The Dispatch Podcast - S.E. Cupp on Moderation and Social Media

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

On today’s episode, CNN’s S.E. Cupp joins Sarah and Steve to talk about the Biden administration, Congress, and why extremism is taking over the politics of today. Plus, the trio discusses the effects of social media on the news business and the challenges that come with being the target of internet trolls. Show Notes: “The Conservative Coma” by SE Cupp in Vanity Fair S.E. opens up about living with anxiety WSJ report on the effects of social media on teen girls “Why You're Wrong About the Right” by S.E. Cupp and Brett Joshpe “Losing our Religion” by S.E. Cupp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Steve Hayes. And this week, we are talking to S.E. Cup. She's CNN's host of S.E. Cup unfiltered. It airs Saturdays at 6 p.m. Check it out. She also writes a ton. I first met her when her first book came out, why you're wrong about the right. Always a thoughtful guest. We'll talk politics, Biden administration, Afghanistan, 2021. But also, we're going to talk about something that she's been writing about frequently recently about social media. It's health crisis for the country. And what, if anything, we should be thinking about it, doing about it, parents with their children. A really interesting conversation that I have been looking forward to having with her.

Let's dive right in. Essie, there's something I've been wanting to ask you, which is you were a big critic of the Trump administration, obviously. You're a conservative, so it's not like you're, you know, a Biden cheerleader. Is there anything that you see now that you think the Trump administration did better than the Biden administration is doing now? Um, I don't, I'm hesitant. to make a, and thanks for having me, by the way, and good to talk to you both. I'm hesitant

to make like a direct comparison for a couple of reasons. I mean, primarily because early into the Biden administration and Trump was so unique. But, you know, I always find in foreign policy, the new guy is constantly reflecting back against the old guys. So Obama came in, right, and really just wanted to be not Bush. And then Trump came in and really just wanted to be not Obama. And Biden's come in and really wanted to be not Trump. And that's bad strategy for foreign policy. It's incomplete.

It's it's not forward looking. It's reactionary. And so I think I would I would give Biden the obvious critiques of his of his foreign policy. And I think Trump, for all of his flaws, maybe didn't know enough about foreign policy to be terrible at it. So I think I think looking back at the Trump administration when we sort of like wipe our eyes and remove our sort of you know, partisan opinions about him, we might, we might look back with some exceptions at his foreign policy and think this was actually not so bad. What's the area in which you give the Biden administration its highest mark so far?

Honestly, like transparency, communication, like truth telling, real simple things that I think be, we expected for a while and then got a little delusioned long before Trump, but got, you know, sort of jaded about opaque administrations. And I think Biden is trying to do a very good job of being open, transparent, and communicative in a way that I think we really need it. So even when I don't like, what's, you know, decisions that are being made. I know that they're being made. I know that they're being made and we're talking about them. And I wish he'd give a little more access to the press, but, but I mean, I'd wish that of every president.

But otherwise, I think just being open and more honest is a really important, important step. Essie, do you, I'm wondering, just looking back at the past two months and what's happened in Afghanistan, I would say I generally agree, you know, we don't in Joe Biden have a president who so routinely lies and makes up conspiracy theories and caters to sort of the worst and most dishonest elements in American politics, as Trump did. On the other hand, I would say in particular, as we've seen this evolving Afghanistan crisis, we've had many moments where Joe Biden and the people who speak for, I think have been sort of aggressively dishonest, whether you're talking about the number of

Americans who were stranded in Afghanistan, whether you're talking about the lack of planning, whether you're talking about the Afghan allies. They seem to have taken a different course. I wonder if it struck you the same way as we lived through that as you covered that and what that means for how we should regard them going forward. Sure. I mean, it's hard to argue that that wasn't botched and bungled on almost every level, so practically and sort of in the aftermath. But I, for all of the bungling, I don't believe that Biden and any of these officials that have spoken about it were purposely trying to cover up mistakes. I think they were trying to justify them and sort of explain them after the fact and, you know, revise, you know, revised mistakes, which is, which is not great either. But I don't believe that there's a kind of cover up. And I think that's meaningful. Now, listen, I mean, is it, is that good enough? No. And I think we need to know more. And I'm glad people like Tony Blinken are showing up for hearings and we're asking questions. And, um,

you know, some of which, of course, is fueled by bipartisanship. But I think, I think ultimately there are a lot of unanswered questions, and this administration has to stand accountable and answer for them. Yeah, I hope we do. I mean, we have seen blink and take questions. I hope as we go forward, we have Mark Millie taking questions on Afghanistan and a wide variety of other issues, to be sure, September 28th and other top Biden administration national security officials coming before Congress. I do hope that they, that they answer these

questions in the spirit of transparency that I think you noted at the beginning of the administration. I do think they've really not only screwed up the practical elements of the withdrawal, but in some cases, the State Department in particular, State Department spokesman Ned Price, President Biden himself, have said things that just don't square with reality in our heart. I mean, I think if you just look at the, to take one small example, look at the way that they've talked about the number of Americans left behind. You know, the number just keeps changing. And, you know, now we're learning that more and more Americans are coming out, but the number is the same. They aren't doing the math. And it's just hard to reconcile. And I, you know,

as somebody who repeatedly expressed concern about the lack of honesty coming from the Trump administration, I think it's important to hold the Biden administration to those same standards and when they fall short to make sure that we're grilling them. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely agree. So, Essie, looking at the hill now, moving focus a little bit, what do you think happens next on the infrastructure package? Is Biden's legislative agenda basically?

entirely tied up in that and dead otherwise? Or are there other things you think that they can find compromise on or focus on for the remaining, you know, three years of his presidency? I know. It feels like it feels like on the one hand, they've got so much time. And yet on the other, like it's just ticking away and 2024 is right around the corner. This is tough math, right? I mean, Democrats don't have math on their side when it comes to come. And so, and it's just, there's just tough partisanship. So there's just not a lot of room, I think, and willingness for, for comity and coming together and getting stuff done for the good of the people.

I mean, all those things, right? I mean, good governance just doesn't seem to be possible right now on so many urgent issues. And I don't know what will happen with. Who's fault is that? Is that Republicans in transigence or is it Democrats shifting too far to the left? There was that brief moment there where we had dealmakers from both parties meeting together on the infrastructure deal, the deal that still hasn't been signed by the president because the House won't vote on it. I'm having trouble deciding who to blame for Congress's dysfunction. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I think it's, I think there's blame to go around. I think Biden's left flank is holding that party

hostage a little bit and sort of, not really, not really honoring the, the platform that Biden ran and won on, which was, you know, as more of a moderate. That was the stuff, you know, the stuff he promised was a concession to the middle. And so, um, it's not. surprise that, you know, the AOCs of that party are kind of holding, holding Democrats hostage. And then of course there's Republican in transplants, of course. I mean, it's, you know, it's hard not to not to see that. And so I think there are too few good actors in the middle who really just want to get stuff done. And they're not empowered. They don't have, you know, they don't have a lot of, um, they don't have a lot of power and momentum to actually do the work.

And so, you know, as much power as Joe Manchin seems to have, um, you know, there's just one of it, you know, and, and cinema, Christian cinema doesn't, you know, give, uh, you know, the moderate, moderate, um, wing of the Democratic Party all that much more power. either. So I just think there's a lot of factors. And again, really, it's just the math. The math is so tight. There's just no real room for movement. So then, Steve, that sounds like it's our fault, frankly. Well, that's actually what I was going to say. I mean, that's what I was going to say. I mean, are we just the point now where we should become accustomed to dysfunction at the federal level? Because that's what it feels like. I mean, you look at, you look at the debate over

the debt ceiling. You look at the debate over funding government. You look at the proposals. I mean, you know, obviously I'm a conservative. I'm sort of obsessed about debt and deficits. You look at the proposals from, from Democrats and the dollar figures attached when we're almost $29 trillion in debt. You look at the Republican Party that is increasingly becoming just a party of conspiracies. Yesterday, last night, we saw the resignation or not the resignation, but we saw Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, 16th District, announced that he will not be running for re-election. And he said it's in part because our politics is so awful and the Republican Party is not

a comfortable place for him. Like, are we just at the point where this is what people should expect? And if not, is there anything you can point to to make people hopeful? I mean, look, the conservative in me really doesn't mind slow government, right? I don't like quick government. I don't like when government comes in with, you know, a sweeping ginormous agenda and rushes it through without anyone from the other party, the opposition party, you know, signing on. So I don't mind when government is slow and sort of struggles, but I do mind when it's completely stalled.

And that's where it seems like we are. And I think that is our fault. As much as we lament the state of affairs, we have gotten the government we asked for. And I, you know, talk all the time about wanting, you know, wanting to come to the center more. wanting the moderate, you know, middle of the majority of the country to have more of a voice and more representation. But I don't think the feeling is mutual. I don't think the rest of the country wants that. If they did, they would be voting very differently. And you, you know, that's obvious when you look at state elections. I mean, I guess you could point to Joe Biden

as an example of, you know, not only Democrats, but Republicans. like me who voted for him, wanting more of that, but certainly not among our elected representatives in Congress because we keep voting for people who really represent the wings and not the rest of us. So I think people, as much as we talk about, you know, turning the temperament, you know, the temper down and, you know, getting less angry and less divisive, I don't think, I think people want more anger and division and sort of entrenchment, I think it's feeling too good for too many people. Well, let me push you on that.

You know, we lament that, but I just think that it's inarguable when you just look at who people are voting for. Let me push you on that a little bit. It seems to me that is obviously, you're, you know, descriptively you're right, like this is what we're living. But it seems to me, and I think there's polling to back this up, that what you have is, you know, sort of activists on the either side of the two political

parties, Democrats and Republicans, who drive the process and cater, they play to the polarization, right? That's what gives them power. That's what gives them, that's what amplifies their voices. That's what gets them on cable TV. They play it to the polarization. But there's this vast middle. And I don't necessarily mean, this in an ideological way, because I think there are a lot of sort of pro, I would call them pro-democracy Republicans who are, in fact, very conservative, but believe these things, who just don't have any time or patience for this, this, you know, red team awful, blue team awful paradigm that we seem to be living in. Isn't it the case that the real problem

is a lack of intensity from those in that middle section? So the people on the outside, that they're outnumbered by sort of saying common sense Americans, but they're far more invested and far more excited about politics. And that translates to, you know, their ownership of state political parties, of local Republican and Democrat. And, and their, you know, their presence on, on the shout fest that we see on, on all the, a lot of the cable news outlets.

Is that, am I off on that or, or, you see my point? No, and I think, I mean, I think, No, I think 100%. And I actually think we were sort of saying the same thing. I think, obviously, the loudest voices are getting the most attention, but are not representative of where the majority of the country is, that majority moderate middle, people like me who do not have representation, you know, within our two parties.

And I think that's clear, I just wrote about this as well, take any issue, abortion, immigration, gun control. The majority of people are not on the extremes. The majority of people are not in favor of the Texas anti-abortion law, but they also don't want abortions without restrictions. The majority of people are in the middle on that issue, but you don't hear from those sort of common sense, moderate views. you only hear about the extremes, and that's true of virtually every issue. And I think

the intensity problem you're talking about is a midterm problem. When the only people voting in midterm elections are the hardcore, you know, right and left flanks of the base and, you know, moderates are not coming out, then that is how you get, you know, the sort of extremism and purity testing in the parties every two and four years. I mean, this is, this is why, because it's only, you know, the extremes going out to vote in these midterm elections. And so we wonder, we wonder, you know, every four years, we're like surprised by the, you know, the polarization of the country and the, and the characters that are running for elections. And how did these people get, you know, get any sort of backing and, and, you know, popularity.

We're like, shock. Well, this is why. And so, yes, I think it is because people in the middle are not represented and therefore don't go out to vote as often as they probably should. And then because they don't go out to vote, they are not represented. It's, you know, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Okay. I want to share my thesis with both of you and get your thoughts.

on it. This is like sort of a rational actor theory that as Congress realized, as individual members of Congress realized that it was in their interest not to make policy decisions and instead to be angry about various decisions that just weren't in their control, et cetera. Sort of in the, it was happening before the Tea Party, but I think the Tea Party really accelerated that where a bunch of challengers won and being an incumbent, being seen as an incumbent or entrenched was no longer a benefit in your messaging. So then the executive becomes way more powerful. So who is president is really the only issue. So it becomes not very rational to vote in the midterms, by the way, because who's in Congress doesn't matter. The result of the

executive having then all of the legislative power, because the executive right gets all this pressure, do something about this problem. And they're like, well, actually Congress has to do something about it, but sure, we'll have an executive order because it doesn't do us any harm to have the courts strike it down. And you have the eviction moratorium and you have, I mean, infinite number of things from the Trump administration, Lord knows. And so then, and it's so interesting because Justice Thomas said this yesterday at Notre Dame, here's his quote, the court was thought to be the least dangerous branch. She's quoting the Federalist papers there. And we may have become the most dangerous branch because now all of these decisions are actually getting made at the courts.

And while they're supposed to be making the decision on simply what's constitutional and what's not constitutional, they're humans who live in this country and who know that there's a huge problem like COVID that needs to be solved and therefore kind of picking and choosing which executive branch actions are reasonably close or very necessary. And so it becomes even more rational for people to focus on the executive because that's who's going to pick the judges. and for Congress to even see more power to the executive because it is good for both the executive and Congress as individual actors to blame it on the courts that they're not letting their work go through, basically. Well, I don't know how you could argue with any of that.

I think that's so spot on. And really, at the practical level, what's happening? And then I'll just add, because I think you're absolutely right, I'll just add, I think, at a theoretical level. I think the media is also a little responsible for putting too much focus on the executive and the president and every four years, the sort of circus that we do around the election, which never ends.

I mean, it's all four years, not every four years, the whole time. And I think that makes the presidency and that office, that body, omnipresent and too much of a central focus in our daily lives. I mean, it's like we, and this isn't new. I think this happened with the sort of celebrization of presidents, probably back to JFK. The idea that every four years we're going to elect someone who's going to solve all our problems, when really that person should be solving like the fewest of our problems.

And most of our problems should be solved by like, local school boards and local sanitation boards and not the president. And yet we just sort of transfer all our hopes and dreams onto this one person. And then also all of our anger and animosity when we don't like him. And then we transfer it to his party and the rest of them. And it's just too important. And I don't think it was ever meant to be. You know, I know it wasn't.

And there's this great, there's this great little anecdote in a book called The Private Lives of the Founding Fathers where he talks about Washington and he's just coming in and he's very embarrassed by the idea that they're going to have an inaugural ball because he thought that was sort of too close to, you know, monarchy kind of behavior. And my God, I mean, look at where we are now to the power of the presidency and the attention that we put on this one person. And, and I, again, I just think the media has really reinforced that idea and that focus in a way that is unhealthy and, you know, not all that democratic, it's a liberal, it's, and it's just not good for us. I don't think it's doing anyone good to take our attention away from our local community, municipal governments, and put it squarely. on whatever's happening in Washington. Yeah, I mean, I think you're both right. And it might even be worse than you're suggesting. If you look at the way that the executive handles the power,

it has obtained over the past, I'd say, let's say 60, 70 years. It often then simply passes that power to the administrative state. So nobody wants to make these hard decisions. So the Congress passes its decision making to the executive. The executive passes its decision making to the administrative state. And the result, I think, to pick up on your point, Essie, is that you have a media that identifies all these problems, identifies challenges in society, pushes them to this administrative state with the sort of implied command.

and do something, and then government grows. And I think we're in this cycle, particularly because there's not really a small government party in America anymore. I mean, Republicans don't argue for small government. They argue that they'll now use power better than Democrats. That's the debate. Who will use power better? There's no real small government.

Nobody's making serious principled arguments, at least the leaders of the Republican Party, aren't making serious principled argument for less government in this case. They're just saying, we'll do it. better than those guys. And I think that's a, yeah, that is it, that is a huge challenge to our, to our sort of the fundamentals of the republic. Yeah, well, and I'm wondering, Steve and Sarah, I mean, how do you think, how does this go? And this is not a new question. In fact, I mean, I don't know, three years ago, I wrote for Vanity Thera a column called the conservative homo, like conservatism as a set of principles. It's still,

out there somewhere, it's just kind of dormant because no one's really advancing those ideas that, you know, you and I grew up in politics, you know, advancing. And so I'm wondering, where does this, how does that get empowered again? Who champions that? Is there incentive to start championing small government, limited government, you know, is there, is there an incentive to do that again. I mean, I'd love to have an optimistic answer here to take us from this bleak discussion. I'm worried that it won't happen until there's a crisis, right? I mean, you know, we're in a crisis. But there just was. Right. So. COVID was the crisis. COVID was when everyone was supposed to put down their politics and be good at stuff. And that didn't happen. So

wasn't the crisis. But I think everybody in that instance turned to the government. And I think as somebody who's a, you know, a small, small government guy, limited government guy, there was a room for the government to do things to take steps that, you know, I wouldn't have been comfortable with in virtually any other circumstance. I'm thinking here of a crisis, you know, of, of, of, of, of, you know, at 29 trillion, you know, the argument is, and you get this from sort of more practical you know, the kind of Trumpy nationalist wing of the Republican Party, hey, it's crazy for anybody to talk about entitlement reform or debt and deficits because voters don't care.

We've got to talk about things the voters want, and we don't want to be pushing policies on them that voters reject. And I think that's cowardly. Yeah, I think it's cowardly. I mean, you know, either that is sort of a description of a follower. I think it takes leadership in these moments. and, you know, there isn't, there isn't much. But, you know, my standard response to people who make that argument is voters may not care right now about $29 trillion in debt, but they will care at some point. Like this, we know this is going to happen. There's going to be a debt crisis. Eventually, we're going to have to pay this back or make some progress in paying it back. And everybody's going to care about it then. This will, this sort of credit card will run out. And that's what I mean. that, you know, maybe at that point, people say, yeah, maybe we shouldn't spend quite as much.

Well, maybe we were arguing about the wrong thing. Maybe we were focused on the wrong stuff. Yes. That's, I mean, you could just apply that sentence to anything. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your love. loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the

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Protect your family with life insurance from ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's eth-h-o-s dot com slash dispatch. Application times may vary, rates may vary. So let's take this from dark to darker maybe. The Wall Street Journal has a piece that has been making a lot of waves. Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place. It got angrier instead.

Internal memos show how a big 2018 change rewarded outrage and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg resisted proposed fixes. And, S.E, you've talked a lot about your anxiety, your desire to pull back from social media and news that has been triggering some of that anxiety. I don't know. I feel very similar about the role that social media is playing in our individual lives

and then you look at how it plays in our lives as community outside of what we do in government. I think it's tearing apart communities as well or maybe disengaging us from the communities we used to have because now you can find these online range communities that feed some part of your brain stem

from our lizard days. So I was hoping, I really wanted to have you on this podcast to talk about your experience with that, what you've learned through, writing about it and sharing it, and what you made of the Wall Street Journal's news on this. But before you get there, I have to ask you,

what were you like in your lizard days? What was that? I think we were very primal and angry in our lizard days, Steve, all of us. well I mean and thank you I think this is such an important topic so I'm glad you're going there and I think people can can view this as sort of an out there problem and there's not much to do about it and I just I don't think that's the case and I think what really comes down to is thinking about intentionality because when you go on social media, you are not in control of it, right?

The algorithms are. And so that's sort of the Facebook problem and, you know, the Twitter problem. And what I've likened it to, and honestly, I've really only kind of understood this better through therapy and talking to my therapist about this. But I, what I've started thinking about is like, okay, you go into a grocery store with a lip. There's things you know you need. You know why you're there. But when you log on to Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, you don't always know why you're there.

Sometimes you go on because you're waiting in line and you want to fill the time. Sometimes you go on maybe for validation. You're feeling crappy about yourself and want to see what people have said, you know, positively about you or sometimes you want to engage or pick some fights. And occasionally you go on because you want information, right? But there's all those reasons. And I don't think we always ask ourselves before we go on, why am I here and what do I want out of this experience? And so the social media experience happens to us.

And then we wonder why we're so overloaded with information and stimulus and anger and feelings and emotions and triggers. Well, it's because we were very passive in this, in this experience. And we're just becoming increasingly more so as. social media sort of infect all of our lives. And I think social media is, you know, has a good purpose and it's a good place in our lives. But I think without that intentionality, it has way too much control over our politics and our communities and how we interact with each other and how we view the world. And what, what happened to me was I think I was completely unintentional. And eventually, I mean, I was, you know, I was on social media.

day saw a video that was very difficult to watch not unlike the thousands of other videos you know you come into contact with on on Twitter on TikTok and Facebook and whatever and for some reason that one just hit different and I had a panic attack a bad one and um about four days where I could not function I couldn't I couldn't read I couldn't I couldn't drive I was completely out of body and the good news is that it hit so hard I knew I needed help right away and so I

got help and I've been working through that and writing about it and talking about it and the more I talk about it the more I find it is such a common experience to be barbed by news not know how to process it see the world in very

unreal ways, black in white, right and left, red and blue, that are just not real, and have it impact our lives in ways we would never want, you know, if we could stop ourselves. And so I've been working through that, but also just talking to so many people who are going through the same, because we're all news consumers. We're not all news producers, like you guys and I am, but we're all news consumers. And so it's learning how to be better news consumers. And that's, and that's, you know, everything from cable news to social media. Can I, can I ask you about the role of

social media and your job as a news producer? Yeah. Somebody who, you know, who's in front of the camera. I think there is a, there's sort of a symbiotic relationship between social media and television news and you know it's common um when you do a panel or you do a show um you talk for 10 minutes and then everybody on the panel the second uh goes to commercial everybody on the panel checks twitter to see if people like what they've just said yeah and it's this sort of really bad set of incentives um because you have people look at looking down, everybody's checking Twitter, they're getting instant feedback to see whether they're sort of their views, their arguments line up with the audiences. And everybody wants to

be liked, right? Everybody wants to be affirmed. But it leads to, I think, this problem where so many people on television are just giving the audience what the audience wants and are just looking or saying things so that they can get that immediate affirmation of their own views. You were really good. It also incentivizes, in my view, people to say the most outrageous things, the most extreme things, because that's what gets picked up on social media. That's what's going to get a follow-on comment or somebody's going to write it up or mediae is going to do a story on it and play the video. Do you see that? And if you do, is there a way to disincentivize that other than, you know, I took Twitter off my phone five years ago or whenever it was. Is there a way to

address that? Well, yeah. I mean, no question. It's a huge, it's a huge incentive. And I call it refresh culture, this idea, you know, we're constantly refreshing. Yeah. To see the comments on a picture or to see the new posts on Twitter what Blue Check has talked about me. Refreshing media in my business to see if I'm being talked about either positively or negatively, right?

Like to your point, there's different agendas, right, for different kinds of people and personalities. But it is that reaction that we're looking for. And we, I mean, I know I feel kind of bonds when there's no reaction, right? Like, is this thing on? Am I actually here?

You know, can anyone hear me saying this? But, I mean, the answer, Steve, and I think you'll appreciate this as a, as a conservative, I hope, is agency. I mean, I'm not looking for, you know, Facebook to rein in my action. Right, right. Or, you know, government to figure out how I best, you know, approach social media or my job as a media producer. That's up to us.

And so that's not an easy answer. There's no like systemic yes, we should just change social media or change media writ large. The answer is take Twitter off your phone like you did five years ago or like I'm saying

go on with intentionality and think about what you need. Think about what the goal of your job is. Is it validation, because it certainly shouldn't be the goal of any journalism, including opinion journalism, right? That's my business. Opinion journalism. It shouldn't just be for validation or provocation. And that's on us. And so, you know, I think individually we have to decide that that's important. And that's why I think having these conversations about mental health and

social media and the toxicity of it and the usefulness of it. It's just so important. I think it will be the conversation of, you know, the 21st century. So we had Will Hurd on the podcast a few months ago at this point. And he has caused this total shift in my thinking based on something that happened in that interview. I was asking him about education and the fights we're having over critical race theory and, you know, on the one hand, on the other hand. And his answer was basically to say, like, who cares? Our schools are falling behind because we're not focused on STEM. And we're not, you know, taking these kids and finding their passion for learning things that actually matter. And instead, we're sitting here fighting over something that's a side issue at best

when we as a society are falling behind countries like China, Russia, et cetera. And I was like, whoa, I have missed the entire important thing for instead the thing we're all fighting about. And when I think about social media now, I keep coming back. That conversation keeps reverberating in my head because the conversation we're having in politics is Section 230 and this Florida bill and the Texas bill where the governors have said social media companies who have, you know, who work in our states can't take down. posts for political bias reasons, basically. And we're having this huge fight over can they do that and the First Amendment and everything

else. And instead, I find myself saying like, that's not the fight we need to be having right now. That's not even the conversation to everything that you're saying, S.E., maybe we need to think about the First Amendment now much more similarly to the way we've thought about the Second Amendment. There is something deeply unhealthy about social media and maybe we need to regulate the companies, not for political bias, but for the mental health cost of our citizens and the cost to our communities of what's happening, similar to what gun violence does in our communities. And this is someone like, I don't know that there's any bigger First Amendment advocate than me. Like, I am all speech all the time. But I am deeply concerned that there is an

addiction value to this as well. And so when you're asking people to simply be thoughtful about getting on Twitter, we're missing the addiction part of it. Yeah, completely. And yeah, I mean, I'm also a pre-speech hawk. I'm also, you know, very weary of regulation generally. But I do agree there has to be a different approach to the way we are investing social media. And so it'll be, and especially for our kids, right, who aren't going to grow up without it. Like, you know, this is just life. And so they haven't had to develop, like I did, you know,

for the first 25 years of my life, not knowing what any of this stuff was. And I don't know if it's regulation is the answer, but I definitely think conversations, more conversations, more education, more good parenting. I mean, I know this sounds. simple, but like, again, I think we're looking outward for answers and the answers are inward

and more, you know, focused on our communities and our families. And that includes more funding for mental health and more education and all of that. But the cat's out of the bag. I don't think you're going to rein in social media in any meaningful ways. And I, I, I, I'm not even sure what that would look like. So I think we just have to be more aware. I was just going to say like cigarettes. We know more, right, about cigarettes than we did. And through educational campaigns and PSAs and all of that,

we've really changed the way we think about smoking. And I think that's the approach I would prefer to take. And that really just starts with talking about the problems. And it's going to be a slow. long process. And we might not be able to keep up with the speed of, you know, emerging technologies, but we have to start these conversations and have them with very serious kinds of consequences laid out. I mean, I think you're right in a prescriptive sense. I will say I'm not terribly confident that we're ready a society to take those steps. I mean, you know,

It is endlessly frustrating to me. I have conversations with parents, you know, who have kids, roughly the age of my kids, and they will say, I just can't get Johnny off his phone. And I think, you're the parent. What do you mean you can't get Johnny off his phone? Take the phone away. And also, by the way, don't give it to him when he's five. Like, he doesn't need a phone at five.

He probably doesn't need a phone at 12. I would argue he doesn't need a phone at 18, but I'm a little strict that way. So I think you're absolutely right. The idea of agency and the idea of basic parental responsibility, I think, has sort of been lost in this debate. I haven't said that, if you look at this Wall Street Journal series on social media,

on Facebook in particular, and the kinds of things that have been reported about the research that Facebook conducted internally about Instagram and what its own researches, on its own payroll, we're finding about the effect that Instagram had on teenage girls in particular, and then didn't share that information, even when asked in congressional testimony, you know, what affects does this have? Well, Facebook would say, well, you know, there's a lot of studies about this. And we think social media can have a positive effect because it allows

people to build communities that they otherwise wouldn't be able to build, et cetera, et cetera. Meanwhile, they're sitting on this information that effectively says, this is really, really toxic, particularly for teenage girls. If you don't have those companies being transparent and honest about what they're doing, it screams for regulation, which I would, on principle, oppose. I mean, look at the cigarette companies, though, in that history, and we didn't just rely on parents. They were targeting kids. They weren't sharing information. They were lying to the public. We did need government intervention as well.

In the end, of course, it was both. But they were targeting children, and so are the social media companies. And exactly to that. I mean, that's a perfect analogy, again, you know, because we had to haul, you know, the tobacco companies into congressional hearings to finally get the information that they knew that they were hiding out into daylight. And so absolutely there's a place and a need for the government to consider this problem as a national health crisis, because I think it is one. But there has to be, I think, you know, ultimately we have to decide we want this.

And Steve, to your point, you know, parents complaining about their kids' social media use or technology. use. I mean, it does not feel like we are at large, ready to take those steps, but you know, teen, suicide, cyberbullying, these are all problems that are not

going to get better anytime soon. They're going to get worse. And I think, you know, unfortunately, it may take those kinds of awful, you know, tragedies to really jolt us

into a new perspective on just how damaging and toxic social media and social media culture can be especially for our kids. Well, Essie, I hope you keep writing about it. Thank you for everything you've written and shared so far. And I think it's helpful, by the way, when you share it on social media, ironically. It's always a nice reminder to me. I'm literally, I'm looking at your tweet that's like, why are you on social media right now? And I'm like, oh, thanks for asking, Essie. Yeah, I'm going to put this down. So I appreciate it. It's like your messages to me personally. You could just end them with comma, Sarah. Yeah. It's an ironic, maybe sort of like oroboros, you know, like, yeah. Or like an Escher painting, right? Like I'm using social media to warn about

social media, but it's the tool we have. And I, you know, every time I talk about it reinforces how important it is to talk about it. I just hear from so many people. So again, thank you for asking about it. Well, thanks for coming on the show today. We so appreciate it. And we'll be tuning into the show. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Appreciate you. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by

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