The David Pakman Show - 1/31/24: Republicans oppose border deal, Taylor Swift breaks their brains

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Mitch Prinstein, Chief Science Officer of the American Psychological Association, Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of the book "Popular: Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships," joins David to discuss popularity, likeability, and what it predicts about life success. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3ugbnMs -- Republicans now opposed a border deal to fix the border problems they have been obsessed with for years -- Taylor Swift has broken the brains of Republicans who are now mired in conspiracy theories about her and Joe Biden -- Trans people in Florida risk having their driver's licenses revoked based on new directives about gender on licenses -- Nikki Haley continues targeting Donald Trump's cognitive decline -- Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern calls Donald Trump a "rapist" on the floor of the House of Representatives -- Donald Trump is privately telling people that he is more popular than Taylor Swift as his aides launch a "holy war" against her -- Failed former President Donald Trump appears to have fired his attorney Alina Habba after her total failure in Trump's defamation trial led to an $83.3 million verdict against Trump -- Voicemail caller asks whether Nikki Haley will endorse Donald Trump when she drops out of the Republican primary race -- On the Bonus Show: Why a Trump presidency could cause an inflation spike, Democrats urge Biden to deschedule marijuana, Squad member faces DOJ investigation, much more... 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Having failed to convince the American public that the economy is a disaster because it's not a disaster. Republicans have instead been focusing on the border, the border where supposedly Joe Biden has opened the flood gates wide open, is welcoming in supposed residents of mental institutions, criminals, terrorists from the Middle East. It's just come on in and do whatever you want. Of course, none of that is true either. But if Republicans really believe that that was the most urgent problem that needed fixing, they would welcome the opportunity to work with Joe

Biden to fix the problems at the border. And yet they are now against Joe Biden's plan to fix it. Joe Biden has said brilliantly calling their bluff. I'll shut down the border. However you define it. If you guys come to the table and work with me on this deal and Republicans are saying no, because this is actually what they stand for. They don't stand for any kind of principle with regard to the border. They stand for what can we do to help ourselves and make Democrats look bad. Republicans who screamed about a crisis on the border now oppose a plan to fix it. What a surprise, ladies and gentlemen. And it's actually not surprising at all. For months, HuffPost writes, Republicans have shouted from the rooftops about a migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border

and how President Joe Biden needs to act to address it, insisting the flow of migrants is an urgent national security threat. Now, many on the right are urging their party to reject the very same things they said were needed to fix the problem, including tougher enforcement measures and a proposal to automatically shut down border crossings when it is overwhelmed. Instead, they appear set on impeaching the top cabinet official in charge of the border, even though there is no evidence of a crime. That is absolutely and completely correct. These are not people with the best interests of the country in mind. The essence of the modern Republican Party is everything

we are seeing in terms of their rhetoric on the economy and the border. The economy is terrible or it will be terrible if Joe Biden gets elected. We will have a 1929 style depression in the stock market. Didn't happen. Stock market every week hitting a record high unemployment, sustained lows for periods we've never seen before. GDP growth, healthy wage growth, healthy inflation down to two point seven percent. All right, fine. The economy is only good because of the expectation that Trump is going to win. And anyway, the real problem, the real failure, the real area where Joe Biden has failed us is the border. OK, let's fix it. No, we're not going to do that either. Wait a second. Maybe you don't actually care.

Maybe you only are concerned with scoring political wins or denying wins to your political enemies. And this has been the story with immigration for a long time. There is. Oh, we recently spoke about this on the bonus show, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly agree, for example, on DACA. If you were brought to the United States undocumented at age 11 by your parents and you've been here 20 years, you should have some permanent status. Is it citizenship or is it permanent residency? Well, it can be debated, but most elected officials agree on that. Whenever it is a Democrats in the Oval Office, Republicans are unwilling to actually do anything

about that because it would be seen as a win for Democrats. Whenever Republicans are in the Oval Office, they are unwilling to actually do anything about that because they want to keep it as an issue for the future to continue to negotiate about and to continue to talk about and to continue to claim, hey, we need to do something here. This isn't working. That's not working. Moving the goalposts and and, of course, ignoring their own stated principles for self-aggrandizement and the perceived assistance it will provide to their future reelections. Will it work? Will it get them reelected in 2024? I genuinely have no idea. We're going to find out. We're going to find out. But the idea that these are serious people who actually want to deal with the problem

they see with regard to immigration, they're proving every single day they don't actually care. It's just political games. Hey, I am shocked at the degree to which Taylor Swift has invaded the political landscape. But Republican brains have been broken by Taylor Swift. No, it's not that they don't like the chord progression on cruel summer. It's that they believe she is a psyop that is going to explode on the day of the Super Bowl, endorse Biden and push him to victory in November. And they believe it's all been planned for a very long time. Check out the time and the thought and

the resources that they are devoting to this. Here's Benny Johnson pulling out the PSYOP term. It's stunning stuff, stunning stuff. And the way you would do that is by taking the most brain dead, low information voters. Of course, I'm talking about Swifties. Hard to believe Taylor Swift fans sort of worship this artist kind of like at random, right? Like just out of the blue, suddenly Taylor Swift's the most famous person on earth. Now she's at every NFL game. Right. Her tour, globally popular tour, has nothing to do with that.

It's just a psyop. With her boyfriend, who's backed by Bud Light and Pfizer. Travis Kelsey is this guy who also kind of out of the blue became this big time celebrity, really rich, really powerful. Why? He's a tight end. He's like a glorified lineman. That doesn't make any sense. Tight ends aren't famous people in football. How dare a tight end think that they can get attention? Talking about what world are we living in? Sure seems planned. Right. Sure seems planned.

Right. Sure seems like something that is like concocted in order to accelerate the fame of these two people, get them to the Super Bowl, largest screens on earth, get maybe like a proposal after the game. This is what I think is going to happen. There's going to be like some type of proposal at the after the Super Bowl. Yeah, is rigged for the chief. Let's get vaccines together. And then the two of these people become it's like reach like crazy levels of absolute fame. And then they take all that fame that has been given to them by the rotted corporate press media entertainment industry that explicitly backs Democrats. And then they use that in order to try and save Joe Biden. They take all that and then they pour it in. And you listen to the to the ups and downs of this conspiracy theory. See, in October, the release of like a

what would look like a hostage video or a visiting angels ad, right? Visiting angels and I'll have Joe Biden sitting there all like twisted up like, you know, in a wheelchair, like an eggplant. Anyway, he's done. I think you guys get it. It's the psyop to elect Joe Biden. Here's Greg Kelly on Newsmax, and he is using religious overtones to criticize. It's like, what are you even criticizing? He's bringing up the idea of idolatry. It's idolatry. Speaker 1 The whole world is talking about Taylor Swift. I Taylor Swift. I like the song called Style. I like the song where she's complaining about her boyfriend who lied to her. I like the song called Style. I like the song where she's complaining about her boyfriend who lied to her. I like the song where she complains about the boyfriend who dumped her.

I like the song about the girlfriend who let her down on the big night. She was expecting all the support at the party. I kind of have a problem, though, with the hardcore Taylor Swift fans. They are totally over the top worshiping this woman. Have you seen any of the pictures of her in concert? I wouldn't go myself. I don't do that kind of thing anymore. But I think what they call it is they're elevating her to an idol, idolatry. This is a little bit what idolatry I think looks like. And you're not supposed to do that. In fact, if you look it up in the Bible, it's a sin. Look it up in the Bible. That's the number one place to figure out what's up with Travis Kelsey.

OAN host Alison Steinberg, who previously targeted me for sweater vests I don't own, says it makes sense for Joe Biden to organize this. It's a deep state psyop. America's pop star celebrity sweetheart joins forces with the top dog in the NFL, playing for the team that's going to the Super Bowl. I mean, let's be real here. This is bread and circuses on steroids. Major League Sports in and of itself is nothing but a psyop. Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports, only to be cut from the team, at which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams

because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never happen. So then they become obsessed with some grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a ball around while promoting poison death shots and child slave labor through various brand deals and endorsements. So sad. Imagine being so brainwashed by sports you actually show up to your team's stadium to shovel snow for free so you can watch a bunch of grown men who are overpaid tackle each other. Seriously, though, trudging through three feet of snow amid a massive blizzard just to watch a game. Yeah,

sorry, you couldn't pay me to do that. I agree. That's a little crazy. Just imagine for a moment if people were as dedicated to Jesus as they are professional sports. By the way, Jesus Steinberg is a Jewish last name. What does she talk? She's wearing a cross, too. Who knows what's going on? I think the country might look pretty different if that were the case. But sadly, as we know, it's not.

And perhaps that's why we're witnessing the crumbling and degradation of our once great nation. Right. Instead, all we seem to care about are the celebrities and athletes propped up by the Hollywood elites. So listen, there's an angle, there's an element of this about celebrity worship that actually does make sense. But again, the idea that the, uh, Taylor Swift, uh, entire thing is organized by Joe Biden.

It's just nonsense, but you need to understand they are really scared. They are genuinely scared because Taylor Swift is registering voters in incredible and stunning numbers. Here's Brian Kilmeade on Fox News. He says that's because it's going to set the stage for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey to endorse President Biden on stage. Do you think she's going to endorse Biden at the Super Bowl, Brian? OK, number one, if there's going to be a fix at the Super Bowl, it'll be the biggest scandal in the history of the world. It's the biggest game the whole world watches now. Nobody told the 49ers because I'm pretty sure they play tackle football pretty well, too. So it's a crazy statement.

But about the Taylor Swift situation, it's written up today. I'm not sure if it's the New York Times or Washington Post. They seem to be the same paper. But they talk about how the Biden administration wants to do this unbelievable fundraiser with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Who would have thought of using Democratic presidents? And then number two, one has a little Epstein problem. I'm not sure he should be bringing money in for anybody. But then the other story is how Taylor Swift, their special strategy is to get young people to vote, is to have her support him. Now, she evidently tweeted out support for him,

and I saw the full screen this morning. I don't remember that 2018. She went for the candidate, Phil Bredson, against Marsha Blackburn. Marsha Blackburn felt that she does have power, but it would be the single dumbest thing a mega superstar could ever do. Why would you tell half the country that you don't agree with them in this highly polarized time? Taylor Swift has waited on that. She doesn't care. She doesn't care. And good for her. I don't care about the music, but she has said, I don't care who I lose or not. Don't come to my concerts. What do I care? She's already extremely wealthy. She's just going to say what she believes when it comes to politics. Last thing on this here is actually, you know what? Let's skip. I was going to play a clip of Jack Posaviak, the conspiracy theorist.

Let's not even do it because it's just so dumb. I'm not even going to waste time with it. Taylor Swift has broken their brains. She's registering voters. They believe it's a psyop. They believe it's all a conspiracy to get Biden elected. She seems to prefer Biden over Trump. And like anybody, you know, they on their side, they've got Ted Nugent and they've got Chris Rock. OK, and so we've got Taylor Swift.

What it is, it's simply people using their voice to participate in the democratic process. Who could have guessed that simply registering voters would trigger them to this degree? We will continue to follow it. I think it's an absolutely fantastic thing. And Taylor Swift is registering enough people that it quite literally could flip a state. When I'm working on the show or doing stuff on my computer, staying focused and getting in the zone is super important. It's not always easy. I would try Spotify or YouTube playlists. I'd end up actually more distracted than focused. And then someone told me about Brain FM's Focus Music, which is actually

made by scientists working with musicians specifically to help you focus. I tried it and it worked really well for me, which is why I asked them to be a sponsor. With Brain.fm, I just feel more productive and focused, easier to start on difficult work, easier to stay focused without getting distracted and do that really important deep work that I love to talk about. The team behind Brain.fm actually won a National Science Foundation grant related to ADHD. And the app includes a special mode just for ADHD if you need it. They even have amazing sleep sounds that I've started using at night. You can try brain FM totally free for an entire month. Just go to brain dot FM slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. One of the longest running David Pacman show sponsors is Magic Spoon cereal. They have been with us for years, and it's only because my audience The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. It is keto friendly. It is grain free. And you can relive the moments of watching your favorite cartoons without the guilt and

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It is backed with a 100 percent happiness guarantee for any reason. If you don't like it, they'll refund your money. No questions asked. Go to magic spoon dot com slash Pacman to create a cereal box bundle. The info is in the podcast notes. have their driver's licenses revoked or face prosecution if they try to change their gender markers, according to a memo shared on social media. Robert Kynock, the deputy executive director for Florida's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, put out a memo dated a few days ago, which says that, quote, establishing gender on a newly issued Florida driver's license is based on the supporting documents provided with the application.

All right. Well, what are those supporting documents? The devil is in the details. The documents, quote, must be sufficient to establish the identity of the applicant. Furthermore, misrepresenting one's gender understood as sex on a driver's license constitutes fraud and subjects an offender to criminal and civil penalties, including cancellation, suspension or revocation of his or her driver's license. The critical line here is misrepresenting one's gender understood as sex.

What that means is your gender is understood as your birth sex. Now, whatever your opinion is about who gets to do this, that or the other thing, the entire principle that many states have adopted when it comes to driver's licenses is your gender identity, not necessarily your birth genitalia. Determine what you put on your driver's license with regard to male, female. In some states, you can have an X for non-binary, etc. And what Florida is saying here is the only accurate representation when it comes to gender is based on sex, meaning sex assigned at birth, meaning based on your genitalia when you were born. Gender identity can play no role. We don't even have to delve deeply into the cultural underpinnings of this. We don't have to delve deeply into the cultural underpinnings of this.

We don't have to delve deeply into why this is problematic. But what I do think is relevant here is that once again, we have a so-called conservative principle that is being thrown in the toilet because it is politically inconvenient. And the principle there is government should really only be involved when absolutely necessary, only in the most serious and imperative circumstances should government even do anything. And yet here you have government saying, hey, you know what? We're going to choose to get involved. We've determined it's of such critical importance that we tell people how they must

identify on driver's license, that we will put out a memo saying, hey, we have a policy and gender on your driver's license must correspond to sex as understood on birth certificates at birth. And it's the latest example of we claim that our principles are a, and we actually act the opposite of a, when it is inconvenient to our political goals. And right now, I mean, they're losing on the economy because the economy is good. They're losing just about everywhere. All they have left are these contrived social issues and they are going to push them as far as they can. We will see whether trans folks in

Florida end up prosecuted or end up with licenses revoked. Nikki Haley continuing the too little too late part of the campaign drops another brutal Trump dementia bomb talking about Trump confusing her with Nancy Pelosi. I love that she's doing this. I don't think it will make a difference ultimately for the campaign, but you really do love to see it. Here she was asked on CBS, do you really think Trump is declining cognitively? And she says, yeah, he is. He did get you confused with house speaker, Nancy Pelosi. You've worked with him closely. You've known him for quite some time. Do you truly believe he is. He did get you confused with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. You've worked with him closely. You've known him for quite some time. Do you truly believe he is suffering from cognitive decline?

Are we really in this country going to have two 80-year-olds running for president? It is a fact that when you are their age, you have mental decline. I don't care who you are. You have mental decline. He didn't just get me confused. He mentioned it over and over and over again. He didn't just get me confused. He mentioned it over and over and over again. He's not what he was in 2016. He has declined. That's a fact. Joe Biden's declined in the two years since he's been president. The party that goes and

puts a new generational leader in is the party that will win. So Trump hates her now. Absolutely hates her. Forget about just calling her bird brain, which he continues to do. Trump has gone scorched earth on Nikki Haley. How dare she stay in this race? How dare she criticize Trump for obvious things that he's doing that are wacky? He posted to Truth Social, quote, Americans for no prosperity. Just said that Nikki Bird, by the way, a random apostrophe in Americans that doesn't deserve to be there.

Americans for no prosperity just said that Nikki Byrd brain Haley has a steep hill to climb almost no chance of beating Trump. I could have told you that long ago. He just absolutely despises her more policy oriented criticism of Trump coming from Nikki Haley on CNBC. Just as interesting, if not more, to be perfectly honest, this is a man that put us $8 trillion in debt in just four years. Think about that.

This is a man who praised China's president. She a dozen times after China gave us COVID. This is a man who now wants to go and put 10 percent tariffs across the board, raising taxes on every single American. Think about that for a second. That's what we're talking about. This is a man who continues to go and talk about himself and distracted all the other things. But he that night in New Hampshire after the court case, he's never once talked about the American people. So she's right about everything. The question is, once she loses and drops out, is she going to get in line and endorse Trump later in the voicemail segment? We'll have that question.

We will address it. But let's not let's not get ahead of ourselves quite yet. Congressman Jim McGovern from Massachusetts declared on the floor of the House of Representatives that the failed former President Donald Trump is a rapist. Now, this is controversial. I will explain to you why. We will first look at the clip. But many folks in the audience have written to me and said, David, isn't this inaccurate? Isn't this going too far to say Trump is a rapist? Let's watch the clip first and then we will discuss. And they have consistently voted against funding for border security. You can't make this stuff up. They say we don't need more money. We just need a president who follows the law.

We hear that again and again. We just need a president who follows the law. We hear that again and again. We heard that last night in the Rules Committee. Now, I hope that they're not implying that the former president, a rapist who was just ordered by a jury to pay $83 million for defaming his victim, I hope they're not saying that he follows the law. He's been indicted four times with ninety one felony counts. I mean, this guy's been indicted more times than he's been elected. Give me a break. This is all good stuff. But here's the source of the controversy. Trump has not been found to have been criminally

liable for rape. He has been found civilly liable. And then I know there are people who don't even agree with that. So let's go step by step. Trump was found civilly liable for sexual assault. The judge involved clarified that, yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll. In other words, the sexual abuse, the sexual assault that he was found civilly liable for meets the definition of rape. So he is certainly a civilly liable rapist. We then get to layer two of the question. If someone was found civilly liable rather than criminally liable, does the general label

of rapist apply? And there is some controversy over this. There is the assumption when someone says they're a rapist, that they have been criminally prosecuted and found guilty and not necessarily the assumption that it is civil. There are different standards of proof. Criminal liability in criminal cases is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It is a higher standard. When we're talking about civil liability, it's a preponderance of evidence. Some call it it's more likely than not that they did the thing.

And that's good enough for the financial remuneration that is being sought. My conclusion on this is that if we want to be super clear, we say that he's a civilly liable rapist. I don't think there's any issue with that whatsoever. McGovern using just the word rapist. I think it's fair to say you might wrongly assume that means criminal. In this case, it doesn't. It means civil. So, yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll in a civil setting and civilly liable rapist would be most accurate. You still love to see it on the floor of the House.

I don't think Jim McGovern did anything wrong. I think if we want to be extra clear, we say civilly liable. Let me know what you think. I think it's relevant, given that we can now say the Republican Party seems determined to make a loser former president charged with 91 felonies, civilly liable rapist fraudster based on the New York trial, their nominee once again. It's accurate. It's true. It's extraordinarily disturbing.

And I do think it's important to bring it up and talk about it in those terms. You've heard me talk before about the show's financial accounts being hacked. It is a horrible experience. It can happen to anyone. Look at the stats and our sponsor, Aura, gives you peace of mind. Aura is the all in one solution to keep your accounts safe. Aura scans the dark web for your personal info, emails, passwords, social security numbers, and alerts you if anything is found and helps you fix the problem fast.

You also get alerts about suspicious credit inquiries. Aura protects all of your devices from malware with state of the art antivirus and aura helps you manage what your kids can do on their devices with really easy to use parental controls. You can try aura for free for two weeks at aura dot com slash pacman. you to be a part of the conversation. That's a URA dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome to the show today, Mitch Prinstein, who's the chief science officer of the American Psychological Association, professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and also author of the book Popular Finding Happiness and Success in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships. Mitch, it's so great to have you

on there. There are so many different places we could start, but let's just start with something that's in the book and then go from there. You write about how and the ways in which popularity, particularly in youth, influences our development and then ends up influencing success, happiness and our circumstances later in life. And I couldn't help but think of thinking back to when I first moved to the United States. English is my second language. It was very anxiety producing to talk in front of the class, especially to read out loud in front of the class until it was something I got familiar with.

With my show. Now we estimate our daily audience is like one point five million people. But there's no association with the show and that phase of my life. So it's not stressful to me at all. But even when speaking in front of a small in-person group, I feel a twinge of that from when I was a kid. Is this the sort of pass through that you talk about when you talk about our awareness and relationships in these ways as kids and how it can still affect us later? Yeah, what a great example. That's that's exactly

right. You know, and it was only recently that research was done where they looked at what happens in the moment that we are in a social situation, what areas of the brain seem to get activated. And what was surprising told us, you know, everything we're doing today, we're kind of playing it through a filter that we built many years ago, those long-term memories, those experiences when we were young. And we're still comparing everything we see today with our kind of former selves and all the worries and the concerns and the memories that we have back then. So in a very real way, that old version of us is still part of the conductor, the director of how we act every day now. I'm curious whether you think that still talking about kids and adolescents have the standards for

popularity changed at all. And the reason I'm curious about this is my girlfriend and many of my friends are psychotherapists and they work with a lot of adolescents. And what I hear from a lot of them is that right now, family wealth seems to play a significant role in who the popular kids are in school. Now, I don't remember it being that way at all when I was in middle school, high school, never mind that it wasn't totally clear who the wealthy kids were. I remember it being more about who's good at sports or who's perceived as attractive or it. Has there been a change in what now makes pop generates popularity in some of these

school settings? Yeah, the the big factors have stayed the same. what now generates popularity in some of these school settings? Yeah, the big factors have stayed the same. So physical appearance and social behavior. But then there's that miscellaneous category of what does society value? And for some people in their town and their community, it's who's a big leader in the church or in the place of worship. For some, it's who's the best athlete, you know, for others, it's wealth or clothing or, you know, but that piece is very culturally prescribed. And we're talking about all the way to the level of what's cool in that particular school. So a lot of this is probably just a reflection of where the therapists I know are working rather than any one thing that is now kind of nationally prescriptive of popularity.

Yeah, that might be. And also where we are as a society today, you know, we've kind of moved from caring about things like wealth or material goods more and less over the years. And we might be in a position where people are really interested in those kinds of markers of status more than they used to be. I recently had my 20 year high school reunion and inevitably a lot of the conversations are the sort of remember when X, Y, Z did ABC sort of stuff. But with my closer friends, we've talked a lot about how those who were more popular

in high school are overwhelmingly not the ones that have done the best by adult standards when it comes to relationships or job status or finance. Now, I know I went to a relatively diverse school in terms of economic backgrounds, et cetera. I know people who went to a private school where everyone was high achieving and everybody's doing well as adults. But I'm curious what the research shows about popularity earlier and how it relates to what we might call traditional metrics of success in adulthood. Yeah. So that really does fit the research very well. And it really shows us that there are what are two different kinds of popularity. And that's a big focus of why people get so confused on this sometimes. The one kind starts being relevant from

when we're like three or four, you can already tell who's the most likable and who's the least. But the other kind comes on board for in America around fifth, sixth grade. Suddenly there's that kind of status. And even kids use the word popular to talk about them. Who's the most influential, dominant, gets the most attention? Well, that form of popularity, that status form of popularity, it used to peak in high school and then, you know, kind of go away. Now we live in a world where people are still chasing status their whole lives. But it's actually related to all these

negative outcomes. People who have high status end up getting hired, but more often fired, demoted, relationship problems, addiction difficulties, anxiety, depression, even their romantic partners and their friends tell researchers, yeah, I don't really enjoy spending a lot of time with that former high status or current status seeking person because they're kind of using me. This is all the opposite for likability. The kids who have that kind of popularity, those who are making others feel valued and included, and you want to spend time with them. Not only do they have great outcomes and all these professional and psychological factors, but they actually live longer and they have less diseases. Their kids do better. So a stark contrast between these two different kinds of popularity.

To what degree do we think that this is nature versus nurture when it starts being noticeable, at least in terms of likeability, as early as age three and kind of connected to that? Sometimes I've read a number of journal articles that look at introversion versus extroversion connected to different factors. It seems that a bunch of this is sort of weighted against introverts by its nature. Is that is that possible? Introverts are a heterogeneous group, right? So you've got some introverts that really are uncomfortable being

around others, and that might not be a great thing. But then you've got introverts who are just a little bit more quiet and thoughtful before they enter into a conversation, or they actually do quite well. They can be very likable because they tend to read the room and know how to enter into a group really thoughtfully. So it's a little bit less introvert, extrovert. There are some genetic factors though, right? Those super impulsive people or people who can't handle a lot of emotion, we call that a temperaments characteristic, and that can be heritable. Physical attractiveness is definitely a factor. Intelligence is a factor. And just generally, some of our social skills seem to have a heritable component. A lot of this, though,

is nurture, which means we also have the opportunity to change it. The way we learn how we interpret other people's behavior and how we behave when we're with others, that's all stuff we can modify. When it comes to social media as a layer on top of this, when I was growing up, the way in which you sort of I don't know if evaluated is the right word, but sort of observed and understood personality, likability and started to make relationships was very much based on the kind of in-person presentation of others. One of the things that for me personally has been true of social media is that sometimes a relationship will start with someone, a colleague or someone in my space or whatever through social media. And then eventually when we meet in person, to put it lightly,

they're extraordinarily socially awkward, where it's really, really difficult in person to connect in anything approximating the way that a friendship would have developed when I was 15, for example. What's been the effect of social media in kind of I don't know if it's sense making or king making or whatever it might be in terms of setting people up for where they are going to be in terms of real and perceived status? Yeah, great question. Let's think about what social media pulls for. First of all, what kind of popularity is it pulling for? Does social media reward us when we make others feel valued and included and happy? Or does it reward us when we have the loudest voice? We're the most dominant and influential, right? So it's really designed to focus on one kind of popularity

more than the other. The other thing is it kind of strips away a little bit of the humanity, right? So when I log in after my birthday, let's say, it will say, hey, you got 200 birthday greetings. It doesn't tell me who they are. It doesn't link to their profiles. It doesn't encourage me to get to know more about them. It just says 200 people, you know, and so it's taking away some of the skill building that you need to develop a friendship, emotional vulnerability, disclosure, reciprocity, you know, these are the things that you need when you're in person and you're connecting with somebody on, you know, what we used to think of as a real human

level. I guess one could argue that a positive thing about social media is I mean, tell me tell me if my instinct is right on this. There are probably folks who struggle to connect in the real world, but who are better able to form some relationships if they at least start online. Is that a possibility? Yeah, that's right. So, you know, for people that are experiencing pretty big deficits, social media slows down the interaction a little bit so they can really like investigate somebody in their interests and find the thing to say. It can help them practice skills that are really hard to do in person. You know, people that are experiencing depression can find others experiencing depression, for example, and they can find a way to talk about that. And that doesn't come up in conversation too quickly with

a stranger. So there can be some benefits for people who are otherwise having a lot of difficulties. Can you talk a little bit about what's known about the link between what we might call high status as an adult and depression, anxiety, substance abuse, relationship problems in terms of the mechanics of what what can be at play there? So when we think about status as compared to likability, we're really talking about people who can get their dominance and attention through really good means. They can just be great leaders. But more often than not, aggression is something that leads people to get high status, subtle or even pretty severe and overt ways of bullying others or putting them down. And the problem is in high school, there's a tolerance for that.

The bullies do get some reward for being kind of at the top of the heap when they show how powerful they are compared to others. But that just doesn't play in adulthood in the same way. So they learn these skills to be aggressive and then enter the adult world. And that doesn't work out. So they suddenly find, wait a minute, I'm really craving all this status. I knew how to get it before, and now I don't anymore. And I don't really, and I've lost the chance to learn how to connect with people. So what happens is that people who had high status and are still looking for status, they've lost the skill on how to connect with others in a kind and collective way.

They're being a little bit aggressive or maybe using others to kind of get themselves more status. And as a result, they actually see that their relationships are not going so well and they tend to get pretty lonely and depressed. Is this something in. So going back to the through line between personality, likability, popularity in childhood through to circumstances as an adult, how much of this is changeable once you've entered adulthood? Is it only through extensive therapy and consideration and self-analysis, or can simply seeing the reactions of people to one in the real world be enough to reorient you?

Yeah, I don't think we need intensive therapy in order to change it. We do need to take a peek at our adolescence for a moment and just say, what are some of the things I learned there? It's unlikely that they just disappeared as I got older. I probably learned something and that might still be playing out a little bit. There's still a filter that I've got, you know, that I'm looking through. We call those cognitive biases. And, you know, for some people that filter is, you know, in a situation where I'm confused what's happening, I tend to assume people are being mean, or maybe the opposite. I tend to assume that people are lavishing me with praise, even though, you know, there might be moments where they could have some critical or some helpful feedback. So the first thing we

got to do is got to approach that bias and say, all right, what is the filter that I might be using? And then we have to put ourselves in a little bit of a tricky position to say, you know, I it that way? And we're sometimes surprised to realize that we're unwittingly contributing to replaying the patterns over and over again. We realize, wait a minute, if I just don't assume that someone was being mean to me and I approach in a very neutral way, it actually makes the interaction go pretty well. But if I assume they're being mean and then I get hostile in return, well, it's guaranteed to turn into a pretty bad interaction. So it takes a little bit of that trial and error. Mitch, last thing I want to ask you about, and this is something I've generally it's a bit of a departure from what we're talking about, but but I think related, just curious on your thoughts. I get a lot of hate mail and sometimes the hate mail is the sort of stuff

where if it was ever published, it would be humiliating to me if I were ever caught saying some of these things. I used to get very defensive and reactive. But the more I think about it and I think to myself, you know, I've never written to anyone whose content I watch. And if I did, I certainly wouldn't insult them and use horrible slurs and all these different things. What must be going on in the life of the person who is sending this sort of stuff? And I assume that they are the ones that are struggling and I get kind of sad and then I move

on. Is my instinct that those who are willing to say such things over the Internet to people they don't even know, is it more about them than it is about me as the target? Or is that maybe it's just something I tell myself to feel better? No, I think I think that you're onto something. There are two things that we've learned from this kind of current culture where people are free to say what whatever they want, no matter how drastic. One is that people who tend to participate in the response, whether it's the comment section of an article that they read, or it's writing to someone that they might've heard through media, is you tend to get the

vast extremes of the continuum there, right? So no one ever writes to say, I had generally neutral feelings about what I just experienced and I wanted to share that with you. So, you know, you're usually getting the extremes. So you have to remember that the vast majority of the planet lives in the middle of the bell curve, not on the extremes. The people who think I'm doing a five out of 10, I don't hear from. Yeah. They're not going to take the time to write that we're all too busy. But the second thing is that we're in an area of depersonalization. So people are no longer interacting with one another as humans, knowing that you're a person that has a range of feelings and experiences. You do a lot of things that you're probably proud of. And there are some things that you probably think, that wasn't my

best. And I'm already aware of that. That's the normal human experience. We now kind of don't look at people that way. We look at them as, you know, the epitome of everything that we love or everything that we hate. And we kind of feel free to share that with somebody as if they are emblematic of everything we want to stand up for or against. We kind of forget that, wait a minute, these are people and these are humans and we're all just doing our best and we've lost that compassion and empathy a bit. Yeah, a lot of lack of compassion in my inbox. That's that's for sure. We've been speaking with Mitch Prinstein. The book is popular, Finding Happiness and Success

in a World That Cares Too Much About the Wrong Kinds of Relationships. Really appreciate your time today. Thanks so much. Sure. Thank you. Breaking a deeply ingrained habit is one of the toughest things to do. Our sponsor, Fume, can make it easier. Not everything in a bad habit is wrong. So instead of a drastic, uncomfortable change, remove the bad from the habit. And that's, quite frankly, what fume helps you do. Fume is an innovative, award winning device that delivers flavored air. That's it. There's no vapor. There's no nicotine, no electronics. It's just delicious flavored air delivered by the cylindrical fume device that fits in the palm of your hand. It comes in tasty, refillable flavors like raspberry The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. It's great for that. And it's just a useful thing to break bad habits. And it provides that perfectly satisfying hand to mouth mechanic that many people love.

Don't judge fume until you've tried it. They have helped countless people make positive changes and you could be next. Head over to try fume dot com and use code Pacman to save 10 percent when you get the journey pack, which comes with the device and several flavors to try. That's try FUM dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman for 10 percent off the journey pack. The info is in the podcast notes. Taylor Swift derangement syndrome has hit the center of MAGA. The failed former president Donald Trump himself. Donald Trump is now privately telling people that he is more popular than Taylor Swift. What that means, I don't even

know. And his aides have reportedly launched a holy war against her, the content of which remains unclear. There's a really good Rolling Stone article about this. Trump allies pledge holy war against Taylor Swift. Swift hasn't even endorsed Joe Biden, but Trump is privately grousing that he's, quote, more popular than her. Magaland's upper crust is plotting to declare, as a source close to Trump calls it a holy war on the pop megastar, especially if she does ultimately back Joe Biden. According to three people familiar with the matter, Trump loyalists working on or close to the former president's campaign, longtime Trump allies and right wing media and an array of outside advisers to the ex presidentpresident have taken it as a given

that eventually Taylor Swift will endorse Biden, which she did in 2020. Several of these Republicans and conservative media figures have talked to Trump about this. And The New York Times reported Monday Swift is a name on Biden AIDS wish list. This is the critical part. Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year, not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. Trump has been telling people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has privately claimed he is, quote, more popular than Swift.

Somehow I struggle to believe that. I believe he's saying it. I don't believe he is a more popular than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does. Last month, the source close to Trump adds the ex-president commented to some confidants that it obviously made no sense that he wasn't named Time magazine's 2023 person of the year, which, of course, Taylor Swift was named. Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller shrugged it off. Joe Biden might be counting on Taylor Swift to save him, but voters are looking at these

sky high inflation rates and saying we are never, ever getting back together. Of course, inflation is down to two point seven percent. Listen, I don't I don't think Trump and MAGA can defeat the Swifties. I really don't. This is an incredible cultural movement of which I don't consider myself a part. I want to be clear. I know people will write and say, David, you just love Taylor Swift so much. I could not care less about Taylor Swift's music. I have no interest in going to the concerts. I don't care about it. I'm simply looking at this objectively. Taylor Swift right now is at a peak cultural cultural moment. Her tour has been popular in a way that we haven't seen in a long time.

Globally, her popularity is off the charts. Trump is liked by part of the American Republican Party with the with very few exceptions. I think Trump is well liked in Russia. I think Trump is well liked in Turkey. And for some reason, I think Trump might be well liked in Nigeria. I don't I think that's the third country. I don't remember necessarily. But other than that, Trump isn't well liked. It's part of the American Party, the American Republican Party and some Russians, Turks and Nigerians. Taylor Swift is liked globally. Now, what that will do in terms of cachet for her supporting Joe Biden in 2024 remains

to be seen. We know she's registering a ton of voters, as we said earlier. But if I were a betting man and I am not. My bet would be on the Swifties, not on the Magas and allies around Trump are pledging that they are going to destroy Taylor Swift. They are starting to talk about George Soros, something about Soros backed something years ago and it connects to her. None of it makes any sense whatsoever. I would bet on the Swifties, folks. That's my that's my prediction here. Donald Trump seems to have fired his lawyer, Alina Haba, after months of praise, after months of

MAGA saying this is one of the best lawyers and she's going to just do such a great job. It appears as though Trump has fired her after she presided over Trump's 83.3 million dollar verdict against him in favor of E. Jean Carroll for defamation. After all of that, it seems Trump fired her Trump posting to Truth Central Central. Quote, I am in the process, along with my team of interviewing various law firms to represent me in an appeal of one of the most ridiculous and unfair witch hunts our capital C country has ever seen. The defamation sham presided over by a Clinton appointed highly partisan Trump hating Judge Lewis Kaplan, who was together with certain other radical left Democrat judges,

one of the most partisan and out of control activists that I have ever appeared before. He was a bully who demanded two trials rather than one denied me due process. By the way, none of this stuff is true, would not allow me to put forth vital evidence of which there was much and only allowed me to be on the witness stand for minutes telling my lawyer what to ask and telling me only to only give one word answers as his wife and friends sat in cordoned off front row seats watching with glee. This entire hoax is a disgrace to our American system of justice. Any lawyer who takes a Trump case is either crazy or a true American patriot.

I will make my decision soon. The critical line here is that Trump is interviewing lawyers to handle his appeal. Trump appears to have fired Alina Haba. It remains unclear whether she is, will or might be representing him in any future matters. She is not involved to our to the best of our current knowledge in any of Trump's criminal trials. Remember, on the criminal issues, she's the TV lawyer who stands outside of court and makes all sorts of declarations that are not legal arguments that would not stand up in court at all. When it came to the civil trial,

she was representing him. She failed badly. She was regularly humiliated in court, told that she her behavior lacked decorum, told that on process she was wrong. And it does appear as though Donald Trump has fired her. Now, I do want to remind everybody that one of Donald Trump's claims to fame himself is that he hires the best people. And yet we've seen this backfire so many times when it came to Donald Trump's original cabinet. Many of those original cabinet members turned against him. He later said, no, I do hire the best people. But these are people who went bad. They went rogue. They

for whatever reason, it wasn't Trump's mistake in hiring them in the first place. It was some kind of technicality when it comes to Trump's lawyers who fail to adequately represent him. And then sometimes he fires fail to adequately represent him and then sometimes he fires them or sometimes they quit and then he doesn't pay them. He's still hiring all the best people. It's you know, someone else's fault or something else is an explain explanation as to what exactly is going on. He obviously doesn't hire the best people.

There were rumors of Alina Haba potentially as attorney general in Donald Trump's forthcoming administration. If you can think of something scarier than that, let me know. But at least for now, it seems that the immediate legal relationship between them has ended. If we are understanding what he is saying correctly and we will see who steps forward. You know, it's like Amazon is running through the entire population and struggling to find new employees. Trump is running through the legal population and struggling to find lawyers who are willing to or can represent them. You hate to see it. We have

a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. I mentioned earlier that we would deal with this question. It's an important question when it comes to the Republican primary. Let's take a listen. Hey, Dave, Tommy here. Hold on a second. Let me turn down, please. OK, so.

When I guess it's only a matter of time that Nikki Haley drops out of the race. Yes. Will she abandon all of her principles or the principles that she has left and endorsed Donald Trump? I'm also not a betting man, but I would put money on that. She would indeed drop out and enforce the big orange. Let me know your thoughts. Let me show.

Yep. I believe the answer is absolutely. Now, I know that it sounds crazy, right? Nikki Haley is saying Trump has declined cognitively. Nikki Haley is saying Trump doesn't have it. He's a danger. All these different things. I believe when she drops out, she will endorse Donald Trump.

And her argument would be, listen, everything I said about Trump is true. We have two 80 year olds. They've both declined. And since they've both declined, it sort of cancels out and Trump will pick better people to be in his cabinet than Biden would. And so I'm endorsing Donald Trump. That's my prediction. Now, we'll see if it happens. But listen, she's not going to vote Biden. And I think she'll be in a position where she has to say one way or the other, whether she endorses Trump if she's the last person standing and ultimately drops out. So I do expect Nikki Haley to kiss the ring and endorse Trump. If you don't think so, let me know. We are going to discuss on today's bonus

show the continued effort from Democrats pushing Joe Biden to deschedule or we might say reschedule cannabis. This is something that the Biden administration has already requested. It would be I mean, listen, we've been talking about it for a decade. It makes no sense for cannabis to be a schedule one drug up there with the most damaging and dangerous substances. It just doesn't make any sense. It should be descheduled. Democrats are now again urging Joe Biden to make it happen. Cori Bush, a squad member, is facing a Department of Justice investigation.

Why alleged misuse of campaign funds is the reason we will discuss that on the bonus show as well. And what might be the inflation situation if Donald Trump does win in November? Well, there are economists saying if Trump wins based on what he tells us his policy will be, we might see inflation reverse and go back up. I will tell you what policies it would be and what to expect. All of these stories are on today's bonus show. When I am joined by producer Pat, you can sign up instantly for the bonus show at join Pacman dot com. You can use show.