for the first time. They just like made sample ballots public a few days ago. And there are some other smaller cities in America that are using proportional systems. Albany, California, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, Minnesota for their Parks and Recreation Board. And there was one Detroit suburb that used it for a few years because this is a weird story, but basically the Obama department of justice brought a lawsuit

that the Trump department of justice settled. And so under the Obama case, like they adopted a proportional system to resolve the voting rights act complaint, but the Trump DOJ said, you only have to use this system twice and then you can go back to the old system that violates the Voting Rights Act. So they don't use it anymore. But it's not just- You got two at bats. If they can't get it right and make it permanent after two at bats, I don't know what we're doing here. All right. That's going to do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like the show. It means the world to Miles. He needs your validation, folks.

I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye! I'm gonna be. Hey Hey, Beau. Hey, Matt. Are you ready to tell the readers about the extra special episode we have coming up? I think we have to let them in on our little surprise. Yeah, if you haven't already figured it out, the Queen of Christmas herself, can't believe this, Mariah Carey, will be joining us this week. Wow. Readers, publishers, Katie's, and finalists, tune in to maybe the most unforgettable episode

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