Thom Hartmann

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is progressive talk show host Tom Hartman,
who reaches seven million people a week. Tom, so great
to have you on the podcast. Great to be here
with you, Bob, Thank you for inviting me. Okay, you
talk to people all over the country every day, and

(00:30):
you even reach some foreign countries with your program. What's
the temperature of the country. Wow, that's a tough one.
I think that there's a uh, it's it's kind of
a confluence or a mixture of great dread and great hope.

(00:50):
I'm I'm seeing um and you know, given this is uh,
my biased perspective on things, but it certainly seems to
me that the GOP and the conservatives in the country
are doubling down on basically fear and and you know,
fear of other fear of immigrants, fear of black people,
fear of gay people, etcetera. UM, and and hate that

(01:14):
that is so often associated with fear at the same time,
and trying to block democrats from having any successes legislatively.
At the same time, we have, for the first time
in my lifetime, or at least not not in my lifetime,
but at least in the last forty years, we have
a president who is openly rejecting neoliberalism, and I think
that's a huge and important thing. Um that President Biden

(01:37):
is is calling out trickle down economics or economics, whatever
you wanna call it, and the damage that it's done,
the fifty fifty trillion dollar transfer of wealth from the
middle last to the top one over the last forty years,
the loss of sixty factories overseas. I mean, you know, so,
I think there's a lot of hope that things can
be done to put this country back together. Um, it's

(02:02):
it's a it's an extraordinary time, uh, you know, a
time of great conflict and great potential. Okay, what we
learned in two sixteen is I hate you words use
the word elite because it's now become a pejorative. But
the elite news media, the New York Times, the Polsters

(02:23):
were completely out of touch with the sentiment of the country.
And in addition, people tend to live in their own bubbles.
Someone like you talks to people from both sides. So
the question becomes are the Republicans those on the right
just more vocal or how strong are their numbers. I

(02:46):
think that the the the hardcore uh conservatives within the
Republican Party are are probably a relatively small percent of
our population. What they have going for them that the
Democrats don't have is that over the last forty fifty years,

(03:09):
they have built out a massive media infrastructure. Um, you know,
Ruper Murdock and Fox News. Of course, you've got a
billionaire with a billion dollar, multibillion dollar company that reaches
millions and millions of people every day. Um, you've got
fifteen hundred right wing radio stations in the country. There
are now some three hundred Spanish language right wing radio

(03:29):
stations in the country doing Spanish language versions of Rush
Limbaugh as it were. Um. There are literally thousands of
conservative publications on the internet, in many cases hundreds of
them each coming from you know, single companies and individuals.
Um A. You know. The simple fact is, if if

(03:53):
you're a billionaire and you're interested in not paying taxes
and you want to you know, hang onto your wealth
and all that sort of thing, and you and you
don't your company to be facing consumer regulations or environmental regulations, um,
you know, going to the right or supporting the Republican
Party you're supporting this kind of stuff makes sense, it's
an investment. Um. And so there's uh, you know, and

(04:14):
and going back to the early days of Charles and
David Coke, there has become this really large network of
right wing funders for things that that amplify these voices.
So I think that the the appearance of right wing
is um as it were, in the United States is
probably larger than the actual existence of it among average people. UM.

(04:37):
But that's not to diminish its impact on our politics
or on our nation. Um. On the left wing. You know,
it's it's a whole kind of different thing. It's you know,
there's not a whole lot of billionaires out there who
are saying, yeah, tax me moore um. And although there
are a few, and God bless them, but you know

(04:58):
that's my sense of Okay. So, and I hear from
these people all the time to say we have the guns.
Just wait. Yeah. So the question becomes and really it's
centered around Trump over we can say that he tapped
into something in America. Is this something we must fear
not only a vocal right, but an active right. Trump

(05:22):
said last week that, uh, if he is penalized legally,
you better watch out as people are gonna be angry.
Is that a paper tiger? Is that real? I think
it's both. Um, there's you know, a small number of
people who have a large number of guns. Um, when
you start looking at people on two or three more

(05:42):
more than two or three guns, the number becomes very small.
But the number of guns some of them on is
you know, like, uh, I get it that there has
been a stirring of the militia movement over the last
a few decades. When Tim they blew up in Oklahoma City,
it was supposed to be a call to arms to

(06:03):
these folks. He was running off the Turner Diary, which
continues to inspire that movement. The Turner Diaries is a
book in which a patriot blows up the federal building.
In this case, I believe it was the FBI building
in the book, as I recall, it's been a couple
of decades since I read it. And in response to that,

(06:26):
the government clamps down on gun ownership and on the
right wing movement. And in response to that, the good
white patriots rise up and and and there's a civil war,
and they kill all the black people and all the
Jews and you know, everybody that the right likes to
hate on. And in the end, you know that it's
now a white Christian country and they're standing there in

(06:49):
the in the in the in the blood and the Mud.
But they've rescued their nation and that and campus Saints,
this French book you have become the Bibles of this movement. Um.
Like I said, Tim McVeigh thought everybody was going to
jump in behind him. He badly miscalculated the time. And

(07:10):
in fact, for the next decade the militia movement really
took a hit because it was associated with Tim McVeagh. So, um,
then you know, after nine eleven it started, they started
getting their mojo back. There was a common enemy, uh,
you know, Muslims and brown people and foreigners, and uh,

(07:31):
that was a huge opportunity for the white racist, the
white supremacists to jump in and say, now we're the
ones who will save America, where the patriots will take
care of this. We're going to arm ourselves. And the
Bush administration kind of looked the other way, even though
their FBI came up with this extraordinary report in two
thousand eight on the right wing hate movement in the

(07:54):
United States and how dangerous it was becoming when that
report was issued in the first months of the Obama administration,
you recall by the FBI after they had issued during
the last year the Bush administration a similar report on
left wing through the Dangers of the left wing Extremism.
But when the one on the right wing extremism came out,
it's so inflamed the right and the Republican Party that

(08:18):
Obama pulled the report. Um so we've been kind of
flying in the dark, and I think it's just in
you know, basically since January six that the government you know,
certainly during the during the Trump years, there was no
support for anybody in the government who would be seriously
looking into this. The FBI had backed off, and uh so,

(08:39):
I think it's just really been the last year and
a half that our federal government is starting to take
seriously this this threat to America. Whether it's the kind
of threat that we should all be worried about, or
whether it's just the kind of threat that people like
you and I in the media, politicians, people the high
profile people need to worry about. I don't honestly know.

(09:00):
In the last the last killing in the media was
the America's number one progressive talk show house back in
the eighties. I believe it was Allen Burg, you know,
who was gunned down by a couple of skinheads in
the parking lot of his radio station in Denver. As
I recall, they made a movie about it called Talk Radio.
Whether you know that kind of stochastic terrorism is going

(09:23):
to happen again, I think that that's what Trump is
trying to encourage his calls to arms. I'm certainly hearing
a lot of rhetoric that sounds not just from Trump,
but particularly from Trump, that sounds like an open encouragement
of stochastic terrorism, of lone wolf terrorism. Um. But whether
it's going to materialize, and I mean obviously it already

(09:44):
is in many areas in many places, Whether it's going
to materialize in a way that you might call a
civil war, that you might call a you know, a
civil disturbance, I still think it's a very open question.
But Okay, So, since there's been an ongoing analysis of
who really is making up the Republican Party, let me

(10:05):
go a little bit further. Yes, rich people who don't
want to pay taxes have historically been Republicans, not all
of them, but a great number of them. But at
first when Trump won, there was the belief that it
was the dispossessed and the disadvantage who had moved to
Republican Party from Democratic Party. Then the word came out, no, really,

(10:28):
it was people with money, and the analysis of January
six was no, these were middle and upper middle class people.
They had means. Then we have St. Louis, the people
with the guns on their on their porch during the march.
Needless to say, they were notorious litigants, but they were
also upper middle class. Who is really in control? Is

(10:52):
this a lower class movement or a middle upper class movement?
By movement you're talking about the GOP are you talking
about Yeah, well, you know there's the like you said,
the natural constituents of the very the more midley rich,
as I refer to them, um, you know, who want

(11:13):
to just stuff their money bens um who I think
you know, some of whom are probably suffering from the
mental illness O c D, A variety of O c
D that's called hoarding syndrome. You know, had had they
not been born um generally white and upper middle class
or even wealthy, uh, they might be living in an

(11:34):
apartment that's Florida ceiling newspapers and tin cans. Um, so
you've got that constituency. The Republican Party has done a
good job over the last forty years since Reagan, um
of branding itself Reagan, you know, on his horse and
all that sort of thing. Really Um, the you know,
bringing in Nascar and and and these kinds of of

(11:57):
totems almost for the Republican Party. Um, you know that
was that was the Democratic Party's brand in the fifties,
sixties and seventies, I would argue, Um, so you've got
a lot of kind of Joe six pack types across
the country. Part of that, I think is also the
fact that in most states in the United States there

(12:19):
literally is not a single radio station carrying progressive talk radio.
You have to get it off serious six and and
yet there is not a single part of the United
States where there's not at least one and typically two
or more radio stations carrying right wing talk radio. So
there's this is some hobby horse of mine for years,

(12:40):
and it sounds self interested, but um, it's really not that.
I think the Democratic Party has ignored this media disparity
for years to their disadvantage. And you know, when we
were on air, America Are America was carried on on
fifty four Clear Channel stations, and then Mitt Romney's company
took over Clear Channel, and suddenly Clear Channels ations of
dropping their America left and right until to the point

(13:02):
where America couldn't sustain itself any longer. UM. You know,
so there's that UM I mentioned earlier. Now there's these
Spanish language right wing stations there. There there's an aggressive outreach.
Ralph Reed's group, Americans for Faith and Freedom I think
it's called UM just today announced that they're spending over

(13:26):
fifty million dollars reaching out to Hispanics, specifically on the
issues of hating on gay people and on abortion because
so many Hispanics are Catholic that that's a natural topic
for them to flip them Republican. So uh. On the
other hand, I think on the on the Democratic side,
you're seeing you know, the growth of both Union movement,

(13:48):
you know, among young people, people under thirty, there's a
huge take up of the Democrats. But but it seems
to me like the Republican movement UM does not largely
clue the people we were talking about a moment ago.
You know, the militia movement types. Um, although you know
Trump is embracing them, I'm not sure that most other

(14:10):
Republicans are. I'm not sure if that's if that was
what you were asking, Bob. I think that I think
that ultimately covered enough. Let me go to the next topic.
You happen to mention Reagan. You and me live through
that era, and there was a conscious effort by the
Republicans to lionize him, canonize, rename everything he is God.

(14:33):
Now recently we've seen something, you know, it's nowhere near
the size of the effort to do the same thing
with Obama. And there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with Obama,
and he got the A C A past. But this
was a guy who was trying to compromise with a
party that did not want to compromise. And I think

(14:56):
that some Democrats are lost in the pass. What is
your view about the Obama administration in those years. Well,
first of all, with regard to the Legacy project, the
Reagan Legacy Project was well funded. I mean, you know
a number of very very wealthy people stepped up. Their
goal was to have a building named after Reagan or

(15:17):
a statue made to him in every county in the
United States, uh, Andy, in every country in the world.
And they've met that goal. Um from re rate you know,
renaming Washington's National Airport to you know, putting statutes and
all of the place, renaming buildings, um to the best
finaledge is not something comparable around Obama. There there may

(15:38):
be an effort to promote him as a as a
great president or something like that, but I'm sorry, we've
got f fifteen or firty fives or whatever they know.
But there's been a lot of that going on. These
military jets have really picked up in the last a
few months. I have a feeling that has something to

(15:58):
do with what's going on overseas. In any case, UM,
my sense of the Obama presidency was that he was
um so sensitive to being called the angry black man
that he was very averse to any kind of conflict.
And as a consequence of that, you know, a lot
of things that should have been called out never did

(16:20):
get called out. And like you said, you know, he
was constantly trying to compromise with Republicans. Um. He also
was unwilling to to reverse or call out neoliberalism, and
you know, which I think was a great tragedy because
I think certainly by the time that he was re
elected in America was getting very close to this tipping
point where uh, we were ready as a society after

(16:42):
after almost forty years of the Reagan experiment, of the
neoliberal experiment, to reject it. And and frankly, I think
that's what put one of the things, along with the
little help from Russia to put Trump at the White
House in was that he explicitly campaigned against neo liberalism.
Trump's Trump was lying through his teeth on most of
these things, you know, saying he was going to raise
taxes so much that he'd get a nose bleeding his

(17:04):
friends who refused to talk to him. That he was
going to bring back union labor, that he was going
to have a healthcare program that gave everybody in the
country better healthcare than they've got right now for free
or for very little costs. That he was going to
make college affordable again, That he was going to help
support union activity. That he was going to bring back
our jobs to overseas. Every single one of those things
were absolute wise, but people bought them in. And you know,

(17:27):
because Trump basically appropriated much of Bernie Sanders message. Had
Obama done that four or eight years earlier, I don't
know if he would have had success or if the
country wasn't quite cooked enough. You know, I hadn't seen
the results of liberalism enough to to go along with
the repudiation of it. And uh, and the issue of race,

(17:48):
you know, complicated. A tremendous President Obama. I think he's
a good person, a good and decent man, and I
have a tremendous respect for him. Um. You know, I
was there at his inauguration, in fact, just about fifty
feet away from him when he was sworn in. It
was a great honor, and uh, you know, visited the
White House afterwards. But I really think that Joe Biden

(18:10):
is going to be the guy who goes down in
history as the as the person who finally turned us
away from the direction we've been going in the last
forty years. Okay, for the uninformed, can you give us
a brief definition of neoliberals. Yeah, neoliberalism. First of all,
the word liberal is means a different thing in Europe
than it does in the United States. Here in the

(18:31):
United States, it means what we might call progressive in Europe.
Liberal means what you might call conservative here or even
libertarian neil or liberal economics in Europe is leslie ferrets.
You know, hands off government, hands off, low taxes, no regulation,
no labor unions, no no, basically no government support of
anything other than you know, the courts, the army and

(18:53):
the police. And so in the in the forties, a
group of economists, including one American Milton Friedman, led by
ludrig O Nisus and Frederick Hayak, got together in Switzerland
and thought, you know, they were trying to figure out
how to how to harden the democracies of Europe and

(19:15):
the United States all around the world, but particularly the
democracies of Europe, so that they would never again either
flip communists like Russia had done with the Soviet Union,
or flip uh fascists like Germany, Italy and Spain had done.
And being economists, they kind of fulfilled the old Abe

(19:35):
Maslow quote. You know, he said the famously said that
when the only tool you have as a hammer, every
problem in the world looks like a nail. Um. They
figured that economics would solve all things, and so they
came up with this idea of the new liberalism, the
neo liberalism, and basically here are the major bullet points
for it. Number one, that the market should be the

(19:57):
ultimate decider of basically everything. That is a billion decisions
being made in the marketplace every moment of every day.
As we're speaking right now, Bob, there's probably a thousand
people who are trying to decide which brand of orange
juice to buy. All those all that data, all that activity,
UM is something that is so far beyond the ability

(20:18):
of any politician or bureaucrat to understand or have or
know that they could. You can never you can never
replicate it. So therefore the market has the wisdom and
the market should be making the decisions number one. Number two,
because of that, a government regulation, which is an interference
in the marketplace, should be absolutely minimized to the point

(20:39):
of virtual irrelevance. UM. Deregulation is a massive part of neoliberalism.
One of the reasons that Reagan tried to gut the
Environmental Protection Agency by putting Neo Corsus just mother in
charge of it. I mean, she ended up in a
terrible scandal I think involved bribery or something like that. UM.
But you know going after that. Another is that labor

(21:01):
unions are an interference in the marketplace, inappropriate interference in
the marketplace, and therefore labor unions should be basically turned
into social clubs. Another is that corporations should be able
to seek the cheapest labor anywhere in the world rather
than just anywhere in the country, and therefore we should
not have national borders when it comes to the ability

(21:22):
of corporations to do that sort of thing, which is
generally known as free trade, so called free trade. Another
is the social safety net programs, medicare, social security, unemployment benefits,
that these are all interferences in the free market and
distortions of the free market, and therefore we should do
away with the social safety net. Another is that any

(21:43):
any function the government is doing outside of the military,
and even the military and police functions and court functions,
even those should be privatized the extent they can, which
is why today half of our defense budget goes to
private corporations. Privatize everything you can. Another is that monopolies
uh in business and that massive wealth inequality are actually

(22:04):
symptoms of an economy that's working the way it should.
They are signs that those who have made it through
the Darwinian process in the marketplace and proven their worth,
their brilliance, their competence, are succeeding. They should be congratulated.
And then the corollary to that is that taxes should
be very very low on those who are the winners,

(22:24):
the ones who have succeeded. And this is why today
the average billionaire in America is paying about three percent
income taxes, and you know, by half of your major
corporations in America paying nothing in taxes. These are all
the symptoms of forty years of Reagan and neoliberalism he
adopted that they started selling in the fifties. The major
sales person in the United States is Milton Friedman Um.

(22:47):
And Reagan was the guy in eighty one who basically
said we're going to reject Kanzie economics, Adams Smith economics,
and uh and we're going to go with with Milton
Freeman's neoliberalism. Okay, let's focus on one specific element, which

(23:07):
is globalization. Certainly under Clinton, that train left the station.
So what do we know. There's been proven time and
again that Americans are cheap. Okay, they'll buy the ticket
on Spirit airlines with no perks, and they'll run to
gain on the plane and they'll fight to put the

(23:28):
stuff on the top, and then they'll bitch about it.
Or certainly there are add ons with concert tickets, and
stub Hub experimented with a final price as opposed to
putting all these add ons at the end, and they
lost business. So the question becomes, you know, there's so
many items. Remember this first with VCRs, VCR was a

(23:49):
thousand dollar item, and then not long before their ultimate obsolescence,
there were less than a hundred dollars. So if you
tell people, you know, if you do all this manufacturing
in America, yes, that would solve theoretically if pay was
high enough the income status of those people working there,

(24:09):
we create jobs. But is the public willing to pay
that much more money for their products in order to
build local business. Well, it depends on you to find
that much more. I mean, you and I are both
old enough to remember what America was like before we
had neoliberal trade policies, and you know, Walworth was full

(24:30):
of cheap stuff. I remember in the early nineteen eighties,
we've moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and there was a brand
new Walmart down the street. And there was a giant
banner on it made in the USA. That was Sam
Walton's big selling point, and it was filled with cheap
junk that was made here in America. Labor is not
that much of the cost of most manufactured goods. Uh.

(24:53):
You know, it might add to three, four or five,
maybe as much as six or seven percent to the
cost of or be the you know, percent of the
costs of things. But but labor is typically not and
and and the costs are complying with environmental regulations is
not that great. The bottom line is that corporations, by
manufacturing over offshore or overseas and you know, using two

(25:16):
dollar an hour labor labor or whatever it may be
instead of fifteen or twenty or thirty an hour labor
here in the United States, have been able to massively
inflate their profits. But there's you know, I don't believe
that bringing manufacturing home is necessarily going to make American

(25:37):
enterprise is uncompetitive, although I do agree with Alexander Hamilton
that the way to and with the Chinese, that the
way to do that is and with the South Koreans
and the Japanese and the Europeans, is that the way
to do that is with a tariff based um global
trade system. You know, Alexander Hamilton's eleven point plan was brilliant.
It built America. It was abandoned, uh, you know the

(26:00):
nighties and and and you said, you know Clinton, with Clinton,
that train left the station. I think it's important to
note that it was Reagan who was advocating free trade
from the get go, because it's part of the neoliberal agenda.
It was under Reagan that the Gentel Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade was negotiated. I believe, um they produced the
gap that led to the World Trade Organization. It was

(26:21):
under the Reagan Bush administration. Ultimately, the George W. Or
hw Bush administration finished the negotiations, the negotiated NAFTA. That
was not Bill Clinton's invention. That was George Herbert Walker Bush. Um.
Clinton just signed on for it. And and in large part,
I think, frankly, he had no choice. I mean that
was that was the point at which the Democratic Party

(26:43):
had been defunded by Reagan's destruction of labor unions in
the United States. And so you know, there is an
interesting history there that we can get into if you want, Bob.
It's kind of a discursion, but um her digression. Let's
just stay on Clinton for a second. Did Clinton had
he no choice but to undercut the social safety ned

(27:06):
or was that just a choice he made for political advantage?
I think both really step back a little bit. In
In nineteen seventies six, the Supreme Court, in the Buckley decisions, said,
for the first time in the history of the United
States or any developed country, that if billionaires want to
owned politicians want to give politicians enough money that basically

(27:29):
those politicians are beholding to them, and those politicians vote
for things that the billionaires want, or even introduced legislation
on behalf of them. That's no longer called corruption or bribery.
That's now called free speech. And that money is no
longer considered to be money. Money is now considered to
be a form of speech. That was a radical decision.
Two years later, in a decision written by Louis Powell himself,

(27:52):
the first National Bank versus Frank Billatte decision, the Supreme
Court said that that also applied to corporations. So when
that happened, the Democratic Party was fat and happy. They were,
you know, a third of America was unionized. Roughly the
unions were washing cash and they were the major funders
of the Democratic Party. The Republicans not so much. So

(28:13):
the Republicans just jumped into that with both feet, and
Ronald Reagan floated into the White House on a tsunami
of oil industry and and and other big, big corporate money,
but particularly the fossil field industry. He then took an
axe to the unions and over the next twelve years
cut unionization in the United States so much that in

(28:36):
ninety two when Clinton was looking at running for president,
and al From writes about this in his book You
Know where he talks about him going down to Arkansas
and hooking up with Bill Clinton saying, let's let's figure
this out. When he was going to run for president.
There just wasn't enough money from the unions to support
that kind of thing. So basically Clinton, you know, the
Democratic Party was at a crossroads. The Internet was not around,

(29:00):
at least not the way it is today, so they
couldn't raise money on the internet. Direct mail would never
have worked to raise enough money to run for president.
So the Democrats decided at that point, okay, you know,
the unions aren't here for us like they used to
be we'll start taking money from corporations. We'll just do
it from the clean corporations. We'll get in bed with
banks and insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, and we'll leave

(29:20):
the steel and the chemicals and the and the oil
companies to the Republicans. And you know, as part of that,
basically this whole new Democrat movement. The third way that
Clinton and al from came up with was that the
Democrats would embrace neoliberalism, they just make it a slightly
friendlier and neoliberalism than the Republicans were embracing. And so

(29:42):
you know, Clinton just also was promoting the that list
of tenants of neoliberalism that I gave to you earlier,
and obviously one of them is is dial back the
social safety net. He wasn't willing to kill it altogether.
He five year term limited essentially, which produced an explosion
in childhood poverty down the road. Uh. And but he did,
as as you point out, you know, declare, this is

(30:04):
the end of welfare as we know it, and this
is the end of the era big government. And you know,
these were the neoliberal statements. I think that at the
time Clinton believed that maybe neoliberalism actually wasn't. Maybe it
would work. You know, it really had only been tested
in Chile's Pinochet Pinochet's Chili, and that was you know,

(30:25):
everybody said, well, that's an aberration. The guys that dictator.
Of course, he's going to kill people to get his
thing going. So it was still unknown. Okay. Steve Jobs
famously had the distortion reality field such that he got
you to listen to him. You could see no other
way in your particular case, even someone who follows these

(30:48):
topics very quick closely. You have a very convincing way
of making the argument, illustrating it with points from history,
from points from books. Why is there no equivalent politician?
It certainly isn't. Schumer Pelosi is a little bit better.

(31:10):
AOC has been somewhat ostracized. Bernie's Bernie has been great
in terms of getting the message out, whereas on the
Republican side, whether they're saying truth or falsehood, they have
a whole narrative that we just don't hear. On the left, Yeah,
Sheldon white House actually is doing a great job of
exposing a lot of the structure on the right. But

(31:33):
I think that the whether this is the point you're
trying to make Bob or whether you're just awakening this
in me. I think that storytelling is the key to
the whole thing we are as human beings, We are
story machines. We love stories. We learned through stories. The
way the culture has been transmitted in human society's for

(31:55):
three hundred thousand years, as long as we've been on
this planet has largely been through stories. And before writing,
oral traditions were entirely story based. Um. You you go
back and look at some of the old Native American stories, like,
you know, the one from the Abenaki that I learned
when I was in her mad about you know, a
little boy who went out the woods and was going

(32:16):
to solve all the world's problems with a magic stick
and he ends up, you know, having an interaction with
a skunk. And there's all. It's a whole long story,
and I'm not going to go through it right now,
but the bottom line was that built into that story
was the idea that you must always know where you are,
how not to get lost, how to know directions, how
to you know what to do if you get sprayed
by a skunk. Um, I mean, there's just like all

(32:37):
these cultural stories built into it. And we have these,
you know, we've been passing them down for for a
long long time. The little boy who cried wolf that
you know, the little boy who I identified, the King
with no clothes. Um, these are the ways that we learned.
These are you know, story is just so important and
your Republicans have been pretty good at telling stories for

(32:58):
years and donk ats frankly, I think the need to
get better at it. Um. I tell a lot of
stories in my books on my show. UM, I think
that it's an important way. Anytime you can wrap a
lesson or a point in an example which is a story, um,
and and and expand that to the point that you

(33:19):
know it can be there's some ability to identify it.
I think you're going to do a better job of
communicating that, but not just communicating, and communicating in a
way that it will be remembered. Because people remember stories,
they very rarely remember data and details. Okay, what do
we know? The ratings for twenty four hour news channels

(33:40):
on cable are insanely low, despite all the publicity about them,
Network TV News, Appointment News, Although they're appealing to a
very elderly audience, although that audience does tend to vote
at a higher percentage rate than those who are younger.
So prior to the Internet, there was this incredible power

(34:05):
most noted although I've been forever most noticeably harnessed by
Rush Limbaugh. What is the power of talk radio today?
Less versus TV, but visa the the Internet. Well, on
the Internet, talk radio has been largely reinvented as podcasts,

(34:25):
And I mean, you know, this is the space that
you're that you're living in, and I think it's very powerful.
I think podcasts have become a major piece of our
of our cultural fabric in one of the ways that
people people will get a lot of information and learn
a lot of things. Talk radio itself, Uh, you know,

(34:46):
don't get me started. Um Limbaugh was was a genius.
I mean he was brilliant at doing talk radio. Michael
Savage is brilliant at doing talk radio. There's a there's
a there's a couple of people out there who are
Glenn batt is very good at doing talk radio, brilliant.
And they're all storytellers. That's what they do. They tell stories.
And when we started our show back in two thousand three,

(35:09):
we we spent a lot of time. I mean, you know,
dozens and dozens of hours listening to all the talk radio,
all the right wing talk radio we could find it,
and trying to break down, you know, every hour, what
are these people doing? How are they doing? And what
are they do? And and there's actually a formula to it,
and um, you know, and it's a it's a it's
a fascinating one. Um, but I'm not seeing I'm seeing

(35:35):
less and less good competent talk radio being done, both
on the right and the left, frankly, and more and
more because talk radio is such an interactive environment. It's
such a you know, I'm talking to you, it's like
a phone call. It's it's it's not. You know, television
is this cold medium. And Marshall McLuhan wrote about this,
Television is cold medium. It's like you're you're looking at

(35:57):
somebody's picture window. You know, you're it's warrior is in Essentially,
radio is not. Radio is a very hot medium. It's
right here, it's right in your ear. It's it's it's
it's I'm, you know, one person having a communication with another.
When I go on the air, i am I always
imagine I'm only talking to one person. That person changes
from minute to minute, you know, and call her to caller.
But I'm only ever talking to one person, and increasingly

(36:21):
I'm I'm hearing you know, people on the right talk
radio hosts who are just you know, doing polemics and
talking points, people on the left who are doing the
same or just doing the interview radio, which is not
talk radio. Interviews were great on podcasts, um, which is
a slightly different medium, but we talk radio. I think
that the the basic tenets of the medium which were

(36:45):
developed in the nineteen thirties by father Kauflin originally, and
that Limbaugh reinvented for the eighties after you know, the
death of Alan Berg, who kept him going through the
sixties and seventies. UM, those those talents of talk radio
are still very powerful. And if you do it well,
and you and you tell stories and you talk to individuals,

(37:08):
you can build a fairly powerful medium. And like I said,
i'd right wing talk station talk stations all across the
country and some very effective talk hosts on the right. Um,
don't don't underestimate the power of this to influence American politics. Okay,
let's take a snapshot today though, because Tesla's if I

(37:29):
haven't right, come without a M receivers. Although AM may
go away and everybody be on FM, but we have
a younger generation who wants everything on demand. And I
know in your case you have all your product on demand.
But it's talking specifically about radio. Is this a growing

(37:50):
or shrinking market? Does it have to be reinvented to
beyond demand or is it just old people listening to
real time talk radio? Well? I think that, you know,
radio has historically been a listen to it in the
car medium, and uh, an awful lot of talk radio

(38:10):
is moving off AM stations and onto FM stations, by
the way, Um, just you know, it's just happen. I
probably half the stations I'm on our FM stations and
and the same as happening, you know, even in the heartland.
Although uh, you know, most people in Wyoming are not
driving tests driving Ford pickup trucks and they've got AM radios,

(38:31):
I guarantee it. So I don't know if that answers
your question or if I mean speaking you know, if
we look talk about music, which is inherently short form,
and the days of DJ's telling long stories, creating theater,
the minor long gone. There are occasional exception. Okay, younger
generations statistically do not listen to terrestrial radio. They're used

(38:55):
to getting what they want on demand, and there are
a lot of advertisements. Is this a dying medium? And
if you have a voice, you ultimately have to segue
whether it be the podcast or some other means of
distribution on demand or is the marketplace irrelevant w R
to M ref M, is it still strong? And is

(39:18):
it only strong with older people or young people adopting
Those are all great questions, and I would, uh, first
of all, referring to Michael Harrison, who publishes Talkers magazine,
who's probably could cite chapter in verse and statistics right
at the top of his head. I don't have that,
but my sense of it is that talk radio took

(39:39):
a big hit with the advent of podcasts in the internet.
UM Limbaugh came out with his Rush Limbo dot com
website and his Limbaugh podcast. UM, I'd have to go
back and look. I don't recall when, but you know,
at least a decade decade and a half ago, um
and figured that out. And I think most people who

(39:59):
have any of an audience on talk radio or doing
the same thing. You know, certainly I do, UM so
that you can hit multiple markets. But I think you're
I think you're right that that radio has diminished as
a market overall. UM. That said, I've you know, our
our our audience, I think over the last few over

(40:21):
the last decades, certainly has been fairly stable, if not
grown significantly. UM. So you know where the industry is going.
I'm not sure, but uh and and I think that
you know when you're looking at UM, I think demographically
that slicing and dicing of it is really important that

(40:43):
that if you're looking at rural areas, radio is still
very very strong. If you're looking at urban areas and
suburban areas, probably radio is a much smaller factor outside
of the commute, outside of rush hour, and even there
you're seeing podcast. Take a take a good white out
of radio. Okay, let's talk about you specifically. Your distribution

(41:05):
is almost incomprehensible. You're on commercial stations, you're on serious
x M, you're on public stations. What is going on? Well,
when we started the show back in two thousand three,
we were on a little network that was owned by
the U a W. At the time was called uh

(41:26):
I e America Radio Network and we were on twenty
seven stations and Serious X down or a Serious at
that time, Serious Next Time we're competitors. And as they
that network went away after a couple of years. But
as the show grew, UM, we wanted to add the

(41:46):
ability of people to expand the ability of people to
hear the show, and so UM I think probably around
two thousand six or two thousand seven, UM, we started
offering the show to nonprofit station, community radio stations, community
TV stations, UM, uh NPR stations, whatever, you know, any

(42:07):
any nonprofit station who wants that. We bought a second
automation system for our studio so that we could have
a clean stream that didn't have any commercials in it.
We insert, UM, you know, nonprofit compliant content where the
commercials are so I at the top of the hour,
I do a book report for example, just read an
excerpt from somebody's book. Um, and while the commercials are

(42:27):
playing on the commercial side, and you know, we got
pretty good pick up. We got syndicated through the pacifica network,
which is substantial. It's got hundreds of affiliates. Were on
the Pacific Audio Ports. So that we're available to any
any Pacific station. UM. Then, as podcasts started picking up,
and this was maybe a decade ago, UM, we added

(42:49):
a staff person to chop the show up and put
it up as a podcast and and got on Apple
Podcasts and other podcast platforms. UM. About maybe fifteen years ago,
I'm not sure when um, the CEO of Free Speech
TV dropped by my studio to talk to me about

(43:11):
something completely unrelated and it was about a nonprofit that
he wanted me to be on the board of and
we had to talking and he said, uh, you know,
why don't we try stick in a webcam you know,
here in your studio and putting it on TV and
see what happens. And at that time, free Speech TV
only had one live show, which was Democracy Now with

(43:32):
Amy Goodman. Everything else was, um, you know, documentaries, and
it was a fairly small audience. And so we stuck
a webcam at my studio and suddenly caught an audience,
a TV audience, And then you know, free Speech TV
started growing and they added Randy Rhodes's show, and they
end and Stephanie Miller's show, and they added you know,
a bunch of other programs and so and the TV

(43:55):
network has grown and it's now on you know, Roku,
and it's on Hulu and it's on TV and it's
got its own web presence and it's ondish and it's
undirect and you know all satellite receivers and uh so
it's just it's just been you know, Bob, over the
over the over the nineteen years we've been doing this.
It's like every time it seems like, hey, there's a
market we should be in. You know, American Forces Radio

(44:18):
was looking for a balance to Rush Limbo because they
were getting complaints from soldiers who didn't want to hear
just right wing radio. And so you know, they carry
an hour right wing programming. They carry an hour on
my show and have for I don't know, well over
a decade um. So it's like, you know, you look
for opportunities and you know, it's it's a it's a business.
I'm running a small business. Okay, so let's a business.

(44:41):
Their economics of the business. What are your personal economics?
I mean, you know someplaces, you know, it's fascinating if
people listen to on a commercial station, they'll hear ads.
But if they listen to the streams after the fact,
certainly on public stations they won't hear at So what
are the economics of the business. Well, it's it's uh,

(45:01):
it's it's operating on a whole bunch of different levels. Obviously,
on the commercial side, you know, we make money selling advertising. Um,
that's probably half of our total revenue of how we guess.
On the nonprofit side, uh, with regarded free speech TV,
we we get a small percentage of the fundraising that
they do on our show that I do with the
pictures that I do for them. UM, so that's not

(45:22):
a loss to us that that you know. In fact,
we've got a full time video guy now that covers
you know that that covers so that we can provide
them with a television quality product. Um. With our podcasts,
we sell advertising on the podcast that's a revenue source.
Are nonprodud. The only area that we don't directly monetize
our the Pacific or radio stations because there's really no

(45:44):
way to monetize them outside of doing fundraising. And for those,
we've got a Patreon channel where you can get the
station to get the show and uh, you know, we've
got enough donors through Patreon and we explicitly say right
on it that this is this supports our ability to
deliver this show to our nonprofits radio stations, the Pacific

(46:04):
radio stations, and the revenue from Patreon covers those expenses
and a little more actually, which is great. So you
know we're able to pay our employees well and do
a good program. We're not you know, I'm not rolling
my money been here, but I'm not complaining. How many

(46:24):
Patreon subscribers do you have and how many people on
your payroll? I don't know how many Patreon subscribers we have.
I'm sorry. My my webmaster handles that, and I haven't
frankly even looked at the Patreon page probably two years. Um,
it's probably a couple of thousand. I just don't know.
Um with regard to uh or it might be over

(46:46):
a thousand. Frankly, I shouldn't even throw numbers out because
I'm so disconnected from that. Um. What was the other question?
How many employees? Oh? We have? I have three full
time employees who uh Sean who produces the show and
does runs the Audioboardinate who does the video production, and
me Um. I have a part time employee another producer

(47:09):
who works on guests and putting stuff up. We have
a couple of people who work force part time down
in Texas who cut the show up for the podcast.
I've got a web master in Tennessee who does the
technical end of the of the of this. Uh you
know that that we pay every month. We've got a
webmaster in London who is an old friend. He's worked

(47:30):
with me for over thirty years now. We used to
run forms and compy Serve together. Nigel Peacock who handles
all the content of our web and runs Tom Hartin
dot com and hartminer Court dot com. I've got a
person who publishes our daily newsletter, which has a list
of every story that I talked about on the air.

(47:51):
It's free, it's advertising supported. It's over at Tom Hartman
dot com. That's so. She lives in the UK. Also
she used to work with us and compu Serve and
and uh. And I've got an engineer who you know
who I pay. Um. All those people are basically part
time or or kind of a piece work kind of thing.

(48:11):
I'll early or whatever. But so that's that's our stuff.
It's been well established that most people are living in
silos today. Certainly the New York Times become a pejorative.
Even though the right tends to get all their basic
news from the New York Times. Tend the New York Times,

(48:34):
they won't read it, So everybody is listening to their
people will only read the New York Times. Do you
feel that you're preaching to the converted at this point
you've been doing in a long time or do you
see it as job? Do you ever feel like you're
banging your head against the wall. What's your personal viewpoint? Well, all,

(48:56):
welcome to our business right, but uh, no, I know
that UM largely on certainly on the Pacific stations, I'm
preaching to the convertaive, I'm talking to people who have
I've looked for a left wing outlet and are listening
to it. On Serious ex M, it's a very different animal.

(49:17):
I mean, you know there are there are two or
three conservative channels on Serious XM, and there's one liberal
channel and uh and then the Urban View, which largely
serves as an African American audience, which tends to be
more progressive. But UM, people are channel flipping on Serious
ex M and I get a lot of conservative callers there,

(49:38):
and it's been fascinating over the years how many of
them have stuck to me, have stuck to the show,
and some of them are still calling in and arguing
with me, which I love. My my favorite thing in
the whole world is debating conservatives. And uh, it's getting
harder and harder because increasingly the high profile conservatives are
no longer come on my program. They used to all

(49:59):
the time. You know, I get even more and and uh,
you know John Bolton and all these guys on the
you know, the last five seven years, they just won't
do it because they've got such a great echo chamber
of their own. You know, why bother trying to go
beyond that? UM on our terrestro radio stations, the AM stations,
it's it's a little bit of both, although it tends

(50:19):
to be more of a of a progressive audience. And
on the podcast, I'm assuming that I'm talking to people
who are more aligned with me, but I'm not really certain.
It's not a medium that gives you that much feedback. UM. So,
can you change somebody's mind? Or do you believe you're
changing anybody's mind? I I think I'm doing a couple

(50:40):
of things. Um. Number one, I'm providing people with validation.
You know, you know you're not crazy. Um, here you
know I agree with your worldview, and here let me
give you some some details to fill that. So number one,
I think a lot of people tune into my show
and to any podcast or radio show, but it's political
looking for validation of their world Um. The second is

(51:02):
I think I'm giving people ammunition to win what I
call the article or wars. Um. You know, they've got
the guy who sits next to them at work, who
listens to Limba all day, who wants to debate where
they've got you crazy Uncle Ralph who comes to the
Thanksgiving dinner and can't stop talking about politics. And they
want to have you know, the one liners to shut
them down, or they want to have the deeper understanding
of the issues so they can get into a meaningful

(51:22):
discussion with people, and and I try to provide that, um.
And then probably number three would be that you know,
I'm hoping to change people's minds. And I put that
at number three. I mean I would put it at
number one if I thought enough people who aren't progressives
who are listening to me. But I put it at
number three simply because you know, most of the conservatives

(51:43):
who listened to my show do so by accident, you know,
like I said, the channel flipping um and uh so
you know, the opportunities to change minds are much more limited. Okay,
you say you love arguing with conservatives, what do you
love about it? I find that debate is and and

(52:03):
and you know, let me just say right up front.
I I my favorite activity in high school was debate
class after the extracurricular debate um and and part of
that is my dad. My dad was a historian. He
wanted to be a history professor. I came along and
he had to drop out of college and ended up
working in a tool and die shop his whole life.

(52:24):
But he had twenty thousand books in Spaceman and most
of them probably a third and more history books. He
was a complete history junkie. And my and he was
a Republican. Told the day he died. In fact, when
he died, I was sitting with him in his living room.
And as he died and and and I looked at
over across him and there were these his two favorite

(52:44):
pictures on the wall, me shaking hands with Pope John Paul.
The second and George W. Bush on the deck of
the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln under a mission accomplished banner. Um.
My dad and I when I was a teenager, fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen years old. First of all, when I was fourteen,
we went door to door for Barry Goldwater. Well, I
guess I was thirteen in nineteen sixty four. Um. And uh,

(53:08):
my dad never left that world, you know, I did.
By the time I was sixteen, I had become an
anti war hippie and a liberal. UM. And my dad
and I used to get in these knockdown, dragged, knocked down,
drag out arguments when I was sixteen and seventeen. UM.
And through that because we both loved each other and
we're both well informed people who don't take debate lightly. UM.

(53:34):
Through that we learned, both of us, and my dad
taught me this, and we used to watch the Joe
Pine Show together. We used to watch Fire in Line
together with William F. Buckley. Um. We learned how to
have debates where there was not blood on the floor
when we were done, you know, debates that you could
walk away from and shake hands. And it's a it's

(53:56):
almost an art form as much as a skill as
much as a science, and I've been able to bring
that to my show, and I think fairly uniquely. I
don't think that there's a lot of liberals out there
who who go out of their way to try to
debate conservatives. I mean, it was the hallmark of my show,
probably for the first ten years of the show. Three
days a week, I'd have conservatives on and we'd get

(54:17):
into long, long form debates. I probably said it's gotten
much much more difficult to get anybody who is wanting
to come on the program anylonger. But um, I just
I love it. I you know, part of it probably
echoes back to my childhood with my dad. Um. But
I do think that if you want people to understand issues,

(54:41):
spectators to understand issues, listeners to understand issues, one of
the best ways to highlight issues is to have a debate,
to have both sides present everything they can bring, all
their ammunition to the table, present all their arguments and
all the history for their arguments, and and then you know,
the let the audience decide who won the debate. I'm

(55:02):
not so interested in whether I win or lose. My
My interest is in informing people educating people and and
you know, not that I'm some high flute educator here,
but that's my goal. My goal is for people to
walk away from listening to a debate that I've had
or an argument, whether it's with a caller, which happens
more and more of these days, as opposed to guests,

(55:23):
sadly or a guest you know, with more information, um
so that they can then you know, bring that into
their lives in a way that's useful. Okay. When we
were growing up in the sixties and seventies, the issues
were really debated. Whereas Trump we can see with the

(55:44):
Latitia's filing just the other day, he's just lying, lying
and lying, and the people who are aligning with them
are lying. So what are you doing a debate If
the person is just telling untruths, you call them out
just to say, I'm sorry, that's bs, you know, back
that up, give me, give me, give me something to

(56:06):
to to to, you know, to believe that what you're
saying is true, because it doesn't make sense to me.
That's pretty straightforward. But okay, so let's go back. The
problem is that the people who rely onlines, you know,
the Trump's, they will not engage in it, They will
not participate. I mean, you know, Trump goes out of
his way to have any any protesters removed and beating up.

(56:27):
It's like it's the antithesis of debate. Okay, but let's
say we're in that uh classic situation you referenced earlier.
It's a family dinner, it's Thanksgiving, You're gonna be around
each other a few hours. What do you tell your
listener how to debate and engage that uncle. Now, for
years and a lot of people say no politics on Thanksgiving,

(56:50):
but certainly there are people go there anyway. So assuming
someone from your audience is encountering that situation, what would
you tell him? I would tell him that family is
more important than than politics, and that and that love
is more important than winning an argument. Um that. Uh,

(57:10):
you know, when I debate politics with neighbors or with family,
because people are constantly trying to bait me. Basically, Um,
I'll make my point, I'll make it gently, and uh
if they go on a rant trying to knock down
my point, and it's a b S rant or whatever,

(57:31):
or it's a rant that I don't think has much
of validity, rather than humiliating them by pointing that out
or embarrassing them, I'll just say, you know, I guess
we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this, and
you know, from time to time I'll even do that
on the air. Again, I'm trying to to to role
models for people as well as I can. Okay, my experiences,

(57:53):
no one will change their viewpoint during the debate, but
they might go home and think about it and change
their opinion. As you said, the majority of your listeners
lean left. But if you had the experience with anybody's
debated on the year, whether it be a politician or
someone who calls in where they you connect with them later.
So who you know, I've really thought that, you know,

(58:15):
maybe you're right. I have a handful of regular callers,
probably a dozen or two who over the last a
couple of years. Uh, three of them I can think of,
just in the last three or four months who called
in because they were listening to right wing radio on
Serious ex M. In most cases, one of them was

(58:36):
on our Chicago affiliate and um, you know, looking for
right wing stuff, they found my show. Um, they found
it interesting. They called me up to argue with me. Um,
you know, I had debates with them that were respectful.
I mean, occasionally somebody will just be so offensive that
you just slapped them down, but generally not And um,

(58:58):
and now they call the show regularly. A number of them,
i'd say, all but one of them no longer call
themselves conservatives or Republicans. I've you know, I've seen them change,
and I'd like to think that it's because the information
that I'm presenting is actually factual. I will not go
into a debate unless I really know what I'm talking about.

(59:20):
I'm not going to present information. I mean, maybe this
is the author in me. You know, I get editors
who are you know, your line editor goes through your book,
and you know, every single point I make, I have
to back it up or the publisher will not put
it out. And and uh so you get pretty rigorous
about those things. Um. But you know, I I will

(59:42):
hope that they are becoming regular listeners and are changing
their politics, not just because I'm very persuasive, but because
I've actually marshaled truth or what they've perceived is truth. Okay,
let's talk about party affiliation. There's certainly die in the world.
Democrats died in the world Republicans. But I have found,

(01:00:04):
certainly since the rise of the right wing, that the
vast majority of people who call themselves independent are really Republicans.
They just don't want to be in the debate. What
has your experience been, It's been the same as yours, Bob.
Of the people who calling to my show and say,

(01:00:26):
I'm in the parade, I just vote for the person.
I don't vote for the party. I don't damn about
the Republican partyment, but them damn immigrants and yeah, yeah, absolutely,
they're they're bashful Republicans. Yeah the when was the last
time you voted for Democrat? And they go, they can't
think of one. You've led quite a peripatetic life and career.

(01:00:49):
How did you end up in talk radio and staying
with talk radio, because if you look at your career,
you tend to jump, you know, from advertising, therapy to
all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm I'm a probably because
I'm an a d h D person, I said. I
wrote a couple of books about it. Actually, I have

(01:01:10):
been a serial entrepreneur throughout my life, I Louise, I
have started a number of businesses, five of them that
were you know, consequential and did fairly well. And uh
because back when we were first married, uh, we were
reading the novels of John D. McDonald's at the Travis
McGee Novels, and you know, his whole thing was, I'm
not going to wait until I retire to enjoy my life.

(01:01:32):
I'm going to take my retirement while i'm young in
pieces and so are. The agreement that we had and
we got married was that, you know, every five years
or so, we would take a year off and and
explore the world. And you know, thank god, we've been
able to do that. We build a business up, we
sell it off, we live off that for a year
and there's enough left over to start another business. And

(01:01:52):
you know, we did that up until ninety seven. And
in ninety seven I sold an ad agency in Atlanta,
and Louise and I had built and on a seven
year buy out and so we had a real cushion,
you know, a seven year cushing plus some retirement funds.
And I figured that's a bit. You know, I'm retired now,
I'm gonna write books and just have a good time.

(01:02:14):
And then George Bush became president, and by two thousand three,
I was convinced that he represented a threat to our democracy.
That his policies, you know, his his going after Iraq
and Afghanistan, on inappropriately unnecessarily lying US into the war
in Afghanistan. Um, torturing people, Um, you know, just breaking

(01:02:37):
American law. Just it just maybe nuts. And so I
wrote this piece. I wrote this article in the in
early either late two thousand two or early two thousand three,
and published it on Common Dreams. I had started publishing
op eds on Common Dreams starting around two thousand and one.
Common Dreams is a well known progressive website, common Dreams
dot org. And um, you know these these short op

(01:02:58):
eds rants as it were. And in two thousand three
I wrote one called talking back to talk radio and
it was about how you know half the country is democratic,
half the country's republican, all of the radio stations are republican.
Why is nobody programming uh democratic radio? And um uh

(01:03:20):
showing you need to drop me who were venture capitalists
in Chicago called me up and said, hey, uh, this
is an idea. This is great. We would like to
use your article as the initial business plan for a
new radio network that we want to call our America
Radio can you come out to Chicago and talk to us. Well,
a little bit slower because a lot of people say
it just happened. Just to be clear, you just published

(01:03:44):
one article, someone tracks you down, that's it. You were
not putting out feelers. You did not say in the article,
I want to be in the radio game. Just somebody
called you out of the blues. That the way it
really went down that act. Actually, yes, Now in the article,
I did point out when I was young, I did radio.
I I when I was sixteen, I was you know,
I started in radio at sixteen in commercial radio on

(01:04:06):
w I t L on Lance and I was a
DJ at a country Western DJ for a couple of years.
I did rock and roll, I monster around a few
radio stations. I ended up doing news back at w
I t L for seven years until and so I knew,
I know radio, I knew the business. I know how
it works. And I said that in the yard, and
uh so, you know, it wasn't like I was just

(01:04:28):
some guy who wrote a piece. I mean, there was
some credibility there. But anyhow, they came to me and
they you know, and I flew out to Chicago and
I told him that I had some problems with their
business plan, and uh, but they were looking for proof
of concept. So Louise and I called the all fourteen
or so of the radio stations in Vermont. We were

(01:04:49):
living in Mont period at the time, and said, uh,
you know, wait, wait just one second. As someone who
went to college Vermont, spent a lot of time in Vermont,
why Montpulier, we just wanted to live there. Those are
Mont Peelier is its own backwater in Vermont. It's the

(01:05:10):
capital city. You know, it's in the north. You know
what you you just I mean mont Pelier. If you
think about living Vermont, that would not be the first
place most people would choose. Well, actually, we first moved
we bought an old B and B in Northfield, way
back in the woods, had a half mile long driveway
up the side of a mountain. There was dirt road. Um.

(01:05:33):
And then we sold that after a couple of years
and moved into into into town in aunt Pelier because
we were just missing, you know, being able to walk
to a restaurant or something. And the winners they are
pretty pretty brutal. But anyhow, so we called, you know,
all the radio stations in Vermont and we we found
this one station in Burlington that where the guy said, yeah,
I'll give you. I'll give you two hours on a
Saturday morning if you want to do a test runt

(01:05:54):
on progressive talk radio. I mean, that was my pitch.
I you know, I'd like to I'd like to prove,
you know, this proof of concept and if it works,
you know, you can carry the show. And if it doesn't,
you know, nothing ventured, nothing gains. You can still adds
on the show and maybe I can get your audience
for you. And so he put us on. Bob written
his last name. He put us on after the after
the swap meet. So about half the calls I'd get

(01:06:15):
were you know, is that John Dear three twenty still available? Um?
But it was good practice and uh and ed Asner
was kind enough. We had a mutual friend and uh.
In fact, he blurbed my book on healthcare a little
while ago, um before he died. Um. Ed Asner did

(01:06:36):
an interview with me and we took that and some
of my rants and we sent it off to that
network that I was telling you, I America Radio Network,
and they picked up the show. And that was when
we went from being this little tiny thing on this
one station in Burlington, Vermont that had probably thirty five
people listening, who half of whom were piste off at
the swap Meeat wasn't still on to actually be in

(01:06:57):
a radio show. It took Air America a couple of
years to get their act together and get their network going.
And during that period of time, I was just building
my show. So that's you know, and it started. It
wasn't we we funded the entire thing ourselves for the
first four years. We didn't. We didn't break even until
about the third or fourth year, um and and and

(01:07:19):
you know, over the years we've made that money back,
but that was coming out of our retirement money and
or what was intended to be our retirement money, because
I thought it myself was retired and I didn't expect
it to last more than four or five years at
the very most. I you know, I was just trying
to prove that it was possible to do if you
follow the rules of talk radio, and they're not complicated,

(01:07:40):
and they've been around since the nineteen thirties. If you
follow the rules of talk radio, you can be just
as successful as a Democrat as you can as a Republican.
Given there's enough radio stations to carry you. And that's
the big kicker right now, is that the big networks.
I had I said at the office of the United
States senator with the billionaire owner of one of the
big three radio station conglomerates, you know, the owner of

(01:08:05):
about nine d radio stations, and the senators said, you know,
why don't you put some progressive radio on your stations.
You've got three stations that are carrying right wing radio.
And the guy said, uh. And I've never seen a
senator literally had their mouth fall open. And when somebody
says the guy says, I'm never gonna put anybody on there.
I wants to raise my taxes, just like It's just

(01:08:28):
that simple. And yeah, So you know, we've got a
we've got a structural problem in terms of progressive or
democratic talk radio. But there's no there's no question that
you can successfully do progressive talk radio. I've been doing
it for nineteen years and I'm making money. Okay. If

(01:08:57):
one looks at your website and follows through, you're doing
three hours of radio a day, You're writing opinion columns,
you're writing books. What is your schedule such that you
can accomplish all that well and let me have the
pandemic has helped. Um. My schedule is Louise and I

(01:09:19):
get up at five thirty in the morning and we
put together that day's show between five thirty and roughly seven. Um.
You know, uh, Sean may have booked a guest, if
we've got a guest, and you know, we'll do the
research on that. But basically we're going, you know, we
just will read ten or twenty news sites and come
up with what are the what are going to be
the main themes for each hour and you know, what

(01:09:42):
are we going to talk about? And I, you know,
I go into the studio and we go on the
air at nine. This is all Pacific time. We go
on the air at nine and we're on until noon. Um,
you know. For the next half hour, I do you know,
I'll read ads for sponsors and just do whatever needs
to be done, you know, to to clean up the
the business. And then I leave the studio. Sean and

(01:10:03):
Nates stay there and Nate produces all of our stuff
for YouTube and everything, and Sean puts together stuff for
the podcast. I come home and from one until five
every day I write my bed that we published at
heart and report every morning. Um and uh. And then
my I write books on weekends, Um, all day, all
day Saturday, all day Sunday. Uh. You know, I'll take

(01:10:25):
a break for meals or to visit a family and
things like that. Um and and you know I've written.
I've been writing all my life, and I've been writing
for publications since the mid nineties, and so I'm pretty
good at it, and it, you know, it works. I've
been I've been these this new series of books, the
Hidden History series. The new one is the Hidden History

(01:10:47):
of Neoliberalism. There are thirty five th word books, that's
half the size of a normal book, and so banging
one of those out of every six months is kind
of the equivalent of writing one real book, one major book,
you know, a nine hundred thousand word book a year,
which is what I used to write, and I've always
been able to produce one a year kind of in
my spirit time. Okay, you talk about writing your O

(01:11:10):
bed from one to five? Hey, how much is that
as research? And I consider research just reading the news.
You know, you might also ultimately go to check facts
or to find certain information out. And to what degree
is it a chore to write every day or every
day you say, you know, I got a formula, get

(01:11:30):
myself in the right mindset, and I can just bang
it out, you know, I I have to. This is
kind of one of our our rules of life for
for my wife and I is that you know, we
do what we love doing, and when we stop loving
doing it, we don't do it. It's just um and
and so it's the same way with the writing. I mean,
I've got to write about stuff that I really am

(01:11:52):
inflamed about, that I really care about. And I think
that that's you know, just wise anyway, because otherwise you're
not going to produce something that lights anybody else, you know.
So when I come home, Louise and I have lunch,
you know, typically a twelve thirty and um, and then
I come up here to write at one and you know,
our job during that thirty minutes just to figure out

(01:12:14):
what the topic is going to be for my op
ed that day. We have a little uh web based
uh wiki page on which we keep all of our
ideas for future op eds, and we still see articles
and stick come on there, We'll have a conversation and
we'll stick that on there, you know, on our smartphones, um,
And so we'll refer to that page and we'll look
it over, and we'll look over the news because we've

(01:12:35):
been doing that all day with the show, and figure out,
you know, what's the rent today going to be about.
And then I come upstairs and typically the first hour
or so before I start right, you know, I'll outline
my piece, what are the major points I'm gonna make,
and then I know what I need to know to
back up the points that I'm going to make. And so,
you know, from one to two, basically I'm doing research, um,

(01:12:57):
you know, bouncing around the Internet or looking through books
that I've got or whatever whatever sources I need to find.
And sometimes that takes two hours. Sometimes it only takes
twenty minutes. It depends on the topic. There are a
lot of topics that I can write literally off the
top of my head. There are others where I really
have to do a lot of research. I did a
piece three or four weeks ago about how militious are
illegal at every state and the Union and have been since,

(01:13:19):
uh you know, the eighteen eighties, and nobody's enforcing those
laws and private militias, and that took probably three hours
of research and that day I was writing until six o'clock.
I missed Chris As show. So oh and then you
know the rest of the day, you know, after after
I get done writing, I go downstairs. Louise usually has

(01:13:40):
dinner ready at five, and we'll watch chriss As on MSNBC,
and then you know, Alex or Rachel after that, and
then we knock off. We go upstairs and we'll watch
some show on you know, Netflix or something, or or read,
uh you know, or or visit people and uh, you know,
it's just you know, I turned off my phone. I'm sorry,

(01:14:01):
I didn't turn off my watch. I don't know how
to do that. Um, so that's our day. Any uh
specific Netflix or other streaming show you're hot on. Uh,
we just finished watching The Sopranos, because there's you know,
the old Sopranos, which you never saw because we didn't
have a TV back then in the in the late nineties,
um in early two thousand's, and and because I guess

(01:14:25):
there's a sequel coming out that we were curious about.
But you know, I've got a list of this on
my phone here that I can my binge watching. In
the last year and a half, or two years. We've
watched the Sopranos, Silent Witness, mcguyber FBI One, n C
I s I, Yellowstone, Snow Piercer, Monk, Yellowstone, Hawaii five O,

(01:14:45):
the Original, Uh, Colombo, McMillan and wife. We went back
and watch those. Um what we do in the Shadows,
Person of Interest, Bones, Secession, Silent Witness, Good Fight, Billions,
Father Brown, Death in Paradise, The Finder, C s I, Miami.
I mean it's kind of Game of Thrones, Outlander Killing Eve,
Magic City, Dot Martin, Blacklist. Yea, we get an idea

(01:15:07):
of your taste. Going back to books, Although you get
a certain amount of publicity, except for the huge bestsellers,
historically books sell very few copies. What is your experience been?
Is more of a labor of love? What's the motivation?
I uh, that's a really good question. Bob I ernest

(01:15:33):
him anyway once said, ah that I don't remember the
exact quote. It's been so many years since I even
thought about it, but he once said, basically, UM, as
an author, you gained a certain little bit, tiny little
bit of immortality. UM. Sometimes I think about my writing

(01:15:54):
as the stuff I hope my grandchildren will discover. They
probably won't, but you know, I mean I used to.
After my dad died, I discovered some of the letters
that he wrote home when he was in the army
during World War Two, and it just tore me up,
and I realized how much I had lost. I wish
I had had those kind of insights into my grandparents

(01:16:16):
and even great grandparents. So, you know, in a way,
I think I'm I'm writing for posterity, as it were.
In a way, I've got things that I want to
say that I think are important, and writing a book
is a great way to do that. Um. You know,
it's it's provided me with some income over the years.
A couple of books have done very very well. Um.

(01:16:38):
You know, I've got a couple of books that have
been print for literally decades. One of them is in
print in nineteen different languages. Um. You know, it's sold
a lot of copies. Um. So, uh, you know, it's
something I like to do. It's something I'm good at.
My mother was an English major at m s U.
And she was a frustrated writer. She tried to write
children's books when I was young and kind of modeled

(01:17:01):
for me the self discipline of writing and um and
I often think of her, you know, sometimes I think
I'm writing to her, um so and and In fact,
my parents gave me a portable typewriter when I was
ten years old, and my dad, when I was thirteen,
first year of junior high school, demanded that I take

(01:17:23):
a typing class because my typing was so atrocious. And
I was in this class with like twenty eight girls
in me, which was just humiliating, embarrassing. Um you know
it was, and but it was the best skill I
ever learned. I'm so grateful that my father forced me
to do that. So now I'm much more effective. You know,

(01:17:46):
I can write, I can type really fast, and I
can write better. But I just love doing it. I
really love writing, just like I love doing radio. I
had the same experience with typing. I mean, especially computers
came in knowing how to type some believable So in
our conversation you've mentioned it asner, You've talked about politicians.

(01:18:07):
Are you okay? In Los Angeles? It's a world of networking.
Traditional fiction authors tend to be isolated. Where do you sit?
Do you like the incoming people track you down? Or
do you go out of your way? To have relationships
with Ed Asner, You famously have a relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio.

(01:18:31):
With politicians, where do you sit on that. I'm an
odd duck, although I think that I'm probably the norm
for radio, but I'm definitely the exception for television, and
that is that I'm an introvert. I'm basically a shy person.
I don't speak up. I'm intimidated by crowds. I get

(01:18:51):
panic attacks in in cocktail parties. I hate cocktail parties. Um,
you know, you put me in a room with thirty people,
I can't deal with it. Put me out of stay
in front of five thousand people. I have no problem.
I can do that well. I have learned how to
pretend to be an extrovert. Um, But if I've got
to make small talk, I don't know how to do it.
We went to an h O A meeting here in

(01:19:12):
the neighborhood where I live a couple of nights ago,
and I basically ran out of there as soon as
it was over. And I'm on one of the committees.
I should have stuck around and played politician. I can't
do that. I make a lousy politician. I don't know
how to shake hands with people and and and do that.
It frightens me and intimidates me. So and I think
that that's common in radio. I got to know Larry

(01:19:33):
King before he died, and he was another, you know,
in an introvert who knew how to pretend he was
an extrovert. And I've heard that Russia Limbaugh was like that.
I know for a fact that Michael Savage is like that.
I don't know him, but I know we have friends
in common. Um. So, my my social circle is really
quite small, and I have never tried to network with anybody,

(01:19:55):
you know, to advance my show or my books or
anything else. The friendships that I've made over the years
that might appear to the high profile, you know, like
Ed Asner or Leo DiCaprio or whatnot, Um, we're kind
of accidental things that that. You know, Leo read one
of my books and his mother reached out to me,
for example, and uh, you know, I invited him on

(01:20:17):
my show and and and we just kind of hit
it off, just the two of us, you know. So
I'm probably to my detriment that I'm that incompetent in
that area of being, you know, the gland handing networker.
Let's talk about Ed or Leo. You have a moment
of connection. They're doing the show where there's a project.

(01:20:37):
Do you have any social contact beyond maybe once a year?
How you doing? That's that's largely it. I mean, you know,
Leo and I have worked together on I think six projects,
three three or four short little ten fifteen minute uh
YouTube videos that live, you know, little movies that on YouTube,

(01:21:01):
and three or four larger longer you know, full length.
These are all about climate change, um. And so you know,
when you collaborate on those things, you get to know
people a little bit better. UM. But mostly it's you know,
if I'm in town, hey, how are you. I've become
very close friends with his father. I think of George

(01:21:23):
DiCaprio is one of probably my ten best friends, you know,
in the world. And you know, like I said, my
social circuit was very small. George and I talked regularly, UM,
which has nothing to do with Leonardo UM, just because
you know, we we have We're kind of really similar
people in a lot of ways, and I just you know,

(01:21:45):
sometimes you just strike it off with people, and you know,
with Ed um when he was married to Cindy. You know,
we used to get together when I come to Los Angeles,
you know, for business whatever I had to do. Um,
But you know, I don't think we've probably had dinners
together more than I don't know, ten or fifteen times.
But you know, we keep in touch. You know, there's

(01:22:06):
a few other people who are real high profile. I'm
not big into name dropping, but you know that I
that I stay in touch with largely because they reach
out to me from time to time. How about politicians,
same story, Yeah, yeah, I mean Bernie was on my
show every Friday for eleven years, and uh, you know

(01:22:26):
I got to know him well as a consequence of that,
but we were never social friends. Bernie is all about business,
you know. Uh, and God blessing for it's I think
it makes him effective right now. Ro'canna and Mark pokaner
on my show regularly. They you know, we have conversations
and email from time to time, but you know we're
not I'm not networking with them or nor are they

(01:22:47):
with me. I don't think. Um, we're all about the mission,
as it were. Okay, so you do your show very frequently.
You know who your audience is. Anybody who's in doing
a performance that frequently tends to know what their audience wants.
To what degree or you beholden, which I know is

(01:23:10):
a strong word to your audience, or to what degree
do you say, Man, it's my show. I'm gonna do
whatever I want. Where do you sit there going this
maybe a little much from my audience or and then
I'm not gonna want to hear this. Are you talking
in terms of topics or are you talking in terms
of you know, styles slash uh production. I'm talking topics.

(01:23:35):
Oh okay, well you have I mean, you know, the
basic rule of any any kind of media is never
violate your audiences expectations, or if you do, do so
in a way that is ultimately satisfied with them. So
i'd say in that regard, you know, I'm i'm largely
you know nine well over holding to my audience inasmuch

(01:23:57):
as if I lose my audience, I'd have a show.
Um that said, my audience is largely ah, thinking the
same way I am. They're just looking to me for
data and entertainment, presumably, um and uh yeah, I mean

(01:24:21):
there are times that I'll bring topics up. For example,
I'm I'm fascinated by spirituality. I was really into spirituality
when I was young. Um. I took acid when I
was fifteen, and it changed my life. I mean it
just And I got real into into this one particular
church in my later teenage years in early twenties, and

(01:24:45):
even got ordained in that church. I I just you know,
I was into the esoteric philosophers, into um kind of
New age stuff. I went through a aread of meditation,
transcemental meditation. I still meditate, you know, I although now
I use a uh near feedback headband to meditate. Um.

(01:25:11):
But it's a big deal for me. It's a big topic.
It's a big part of my life. I literally pray
every morning. And you know, occasionally I'll go off and
ran about that on the air, and in particular on
my affection for Jesus's words in Matthew, you know, the
parable of the sheets and the goats and the and
the Sermon on the Mount and uh. And I love

(01:25:33):
it when, particularly when some conservative will call in and
try to promote their vision of Christianity has been consistent
with Donald Trump or something like that. And and I
can I've read the Bible four times cover to cover
I did it, frankly, as a way of getting to sleep.
I've always had trouble sleeping my whole life. And I
if you got these through the Bible in a year Bibles,

(01:25:56):
you know where it's predivided into three sixty five slices
and you read one every night. And I found that
they just put me to sleep. I mean, you know,
it's it's just perfect for me. It unwinds me. And
so for four years in a row back in the
in the in the eighties and the early eighties, I
read the Bible cover to cover, so I can I
can argue those things pretty effectively. Um. So you know

(01:26:19):
that's not progressive talk radio at all, although I think
Jesus was the original progressive so arguably it is, I suppose. Um.
You know, I don't talk very much about my drug
experiences as a young person on the air, although I
acknowledge them. I'm not ashamed of it. In fact, I think,
you know, it was a good thing for me. Um,
but I'm not recommending it to anybody else who's certainly

(01:26:40):
the age I was done. Um. So you know, I
guess my answer is kind of wishy washing your bob.
But um, but I think that you have to keep
your audience in mind. Certainly, it's not just you know,
this isn't I don't have a radio show just so
I can, you know, yell into the into the void.

(01:27:06):
Let's go back to some of the issues. Let's talk
about the war in Ukraine. Needless to say, many people
thought that uh Putin in Russia would just run right
over your Ukraine. That did not happen, however, And these
scenes change every day, so it'll be a week before
people will hear this, and you never know something major

(01:27:29):
could happen. But I mean, is like Putin literally losing power.
We saw how these things happen overnight, and there have
been all these protests and he's conscripting people now. But
Putin historically doesn't want to lose face. So relevant of
Ukraine's cap capabilities and successes, one might say Putin is

(01:27:56):
never gonna tuck his tail between his legs and say,
I love, how does this play out? I don't know.
I mean, I'm very concerned about this. My my sense
of it is that Putin, very much like every other
dictator run who runs on narcissism um, knows that if

(01:28:18):
he loses or if he's seen as being weak. Basically,
the thing that keeps him in power is that everybody's
afraid of him, and that he's and that he's perceived
as being essentially infallible. Um. This was the engine on
which Mussolini ran, Hitler, ran Franco ran To, Terita ran
are Towan is running right now. Um. I mean this,
this is the dictator's playbook. Is You've got to have

(01:28:40):
people afraid of you. You know, they can love you
and respect you, but fearing you is the most important thing.
And people only fear you if they see you as
essentially omnipotent or or you know, unbeatable and so Putin
I think has already passed the point where the image
of him as as this uh invincible man on horseback,

(01:29:04):
bear chested, has been shattered. And I don't think he's
going to recover from this, whether his own government, you know,
whether he's going to face a palace coup, whether he's
going to decide okay, it's time to check out and
I'm just going to retire to my datcha with by
mistress and had a billion dollars, or whether something you know,

(01:29:25):
far more terrible is going to happen to him, or
whether he's gonna like Hitler did in his last days.
I wrote an not bet about this. Actually a couple
of weeks ago. Um a good friend of mine, a
dear friend of mine, armand Lehman Arman and I m
back when Louis and I own an ad agency. I
used to travel the world teaching advertising and marketing in
the travel industry, and Armand was doing that. We both

(01:29:48):
worked with the same company. And uh, you know, we've
probably been to twenty countries together and spent a lot
of time on airplanes and hotels. And one day and
Arman had this German accident. And he's about fifteen years
older than me. And one day Armand uh It took
me aside and said, I'm I think I'm thinking about

(01:30:09):
it writing a book about my experience as a young person,
and I wanted to tell you about it. I haven't
talked to anybody about it, So what is it? And
he said, well, when I was sixteen years old, I
was drafted into the Hitler Youth and it was and
I was the courier who hand delivered the note to
Adolf Hitler that the war was lost. If you've seen
the movie Downfall, that little kid who comes in, a

(01:30:31):
sixteen year old kid who hand that was my friend
Armand and and and and that began a whole brand
new kind of conversation between arm and. Armand wrote his book.
You can find it on Amazon right now. It's called
In Hitler's Bunker. And Armand has now passed away. But
m Armand told me those stories of the Hitler's final days,

(01:30:53):
and that Hitler in the you know, when it became
evident to him that he was losing maybe a few
weeks or a few months out, he actually welcomed the
Allied destruction of Germany. He felt that the German people
had let him down. He at that point he hated
the German people because they had failed him. He hated
the German army because they had failed him. He had
ordered his army to blow up Berlin. You know, at

(01:31:16):
least a cording to army. I mean, I haven't checked
this with history, although years you know, we lived in
Germany for a year in the eighties, and I've read
the Assurer's book The Rise and Fall the Third Reich.
I just don't remember the details of that. But um,
I'm concerned that Putin might have that same mentality of
I'm going down in flames and I'm going to take

(01:31:37):
somebody with me. You know, this is this is what
you see with these people who go out and kill
ten people and then commit suicide. I'm going to go
out and blaze of glory. Um. You know the kid
in Newtown. It's the same mentality. It's this, it's this
deep psychopathic narcissism. And if Putin decides that he's going
to go down in flames and bring a whole lot
of people with him, that might mean nuclear war. And

(01:31:59):
that's the thing that makes that wakes me up at night.
That's the thing that concerns me the most. Okay, recently
there have been elections and the right made as they
used the term populus, which many people used to think
was a left term. It is now certainly a right
wing term. In Sweden, they've made progress. In Italy they

(01:32:22):
made progress. They're threatening in France. Certainly, we have our
own situation in America. What do you think explains this?
And are we going to come out the other side?
Never mind Orbon and Hungary, but what's happening here? Well,
I think actually Orbon and Hungry is instructive because Orbon

(01:32:43):
built his political empire. I was in Hungary the the
year that Orbon came to power. Um Orbon built his
political empire on trashing brown Skian immigrants coming to Hungary.
His slogan was, you know, build the wall, make Hungary
great again, and a campaign down building a wall on
the southern border to keep up the Syrian refugees. And
by the way, he did, he built that wall and

(01:33:05):
it's heavily militarized right now. So uh, I think you
know the like for example, about Sweden, most people don't realize. Um,
just day before yesterday there were three bombings in Sweden.
That's there have been more than five hundred bombings now
in Sweden in the last in the last five years.
It is a crisis in Sweden. And almost and and

(01:33:28):
and shooting. Sweden now has more shootings than any other
country in Europe. And almost all of this is coming
out of the immigrant community that was welcomed when when
you know, the Arab spring happened and then you know, uh,
what's his name, bushsher Al Assad was you know, well,
actually what started the whole thing was climate change drove

(01:33:48):
all these farmers off their land in northern Syria. They
came into Damascus, started demanding food, assad started shooting at them.
Suddenly you've got a civil war, and now you've got
this refugee crisis going into Europe. The ability of a
society to absorb people who are not recognizable by other
people in that society, either because of how they look,

(01:34:09):
or how they speak, or or how they how they
dress and live is limited. I mean, there's been a
lot of good research on this. You know, a society
can absorb one or two percent a year of people
who are quote not part of the society and integrate
them into the society. But when you start absorbing three,
four or five, the society starts to reject that that

(01:34:31):
you get this backlash, and that backlash takes the form
of what looks like racism, and in many cases it
is it's just playing all avert racism or xenophobia. But
you know, it might not have been there had there
not been or it might not have been taking that
form had there not been that that influx of new people.
And I don't think that we're any in close to

(01:34:54):
those kinds of threshold numbers here in the United States
of refugees and migrants. But Fox News and the right
are doing their best to try to convince people that
were at that point. You know, there's a caravan coming right.
Every election, every two years, there's a border crisis because
it will stir up you know, fear and hate, and
fear and hate are great motivators to get people to

(01:35:15):
the to the to the polls. So I think that
there is um a crisis that has to do with
this issue, this immigration issue um or the refugee issue.
I think it's going to get a hell of a
lot worse over the next five years as climate change continues.
I mean, we're seeing Guatemalan refugees on our southern border

(01:35:36):
because you know, a measurable and significant percentage of that
country has desertified in the last decade, has turned in
from farmland into desert because of climate change, and people
are being pushed off subsistence farms and there's no place
to go, and they go into the cities, and the
gangs just you know, make mins need out of them,
and so they flee to the United States or they
flee into Mexico. Mexico is dealing with a huge influx

(01:35:56):
of crisis level influx of migrants from Central America. So
I think that this is this is going to be
a longstanding issue, in a longstanding crisis. I don't see
any easy solutions to it. It fractures societies, and it
plays into right wing narratives and stimulates because it frightens people,

(01:36:18):
it stimulates uh, you know, right wing political movements which
are typically based on fear or on hate and uh
and and very often hands victories to right wing movements
as it just didn't sweep. Okay, the Republicans are all
on the same page. They line up. We certainly have

(01:36:40):
seen this with Trump. People said Trump was the worst
and then cow tow to him. Democrats they say, it's
a big tent. So we have a president who is
essentially eighty okay, uh, not even a boomer pre boomer.
And on the other extreme we have someone like AOC. Now,

(01:37:03):
of course we have to look at AOC is elected
as a representative in a district in the state of
New York. But she is very verbal and vocal. In
the last major election cycle, she said, if you leave
me in control, I know how to deal with the Internet.
I know how to stimulate the younger generations to vote. Now,

(01:37:26):
not all the examples were in her favor. What do
you tell because we have traditional Democrats, as I mentioned earlier,
Schumer and Pelosi, who are trying to go to the center,
and the narrative created wherever is you must run to
the center. Never mind, the center is further right than
it's been in our lifetimes. But do we follow AOC

(01:37:51):
is it about the youth? Do we move to the
center or what are your thoughts? I think it's important
to do both. I think that we have to acknowledge
that there are people in what might be called the
middle who are concerned about crime, who are dealing with homelessness.
I mean, we're certainly we've got this problem here in

(01:38:12):
Portland right now, and it's it's radicalizing the city. Um,
the homeless crisis and which has become now a crime crisis.
I've even seen it. You know, we had homeless people
try to break into our house. Um, this is something
that you can't deal with with slogans. You've got to
deal with policy. And and that policy isn't oh, you

(01:38:34):
know you poor people were going to uh, We're gonna
let you do whatever you want. Um, which could be
perceived by some people as kind of a right wing position.
I think it's a little more pragmatic. Um. And I'm
not offering specific policy instructions here other than to say,
it's just you can't have people camping on the streets

(01:38:54):
of cities. UM. So we've got to come up with
something better than that. But there are people out there,
oh no, no, almost rights, right, And I agree almost
people should have rights, but not to camp in the
city or in the streets of the city, and and
and crap them on the curb. So you know, that's

(01:39:14):
that's about as far right as I But you know,
we have to acknowledge that, um, and and that you know,
there are those kinds of concerns. And then on the
other h on, you know, on the left, I think
that um, you know, issues of civil rights and women's rights,
human rights, I think right across the board. Uh, I

(01:39:36):
think broadly speaking, often these are winning subjects. The Republicans
have found little niches that they can amplify into great
big things. Um. You know, so called critical race theory um,
which just got blown all out of proportion. Um. The
very very small number of trans kids who want to

(01:39:57):
compete in girls sports, trans you know, trans girls who
want to compete in girls sports. Um, that they're exploiting.
And I would not argue that the Democratic Party should
put those issues front and center. They still need to
stand up for the rights of those people. But you know,

(01:40:18):
the Republicans are going to be campaigning on those things,
so you know, we have to figure out how to
deal with that. I don't see easy answers, Bob. I.
I think that Alexander Cassio Cortez is is her generations Bernie,
and she's going to go a long, long way, and
she's got a lot of good people with her, you know,
the other members of Congress squad um. But there's others

(01:40:39):
in addition to that. But you know, there's also you know,
you've got Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and some you know,
some very older people, people their sixties and seventies who
also have, you know, things to say and things to
contribute to the conversation that are not inconsistent or incompatible. UM.
I'm very pleased that the Democratic Party seems to be
coalescing around basically four issues around abortion, guns, the environment,

(01:41:04):
and the threat to democracy that the Republican Party represents.
I think those are winning issues that from the far
left within the Democratic Party to the to the neoliberal
right within the Democratic Party. The Josh Gottheimer's and the
Democratic Party. Um, there's a there's an agreement, a spectrum
of agreement, and and that's a good thing. Okay. I'm

(01:41:27):
someone who voting absolutely every election, although I've had some
hope with recent events. Certainly we have this Kennon decision
that was just overturned by an appeals court. Two of
the judge were Trump appointees. But we know the Supreme Court.
I'll make it very mild leans, right, So what do

(01:41:49):
we know? The Republicans are willing to do things. It's
so far the Democrats have not. So if you undermine
the system, it is hard to succeed. Why should I
have hope? You know, we talked about this little bit,
you know. You know, I look at this. The electoral

(01:42:10):
power is balanced to the advantage of right. The Senate
is balanced to the advantage of right. Never mind jerrymandery,
and I want to go deep into that. Look what's
happening in North Carolina. Look at the ultimate arbiter is biased,
you know. And all I hear from politicians is vote, vote, vote,

(01:42:33):
And it's hard for me to get excited about that.
You know, I just don't see it that way. That's enough.
I'm not sure where your question is. My question is
to those of us who've been in the system for
a long time and the young people, how do we
have hope that there's gonna be systemic change? Oh? Yeah, well,

(01:42:57):
I I am hopeful that the Democrats. I I thought
that the Chuck Schumer should have blown up the filibuster
on day one. There's been so much good legislation that
came out of the House that could have passed the Senate. Um,
Chuck Schumer has been a big disappointment in many ways.
Now that said, he's running the Senate and I'm not.
And I'm willing to assume that he knows things I

(01:43:19):
don't know. But UM, I'll leave it at that. UM.
I think that you either have faith in democracy or
you don't. You either believe that in the end, the
good guys you're gonna win, or you don't. And I'm
just not willing, and I have never been willing in
my life to embrace the level of cynicism necessary to

(01:43:42):
say screw it. You know, we're doomed. It's not going
to work. Um. I I realized that the Democratic Party
moves slower than I would like. Um. You know I've
been banging on their doors since uh two thousand three,
on the radio and in print since the nineties. UM,
railing about it. I used to, you know, beat up

(01:44:04):
Harry Read on there all the time, make jokes about how,
you know, they should steal Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is
when Schwartzenerger was governor of California. How somebody should stand
outside his house, you know every month when the testosterone
mail delivery arrives and steal it and go shoot up
Harry Read with it. You know, come on, Harry, get

(01:44:25):
a spine, you know, fight back. Um. He was always
so nice and so friendly and oh, we can't do that,
and that would be too far. Um. Yeah, he was
a good man in retrospect. And you know, I don't
want to speak ill of the dead, but um, the
Democratic Party has, all throughout my lifetime, has always been

(01:44:46):
the party that says we're going to do things the
right way, We're going to do things the appropriate way.
We're going to do things, UM carefully and and and
in so many cases slowly, to make sure that the
outcome is strong and all it and that there's a
consensus around this. We're not just going to grab power
for the sake of power. The Republican Party is pursuing

(01:45:07):
that ladder, grab power for the sake of power and
get whatever you can done quickly. And now they've overreached,
you know, particularly with abortion, but I think they've overreached
frankly with neoliberalism as well over the last forty years,
although Democrats have their fingerprints all over that too, and
um and I think it's going to blow up in
their face. I don't know if it's going to blow

(01:45:28):
up in their face in this election or over the
next few years. But I really think that the era
of Republican dominance of American politics, or more appropriately to
say conservative dominance and now neo fascist or as Biden
was say, semi fascist dominance of our of our politics.
I really think that's over. I think there's something to

(01:45:49):
be said for you know, Stanley church In's notion of
these forty year cycles within the context of Strausson House
eighty year cycles in politics, and I think that we're
at the end of a forty year conservative cycle and
we're going into our beginning a far more progressive cycle. Okay,
Biden gets an office, first six ten months are great.

(01:46:13):
Then the works are gummed up and the approval ratings
go down, and his whole party does not rally around him.
The right has been on this program from the beginning.
He's old, he's senile, all this other stuff. The left
was silent. And now two years later, Biden has some victories,

(01:46:33):
his numbers are going up, but the people in Washington
are still not supporting him vocally. What do you think
is happening here? I've been hearing a fair amount of
support for Biden, you know, recently, particularly going into the election.
Maybe some of its pro forma, but but I think,
you know, a lot of it is it's Sincere Um. Yeah,

(01:46:55):
when he when he couldn't Yeah, you know, I think
I was piste off about this. I think at the
Democrats were when he couldn't get um Joe Mansion and
Kristen Cinema to go along with freaking voting rights for
God's sake. Um, you know, at that point, I just
can't imagine Lyndon Johnson doing that as president or as

(01:47:16):
as in Chuck Schumer's position as leader of the Senate,
the Democrats in the Senate. I mean, you know, Lynnon
Johnson would have gone in there and and picked picked
Joe Mansion up by the by the throat and slammed
him up against the wall and said, okay, buddy, here's
what you're gonna do for me, And here's what I'm
gonna do for you, and no, and advanced. You know
what he was gonna what he was. You know, you're

(01:47:37):
gonna get a bridge named after you and a brand
new power plant, and you're gonna give me this goddamn bill.
I mean, you know that That's what Lyndon Johnson would
have done. And and Frankly, that's what Franklin Roosevelt. And uh,
you know there's a lot of us who would very
much like Joe Biden like that and a Chuck Schumer
like that, but that's not how these guys are whired.
So you know, we've got what we've got. I guess, okay,

(01:48:01):
let's talk about Newsom. I live in California. I've certainly
met him. Thought he was an empty suit. I mean,
I you know, like my grandmother would be fine if
Roosevelt was president forever. I felt that Jerry Brown could
run the state forever, but needle to say the law
does not allow him to. However, Ever, since the incident

(01:48:22):
during uh lockdown when he went to the restaurant and
a couple of other faux paws, he has become very aggressive,
not only in his own state but with deciantis, etcetera.
This is sort of a three part question or as
many parts I'm gonna whip out here. Is Biden gonna run?
Could Newsom win? And his Newsom the of the candidate.

(01:48:46):
I'm assuming the Biden is not going to run just
because of his age. O. Wait, so that's but that
is your belief that he's not going to run. That's
my belief. I mean, I don't talk about it much
on the air because I know that once a president,
once it's clear that the president is not going to run,
he starts losing power and becomes lame duck. And that's

(01:49:08):
why Biden's not going to acknowledge that. But I'd be
surprised if he runs again. And I think his age
would be a a problem for him if he runs again. Um,
with regard to Newsom, I you know, whether he is
the kind of Justin Trudeau, of of of the United States,
because there's been a lot of comparisons there. Um. You know,

(01:49:30):
time will tell I don't live in California, so I
don't know him as well as you know I know,
for example, politicians in Oregon. And I'm not talking about
personally knowing, but just you know in the in my
newspaper every day. Um. But the thing that I Knewsom
has figured out, which I think is brilliant. Uh. And
and it's you know, something that most good politicians know

(01:49:52):
is that it is a lesson that I learned when
I wanted to write novels. I've written probably seven or
eight now was two and more published. They're just terrible.
I'm a lousy fiction writer. But um, I attended a
workshop in Hawaii back in the seventies on how to
write novels. And this this famous New York Times bestselling

(01:50:14):
novelist got up and he said, your hero is not
the most important character in your book. Your hero is
not where you need to spend most of the time.
And this is the biggest mistake that people make, is
spending all their time on their hero. He said, Uh,
your hero is only as good as your anti hero.
You're good guy can only be as good as your

(01:50:36):
bad guy, and the goodness of your good guy is
literally defined by your bad guy. Clarice, you know, in
the FBI would have been just another FBI agent if
it wasn't for Hannibal lector Superman would have just been
a guy who stops robberies at the seven eleven, if
it wasn't for the Joker, or you know, you filling
the the anti anti hero. So the you know, and

(01:50:59):
this this is true in storytelling, but it's also true
in politics that you know, you can only be as
good as your opponent is evil. And so I think,
you know, if Newsom has picked out the most evil
Republican out there who actually has a chance of playing
in the political game for some time, I think Trump
is out of the picture now, and that's de Santis,

(01:51:22):
and I think that that's a proper evaluation. And then
has decided, Okay, I'm going to pick a fight with
this guy, and I'm gonna I'm gonna beat him because
and I'm going to use him as my foil to
demonstrate my goodness against his evil. Then I think that's
brilliant politics, and I encourage him to do more of it. Okay,

(01:51:43):
to Sciantis, just siantis evidences his education. He seems to
be thinking about what he's doing, as opposed to even
somebody like Ted Cruz has elite degrees but is not
in touch with reality. Everybody who deals with on the
inside said, he's not unlikable, as you did. If you

(01:52:03):
take Trump off the table, is the Santis a viable
winning candidate in urans? I think it's possible. I don't
you know. Again, I don't live in Florida, but you know,
I've certainly been observing to Santis a lot lately. My
understanding is that he's a little bit of a of

(01:52:23):
a kind of an aspect kind of character that you know,
he doesn't pick up social cues very effectively. He's not
socially very competent. Um, he's brilliant. He lives in his head.
He's got a super high i q. Um and that
therefore he's not doing what he's doing out of a

(01:52:44):
fire in his belly. That he's doing what he's doing
out of carefully constructed calculation. And UM, I'm not sure
how far that can take you. I I think it
will get you someplace, but I'm not sure how long
it will last. Um. Trump did a really good job
of adopting or or holding you know, his racist rants

(01:53:07):
and stuff about immigrants and things like that, black people, etcetera. Um,
he had the fire in the belly. Bernie Sanders has
the fire in the belly. Um. Gavin Newsom, I'm assuming
has the fire in the belly. He certainly seems like it.
Although like I said, I haven't been paying a lot
of attention to him until the last year. Um, So
you know, whether to Santus it's just a cipher, you know,

(01:53:30):
whether he is just the the robot du jour. I mean.
Part of the problem is that a lot of the
right wing policy positions, outside of the ones on race
and immigration, which are both really a whole about race,
Outside of the racist fire in the belly stuff on
the right, most of their policy positions don't make any
sense or are so unpopular they don't want to talk about,

(01:53:51):
you know, ending abortion, more tax cuts for billionaires, more
deregulation of industry, more air air pollution from from fossil fuel. Um.
You know, they literally don't make sense. On top of
being unpopular, and so you know, the fire in the
belly races and stuff sells really well, and you know,

(01:54:13):
ever since Richard Nixon declared a Southern strategy, that's been
the go to place for the gop um and and
that'll carry you a long long way. Um Whether to
Satis is doing this because he really feels that or
because he just thinks that's what he has to do,
that's what he has to say, and hey, you know,
we'll pick up some immigrants and brownskin people in Texas
and send them to Martha's vineyard. Uh. I don't know,

(01:54:37):
but my sense of it is that he's running a script,
that he's that he's that he's running a program, as
it were, and that I think is a is a
weakness of fallibility and a vulnerability. And I guess we'll
have to wait and see if if my my analysis
is right. Okay, let's talk about Trump. Trump's in trouble

(01:55:00):
in Georgia. Trump is in trouble about the classified documents
a maral Lago. There's January six. It's civil uh information
which is quite damning that was released by New York
just recently. But that's not criminal. Is he indicted criminally?

(01:55:21):
Will he be convicted? Will he ever serve a day
in jail? And what will be the result of all
those things come true, I think the answers are yes, yes, no,
and nothing. Um. I do believe that Donald Trump will
be indicted criminally. I do believe that he will be convicted. UM.

(01:55:43):
And I would be very surprised if he goes to jail. Um.
We have a real reluctance in this country to send
wealthy or powerful people to prison. It happens very rarely.
And when it does happen, um, you know, like Martha Stewart,
who was not all that powerful or that rich. Um,
it tends to happen way down on the food chain

(01:56:04):
of rich and of wealth and power. And so frankly,
I I think Trump is just going to fade into obscurity. UM.
I could be wrong, but I I think that, you know,
the jig is up. Okay, so we have the primary
with you know, primaries are long off, but starting in

(01:56:27):
the spring, people start to run, and many prognosticators, many educated, say,
if he runs, he gets the nomination. You do not
agree with that, Trump, Yeah, uh, yeah, I don't. I don't.

(01:56:48):
I don't think that. Well, let me let me recalibrate
that answer. If he was running in a Republican primary,
that where the entire Republican Party be on just the rabid, fanatic, racist,
neo fascist base was voting. I think that, you know,
there are a couple of politicians to Santa's at the

(01:57:10):
top that list who could give him a run for
his money. I think to Santa's can still give him
a run for his money. Um. The way that are
the way that our primary system is set up. Um.
And you know, particularly given the primary elections typically don't
happen in the in a in a in an environment
where anything else of consequences on the ballot. Uh. Thus

(01:57:33):
only the real true believers and the the hardcore fanatics
show up. Works the Trump's benefit. But I would be
astonished if he runs. I think that, um, he's he
would have to in order to comply. I mean, this
guy is raised a half a billion dollars since he
left office. He's got all these routes who are just

(01:57:55):
throwing money at him, um, many of them, probably most
of them really, and he's just draining their banks, bank accounts.
It's the most successful, profitable grift he's probably ever run
in his entire life. And he would have to stop
doing that if he runs for president. He would have to.
He would have to clean up his act. He'd had
to start being accountable to the federal to the Federal

(01:58:16):
Elections Commission. Um, you know, there are rules, there are laws,
there are things you have to comply with. He got
away with not complying with them last time, in large
part because nobody took him seriously. The Obama administration wasn't
prosecuting him for his FEC violations. Early and then throughout
his presidency, he basically controlled, you know, the government, and

(01:58:38):
the Federal Election Commission has three Republicans on it that
are so hardcore that they just, you know, they just
froze the FEC throughout that four years, they were incapable
of doing anything. And I'm not sure to what extent
that that's still the case. But um, you know, I
I just don't think he's willing to give up his
grift to run for president. I think he's going to

(01:59:00):
continue to talk about it because it gets him money.
But I think that that that by by the end
of next year, and certainly by by early uh, we
will know whether my analysis is right. But I just
don't think that he's going to be the guy. Okay,
Nate Silver famously called the election accurately. Since then, despite

(01:59:26):
their protestations, the polls have been wildly inaccurate. Someone will say, well,
it was in the margin of error even though Biden
one there was stronger support for Trump than the polls said.
We've been listening to this canard that the party in
power always loses seats in Congress in the mid term.
Yet we have the a portion. Now they're saying, well,

(01:59:50):
you know, the polls are accurate. What is you were
feeling about the mid term elections, primarily in the House
and Senate. My sense of it is that it's going
to be a Democratic blowout, in large part because of
because of abortion, and because of a large number of
women and young people who are signing up to vote
right now. Um, with the head of polls, you know,

(02:00:12):
I know that polls had faced a real challenge. Um.
You know, my phone, I have it just set so
that if somebody calls, it's not my contact, it just
doesn't ring. I mean, you know, it's getting harder and
harder for pollsters to do their business and uh and
and find you know, a genuinely representative cross section. And

(02:00:33):
so you know, I get it that they're they're kind
of in a crisis. But my but you know, no
analyst for polse But but I do think that the
Democrats are going to do really well as fall knock
good and finally, and you know, it's amazing power of
one person who challenges the legitimacy of the presidential election.

(02:00:55):
There's been all these voters suppression laws and you know,
taking away the rights of the people as we don't
have to delineate them one by one, but not every Republican.
There was a story in the New York Times two
days ago. It was a little confusing. They said these
Republicans would not guarantee they would accept the results, although

(02:01:15):
some literally just didn't respond. What do you anticipate happens
when Republicans lose in this cycle? Well, they walk away
like the Democrats did historically did in Virginia last cycle.
Or is this become a big war. Well, we've seen

(02:01:37):
several candidates now that are doing the sort of loser routine. Um,
you know, I would expect more of that, But I
don't think it's going to be consequential, Bob, I you
know the problem. I think it's going to be more
with the election officials who are who are coming in office.
Who are clear partisans, and they're basically saying, if our

(02:01:58):
party doesn't win, then there was cheating in we're gonna
we're gonna refuse to validate the election. I'm I'm far
more concerned about UM, you know, the Secretary of State
of Arizona or the local election officials in the various
counties than I am about Carry Lake, you know, pouting
if she loses the election. So, assuming that those fears,

(02:02:21):
do you think if those fears are real, well, will
those fears activate and become consequential. I think it's possible.
I think it's very possible. I don't think it's going
to be a national crisis. I think it's going to
be hyperlocal. I suspect it's going to happen and probably
four or five states and maybe more. UM and Uh,

(02:02:43):
there's gonna be a lot of pushback, and I think
ultimately it's going to work to their disadvantage in a
big way, much like the Dodd's decision. It's going to
be you know, the visible overreach, the clear sort of
losersm UM is over time going to harm them and
tarnish their brand rather than help them. I mean, you know,

(02:03:03):
they'll do well with their true believers, their small base
of true believers. But uh that basis I believe shrinking
right now rather than growing. Tom. I want to thank
you for taking the time. You've certainly made me think
and we're aligned politically and great to hear who you
are underneath the surface. I know you have to write
your opinion piece. You have another radio show tomorrow, so

(02:03:26):
thanks again for taking the time to talk to me
in my audience. Bob. It's been a pleasure and and
it's rare that that I'm interviewed by somebody who has
the insights, the thoughtfulness and the depth that you have.
And I've enjoyed it. I hope it's useful for the
people who listen to thank you. I'm sure it will be.
Until next time. This is Bob left sets

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