October 8, 2024 • 74 mins
In episode 1755, Jack and Miles are joined by the co-hosts of the podcast, The Future of Our Former Democracy, George Cheung & Colin Cole, to discuss… Big Questions About Polarization And Our Political System, What Is Single Transferable Vote, How Do We Make A More Representative Democracy? The Context of Civil Rights In Northern Ireland, An Argument To Dismantle "Winner-Take-All" Two Party Systems and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
I was holding the baby and I farted on the couch,
and the leather of the couch was a sonic created
a sonic location was like discolored or something. No, no, no, no,
it was merely the fabric of it all. It took
it to a sonic place that it was just like amplified.
It was like screaming into a megaphone. And then I
(00:27):
got I got yelled at from across the house. But
then wow, the baby. I was, like I said in Japanese,
I'm like, well, not see you. And then like I said,
farts are funny, right, and he's just maybe nice the
culture alive. We're farters in this house.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You get it image that.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
There being like an iridescent stain or something on the
It was just like my mind.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Like a dried oil. S. Yeah, this is one strip sunfaded.
So it's like remember those hologram stickers from the nineties.
When I changed my viewing angle, it has like a
different scene to it. Now it's green. Now, it's like
a phosphorescent pink. You can see a face in it.
(01:18):
I was eating shrimp tails.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh man, Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season three
point fifty nine, Episode two, of Daily's.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Say production of My Heart Radio. This is a podcast
where we take a deep dab into America share consciousness.
And it is Tuesday, October eighth, twenty twenty four. Ten good.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes, it's National Parogi Day. It's national it says American
Touch Tag Day, which I'm guessing that's just playing tag.
But that's like when they're like, oh, they call it
soft over there, it's touch tag I guess to the
rest of the world, Touch Tag Day.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I don't know why it's it's it's usually all this.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
These national day calendars are typically from the perspective of America.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You know, I enjoy like some of the britishisms of
like the you know our words, but that one just
we fixed it tag, guys, just tag it's cleaner.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, exactly. And then fluffer Nutter. It's National fluffer Nuder
Day over those that love the fluffer nutter.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Sure, why not? There you go, you can have it,
big fluffer nutter. My name's Jack O'Brien. Aka. Why do
flies sudden lee appear every time Trump is near? He's rotting? No,
couldn't be migrants, dude. That one courtesy of Halcyon Salad
(02:52):
on the discord in honor of Trump seeing a fly
during a speech and saying, Oh, it's a fly. Wonder,
wonder where a came from? Like Wow, he has a
conspiracy theory that the fly. We're not sure entirely couldn't
be that he is decomposing like the bad guy in
(03:13):
Men in Black. Could not be that. Maybe it's because
it's the first time he's ever been out of doors
around people who aren't carrying his golf bags. But he
he did seem confused by that fly. Hates the fly.
I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co
host mister Miles.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Grass, Miles Gray and look in honor of a wonderful
weekend for my dear Arsenal Football Club. What about some
Arsenal related aka's. It's Miles Gray aka Deck trend Rice
aka mchhel r Trenda aka Leean Trend Truss Art aka
take Trendo, Tomiyasu uh And obviously I'm the Showgun with
(03:53):
no Gun, the Lord of Lankersham, the Man with chronic podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
But Miles great, thank you so much for having me
back for the season. Miles talk at Trendo. We've never
done that as a trending title. Really it is something. Yeah,
she'll have to remedy anyways. Miles were thrilled to be
joined in our third and fourth seats by the co
hosts of the wonderful podcast that you must go listen
(04:17):
to right now, The Future of our former Democracy. They
are the executive director and the director of Policy and Outreach, respectively,
for the racial justice organization More Equitable Democracy. Please welcome,
George Chung and Colin Cally Welcome. Hey guys. Thanks. You know,
(04:45):
we like welcome lights. We like to keep the light.
We have invited you into just a blank white space.
We record in heavy void, the hea then the white
void of old Mac versus PC commercials.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Or what was the one? What isn't in willy Wonka.
Where are they at when they go into that all
white space? Oh they're in the TV, I think, Oh,
that's in the TV. Inside the TV. Yeah, inside the TV.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Hey, Colin Cole aka Mike TV.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Hey, Oh you're Mike TV. Yeah. I've always been a
little bit of uh whatever the guy is who gets
sucked into the tube myself the uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
As blue Yeah something come on, nail it, come on,
I'll come to you.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Germany I mix it up. My brain is glop and
there it is. Shout out to super producer Victor bringing it. Yeah,
liked the group a little too much. Maybe that is
a movie I recently watched with my children, and it
has like thirty really good minutes and it is just
(06:01):
coasting off of our memory of the thirty really good
minutes and oh really Yeah, there's a lot of it
that's just like uh huh, all right, Like after they
leave the Big Candy World and go on the boat ride,
it does kind of grind to a halt a little bit.
There's other moments, but like they are fleeting and that's
just my opinion. Shame.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I just remember always hating when he got all mad
at Charlie. I was like, dude, what you're supposed to
be cool with?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Like, and as a kid, I didn't know what to
make sense of that character's experience. I'm like, dude, this
guy's an asshole. Let's just turn this off. I thought you.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Turn it off. You never saw the end. Yeah, it's like,
what an asshole? Turn Yeah? Yep. George Colin, thank you
so much for joining us from the Great Northwest. Yes,
you guys are in Seattle. Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Ye Just keep going and take.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
A past reading. Keep going, keep going, yea, keep going,
keep on. Is it is it called the five up
there or it's high five up here? Just five? Yeah,
it's in l A. Nobody else the words highways. The
importance of the five.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, but it is an important interstate,
you know, we love Oh that's why the ten also
deserves respect, going from sea to shining sea.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Oh right, they're all given the the I think in
l A and only at l A. I've never heard of.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Wonder what the history is of our inability to just
I guess because we always want to speak differently than
other people.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
It's a remnant of surfer culture.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah right, Yeah, take on one dude over to the
four oh five.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
They cast the one eighteen over hit Meatip and Granada Hills.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
But yeah, anyway, that's probably not as important as about
than what we're about to.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Talk about today, but I still wanted to mention that. Yeah.
But like I said, listeners should listen to this podcast
and then also immediately go listen to the future of
our former democracy. Great title, great podcast. We are going
to get into a little bit of what your podcast
is about it's about how our current political system is, Like,
(08:26):
there are some things that I was taking for granted
about our current political system. You guys use the this
is water metaphor at the beginning of like, yeah, this
is just what we've always assumed is how it is
and always will be, and that there are some things
that can be better. Maybe I like it. So yeah,
(08:49):
so we're gonna get into all of that, but first
we want to get to know you both a little
bit better by asking you each what is something from
your search history that is revealing about who you are? George,
why don't we start with you? All right?
Speaker 5 (09:02):
So I'm gonna play to my stereotypes. I'm a gay man,
and I can't get enough of trying to figure out
if I can get Kylie Minogue tickets that go on
sale tomorrow. Okay, so for all you other people in
Seattle who are also gay, man, it's on sale next week, please,
so don't check you. Kylie won't be coming through to Seattle, yeah,
(09:25):
and go ahead, go have at it. But I need
my front row Kylie Minogue seats because she hasn't come
to do a tour of the US for a long time.
So gotta, you know, keep up the appearance.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
How long has it?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I mean, I feel like Kylie Minogue is just one
of those huge artists that I'm always like, yeah, it's
Kylie Minogue.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But it's been a long time since she's been in stateside. Uh.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
She had a residence in Vegues and of course I
had to go do that, but she hasn't been to
like around for I think maybe almost better part of
a decade. Definitely pandemic, got it, got it, got it,
got it.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And did your fandom go all the way back to Locomo? Yes?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Yes, And maybe it was those kind of feelings that
I got to early on. I'm like, hmmm, I'm feeling
a little different. Some of our videos were a little edgy.
I'm like, oh right, all right, I like this for
not quite sure what reason. So uh, definitely I do
the locomotion as much as I can.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Really, what's up with Danny Minogue? Danny is I did
say that, but you know, you know, she has.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Her own career too. And yeah, the last time I
went to Sydney, they had World Pride there. She kind
of made a cameo appearance with her more famous sister,
So it was like, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
George, you're going to Australia to even see Oh no, no,
this is the last time I went to Australia.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Happened.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Okay. I was just trying to gauge your minogue fandom
here and I.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Oh, it's pretty hot.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
We're going down er, yes, yes, yes, how about you, Colin,
what's something you from your search history? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
So I'll also play a stereotype, I mean herd. And
the phrase that I searched for was Warhammer word of Hermis,
because I'm a big fan of the deepest lore, you know,
in all my fictional franchises I participate in. And I'm
going through a Warhammer book right now that made reference
to a starship the word of Hermes, and I wanted
(11:21):
to look it up on the Warhammer Wikipedia to learn
more about it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Wow, what man, I'm like the I played the.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Game a little bit and then then I realized, I'm like, oh,
there's a whole other level to this that I am
not engaging with.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
But yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It's a weirdly big ip. It spans back like fifty years.
It's a tabletop board game. There's hundreds of books, there's
video games, there's like a whole like mock history to
the actual setting. You know, twenty thousand years of backstory
right been thought out to get there. It's pretty cool
(11:57):
if you're into that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I just remember going to like in this hobby shop
by my house as a kid, and I loved miniatures,
and I didn't know that it was a tabletop game,
but I was like, yeah, I want Like to me,
they're like, these are the better version than plastic army men, right,
And I was like, I want these.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And I had like a little.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Like piece of paper that was like fake AstroTurf that
I put my little Warhammer figures out, and I was like, oh,
you play Warhammer. I'm like what these are my little
dolls that I like. I sat up and then I
was like my entry point.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Like, oh, it's a game.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
This makes sense why it was sold in this shop,
not just like these stationary toys.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Me.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
On the other hand, so I grew up, you know,
playing video games, building my own computer. I played Dungeons
and Dragons, and I always thought Warhammer's too nerdy even
for me though, and I like avoided it. And then
during pandemic, a couple of friends got into it and
dragged me along. And then now here I am neckty.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Right, right, okay, but did they really drag you along?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Right?
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I got into it for for social activity only. I
wanted nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
And now I stick word of Hermes. We're going on.
Tell me about the Kingdom of Dust, that's.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Right, the soul Jackal, the pyrodomon the you know, the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Damn, I know it, all those words. I mean, uh,
the So it started out as a miniature war game,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
That was satirizing Margaret Thatcher and conservativism in the UK
and envisioned a future world where like conservatives, like ultra
conservatives became the like despot humanity of the stars, and
humans are the bad guys and they're out trying to
make war on the alien races. And it was a
(13:46):
big critique of of Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
And I'm assuming it's always taken in that respect every
time it's played today, correct, that's right.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
They never have to put out press releases to say, hey,
this is a satire. If you think that these are
the good guys, you misunderstand the setting. Please don't come
to our events in Nazi regalia. They never have to
do that.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It's like, I'm a big fan of Warhammer and its messages.
I'm also for austerity measures every time they come.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I love austerity. It's like Monopoly was originally a work
of satire that was making fun of you know how
America operates, and Parker Brothers took it over, and we're like,
what if instead? Like what if instead that was the
good guy. It's like how Rocky changed from the first
one where he's like poor and then in the fourth
(14:32):
one he's like driving a Lamborghini and like the richest
man in America. They're just like, this is actually more fun, right,
got to catch up. We're the best, we do good work.
What number one we are? And it turns out we are?
What is something? Let's stick with you, Colin that you
think is underrated? Underrated or you can start with overrated?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Can know, well, I'll stick here. I pas I think
are over rated?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
M Yeah, I like I like it?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
But why does it have like why not have a
stout sometimes? Why not have a guinness to do our
our irish subject here? Why not? Uh, why not have
a cider or a sour?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Like?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Why does it always have to be a you know,
a triple hate hazy imperial I p a.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, bloods taste buds.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it felt like I feel like
in the beginning of it, it was like the hack
for dudes whose partners are like, don't drink so much
at the bar, like I'm just having beers and it's like, yeah,
I'm having these like nine percent I p as trying
to stop me. And then like that kind of became
like the reason to drink I PAS, and I was
like for me, I was like, this ship is no man,
(15:44):
this is too happy for daddy. I can't have this,
Like I'm not this is not hitting my taste buds, right,
So yeah, I feel like it's it's it's coming back around.
I feel like every in l A there's a lot
of triple hazy I p as that people are triple hazy.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah. I was one of the people who's always checking
out the alcohol by volume and being like I think
I'm gonna like this one that's twelve the alcohol content
of a whiskey. Right. But yeah, and now I don't
drink anymore as a constant wants and the like hop waters.
(16:18):
I do enjoy the hop waters. Yeah, I just discovered.
It's amazing. Yeah, the like hoppy quencher whatever cool that
it's delicious. It's like the hoppy becomes tropical to a
point when you drink it. That's what I love about it.
That's that's right. How about you, George, what's something that
you think is underrated?
Speaker 5 (16:39):
I'm gonna go with two TV shows that were cut
before they were done. I gotta say, Freaks and Geeks
and My so called Life, Okay, like gotta go to
like the youth angst people who are just about to
launch their careers in super big ways. Maybe they had
to like cut because they were all offered amazing in
(17:00):
amazing other places.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Casting was too good. It was good.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
It was like, here's these amazing people who yes, of
course they went on to amazing things. But the shows
were so good. I identified with so many of them,
especially like the ma athletes in Freaking I with that kid,
so it was like, you're you strumming my life with
your fingers.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Stuff like that with your song. Yeah yeah, I was
like this is me.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
I feel see. So I missed those that.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Whole erahead shows I got, like Firefly, Arrested Development, so
many good shows that got killed before their time.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Yeah, I'm waiting for the reboots on those shows. So
can you make it that happen? You all live in LA,
so just like write the script and like.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I'm sorry, you know, we're kind of we have a
problem with the reboots in LA right now.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It's too much.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
It's at the expense of letting new things be talked
about all the time.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
This one's geeks and freaks. Oh, we're actually for grounding
the geeks.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
It's starting very sad old Jason Siegel as a burnt
out high school teacher and then.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Not so busy Phillips these days are we She's so good?
And uh, girls five eva. Oh, Phillips is so good
and girls five eva. If people haven't seen that. Yeah,
I came into this episode thinking that we were surely
almost out of I P and now not just the
(18:26):
talk of the i pas, but we've got freaking geeks reboot.
The my so called life Warhammer only has one film
I think, is that right?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Henry Cavill's working on it. Actually he's trying to make
it a whole thank.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
God, So fuck. I was hoping we could option that
first person.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
With that idea, I just go to bookstores, and I
just try and get the rights to everything I see
on the shelf.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
That's kind of how studios do. Kid, what are you
reading there? You know who has the rights to that?
All right, Calvin and hold George with something you think
is overrated?
Speaker 5 (19:05):
Oh, people are gonna come at me. I'm gonna have
to say pickleball?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Well, hold on, how old do you think our audience is?
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Now?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, I mean I know the grandparents out there might
be getting mad at it. I feel like younger people
who like pickleball aren't as militant.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
But yeah, is it take? Is it? Like? Is it
everywhere in Seattle too?
Speaker 5 (19:29):
I mean it's encroaching on my tennis courts and we
have to have some words, so like a surist, so
you know, off my lawn slash tennis court.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Is there a lot of a lot of tension between
the tennis players and then the encroaching pickleballers who are like.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I'm going to use a third of this, can you go?
Speaker 5 (19:48):
I mean they are my moral enemies.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I mean yeah, okay to say so right, okay, good
to know, good to know.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Just if you're not athletic enough to play tennis, they
have doubles, which is like you can play doubles without
moving around very much. Yeah, exactly like doubles.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
I could teach you, but i'd have.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
To charge that. What I have to say, thank you?
How about you calm? What's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
I don't know if this is true in California, where
you all are from, but around most of the country,
I feel like winter is underrated.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Mmmm.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
People don't like being cold.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Driving in like ice and slush kind of sucks.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
But also, you get to you get to wear cool jackets.
I'm a sucker for a cool jacket. You get to
have a sweater, you you, You just get to have
more variety. Know, I was wearing a T shirt and
shorts every day. I like being able to switch it up.
I think fires are really cool. They're too hot in
the summer. There's nothing like sit out on the porch
(20:52):
on a cold day with a hot drink, like some
winter experiences are unparalleled.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And you are now singing miles of lift with you.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Oh my god, yeah right now, I have tears coming
down my face.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
And what's the coolest jacket you on?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Myles? Oh? In here now? I don't have it. I'm
I have a look.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, which the
average temperature throughout the year is basically like eighty five degrees,
you know, like essentially, and I since I was a kid,
I always yearned for seasons. So whenever I have the
chance to go somewhere, like I mean, we might have
to go this place at this time here it's pretty cold,
I'm like, yes, yes, yes, I want to wear a jacket.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I want to know cold.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, I don't have one, Like I'm really proud of
to be honest, I'm like, I want to get a
nice winter coat, but that's just there's no need for
that in La so I you know, I'll just get
yelled at for buying another jacket I'm not going to use.
But I'm I love a jacket, I love a scarf.
I love outside in the cold. It's all very yeah,
(21:55):
I'm a huge fan. And it like it to your point,
when the weather, you know, like just like when it's hot,
there are activities you have to do because it's so hot,
and you socialize differently when the weather's super hot, and
I think in the cold, it's very similar too, and
I yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I love winter. It's properly rated. But yes, I feel
like we should embrace it even further.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Hell yeah, hell two coolest jackets. I got an orange
bomber jacket like brown accents and some like reflectors on it, okay,
and then a Alaska Airlines blue trench coat raincoat hooded.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I think a parka kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
It's it's more like a business, like a like a
not quite parka okay, but like you can work with
the soup, do you could work?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah? Yeah? Oh wow, aren't we doing well?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
My my my grandfather flew for a Asca Alaska Airlines,
uh and so I had some connections and got one
of their surplus like uniform jackets.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Was that like really a thing where you're like, hey,
can I get that jacket? Or you just like came
up on you like they're not going to miss this
might it was?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
It was the first one. So for a long time
I've wanted like a nice raincoat. I have like ones
that you can wear with a T shirt or whatever,
but we wearing like a big poofy rain jacket with
like a button down shirt and a tie, like you
kind of feel like a fool. And I wanted to
the nice and they're all like two thousand bucks, and
it was or they didn't look very nice, like they
(23:20):
weren't rain jackets, they weren't waterproof, they didn't have a hood.
And I've been complaining to this about about this, to
George actually for like months.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
And no, no years years.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
At one they were getting on in Alaska Airlines flight
together and I'm like, that jacket, That's what I want.
And then and then I was like, how do I
get one of those jackets? And George said, I don't know.
I want you to email the CEO or something. And
then I thought, wait a minute, Yeah, my grandpa used
to fly. Maybe I just do email the CEO. And
I said, hey, my grandpa used to fly for you,
blah blah blah. Can you guys help me out?
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And they do hear, mister Airlines, really, I write to
you today.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
And I was just saying that to like get him
to stop talking about it.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So, yeah, it's just email the ceo. CEO. Yeah, by George,
you do have quite an idea. All right, let's let's
uh take a quick break and we're going to come
back and we're going to talk about the future of
our former democracy and uh, you know how we could
(24:19):
maybe change a couple of things. We'll be right back
and we're back. So George Colin, like I said, the
podcast is really good. You kind of start out talking
(24:40):
about this idea that we are super accustomed to this
one feature of our political process that doesn't need to
be this way. And in fact, when other countries have
changed this feature, they've been and much happier, not one
(25:02):
a plus is across the board, as that will never
be the case with politics, but much happier and more functional.
But I did just want to like start out by
asking why now everything seems to be going so well
with our current political system. No, I mean when when
our conversation was starting out, you know, we don't want
to spend all our time talking about how things bad,
(25:25):
because I think most of our listeners know that, But
we did start out in the place of we're facing
an election where the stakes are kind of more of
the same or burn it all down in fascism, and
you know, you guys even pointed out that, like our
current situation is terrifying to people in other countries, like
(25:47):
the assassination attempts, the multiple yes, yeah, you know, the
politicizing of those assassination attempts and just you know, the
rhetoric is all pretty scary. But are you what are
you hearing from people who are kind of keeping one
eye on our current electoral politics.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
I think everyone understands that there are some huge challenges,
and yet we don't really have the imagination to think
about how to solve these problems. Like we feel stuck
and all we can talk about is like, get this
one person elected and somehow that'll save our democracy. No
one believes that, but we're kind of grasping for straws
in terms of what do we actually do to get
(26:30):
out of this this vicious cycle that we're in. Maybe
one quick aside in terms of the origin story, like
we're really talking about our electoral system, how we cast
our ballots and how those ballots are translated into seats.
This all started in terms of our American electoral system
well before we were even a country, Like we have
(26:52):
to go way back to twelve fifteen. Ah, yes, yes,
twelve fifteen is a signing of the Magna Cardo where
King John of England see just a little bit of
control to this new parliament. Essentially the English aristocracy, Like
you know, he relied on them for tax dollars to
fight these foreign wars, and they kind of got fed
up with having all their money taken away to fight
(27:12):
a war that they didn't necessarily believe in, and so
they demanded some power. Magna carta get signed no more
absolute monarchy. They started elections in twelve sixty five using
essentially what we now know as a winner take all
system where you select one top one wins, and we
largely have not changed that system since that time. We
(27:35):
as us, as we were a former British colony, we
essentially inherited all of those British English systems, like the
legal system, it's a British British common law system. The
electoral system is the same, and so we've never really had.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
To be fair. We did get rid of the whigs,
that's true. The barristers don't do that anyway.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
But I mean there's some things we should have kept
because that was cool.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I feel like, yeah, the lawyers wouldn't be total jackasses.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
If you're like dude, I gotta sorry, sorry, I'm not
going to be.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
That would definitely make it more fun for sure, and
so you know, I think what we have to do
is start to allow ourselves to imagine other options. There
are other countries, as you said, that have become democracies
since we had you know, since we've expanded the franchise
and thought about these challenges of how do we do
other than just elect a delegate to tell the king
(28:31):
how we don't like a SAX policy. Now we're trying
to think about Okay, now that the franchise has expanded,
well beyond just men with lots of property to lots
of different people, and so you can't have a one
size fits all approach to representation. All these other countries
have picked something else that allows for that representation, for
minority groups across the board to have real representation, and
(28:54):
so being able to give ourselves permission to get beyond
our American exceptionalism and say we have things to learn
from other places, other people, other societies. Why don't we
understand what choices they had and what decisions they made.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, it's very American to do the winner take all.
Like American's most comfortable in a casino. You know, we
love a casino. We love a story that makes it
a line I put people putting it all on the
line one in a million, and we just follow the
one person out of a million who actually wins to
(29:30):
tell ourselves that. But yeah, we love high stakes stories,
right and yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt Colin.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Oh well good, Well, so so zooming in on like
some of the problems. So we all know the electoral
college sucks. We're not going to talk about that so
much unless we want to. But talking about it.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
On that idea already.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, yeah, we're ready for some alternatives, man, right, But when.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
We talk about electing people of the Congress or your state
legislature or your city council, I think most folks, most
folks know jerry mandering is bad. Maybe you don't know
like the details of how it works, but you know
it's manipulating the lines, manipulating the systems to get the
outcomes that you want. People are concerned about that, and
folks are concerned about this idea of polarization that are
two sides are getting further apart and they're starting to
(30:12):
hate each other. But there's not really many thoughtful ways
about how to grapple these problems. We just say, oh,
we should elect more moderates, Like we just need to
find a pace to compromise more at the middle. We
need to draw the lines better. But all of these
ideas are like kind of abstract, they're maybe not actually good.
Maybe electing more moderates actually doesn't lead to more people
(30:32):
feeling like your voices are heard. And you know, gerrymandering
is kind of a reality. Like democrats and progressives tend
to live in cities, People of color tend to live
in cities. More conservative white folks, working class folks often
live in rural areas. Like, you can only manipulate the
lines so much. And so if those are the problems
that you want to solve, you can't just do the
(30:56):
current thing that we're doing better. The current thing that
we're doing is the problem that leads to all of
those outcomes, Like we have to come up with something different.
And that's kind of what we're trying to explore in
the podcast, is if we wanted to explore from a
totally different starting point how to conduct elections and how
to build our government, how can we make some of
those problems obsolete?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Right?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Like, you know, I'm always struck when I was listening
to the podcast, and when we were talking on our
yesterday's episode, just sort of given what our options are
in the United States and how a lot of people
don't fit under you know, the these gigantic umbrellas of
just either of these parties, right, and the discourse or
the rhetoric we hear so much is like, you know,
(31:38):
you have this sacred right to vote, you know, and
you can vote, and you're able to vote, and that's sacred.
But you know, as listening to your show, the other
part of this that I feel like we don't talk
about is what about do we have a right to
be represented? Because it's one thing to say, here's the
fucking menu, which one do you want? And you're like, well, actually,
(31:59):
according to my diet restrictions, I've none of these. Actually
is there something else, like no, sorry, so you can have,
you know, some kind of terrible reaction to what's on offer,
or just not not engage into the in the process
at all. What I mean is that something like we
should really be thinking about is that it's not just
about our ability that we can cast a vote, but
(32:20):
that we also need to have some We should have
the right to have our own beliefs or values, represented
in the people that we do ultimately send to Washington
to legislate.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
Absolutely, George, Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say that, just
to build off of that. The challenge of a winner,
take all system as it relates to folks of color
is that our options are very limited. We have this
Voting Rights Act, landmark piece of legislation that obviously people
died to get past, and it's been interpreted that the
(32:53):
only way that folks of color in particular, or other
minority groups that can have representation under this or take
all system is when we have when we can draw
majority minority districts, And that kind of makes sense at
some level, like Okay, you put a lot of like
minded folks together into a district and they are more
than fifty percent, they get representation. But ironically that requires segregation,
(33:18):
and do we want segregation as a means to an
end in order to achieve better political representation? So I
think it's really challenging to have that, as you mentioned,
the right to vote, when that doesn't necessarily translate into
real representation.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Now it depends on how intricately you draw those lines
when you're jerrymandering. We can really right, I'm really good
at tracing, very fine.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
There's also like two different dimensions of representation that we lack.
I mean there's a lot that we lack. Well, there's
two big ones. So one is just if you want
to buy like that we live in a two party system.
We don't like we want to envision something else, but
like that's the world we live in today. And you know,
there's millions of Republicans in California who effectively have no representation.
(34:10):
Their vote for president doesn't count because we know a
Democrat's gonna win. Their vote for governor largely doesn't count
for the most part. The members of Congress and state
legislature like it doesn't matter, like we already know in
advance a Democrat's gonna win those seats, And the exact
same thing is true for Democrats in Texas and Alabama,
in Mississippi and Missouri. There's so many folks who just
(34:31):
know five years in advance, I'm not going to elect
someone who I care about at any level of government.
So of course people are like tuning out and not participating.
But you actually have the same problem sort of within
the parties. So like I live in Washington State, I
know ahead of time, a Democrat's gonna win governor and Congress,
everything that was just saying. But as a result, that
(34:54):
means the November election, even if you're a Democrat in
Washington doesn't really matter because you know the Democrats going
to win. The election that really matters is the primary,
you know, a few months earlier, that picks which Democrat
is going to win. And primary elections are mostly older, wealthier,
wider folks, so you end up having a teeny tiny
(35:14):
subset of the population pick the one option everyone else
has to choose from in November. And so like in Washington,
we have seven Democratic members of Congress. Six of them
I would say, come from sort of the moderate Hakeem Jeffreys,
Nancy Pelosi wing of the party, and one of them
comes from sort of the AOC Bernie Sanders wing, even
though consistently the Bernie Sanders wing of the party is
(35:35):
about half of all the Democrats in Washington state, so
those people aren't represented either.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, So the critiques I've heard from like a more
representative system, well one of them is like, yeah, it
might work for those like small homogeneous European nations, but America, like,
you know, America has racism, so how could that work here?
(36:01):
Which is a terrible argument, But it's especially interesting that
you are drawing on Northern Ireland being the example, because Yeah,
I think it would just be instructive for people to
hear about sort of the context of civil rights in
Northern Ireland.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Yeah, I'd be happy to start. I first started thinking
about Northern Ireland. Actually not well. I guess when I
was a kid growing up during the time of the
troubles in Northern Ireland. I just watched TV and I
just thought, Wow, white folks hating on white folks, Like,
I don't get it, Like, what did they do that
makes them so angry? Fast forward? I remember reading this
(36:39):
kind of mostly born report that a colleague organization of
ours came up with that was making the case for
pro poorsh representation, and they basically it was like two
lines that said, when communities don't have any recourse to
have any voice whatsoever in policy, their only option in
most times is political violence. And that's what happened in
(37:01):
Northern Ireland, and that was resolved largely through power sharing
that included a change to the electoral system as part
of the nineteen ninety eight agreement, and I thought, oh,
what I remember a big to do about Senator George
Mitchell and President Clinton at the time leaning in and
getting folks to put down their arms and to come
to an agreement. But it was kind of like a revelation, like, actually,
(37:23):
there's so much to learn from and as we started
to kind of dig deeper, and in the end we
ended up bringing a bunch of our colleagues to Ireland
and Northern Ireland to observe the elections earlier this year.
The parallels between our societies are so astounding that we
essentially are both the creations of English settler colonialism. At
(37:48):
some point, the English beat the socks off of the
Irish elite, they fled, and basically they started. The English
started sending tens of thousands of people to Northern Ireland,
to this region called Ulster, who essentially populated and control
it because they needed to have this buffer the back door,
to prevent France and Spain from attacking from the backside
(38:09):
and so setling colonialism. They had all this manipulation, using
gerrymandering and limiting the franchise to essentially create one party
rule for fifty years, and then the result was a
civil rights movement in the late sixties early seventies that
really started to make the case of we need housing,
(38:32):
we need jobs, and we need one person, one vote.
And so going there and being able to see mural
after mural and statues of Frederick Douglass, famous anti slavery
activists who actually traveled to Ireland during the time of
what we know as the potato famine, they call it
the Great Hunger, Great starvation, and talked about the parallels
(38:54):
between the treatment of African Americans in American slavery and
the treatment of Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. And so
I just thought, wow, there are so many things that
are just like parallel track that we should see. Did
how did they actually resolve their deep, deep polarization.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
And their civil rights movement didn't just result in Oh,
they got granted rights because they marched in the streets,
like just like in ours riot, police were marshaled against them.
You had militia groups formed to you know, throw rocks,
fire hoses were spread. It just it wasn't It was
not a peaceful process. And what we saw in the
(39:33):
late nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies is very similar what
we're seeing in the US today, which is this increasing
rate of political violence, of folks feeling like they're not
heard of, folks marching in protest and counter protests to
each other, not just exchanging ideas, but exchanging bullets, getting
into fights, there being this ramp up of political violence.
(39:53):
And it's really familiar the parallels in which the sort
of political dynamics mirror what we're feeling a lot of today.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
And that preceded what's known as the Troubles, right or
that was the Troubles, and then it kind of turned
to open warfare in the seventies and into the eighties, right, Yeah,
And so the system that you're describing came together in
the aftermath of this horrible kind of civil war that
happened in the streets of Northern Ireland. And so I
(40:23):
want I want to just kind of get into how
that system could be transferred to the US. Next. Let's
take a let's take a quick break, and we'll be
right back, and we're back. We're back, and so yeah,
(40:47):
I just wanted to hear kind of from you guys
what your vision is for how that system that is
currently a representation, a representative democracy like how that could
take hold in the United States.
Speaker 5 (41:03):
Just let me throw one quick historical footnote, then I'll
turn over to Colin. Actually, their implementation of what Colin
will refer to shortly actually started in nineteen twenty one
Northern Ireland, and as they were partitioning Northern Ireland away
from the South, which then became the Irish Free State.
Basically the British said, okay, well, why don't we agree
(41:26):
as part of this end of this war with the Irish,
that both sides will have some form of power sharing
built into their systems because both sides have minorities that
they wanted to protect. Northern Ireland gets rid of it
as soon as they can, because they see the writing
on the wall. They're like, one party control, let's do it.
(41:46):
Ireland actually keeps it for a full hundred years, and
that's still the system that they use today. So actually,
in nineteen ninety eight when they actually re implemented it,
something that they actually had for about roughly ten years
beginning in the nineteen twenties. So I'll kick it or column.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
Well, and we'll come back to the sort of forgotten
history question in a moment too. So the system that
they use in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland
is a system of proportional representation, so called because each
segment of the population has the power to win their
fair share their proportion in government. So if Irish Republicans,
(42:22):
who are different from US Republicans, they want to join
the Republic of Ireland, Irish Republicans or Irish Nationalists win
thirty three percent of the vote, they're going to win
about one in three seats in Parliament. And what you
might have it happen is you might have say, forty
percent of the vote go to Irish Unionists, folks who
like being part of Great Britain. Maybe forty percent of
(42:43):
the vote goes to Irish nationalists, and then another twenty
percent of the vote goes to people who say, oh,
we don't really care about that, we care about jobs,
or we care about housing, and then that ends up
being the makeup of your parliament. And in terms of
what they could look like in the US, it's interesting.
So there are there's a path to get it here.
There's an act that's been introduced into Congress every year
(43:03):
since twenty seventeen, the Fair Representation Act, that would just
move the US congressional seat system to that system. So
instead of electing, you know, instead of Massachusetts electing ten Democrats,
they would probably elect six or seven Democrats and three
or four Republicans. And instead of you know, Alabama electing
all Republicans, they would elect you know, two Republicans and
(43:26):
a Democrat or whatever whatever the population might be, and
you could have these smaller chunks breakthrough. But what's really
interesting is that the specific version that they use that
is proposed for this bill, that they use in Northern Ireland,
it's a form of ranked choice voting, and I say
a form of rank choice voting, because a lot of
folks might have heard of our CV rank voice voting.
(43:46):
But there's a bunch of different ways to do it.
The way they do it in Minneapolis is different than
the way to do it in Maine, which is different
than the way to do it in New York, which
is different than the way that they do it in Ireland.
But back in the nineteen tens, twenties, thirties, forties, cities
in the US actually use this Irish version of proportional
(44:09):
ranks choice voting. Cities like New York City, Cincinnati, and
Cleveland Sacramento in California, and you saw again back in
the forties at the height of Jim Crow, well before
the Civil Rights movement, you saw black communists from Manhattan
get elected to the New York City Council. And that's
just sort of it's hard to imagine today, let alone
(44:32):
during the Red Scare.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, and it is. We always talk about the way
that these facts that aren't part of the system as
currently constructed get just memory hold from history and kind
of erased from history. So that's super interesting.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
And you said that, someone told be like, what is
that from a marvel like reality or black this is
like Manhattan is a city councils.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah, like that's real. That's real in the context of
racial justice and equity like in the US. Like when
listening to your show, I was thinking about we had
a lot of energy behind that cause in twenty twenty,
but we it feels like we no longer have the
attention of the mainstream Democratic party right now, and you know,
(45:26):
having a party that is focused on that cause and
is always there even if you know they're not the
majority in power, but they're always being represented. Could it
like that that's just a thing that I had taken
for granted as like impossible, and that that would just
(45:47):
be amazing to have that, like you know, there would
always be people doing work for racial justice and equity
in the US, like in government, right does not see
it's wild that is such a basic idea, but like it's.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Well yeah, because you think of how like platforms change
every year, like the Democrats platform looks completely different now
than it in twenty twenty. Like, well, you know, I
think we use too much like political capital to be
talking about used to form this go round. So let's
put that on the back burner and become fully pro
cop this year, because you know, we kind of were
a little in our policies can be nebulous at times,
(46:26):
And I think that's like it really gets to what
really affects voters and makes people so that you just
get to this point where you're totally disaffected. You become
ambivalent to the process because you feel like, well, what
about all these other real problems And the only way
to enter the conversation is this very rigid system where
(46:46):
unless you're reading from the same hymnal, your chances of
getting elected aren't really possible. And I think that's really
a great way for I think that would help a
lot of people also become much more involved, because what
we're talking about is something that does give people a
fair shake where it's like, no, if you have the numbers,
like you can get a seat at the table. That's
just it is what it is. And then guess what,
(47:09):
people will have to have coalition governments where they are
going to have to work with you to get the
kinds of majorities you need to achieve certain things.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
And I think that's.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Super I think underrated and underrated thing about it, because
I think most people will just go to the factor like, oh,
so what you want more Republicans And it's like, well, no,
that's really not the case. You just want something, you
want it to actually be representative of what's there. And
I feel like it sounds like too and just listening
to the show, like we had a moment when we
(47:37):
were writing the Constitution where they're like, what if Congress
looked like everything we see out there in America? And
it's like, and that's like one of those forks in
the roads where our destinies like, and we decided it's
not that new of a concept, like these are things
we've been grappling with since the beginning of this country.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
Absolutely, there's a few other things that are kind of
mind blowing. When we talked about Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland,
one story that keeps coming up is that whenever we've
talked to folks on the ground there, they kept saying,
you might have some concerns in the US about getting
far right parties elected and taking seats, and that might
(48:15):
freak some people out, but in many ways that's important
because in the Northern Ireland experience, they saw that there
were people who were shut out of the political system
that they had no alternative but to be violent. And
so when you have people win seats their fair share,
maybe they win one or two in a city council,
and they have to grapple with balancing the budget, closing
(48:37):
a hospital, dealing with pensions, then it's harder to be
completely anti government when you actually have some power and
you have to grapple with some collective decisions that you
just can't just throw rocks at at the house. One
other interesting thing that we learned about that kind of
blew my mind is how power sharing was taken to
(49:00):
the logical extreme in both Ireland and to more so
in Northern Ireland. So our winner take all system we
understand it, particularly in our electoral system in terms of
there can only be one winner when you have one
member per district. But when you think about the winner
take all system in terms of legislative governance, we understand like,
(49:23):
if you're the majority party, you get to pick all
the committee chairs. It's like to the winner go the spoils.
That seems obvious to us, right right, That's not how
neither Ireland nor Northern Ireland does it. If you win
forty percent of seats in the Parliament, you win forty
percent of committee chairs. They have this process it's called
the Dahunt method, whereby it's like the NFL draft. Your
(49:46):
party as like the team gets to pick in a
particular order which committee chairs you want. So if you're
the first pick, you'll probably get to pick like the
Taxation ways and means committee because it's likely the most
powerful justice as usually second, something like that, and so
you just kind of go down the list in terms
of who deserves the next pick. Added to that logical
(50:06):
extreme in terms of Northern Ireland, if once again, if
your party is forty percent of the seats, in parliament,
you get forty percent of the cabinet seats in government
itself as a way to make sure that everyone has
a fair share. There are critiques in terms of sometimes
it grinds to a halt because those parties almost never
(50:26):
agree on lots of big things, and so sometimes it
shuts the government down, which is its own problem. But
the idea that they are committed to power sharing in
order for everyone to feel like they have a stake
in governance, that's a really key idea that's really missing
in our debates here in the.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
US, and it's something that Northern Ireland folks we talked
to kept emphasizing that, like, oh, like there's a lot
of critiques about power sharing this specific model we have
through these how many seats, but the elections being proportional,
like that's a no brainer, Like no one, no one
debates that at all, Like that's obvious.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Yeah, right, yeah, I mean in Project twenty twenty five,
the thing that's scary about it to people is that
they're planning to like clear house and just make all
the cabinet entirely one thing. So that that's interesting. I
feel like maybe after this next presidential administration, there might
be more appetent. It could be the last one, folks,
but it could be the last election, not for the
(51:20):
reasons he's saying. But oh yeah, well yeah, go ahead,
Sorry Miles, I interrupted, Oh no, no, no, I was
just saying.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
And also like the visibility right, because I think, especially
in the United States, we have this version of like
the amount of extremists there are in the United States,
you would think, depending on where you're watching news, like
they're outnumbered.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
There's seven billion of these people.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
And it's always interesting to see like when people like
are like in in Europe when they're having their elections,
you're like, oh, they're far right parties only got like
a fraction of what people thought they were going to do.
And I think that's also helps too for people to
understand like, Okay, there is this group of people that exist,
but they aren't nearly as large or influential they would
want you to think, which I think also helps people
(52:03):
have a little bit of a clear understanding of like
truly like what we're dealing with in the country in
terms of like who who's sort of like where everyone's
ideologies sort of lie. Because yeah, I think it's very
easy to sort of obscure that with our media in
this country and have people kind of thinking like, oh
my god, like what's all happening, Like what are we
up against? And yeah, knowing that I think putting being
(52:24):
able to quantify that, I think is a big benefit.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
And that's part of the risk of a winner take
all system is you can have a fringe element, right
that wins it all. People forget that. Back in twenty sixteen,
if you looked at Poles, most Republicans didn't actually like
Donald Trump, but they were split between Chris Christy and
Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and John Kasich and Mitt Romney.
And Romney wasn't running in twenty sixteen, was he? No, No,
(52:49):
he was not running.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
The spirit anyway, yeah, right, spirit of.
Speaker 4 (52:53):
John Huntsman point is like they were the winner take
all system. Let's a fringe element if they win more
than others in a primary process or whatever, win everything.
Like a portional system caps your ceiling at your actual support,
so you never have a fringe party take over every
chamber of government.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I do want to just go back to this idea
that you know, it doesn't say anything about two parties
or parties of any sort in the in the Constitution,
and yet and like George Washington was like kind of
against parties in general. He was just a downer, didn't
didn't like to party, but he like America just kind
(53:34):
of snapped to a two party system and like kind
of keeps going back to a two party system and
like staying in this two party system. And so for me,
that's one of my big questions is like, is there
just something about America and our at the central lie
(53:57):
at the heart of America where it's like we're we
are a representative democracy and also the system is completely
designed to keep the dispossessed without power, Like that's been
the deal kind of from day one, Like when you
look at the wording of the Constitution and then like
what who those words actually applied to. I'm just I
(54:19):
guess that's the big question for me is like how
you know, in the experience of granted, a winner take
all primary system, but like the primary system of a
progressive and widely popular Bernie Sanders, you know, getting a
lot of attention and enthusiasm, and then it just kind
(54:42):
of felt like you were always up against this entrenched machine.
I'm just curious how you guys, think about the existing
kind of inertia and money and power of the system
as it currently exists, and how you could potentially see
(55:03):
this idea overcoming that overtime.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
George, can you mind meld with me real quick? I
want to say something.
Speaker 5 (55:10):
I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to French class.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
The name is due Verge. Yes, and I of course
know what that means. But the listeners, George, and no
further questions? All right?
Speaker 5 (55:32):
Do Verge was a French philosopher that basically came up
with this theorem or this law that basically said, any
winner take all system is going to end up with
only two major parties that can contest for power because
when there is like another faction, another party that tries
to buy and play within the confines of a winner
(55:53):
take all system, they almost never win. And if you
try us several times, you'll have to give up, because
how do you tell people to vote for us if
you can never turn their votes into actual seats that
is actual political power.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
You actually increase the odds that your opponents win, Like
if Bernie Sanders runs a viable candidacy, that increases odds
Republicans win, so like it just turned. The logical conclusion
is only have two candidates.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
Yeah, it seems like a bad system almost.
Speaker 5 (56:24):
And so you see this playing out in basically the
UK and the other former British colonies that have kept
this system. In Canada, there's essentially only like the Conservative
and the Liberal slash Moderate party that can win ever
any election. They only have multiple parties because they have
(56:45):
kind of regional politics of like Quebecqua Separatists that has
its own political party. But for the most part, nationally
they are a two party system because they have the
exact same system that we have. The UK is pretty
much the same. You have Labor and then you have
the Tories or concernvatives. Sometimes the Liberal Democrats play that
kind of in between role, spoiler role, but for the
(57:07):
most part, du Verget's law plays out very clearly in
all of these systems. And so being able to start with,
you know, what is the electoral system that we want
for our for our society. Is it something that is
very simple and that forces a majority even though it
doesn't reflect the majority interest or do you want to
(57:28):
make sure that you have a minority representation built in
to our electorate? And so by picking a proportional system
whichever flavor because there's definitely variations on a theme. The
fact that you will get you know, three, four or
five parties means that there are coalitions. There is kind
of like a shifting depending on which issue that different
(57:50):
parties can call us and get legislation passed. So there
is nothing structural or cultural about the US that pushes
us towards a two point. It is the system that
pushes us awkwardly into these two camps that don't fit us.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
And actually there's some really interesting political science. I'll give
the very high level. We can put a link in
the show notes if you all want, but there's some
political science that's been done that shows that effectively, in
the US right now there are six political parties. There's
six ideologically consistent and distinct ways of being basically that
most people subscribe to, and it's just that they're jammed
(58:29):
into the two parties. Like Alexander Cocosio Ortez said a
couple of years ago, in any other country on Earth,
Joe Biden and I would not be in the same
political party.
Speaker 5 (58:37):
But in the US we have to be.
Speaker 4 (58:39):
And so when you think about, like, you know, you're
Mitt Romney, Barry Goldwater, John McCain type folks, and your
evangelical Christians and your like Mago wing of American Nazis,
Like they don't actually have anything in common politically. And
it's the same parallels on the left. And so whether
(58:59):
or not these six parties emerge or they become distinct
factions within the two parties as we have them, there's
those are probably the coalitions that we would see emerge
if we moved to a proportional multi party system.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
I think the other part about this too is like
I think at this point, we see that there is
a way to do it.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
It is being done.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
We've that we've dabbled in it in the United States before,
but right now, in its current form, it seems like intractable,
like this is it's stuck. And I know when we
were speaking a little bit earlier before we even recorded,
I remember Jack and I were like, well, how do
we it? Is it possible? And I felt like you
(59:39):
brought up a few good points. Was to think about
a lot of like the major changes we've had in
the in the United States across you know, the storied
history of this place, the years preceding those changes, it
felt like this is going to be how it is forever,
and then boom, we have rights. We have universal suffrage,
we have civil rights, et cetera. We have marriage equality
and those those kinds of things. And I think for
(01:00:02):
a lot of the times too, we're also like the
I feel like the de facto way we speak about
it in very early kinds of political conversations when you're
younger and getting into it is like it feels everything
has to happen from the top down, and when you
look at the current system, like there's no way these
freaks are going to be like, yes, I would like
to dilute my power, but it seems like this is
the kind of thing where we can create upward pressure
(01:00:25):
from a more local level, and that is happening in
the United States.
Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
We like to make things about personality and like individualism
in the US, and so often the answer is actually structural,
and we don't like to admit that a lot of
the times because it doesn't allow for us to be
the heroes of our own narrative.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
But yeah, so can you sort of just point to
some examples of like how this is not just like
you know, Cincinnati decades ago, which where things like that
were happening. But like even in the year of twenty
twenty four, there are there are movements being made that
are approaching something like this that could potentially help you
(01:01:05):
drive the conversation on a national level.
Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Yeah, I'll start and I'll kick it over to Colin.
I think the most exciting thing for folks to watch
in the twenty twenty four elections, besides the presidential is
what happens in Portland, Oregon. It's on the five. If
you'd go north on the five, you get for the Yeah,
what was really exciting. And this goes to some of
the work that we do as an organization More Equitable Democracy.
(01:01:29):
We support people of color led groups on transforming our
electoral system in order to advance racial justice, and so
our colleagues there were doing a lot of advocacy work
in community of color, trying to bring more resources to
their communities, and they always hit like this huge buzz
saw their city commission. It was a commission whereby there
(01:01:49):
was no separate executive branch from the legislative branch. They
were one and the same. They were all elected at large,
so you essentially had to win like a congressional race
in order to win a city council seat at that
always favored big moneyed interests, usually of folks who had
relationships with developers, and so they understood. We did a
lot of research to kind of back this up, that
(01:02:10):
breaking up that system was important, but that going to
the most obvious solution in the American kind of context
is to go from all at large to single member districts,
just like cut up the city into five equal districts.
Maybe we'll be able to get two seats out of
the five that are responsive to our community's needs. Those
communities of color about twenty five percent of the population
(01:02:32):
in Portland because of a really long anti black history,
there is no one particular area that is heavily people
of color. There isn't the same type of segregation that
there is in other cities, and so just drawing those
single member districts was not going to solve any of
those problems.
Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Into any configurational highlight. Like we said, what if we
move from five to seven to nine to twelve to
fifteen city councilors? You just could not do it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
Not possible. And so that's why we introduced the Irish
model to them, and they started to think, okay, well,
if we had a larger district where we elected three,
maybe we can win one or two of those that
are in neighborhoods that we do a lot of organizing.
And so what was really exciting was that. And this
sounds when I say exciting, this will sound boring for
(01:03:16):
just a second. There was a charter review process. Please
don't fall asleep. This is not exactlytant.
Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Yeah crps baby, that's me all day. We got an
air horn in there.
Speaker 5 (01:03:30):
When shorter review process ah awesome, and so baked into
their charter their constitution was this mandatory about once every
decade Ish process whereby folks from the community were invited
in to kick the tires of their system, their structures
of government, and asked to come up with ideas to
(01:03:51):
change it. For ninety nine percent of the time when
local governments do this, it's just window dressing. They don't
really mean to invite people to change things. But to
their credit, everyone understood in Portland, this antiquate system that
had been designed about more than one hundred years ago
wasn't working. So everyone understood something needed to change, and
so the ability for our partners to organize around a
(01:04:14):
process where people were supposed to be invited in to
come up with ideas and to really flesh them out.
That's what allowed for that deep conversation about what does
it mean to have an election and have everyone represented?
How do we integrate or prioritize racial equity within these structures?
Can a winner take all system ever be equitable? It's
(01:04:34):
kind of like at odds with one another. And so
that's how they came up with this design of essentially
the Irish system. They ran a campaign to support the
recommendation that came from that city charter review process, and
they won fifty seven forty three. This is the first
city that has adopted this for the first major city
that has adopted this electoral system since New York City
(01:04:58):
did in the nineteen thirty So it's been one hundred
years of that kind of hidden history that it's been
kind of outside of our imagination. Colin, do you want
to say any words about like how things are going
at this point?
Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
Well, Also a lot of folks might be like, well, yeah, okay,
Portland did it, but like I've seen Portland, ya, it's
crunchy liberal hibbies who developed.
Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Damn, Kyle McLoughlin is a good mayor. That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
But if you talk to some of the activists and
colleagues of ours in Portland, what they would tell you,
and I think what like looking at the elections also
tell you is that Portland is like most major cities
in the US, and that that has not been the
people winning elections. The city council has largely been the
candidate's most preferred by developers and big business. Like George mentioned,
they are all folks from downtown or west of the river,
(01:05:44):
which is where all the really rich people live. Like
the established political I mean the political establishment that's entrenched
in Portland is the same as it kind of as anywhere.
And you know, one in four Portlanders is a person
of color. So like, yes, it's pretty white, but it's
not just like a white utopia like people might think
(01:06:07):
it's it is. It is a multiracial community. And if
Portland can do it, I actually think anywhere can do
it that at least on the city level. Like the
four of the five city councilors came out against the
reform when it was being considered. The former mayor came
out against it. You know, the Chamber of Commerce came
(01:06:27):
out against it, like they were fighting every single established
interest that existed, and they still managed to win.
Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (01:06:33):
And yeah, now they're doing it for the first time
that they just like made sample ballots public a few
days ago. And there are some other smaller cities in
America that are using proportional systems Albany, California, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Minneapolis,
Minnesota for their Parks and Recreation Board. And there was
one Detroit suburb that used it for a few years.
Because this is a weird story, but basically, the Obama
(01:06:55):
Department of Justice brought a lawsuit that the Trump Department
of Justice settled, and so under the Obama case, like
they adopted a proportional system to resolve a Voting Rights
Act complaint. But the Trump DOOJ said, you only have
to use this system twice and then you can go
back to the old system that violates the Foot and
Rights Act. So they don't use it anymore. But it's
(01:07:15):
not too at bats if they can't get it right
and make it permanent after to it, that's that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
You know, I don't know what we're doing here. Well, guys, Honestly,
I feel like we could talk to you for days
about this, and I can't wait to listen to the
next episode of your podcasts that drops here. How many
two episodes.
Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
In two of the third drops tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Third drops tomorrow. So there we go. Everybody should go
check it out. Wonderful having you and we'll have to
have you back. Where can people find you, guys and
hear more about all of this?
Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
So you can go to our website, which is Equitable
Democracy Org. We have a link to the podcast there
as well as it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify words
you listen. You can also find our organization on Twitter.
That's at Equitable Demo Demo on Twitter and at Equitable
Democracy on Instagram. I'm on Twitter at Colin J.
Speaker 5 (01:08:12):
Cole.
Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
That's c O L I N calling like Colin Farrell,
not like Colon Powell.
Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
There you go, and you have much more Calin Farrell
vibes than we saying before. Yeah we got on.
Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
Yeah he's Irish, so it's on brand.
Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (01:08:28):
How about you George on X George K Chung C
H E U N G. And definitely check out our
podcast The Future of Our Former Democracy on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
And we will link off to that in the footnotes.
Is there a work of media that you guys have
been enjoying.
Speaker 5 (01:08:44):
I'll start it's this fairly new couple that is on
X and TikTok called the It's the Peacocks. It's this couple.
Why I think that they're so interesting is that it's
the guy is from northern in Ireland and the women's
Chinese New Zealander, and they're all about teaching their kids Cantonese,
(01:09:07):
which is my parents' language. And the fact that there's
a white dude that speaks better Cantonese than I do.
I feel a little bit of shame because you know,
Chinese people, East Asian people in shame. We do shame
really well.
Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Number one.
Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Number one is shame baby.
Speaker 5 (01:09:23):
But there's only been in my life two times that
I've met a white person that has spoken better Cantonese
than I do. And for better for worse. They're always
Mormon missionaries, so God to love them.
Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
They they're putting, they're put in that work.
Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
They put in the work, so good job.
Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
That's like when I mean, yeah, like people like white
people speak Japanese really well, and like they live here.
I'm like, what's going on? Like, oh my my parents
are missionaries in Japan and that's why I speak Japanese.
Speaker 5 (01:09:49):
I'm like, wow, yes, they do the work.
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Yeah, what about you calling?
Speaker 4 (01:09:55):
So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stick with the
Warhammer thing. We already talked about the Warhammer books. H
But so I watch a lot of long form like
video essays. Sure, And there's a good one that's sort
of the the a good confluence of a couple of
my things. It's called People Make Games, and they, you know,
do longer form explorations of you know, video game industry,
board game industry. But they have a video recently called
(01:10:16):
the Games behind Your Government's Next War, and they dive
into how governments around the world are using war games
and building custom board games basically to test out foreign
policy and wars and oh, well, if if we were
to mobilize our fleet over here, knowing that we have
(01:10:38):
this economic relationship here, you know, Miles Jack, I'm gonna
have you go ahead and play China and let's just
let's just play a game and simulate what comes out. Yeah,
And it's this whole massive like government board game industrial complex.
It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Oh wow, yeah, I'm going to check that out. I'm
looking at the thumbnail of that right now. I'm definitely
gonna look at that.
Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Yeah wow. Okay, okay, right Miles, where can people find you?
Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Yes, find me on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Gray.
If you like basketball, you can hear Jack and I
talk endlessly about the NBA on Miles and Jack got
mad boosties. And if you like ninety Day Fiance, like
I do to blow some steam off of the you know,
horror that is being on earth at this time, I
talk about ninety Day Fiance and the other podcast for
twenty Day Fiance. A tweet I like, is you know
(01:11:28):
the thing I love about like TikTok and stuff is like,
there's so much good recipe sharing, but alongside that you
get some people who begin to say, like their authorities
on the kinds of cuisines that might be a little
bit culturally specific. And this video, I just let me
make sure I have the creator's name right. It's from
Nathan underscore Ng and it's just a good sort of
(01:11:50):
side by side video and I'm just gonna play it
because it just kind of sums up like sort of
the tone on TikTok, but just how sometimes.
Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
We see these videos. This was also my work of media.
Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Really, if you're white to the Naked eye, but I
actually have Asian taste buds, I'm not.
Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
Sure what that makes me. It makes you a white
person that likes Asian food.
Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Helps I know it may be white, but actually Asian taste.
What does that say about me? Like ship? All right?
Tweet I've been enjoying Strange at Strange Harbors, Jeff Saying
(01:12:36):
tweeted is Todd Phillips punk? Is MasterCard a queer? Ally?
Is this TV show? My friend? I thought that was good,
Just summation of my internal monologue. Bullseye. You can find
me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien, you can find
us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily
(01:12:58):
Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and
a website Daily zey guys dot com, where we post
our episodes and our footnotes where we went off to
the information that we talked about in today's episode, as
well as a song that we think you might enjoy miles.
What song do you think people might enjoy it? Uh,
there's a there's an artist on TD Doci d O
E C H I I. And she's a dope MC
(01:13:21):
and artist.
Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
And you know, top Dog Entertainment always likes to find
some of the city's best and Doci is no different.
This track is called Nissan Ultima. She's just like a
great lyricist, has a total sense of humor about like
her in her lyrics. But is all just because she's
a great MC. Like you're just like, oh that was
a bar and funny and just overall.
Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Really talented artists. So check this track out by Doci.
It's Nissan Ultima. Yeah, shout out to Brian ed editor, Yeah,
get it right right? That all right? Well, The Daily
Guys is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio ap Apple podcast or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going
(01:14:02):
to do it for us this morning. We're back this
afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we'll talk
to you all then. Bye bye,
I was holding the baby and I farted on the couch,
and the leather of the couch was a sonic created
a sonic location was like discolored or something. No, no, no, no,
it was merely the fabric of it all. It took
it to a sonic place that it was just like amplified.
It was like screaming into a megaphone. And then I
(00:27):
got I got yelled at from across the house. But
then wow, the baby. I was, like I said in Japanese,
I'm like, well, not see you. And then like I said,
farts are funny, right, and he's just maybe nice the
culture alive. We're farters in this house.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
You get it image that.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
There being like an iridescent stain or something on the
It was just like my mind.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Like a dried oil. S. Yeah, this is one strip sunfaded.
So it's like remember those hologram stickers from the nineties.
When I changed my viewing angle, it has like a
different scene to it. Now it's green. Now, it's like
a phosphorescent pink. You can see a face in it.
(01:18):
I was eating shrimp tails.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh man, Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season three
point fifty nine, Episode two, of Daily's.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Say production of My Heart Radio. This is a podcast
where we take a deep dab into America share consciousness.
And it is Tuesday, October eighth, twenty twenty four. Ten good.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes, it's National Parogi Day. It's national it says American
Touch Tag Day, which I'm guessing that's just playing tag.
But that's like when they're like, oh, they call it
soft over there, it's touch tag I guess to the
rest of the world, Touch Tag Day.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I don't know why it's it's it's usually all this.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
These national day calendars are typically from the perspective of America.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You know, I enjoy like some of the britishisms of
like the you know our words, but that one just
we fixed it tag, guys, just tag it's cleaner.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, exactly. And then fluffer Nutter. It's National fluffer Nuder
Day over those that love the fluffer nutter.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Sure, why not? There you go, you can have it,
big fluffer nutter. My name's Jack O'Brien. Aka. Why do
flies sudden lee appear every time Trump is near? He's rotting? No,
couldn't be migrants, dude. That one courtesy of Halcyon Salad
(02:52):
on the discord in honor of Trump seeing a fly
during a speech and saying, Oh, it's a fly. Wonder,
wonder where a came from? Like Wow, he has a
conspiracy theory that the fly. We're not sure entirely couldn't
be that he is decomposing like the bad guy in
(03:13):
Men in Black. Could not be that. Maybe it's because
it's the first time he's ever been out of doors
around people who aren't carrying his golf bags. But he
he did seem confused by that fly. Hates the fly.
I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co
host mister Miles.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Grass, Miles Gray and look in honor of a wonderful
weekend for my dear Arsenal Football Club. What about some
Arsenal related aka's. It's Miles Gray aka Deck trend Rice
aka mchhel r Trenda aka Leean Trend Truss Art aka
take Trendo, Tomiyasu uh And obviously I'm the Showgun with
(03:53):
no Gun, the Lord of Lankersham, the Man with chronic podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
But Miles great, thank you so much for having me
back for the season. Miles talk at Trendo. We've never
done that as a trending title. Really it is something. Yeah,
she'll have to remedy anyways. Miles were thrilled to be
joined in our third and fourth seats by the co
hosts of the wonderful podcast that you must go listen
(04:17):
to right now, The Future of our former Democracy. They
are the executive director and the director of Policy and Outreach, respectively,
for the racial justice organization More Equitable Democracy. Please welcome,
George Chung and Colin Cally Welcome. Hey guys. Thanks. You know,
(04:45):
we like welcome lights. We like to keep the light.
We have invited you into just a blank white space.
We record in heavy void, the hea then the white
void of old Mac versus PC commercials.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Or what was the one? What isn't in willy Wonka.
Where are they at when they go into that all
white space? Oh they're in the TV, I think, Oh,
that's in the TV. Inside the TV. Yeah, inside the TV.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Hey, Colin Cole aka Mike TV.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Hey, Oh you're Mike TV. Yeah. I've always been a
little bit of uh whatever the guy is who gets
sucked into the tube myself the uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
As blue Yeah something come on, nail it, come on,
I'll come to you.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Germany I mix it up. My brain is glop and
there it is. Shout out to super producer Victor bringing it. Yeah,
liked the group a little too much. Maybe that is
a movie I recently watched with my children, and it
has like thirty really good minutes and it is just
(06:01):
coasting off of our memory of the thirty really good
minutes and oh really Yeah, there's a lot of it
that's just like uh huh, all right, Like after they
leave the Big Candy World and go on the boat ride,
it does kind of grind to a halt a little bit.
There's other moments, but like they are fleeting and that's
just my opinion. Shame.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I just remember always hating when he got all mad
at Charlie. I was like, dude, what you're supposed to
be cool with?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Like, and as a kid, I didn't know what to
make sense of that character's experience. I'm like, dude, this
guy's an asshole. Let's just turn this off. I thought you.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Turn it off. You never saw the end. Yeah, it's like,
what an asshole? Turn Yeah? Yep. George Colin, thank you
so much for joining us from the Great Northwest. Yes,
you guys are in Seattle. Is that correct?
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Ye Just keep going and take.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
A past reading. Keep going, keep going, yea, keep going,
keep on. Is it is it called the five up
there or it's high five up here? Just five? Yeah,
it's in l A. Nobody else the words highways. The
importance of the five.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, but it is an important interstate,
you know, we love Oh that's why the ten also
deserves respect, going from sea to shining sea.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Oh right, they're all given the the I think in
l A and only at l A. I've never heard of.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Wonder what the history is of our inability to just
I guess because we always want to speak differently than
other people.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
It's a remnant of surfer culture.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah right, Yeah, take on one dude over to the
four oh five.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
They cast the one eighteen over hit Meatip and Granada Hills.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
But yeah, anyway, that's probably not as important as about
than what we're about to.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Talk about today, but I still wanted to mention that. Yeah.
But like I said, listeners should listen to this podcast
and then also immediately go listen to the future of
our former democracy. Great title, great podcast. We are going
to get into a little bit of what your podcast
is about it's about how our current political system is, Like,
(08:26):
there are some things that I was taking for granted
about our current political system. You guys use the this
is water metaphor at the beginning of like, yeah, this
is just what we've always assumed is how it is
and always will be, and that there are some things
that can be better. Maybe I like it. So yeah,
(08:49):
so we're gonna get into all of that, but first
we want to get to know you both a little
bit better by asking you each what is something from
your search history that is revealing about who you are? George,
why don't we start with you? All right?
Speaker 5 (09:02):
So I'm gonna play to my stereotypes. I'm a gay man,
and I can't get enough of trying to figure out
if I can get Kylie Minogue tickets that go on
sale tomorrow. Okay, so for all you other people in
Seattle who are also gay, man, it's on sale next week, please,
so don't check you. Kylie won't be coming through to Seattle, yeah,
(09:25):
and go ahead, go have at it. But I need
my front row Kylie Minogue seats because she hasn't come
to do a tour of the US for a long time.
So gotta, you know, keep up the appearance.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
How long has it?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I mean, I feel like Kylie Minogue is just one
of those huge artists that I'm always like, yeah, it's
Kylie Minogue.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But it's been a long time since she's been in stateside. Uh.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
She had a residence in Vegues and of course I
had to go do that, but she hasn't been to
like around for I think maybe almost better part of
a decade. Definitely pandemic, got it, got it, got it,
got it.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And did your fandom go all the way back to Locomo? Yes?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Yes, And maybe it was those kind of feelings that
I got to early on. I'm like, hmmm, I'm feeling
a little different. Some of our videos were a little edgy.
I'm like, oh right, all right, I like this for
not quite sure what reason. So uh, definitely I do
the locomotion as much as I can.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Really, what's up with Danny Minogue? Danny is I did
say that, but you know, you know, she has.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Her own career too. And yeah, the last time I
went to Sydney, they had World Pride there. She kind
of made a cameo appearance with her more famous sister,
So it was like, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
George, you're going to Australia to even see Oh no, no,
this is the last time I went to Australia.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Happened.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Okay. I was just trying to gauge your minogue fandom
here and I.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Oh, it's pretty hot.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
We're going down er, yes, yes, yes, how about you, Colin,
what's something you from your search history? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
So I'll also play a stereotype, I mean herd. And
the phrase that I searched for was Warhammer word of Hermis,
because I'm a big fan of the deepest lore, you know,
in all my fictional franchises I participate in. And I'm
going through a Warhammer book right now that made reference
to a starship the word of Hermes, and I wanted
(11:21):
to look it up on the Warhammer Wikipedia to learn
more about it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Wow, what man, I'm like the I played the.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Game a little bit and then then I realized, I'm like, oh,
there's a whole other level to this that I am
not engaging with.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
But yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It's a weirdly big ip. It spans back like fifty years.
It's a tabletop board game. There's hundreds of books, there's
video games, there's like a whole like mock history to
the actual setting. You know, twenty thousand years of backstory
right been thought out to get there. It's pretty cool
(11:57):
if you're into that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I just remember going to like in this hobby shop
by my house as a kid, and I loved miniatures,
and I didn't know that it was a tabletop game,
but I was like, yeah, I want Like to me,
they're like, these are the better version than plastic army men, right,
And I was like, I want these.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And I had like a little.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Like piece of paper that was like fake AstroTurf that
I put my little Warhammer figures out, and I was like, oh,
you play Warhammer. I'm like what these are my little
dolls that I like. I sat up and then I
was like my entry point.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Like, oh, it's a game.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
This makes sense why it was sold in this shop,
not just like these stationary toys.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Me.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
On the other hand, so I grew up, you know,
playing video games, building my own computer. I played Dungeons
and Dragons, and I always thought Warhammer's too nerdy even
for me though, and I like avoided it. And then
during pandemic, a couple of friends got into it and
dragged me along. And then now here I am neckty.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Right, right, okay, but did they really drag you along?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Right?
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I got into it for for social activity only. I
wanted nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
And now I stick word of Hermes. We're going on.
Tell me about the Kingdom of Dust, that's.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Right, the soul Jackal, the pyrodomon the you know, the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Damn, I know it, all those words. I mean, uh,
the So it started out as a miniature war game,
that's right.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
That was satirizing Margaret Thatcher and conservativism in the UK
and envisioned a future world where like conservatives, like ultra
conservatives became the like despot humanity of the stars, and
humans are the bad guys and they're out trying to
make war on the alien races. And it was a
(13:46):
big critique of of Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
And I'm assuming it's always taken in that respect every
time it's played today, correct, that's right.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
They never have to put out press releases to say, hey,
this is a satire. If you think that these are
the good guys, you misunderstand the setting. Please don't come
to our events in Nazi regalia. They never have to
do that.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It's like, I'm a big fan of Warhammer and its messages.
I'm also for austerity measures every time they come.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I love austerity. It's like Monopoly was originally a work
of satire that was making fun of you know how
America operates, and Parker Brothers took it over, and we're like,
what if instead? Like what if instead that was the
good guy. It's like how Rocky changed from the first
one where he's like poor and then in the fourth
(14:32):
one he's like driving a Lamborghini and like the richest
man in America. They're just like, this is actually more fun, right,
got to catch up. We're the best, we do good work.
What number one we are? And it turns out we are?
What is something? Let's stick with you, Colin that you
think is underrated? Underrated or you can start with overrated?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Can know, well, I'll stick here. I pas I think
are over rated?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
M Yeah, I like I like it?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
But why does it have like why not have a
stout sometimes? Why not have a guinness to do our
our irish subject here? Why not? Uh, why not have
a cider or a sour?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Like?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Why does it always have to be a you know,
a triple hate hazy imperial I p a.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, bloods taste buds.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it felt like I feel like
in the beginning of it, it was like the hack
for dudes whose partners are like, don't drink so much
at the bar, like I'm just having beers and it's like, yeah,
I'm having these like nine percent I p as trying
to stop me. And then like that kind of became
like the reason to drink I PAS, and I was
like for me, I was like, this ship is no man,
(15:44):
this is too happy for daddy. I can't have this,
Like I'm not this is not hitting my taste buds, right,
So yeah, I feel like it's it's it's coming back around.
I feel like every in l A there's a lot
of triple hazy I p as that people are triple hazy.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah. I was one of the people who's always checking
out the alcohol by volume and being like I think
I'm gonna like this one that's twelve the alcohol content
of a whiskey. Right. But yeah, and now I don't
drink anymore as a constant wants and the like hop waters.
(16:18):
I do enjoy the hop waters. Yeah, I just discovered.
It's amazing. Yeah, the like hoppy quencher whatever cool that
it's delicious. It's like the hoppy becomes tropical to a
point when you drink it. That's what I love about it.
That's that's right. How about you, George, what's something that
you think is underrated?
Speaker 5 (16:39):
I'm gonna go with two TV shows that were cut
before they were done. I gotta say, Freaks and Geeks
and My so called Life, Okay, like gotta go to
like the youth angst people who are just about to
launch their careers in super big ways. Maybe they had
to like cut because they were all offered amazing in
(17:00):
amazing other places.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Casting was too good. It was good.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
It was like, here's these amazing people who yes, of
course they went on to amazing things. But the shows
were so good. I identified with so many of them,
especially like the ma athletes in Freaking I with that kid,
so it was like, you're you strumming my life with
your fingers.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Stuff like that with your song. Yeah yeah, I was
like this is me.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
I feel see. So I missed those that.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Whole erahead shows I got, like Firefly, Arrested Development, so
many good shows that got killed before their time.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Yeah, I'm waiting for the reboots on those shows. So
can you make it that happen? You all live in LA,
so just like write the script and like.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I'm sorry, you know, we're kind of we have a
problem with the reboots in LA right now.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It's too much.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
It's at the expense of letting new things be talked
about all the time.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
This one's geeks and freaks. Oh, we're actually for grounding
the geeks.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
It's starting very sad old Jason Siegel as a burnt
out high school teacher and then.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Not so busy Phillips these days are we She's so good?
And uh, girls five eva. Oh, Phillips is so good
and girls five eva. If people haven't seen that. Yeah,
I came into this episode thinking that we were surely
almost out of I P and now not just the
(18:26):
talk of the i pas, but we've got freaking geeks reboot.
The my so called life Warhammer only has one film
I think, is that right?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Henry Cavill's working on it. Actually he's trying to make
it a whole thank.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
God, So fuck. I was hoping we could option that
first person.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
With that idea, I just go to bookstores, and I
just try and get the rights to everything I see
on the shelf.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
That's kind of how studios do. Kid, what are you
reading there? You know who has the rights to that?
All right, Calvin and hold George with something you think
is overrated?
Speaker 5 (19:05):
Oh, people are gonna come at me. I'm gonna have
to say pickleball?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Well, hold on, how old do you think our audience is?
Speaker 5 (19:14):
Now?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, I mean I know the grandparents out there might
be getting mad at it. I feel like younger people
who like pickleball aren't as militant.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
But yeah, is it take? Is it? Like? Is it
everywhere in Seattle too?
Speaker 5 (19:29):
I mean it's encroaching on my tennis courts and we
have to have some words, so like a surist, so
you know, off my lawn slash tennis court.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Is there a lot of a lot of tension between
the tennis players and then the encroaching pickleballers who are like.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I'm going to use a third of this, can you go?
Speaker 5 (19:48):
I mean they are my moral enemies.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I mean yeah, okay to say so right, okay, good
to know, good to know.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Just if you're not athletic enough to play tennis, they
have doubles, which is like you can play doubles without
moving around very much. Yeah, exactly like doubles.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
I could teach you, but i'd have.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
To charge that. What I have to say, thank you?
How about you calm? What's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
I don't know if this is true in California, where
you all are from, but around most of the country,
I feel like winter is underrated.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Mmmm.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
People don't like being cold.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Driving in like ice and slush kind of sucks.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
But also, you get to you get to wear cool jackets.
I'm a sucker for a cool jacket. You get to
have a sweater, you you, You just get to have
more variety. Know, I was wearing a T shirt and
shorts every day. I like being able to switch it up.
I think fires are really cool. They're too hot in
the summer. There's nothing like sit out on the porch
(20:52):
on a cold day with a hot drink, like some
winter experiences are unparalleled.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And you are now singing miles of lift with you.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Oh my god, yeah right now, I have tears coming
down my face.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
And what's the coolest jacket you on?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Myles? Oh? In here now? I don't have it. I'm
I have a look.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, which the
average temperature throughout the year is basically like eighty five degrees,
you know, like essentially, and I since I was a kid,
I always yearned for seasons. So whenever I have the
chance to go somewhere, like I mean, we might have
to go this place at this time here it's pretty cold,
I'm like, yes, yes, yes, I want to wear a jacket.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I want to know cold.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, I don't have one, Like I'm really proud of
to be honest, I'm like, I want to get a
nice winter coat, but that's just there's no need for
that in La so I you know, I'll just get
yelled at for buying another jacket I'm not going to use.
But I'm I love a jacket, I love a scarf.
I love outside in the cold. It's all very yeah,
(21:55):
I'm a huge fan. And it like it to your point,
when the weather, you know, like just like when it's hot,
there are activities you have to do because it's so hot,
and you socialize differently when the weather's super hot, and
I think in the cold, it's very similar too, and
I yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I love winter. It's properly rated. But yes, I feel
like we should embrace it even further.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Hell yeah, hell two coolest jackets. I got an orange
bomber jacket like brown accents and some like reflectors on it, okay,
and then a Alaska Airlines blue trench coat raincoat hooded.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I think a parka kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
It's it's more like a business, like a like a
not quite parka okay, but like you can work with
the soup, do you could work?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah? Yeah? Oh wow, aren't we doing well?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
My my my grandfather flew for a Asca Alaska Airlines,
uh and so I had some connections and got one
of their surplus like uniform jackets.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Was that like really a thing where you're like, hey,
can I get that jacket? Or you just like came
up on you like they're not going to miss this
might it was?
Speaker 4 (23:00):
It was the first one. So for a long time
I've wanted like a nice raincoat. I have like ones
that you can wear with a T shirt or whatever,
but we wearing like a big poofy rain jacket with
like a button down shirt and a tie, like you
kind of feel like a fool. And I wanted to
the nice and they're all like two thousand bucks, and
it was or they didn't look very nice, like they
(23:20):
weren't rain jackets, they weren't waterproof, they didn't have a hood.
And I've been complaining to this about about this, to
George actually for like months.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
And no, no years years.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
At one they were getting on in Alaska Airlines flight
together and I'm like, that jacket, That's what I want.
And then and then I was like, how do I
get one of those jackets? And George said, I don't know.
I want you to email the CEO or something. And
then I thought, wait a minute, Yeah, my grandpa used
to fly. Maybe I just do email the CEO. And
I said, hey, my grandpa used to fly for you,
blah blah blah. Can you guys help me out?
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And they do hear, mister Airlines, really, I write to
you today.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
And I was just saying that to like get him
to stop talking about it.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So, yeah, it's just email the ceo. CEO. Yeah, by George,
you do have quite an idea. All right, let's let's
uh take a quick break and we're going to come
back and we're going to talk about the future of
our former democracy and uh, you know how we could
(24:19):
maybe change a couple of things. We'll be right back
and we're back. So George Colin, like I said, the
podcast is really good. You kind of start out talking
(24:40):
about this idea that we are super accustomed to this
one feature of our political process that doesn't need to
be this way. And in fact, when other countries have
changed this feature, they've been and much happier, not one
(25:02):
a plus is across the board, as that will never
be the case with politics, but much happier and more functional.
But I did just want to like start out by
asking why now everything seems to be going so well
with our current political system. No, I mean when when
our conversation was starting out, you know, we don't want
to spend all our time talking about how things bad,
(25:25):
because I think most of our listeners know that, But
we did start out in the place of we're facing
an election where the stakes are kind of more of
the same or burn it all down in fascism, and
you know, you guys even pointed out that, like our
current situation is terrifying to people in other countries, like
(25:47):
the assassination attempts, the multiple yes, yeah, you know, the
politicizing of those assassination attempts and just you know, the
rhetoric is all pretty scary. But are you what are
you hearing from people who are kind of keeping one
eye on our current electoral politics.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
I think everyone understands that there are some huge challenges,
and yet we don't really have the imagination to think
about how to solve these problems. Like we feel stuck
and all we can talk about is like, get this
one person elected and somehow that'll save our democracy. No
one believes that, but we're kind of grasping for straws
in terms of what do we actually do to get
(26:30):
out of this this vicious cycle that we're in. Maybe
one quick aside in terms of the origin story, like
we're really talking about our electoral system, how we cast
our ballots and how those ballots are translated into seats.
This all started in terms of our American electoral system
well before we were even a country, Like we have
(26:52):
to go way back to twelve fifteen. Ah, yes, yes,
twelve fifteen is a signing of the Magna Cardo where
King John of England see just a little bit of
control to this new parliament. Essentially the English aristocracy, Like
you know, he relied on them for tax dollars to
fight these foreign wars, and they kind of got fed
up with having all their money taken away to fight
(27:12):
a war that they didn't necessarily believe in, and so
they demanded some power. Magna carta get signed no more
absolute monarchy. They started elections in twelve sixty five using
essentially what we now know as a winner take all
system where you select one top one wins, and we
largely have not changed that system since that time. We
(27:35):
as us, as we were a former British colony, we
essentially inherited all of those British English systems, like the
legal system, it's a British British common law system. The
electoral system is the same, and so we've never really had.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
To be fair. We did get rid of the whigs,
that's true. The barristers don't do that anyway.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
But I mean there's some things we should have kept
because that was cool.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I feel like, yeah, the lawyers wouldn't be total jackasses.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
If you're like dude, I gotta sorry, sorry, I'm not
going to be.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
That would definitely make it more fun for sure, and
so you know, I think what we have to do
is start to allow ourselves to imagine other options. There
are other countries, as you said, that have become democracies
since we had you know, since we've expanded the franchise
and thought about these challenges of how do we do
other than just elect a delegate to tell the king
(28:31):
how we don't like a SAX policy. Now we're trying
to think about Okay, now that the franchise has expanded,
well beyond just men with lots of property to lots
of different people, and so you can't have a one
size fits all approach to representation. All these other countries
have picked something else that allows for that representation, for
minority groups across the board to have real representation, and
(28:54):
so being able to give ourselves permission to get beyond
our American exceptionalism and say we have things to learn
from other places, other people, other societies. Why don't we
understand what choices they had and what decisions they made.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, it's very American to do the winner take all.
Like American's most comfortable in a casino. You know, we
love a casino. We love a story that makes it
a line I put people putting it all on the
line one in a million, and we just follow the
one person out of a million who actually wins to
(29:30):
tell ourselves that. But yeah, we love high stakes stories,
right and yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt Colin.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Oh well good, Well, so so zooming in on like
some of the problems. So we all know the electoral
college sucks. We're not going to talk about that so
much unless we want to. But talking about it.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
On that idea already.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, yeah, we're ready for some alternatives, man, right, But when.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
We talk about electing people of the Congress or your state
legislature or your city council, I think most folks, most
folks know jerry mandering is bad. Maybe you don't know
like the details of how it works, but you know
it's manipulating the lines, manipulating the systems to get the
outcomes that you want. People are concerned about that, and
folks are concerned about this idea of polarization that are
two sides are getting further apart and they're starting to
(30:12):
hate each other. But there's not really many thoughtful ways
about how to grapple these problems. We just say, oh,
we should elect more moderates, Like we just need to
find a pace to compromise more at the middle. We
need to draw the lines better. But all of these
ideas are like kind of abstract, they're maybe not actually good.
Maybe electing more moderates actually doesn't lead to more people
(30:32):
feeling like your voices are heard. And you know, gerrymandering
is kind of a reality. Like democrats and progressives tend
to live in cities, People of color tend to live
in cities. More conservative white folks, working class folks often
live in rural areas. Like, you can only manipulate the
lines so much. And so if those are the problems
that you want to solve, you can't just do the
(30:56):
current thing that we're doing better. The current thing that
we're doing is the problem that leads to all of
those outcomes, Like we have to come up with something different.
And that's kind of what we're trying to explore in
the podcast, is if we wanted to explore from a
totally different starting point how to conduct elections and how
to build our government, how can we make some of
those problems obsolete?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Right?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Like, you know, I'm always struck when I was listening
to the podcast, and when we were talking on our
yesterday's episode, just sort of given what our options are
in the United States and how a lot of people
don't fit under you know, the these gigantic umbrellas of
just either of these parties, right, and the discourse or
the rhetoric we hear so much is like, you know,
(31:38):
you have this sacred right to vote, you know, and
you can vote, and you're able to vote, and that's sacred.
But you know, as listening to your show, the other
part of this that I feel like we don't talk
about is what about do we have a right to
be represented? Because it's one thing to say, here's the
fucking menu, which one do you want? And you're like, well, actually,
(31:59):
according to my diet restrictions, I've none of these. Actually
is there something else, like no, sorry, so you can have,
you know, some kind of terrible reaction to what's on offer,
or just not not engage into the in the process
at all. What I mean is that something like we
should really be thinking about is that it's not just
about our ability that we can cast a vote, but
(32:20):
that we also need to have some We should have
the right to have our own beliefs or values, represented
in the people that we do ultimately send to Washington
to legislate.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
Absolutely, George, Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say that, just
to build off of that. The challenge of a winner,
take all system as it relates to folks of color
is that our options are very limited. We have this
Voting Rights Act, landmark piece of legislation that obviously people
died to get past, and it's been interpreted that the
(32:53):
only way that folks of color in particular, or other
minority groups that can have representation under this or take
all system is when we have when we can draw
majority minority districts, And that kind of makes sense at
some level, like Okay, you put a lot of like
minded folks together into a district and they are more
than fifty percent, they get representation. But ironically that requires segregation,
(33:18):
and do we want segregation as a means to an
end in order to achieve better political representation? So I
think it's really challenging to have that, as you mentioned,
the right to vote, when that doesn't necessarily translate into
real representation.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Now it depends on how intricately you draw those lines
when you're jerrymandering. We can really right, I'm really good
at tracing, very fine.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
There's also like two different dimensions of representation that we lack.
I mean there's a lot that we lack. Well, there's
two big ones. So one is just if you want
to buy like that we live in a two party system.
We don't like we want to envision something else, but
like that's the world we live in today. And you know,
there's millions of Republicans in California who effectively have no representation.
(34:10):
Their vote for president doesn't count because we know a
Democrat's gonna win. Their vote for governor largely doesn't count
for the most part. The members of Congress and state
legislature like it doesn't matter, like we already know in
advance a Democrat's gonna win those seats, And the exact
same thing is true for Democrats in Texas and Alabama,
in Mississippi and Missouri. There's so many folks who just
(34:31):
know five years in advance, I'm not going to elect
someone who I care about at any level of government.
So of course people are like tuning out and not participating.
But you actually have the same problem sort of within
the parties. So like I live in Washington State, I
know ahead of time, a Democrat's gonna win governor and Congress,
everything that was just saying. But as a result, that
(34:54):
means the November election, even if you're a Democrat in
Washington doesn't really matter because you know the Democrats going
to win. The election that really matters is the primary,
you know, a few months earlier, that picks which Democrat
is going to win. And primary elections are mostly older, wealthier,
wider folks, so you end up having a teeny tiny
(35:14):
subset of the population pick the one option everyone else
has to choose from in November. And so like in Washington,
we have seven Democratic members of Congress. Six of them
I would say, come from sort of the moderate Hakeem Jeffreys,
Nancy Pelosi wing of the party, and one of them
comes from sort of the AOC Bernie Sanders wing, even
though consistently the Bernie Sanders wing of the party is
(35:35):
about half of all the Democrats in Washington state, so
those people aren't represented either.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, So the critiques I've heard from like a more
representative system, well one of them is like, yeah, it
might work for those like small homogeneous European nations, but America, like,
you know, America has racism, so how could that work here?
(36:01):
Which is a terrible argument, But it's especially interesting that
you are drawing on Northern Ireland being the example, because Yeah,
I think it would just be instructive for people to
hear about sort of the context of civil rights in
Northern Ireland.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Yeah, I'd be happy to start. I first started thinking
about Northern Ireland. Actually not well. I guess when I
was a kid growing up during the time of the
troubles in Northern Ireland. I just watched TV and I
just thought, Wow, white folks hating on white folks, Like,
I don't get it, Like, what did they do that
makes them so angry? Fast forward? I remember reading this
(36:39):
kind of mostly born report that a colleague organization of
ours came up with that was making the case for
pro poorsh representation, and they basically it was like two
lines that said, when communities don't have any recourse to
have any voice whatsoever in policy, their only option in
most times is political violence. And that's what happened in
(37:01):
Northern Ireland, and that was resolved largely through power sharing
that included a change to the electoral system as part
of the nineteen ninety eight agreement, and I thought, oh,
what I remember a big to do about Senator George
Mitchell and President Clinton at the time leaning in and
getting folks to put down their arms and to come
to an agreement. But it was kind of like a revelation, like, actually,
(37:23):
there's so much to learn from and as we started
to kind of dig deeper, and in the end we
ended up bringing a bunch of our colleagues to Ireland
and Northern Ireland to observe the elections earlier this year.
The parallels between our societies are so astounding that we
essentially are both the creations of English settler colonialism. At
(37:48):
some point, the English beat the socks off of the
Irish elite, they fled, and basically they started. The English
started sending tens of thousands of people to Northern Ireland,
to this region called Ulster, who essentially populated and control
it because they needed to have this buffer the back door,
to prevent France and Spain from attacking from the backside
(38:09):
and so setling colonialism. They had all this manipulation, using
gerrymandering and limiting the franchise to essentially create one party
rule for fifty years, and then the result was a
civil rights movement in the late sixties early seventies that
really started to make the case of we need housing,
(38:32):
we need jobs, and we need one person, one vote.
And so going there and being able to see mural
after mural and statues of Frederick Douglass, famous anti slavery
activists who actually traveled to Ireland during the time of
what we know as the potato famine, they call it
the Great Hunger, Great starvation, and talked about the parallels
(38:54):
between the treatment of African Americans in American slavery and
the treatment of Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. And so
I just thought, wow, there are so many things that
are just like parallel track that we should see. Did
how did they actually resolve their deep, deep polarization.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
And their civil rights movement didn't just result in Oh,
they got granted rights because they marched in the streets,
like just like in ours riot, police were marshaled against them.
You had militia groups formed to you know, throw rocks,
fire hoses were spread. It just it wasn't It was
not a peaceful process. And what we saw in the
(39:33):
late nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies is very similar what
we're seeing in the US today, which is this increasing
rate of political violence, of folks feeling like they're not
heard of, folks marching in protest and counter protests to
each other, not just exchanging ideas, but exchanging bullets, getting
into fights, there being this ramp up of political violence.
(39:53):
And it's really familiar the parallels in which the sort
of political dynamics mirror what we're feeling a lot of today.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
And that preceded what's known as the Troubles, right or
that was the Troubles, and then it kind of turned
to open warfare in the seventies and into the eighties, right, Yeah,
And so the system that you're describing came together in
the aftermath of this horrible kind of civil war that
happened in the streets of Northern Ireland. And so I
(40:23):
want I want to just kind of get into how
that system could be transferred to the US. Next. Let's
take a let's take a quick break, and we'll be
right back, and we're back. We're back, and so yeah,
(40:47):
I just wanted to hear kind of from you guys
what your vision is for how that system that is
currently a representation, a representative democracy like how that could
take hold in the United States.
Speaker 5 (41:03):
Just let me throw one quick historical footnote, then I'll
turn over to Colin. Actually, their implementation of what Colin
will refer to shortly actually started in nineteen twenty one
Northern Ireland, and as they were partitioning Northern Ireland away
from the South, which then became the Irish Free State.
Basically the British said, okay, well, why don't we agree
(41:26):
as part of this end of this war with the Irish,
that both sides will have some form of power sharing
built into their systems because both sides have minorities that
they wanted to protect. Northern Ireland gets rid of it
as soon as they can, because they see the writing
on the wall. They're like, one party control, let's do it.
(41:46):
Ireland actually keeps it for a full hundred years, and
that's still the system that they use today. So actually,
in nineteen ninety eight when they actually re implemented it,
something that they actually had for about roughly ten years
beginning in the nineteen twenties. So I'll kick it or column.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
Well, and we'll come back to the sort of forgotten
history question in a moment too. So the system that
they use in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland
is a system of proportional representation, so called because each
segment of the population has the power to win their
fair share their proportion in government. So if Irish Republicans,
(42:22):
who are different from US Republicans, they want to join
the Republic of Ireland, Irish Republicans or Irish Nationalists win
thirty three percent of the vote, they're going to win
about one in three seats in Parliament. And what you
might have it happen is you might have say, forty
percent of the vote go to Irish Unionists, folks who
like being part of Great Britain. Maybe forty percent of
(42:43):
the vote goes to Irish nationalists, and then another twenty
percent of the vote goes to people who say, oh,
we don't really care about that, we care about jobs,
or we care about housing, and then that ends up
being the makeup of your parliament. And in terms of
what they could look like in the US, it's interesting.
So there are there's a path to get it here.
There's an act that's been introduced into Congress every year
(43:03):
since twenty seventeen, the Fair Representation Act, that would just
move the US congressional seat system to that system. So
instead of electing, you know, instead of Massachusetts electing ten Democrats,
they would probably elect six or seven Democrats and three
or four Republicans. And instead of you know, Alabama electing
all Republicans, they would elect you know, two Republicans and
(43:26):
a Democrat or whatever whatever the population might be, and
you could have these smaller chunks breakthrough. But what's really
interesting is that the specific version that they use that
is proposed for this bill, that they use in Northern Ireland,
it's a form of ranked choice voting, and I say
a form of rank choice voting, because a lot of
folks might have heard of our CV rank voice voting.
(43:46):
But there's a bunch of different ways to do it.
The way they do it in Minneapolis is different than
the way to do it in Maine, which is different
than the way to do it in New York, which
is different than the way that they do it in Ireland.
But back in the nineteen tens, twenties, thirties, forties, cities
in the US actually use this Irish version of proportional
(44:09):
ranks choice voting. Cities like New York City, Cincinnati, and
Cleveland Sacramento in California, and you saw again back in
the forties at the height of Jim Crow, well before
the Civil Rights movement, you saw black communists from Manhattan
get elected to the New York City Council. And that's
just sort of it's hard to imagine today, let alone
(44:32):
during the Red Scare.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, and it is. We always talk about the way
that these facts that aren't part of the system as
currently constructed get just memory hold from history and kind
of erased from history. So that's super interesting.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
And you said that, someone told be like, what is
that from a marvel like reality or black this is
like Manhattan is a city councils.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah, like that's real. That's real in the context of
racial justice and equity like in the US. Like when
listening to your show, I was thinking about we had
a lot of energy behind that cause in twenty twenty,
but we it feels like we no longer have the
attention of the mainstream Democratic party right now, and you know,
(45:26):
having a party that is focused on that cause and
is always there even if you know they're not the
majority in power, but they're always being represented. Could it
like that that's just a thing that I had taken
for granted as like impossible, and that that would just
(45:47):
be amazing to have that, like you know, there would
always be people doing work for racial justice and equity
in the US, like in government, right does not see
it's wild that is such a basic idea, but like it's.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Well yeah, because you think of how like platforms change
every year, like the Democrats platform looks completely different now
than it in twenty twenty. Like, well, you know, I
think we use too much like political capital to be
talking about used to form this go round. So let's
put that on the back burner and become fully pro
cop this year, because you know, we kind of were
a little in our policies can be nebulous at times,
(46:26):
And I think that's like it really gets to what
really affects voters and makes people so that you just
get to this point where you're totally disaffected. You become
ambivalent to the process because you feel like, well, what
about all these other real problems And the only way
to enter the conversation is this very rigid system where
(46:46):
unless you're reading from the same hymnal, your chances of
getting elected aren't really possible. And I think that's really
a great way for I think that would help a
lot of people also become much more involved, because what
we're talking about is something that does give people a
fair shake where it's like, no, if you have the numbers,
like you can get a seat at the table. That's
just it is what it is. And then guess what,
(47:09):
people will have to have coalition governments where they are
going to have to work with you to get the
kinds of majorities you need to achieve certain things.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
And I think that's.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Super I think underrated and underrated thing about it, because
I think most people will just go to the factor like, oh,
so what you want more Republicans And it's like, well, no,
that's really not the case. You just want something, you
want it to actually be representative of what's there. And
I feel like it sounds like too and just listening
to the show, like we had a moment when we
(47:37):
were writing the Constitution where they're like, what if Congress
looked like everything we see out there in America? And
it's like, and that's like one of those forks in
the roads where our destinies like, and we decided it's
not that new of a concept, like these are things
we've been grappling with since the beginning of this country.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
Absolutely, there's a few other things that are kind of
mind blowing. When we talked about Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland,
one story that keeps coming up is that whenever we've
talked to folks on the ground there, they kept saying,
you might have some concerns in the US about getting
far right parties elected and taking seats, and that might
(48:15):
freak some people out, but in many ways that's important
because in the Northern Ireland experience, they saw that there
were people who were shut out of the political system
that they had no alternative but to be violent. And
so when you have people win seats their fair share,
maybe they win one or two in a city council,
and they have to grapple with balancing the budget, closing
(48:37):
a hospital, dealing with pensions, then it's harder to be
completely anti government when you actually have some power and
you have to grapple with some collective decisions that you
just can't just throw rocks at at the house. One
other interesting thing that we learned about that kind of
blew my mind is how power sharing was taken to
(49:00):
the logical extreme in both Ireland and to more so
in Northern Ireland. So our winner take all system we
understand it, particularly in our electoral system in terms of
there can only be one winner when you have one
member per district. But when you think about the winner
take all system in terms of legislative governance, we understand like,
(49:23):
if you're the majority party, you get to pick all
the committee chairs. It's like to the winner go the spoils.
That seems obvious to us, right right, That's not how
neither Ireland nor Northern Ireland does it. If you win
forty percent of seats in the Parliament, you win forty
percent of committee chairs. They have this process it's called
the Dahunt method, whereby it's like the NFL draft. Your
(49:46):
party as like the team gets to pick in a
particular order which committee chairs you want. So if you're
the first pick, you'll probably get to pick like the
Taxation ways and means committee because it's likely the most
powerful justice as usually second, something like that, and so
you just kind of go down the list in terms
of who deserves the next pick. Added to that logical
(50:06):
extreme in terms of Northern Ireland, if once again, if
your party is forty percent of the seats, in parliament,
you get forty percent of the cabinet seats in government
itself as a way to make sure that everyone has
a fair share. There are critiques in terms of sometimes
it grinds to a halt because those parties almost never
(50:26):
agree on lots of big things, and so sometimes it
shuts the government down, which is its own problem. But
the idea that they are committed to power sharing in
order for everyone to feel like they have a stake
in governance, that's a really key idea that's really missing
in our debates here in the.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
US, and it's something that Northern Ireland folks we talked
to kept emphasizing that, like, oh, like there's a lot
of critiques about power sharing this specific model we have
through these how many seats, but the elections being proportional,
like that's a no brainer, Like no one, no one
debates that at all, Like that's obvious.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Yeah, right, yeah, I mean in Project twenty twenty five,
the thing that's scary about it to people is that
they're planning to like clear house and just make all
the cabinet entirely one thing. So that that's interesting. I
feel like maybe after this next presidential administration, there might
be more appetent. It could be the last one, folks,
but it could be the last election, not for the
(51:20):
reasons he's saying. But oh yeah, well yeah, go ahead,
Sorry Miles, I interrupted, Oh no, no, no, I was
just saying.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
And also like the visibility right, because I think, especially
in the United States, we have this version of like
the amount of extremists there are in the United States,
you would think, depending on where you're watching news, like
they're outnumbered.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
There's seven billion of these people.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
And it's always interesting to see like when people like
are like in in Europe when they're having their elections,
you're like, oh, they're far right parties only got like
a fraction of what people thought they were going to do.
And I think that's also helps too for people to
understand like, Okay, there is this group of people that exist,
but they aren't nearly as large or influential they would
want you to think, which I think also helps people
(52:03):
have a little bit of a clear understanding of like
truly like what we're dealing with in the country in
terms of like who who's sort of like where everyone's
ideologies sort of lie. Because yeah, I think it's very
easy to sort of obscure that with our media in
this country and have people kind of thinking like, oh
my god, like what's all happening, Like what are we
up against? And yeah, knowing that I think putting being
(52:24):
able to quantify that, I think is a big benefit.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
And that's part of the risk of a winner take
all system is you can have a fringe element, right
that wins it all. People forget that. Back in twenty sixteen,
if you looked at Poles, most Republicans didn't actually like
Donald Trump, but they were split between Chris Christy and
Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and John Kasich and Mitt Romney.
And Romney wasn't running in twenty sixteen, was he? No, No,
(52:49):
he was not running.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
The spirit anyway, yeah, right, spirit of.
Speaker 4 (52:53):
John Huntsman point is like they were the winner take
all system. Let's a fringe element if they win more
than others in a primary process or whatever, win everything.
Like a portional system caps your ceiling at your actual support,
so you never have a fringe party take over every
chamber of government.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I do want to just go back to this idea
that you know, it doesn't say anything about two parties
or parties of any sort in the in the Constitution,
and yet and like George Washington was like kind of
against parties in general. He was just a downer, didn't
didn't like to party, but he like America just kind
(53:34):
of snapped to a two party system and like kind
of keeps going back to a two party system and
like staying in this two party system. And so for me,
that's one of my big questions is like, is there
just something about America and our at the central lie
(53:57):
at the heart of America where it's like we're we
are a representative democracy and also the system is completely
designed to keep the dispossessed without power, Like that's been
the deal kind of from day one, Like when you
look at the wording of the Constitution and then like
what who those words actually applied to. I'm just I
(54:19):
guess that's the big question for me is like how
you know, in the experience of granted, a winner take
all primary system, but like the primary system of a
progressive and widely popular Bernie Sanders, you know, getting a
lot of attention and enthusiasm, and then it just kind
(54:42):
of felt like you were always up against this entrenched machine.
I'm just curious how you guys, think about the existing
kind of inertia and money and power of the system
as it currently exists, and how you could potentially see
(55:03):
this idea overcoming that overtime.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
George, can you mind meld with me real quick? I
want to say something.
Speaker 5 (55:10):
I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to French class.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
The name is due Verge. Yes, and I of course
know what that means. But the listeners, George, and no
further questions? All right?
Speaker 5 (55:32):
Do Verge was a French philosopher that basically came up
with this theorem or this law that basically said, any
winner take all system is going to end up with
only two major parties that can contest for power because
when there is like another faction, another party that tries
to buy and play within the confines of a winner
(55:53):
take all system, they almost never win. And if you
try us several times, you'll have to give up, because
how do you tell people to vote for us if
you can never turn their votes into actual seats that
is actual political power.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
You actually increase the odds that your opponents win, Like
if Bernie Sanders runs a viable candidacy, that increases odds
Republicans win, so like it just turned. The logical conclusion
is only have two candidates.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
Yeah, it seems like a bad system almost.
Speaker 5 (56:24):
And so you see this playing out in basically the
UK and the other former British colonies that have kept
this system. In Canada, there's essentially only like the Conservative
and the Liberal slash Moderate party that can win ever
any election. They only have multiple parties because they have
(56:45):
kind of regional politics of like Quebecqua Separatists that has
its own political party. But for the most part, nationally
they are a two party system because they have the
exact same system that we have. The UK is pretty
much the same. You have Labor and then you have
the Tories or concernvatives. Sometimes the Liberal Democrats play that
kind of in between role, spoiler role, but for the
(57:07):
most part, du Verget's law plays out very clearly in
all of these systems. And so being able to start with,
you know, what is the electoral system that we want
for our for our society. Is it something that is
very simple and that forces a majority even though it
doesn't reflect the majority interest or do you want to
(57:28):
make sure that you have a minority representation built in
to our electorate? And so by picking a proportional system
whichever flavor because there's definitely variations on a theme. The
fact that you will get you know, three, four or
five parties means that there are coalitions. There is kind
of like a shifting depending on which issue that different
(57:50):
parties can call us and get legislation passed. So there
is nothing structural or cultural about the US that pushes
us towards a two point. It is the system that
pushes us awkwardly into these two camps that don't fit us.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
And actually there's some really interesting political science. I'll give
the very high level. We can put a link in
the show notes if you all want, but there's some
political science that's been done that shows that effectively, in
the US right now there are six political parties. There's
six ideologically consistent and distinct ways of being basically that
most people subscribe to, and it's just that they're jammed
(58:29):
into the two parties. Like Alexander Cocosio Ortez said a
couple of years ago, in any other country on Earth,
Joe Biden and I would not be in the same
political party.
Speaker 5 (58:37):
But in the US we have to be.
Speaker 4 (58:39):
And so when you think about, like, you know, you're
Mitt Romney, Barry Goldwater, John McCain type folks, and your
evangelical Christians and your like Mago wing of American Nazis,
Like they don't actually have anything in common politically. And
it's the same parallels on the left. And so whether
(58:59):
or not these six parties emerge or they become distinct
factions within the two parties as we have them, there's
those are probably the coalitions that we would see emerge
if we moved to a proportional multi party system.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
I think the other part about this too is like
I think at this point, we see that there is
a way to do it.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
It is being done.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
We've that we've dabbled in it in the United States before,
but right now, in its current form, it seems like intractable,
like this is it's stuck. And I know when we
were speaking a little bit earlier before we even recorded,
I remember Jack and I were like, well, how do
we it? Is it possible? And I felt like you
(59:39):
brought up a few good points. Was to think about
a lot of like the major changes we've had in
the in the United States across you know, the storied
history of this place, the years preceding those changes, it
felt like this is going to be how it is forever,
and then boom, we have rights. We have universal suffrage,
we have civil rights, et cetera. We have marriage equality
and those those kinds of things. And I think for
(01:00:02):
a lot of the times too, we're also like the
I feel like the de facto way we speak about
it in very early kinds of political conversations when you're
younger and getting into it is like it feels everything
has to happen from the top down, and when you
look at the current system, like there's no way these
freaks are going to be like, yes, I would like
to dilute my power, but it seems like this is
the kind of thing where we can create upward pressure
(01:00:25):
from a more local level, and that is happening in
the United States.
Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
We like to make things about personality and like individualism
in the US, and so often the answer is actually structural,
and we don't like to admit that a lot of
the times because it doesn't allow for us to be
the heroes of our own narrative.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
But yeah, so can you sort of just point to
some examples of like how this is not just like
you know, Cincinnati decades ago, which where things like that
were happening. But like even in the year of twenty
twenty four, there are there are movements being made that
are approaching something like this that could potentially help you
(01:01:05):
drive the conversation on a national level.
Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Yeah, I'll start and I'll kick it over to Colin.
I think the most exciting thing for folks to watch
in the twenty twenty four elections, besides the presidential is
what happens in Portland, Oregon. It's on the five. If
you'd go north on the five, you get for the Yeah,
what was really exciting. And this goes to some of
the work that we do as an organization More Equitable Democracy.
(01:01:29):
We support people of color led groups on transforming our
electoral system in order to advance racial justice, and so
our colleagues there were doing a lot of advocacy work
in community of color, trying to bring more resources to
their communities, and they always hit like this huge buzz
saw their city commission. It was a commission whereby there
(01:01:49):
was no separate executive branch from the legislative branch. They
were one and the same. They were all elected at large,
so you essentially had to win like a congressional race
in order to win a city council seat at that
always favored big moneyed interests, usually of folks who had
relationships with developers, and so they understood. We did a
lot of research to kind of back this up, that
(01:02:10):
breaking up that system was important, but that going to
the most obvious solution in the American kind of context
is to go from all at large to single member districts,
just like cut up the city into five equal districts.
Maybe we'll be able to get two seats out of
the five that are responsive to our community's needs. Those
communities of color about twenty five percent of the population
(01:02:32):
in Portland because of a really long anti black history,
there is no one particular area that is heavily people
of color. There isn't the same type of segregation that
there is in other cities, and so just drawing those
single member districts was not going to solve any of
those problems.
Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Into any configurational highlight. Like we said, what if we
move from five to seven to nine to twelve to
fifteen city councilors? You just could not do it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
Not possible. And so that's why we introduced the Irish
model to them, and they started to think, okay, well,
if we had a larger district where we elected three,
maybe we can win one or two of those that
are in neighborhoods that we do a lot of organizing.
And so what was really exciting was that. And this
sounds when I say exciting, this will sound boring for
(01:03:16):
just a second. There was a charter review process. Please
don't fall asleep. This is not exactlytant.
Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Yeah crps baby, that's me all day. We got an
air horn in there.
Speaker 5 (01:03:30):
When shorter review process ah awesome, and so baked into
their charter their constitution was this mandatory about once every
decade Ish process whereby folks from the community were invited
in to kick the tires of their system, their structures
of government, and asked to come up with ideas to
(01:03:51):
change it. For ninety nine percent of the time when
local governments do this, it's just window dressing. They don't
really mean to invite people to change things. But to
their credit, everyone understood in Portland, this antiquate system that
had been designed about more than one hundred years ago
wasn't working. So everyone understood something needed to change, and
so the ability for our partners to organize around a
(01:04:14):
process where people were supposed to be invited in to
come up with ideas and to really flesh them out.
That's what allowed for that deep conversation about what does
it mean to have an election and have everyone represented?
How do we integrate or prioritize racial equity within these structures?
Can a winner take all system ever be equitable? It's
(01:04:34):
kind of like at odds with one another. And so
that's how they came up with this design of essentially
the Irish system. They ran a campaign to support the
recommendation that came from that city charter review process, and
they won fifty seven forty three. This is the first
city that has adopted this for the first major city
that has adopted this electoral system since New York City
(01:04:58):
did in the nineteen thirty So it's been one hundred
years of that kind of hidden history that it's been
kind of outside of our imagination. Colin, do you want
to say any words about like how things are going
at this point?
Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
Well, Also a lot of folks might be like, well, yeah, okay,
Portland did it, but like I've seen Portland, ya, it's
crunchy liberal hibbies who developed.
Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Damn, Kyle McLoughlin is a good mayor. That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
But if you talk to some of the activists and
colleagues of ours in Portland, what they would tell you,
and I think what like looking at the elections also
tell you is that Portland is like most major cities
in the US, and that that has not been the
people winning elections. The city council has largely been the
candidate's most preferred by developers and big business. Like George mentioned,
they are all folks from downtown or west of the river,
(01:05:44):
which is where all the really rich people live. Like
the established political I mean the political establishment that's entrenched
in Portland is the same as it kind of as anywhere.
And you know, one in four Portlanders is a person
of color. So like, yes, it's pretty white, but it's
not just like a white utopia like people might think
(01:06:07):
it's it is. It is a multiracial community. And if
Portland can do it, I actually think anywhere can do
it that at least on the city level. Like the
four of the five city councilors came out against the
reform when it was being considered. The former mayor came
out against it. You know, the Chamber of Commerce came
(01:06:27):
out against it, like they were fighting every single established
interest that existed, and they still managed to win.
Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (01:06:33):
And yeah, now they're doing it for the first time
that they just like made sample ballots public a few
days ago. And there are some other smaller cities in
America that are using proportional systems Albany, California, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Minneapolis,
Minnesota for their Parks and Recreation Board. And there was
one Detroit suburb that used it for a few years.
Because this is a weird story, but basically, the Obama
(01:06:55):
Department of Justice brought a lawsuit that the Trump Department
of Justice settled, and so under the Obama case, like
they adopted a proportional system to resolve a Voting Rights
Act complaint. But the Trump DOOJ said, you only have
to use this system twice and then you can go
back to the old system that violates the Foot and
Rights Act. So they don't use it anymore. But it's
(01:07:15):
not too at bats if they can't get it right
and make it permanent after to it, that's that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
You know, I don't know what we're doing here. Well, guys, Honestly,
I feel like we could talk to you for days
about this, and I can't wait to listen to the
next episode of your podcasts that drops here. How many
two episodes.
Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
In two of the third drops tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Third drops tomorrow. So there we go. Everybody should go
check it out. Wonderful having you and we'll have to
have you back. Where can people find you, guys and
hear more about all of this?
Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
So you can go to our website, which is Equitable
Democracy Org. We have a link to the podcast there
as well as it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify words
you listen. You can also find our organization on Twitter.
That's at Equitable Demo Demo on Twitter and at Equitable
Democracy on Instagram. I'm on Twitter at Colin J.
Speaker 5 (01:08:12):
Cole.
Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
That's c O L I N calling like Colin Farrell,
not like Colon Powell.
Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
There you go, and you have much more Calin Farrell
vibes than we saying before. Yeah we got on.
Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
Yeah he's Irish, so it's on brand.
Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (01:08:28):
How about you George on X George K Chung C
H E U N G. And definitely check out our
podcast The Future of Our Former Democracy on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
And we will link off to that in the footnotes.
Is there a work of media that you guys have
been enjoying.
Speaker 5 (01:08:44):
I'll start it's this fairly new couple that is on
X and TikTok called the It's the Peacocks. It's this couple.
Why I think that they're so interesting is that it's
the guy is from northern in Ireland and the women's
Chinese New Zealander, and they're all about teaching their kids Cantonese,
(01:09:07):
which is my parents' language. And the fact that there's
a white dude that speaks better Cantonese than I do.
I feel a little bit of shame because you know,
Chinese people, East Asian people in shame. We do shame
really well.
Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Number one.
Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Number one is shame baby.
Speaker 5 (01:09:23):
But there's only been in my life two times that
I've met a white person that has spoken better Cantonese
than I do. And for better for worse. They're always
Mormon missionaries, so God to love them.
Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
They they're putting, they're put in that work.
Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
They put in the work, so good job.
Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
That's like when I mean, yeah, like people like white
people speak Japanese really well, and like they live here.
I'm like, what's going on? Like, oh my my parents
are missionaries in Japan and that's why I speak Japanese.
Speaker 5 (01:09:49):
I'm like, wow, yes, they do the work.
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Yeah, what about you calling?
Speaker 4 (01:09:55):
So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stick with the
Warhammer thing. We already talked about the Warhammer books. H
But so I watch a lot of long form like
video essays. Sure, And there's a good one that's sort
of the the a good confluence of a couple of
my things. It's called People Make Games, and they, you know,
do longer form explorations of you know, video game industry,
board game industry. But they have a video recently called
(01:10:16):
the Games behind Your Government's Next War, and they dive
into how governments around the world are using war games
and building custom board games basically to test out foreign
policy and wars and oh, well, if if we were
to mobilize our fleet over here, knowing that we have
(01:10:38):
this economic relationship here, you know, Miles Jack, I'm gonna
have you go ahead and play China and let's just
let's just play a game and simulate what comes out. Yeah,
And it's this whole massive like government board game industrial complex.
It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Oh wow, yeah, I'm going to check that out. I'm
looking at the thumbnail of that right now. I'm definitely
gonna look at that.
Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Yeah wow. Okay, okay, right Miles, where can people find you?
Is there a work of media that you've been enjoying? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Yes, find me on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Gray.
If you like basketball, you can hear Jack and I
talk endlessly about the NBA on Miles and Jack got
mad boosties. And if you like ninety Day Fiance, like
I do to blow some steam off of the you know,
horror that is being on earth at this time, I
talk about ninety Day Fiance and the other podcast for
twenty Day Fiance. A tweet I like, is you know
(01:11:28):
the thing I love about like TikTok and stuff is like,
there's so much good recipe sharing, but alongside that you
get some people who begin to say, like their authorities
on the kinds of cuisines that might be a little
bit culturally specific. And this video, I just let me
make sure I have the creator's name right. It's from
Nathan underscore Ng and it's just a good sort of
(01:11:50):
side by side video and I'm just gonna play it
because it just kind of sums up like sort of
the tone on TikTok, but just how sometimes.
Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
We see these videos. This was also my work of media.
Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Really, if you're white to the Naked eye, but I
actually have Asian taste buds, I'm not.
Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
Sure what that makes me. It makes you a white
person that likes Asian food.
Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Helps I know it may be white, but actually Asian taste.
What does that say about me? Like ship? All right?
Tweet I've been enjoying Strange at Strange Harbors, Jeff Saying
(01:12:36):
tweeted is Todd Phillips punk? Is MasterCard a queer? Ally?
Is this TV show? My friend? I thought that was good,
Just summation of my internal monologue. Bullseye. You can find
me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien, you can find
us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily
(01:12:58):
Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and
a website Daily zey guys dot com, where we post
our episodes and our footnotes where we went off to
the information that we talked about in today's episode, as
well as a song that we think you might enjoy miles.
What song do you think people might enjoy it? Uh,
there's a there's an artist on TD Doci d O
E C H I I. And she's a dope MC
(01:13:21):
and artist.
Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
And you know, top Dog Entertainment always likes to find
some of the city's best and Doci is no different.
This track is called Nissan Ultima. She's just like a
great lyricist, has a total sense of humor about like
her in her lyrics. But is all just because she's
a great MC. Like you're just like, oh that was
a bar and funny and just overall.
Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Really talented artists. So check this track out by Doci.
It's Nissan Ultima. Yeah, shout out to Brian ed editor, Yeah,
get it right right? That all right? Well, The Daily
Guys is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio ap Apple podcast or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going
(01:14:02):
to do it for us this morning. We're back this
afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we'll talk
to you all then. Bye bye,
The Daily Zeitgeist News
Hosts And Creators
Jack O'Brien
Miles Gray
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