The Ricochet Podcast - Shadows in the Metaverse

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

There are no crystal balls on Ricochet, but we can’t keep our eyes off the future. What’s to become of the GOP? Hard to say; but our guest David Drucker has written a book and launched his very own podcast to ponder these very questions. Rob and James put him in the interviewee seat for a change get his take on how candidates will have to navigate a climate that’s been permanently altered by... Source

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I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Democracy simply doesn't work. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lilex. Today we talk to David Drucker about his new book, In Trump's Shadow, The Battle for 2024. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you. Welcome to the Ricochet Podcast, number 5688 join us at ricochet.com won't you

you can be part of the most stimulating interesting conversation on the internet you know that facebook stuff that twitter stuff no it's it's it's completely different how well let's put it this way you know facebook launched this meta thing where apparently in the future we're all going to be floating around in chat rooms with our avatars. It'll be great because when Ricochet gets a chat room in meta, you'll show up and everybody will have chosen Ronald Reagan as their avatar. It's like, oh, man, again, I got to deal with 30 Ronald Reagans here at Ricochet. Oh, good. There's a Calvin Coolidge over there.

I'll go talk to him. But right now, we're not in the metaverse. We are in the podcast world. I'm James Lilex in Minneapolis. Rob Long is somewhere, I presume, New York. And Peter Robinson joins us. I say that like it's a surprise, but actually it is. It is.

He was going to be missing. But he's here to briefly tell us he actually, from the sound of it, attended one of those Beltway elite cocktail parties. Do tell. Oh, it was more than, this was a celebration delayed for a year because of COVID. This was a celebration of Rupert Murdoch's 90th birthday. And I attended because he and I have been friends for a good long time now. And I happened to hold the Murdoch chair at the Hoover institution.

And because Rupert Murdoch, when Rob Long and I were starting Ricochet Loewe's many years ago, Rupert Murdoch was one of our first and most generous backers. And it was, it was by the best I can tell, at least by lockdown standards, it was a pretty glamorous New York party the tavern on the green and 50 people all in black tie and women looking extremely elegant including my very elegant wife and Rupert's family had put together a a movie or video well this is a family that has access to professional help, and it was brilliantly produced on his life. And I have to say, I've known the man for a long time. As I say, he's been more than generous to Ricochet. He went from one newspaper in Adelaide, Australia, which is not a big town even now, but in those

days was a pretty dusty provincial town in Australia. Immediately in his 20s, he started a circulation war with the other newspaper in Adelaide and won it. And within a few years, he has newspapers all across Australia. He started the one national newspaper in Australia, The Australian. He moves to Britain. And again and again and again, to buy The Times of London, he takes on the British establishment. He purchases and then relaunches The Sun, the tabloid.

And again, they're all condemning him. the press union, which was strangling the British journalism by moving to Wapping, moving out of Fleet Street overnight, not telling the unions, firing the unions, and beginning production the next day in an unfashionable sort of warehouse part of town in London, whereupon there were riots, mounted police have to guard the facility. Barbed wire goes up and he wins. And British journalism revives. And then, of course, he starts Sky Television in Britain. He comes here. He starts Fox News, which I remembered all of this, but to see it presented at the time,

everybody, and I actually remember drawing and forming an opinion of this myself, everybody thought he was crazy. everybody and i actually remember drawing and forming an opinion of this myself everybody thought he was crazy they put a billion dollars into that operation before it became profitable and a billion dollars used to be real money and and of course he shakes up hollywood by buying 20th century fox again and again and again and again, he takes on the establishment. He broadens the scope for voices, for opinion, for views in whatever field he's in, cable television, print journalism. And he's a capitalist. One piece that becomes clear about this is that he's an extremely good capitalist in the strict sense of the term. He knows how to borrow money, lots of money.

He has relationships with bankers, and he always makes his debt payment. For six decades now, he's paid back all his loans. So it was just pretty, pretty remarkable. Then he himself, he's now 91, gets up and gives a few remarks, and they conclude with, there's still a great deal to be done. Wonderful. That's great. You know, and there are some people, of course, given that he founded Fox news and the rest of it,

and then broke the union. Some people will say, well, this is, what somebody should have done is at the end of this stood up in a black and white smoke filled room and waved his arms around and said, all right, that tells us about what he's done, but what about the man? What about this rosebud thing that he supposedly said? Right, exactly. Can I just add to that? Sure.

I think the most interesting thing about Rupert Murdoch, for me, in my sort of glancing acquaintanceship with him, and I think I'm trying to think about other tit Titans, giant entrepreneurs. And I can't come up with any of them who match this. He surrounds himself. Yes, really, really, really smart people.

He lets them do amazing things. He seems to have no ego about it. Describe that meeting, Rob, that you and I took with him. What was it? 10 or 11 years ago, like at this meeting. And, you know, we're talking about Ricochet, by the way, we should say he, he helped us launch Ricochet and, and we have never asked him to do more and he's never offered to do more.

If you're listening to this podcast, we do need you to help us also continue's never offered to do more if you're listening to this podcast we do need you to help us also continue ricochet please do not like what we're all far too polite to say to to rupert hey please no because the you know he's impressed that we're in the black barely uh but we surely would like to grow so if you're listening to this please join ricochet.com and keep us going just i had to say that because you know i don't want to give the wrong impression we're talking this is early days of all this stuff so we go down uh uh and i think they had just purchased two things that happened like they just purchased the journal they just finished

they'd completed closed on dow jones so he's down there in the old dow jones offices which then of course eventually moved to town um and he's kind of wandering around like that's kind of what he does he kind of wanders around and um left to his own devices i suspect uh rupert murdoch would be 90 years old and hanging around a newspaper office if he didn't have a giant empire um so he's hanging around and then we go we're gonna be for like i don't know 45 minutes to give him to talk a little bit about the business what we're thinking about how we do it and uh and he's there with two of his very trusted uh lieutenants uh both of whom have been with him since since they were teenagers um i think both teenagers um and we're sitting around a table and there's like the new york harbor behind us and we're talking about you know this and communities and building community on the web and everything i'll tell i'll tell two stories and then for and and and he says well you know you know you we said you know we

want people to pay like we want you remember ricochet we want you to kick in a little bit um because we feel like you when you join a club uh and you have a little skin in the game that's the original like you don't trash it. We're going to keep the comments and the conversation civil and polite and friendly because everybody's in it together. It's not like you're anonymous on the internet, which is a cesspool. It's a cesspool even then. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can't be too much, he says. It can't be too much. You don't want it to be nominal. Nothing, I don't know, $20 a month is fine. And I think, I mean, I'm looking, oh, my God, $20 a month is insane. It's insanely high price. It's crazy. But what do you say?

And finally, one of his lieutenants, who was in fact a genius, is still very, very smart, slaps his hand on the table and says, Rupert, that's outrageous. Everybody's not a billionaire like you. $20 a month is insane. And the owner of the company and the biggest media titan in the world kind of shrank. Well, I don't know. Just throwing out a number.

That executive office was free and kind of rambunctious. And people were expected to push back and if you look at the people he's surrounding at peter churn running his studio peter churn is a very very smart very smart um uh uh executive uh producer who has no small ego he had built what is in fact the most interesting influential media machine ever fox news run by and and it's and run is a as a sometimes benign but often tyrannical despot roger ailes who also had a major ego and somehow rupertt Murdoch, the owner and Presario managed to sort of lion tame these lions. And,

and, and that is, and I can't think of another. I was about to say, we, I, this is what stays in my mind. You and I walk out of that meeting and we're still at the elevator.

Well, waiting to descend from the meeting. And you turned to me and said, Peter, you need to understand there are mid-level producers in hollywood who have secretaries yeah who are more vain than rupert murdoch yeah he just wanders around and i think i remember he was we we somehow we wandered around and we're in the office with a major editor a big editor i want to say you know we was was a major force at the Wall Street Journal.

And we're just we're just chatting. And suddenly the owner of the company. In his socks, by the way. Appears at the door. And he kind of looks around and he thinks, oh, this looks like an interesting conversation, knocks on the glass door. And does this gesture you do when you're outside the door? Like, can I come in? Can I come in? Can I come in? Like, well, you own it. You can come in anywhere. Do you own this? and he kind of comes and sits down and like god what what you guys talking about and we start talking about and then he says something

like well you know i was i forget what it was there's some issue and i think we really have to make sure we're fair here we got to be fair you know and then he kind of like says a few things and then kind of shimmers out and and i remember I remember you said to the editor, by the way, that is, you just, you, that's less than one Rupert Murdoch. He just wants to come in and have a conversation. He says is just one voice among many. And, and that is the key, I think to his success to his vast success is that he just surrounds himself with really,

really great people and doesn't care if they're egomaniacal. They often are. And respects people. Honestly, in his executive core, if you don't talk back to him, if you don't have something interesting to say, conversations can get a little rough. He's not all, he'll disagree when he disagrees, but he expects, he's fundamentally egalitarian.

He wants, if you have something interesting to say, say it. If you disagree with him, disagree now. Say it, let's sort it out. Let's hash it out. It's remarkable. It is just remarkable. You know, and the Wall Street Journal right now is like the last newspaper that we have on the right.

And not even for the stuff that's on the front page. It's the editorial page. We're all sort of hanging by our fingernails to the ledge of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. It's the last place that we can trust. I work for a newspaper that is owned by a billionaire as well. And people are convinced that because he is to the right and said, I don't know, 10 years ago that he wished the paper would move more to the center. They're convinced that there is this baleful influence that extends over every aspect of the newspaper, that he's pushing us relentlessly towards fascism, which just shows

where they are in the first place. But that's just not the case. I mean, as with Murdoch, he just sort of, I trust you people, you're smart people, and let them go. And the product that you get from that is exemplary, as opposed to some tyrant there, who's J. Jonah Jameson, and his way towards a particular viewpoint. Well, interesting stuff. I wish I'd met the guy. I wish I'd done it. You mentioned the editorial page of the journal, and I agree completely. Paul Gigo, who's the editor of the editorial page. Paul Gigo. Paul Gigo. Paul was my first editor.

I don't mean I have written a few pieces over the years for the Wall Street Journal. I mean at Dartmouth College. He was the editor-in-chief of the Daily D. And when I was a freshman submitting work, hoping to join the staff of the Daily D, Paul was my editor. So we've known each other a long time. And there was a period at Dartmouth College when I did everything I could to butter him up because I wanted a job on the newspaper. There he is last night. And I went up to Paul and I felt the old, I don't know if you feel this way, but it's sort of college up to the age of 21 or so, relationships get frozen. So my big brother, I always am his little brother when we're together. And suddenly I felt, oh, Paul's the big editor and I've got to butter him up. And I found myself

saying, Paul, look, the Wall Street Journal, the editorial pages under you have been brilliant. But during the last five or six years, it's been one of the greatest acts in American journalism to state the reasoned conservative argument without going this way or that way or getting caught up in any kind of hysteria pro-trump anti-trump polarized none of it and you know what i realized i realized i actually meant every word i was i thought to myself i quite often i have rob long in my head and i remembered that the line the ho the Hollywood line that when somebody gives somebody else a compliment, there's a pause and if he means it then he adds, and I'm not even lying. I'm not even lying to you.

Can I add just one more? Paul Gigo has produced one of the great running acts in American television. Can I add just one more thing? The other time we met, this was a long time ago, and we had just launched and we had, I don't think time ago, and we had just launched.

And we had, I don't think we had, we didn't have that many paying members. Like right now, again, we don't have enough. So if you are not a subscriber, please subscribe. We really do need you. Two member reaches in one episode. In one, in one, in one. Still in the opening segment. It's still in the opening.

And we sort of, I think it wasn't even really a meeting, just that we were all in town. So we got together and we're talking a little bit about the launch and the growth and where we were. And he looked at our members, our subscription number. He said, wait a minute, that's how many subscribers you have? And we're like, yeah, yeah. And we're kind of like sheepish.

Well, you know, we just started and all this stuff. And he said said that's more than we have for the thing they i guess they called it the paper or the whatever it was he had an ipad app launched yes yes they had launched right he had launched this app you know this is early days the ipad and uh and he said we spent 30 million the guy is willing and then the other thing he asked us when we, when each other was important, when we asked him to help us start it, he said,

well, what, what do you need to get your answer? And we answered by saying, well, you know, for two years of running this one year running three years of running all that stuff.

And he said, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, your answer. Like, is this going to work or not? He didn't really care about the money. He meant like, how much do you need to get an answer?

So we know whether you need more money or not. His question is always like, what's the answer? So what's the answer to the complicated iPad app? Well, it costs money, but now he's got his answer. He didn't want to just fund a little business that just kind of like eked along. He wanted to know if this is going to work or not. And that's the way billionaires think. That's the way

entrepreneurs think. Even if they have no money at all, they're thinking big and they're looking for the answer, not for a year's worth of running cash. And I thought that was sort of revelatory to me. Well, we've now learned the psychology of billionaires and how we don't have it, which is why we're sitting in small rooms talking as opposed to large gilded mansions. Peter sounds like a lot of fun and I know you have to run. So we're going to wait. I do. I've got one or two other appointments here in New York before I head back to sunny California. New York, Midtown, you live downtown, right? Midtown still seems quieter than normal.

A little bit. It's New York. There's traffic. There are horns honking. But there are a lot of... Brooks Brothers is closed up. And I don't mean for COVID. They've closed down.

This lockdown was a bad thing even in New York. Anyway, I've got to run. Take care, boys. Thanks for indulging me. Yeah, if Brooks Brothers in New York is having a problem selling the bespoke items, then you know you have a different landscape. It's those little details that Brooks Brothers has, by the way, that makes people come back to them again and again and again, just like any detail that you have in your life, which

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Got a new book out, In Trump's Shadow, The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP. And by the way, he has a podcast to go along with it right here on the Ricochet Audio Network. So we're glad to have him. David, thanks for joining us today. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Really appreciate it. 2024, we all know it's coming, but there's also a battle for 2022. There's the interesting Virginia battle, which is now, and there's the midterms. So before we get to 2024,

how is Trump's shadow going to loom over 2022? Well, you know, we're going to see it, I think, in a number of different ways, but we've already begun to see it in some of these Senate primaries where Republicans are battling it out in open seats because of retirements or because they're running against an incumbent Democrat. candidate forum in Ohio in the past few days. And you could see with the half a dozen candidates how they sort of ran the gamut of showing their showing how Trump has influenced them and the party. Right. And so, you know, as I like to say, you know, for most of my lifetime, every four years when Republicans ran for president. But it was certainly true in congressional races and Senate races in midterm elections like the one that is coming up. They would all compete to be the next Ronald Reagan. You know, you're running in a Republican primary.

I'm the next Reagan. No, I'm the next Reagan. I'm more like Reagan. You're not like Reagan. You're an imposter. Well, what we're seeing now heading into 2022 and what we're going to see in 2024, especially if Trump does not run, are Republicans all competing to convince Republican voters that they are the heir to Trump, that they will be like Trump. They are the next Trump.

Some of them, some, and we saw this during this candidate form in Ohio, and I bring it up because it speaks to your question about 2022. They're subtle about it. They're promising you the best of Trump, the Trump agenda without the worst of Trump. Trump's provocative, if you will, conduct and behavior, the mean tweets and all of that. Others, and we saw this in this candidate forum, are promising you the best of Trump with the best of Trump because there is no worst of Trump. One of the things a lot of Republicans liked about him is that he was willing to fight anyone, anywhere, at any time. He'd even punch down. And I remember during the course of Trump's presidency, we'd constantly ask ourselves why the most powerful elected official on the planet was punching down. But for a lot of Republicans,

it meant he's always fighting. And so the message that candidates have taken away, people that want to run for office is you fight and you don't give any ground ever, even if it seems like a big waste of your time. Define fighting, though. I know before I toss it to Rob, what does it mean to fight? Does it mean to actually do something legislatively to get in there, to push your agenda, twist some arms, or is just simply a matter of rhetoric? I think in large measure, it's a great question. And it's one of the through lines in Trump's shadow, the battle for 2024 and the future of the GOP. And it's what I've been talking about on the Rookishay podcast in Trump's shadow, the battle for 2024.

Rhetoric is a huge part of it. So we like to think of this in terms of legislation or policy. And no doubt there are Trump policies that were popular, even with people that don't like Trump personally, and that Republicans believe can help them win elections. to Republican primary voters and what it still means is that rhetorically speaking, not just legislatively, not like an establishment politician, rhetorically speaking, you will stand up to large technology companies, entertainers, people you've never heard of on the street that said something you don't like. It really means a rhetorical pushback. Now, when you're an elected official, a rhetorical pushback usually accompanies some form of policy. When you're running for office, it usually accompanies some form of policy. So that's a part of it.

But for instance, speaking directly to your question and what I really learned about in Trump's shadow is if you've got two Republicans and it's the old cliche, the workhorse versus the show horse and the workhorse says, but look at this bill I did that actually fought for you and made your life better. And the show horse said, this guy never speaks up when people talk ill of us. I'm the one that went on TV and told these people where they could stick it. The show horse is going to win that battle every time because this is a catharsis that people want. And it's it's this sense of being defended and fought for that they want to be able to see and feel. Hey, David, thanks for joining. So so I think a lot of that stuff is playing out in Virginia right now. Right. I mean, I remember when Republicans could legitimately and very successfully run against Jimmy Carter for eight years after Jimmy Carter. And it seems to me that Terry McAuliffe is running against Trump in Virginia. And Youngkin is not is doing, I think, one of those formulas of like,

I represent the Trump agenda without Trump. He's trying to thread the needle. And he might actually successfully do it by sticking to social issues and issues that voters care about. Education is a big one, right? But it could also be the other way. I mean, there is no real evidence that Trump helps in a national election, is it? I mean, he lost the House. He lost the Senate almost personally in 2020.

At some point, I should not lead here. What will we learn from the outcome in Virginia, if anything? Or is Virginia just a weird thing and it's its own thing? Are there any tea leaves to be read from what happens in Virginia? Well, there are. I just think it depends on how you look at it. Look, I mean, Virginia, if Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee, wins in Virginia, it's a big deal because this is a Biden plus 10 state and it's a state that hasn't elected a Republican statewide, certainly not for governor in over a decade, not for senator. So this would be a really seismic election that I think would tell us where we're headed in 2022.

Look, Glenn Youngkin has been able to thread this needle between being an all inclusive Republican, and that includes Republicans who are gaga about Donald Trump without losing independents and soft partisans that don't like Trump, the suburbs, for instance. But he's been able to do that, I think, for a couple of reasons. One, there's a Democrat in the White House and that Democrat, Joe Biden, isn't doing so great these days. And, you know, this is a fun. That's a very, very diplomatic way to put it. Right. And and look, when you can run against somebody and if it works great, but usually when they no longer hold power, when they're no longer in the White House, it's harder to run against Trump and particularly if he's running, but even if he's not. The Democrats were able to successfully run against Bush, not just in 08, but in 12.

Right. George W. Bush. But, you know, this is a governor's race. There are some real acute concerns that particularly suburban parents are feeling in Virginia and the kind of concerns that a governor in particular is elected to speak to and legislate on. Yeah. So I think that's why this is working so well for Youngkin, because Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat, has gotten himself on the wrong side of the education issue. And he keeps railing on about Trump. And I don't think anybody likes Trump that didn't used to like him. But what they're saying is, well, he's not in office. And what are you going to do to fix my school? Right. And it feels to me like, I mean, I think Youngkin's a very, very talented politician.

He's pretty much he's done a really, really good job here. And I don't think that Trump was an issue until Youngkin started getting close. And Youngkin, I think he landed some real real blows using terry mccullough's own words about schools and things and i think that that is a big issue um so i so i guess what i would say is i'm not sure that you can see tea leaves um about 2024 but we could just talk about it for a minute because to me i close my eyes and try to predict who's on that dais i'm assuming in iowa, you know, the first big debate, I'm assuming that Trump's running. I think that's even money at least he's running.

But on that dais is going to be Chris Christie. Mike Pompeo, who just lost a bunch of weight, and he says it was for his son's wedding in June. But I ain't buying that. And Mike Pence and maybe Nikki Haley. So there'll be other people there. But there's four people who are prominent members of the Trump cabinet who have already seen his moves. Isn't that going to be tough for Trump? Well, it's tough for all of them.

I think it's by the way, it's a great question the way you set it up. And I have to say, as an aside, when I interviewed Mike Pompeo for In Trump's Shadow, the podcast, I could see him the way we can see each other. And I said, I know nobody's going to see you when they listen to this, but you've lost a ton of weight and you know what people say when you've lost a ton of weight. And he kind of sheepishly shrugged his when you've lost a ton of weight. And he kind of sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and then tried to play it off. Look, you know, it's a really interesting setup there. The idea of this debate with a bunch of people that used to work for Trump. So they know his moves, but he also knows theirs. And they're in a position if Trump's running. And I agree with you, it's even money. I think that means he may not run,

but I think it means he certainly may. They're going to have to say to voters why having worked for Trump and supported Trump. They should be elected instead of Trump. You think that's going to be hard? Huh? You think it's going to be hard? I mean, maybe hard in Iowa. You think it's going to be hard in New Hampshire? Well, it depends on where you go. But when you're talking to Republican primary voters, the reason this is hard,

and it's usually we see this with vice presidents that are running for president after, right, their president has served eight years. You actually have a very difficult balance in terms of this. If you're just some guy running or some lady running, you can run on pure change. The way things have been working aren't any good. I'm going to do things completely different. But if you've been a part of an administration, you've been a part of their work product. So it's harder to say all of that, no good. I guess what I mean is a

former. I mean, I don't think we've ever had a former vice president running for president against a former president that he was the vice president in the family. Right. Yeah. But it seems to me that the only way any of those people are going to get anywhere. Anywhere. We know that Donald Trump's not going to choose Mike Pence to be his running mate again should he win the nomination. And Mike Pence knows that. The only way is to be the guy who took the big guy down. It feels to me like the person actually at the end of that first or second debate, me included, somebody who is famously, to the detriment of my business, not a fan of Donald Trump. I will be saying, man, poor Donald

Trump, because you're going to have a bunch of people there who are going to be competing to make the headshot. If I'm Mike Pence, I simply look at the audience and I say, you know me, I'm a rock rib conservative. I'm an evangelical Christian. I have all of the conservative bona fides and more to continue the agenda we started in the Trump-Pence administration. But I'm telling you, I saw him up close. He is not fit for the job. If Mike Pence says that, that's what we're going to be watching. It's going to be awfully hard.

I mean, I think, you know, he could be president. The question is, did Republicans learn the lesson of 2016, which is you go after the big dog if you want to be the big dog? Maybe it won't work. Maybe the voters are going to say, I don't I don't like what you're saying and I don't care. But going after everybody else, worrying about what Trump's voters think that doesn't work. It's significant. It signals weakness and Trump eats it up. So if they all go at the big dog now, that could be interesting. Oh, I think it's good. That's what my prediction is that. And it's going to be fascinating.

But maybe maybe the primary voters will say, look, no matter who the Republicans run, they're going to be treated like Trump. So why not just go with Trump? Because whoever gets up there is going to be tarred as just as extreme, just as crazy, just as radical, just as destabilizing to our democracy as Donald Trump. I mean, look right now, that's not how people make a decision for president. Right. But but still in Virginia right now, this to get back to that for a second, because the visuals are just great. Four guys with tiki torches showed up outside of a Yonkin bus and said, we're here for Glenn. Hey, they got the khaki, they got the identical shirts and they're holding tiki torches. And it's,

it's such a transparently manufactured paid actor event to say that, that the Yunkin to tie Yunkin with, with Charlottesville with, with any good. So that's going to have Nikki Haley gets the nod. That's what's going to happen is they're going to, all of a sudden they're going to say, look, the Nazi fascist white supremacist regime is backing Nikki Haley. It's simply going to. And that's why I think a lot of people are going to say, look, doesn't mean I mean, might as well go for the genuine article. Look, that's very possible. And I think it just depends on where Republican voters are at the time, how they perceive Trump at the time, and really the case that other Republicans make against him and how many of them are making that case.

You can't win something if you don't ask for votes and you can't beat somebody with nobody. shadow right before I had to put the book to bed. And I was talking to Republican activists and asking them, do you want Trump to run again? Or would you prefer to see some new leadership? And some people want him to run. They'd want him to run forever. Some people shook their head and don't quote me, but I'd rather he not run. But I talked to an interesting mix of people who said, well, look, I don't want the party to go backward and be what it used to be. I really like what Trump accomplished. And I voted for him for reelection and I'm disappointed that he lost. But being that he did lose, I think it would be great to get some new leadership in there that kept Trump's policies. Right. But just with somebody new. I just don't like to make blanket predictions in politics because politics isn't static and it's hard to know where things are going sometimes.

But you were right about this, James, that they are going to tar anybody who's the nominee as representative of Trump. But as I said, in part, it's going to be because whoever the nominee is, is going to embrace Trump in some part. There is not going to be a clean break. The cleanest, the biggest break you'll get if you get it is, hey, I'm all for the agenda, but you're not going to see me saying those crazy things. And that's the most you'll get. So in some ways, you're going to have to defend your association with Trump because for no other reason than where the Republican base is, you're unlike a governor's race in Virginia where Youngkin can get by by saying, hey, I'm for the policies and I'm for everybody and not say anything mean about Trump in a national campaign. You're going to have to say that you

are honored to have Trump's support and you'd love to have him campaign for you. Right. First of all, you mentioned the book without mentioning the title. You're off your game. The book is Trump's Shadow, The Battle for 2024. But secondly- And we will put a link to that on the show notes. We will, and the podcast. But secondly, you said that they liked Trump's agenda, what he got done. Well, some people look at what Trump did and say, well, there's a lot of stuff that he was supposed to get done that he didn't. A lot of stuff. We didn't get the wall. We didn't get this. We didn't get that.

And the reason that they supported Trump again when he came, you know, maybe for the first time when he was up for reelection was not necessarily because of the agenda, which we get lower taxes, lower regulation, the rest of it. But the fact that he held back the flood, that he was a dam that kept the progressive agenda from swamping the country. And so it's possible that there's a lot of people who will not vote for Trump because they see one of those other people on the stage as being a more effective means of preventing additional progressive takeover and swamping of the country and the institutions, however you define that? Well, I think that that could be an effective line of attack for a Republican running against Trump. He's promising you a wall. He's promising you better trade deals. He's promising you this, that and the other. I'll actually get it done. He's promising you infrastructure. I'll actually get it done. I mean, there's something to be said for the fact that Trump could be his own worst enemy

because he never understood how to deal with Congress, or maybe he understood it and just didn't care because he didn't want to engage in the kind of political back and forth and deference to another branch of government that was required in order to get legislation through two houses of Congress. But I will say this, when I talk to voters about the Trump agenda, for a lot of them, they'll point to the renegotiation of NAFTA or just simply recognizing the rising threat posed by China. They'll refer to the Abraham Accords. They will refer to the $1.3 trillion tax overhaul. Now, most of the things we refer to when it comes to Trump, they'll also refer to the fact that the construction of the wall started and that his immigration policies, especially

compared to the Biden immigration policies, created a much more secure border. Most of what he accomplished were things that he could do without Congress. And there's a case to be made that there is a lot that Trump left on the cutting room floor, that somebody that has a better understanding of our system, has better relationships, and will work with Congress could actually get things done that are lasting. And you could say in a primary debate, all of Trump's executive orders were overturned. His achievements aren't what you think they are. Mine will be lasting. But I think when looking at the broader breadth of the Trump years, one of the reasons why Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to dispense of Trump is not simply because Republican voters still like him and not simply because he's so ever present. When they look at the 2020 election, they gain 14 seats in the House of Representatives.

They feel like losing the Senate was a uniquely Trump problem that he caused. And they say to themselves, this thing worked. All we need to do is separate Trump's baggage from Trump's policies, and we have a winner here. Right. Legislation helps. An executive order is something scrawled on a cocktail napkin. A law is a statue hewn from marble that sits in a room until somebody takes a sledgehammer to it. And speaking of masterworks, what do masterworks have to do with you and your financial future? Well, this. There is a financial war against the middle class. It's one that's threatening to wipe out your wealth. No one's talking about it. They're going to talk about it soon. And I'm

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that's masterworks.io slash ricochet. See important disclosures at masterworks.io slash disclaimer, masterworks.io slash Ricochet. And we thank Masterworks for sponsoring this Ricochet podcast. Okay, so I've got just a couple more questions. One is like, just if you could put on your

political consultant hat for a minute, which of course everybody likes to do. You got a client who's running for Congress. Republican client running for Congress.

In most districts now, the way the districts work, if I had a client running for Congress, I'd be saying, don't run away from Trump. As it gets bigger and bigger, as you start going for a statewide or for a general,

he becomes because of just the way the districts work and because you're swamped now with more, more independence, doesn't he become more, more of a, he goes from being an asset to a liability as you move sort of slower up the chain. Is that,

is that fair? Is that too reductive? It's a little too broad. If you're running in a Republican district or district drawn to elect Republicans, you're right. Don't run away from Trump. Embrace Trump. Right. But then it just depends on what state you're running in. Now, if you start, for instance, if you start going up the chain in California, I would obviously say, however, you know, it's like we could use Devin Nunes as a good example here.

He's a California member. I'm originally from California. I understand the Central Valley. The fact that Congressman Nunes embraces Trump the way he does so enthusiastically is an asset for him in his Central Valley district in California. Right. If he were to seek any other office at the state or federal level, doing that would kill him.

Right. He would have to run. Taking aside the authenticity issues, it wouldn't work. But just for the sake of our argument here, he would have to run as a centrist right who didn't necessarily attack trump but made clear that trump was not his north star as a republican but if you're running statewide in texas even though texas is more competitive now than it used to be you can still run on the fact that you voted for Donald Trump for president, that you think that he did a lot of good and that, you know, while my Democratic opponent is embracing people like Nancy Pelosi. So sure, I'm embracing Trump, but, you know,

I'm going to be my own person and that's that. Right. So it just sort of depends on what state you're running in. It also depends on when exactly you are running. Embracing Trump in 2018, except in those very red states now Senator Rick Scott, definitely did not put his arms around Trump in any way, shape or form. He won, but he won very narrowly. Yeah. So timing is all it's about timing and where you're running. OK, so my next question. So if you're I mean, so I'm obsessed with what I you know, the group of four, you know, I just I'm sure there'll be more. But the four seem interesting to me who are I think are not 100 percent, but are definitely in the list. Soft circle to run for president. Christie Pompeo, Pence, Haley.

If you're one of those four, you've got to be looking at the returns of 2020 and saying it looks to me like in some crucial states, Arizona and Wisconsin, especially with Pennsylvania to Republican voters. Voted for their Republican candidates all the way up to president and then did not vote for the president. They surgically removed Donald Trump from office without really. I mean, you know, Republicans are going to get probably get the different consent. I mean, look, the amount of setbacks of twenty twenty four or twenty twenty two for for twenty twenty for Republicans is pretty small. Don't you think those four are looking at that and saying, OK, so how do I what's the how do I say that? Isn't that going to be the yoga contortionist messaging they're going to have to say?

How do I say I surgically remove Donald Trump from Donald Trump's policies? That's I mean, what would you say? What would your advice be to them if you were their consultant? How do you say that? Well, there are two issues here. One, I think the explanation you just gave about what happened in 2020 is why, among other reasons, the former president refuses to accept the results of the election. Because if he accepts the results of the election, what he says is it wasn't Republicans they had a problem with. It was me. It was me. I looked at the numbers in Maricopa County when I was writing the books. I was looking for an example of this as people were explaining to me what happened. And you think it'd be obvious, but when you lose control of the House, Senate and White House on your watch, the immediate assumption, regardless of the margins is, wow, what a total disaster

for the party. But actually, in Maricopa County, every Republican, just about every republican almost running down ballot one except for trump except for trump and martha mcsally the senate nominee and she was closely tied to him they didn't the conservative voters and independents and swing voters in the phoenix area didn't say enough of republicans they said enough of Trump. So this is why he won't ever accept the results because it diminishes him. Look, I think that as a candidate, you can make the case that there were two parts to Trump. There were there was the agenda and there was the conduct. And I think the question is whether or not they're willing to lean into it. Yeah, right. And if you're not willing to lean into it, it won't work.

So one thing that Trump did so well in 2016 is he leaned into everything. And some of it was like, what the hell is he doing? But what voters saw is, oh, OK, look at that. Like he's making a case. So, all right. I know you don't want to do this but i'm going to ask you anyway which one do you think is going to be the one who do you think of those of my you know classic four you could add some if you want it's gonna be

it's gonna it's gonna land the first blow so i when i'm discussing In Trump's Shadow, I get this question a lot. And I know we got to buy the book. So if you're listening and you want a real answer, you got to buy the book. But we're going to get. But but, you know, but I like talking about In Trump's Shadow. It's a lot easier than writing In Trump's Shadow. Christie has already started landing punches. Yes.

I interviewed him for the Texas Tribune Festival in September, and this wasn't the first time he had said this, but he went after Donald Trump with a baseball bat over his conduct in the post-election period and his refusal to concede on January 6th and all of that. And I expect we're going to see a lot more of that. And, you know, Chris Christie is just the type that will do it just to do it. Now, the interesting thing is I asked Chris, I asked the governor, OK, well, Donald Trump

did this horrible thing, which you've just laid out. But what if he's the nominee again? Are you going to buddy up to him just like before? And he wouldn't say. So he's still playing some politics. On the In Trump's Shadow podcast, I asked Mike Pompeo because I said, I know you're not going to make news on my podcast, unfortunately, and tell me if you're running or not.

But I said, if Trump runs, does it automatically mean you will not? Now, look, Mike Pompeo is considered among the most loyal Trump confidants in the entire cabinet. It was with him all four years. And wherever he was on Trump before, which was somewhere where you were are, you know, he definitely converted, whether whether just for circumstantial reasons or not. I said, will that mean you wouldn't run? And what he said to me is that if you believe you should be president, then you don't back down for anybody because you don't deserve that job if you're willing to give up trying to become president simply because somebody else is running.

If you believe so little in yourself that you're not going to run just because somebody else is running, then you have no business doing it. Now, obviously, everybody makes political calculations, but his answer was interesting. Nobody's willing, not even a loyal soldier like Pompeo was willing to cede ground at this time. And I could see a scenario in which Mike Pompeo says to himself, you know, I'm almost 60 years old. I believe I should be president. We know that he disagreed with President Trump on some matters of foreign policy. He probably disagrees on some matters of domestic policy. And if he really believes this is a job that he wants and should have, then I could see him reviving the same body blows against President Trump than he did last time. But the only question would be, of course, is, is it authentic?

Because what Trump would say and what I imagine some Republican voters would say is, well, where were you? Since you seem to have a problem with President Trump, where were you while you were serving with him? Why didn't you resign? Why didn't you ever speak up these past couple of years? You've been running around. They'll say at least Chris Christie's open about his criticism. Where have you been? Right. And this is this is what I mean. There's also a fine line for his opponents to walk if they've worked for him. Yeah. Where were you if it was so bad? You know, and this kind of gets the lilacs. I mean, if it was so bad, where were you?

Or why don't we just go with the real guy? You know, at least he's real. I mean, yeah, he claims the election was stolen, but he doesn't change his mind every five minutes. So they have to kind of figure out what they believe, why they believed it, why they were running against him and make a very disciplined case. It is going to be really exciting, I have to kind of figure out what they believed why they believed it why they were running against him and make a very disciplined case it is going to be really exciting i have to say it'll be interesting right and if you want to catch up on it and know the players without a scorecard then you're going to listen to the podcast and it's a great podcast it is and it's

only going to get only going to get more complicated and juicy and it's here in the ricochet audio network trump's shadow the battle for 2024 david drucker you can read him in the washington examiner and of course you read his book get up to speed thanks for joining us it's the first draft of 2024 you got to get it there we go trump shadow guys and thanks so much for hosting me i'm excited to be on the ricochet network with the podcast and i hope to see you guys again soon see you here bye take it easy i'm not sure we um mentioned the book enough times though the hew hewitt rule i think is to mention it every 90 seconds and that's why

because it's something like that that and hugh will um actually and give the name of the book if the author doesn't because a lot of authors you know going out on tour for the first time they're kind of shocked about these things which i understand if people even go out on tour for the first time to kind of feel shocked about these things which i understand if people even go out on tour anymore um i remember that my last book tour was completely virtual the only part of it that actually entered the real world was when the publishers sent the book not in pdf form no they sent them the actual physical book so that they could open it and handle it and look at it which is great stamps on that book that's the well exactly telling a book you got to buy all the stamps you got to go go to post-ops, get to stand in line. Better just not to even try. Just surrender, give up because there's no solution. That's absolutely correct.

So Rob, this week we've been talking. No, I'm not going to let that go. I'm not going to let one of Rob's patented segue spoilers just hang there because when he says there's no solution, obviously that's not the case. He wouldn't believe it. Rob's a can-do kind of guy. He believes that there has to be a way to do these things better than there is. And if you have a big business like publishing where you're mailing out books or a small business where you're Etsying things to people, little pieces of art that you did, hey, there's a lot of work that goes into it, big or small. If you've got a small business though, you know that there's nothing more valuable than your time because it's not, you can have an underling run down and go to the post office.

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Click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in Ricochet. That's stamps.com, promo code Ricochet. And we thank stamps.com for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Before we go, at the top, Rob, when Peter was here, we were talking about Meta, the new thing that Mark Zuckerberg is coming up. If you're going to launch a new product that's scientific and hologram-like, choose a spokesperson

who doesn't make Gary Cooper look like Rip Taylor. The idea that I want to follow Mark Zuckerberg into this world is nightmarish to me, but the banality of what they eventually showed with these cartoon figures talking and chattering and playing cards and floating around and everybody sharing everything. You experienced something for a second before you shared it somewhere else.

Oh, look, Mark Zuckerberg in cyberspace, in the metaverse is sending a picture of a dog. I love the canines. Humans love canines. We'll send canine picture to father unit. Nothing about that was attractive. I've spent a lot of time inside sort of virtual environments and gaming and this, that, and the other. I remember from the very beginning, VR shopping was going to be the thing on the web. Why your browser would be 3D. You'd be able to virtually go through shelves and stores. Nobody wanted it. The games that I play are immersive, but at the same time, no matter how

convincing they are and how much I enjoy spending time in them, there's always a part of my brain that is pushing against it and feels a bit of shame when i leave that i've spent so much time there because it's not real and i know it's not real it's not real there's a point i think for some people where you surrender to that and it's you you just lose your your little little some people i mean but i mean you have like you just solve responsibilities and thing i mean if you maybe if you don't have anybody in your life you could do that but if you have a life and you have things to do and you have people who are looking at you and you you know i don't i mean i guess what i was struck by there was that what's the question i always ask when like big

big companies do a thing like this is like the stupid name meta which is not even it's like we always said in showbiz it was like in the writers room say oh you know five more minutes on that spend five more minutes on the but i actually feel like the thing is that they spent how many meetings did they did it take to get to something that boring like you i can imagine like endless meetings the the the branding experts and the all that it took i mean i bet you there's millions of dollars sunk into a name that dumb not not to mention the man hours and it just reminds me something personal like person hours person i was right oh yeah sorry and or not even person hours just not even hours not even anything um. Not even hours. Not even anything.

Showers. I just remember watching an Apple presentation when I realized, okay, these people are just living in another planet. Even as a coastal elite, I could say that. And the presentation was on the Apple Watch or the new Apple Watch. It was like, well, just say it's great for your active lifestyle. This is like a back world presentation of the big thing they do. Just say, for instance, I mean, I don't know. You're part of a cycling club

and you want to go on a cycling trip. This is one way you can organize a cycling outing with your cycling club and just say you're going to meet some other cyclers uh for lunch uh on that day and you can set it up with your apple watch that you say oh i don't know just randomly you're gonna meet them at the whole foods for sushi i'm thinking like my god that is the most silicon valley uh specific like the idea that first of all that you're're going to be, you're going to be in cycling.

So you're going to be wearing little tight little pants and little helmet and stuff, right? I'm not, you know, we have fine ricochet subscribers and in fact ricochet board members who are cyclists. And then you're going to stop, of course randomly pick your place, the Whole Foods, and

randomly the food stuff would be sushi, which is like, who are these people? And that's what I's what i think like who are these people who want to go float around in the room i saw that thing too like you just look miserable like i'll tell you around by the way they're playing cards and the guy's floating around he's gonna see all your cards i know it's weird it's ridiculous and then you're talking to some ogre who's your friend who taps something and then you're in the forest and it's gaudy and it's ridiculous. But think of it this way. Here is something that pops out after X number of months of enforced isolation and lockdowns in which people were stuck in their little apartments in big cities

that they couldn't afford, that had no creature comforts really around them. They were paying too much for a place that had bad plumbing and bugs, as Woody Allen said. And all of a sudden, you can't go outside very much because you lost your vaccine card. So you can't get into places until you get a new one. So there's all of these strictures being placed on the exterior world in which we used to move freely. Isn't it much more attractive to just stay home inside your nice little pod with your VR thing and enter this world? Because in this world, it's frictionless. It's absolutely frictionless. What's more, you don't have to worry about the shoes you're going to wear. If you're the least bit style conscious, either in street terms or in office terms, you might want to look at your footwear. But if you don't have to go to

the office anymore, you don't have to buy shoes. But when you go into the metaverse, they will sell you the coolest shoes you ever had for your avatar to wear. They will sell you really nice shoes at the same price that you would pay for getting Nikes, except that Nike is saying, we don't have to drag these things across from China in a container cargo vessel anymore. We can just sell this absolutely non-existent item to somebody that's NFT of a shoe and they'll pay us a hundred bucks for it because everybody wants to kit themselves out in the digital world. There's been an attempt at this before

and it was second life. And like everything else on the internet, it devolved into porn. It devolved into strained, hooded sex rituals and people creating persons for themselves and the rest of it. But I think with Facebook behind it and virtual reality and more computational power and the added less desirable aspect of the physical world, which for some people is now poison place, it's a land of threats. They may have had COVID. They may be not the sort of person who needs to worry about it at all.

But we've all been slightly and subtly rewired over the last year and a half to all of a sudden now regard the rest of the meat space as slightly spoiled. Or some of us have. I mean, I find myself. Not me. Yeah, not me either. So I'm not even going to blanket things that we're all i'm just talking about them those people yeah those people i i find that that that people are are dividing very quickly into into into into a more lopsided group um and if anything it's like get me out of here i want to get me out of here i mean i think i went out of where

get me out of where out of my out of out of this mask out of the metaphorically the mask of staying inside although i never did and also metaphorically wearing the mask we went i went to this event and um and uh and all of everybody there uh had a mask on and it was like okay i'm i'm out of here and then i realized okay they're just wearing it until everyone did this thing like are we are we wearing these or are is this what we're are we doing this and then some brave souls who before i got there had removed their mask and so we were all removed so there were no masks but for there was a split second where i was as i was entering i thought oh my god if this is a masked event, I'm out. And not really because I have any.

I'm not really. I don't really care. It's just that I'm done with it now. So I feel like we are done with it. So the idea that you're now going to that Mark Zuckerberg thinks what I want to do is float around in a virtual space. I mean, the best thing you could say about Meta and his plan is that it's going to look crappy for 10 years. So you don't have to just don't have to worry about it for 10 years. Well,

I will because it'll get better and better and better and more seductive. I mean, and let, let, let's just, let's, let's be as paranoid as we want right now. Let's,

let's say that everybody who says that there's a new world order reset, build back better idea to reshape Western civilization wants what? They want digital currency so that they can track everything and forbid some things and control the currency in a way they can't now. They want us to live in the pod, as people say, because density is good. The suburbs are bad. It's killing the planet.

We should all be living in dense places. They want EVs and a mileage tax so that where you go can, if the climate demands it, I'm sorry, you can't drive today because of climate. And so you're limited to where you can go and they know where you can go. And there's a social credit score. It isn't really that, but the banks do know whether or not you sent money to a gun place or a foreign place or this place or too much on liquor. So that's in place. Your food is being changed because meat's bad and the bugs and the plant grown stuff is really good. And why don't you want it as a substitute? And anything else in there? In other words, all of these things that are designed to make the world better, they're all improvements as such. And then if you can

seamlessly move people to conduct their social interactions and their economic interactions into this place here, which by the way, which by the way, which by the way, harvests minutely every single interaction you has and translates it into some sort of data they can use for advertising and target i mean it'll be moving to the metaverse will be voluntary for people partially because the strictures placed on the real world are annoying and i'm that i'm not saying i believe in any of this i'm telling you about the conspiratorial maybe not conspiratorial but just the dystopian the dystopian yeah here's the problem with all this dystopia conspiratorial stuff is it presupposes that everyone else is cray is is weak and a coward and easily a sheep except for me i'm really smart and i can see through it

right the reason that i don't i'm not worried about any of this stuff is because like yeah i think there are going to be some people who fall into it if it's really good and it looks really great and vr really like doesn't have the weird quirky jerky we don't all look like bad animation figures with what which is what that he showed which looked terrible to me um uh uh then i think there's some people who want to retreat and retire and we'll do that and i say good good for you enjoy your isolation if that's what you need. There are some people who really honestly thought to themselves, you know, I really enjoyed COVID quarantine.

I liked it. I don't like going outside. I don't like interacting with people. That's fine. There's no laws that you got to get up and go outside. If you can get your, if you, if you're happy living that way, I'm not, who am I to say, I am not happy living that way i'm not who am i to say i am not happy living that way i am not having happy not having a hamburger or steak and i don't think that i'm

in some kind of dwindling minority i think in fact most people don't and i i just my i have to fight this tendency that i have of assuming that other people are different or dumber from me and i don't think i'm susceptible to any of those things. I don't think it's because they're dumber. I think it's because they have a different mindset. I mean, so many people enjoyed lockdown and quarantine and rules because it gave them the feeling that they were part of something larger than themselves and that there were rules and that they could follow them and this would make a difference. They were flattening the curve and then they were doing all the other

wonderful things they felt. I mean, people in this society yearn for some sort of uniform to wear. It's just like in world war II, you had people who couldn't go to the service, but they would be plane spotters. I mean, they'd be in Wichita or Fargo,

but they'd still have the helmet and they'd be looking up for the plane and they'd be watching for fire or they'd be the blackout warden or something like that. And I'm not saying that came from a bad place. It's just that people want to behave and belong to something that gives them some forms and structures. Some people have religion. Don't have that anymore for X percentage of the country anymore. So what do you do? You have health. You have the earth. And a lot of people, I think,

will gladly do a lot of these things, or at least vote in people who make them possible for others than themselves, because they too feel they are part of a great cause. And that causes climate or inequity. Yeah, I think it's probably true. So they're not stupid. They're just, but they're letting it letting it for myself i have decided to stop worrying and about what other how other people are going to react to something how i stopped worrying and learned to love the pod by rob right i just i just can't i don't have room in my brain to worry about how this or that is going to affect people that i don't know um and in general i feel like almost every problem we face today,

not every problem, but a huge portion of the problems we face today, both cultural and political have to do with people assuming they know how someone else is going to react to something. And so therefore we shouldn't do X because some person I don't know yet might say Y. And instead I would just say like, what if you just freed yourself from those concerns, which are idiotic anyway, because you have no idea how people are going to react and just say, OK, here's how I feel. Here's what I want. Here's what I don't want. Here's what I think. And not really worry so much about what other people say. I mean, that is ultimately where we get to this. That's what cancel culture is all about. That's what all this stuff is all about. Like, don't say that. Don't say wear a mask, because if you do, then people will buy

masks and then first responders won't have them, which is not true. There's no evidence say that. Don't say wear a mask, because if you do, then people will buy masks and then first responders won't have them, which is not true. There's no evidence of that. In fact, there's an enormous amount of counter evidence. Don't tell people it's a lab leak, because if you do that, even though it is a lab leak, they will then be mad about Chinese people. Well, that is not true. There is no evidence that that is true. It's just a bunch of people thinking, I know how you're going to react, so I'm going to say this or that. And I just, I'm exhausted from it. I'm exhausted when the left does it. I'm exhausted when the right does it. I'm not doing it. But there is a case in which, and I'm sort of, I'm picking one thread from what you said, and I'm not even sure what it is. Me neither.

To be frank. But when you have a new paradigm, it does... God, I wish I had a transcript of what you just said, because there was an exact line that refers to this, but it has to do with the new paradigms emerging and they tend to drive out the old. And sometimes that's good. We all love digital shopping, right? We all love to be able to go online and get what we want from Amazon, put it on our doorstep the next day. But what was the effect that it had on physical spaces? Why are malls dying? Well, malls are dying because it's frankly easier, more convenient to do it online.

Now, easier and convenient is better for all of us, but the aggregate thing is to kill off these places where people congregated and met and flirted and did all the rest of it. And just as malls in that sense killed off downtowns, you had to disappear of your paradigm that people chose and you lost something because of it. And I think when you make entry into this fictional world, frictionless and easy and

rewarding and all the rest of it, you again, whittle down the size of the Agora to something that's even smaller. And so, no, I'm not worried about this. I mean, I'm just, I'm seeing something that seems inevitable and fearing that it will further diminish civil civic society. I will say to you this, and then I know we have to wrap. I am looking forward to shrinking the Agora to something. I think it is too big. I think that we know too much about people. We know too much about their thoughts. I think we're much better off when we had a, you had a circle of people who you knew well,

you forgave them their stupid political beliefs because they were in your life and you love them. They're in your family or whatever. You just kind of like or maybe you had endless arguments with them

and it always ended in bad feelings that you eventually had to make up. That's fine, too. But you didn't know what some stranger thought about the Democrats idiotic tax plan. I agree with you. I don't want that's much better let's shrink let's shrink it all down let's lose all your

facebook friends leave facebook you're the agora that you're talking about is the digital one the manufactured one this strange space in which people go to enter into combat that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about actual physical cities. I live in a city. I see people all the time. I love the fact that I don't know anything about them. That's precisely it because you don't know anything about them. There's somebody upscaled this. I like that.

When you watch an old movie and obviously they're sitting in a car in the studio and they're rear projectioning the background. I lose interest in whatever they're talking about in the back of the car. I always, I lose interest in those, whatever they're talking about in the back of the car, because I'm looking out the window at this documentary. That's the most fascinating thing to me. And sometimes I can find the street or the building based on a movie theater, the rest of it. Well, somebody found in the Prelinger archives,

some footage of doing just that in New York. They drove around with a camera. They drove down 8th Avenue in 1945. And then somebody upscaled it to 60 frames per second, which they can do now. And then they colorized it. Now the colorizing- I kind of like it when they do that with that stuff. Well, I like it when they do it well. If you look at this,

nearly every car is kind of purpley. But it does something for this. It brings it to life in a way that simple black and white doesn't. And as you're cruising down, these faces emerge. And just for a second, a fully formed human, long dead, is walking across the street. And you wonder what his life was, backstreet, with children, all of these things. Two guys standing talking, what are they talking about? Are they talking about Roosevelt? Are they talking about the Dodgers? What are they talking about? You don't know. And all of this shared space with this fantastic cacophony of signage and these old decrepit buildings next to new, well, 1945, they wouldn't be new, but just New York and all of its messy 8th Avenue glory.

And you don't know anything about them, but it is still a shared space in which there are commonalities between all of these people. And when you get into Twitter and Facebook and the rest of it, you realize that, yeah, as you said, I don't want to know about these things. Why do I have to know that this guy that I know from high school is now one of those nut balls? And in the metaverse, it'll fragment even more so that you'll have even smaller bubbles of like-minded people. So maybe you're right. Let those people go and disappear into digital oblivion, and the rest of us will step back proudly off the curb in the real world and get creamed by a bus.

That'll do. Next week, we'll let people- Because you're watching because you're looking at your phone holds. Right. I'm looking at my watch because I'm trying to set up, you know, the damn cyclists were supposed to. No, not that Whole Foods. The other Whole Foods.

Hey, podcast brought to you by Bowling Branch by Masterworks and Stamps.com. Support them and they'll support us. And by the way, as Rob said twice, which is rare and welcome, join Ricochet today. Yeah, we actually do need you. We do.

Leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and join Ricochet. Did I mention join Ricochet? Would it kill you? Would it absolutely kill you to do so? No, because you meet a great community of people and you find a new home, a place where you can go and you know it's going to be something interesting to read, something interesting to look at instead of all that stuff you get elsewhere. Of course, we're moving the whole thing to the metaverse in 10 years anyway. We've got time to work on our procedure. I'm going to be Kelvin. Rob, who are you going to be? I will not be in the metaverse. I don't even

I mean, yeah, I don't do meta. All right. Then I will wear a Rob Long digital pixel suit and float around. Thanks for listening, everybody. Rob, it's been great. We'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 4.0. Next week. Well, you know your time has come

And you're sorry for what you've done You should have never been playing With a gun in those complicated shadows Well, there's a line that you must hold And it'll soon be time to go But it's darker than you know In those complicated shadows All you gangsters and root clowns

Who were shooting up the town When you should have found someone To put the blame on Though the fuel is hot and hard I still see that cold graveyard There's a solid terror stone That's got your name on You don't have to take it from me But I know of what I speak You think you're like iron and steel Ricochet! Join the conversation. Sometimes justice you will find

It's just I'm not colorblind And your poor shattered mind Can't take it on anymore