The Dispatch Podcast - Unrest in Wisconsin

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Widespread destruction of businesses and private property has devastated Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the wake of the police shooting of a Jacob Blake last week. As we explained in today’s Morning Dispatch, “Blake was airlifted to a hospital, underwent surgery, and is still alive, but reportedly paralyzed from the waist down.” The details leading up to Blake’s shooting are still murky, but protests, riots, and looting have ravaged the city for days in response.  “Suppressing civil unrest is one of the most difficult things that any law enforcement agency can do,” David says on today’s episode. But still, we should expect leaders to draw brightline distinctions between constitutionally protected expression and violent protest. There has been a predictably partisan reaction to the riots: Democrats have been reluctant to condemn the violence in fear that doing so will alienate young voters. Republicans, on the other hand, have been quick to ridicule even peaceful protesters. When it comes to quelling the violence, there is also a difference, David adds, between “overwhelming force, which can be often extremely counterproductive and inflame further violence, and overwhelming and prudently deployed presence.” Beyond the events in Wisconsin, tune in for some punditry about the Democratic and Republican conventions, the GOP’s non-platform, and comparisons between the presidential elections of 2020 and 1988. Show Notes: -The Morning Dispatch, “Riots in Wisconsin”, the president’s second term agenda, and Jonah’s column: “About Those Bush-Dukakis Comparisons …” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the Dispatch podcast. We took last week off as you and Jonah traveled our great nation. I am your host, Sarah Isker, joined back by Steve Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, and David French, who's always available. The podcast is brought to you by The Dispatch.

Visit The Dispatch.com to see our full slate of newsletters and podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. We'll hear from our sponsors a little later, ExpressVPN, CarShield, and the Bradley Foundation. Topics for today, violence and unrest in Wisconsin, we'll start there. Then rehash the Democratic Convention from last week. The Republican Party decided to forego having a platform this year. We'll get into it a little bit about that.

Jonah will take us back to 1988 in all of its glory of fashion and politics. And then we'll end with a little question on adulthood and Fahrenheit. Let's dive right in. Steve, starting with you, you left Wisconsin just recently, but things really were getting pretty bad in Kenosha last night. Yeah, we've seen the situation following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, spiral out of control over the past couple of days. Two confirmed fatalities overnight last night, lots of destruction of property, violence. This is true also in Madison, the state capital, where there was additional protesting than rioting. And you get the sense that things

really are unsettled. We're in sort of a very unstable moment. I'm interested in talking about this sort of broadly. I think it's important to point out at the outset of this conversation that there is a lot we don't know. There's a lot we don't know about the initial incident. We've seen there are now two videos that have been made public different angles of the shooting of Jacob Blake. Certainly the shooting itself is shocking. It's disturbing. in many ways, but the police haven't provided much additional information, as seems inevitable with every one of these incidents.

Immediately, partisans sort of went to their corners and began making partisan arguments. I'm interested in exploring here, sort of the broader reaction to this. And in particular, what should we be hearing from our national leaders at times like this? I would say that we've seen a rather muted response from Democratic leaders broadly in the aftermath of the George Floyd shooting have been spoken out strongly about the shooting

and about the problems with racial injustice and police aggressiveness generally. But I think Democrats haven't been as outspoken or haven't condemned. the rioting and the violence that we've seen, certainly at a level that I would like to see. And on the other hand, of course, Republicans are sort of the inverse, as is the case with so many of these things today. But as we look at what's happened in Kenosha, with widespread destruction of businesses, properties, what should we expect to hear? Is there it, put it this way, Is there anything that political leaders can do to help slow this down, to help stem the violence?

David, you spent a lot of time looking at this. I'll start with you. Yeah, I mean, well, one thing, we have to approach this with an attitude of humility in the sense that suppressing civil unrest is one of the most difficult things that any law enforcement agency can do. once civil unrest begins it is not a simple matter of just flipping a switch and everything's okay it is difficult it is very very difficult um but at the same time there's a few things you can expect one of one of them is you can expect or should expect leaders to draw very very bright

line distinctions between constitutionally protected expression and violent protest and and and between looting and violence. I mean, it's not a hard thing to say we will protect constitutional protected speech, but we have zero tolerance for looting and violence. That is a message that has to be sent immediately. The other thing that has to happen is that there is a difference,

and I've written about this before, between overwhelming force, which can be often extremely counterproductive and inflame further violence, and overwhelming and proof deployed presence, which can act almost like as a prophylactic against violence. And that's, you know, one of the things that I have seen happen, and this is kind of getting into the weeds tactically, is that you will often see insufficient presence until after

the violence has spiraled out of control. Now, some of the reason for this, there's some reasons for this you'll see in Portland when, for example, there have been judicial rulings prohibiting use of, for example, crowd control measures like tear gas unless a quote unquote riot has been declared. Well, the riot doesn't get declared until after the riot starts happening. And so you've kind of got this constant seesaw back and forth that has proven to be utterly destructive and completely ineffective at controlling urban unrest. But one of the things it was disturbing to me was to see that the governor of Wisconsin, if these reports yesterday were to be to believe that he had rejected a request for up to 750 National Guardsmen and

wanted that number down to dialed down to about 250 or so. There is a overwhelming presence can make a difference, especially if it's deployed earlier and is deployed in a prudent way to prevent large gatherings of crowds that are obviously, that are seeking. to break curfew, obviously, or, you know, have violent intent. So this is, but this is hard. This is very difficult. It is not easy. And anyone who thinks it's easy just doesn't really understand the challenge. The other thing that I would say, though, is another reason why it's absolutely imperative that public officials be on top of, be seen as being aggressive in trying to deal with violence is that other people will start to try to deal with it if the

government doesn't. And one of the things that we saw in Wisconsin last night, and the reports are very hazy, but it's pretty clear that there were confrontations between people who are heavily armed who were intending to protect property. I don't know. Intending to confront the rioters, I don't know. But it escalated. There was a shooting. Two people are dead. I believe one person is in custody. And that is exactly what you do not want. You do not want a vigilante response to violence. You cannot have that. And, you know, Wisconsin law, it's interesting, I looked it up about when can you defend property. And all of those people are going to Wisconsin, going into Kenosha or other places armed with the intent to defend property. They don't, they're not in the

category of people who can do that. And so they're setting themselves up for a serious legal problem of their own, much less the more important issue of the threat to human life. So what do we want from leaders? We want strong condemnation, but even more than that, we want effective, tactically smart response with all due knowledge that you can't just like turn this off like you turn off a light switch. Can I, let me, Jonah, let me follow up with a question to you. To David's first point, it's really important to make these distinctions between protesters and constitutionally protected speech and assembly, on the one hand, and rioters and looters

and those perpetrating violence. On the other hand, is it the case that our leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, are not doing that because in some ways they have an interest in not making those distinctions? I mean, Democrats seem to be reluctant to criticize the violence, at least in the kind of forthright, straightforward, aggressive way that I think that violence ought to be condemned because they are worried that it will upset part of their political base. Republicans, on the other hand, certainly some people speaking on behalf of the Trump campaign, the Trump administration, would sometimes have us believe that everybody is perpetrating this

violence. This is all about rioting and looting. Are there political and partisan advantages to be had from not making those distinctions or is that just altogether too cynical? Oh, no, it's not too cynical. There's nothing, look, I mean, as I believe

Jerry Falwell, Jr., would no, you can never be too cynical. So look, I'm, I think part of, I think part of what is going on is that there are, there are lots of people in the Democratic Party and there are lots of people in the Republican Party, but there, there's an asymmetry in the sociology between the two, a lot of people in the Democratic Party who think that the people of color or, you know, are sexual minorities and all these kinds of stuff, the people that the politicians hear from believe in their bones that those people are

representative of the demographic that they claim to be representing. And so there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a disproportionate amount of feedback you get from elite school educated identity politics warriors who have a very literary, very theoretical understanding of these things. And I mean, a great example of this is all of this sort of, uh, super intellectual activist types who thought that defund the police is a serious idea. And these are the people who are filtering and are the anointed representatives of big demographic constituencies. And my guess is you could go

from African American Barbershop to African American barbershop across the United States and say, do you want to get rid of all of the cops? And you would get a, you might get some people who say yes, but you would get a much more mixed response than you would from the people hanging out during defund the police week on MSNBC in the green room. And so there's this echo chamber bubble kind of feedback that you get. And those people are the ones who say,

don't condemn rioting. Because we interpret that through our literary theory as being an assault of blaming the victim. And again, you end up getting, you always see these man in the street interviews with, you know, African-American members of actual communities who say, you idiots, you're destroying your own neighborhood. And that voice doesn't penetrate through enough. And I think it is much to the

detriment of Joe Biden not to go out and just make a very common sense statement that says, look, police brutality, police misconduct, police murder, or every want to phrase it, these things are simply intolerable for all of the obvious reasons and list them. You cannot live in a country of law and order where the people who are sworn to enforce the law, take it into their own hands, yada, yada, yada. And then say at the same time that nothing the police did in this circumstance warrants burning down the business of an innocent man. You know, if it kind of reminds me, and I don't mean to be too jokey about it, but it kind of reminds me of the old National Lampoon cover saying, you know, subscribe to the,

buy this magazine or we'll shoot this dog? You know, the dog didn't do anything. And there is this weird transit of property thing that comes with what Fred Siegel, you know, described in the 1960s or about the 1960s, as a riot ideology that sort of has this warmed over Marxist feel to it that says that anything in response to an injustice is therefore justified. And my sense is most Americans disagree with that, but the vested interests in both parties that form the sort of watchman on the wall of the two bubbles

have a different interpretation of it. And if you give a nuanced take on Fox News, the usual suspects will come at you. If you give a nuanced take on MSNBC, the usual suspects will come at you. But I think there's a golden opportunity for a 70-30 issue for a Democrat or Republican politician to just state common-sense truisms about morality

and the nature of this stuff, that police abuse is bad, but there is no excuse for a lot of this stuff, which I think is a majority opinion in the United States of America. Do we, Sarah, do we, are we at a point where a 70, 30 issue matters a lot when we're in the middle, we're two months out from an election where 96% of people have made up their minds, you have both campaigns, I think, more or less playing to their bases. I mean, you have written about the turnout strategy and basically the need for the campaigns or the efforts of the campaigns to turn out their base. I think we've seen in the first couple days of the Republican Convention, which we'll get to in a minute, some recognition that the outreach is necessary, that it's not just going to be enough to have the base.

I think we saw that a little bit, the Democratic National Convention last week as well. But to Jonah's point, you know, it seems obvious to me that Joe Biden should make the kind of statement that Jonah suggests he should make. And yet, Jamal Bowman, the young progressive candidate who upset Elliott Engel in New York, was endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted this morning, we need Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to condemn the armed militias that killed two people in Kenosia. yesterday while working in tandem with local police. These militias are domestic terrorists looking to incite a race war, quote, protecting private property, unquote, is cover for their agenda. Does Biden risk alienating that progressive base if he comes out and gives the kind of statement

that Jonah suggests? So first, I think it's very interesting that this is happening during the Republican Convention. it would have been really fascinating if this had been happening last week to see how they would have responded in part because there's a lot of stuff we don't know like David said and so I don't think Joe Biden can go out

and give a speech because we don't know. I mean, was this a militia member who had been talking with police and really had no business being out there and thought he had been authorized to use deadly force or was it someone who

tripped, fell, and then felt he was under attack as people, you know, swarmed around him. I don't see how a presidential candidate who does not have to would ever want to wait into that to give a speech with so little known about what happened and even what happened in the shooting that triggered the protest. So if I were advising Joe Biden, given that it is happening this week during the Republican convention, I would not give that speech right now. Now, asking about whether this is an issue for persuadables is interesting in part because normally if it's climate change or gun control, you know, it can be a 70-30 issue, but if it's not a top voting issue, it doesn't matter except the people that it is a top voting issue for.

For climate change, for instance, maybe 70% of people don't want the Green New Deal, but the 10% who really, really want it will vote exclusively on that. and then do the reverse with gun control measures. And that's why you don't see that sort of compromise happening. The difference on this issue, though, is that I do think it might be a 70-30 issue, but it's one that a lot of the 70% will vote on if they think that their neighborhood could be next type thing, that this is unrest that's spreading through the country. So, you know, I think that is a, you know, that helps the Republican argument somewhat, that it's happening this week probably helps the Republican argument somewhat.

But as, you know, and David, you talked about this in the Michael Brown situation. We may not know the facts until everyone has accepted their own narrative. And two years later, when a report comes out that says, well, look, on the one hand this, And on the other hand, this, and here's what we now know, nobody sees that. They see their feelings now and the videos that they interpret now. And so you've got AOC's version and you've got the police officer's versions and near the twain shall meet. Steve, I think what was really interesting about that statement is you can see the seeds

already in this circumstance, which on one hand, if you had very effective, decisive leadership where you could lock in a position that says, going to thoroughly investigate and the police shooting and punish any police misconduct. We will protect First Amendment rights. We will not tolerate violence and looting. And have that as a crystal clear, top line message from the word go with law enforcement supporting that on the ground compared to what we have now, which I think is two emerging competing narratives. One on the right is justified police shooting. I've already seen several YouTubes that have tried to explain why the shooting was justified, and they're assuming a lot. I mean,

they're assuming a lot in their discussions. They're assuming facts not in evidence, shall we say. They could be right, but they're assuming facts not in evidence, combined with unjustified looting, and then this is what happened, this is why we have armed citizens. And then on the left, you now have this thing hardening that says shooting was completely and totally unjustified. Again, some of this is assuming facts, not in evidence, followed by, look at the right-wing militia coming in and murdering people on the streets. And so you're seeing this, already seeing these two competing narratives harden into conventional wisdom, certainly on the base of either party.

And it strikes me as like the worst possible outcome right now is that we... You know what else? I'm sorry, yeah, go ahead, Sarah. David, you know what might also be almost a more sociopolitically salient moment from yesterday because I think people do understand like some of these situations are complicated and they're not quite sure which of those two narratives

to fully buy into. And you commented on this yesterday, the protesters targeting diners and yelling at them and screaming at them and those videos that have gone viral as well, I think because it's less, unless, you know, it's not life or death like these other bigger questions are. These are, you know, I'm looking at the picture right now.

It's a lot of white people in black yelling at a woman who's leaning back in her chair, you know, who's wearing sort of a light purple. And it's a very clear photo. Again, I'm not saying that what actually happened was particularly clear necessarily. But the photo itself that people are going to see is, you know, which side are you on? And I think that may have more emotional resonance with people and sort of summarize, if you will, this week, month, summer.

Yeah, that's a good point. Those images, which went everywhere yesterday, seemed much less ambiguous than the very confused militia protest or confrontation last night in Wisconsin. So I, you know, and I don't want to like have my Twitter spats spill over into this august conversation. But I have this habit now of every now and then asking people who assert with utmost confidence as if like everybody knows this to be true that a vote for Biden is for a vote for more rioting, a more antifa, more, you know, accosting people. and restaurants, that these two things are just causationally linked in an obvious and ironclad

way, what their evidence is for it. And, or even what their argument is for it. And so far, the fact that, first of all, the answers are all over the map is a sign that no one really has, there is no one theory about why this is true, which is often a sign of group think. But also, when pressed about it, people tend to fall back on just saying, well, that's my opinion, which is another sign of group thing. And then you find also that there's this view out there, which is on rich display in the GOP convention rhetoric, that Joe Biden is both a radical tool of BLM

as well as the racist to pass the crime bill, which are contradictory things. And while I find that, I find the arguments about all of that, I am open to the idea that voting for Biden will get of us more rioting and more looting than we've seen on President Trump's watch. What I find interesting, and I think relevant for this, is that people just think it is so on the right. And the Trump bet is that this is going to be a base election and that he can mobilize his base. The restaurant scene that you guys were just discussing opened Tucker last night.

And whether it's true or not, whether there is an actual argument there or not, this idea of that a vote for Biden is a vote for ANCIFA is the new Flight 93 argument. It's the new catastrophization of politics. And it could work as a base mobilizing thing, regardless of whether or not it's grounded in reality. Well, maybe that's a good exit question to ask on this subject then. I mean, separating the question of whether it is actually true, whether, you know, the fact that people can't answer your question as posed, I think is suggestive. But do we think in general that this is likely to bolster the case that Republicans are making for Donald Trump? He tweets out law and order, law and order.

Do we think that this, to be really crass, political about a serious life and death issue. Do we think that this helps Donald Trump? He's been saying, as David wrote in his newsletter this morning, you know, they will be coming for you. Donald Trump has been saying that. Can people look at what they're seeing now and say, boy, maybe Trump was right as, you know, as loaded and I think offensive as the Trump formulation is, could it sell? I mean, it's really tough to say because, you know, there's kind of a quick answer to this. There was a tweet yesterday from this account called Reagan Battalion that was sort of a

former anti-Trump Twitter account turning pro-Trump. And it had the picture that image from the diner, the Washington diner, and it said, this is Joe Biden's America, which point the retort was immediate. No, this is really actually happening in Donald Trump's America. So, you know, if there is chaos in the streets during the Trump presidency,

and he's been utterly ineffectual dealing with it, like utterly ineffectual and in some ways completely counterproductive. I mean, the Lafayette Square incident was a deeply inflammatory, provocative use of power. That's what I talked about right at the beginning when I said, overwhelming force can be

incredibly counterproductive. There was overwhelming force used in Lafayette Square to clear the path for the Bible photo op, very provocative. Parts of the ways that federal officials were used in Portland totally fine to use federal officials in the defensive posture

around the federal buildings, but then the videos of people being pulled off the street, deeply, deeply provocative. Again, poor use of force can be provocative. So here we have a situation where the chaos is happening. Trump's concrete actions have largely been more provocative than they have been settling or calming in any way, shape, or form. And so it's according to the facts on the ground, it's a hard case for him to make, but it's the case he's going to keep making.

And I will tell you, living here in overwhelmingly read Williamson County, Tennessee, it is a case that is resonating. with his people big time, big time, especially older voters, have it firmly fixed that all of this chaos is what a Joe Biden wants. Let's take a quick break to hear from our first sponsor, ExpressVPN. Have you ever searched for something you didn't want others to know about? I know most of you are probably thinking, just use incognito mode. But let me tell you something, incognito mode does not hide your activity. It doesn't matter what mode you use or how many times you clear your browsing history.

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-V-P-N.com slash freedom. ExpressVPN.com slash freedom to learn more. Let's transition to the conventions with that. So this will be my quick topic, which is the Democratic Convention, which you didn't get to talk about last week. You know, if there are moments y'all want to discuss in particular that were meaningful, one way, the other, I'm open to that, but I want to see whether you think that it was successful and how to

define success of a political convention at all. So, for instance, we now have quite a bit of polling out that says that the race hasn't changed. The numbers are nearly identical to what they were the week before the convention. On the other hand, though, Biden's favorability numbers did go up. And I think that particularly the numbers among Democrats, where his favorability went up seven points, is meaningful, Steve, to a little bit what you were saying, that, you know, you want to gin up your base. You want this to be about turnout. And so I would define the success of a convention at this point, not on persuasion, but about permission structures and turnout operations for the political parties, and that by that measure, the Democratic Party didn't necessarily need to move the numbers,

right? They're ahead. What they needed to do was to ensure that their folks who were already either voting for Biden for sure or, you know, liked Biden. We're leaning heavily towards Biden. Actually go vote. And part of what makes you go vote is the motivation to say, I like him. I don't want to let him down. Other people like me are voting that way and all the things that go into a turnout operation. And I think the, you know, if you were to need a measure of success for that, I think a seven point rise in favorability among Democrats, I would call that a success for the Democrats. Does anyone disagree? No, I agree with that. I would, I would, I see it a little, I see it a little differently, but I mean, it's not so much of disagreement is just a difference

of emphasis. You know, the, the most important stat, well, one of the most important stats coming out of 2016, was that despite both candidates being the most unpopular major party candidates ever to run, never mind, run against each other, that people who disliked both candidates broke decisively for Trump because he was the change guy. And if Trump had just simply split the vote among people who split evenly the vote among people who dislike both candidates, he wouldn't have won the electoral college. And it seems to me that, you know, Biden does not have very high favorables either, but his favorables are definitely better than Trump's. And more importantly, the people who dislike both candidates split decisively for

Biden. And so at the margins, if he can persuade the last getable voters that he's, that he's less unlikable than Donald Trump is. That is a meaningful thing for him to do. And I think that's what came out of that convention. I have to admit, I watched very little of it, most of it after the fact. But that seemed to be a big chunk of what they were going for. And I do think they were a little too dower from the stuff that I've seen. But also just, and I know Sarah forgives pedantic.

uh, syntactical and etymological, um, exactitude. Uh, one of the things that does bother me about how we call both of these things conventions is that literally the word convention means to convene people. There was no convening. Nobody got together, right? I mean, it is now like, and I'm, because I think that these conventions are going to, that are going to become more infomercially over time because of this. And they had been coming, they had been, they'd be, been, becoming infomercially for a long time already that it's that the word convention at some point in the future is going to be like a new album coming out or dial a phone number people are like why do we call them conventions because they're just infomercials and this was the

moment where I think that changing etymological history began fascinating because I would have said that they were infomercials for my entire life. I've never seen anything other than infomercial moments. No, I know, but the studio audience was more of an authentic prop up until now. I agree with you. I mean, it's been a, it's been a Borsten pseudo-eventy thing for our lifetimes. But now that sort of, that tipping point was reached because of this. And I think we're, we're going to see, see this moment as more sort of the continuity with the past,

but also the intensification. of it and they're going to be obviously recognizable as infomercials for the rest of our lives unless my party reforms go through. Any moments for you, David? No, I mean, I think for me that the only moment that really mattered in my mind was was Biden's acceptance speech and really only for one reason and that he had been, there had been this relentless messaging that. that Biden is just sort of barely there.

And which I think is a political mistake to lower the bar for your opponent. I mean, this is hardly like scintillating political analysis, but if you lower the bar so low that sentience passes it, maybe that's not a great decision to make. And I thought he gave a good speech. I thought he gave an effective speech. But I really feel like the story of this race

is sort of, so far at least, has been lots of drama against the backdrop of a ton of stability. So as we record this, I'm sitting here looking at the 538 presidential poll chart. And what you see are two lines, a blue line and a red line, that basically for the last three months or so, have been remarkably stable. And before that, we're remarkably stable with it slightly narrower. And I think right now what the Trump, what the, what the DNC's best hope was was to stabilize the race at the larger margin, which is, you know, an average of between like 8.5 or 9.5 points to try to stabilize the race at that larger margin. And the realistic hope for the Republicans is try to restore the race to the pre-coronavirus smaller margin, where Biden was consistently leading by like five or six.

But I think that's the story right now, is there's a lot of drama day-to-day in the news cycle, obviously. But then also, when you look at Trump's approval rating, when you look at the polling, there's just a huge amount of background stability, which would make sense, Sarah, as you've been talking about quite a bit, when the vast, vast majority of voters say they've already made up their minds. Yeah, I'm very skeptical that these conventions matter much at all. I'm skeptical that they matter much in a normal electoral environment, but I'm particularly skeptical that they matter much in this electoral environment. I think reality matters more than anything. And at a time when we're in a deep recession, when you have the coronavirus still a real concern, I think, of many Americans

when people are trying to figure out whether they can send their kids to school or not, whether they'll be going back to the offices or not, whether these changes are temporary or permanent, you know, whether the neighbor down the street is going to be alive in two weeks. Those are the kind of things, I think, that are shaping people's thinking about our politics and the decision that they have in front of them far, far more than any messaging that comes out of a one-off speech at a political convention. The number I'd love to see, and I haven't seen it, is of the, of the, of the, of the, sliver of Americans, you know, somewhere between, say, 15 to 25 million who are watching these

either on television or streaming, how many of them are partisans going in, watching largely to cheer on their team and to see if their team performs well, looking to be potentially invigorated, energized for the final stretch here. How many of them, and how many people do we think are true independents who are tuning in to determine how they're going to vote. You know, we've used this. By the way, I think that's such a key, by the way, tuning in. I mean, we have viewership numbers, and not only are TV numbers down, we can assume streaming numbers are up, but even so, if you have 158 million registered voters and we're

arguing over, you know, 19 people, 19 million people watch it on TV, let's assume 10 million more streamed it. We're still talking about such a small number of. of people compared to registered voters. Exactly. And if 96% made up their minds, what are the chances that some of that 4% were tuning in? Right. Now, look, I mean, to the contrary, you could make an argument that in an election that

was, as we've all talked about, decided by 80,000 votes in three states in 2016, if you have that kind of a margin and then you layer on top of that, you know, the other thing that you've written compellingly about in recent weeks, Sarah, the sort chaos around the voting process in mail-in balloting, what does this mean and how will they be counted and what votes will actually count and what votes won't count? You know, you get to the point where those little margins could make a big difference. I guess I think that the most important takeaway from both the Democratic Convention and then heading into our discussion of the Republican Convention is just the day-to-day reality, what people are seeing. And I would say on that measure,

you know, if you're a Republican or if you're a Trump supporter, you're starting to see potentially glimpses of a better reality. The case numbers on coronavirus have been cut in half, really, over the last several weeks. Deaths are still at an elevated, or 1,200 deaths, more than 1,200 or deaths today reported yesterday. So deaths have always been a lagging indicator. One suspects that they will follow the case numbers as the case numbers come down. You're seeing continued strength in the stock market, which many people continue to look to as evidence of economic, I wouldn't say stability, but they don't feel the recession. Many people don't feel the recession in a way that many of the other economic indicators would suggest that we might because they look at their

401ks or they look at their stock portfolios and they say, well, okay, things seem to be going okay. So I think if you're a Trump supporter, you look at that and you say, boy, could we be emerging from this, you know, these doldrums and actually have a real case to be made about reality? It's been a while and I think he's still very, very vulnerable. to his horrendous mish handling of the coronavirus and I think ineptitude on the economic questions and all that followed. But if you're a Trump supporter,

I think there are maybe glimmers of hope. Quick break to hear from our sponsor, Car Shield. Computer systems and cars are the new normal, from electronically controlled transmissions to touchscreen displays to dozens of sensors, but you can't fix any of those features yourself. So when something breaks, it could cost a fortune. and now is not the time for expensive repairs.

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for a covered repair. Call 800, Car, 6,000, and mention Code Dispatch, or visit carshield.com and use code dispatch to save 10%. That's carshield.com code dispatch. A deductible may apply. All right, David, on to your topic. Yeah, so the GOP non-platform, you know, at first it was one of those things when just, you know, when for those listeners who are not fully caught up as to what happened, essentially what the Republican Party did over the weekend was to say we're not going to issue a 2020, a distinct 2020 platform. It sort of incorporated its 2016 platform, said it would do a 2024 platform,

but for the time being, it is endorsing the Trump agenda. And it said the exact quote is, it will enthusiastically support the President's America first agenda. And it did that rather than issue the normal, detailed statement of Republican principles and policies. Shortly after that same evening, President Trump issued his second term agenda, and it was a series of bullet points called Fighting for You, exclamation point. It was interesting because a lot of it was just kind of hazy and aspirational, wipe out global terrorists, who doesn't want to wipe out terrorists who threaten to harm Americans, but very hazy. It was interesting, though, it did not include anything at all about abortion. It did not include anything all about religious liberty, and there

was no mention of the Constitution. And, you know, on the one hand, it was sort of a symbol of that the Republican Party is now really sort of formally and officially Donald Trump's party in a way that it's put itself in the hand. It's put itself in the hands of Trump in a tangible way that it hasn't done for any other president in my lifetime. But at the same time, I thought it was kind of clarifying. I mean, this is negative of partisanship makes a platform.

less necessary. If the motivation for your supporters and negative partisanship for those who don't really know what it is, negative partisanship is when you join a team because of opposition to the other team, not because of support for your own. If negative partisanship is the dominant fact of American politics, and increasingly it looks like this, is there any downside in the short term for Republicans doing this? Or is this just sort of kind of ratifying what we already new. This is where I now adopt Jonah's argument, which is, if these aren't conventions anymore, Jonah, they're sure as heck not, you know, policy convening where we really

haggle over the future of the party. Like, these are cheerleading opportunities. This is a team sport convention rah-rah thing. The policy committees were always bizarre and always created platforms that nobody really signed on to anyway, and mostly ignored. So, you know, it's a little, you know, there's things you can look at and be like, huh, well, I guess the Republican Party's heading in a different direction. But at the same time, yeah, who cares?

Who cares about lack of having an actual platform, I mean? I care. And not necessarily for the reasons that you might think. But, so, you know, one of David's white white. Wales is negative partisanship. I agree with him on negative partisanship. One of my hobby horses is this argument that Yvall Levin makes in his book, Fractured Republic, or Time to Build, about institutions. I talk about it all the time. We have moved from the notion that institutions are things that shape character, that bend us to the needs of an institution, to a time where

institutions are platforms upon which we perform. And Donald Trump has steadfastly, refused to allow his character to be bended to the institution of the presidency. Instead, he has bent the presidency to his character. And now he is completely and fully done it to the Republican Party. I agree with you entirely that the platforms as a matter of large political questions mattered very little. But my old boss, the guy who gave me my first job in Washington, Ben Wattenberg, who worked on a lot of Democratic platform writing committees, he always used to defend the platforms on the simple grounds that the thing the thing about platforms is they are at least they at least tell you what the parties want you to think the what the parties stand

for right it is it's not necessarily that this is what the parties actually stand for but it's but jona do the parties matter anymore you're the ones saying that the parties are basically a dead letter so if the party don't matter and the candidates are all that matter then what do we care about a policy platform. I agree. And to a certain extent, you know, it's beating a dead horse, but if you keep beating the dead horse, you're still going to make the mess worse. And my point here is that the... It's getting graphic. I can go on. No, my point here is that, you know, one of the purposes as an institution for the parties was that the party platform forced different members of the coalition to negotiate amongst each other about where the tradeoffs were

between one faction and another faction, where the compromises were, at least rhetorically. And then they got to go back to their own constituents and say, this is the concession we got from these guys, this is the concession we had to give. It was part of the Madisonian process of parties dissolving the intensity of special interest. through the prism of compromise. And this, again, you're right. I've been making this point about parties for a while now, but this is another major, major nail in the coffin for it.

And it's done in the name of a cult of personality of the President of the United States where basically the overriding ideological commitment now is faith and trust in the almost papal or feudal monarch. fallibility of the president's gut instincts and that we will wait for him to make his decision and then we will reverse engineer our arguments to justify whatever his decision is. That's officially now what the Republican Party stands for. And it may all be just purely symbolic at this point, but I get disgusted by a lot of symbolism, and I think it's still worth pointing out how grotesque it is.

all right steve who do you agree with me that the parties are dead and this doesn't matter or jona that somehow democracy was lost this week well it was it was interesting to watch david white whale take on jonah's hobby horse i'm not sure who who won the argument i actually don't think there's there's i think the arguments compliment one another more than than their intention look i i think it's it's useful to watch this happen i would say that that this moment that the one pager that the RNC put out, which, you know, ends with a series of, you know, several whereas is followed by a resolved. And the resolved, you know, in effect was whatever Donald Trump says goes and we support it

enthusiastically. That's only a slight exaggeration of what it actually said. We have known this was happening for years. We've talked about it at length here on this podcast. It's obvious that it was happening. I guess I find it. almost liberating that there's no pretense anymore, that they're just now saying, they're announcing it in a, you know, in a formally, officially sounding document.

We don't really give a shit what people think about ideas and principles and whatnot. It's just what Donald Trump thinks and we're for that. What's amazing to me, and I guess it shouldn't be amazing to me at this point, three and a half years in, is that this stirred virtually no opposition among elected Republicans, who, you know, many of whom ran on some of these ideas and principles that used to be part of the Republican platform. I mean, is there not anyone out there who would say, oh, by the way, no, like, the Republican Party should not become officially a cult of personality. We should at least pretend that these principles and ideas matter and we should debate them and we should try as a party

to come to some kind of a conclusion. The total silence from elected Republicans on that issue, even at this late date, was somewhat surprising to me, again, suggesting Charles Crowdehammer used to always chide me and tell me that I wasn't nearly cynical enough because I was too young and maybe too optimistic. I guess this is for the proof that Charles is right, because I was surprised that nobody you spoke up and said, yeah, it's not really a great idea to just say we're for the guy. Well, you know, and the other thing is when you have no platform, to the extent that, you know,

look, I'm as cynical as the next person in this podcast, I know that platforms did not exercise much accountability. They were not instruments of ideological accountability all that often, but at least they're an aspirational set of principles that a party should be held accountable to. in what we've done now. Wait, time out, time out, real quick. How many of you have actually read a Republican Party platform?

Definitely have, yeah. Definitely have. All three of you? Every one of them in my adult life. Okay, this is funny. I don't think I've ever read a single one. Never. Yeah, everyone. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm at all representative

or typical. I have a 1996 Bob Dole platform tattooed on my back. the tramp stamp that we never knew but there are certain ideas to which a party should be held accountable and for a long time i mean that was sort of what rhino hunting was about right i mean rhino hunting was about are you are you a squish on taxes are you a squish on life or you a squish on um you know free speech or religious liberty that's what rhino hunting was and now rhino hunting is are you a squish on trump and and you know leave it to a Harvard law professor to This is how a Harvard law professor says MAGA.

I'm reading from a recent Adrian Vermeule tweet, What if loyalty to an abstract form of government turns out to be too weak and pallid in the long run to substitute for loyalty to living rulers who embody the polity in a concrete way? And it feels to me like that's what you have. That's a philosophical statement of what the Republican Party is right now is it has loyalty to a living ruler

who embodies its polity in a concrete way that so there is no need there is no need for a platform there is only a need for a person yeah I don't think y'all are going to convince me that this so to me if anything

this is an argument like we need our politicians to pretend more when in fact I think we're moving to more authenticity you may not like what the authenticness shows. But this idea that the policy platform ever mattered or that politicians somehow had fealty towards it because they said they were Republican and therefore it's

signed on to this platform, we just, we know that's not true. And so why we care of whether they're signing on to this platform now, if anything, I think it's probably a good move to get rid of it. Oh, I just cannot begin to tell you how much I disagree with that. Me too. The definition of a decent society is when everybody agrees to pretend to certain things. And we all force out of our ideals. All institutions are flawed, all people are flawed, but there are useful fictions in life about pointing towards the way institutions and individuals in society should behave. And when we say, since that's all sort of hypocritical or fictional, we should just simply own the fact that we're, you know, primates with a tendency

towards, you know, power worship of the big man, so that's how we should actually organize our society is, and I know you're not necessarily saying that, but rhetoric is important, symbolism is important. Defining the way that we're supposed to think about things, even if we're going to fall short about it, is important. The platforms themselves did not matter very much. I completely agree with that. But the process by which a party decides to have arguments about what it thinks it should believe or what it wants the world to think it believes is a much more useful and beneficial exercise than basically saying, I like Donald Trump's Musk and he can do whatever he want for he is the over ape and we are simply

his tribesmen. And that is a major step backwards in the philosophical and intellectual underpinnings that used to define the Republican Party and parties generally. I will agree that there is such a thing as useful fiction. I think the disagreement is whether this one was useful or not useful. But I hear your argument. I find it intriguing. Well, as a descriptive matter, I think you may be right, Sarah. I think as a normative matter, if that's where you're leaning and it sounded like you were,

then I'm with Joan. I disagree strongly. I do think there was some utility in having a written record of where the two major political parties stood on issues of the day. I mean, there were for all of the talk about there being no differences between Republicans and Democrats over the past 40 years. There were actually some meaningful differences between Republicans and Democrats, not as many maybe as I would have preferred, but you found those differences, I think you could understand them most emphatically if you looked at the platforms of the two parties. And in certain areas, they were very different.

I think it's useful to have that as sort of guiding principles, even if not everybody in the party agrees to them, even if, you know, they're much more sort of broad guidance than they are dictates of actual party policy. I still think those broad principles, the broad statements of principle and just to a certain extent inclusion of specific policy preferences in the platforms were helpful as a distinguishing mechanism, if nothing more. And the absence of them, Jonah's right. You just have, I mean, it is, it's just a cult of personality. I mean, for about 30 plus years, to greater or lesser degree, Republicans had to kiss certain ideological rings on their way up the ladder. I mean, you were going to have, there was a general Reaganite consensus. And there were certain ideas that Republicans paid fealty to.

Now, other factions of the party tried to break through that, like the Buchananite faction, etc. But as I said earlier, part of the whole deal of the Republican, of the conservative entertainment media complex was enforcing this ideological orthodoxy. Trump comes in, blows it up, which a lot of these sort of populists and nationalists say, at last, at last, we have destroyed the, you know, the zombie Reagan consensus. But rather than replacing it with something ideologically coherent and replacing it with what they want to replace it with, the new ring kissing is not to any ideology at all, but to a guy. It's him. It's what he wants. And which is one reason why I think that if he loses this time, especially if he loses

decisively, which he may or may not, a lot is up for grabs because we've blown up one thing and we've replaced it with a person. And if the person goes away, what do we have left? And it's worth just pointing out very quickly. It be one thing. if this was Ronald Reagan, or even Adrian Vermeule. I would still disagree with it. But those are people who actually believe things. Donald Trump is, you know, purely glandular and narcissistic. And so this idea, he is not Solomon, right?

King Solomon, you're like, look, he's become a euphemism for the wisest person in the world. Let's just say our parties about King Solomon. Donald Trump's not King Solomon. He's an escape monkey from a cocaine study. And the idea that somehow you're going to throw away all of your ideological positions and put him in escrow at the very least and just simply outsource, if he's for it, I'm for it, to Donald Trump is, it puts me on Team Smod. I mean, it's insane to me.

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New episodes debut weekly. So go back often and subscribe to their YouTube channel to be notified whenever a new episode is posted. And that's where this comes back to being about Trump on both sides. But anyway, Jonah, take us back to 1988. 1988, my sophomore year or the end of my freshman year at Goucher College. No, let's see.

So, yeah, I wrote a column about this. It actually could work as a segue here, unlike my flashback to Gauter College. There's been a lot of punditry sort of originally starting on the right and then migrating to the left and then becoming sort of just general thumb-suckery about whether or not George H.W. Bush's 17-point comeback is a lesson for Donald Trump and how, he could win. And Adam Nogorny had a big piece in the New York Times about this. And look, I mean, I think at the platitudinous level, it's a perfectly fine point, which is to say, don't put all your faith in the polls, the polls can change, campaigns can come back from being behind, that's all true. But if you actually think that as some of the people in a Gorney piece and some people on the left think that the way Bush won in 80s,

is a model for how Trump can win, I think that's sort of nuts. And in fact, and this conversation that we just had is a perfect illustration of the point that the 88 episode of Bush's comeback is more illustrative of how much things have changed than how similar they are.

And to do a very short synopsis of it, Georgia W. Bush, Ronald Reagan's vice president, eight years, he is behind on Dukakis, who was basically a reject from Westworld for an exhibit on nerds. And he was a super technocrat, sort of android. And after the Democratic convention, Gallup, which was sort of an outlier poll, found that Dukakis was 17 points ahead on Bush, which in some ways makes sense, because as I often point, point out we don't typically historically elect sitting vice presidents to the white house and then bush listens to lee atwater and runs this really disciplined

hardcore patriotic some would argue demagogic campaign of sort of populism and patriotism and the american flag and the pledge of allegiance and all these things and he goes on to have if not a huge land side then a really significant win 40 states five points in the popular vote are seven points and people say that's what Trump could do. Here's the problem. George Bush, whether you think what he did was wildly irresponsible

and Willie Horton or the Pledge of Allegiance or all of that kind of stuff, he was drawing down enormous amounts of political and social capital of the Republican Party establishment of the country in general. And when he goes and did this sort of populist

hug the American flag stuff, it was shocking in part because he came from the establishment. He was such a believer in obeying norms and decorum. And that shock value was beneficial to him, but it was also ideologically consistent with his life story going back to being the youngest fighter pilot in World War II, our combat pilot in World War II. And the problem is that's how Donald Trump has been governing as a caricature of how

Trump, about how Bush ran in 88 for his entire presidency. And so when like people are getting quoted in the New York Times saying Trump could really embrace a sort of red meat, right wing super patriot kind of politics, it's like talking about, It's like saying, you know, maybe Ted Nugent is going to become a big Yahoo. That's who Donald Trump has been all along. And anybody who's persuaded by that stuff is already persuaded by it. And so going back to my institutional point, you know, what worked for George H.W. Bush was his message discipline and his willing to sublimate his own ego, his own, you know, cult of

personalities such as it was, all of these things, his own narcissism, to a message and to a cause. He was just like, forget my past. I've been a loyal Reaganite. Forget, you know, my sort of wishy-washy, squishy persona. I'm all in on America, you know, hell yeah, that kind of thing. And he was able to become a servant of a message and a cause in a way that is the complete opposite of Donald Trump, where he wants the message and the cause to be servants of him. And that's why things are so much different today than they were in 1988. So I'll jump in. I think that's exactly right.

There's not a word of your analysis that I disagree with. Trump can't do what George H.W. Bush did because Trump is that caricature of George H.W. Bush. He's broken all these rules. He's governed this way. He's lived this way. It's who he is. I wonder if there are other ways, though, that if we believe that Trump has changed to the norms, if he has become what was once sort of so outside of conventions and norms that it was seen as shocking and may have contributed to George H.W. Bush's victory, can Trump go further in these last couple of months? And I think that there are people, many of his supporters, certainly the Flight 93 ends justify the means crowd who would say he can go further and further erode whatever

conventions still exist and he ought to. And I'm thinking here of things like in 2016, sort of his open request for help from foreign governments, right? I mean, he didn't make much bones about the fact that he would love to have some help. If you read the most recent Senate report that David broke down, one thing that continues to come to light is just how willing he was to break those new norms. And I think there's room for him to do more on that. And, further embrace kinds of

here to for forbidden moves manipulating video deep fakes things like that Declan wrote about in a terrific piece

for the website yesterday that would have him further breaking these sort of the new conventions if that means I agree with that entirely

just and I'll defer to Sarah on this but it just it's not obvious to me that that gets him a lot of new votes. Maybe it does. Maybe it shows how the polarization is seeping so deeply into the white electorate that basically Republican Party becomes a white populist party because whites become all in on that stuff. But the electorate itself, you know, which was like 85% white in 88 and

was only 71% white in 2016, again, I just, it's a different, you may be right. I mean, I think you're probably right. I just don't know that it's, my point is that it's not necessarily an electoral strategy that emulates what George H.W. Bush was doing. Yeah. Because the landscape is just so different. Yeah, I don't, I don't think it necessarily leads to victory, but I think it's not hard at all to imagine his most ardent supporters, as I say, the flight 93 types, making that argument. In fact, they've basically made that argument. Do what you need to do because this is, you know, the future of the United States, the existence of the United States depends on Donald Trump winning. So do whatever you need to do to win, in effect.

Yeah, I mean, so there's 15 million registered voters who didn't vote in 2016. It's not that they're undecided. They're probably not undecided. They just didn't bother to go vote. So part of the question to you, Jonah, or of what you're saying, Jonah, is assume that that 15 million

demographically looks like the rest of the voters, which it probably doesn't, by the way, but let's, you know, let's assume that it does. then yeah, in theory, with 43% you know, where he is in the polls right now, you can just do turnout. That's it. And you can still win this thing.

If, you know, he can do that. Now, it's hard to turn voters out, by the way. This, like, you know, on Twitter, people, like, are all over me, like, oh, well, Democrats will just do the same thing. No, no, no, no, no. Enthusiasm alone does not turn voters out. Enthusiasm is what you need in order to then, turn voters out.

And I think that's pretty important. You know, there's a thing called absentee chase programs where you're, you know, you dedicate tons of staff to just following up with people who requested absentee ballots. Hey, did you get your ballot? Hey, have you filled out your ballot? Hey, have you turned in your ballot? Can I help you turn in your ballot? Can I drive your ballot to a, you know, a post box?

And then there's door knocking. You know, those are really the only two things that any political science experiment has ever seen work. So. But quick questions, sir. So, you know, there was this quote from Trump the other day. Apparently, he told black leaders that low black turnout was great in 2016. Presumably, those 15 million voters who didn't vote in 2016,

registered voters, if they're all still alive today, I would assume that they were disproportionately African-American, Not hugely so, but one would think if blacks were underperforming the historical norm that they were disproportionately among those 15 million registered voters who didn't vote, and then there are the X million voters who come online who were too young to vote in 2016, presumably they are disproportionately not for Trump, just given what we know about voters 18 to 22. I still, I just, I still don't see how it's, I mean, I guess I see how it's possible, but this just betting on base turnout stuff for the Republicans doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. And I think it's belied a little bit in the micro-targeting that we saw in the Republican convention so far, you know, going after lobster fishermen, dairy farmers and all of that. It seems to be.

Lobsters, Jonah. Lobsters. that somebody knows that just the base won't do it for them. Yeah, so you're right that the 15 million are not actually demographically or any otherwise the same as the 138 million who did vote. Because, for instance, we know that if all Democrats voted and all Republicans voted, Democrats would win. So we have a pretty good sense that of those 15 million, they're going to skew, as you said, younger people who tend not to vote at their demographic level. level, minority communities who don't vote at their demographic level. So, yes, you are right. But with 15 million outstanding, there's still enough of your voters. In theory, that if you

turned out 100% of them, you could make up for a lot. Because 15 million's a lot. But yes, everything you're saying is correct. David, you're getting the last word on this. Two quick things. One, I just think America has a fundamentally different political, has a fundamentally different political culture now than it had in 1988. I mean, you know, 1988 was the tail end of what turned out to be basically a 20-year stable Republican majority for president. I mean, 68 win, 72 wins, 76, very narrow losses, largely as a result of Watergate, 80 landslide, 84 landslide, 88 landslide.

There was a lot of low-hanging fruit there for George H.W. Bush to pick up. So I just think that environment is gone. Does it mean that Trump can't come back? And I think the base turnout strategy that Sarah has talked about is his most plausible path forward. But one other thing, you know, we always talk about most important election in our lifetimes. 1988, I think, was one of the most important elections of my lifetime. And because we didn't know that the Berlin Wall was about to come down, we didn't know Saddam Hussein was about to invade Kuwait. We didn't know that the Cold War was going to end.

And the deft way that George H.W. Bush managed this sort of world, these world historical series of events drawing on all of this experience that he had, drawing on sort of this, this, you know, temperament that he had, this ability that he had, this diplomatic ability that he had to draw together broad alliances. I mean, when have such world historical events happened against the, without massive disruption? I mean, we, I think we pay short shrift often to his presidency. He's only one term. You know, Republicans turn their backs on him because he lost to Clinton. But my goodness, the way he handled international affairs between 88 and 92, it's some of the most consequential actions. diplomatic actions, you know, of my lifetime.

So I think the 88 election was a really key moment in American history for reasons we couldn't possibly foresee when we went to the polls in November. All right, well, let's talk about one last, very important, life-changing question. I'm sitting here in my house, and I come from Houston, the land of over-air conditioning. It's like when they figured out air conditioning and Houston could actually become habitable. They just, like, decided that everything needed to be at 64 degrees for the entire summer, despite it being 110 outside. And I was sitting in my house reveling in the fact that there's like these moments as an adult where you're like, yes, I am an adult and it is awesome.

And one of those moments for me is setting my own thermostat. And it is glorious. And so my question for each of you is set aside the money that it costs. What is your ideal temperature for your house? David? Oh, that's easy. But my great yes moment for becoming an adult was I could buy lucky charms without judgment. My temperature is, it's easy.

73 during the day, 70 at night, in the winter, just 70 all the time. So I have it a little cooler when you sleep. Jonah? that is the aquaman of thermostat takes. So the major issue, of course, is the debates with spouses about this and also the gender wars in office places

about proper temperature. And I don't want to traffic and stereotypes, but I think you've talked eloquently about this before, Sarah, that you used to have to go outside in a coat at some of your previous jobs because the temperature in the office was set properly in the era of white supremacy. All right, of male supremacy, I should say. And they were also white.

And white male supremacy. And so my understanding is that the human brain functions best at 68 degrees. and I am also most comfortable at 68 degrees. And I also, because I think that the meritocracy and the efficiency of liberal democratic capitalism is important for everybody, we should set the temperature morning, noon, and night at 68 degrees.

And if some people, regardless of gender, have to wear a sweater, that is a small price to pay for prosperity. I refuse to acknowledge that previous statement. Steve, now that David's given his take, what's yours? I think Jonah's partially right. I mean, 68 is the optimal temperature. I'd say all things considered 68 is the optimal temperature.

But I think David is right that there should be variations between daytime temperature and nighttime temperature. When I lived back, this is now centuries ago, when I was attending to Paw University, lived in a fraternity with, I don't know, 70, 80 other guys. And the rooms that we had were not really big enough to comfortably accommodate beds for everybody. So we had these rooms, the back of the second floor and the back of the third floor, that we called cold dorms. And they were just a series of, I don't know, 20 bunk beds, something to that effect. and we would i'm totally serious about this throughout the entire year i think in part because of the

fire code we slept with the cold dorm windows open this is in green castle indiana so there would be nights sleeping in the cold dorm when we would wake up and the people who were sleeping underneath the windows would literally have frost or snow on them as they slept and that's the right way to sleep at night. That's close to perfect. So if I were doing this, that's what I would do. I would sleep with windows open, even in the winter. Or down at, you know, 50 degrees at night with maybe an electric blanket or get into a sleeping bag on top of your bed. I mean, there are all sorts of fun possibilities. But that's the basic answer. So I know what my ideal temperature is, but after Jonah gave his extremely bad take,

I went ahead and found a study from Cornell that looked into this, Jonah. With temperatures at 68 degrees, employees made 44% more mistakes than at optimal room temperature, which is, as it turned out, I'm not making this up, is actually the temperature that I like to keep my house at

now that I am an adult who gets to make her own freaking decisions with the air conditioning, except when my husband messes, with it. 77 degrees is the optimal room temperature. What on earth? You can get a in your house at 77. You don't even need air conditioning to achieve 77. That's right. My optimal temperature is also earth-happy and money-saving. That is worse than the platform take. Yeah, you told us to disregard money. I don't know what anti-vaxxer, pseudoscience,

flat earth website you got that study from but i took a i i because i was such a bad student i took a course a mandatory course in study skills in high school and the textbook said 68 degrees and i'm going to stick with it i don't care if science has moved on from that because 68 degrees is the correct answer 2004 the eastern ergonomics conference and exposition in new york chaired by Marianne Williamson. That would be a great conference to go to. Can you imagine if you're slouching at your table, sitting back with your feet up? All right, listeners, thanks for joining us.

We had some good takes today, some bad takes today, and, you know, and adulthood can be pretty great. So I hope you get to revel in your adulthood this week, and we will see you again next week. I don't know. Thank you.