Leadership then and now

Transcript

Transcribed by machine from the recording.

Scott Chris, well, this is our, depending on which we release, fifth or sixth, depending on where our listeners are hearing, of the podcast, the Atlas Project, and we are... Still in the honeymoon period.

Chris Exactly.

Scott We're elated. We are full of honeymoon bliss. You have been all over the Atlas. We saw each other in Canada, and then you've been in Australia, and...

Chris I was in Australia. I was in Singapore briefly after that, now back in London.

Scott Singapore, that is a very clean, efficient, and economically efficient and clean place, I hear.

Chris It's also a kind of, in a way, it's a simple country in the sense that it's a city, right? It's a city that is also a country. And I think that the problems of running a city are smaller in scale than the problems of running a country. Michael Garfield, Jordan Peterson, Sophia Ikura, Jordan Peterson Which is a bit depressing. It's not one of my favorite cities, I have to admit.

Scott Was that where they caned the U.S. citizen a couple years ago?

Chris I think so, yeah. They've got very strict drug laws.

Scott Yeah, his was like vandalism or something. Graffiti. Oh, heresy. I remember that was a big diplomatic kind of issue.

Chris They also pick object lessons, like the person who chews gum in public and kind of makes international headlines. That's part of their campaign around Reminding each new generation that we'd like to keep things clean around here.

Scott Oh, hey, I mean, if you live in a dirty city, I'm sure, like, you know, there's some appeal to that. You know, sometimes you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs or breaking skin with canes.

Chris London is an interesting city to live in because, I mean, the whole city has this patchwork feel because it's just been around for centuries, right? I mean, there... I think I have a bit of the OCD gene in me, and that part of me is endlessly restless about this city.

Scott It's an accretive city. I learned that term from a guy who wrote a book called The Hidden City of Philadelphia. He basically talked about Philadelphia as an accretive city. It's like layer on top of layer on top of layer. As opposed to, he thinks like, New York or L.A. sometimes, or Detroit. A new industry comes in and just the slate gets wiped clean and the city changes. Where it's like Philadelphia's like accretive. It's sort of layer on top of layer. There's never been like a wiping the slate clean and there's the new city kind of thing. It's very interesting.

Chris That's a great word. We should try to find a way to bring that into it. Like when you go to the IHOP and you say, I would like my pancakes to be presented in an accretive way.

Scott I had to look it up when I first read the book. I had to look it up. I was like, I don't know what this word is. And it's a great word. So you were just talking, you were in Australia and talking about leadership and the changes in leadership. And I was thinking, you know, in the United States, we just finished the kind of funeral services for President George W. Bush, 41. We had 41 and 43, two Bushes. Yeah, it's interesting because he represents that old-school leadership where, like, he was into being present, like civil servant, like, clean out your inbox, like, make sure the federal government is running well. And, you know, you have this, I mean, people used to joke when he was running against Bill Clinton, like, about the vision thing, like, where's the country going? Who do we want to be?

In the White House, tells Nixon, you should resign. I mean, he helped rehabilitate the CIA. He was a guy that didn't finish the job in Iraq. Many people in both parties had frustration, which turned out, I think, to be a prudent maneuver. He raised taxes, which probably undermined his election because he realized it's what he needed to do a deal for the health of the country. I mean, there's so many things... Bush Sr. did, but he was the kind of leader that was indifferent to some of the emotional things we look for from leaders today. And that was probably all our virtues or vices at the same time, right? And that made him, I mean, people kind of look back on it longingly because Trump is all vision, all big picture, not no kind of sense that he even runs the executive branch.

Chris Well, he has staff for that. Exactly. There's a lot of things to pick up there. The first thing you said really stuck with me that he was president at a really interesting time. And so that was what, 1988 to 92, right? Yep. And what's interesting is so that straddles In Age of Discovery, my first book, when my co-author and I were trying to... It's hard to periodize, periodize, periodicize, to periodize time and say, so when did whatever the current moment is, when did it begin? But we felt that it's important to put some markers in the sand. And we looked at 1990. Thank you very much. So he was there in my arbitrary way of kind of crudely cutting up the 20th century. He was kind of there at the beginning of the now.

Scott Yeah, and he hands over leadership to a baby boomer who... It's interesting because one of the things I think about George, about the Bushes, they were born adults, right? He's 18. This is amazing. He's 18 and enlists in World War II as he enlists as an aviator. He was shot down at 18. He learned how to fly combat planes in a year. I think it would take like seven years if he learned at all how to fly. But he just, duty kind of calls, you know, he comes back, they have kids right away. And every other person that became president after that, Clinton, his son, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, they were all soul searchers. They were boomers, and there were people looking for themselves. None of them were born adults. You know, like, George Bush, his son didn't seem to kind of get his... Life centered until after he was 40.

I mean, like, you know, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both parents, single parent families, you know, absent fathers. I mean, you have it's just a very different contrast. And the world is coming of age and looking for who it is, you know, which is another interesting thing.

Chris That's very interesting. You know, so it connects to a lot of threads. So growing up as a kid, I love fantasy novels with sort of wizards and witches and knights and armor and all that kind of stuff. And as I grew up and I look back on why did I love those books so much? I think one of the reasons is that these characters lived in a world that was kind of black and white morally. Like there was good and there was evil. And the evil was so bad that if you didn't... Take arms against that evil and defeat it. Nothing else mattered. So the kind of questions of how do I come of age? What is the leadership task in front of me? It was very clear, and it was that clarity that was attractive to me. So you talk about George Bush Sr.

Scott sort of coming of age. Before you move on, on fantasy novels, and I would say the change of that is George R.R. Martin and Game of Thrones because the black and white is not there. That's not the way the story or the show functions. It's so different than, say, Lord of the Rings.

Chris Right, right. And so that's what we consider kind of modern about it. Yeah, and that's why people love it so much. Is that it recognizes that we lived within this sort of artificial simplicity, and then it says, well, let's complicate the genre then. What you just brilliantly remind me is that, well, artificial or not, there have been generations that have been born into that kind of simplicity.

Scott Another example— Or even if it's not simple, there's not as much moral confusion because there are traditions and things that shape epic narratives and that shape things. And again, we might look at it as simple, but it's deep, and there's a moral kind of vision that those kind of traditions— Bring in pre-modern reality.

Chris You're right. Maybe simple was maybe the right word in my head, but the wrong word. Simple but not shallow.

Scott Yeah, right, right.

Chris Simple as in clear. Yeah, yeah. And within a moral framework, obvious. Whether one is willing to take arms against that struggle then becomes the personal defining choice for your life and for your generation because the call was clear. Yeah, yeah. Who answered the call, right? And so interestingly, I had breakfast yesterday morning. With a South African friend of mine, older than me by sort of half a generation or so. His father, his name is David Story, and his dad, Peter Story, was, I think, chairman of whatever the South African Conference of Bishops was at the time, was basically Desmond Tutu's boss. David was born into a family that has had an important spiritual leadership role in South Africa for generations going back to the arrival of colonials into Southern Africa, the Rhodesia days. But David was born into a similarly clear moral moment. It was the 80s. Well, he's born in the late 60s, but you're coming of age in the 70s and the 80s where there is apartheid, where there is clear movement against these things, where what to organize and where to put your leadership ambitions is very clear. And then there is this remarkable transition from a long governing regime to a new regime that has deep Marksist philosophy and thinking. It has powerful community organizing skills and knows nothing about how to run a country, right? Knows nothing about how to run a bureaucracy. And so there's this nation building moment that you're coming of age into. And it's very clear. I mean, where were you when, right? Did you respond to that call? For us and, you know, millennials and post-millennials, they're...

And so maybe interestingly, now we're really jumping around, but what was the election of Donald Trump a kind of clarifying moment for the generation that is sort of coming of age right now and says, okay, very clearly there is this moral contest in front of us. And that then provides us with a sort of organizing framework. So maybe it's just sort of you and me in kind of the interregnum. Where things were vague.

Scott I think the Trump thing is an interesting point, though. You look at the last midterm election in this country. It was a rout. Democrats picked up 40 seats. And they elected a lot of women, minorities. The Democratic Party in the United States is the new coalition, and it's diverse. And demographics, to some degree, are destiny. But Trump is kind of... There are people that... You look at the number of college-age Republicans. He won the nomination, I think, with mostly non-college-age Republicans. And a lot of those college-educated Republicans voted Democrat. You're talking in the midterms. Yeah, in the midterms. So the demographics are changing, and yet it's sort of like the reassertion of a kind of, hey, we kind of like the America that we had or that we think we had. I'm sure there's parallels to Brexit. I mean, there's this kind of fear of a real change in economy, identity, immigration patterns and stuff. And I think that that's... The Trump thing is a sort of protest, but you wonder what longevity anything like that can have. It's really interesting, too. I just found this statistic. There's a guy who works for, I think, the American Enterprise Institute. He predicts that in 2050, something like 70% of Americans will live in 17 states or something. And then you'll have this vast majority that live in

We're feeling it now because the people that are in rural America that maybe are resistant to sort of where things are going and the new Democratic coalition is causing anxiety, they're still going to be able to assert a lot of power because of the Electoral College and the Senate. There's just an interesting polity that we have that I think is going to increase tensions as things kind of emerge and unfold.

Chris There was a really interesting paper that I read last week, just doing some research on this post-truth political moment that we're in and reading some research papers on it. And one of them was talking about this issue that you've broached, which is here is how the political system is structured, how the House of Representatives, how the Senate is structured, the Electoral College, all of this stuff. And how over time, demographically, that structure is going to be less and less well suited to sort of what the population is. And I think there was a big kind of two-part editorial story in the New York Times about a month ago talking about the need for electoral system reform. And so very interesting where this paper landed, and I'm curious, and I'll look it up, we can throw it in the show notes, but I'm curious what you would think about. What it recommended is, so very clearly, there needs to be some kind of systemic reform.

Politically, it's impossible because it's never in the interest of the party in power to do these things that would, you know, maybe abolish their advantage and make everything fairer. So the way to do it would be to pass legislation with a kind of... What do you think of that idea?

Scott Well, it's interesting. I think that the Sunset Clause thing is the only way anything like that would get done. Right. Just because there's too much vested interest in if you're the party, like if you're the debtor.

Chris Yeah, like getting rid of gerrymandering or something like that.

Scott Right. Yeah. If you're the Democrats and you look like the demographics are in your favor, you're like, well, this system eventually might serve us. If you're the Republicans, there are certain things that demographically and with the way the system is, they're like, hey, as a minority, we have these checks and balances. Yeah, I think that that... It's interesting that there was this piece in The Atlantic this week. It was written by John Dingell, who served in Congress longer than anyone living. And... The stat about the population thing, this is it. In 2050, 70% of Americans will be living in just 15 states. That 70% will have 30 senators and the remaining 30% of the people, mainly those living in the smallest and poorest states, will have 70 senators. So there you have... And then also, it's funny, you look at, like, Hillary Clinton won all the most prosperous counties in the country. She didn't win tons of counties. Trump won way more counties than she did. But he won less populated, less economically prosperous. So you just... So much of this stuff is set up for cold civil war, right? I mean, you just... You know, that it's just...

Yeah, that something has to change. And I don't know if they abolish the Senate. Is it ever possible or something like that? But I think you're right that without a sunset clause, that everybody could agree that we all know that these are coming in the coming decades. There's no way I think you'll get big systemic reform like that.

Chris So, but what's interesting is, so I read that paper and I felt like I felt a little bit of kind of, I allowed a crack of optimism to come in when I looked at my American neighbors and said, oh, maybe that's how they'll Thanks for watching.

Scott And so you just have this, and the courts, we already set the courts in a place where we like them, and so it's just, I mean, yeah, I mean, part of this article talks about how, like, just the 18th century, the system, the compromises they made are just so, I mean, the country's like four million people. I mean, it's just a totally different, and there was... I mean, there was still geographical diversity to create tensions, but nothing like we have today. I mean, it's just, it's, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But I'm for systemic reform. I think it'd be great. Just I don't know how you do it.

Chris It's also, I mean, we had so much fun last month in Toronto.

Scott I love Toronto. I want to be an honorary Canadian.

Chris Imagine, so thank you, and you're more than welcome. Imagine how much fun a constitutional convention would be.

Scott The only fun was there was no air conditioning. It was hot. Like, there's no air conditioning. It's hot. That's the only downside, right? Or maybe that was the framing of the declaration was hot. I don't know.

Chris I feel like it was hot at the Constitutional Convention, too, but... I feel like it would be at least a one-week affair. You know, every night you would have a different regional party, right? So, like, you know, Monday night would be West Coast Party. You know, maybe choose... Oh, absolutely.

Scott Absolutely. I mean, it would be amazing. It would be amazing.

Chris I think that maybe that's how you get people interested in it. Yeah.

Scott Well, and also politically on the other side of the Atlantic. So, Macron backed down on his gas tax.

Chris Well, welcome to France.

Scott Okay, I like that. You probably know more about France than I do. I'm certain you know more about France.

Chris Well, I'm not sure if I do. But, I mean, one thing that is well known, it's a sort of common knowledge over here, Thank you very much.

Scott I was pulling up a story about Macron to look at these things and it just created a video that people were shouting.

Chris I was like, whoa, whoa. So it's actually, it's very interesting that in contrast to in the US case where you can have maybe a couple hundred thousand people march on Washington and it's not quite clear what purpose that serves. In France, what you tend to have is And it becomes a kind of form of – I guess it's sort of the peculiar French form of civil disobedience. Whenever there's change to sort of public transit prices or to like wage legislation or pension legislation, I mean I don't have the statistics in front of me but there's probably been a good 20, 30 cases of this over the last 10, 15 years. Thank you very much. And so that's what's fascinating about France. And depending where you are on the political spectrum, depending on whether you're inside or outside government, it's fascinating. It's great. It's the reason why you can't get anything done in France. It's enormously disruptive.

But it is an aspect of the culture of democracy in France that, I mean, I think that for people who participate in it, there is an almost conscious recall of the revolutionary history of the country in coming to the streets this way.

Scott And what's interesting too, right, is we have, so this is protesting, right, like a gas tax, like they wanted to put a petrol, like a fuel tax, right, that people didn't want. And yet they do want a re-institution of the, of a sort of tax on the rich, right? So you have, like, Macron comes in, you know, following a socialist, right? You have, you have, who was the guy, who was the guy, the short guy before?

Chris Alain, Alain?

Scott Before the Socialists, who was it?

Chris Sarkozy?

Scott Sarkozy, right? So he's kind of center, the center, center-right. Here he'd be center-left, but there he's like center-right. And then you go to the Socialists, and then you get Macron, who wants to, again, sort of be in the middle, come from the middle, but he wants to kind of cut taxes on wealthy people, I guess for economically stimulative purposes, wants a gas tax probably for... I mean, these are kind of just centrist policies, right? Whether you agree or not, like for carbon emissions and other things. And so people freak out, like, we don't want the gas tax. We do want the tax on rich people back.

Chris I love it. I mean, it's, so I guess it's, I don't know how deep we want to go into this, but, you know, really every liberal democracy is very different, right? And has worked out different compromises. And France is a country where, you know, there's still a very strong labor movement and the labor movement has won some pretty big concessions for the French worker over the last several decades. I mean, I think that I'm not sure, I don't keep close tabs on the politics of France, but I think the work week now is 35 hours. You know, the challenge for business in France is that it's very difficult to fire people in sort of the French welfare state. And so you very reluctantly hire people. Once you hire them, you're stuck with them for a long time. So, you know, whereas in the US, oh my God, this is a good week, let's hire people. I mean, if next week is bad, we'll just fire them.

In a lot of European countries, France is like this, Germany is like this, the UK is not. There's a much slower response in the private sector to sort of, you know, when it's raining money because it's a very, you know, what the economists call an inflexible labor market.

Scott What's challenging here, too, I think, in the United States, you have a... I was reading this article about Scandinavia recently, and they were like, everybody looks at Scandinavia as sort of a liberal paradise, but on certain things, they're even more conservative than the United States on minimum wage and other things. There's certain policies which are very sort of free market capitalists, but then a hugely generous welfare state. So you have these... The thing is, it seems like they combine... We'll be right back.

Chris And I think, you know, in the big picture, you know, there's no right answer. What there is, is... Coal.

Scott Bring back the coal. That's the answer. Coal. We're going to be a beautiful coal.

Chris I guess there is a right answer. It's whatever Trump is tweeting today.

Scott Exactly. Today.

Chris Or like this minute. But the thing that I feel just doesn't get talked about enough is you can't talk about tax without talking about culture. Because tax policy, although like tax sounds like the most boring subject imaginable, it is actually kind of the core question. And it has to be consistent with some of the deepest values of the community in terms of like what is the good life, right? And so you get, so at this conference on the future of work in Melbourne, I guess now a couple of weeks ago, Depending on what side of the political spectrum people are coming from, a lot of people throw around this idea of a guaranteed minimum income, like some kind of universal basic income, as some kind of, this will correct everything by just giving people who can't find jobs because of automation money. That's a big topic for another podcast. I don't even know if I really know what I think of that. But one thing I know for sure is that you could never drop that into a country like the United States without some kind of radical transformation in the whole culture of the society. Tax policy is an expression of where the culture is at in terms of what is mine and what is earned. You walk around Scandinavia, there is a sense, rightly or wrongly, this is for the philosophers to figure out, that my wealth, my good fortune, is partially self-made but also heavily dependent upon

So actually, it becomes a kind of profound insight to these deep moral questions, like where is society's head on these deep moral questions of, you know, as the philosophers call it, Thank you very much.

Scott In any other country, people would have a revolutionary firmament, but you drive past these McMansions and people aren't pissed. It's like they know the system's rigged, but they're like, yeah, that's what's going to make it even better when I win. I do think you're totally right. In the United States, we're so allergic to the idea of redistribution. It's funny, that's what all taxation is. Government is really good at two things, right? It's not a scalpel, it's usually more of a broadsword, and it's good at collecting money and redistributing it. Like that's, you know, putting it into areas, like that's what government does, but you can't, we have such a sort of allergy to the term redistribution that like, it just, you can't use it.

Chris So let's bring that to kind of, you know, the incoming class of representatives in the U.S. now, like the Ocasio-Cortez's of the world and sort of the question of is the path for sort of victory for presidential victory for the Democrats sort of somewhere in the progressive wing? Or is that a path to electoral disaster because it is just going to have such you're just going to get such a strong immune response?

Scott Like, it's not rational, but it's... So, like, people, if they support things that are more redistributive, it's because there's a narrative crafter on the policy that makes it sound, we paid into it or something. And so, like, it's not... So, no, I don't think the Corteses of the country are the future in that... You look where they win, too. They win in safe districts. She ran unopposed. She narrowly beat out a more mainstream Democrat in the primary, and then no Republican wins in that district in Queens. I think that's the challenge in American politics. If there will be a tilt towards a more redistributive system that breaks some of the stagnation, it will come by people that are good at telling a story that convinces Americans that redistributive policies really aren't that.

Chris Well, yeah, I mean, I guess where I go with that is it will come down to people telling a story in new language that we've never heard before.

Scott I mean, Obamacare was an attempt at this. And Bill Clinton's health care reform, which died, but was attempted. There were Democrats wanting to show to Americans that government does more than taking money from the middle and upper middle classes and distributing it down. That actually government can make something work for you. And there's a health care problem. So it was an attempt to sort of show that It was nothing like that. I mean, it was nothing like that. It was just basically saying, okay, could we get some better policies on insurance if we make a devil's... If we make a fool's bargain with the insurance company and say, we'll make a mandate and try to get more people in the system. Well, if you can get more people in the system, then we can cover people with pre-existing conditions because you're getting more healthy. If you have an insurance-based system, it's all actuarial. You need a bunch of healthy people in it that aren't getting sick all the time.

So that you can actually charge a livable rate for people that have chronic and pre-existing conditions, stuff like that, if you don't have a bunch of people in the thing. So it's just basically a private market-based solution with some government carrots and sticks and things. And as people realize that, I think they're less against it. But man, Republicans are so good at branding things in this country that it's like, you know, I mean, George H.W. Bush comes up with cap and trade for pollution problem, right? Market-based system. Now, if you if you if you're for cap and trade, you're a socialist.

Chris So, you know, so you said something really interesting there about, you know, as people realize. And I suppose this is one of the big, big questions that, you know, we're all kind of soberly wringing our hands over, which is what is the capacity for voters to be informed? And, you know, to understand policies sufficiently that they can make votes in what is sort of in their sort of sober opinion in their interest or the best way forward. Like, you know, in my dark moments, I worry that our Kool-Aid is running out. And if there's no more Kool-Aid to drink, I'm not sure what I believe anymore.

Scott Well, it's interesting you say that. You live in London, right? I think the idea of doing a referendum on Brexit is insane, right? Because what person could possibly know all the implications of staying in or pulling out of Brexit? They're so complicated from security, immigration, trade, and all sorts of commodities.

Chris This is why we have elected representatives, right? Right, right, right. And so you kind of... You very selectively pick. So you're presented with this responsibility and you handle the overwhelming complexity by picking the one thing that seems true. And there was a great book called Post-Truth Marketing that I actually wrote a letter about, I guess a few months ago now. It basically said that in the world we live in now, Thank you for having me. And so that's how people voted Brexit. They kind of like tribally says, well, what are the people that think and talk and feel like me? What do they feel? That's what I feel too. And that was the only way for voters, including myself, really, to grapple with the enormity of what I've been asked. As an aside, so strangely, I was eligible to vote as a Commonwealth citizen, as a Canadian Commonwealth citizen, living and studying in the UK at the time. I was eligible to vote in the Brexit referendum.

Scott Oh, Trump would love that. He would love that.

Chris Like, what? What? Thank you very much. You know, I mean, extremely unique talking thing, person that embodies your approval or disapproval. Whereas Brexit here is, it is this kind of vague, overhanging... Outcome of a social process that we ran that now, you know, shadows over everything. And there are people that are still for and there are people that are against. But it's not embodied in anyone or anything. And so that makes the whole debate kind of... Draining.

Scott Yeah, it might. Brexit might kill the second prime minister, right? I mean, Cameron, it was undone him. It might undo Theresa May.

Chris It might undo Theresa May, yeah.

Scott And they're in the party that, like, have most of the anti-Brexit, have pro-Brexit people, right?

Chris I mean... And unlike Trump, you know, for people who say, so if you oppose Trump, there's kind of a clear objective. Well, we're going to vote him out of office.

Scott Right, right, right.

Chris And it is, in a sense, I mean, it's a false clarity. You vote him out of office, there's still going to be so much aftermath that you're going to have to deal with. But anyway, there's some kind of clear escape clause. Whereas with Brexit, what everyone is struggling with is sort of how do we get out from under this cloud, right? If we proceed with it...

Scott Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, like, where you get, like, I mean, I feel like entitlements are the same place here. Like, everybody knows you have to, something has to be done about structuring them. And you could do their left-right solutions, but it's just, it's a third rail. No one wants to touch it, right? And so you wind up with this thing, which is, which then... It's funny, that creates more anxiety, right? Because it's a thing that's unclear, right? What creates anxiety? It's sort of that thing, it's unchanneled fear, right? Like if a tiger jumps in the room, you're not anxious, you're afraid, and you know why you're afraid, that thing could eat me. The anxiety is like, I feel this and I'm not quite sure, so it just becomes, the chronic anxiety makes the decisions worse.

Chris So, yeah, and so to sort of end on a depressing note, So where, but where I've landed, you know, so we've been, you and I have been talking about like these big, thorny, naughty questions, K-N-O-T-T-Y. No, I'm not getting these naughty questions for a couple of years now. And so now, you know, we're starting to kind of deliberately say, okay, well, what can we do? And, you know, us getting together with that room full of inspired people in Toronto in November was about a kind of expression of a belief that Knowing that we don't know how to get out of it, but coming together, it creates the possibility for surprising, not solutions, these are too big to be solved, but ways to get unstuck. And we experienced that, wow, okay, that was a bold hypothesis, but there's a lot of really positive stuff coming out of that Toronto event now, which is great. What I worry about is, so we need to be able to do that with some big political questions, but we are destroying the capacity to convene.

Scott Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's right.

Chris So to bring it full circle to, you know, George H.W. Bush, he presided in a political culture where he could convene.

Scott Yep, yep, yep, yeah. Yeah, there were more relationships. There was less partisanship. It was less toxic. Absolutely, yeah. I think that's true. And it's interesting. There are studies on, like, there's a study on government in Italy, right? Which, I mean, is notoriously kind of, you know, the corruption inefficiency. But they found that You know, that in places where there, in individual districts where there was high social trust, right, which creates a lot of social capital, the government was very affected. But as a whole in the country, that's not the case. So when people like trust each, when there's like trust among the citizenry, the government works better. But then the problem is, right, as you become an increasingly diverse society, a lot of that trust erodes and then you kind of, the ability to convene, right, and to, you know, do the art of political compromise and things, that just, it erodes.

Chris And so, and this will have to be, maybe it's going to be our next podcast because for me, the next step of the conversation from there is then, all right, so that really helps to define The challenge of fake news and especially foreign interference in our discourse. Because the other big thing that looms large here in Europe over the Brexit debate but over a lot of social tensions is you've got state actors like Russia that recognize that if they can in a targeted way continue to destroy our capacity to convene, then we're just going to stay stuck. And while we're stuck, they've got a governance model that allows them to progress, move forward, whatever those things mean, but move their strategic agendas along. And that's a big, big question that this country, your country, the democratic world in general has to come to terms with. Because fundamentally, our technology of governance does depend upon convening, does depend upon not...

And so, yeah, I mean, George H.W. Bush, he lived in that world. And there were thick walls still around the United States sort of political community, right? That were protecting that culture of honorable opposition, as we call it in parliamentary systems.

Scott Yeah, it's interesting, too, you know, Francis Fukuyama just wrote a new book about identity, and in it, one of these, he's arguing... Damn it!

Chris Like, he gets so many books out. Every time somebody says Francis Fukuyama, I'm still working on this.

Scott One of his insights is that in a country like America, you have, like, an increasing ability to create new conceptions of identity, right? Like, hyphenated Americans, like, you know, the whole intersection, I think, I'm part of multiple communities now. It's almost a correlative rise and fall together. And so that, I think, is one of the challenges for a liberal democracy that's increasingly pluralistic. Because you gotta have a sense that we're in this together, whatever the us and the together is. And that shared us and togetherness, it seems to be eroding consistently over time.

Chris So I think we've got a good definition of the problem. Now we need to- Exactly, exactly. And then, you know, Take that, Francis Fukuyama. We'll publish that one.

Scott Exactly.

Chris He'll probably publish three more books at that time. Yeah, but ours will be better. Maybe more thoughtful.

Scott Readable. More readable, maybe. I guess that's pretty readable, though, but I don't know. And even he, the great political scientist, says that when he gets to California, like...

Chris Okay, so let's not get on yet another topic, but the whole sort of state-level running of elections in the U.S. is another just big... Oh, yeah, 50 systems.

Scott You have 50 systems.

Chris And none of them know how to design a ballot. Why is this thing so complicated? I mean, you have to understand that if you're going to build a ballot for two... Like, you've got to create it for the lowest common denominator.

Scott It's crazy. I mean, that's one of the crazy things. It's like, I just think, like, you can't count votes here. I mean, it's so fascinating how contested so many of the elections are. And it's just like, with all the technology we have, it shouldn't be that hard, right? I mean, it shouldn't be that hard. But it is.

Chris We'll talk about how Estonia does it in a future conversation. I would love that. Literally, you plug your identity card into the computer and you vote.

Scott Oh boy, people would have so much... From your laptop. People would have even more anxiety about that. It'd be great, though. I think it'd be great. I mean, I'm sure they, you know, I think it'd be great, but people here would freak out.

Chris Yeah, I mean, well, we'll have to talk. Estonia is on the doorstep of Russia. I mean, they know that there are all sorts of active Russian measures trying to Trying to infiltrate every aspect of their society. And they trust that voting system. But yeah, I agree. Part of it is cultural. I don't think that Canada would be willing to do that either. So what are these days? Would it be illegal? I don't know. But I'm going to take a picture of my ballot the next time I have to vote in the Canadian election. You take a picture of yours and you'll just laugh like, oh my God, even I can do this.

Scott Yeah, our ballot, well, my ballot wasn't too bad, I thought, like, in Pennsylvania this year. But the one in Florida where this one, the Democratic candidate for Senate, Ben Nelson, was saying, like, it was weird that his, the Senate candidate was way off in a different spot on the ballot. And so a lot of people just didn't vote for the Democratic candidate. And the thing is, they voted Democrat for other offices. I'm just like, why wouldn't you have a readable ballot? Like, that's just fascinating.

Chris That would be another, we could, you know what? We want to make an easy buck, coffee table book, ballots across the country.

Scott Absolutely. That would be the thing. That would be the thing.

Chris We'll do that.

Scott My friend, it's always good to talk and we're scheduled to record again next week. So everybody, if you're liking this podcast, go to iTunes and say you like it and that kind of thing.

Chris Scott, great to connect.