Episode 1078: The eleventh hour

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1078 my name is Zain Velji with me as always Corey Hogan and of course there's Stephen Carter.

Corey 0:10

how you doing? Stephen so wild that we're able to pull you away from mustard dogs it's all you've been talking about. Oh my god I

Carter 0:16

love that show. I'm sorry

Carter 0:17

we got mustard dogs? Mustard mustard dogs we got to watch the finale. No hold on hold on don't

Zain 0:22

don't drive by it mustard once again again mustard mustard dogs

Carter 0:26

dogs okay it's not like you're eating a hot dog mustard it's

Carter 0:29

it's a mustard oh i

Corey 0:30

i i thought it was eating hot dogs no mustard

Carter 0:32

mustard dogs the dogs go and see what happens is the dogs that's sounding

Corey 0:35

sounding like mustard dogs mustard dogs

Carter 0:37

i need you to focus i need you to focus in on me okay watch my left spell it can

Zain 0:41

can you use it in a sentence muster

Carter 0:43

muster i went and i mustered cory and zane to come to my house where it was pissing rain and because it was raining right you guys remember the rain and because it was raining here heather

Carter 0:52

heather and i watched the season finale of mustard dogs and i'll tell you there were tears rob's decision at the end i mean it broke us it broke us so the fact that i'm here this is over

Zain 1:04

over like a hot dog no

Carter 1:05

no see what happened his heart

Zain 1:06

heart like as in a heart attack like did he have a heart attack after eating so many hot dogs some dogs are better some

Carter 1:11

some dogs are better and then you put and

Carter 1:14

and some dogs are pretty high sodium

Carter 1:16

too with cows i'm not i'm just driving through it's a a great show it's on netflix mustard dogs uh australian

Zain 1:23

australian wait a minute so like it was just learn something learn something yeah yeah mustard is part of the melon family and

Carter 1:29

i'm not into it really good show and i i give to you guys this and i'm not into it yeah i give you this gift of the show cory

Corey 1:37

you're welcome top three condiments top

Corey 1:40

top three condiments uh uh you know what i like a good chutney maybe sriracha shut

Zain 1:45

shut the fuck up carter top three condiments Let's just, mustard's at the top, simply because of mustard dogs. Mustard's pretty good. No,

Zain 1:52

No, mustard is not near

Carter 1:53

near the top. Relish. Oh, I love me a good relish. No,

Zain 1:56

No, relish. Okay, going back to you, Corey. Oh, relish is so good. Have you moved on from chutney? Your desire to be. They had relish on the mustard dogs. I think that relish is a chutney. It was relish

Carter 2:06

relish in a different

Carter 2:07

Relish was not a chutney. It was relish in a different context.

Zain 2:11

Relish was the colonial chutney.

Zain 2:15

And by the way, to all the whites, horrible job at making a chutney. If relish was your take, if relish was what you guys could come up with, which

Zain 2:24

which is, you know, pickles, let's add sugar to pickles and then make it into a paste. I'm going to blow your mind. Let me put it this way. Sugar is

Carter 2:31

already in pickles. Texture of barf.

Carter 2:33

Sugar is already in pickles.

Zain 2:36

my goodness. Here's the main question. This is the reason I asked the question. Where does ketchup fit in? Does it go in the top three? Yes or no? Near

Carter 2:43

Near the bottom. of the top three so dude don't like it don't like it's like number seven after the the special cut after the special mustard and and uh relish you know the mustard relish one that you get for hot dogs fuck i love that one it's the hot dog relish so good that's a good one you

Carter 3:00

you know why i thought of that mustard dogs mustard

Zain 3:05

yeah once again can

Zain 3:06

can you use it in a sentence for me because i'm really still confused so

Carter 3:09

so it rained at my house and

Carter 3:11

and because it was raining we watched Mustard Dogs and

Carter 3:15

Mustard Dogs is a four episode series with it's set in Australia and unbelievable Joni I like that we're setting the

Carter 3:23

Joni and Frank that's good

Carter 3:25

did such a good job training their dogs they were really amazing and this is this

Carter 3:30

this is everything we could hope for this is everything and is this a Patreon special by the way because I would hate to uh no

Corey 3:36

no it's not oh my god

Carter 3:38

god everybody's hearing this okay let's focus Zane I need you to focus brother brother. Let's get us back on track. Once

Zain 3:43

again, this is Mustard Dogs. In anticipation of the July 4th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, Stephen Carter recommends Mustard Dogs. Corey, what's going on with you before we get this show started at maybe the 30-35 minute mark?

Corey 3:59

Well, I was just googling whether people considered relish a chutney. The

Corey 4:03

internet's unclear on it. I think we've got our new as a hot dog a sandwich. Ooh,

Zain 4:08

Ooh, is relish... How is relish a chutney? first of all i went with cory now that i'm thinking about it for more than a half a second relish is not a chutney it's just bad okay it's its own thing and it's bad because it's it can't even be part of the family

Carter 4:23

family i can't have you shitting all over our culture you know it's just

Zain 4:28

hold on what is in relish i actually want to know this i've never looked it up yum yum pickles uh

Zain 4:35

it is okay it is uh it's a cooked and pickled product made up of chopped vegetables vegetables fruits and herbs exactly like a chutney

Zain 4:43

i mean it kind

Zain 4:44

of sounds like a chutney fucking useless

Zain 4:49

useless uh cory so you got nothing else going on except now you're obsessed with this yeah

Corey 4:53

that's that's all i'm going to be doing the rest of this episode i will pretend to answer the questions you threw at me but that's mostly where like always

Zain 4:59

always welcome to stephen carter's world let's move it on to our first segment our first segment cory fine fabulous or totally fucked yes Yes, we're bringing back a classic because we have a lot of things to talk about, a lot of things to talk about on the federal scene, in the Toronto mayoral scene. We might even jump into Alberta politics. And why not use our favorite framework, Corey, if something is fine, if something is fabulous, or if something is totally fucked. Corey, let's start here. Tomorrow, Toronto elects a new mayor. If you're Olivia Chow, how do you feel tonight, the night before? Do you feel fine? Do you feel fabulous? Do you feel fucked? For some context, she's been up in all the polls, polls, but her lead is getting narrower and narrower and narrower based on almost every single poll you see out there. She's a frontrunner. She's one day away from glory. Corey, how does she feel? Fine, fabulous, or fucked tonight?

Corey 5:48

I think that she feels okay. Obviously, the most recent polls have shown a tightening, but that tightening is still her with a lead of about, I don't know, seven points, right? And one of the challenges is that her biggest competitor was was uh endorsed by the former mayor and maybe if that had happened a week or two earlier it would be a bigger deal but i don't know i don't know if the ship can turn one of the interesting questions here and why maybe if i was going to lean a little fucked like if it was like fine fine slash fucked it would be that in toronto a couple things one is not

Corey 6:24

not a huge history of advanced poll you know i think there's like 115 000 or something who have voted in the advanced poll i'd have to pull it up and that's basically the same as it was last time last time the turnout was less than 30 percent in the mayoral election in like

Zain 6:42

like a general election in

Corey 6:43

in a general counselors and everyone else exactly right so uh if you assume that you're going to get somewhat the same turnout two things one is not

Corey 6:52

not as many people as say in like an alberta general election are voting in the advance polls that's for sure and

Corey 7:00

with turnout being that low really it's who who shows up, right? And anything can happen. And that's got to create a little bit of anxiety for you. Because the difference between winning by seven points and losing is, you know,

Corey 7:14

probably only 100,000 votes.

Corey 7:18

that's a real challenge, right? Because the people who show up will be like really significant. And yeah, you're right, Stephen, I think it was like 700,000 people voted last time. I don't have it

Carter 7:27

it in front of

Corey 7:27

of me again. But it's

Carter 7:28

it's going to be a smaller number of victory well

Zain 7:31

what's the what's the answer for you carter is it is if you're olivia chow tonight and you're her campaign one day before you're you're supposed to take this skin you've been the front runner the entire time we've talked about how this race uh out of maybe any race in recent memory was going to be reliant on one thing and one thing alone do we know who what your name is especially when there's 100 candidates on the ballot have we heard of you before well she seems to be winning that race on day one and she seems to be leading that race on day e minus one fine fabulous or fucked if you're olivia chow's team tonight carter well

Carter 8:01

well i think you're fucked with the with an with a hopeful fine um you know but this this makes my stomach nervous the way that the provincial election in alberta made my stomach nervous i almost had to go to the bathroom there while cory was talking and the reason is that it's super easy to choose olivia chow we talked about how you know when you're in the poll when when this lead was going to this election was going to come down to someone who was well known with an already established platform people would would understand it easily in advance.

Carter 8:31

Olivia Chow has fit that category. Now, so when the pollsters call the less engaged voter, it's very easy to say, Olivia Chow, yeah, I'm going to vote for Olivia Chow. But when you have less than 30% turnout and in a by-election, it tends to be even lower.

Carter 8:46

You could be looking at a 25% turnout. Well, who actually

Carter 8:49

actually gets out, right?

Carter 8:51

right? It is the hyper-engaged, it's the mostly engaged, it's people who are paying attention. And I'm not sure the people who are selecting olivia chow in the polls are necessarily the same people who are actually going to get out and vote now she's got a lead she's had a lead since day one you've got to be feeling pretty good about it but my tummy's doing that thing where i have to go to the bathroom a lot that's what i would expect well

Zain 9:13

it's the mustard on

Corey 9:15

on the dogs yeah go

Corey 9:15

go ahead it's the momentum right like anna bailao seems to have momentum at this point nobody has had momentum this entire race it's been fairly stuck since the start and now it looks like maybe there's some movement but it does feel like that movement's happening pretty late and we've said this a hundred times these things take a little bit of time to get through the public generally speaking right

Corey 9:39

again we're not talking about huge numbers here and if a lot of those people who are in third place fourth place fifth place sixth place supporting candidates that are in those positions i mean start saying well my person doesn't have a chance and i don't want olivia chow so i'm gonna cast my ballot for bylau then then you got a real problem if you're the chow camp because one of the things that i think you can't really ignore and i think this speaks a bit to steven's point olivia

Corey 10:05

olivia chow seems to have a ceiling of around 30 you know she despite being the person with the name recognition as you talked about at the start yeah despite being the person who's had kind of the frontrunner status the entire way along, has not managed to consolidate any additional vote behind her. She's, yes, she's up from those original polls, but not by a ton. And you start to think, maybe

Corey 10:28

maybe this is as good as it gets for her. And if there is a late-breaking anybody-but-Olivia movement, well,

Corey 10:34

well, then you've got to be a little bit worried.

Zain 10:37

Carter, I've called this election, I think on this pod, certainly elsewhere, the 25-25 election, Question 25% to win, 25% voter turnout if you're lucky. It seems to be one of those elections. Talk to me. I'm going to try to tease out a few interesting things that I found in this election through a series of these questions. The

Zain 10:53

The fine, fabulous, fucked frame. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, at least in this late stage, the very clear partisan involvement. The

Zain 11:02

The NDP sort of organizers obviously going to Olivia Chow. She's had a long history in the party. You got the liberal-ish organizers supporting Anna Bailao. And then you've now got the Saunders camp with, you know, the premier doing a voicemail drop for him as well, saying, listen, this is the guy. If you want to have a mayor in Toronto, this is the guy you got to go for. talk to me about the partisanship you might think it's fine you might think it's fabulous because why not we've already got these built-in ecosystems of political organizing why not mobilize them to increase voter turnout and something in a by-election for mayor or you might think it's because we're actually uh doing the opposite of what we should be doing in terms of civic and city issues which don't necessarily lean left to right carter fine fabulous or fucked uh the now very overt partisanship in the Toronto mayoral election.

Carter 11:53

I think it's absolutely fine. I think that partisans are always going to be involved in elections for no other reason than they seem to care more. So, you know, you're you're wearing your team's colors. Sure. I mean, but at the same time, you're you're probably more likely to get out and vote. And I think that that's ultimately all that matters is will people actually get out and vote and will they vote for for Chow or will Will they vote for someone else? Now, the endorsements to me don't matter at all. We've seen, you know, we've discussed endorsements quite a bit. I think that they're relatively useless, but the

Carter 12:28

the organizers do matter to me. So I think it's absolutely fine. I think that having organizers on your side is better than not having organizers on your side. So, you

Carter 12:38

you know, perhaps Olivia Chow will do really well with the NDP organizers that are out there. And or, you

Carter 12:44

you know, we'll see if they're able to organize this particular outcome that they need.

Zain 12:48

Corey, we've seen a bit of strange bedfellowings in this in this election. We always see it in mayoralty elections, right? Folks that that are usually on opposite sides of a partisan political campaign become good friends, or at least for the purposes of electing a mayoral candidate or a city council or school board trustee, right? Or someone where you don't necessarily have to wear the jersey. We saw in Ottawa with their mayoral. We saw it, of course, in Toronto. We've seen it in our city, Calgary, Edmonton, elsewhere. Partisans making themselves known, fine, fabulous, or fucked for the Toronto mayoral right now.

Corey 13:18

Maybe let's talk about what it is for the candidates. And it's tricky, right? It might even veer towards fucked. Here's the thing. We are in an era of negative partisanship. We've talked about this. People tend to vote against political parties as much as they're voting for them, if not more. And so one of the interesting things i think about this last and again wow i mean where was everybody two weeks ago the campaign had gotten to this point two weeks ago it would be just such a different campaign but you have one candidate endorsed by the sitting premier you have one candidate so clearly i mean it's olivia chow for crying out loud like she is synonymous with the ndp of course

Corey 13:59

and then uh you've got by lao and what's interesting to me about the third name on that list as well Well, you know, my understanding is the Ontario Liberal Party apparatus is strongly behind her. You've also got the John Tory endorsement, right? And so you see sort of a breaking down of that. So this is a long walk to get to the point where if you have one candidate that seems like they're associated with the New Democrats and one candidate that seems associated with the Conservatives and one candidate that's a little harder to pin down and maybe seems to be pan-partisan or non-partisan just by – You're talking about

Zain 14:30

about Bailao in this situation. Bailao in

Corey 14:31

in this situation, yeah. Yeah.

Corey 14:35

it's being cut a couple of different ways, right? First of all,

Corey 14:39

she's probably your person if you're a liberal partisan and in Toronto, that ain't bad. Yeah.

Corey 14:45

then the second one is if you say, well, I don't want partisan politics to consume City Hall, she might also be your person. And so I guess the thing is, there's a little bit of game theory here. Like if everyone's partisan, well, then you're kind of locked into a paradigm time everybody gets but if some people are playing that game and some people are playing

Corey 15:02

playing a different version of that game i won't go so far as to say they're not playing that game you know it creates some interesting dynamics particularly if you're sitting there as a voter trying to decide based on the cues you're getting from the various personalities at the provincial level right and federal level or the parties more generally i guess you could say if

Corey 15:22

if you're looking for those cues it's telling you an interesting story you

Zain 15:25

you know car i'm gonna abandon the fine fabulous framework for a half a second because that sounds fine i think yeah okay perfect you oh yeah oh fuck

Zain 15:39

yeah you you've ran a couple of marils in the last handful of years three four years yeah like a couple of significant marils yeah cory brings up a really interesting question why didn't the campaign get to where it was with the action of The Ford voicemail drops, John Tory endorsement, late breaking surge a

Zain 15:56

couple of weeks ago. Is this is there like a new theory of the race that like us practitioners are missing out in terms of like the condensed final week? Is it something else? Is it just people are waiting for the first mover to go so that they could respond that they're like, why are we sticking so close to the deadline for movement here? If a John and listen, the answer to the John Tory endorsement might be he said no, no, no. And he eventually said yes, because he saw that it was so close or whatever. there could be a story. But if we were taking all things as equal, why

Zain 16:24

why wait so late? Is there something going on in the world of politics around the final week, the final 10 days, that we would perhaps expand out to even further? And I go to you first, because your experience in the last two mayoral campaigns, you've run one in Calgary, one in Surrey. Yeah,

Carter 16:37

Yeah, I think that there's a real misunderstanding of how

Carter 16:41

information flows. I think that we've talked so much about how information flows on this podcast. You know, we keep pointing out how slow it is to make its way through the general public. And I think that sometimes these people, you

Carter 16:55

you know, get a little high on their own supply and start thinking that they'll

Carter 16:58

they'll be able to really

Carter 17:01

really make an impact in the last few days. And if I, you know, if I came out too early, I wouldn't, you know, I won't have the same impact and those types of kind of ridiculous assertions.

Carter 17:12

But in so doing, what they do is they they've robbed their candidate of momentum. I mean, Corey mentioned the magic M word there.

Carter 17:22

Momentum is everything, and getting it at the right time is essential. And I fear that what has happened is that people think, well, I'll wait till the last minute, and then when I do my endorsement, it will have the maximum impact for my preferred candidate, not understanding that there's still a tremendous amount of churn in the water. Do you think that people were in Toronto this weekend, And maybe our listeners will text or email us or join our Discord on the Patreon, which you can join for as little as $6 a month. I mean, it's really almost free.

Zain 17:54

Almost all of it. Yeah. Towards the development of our new TV show,

Carter 17:59

Okay. It's going to be like the

Zain 18:03

the Fireplace Network, but we're just going to have a hot dog with mustard on it. And we're going to run it for 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the entire summer.

Zain 18:11

We're going to find a channel that allows us to do that, Corey. Yeah,

Corey 18:15

Okay, counter-proposal. It's good. We

Corey 18:16

a hot dog cart called

Corey 18:17

called Mustard Dogs. We offer all sorts of chutneys from relish to mango.

Corey 18:24

Whatever you want to put on your hot

Zain 18:26

You know what I also like? And then to just really give you a refreshing treat afterwards, we offer all types of melon. Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, and mustard. Okay? The fourth melon in the melon family. I like this, Carter.

Corey 18:40

pretty happy about this. It's all good. Stephen, you were making a point. Do you have any sense of what it might have been? I think, would we have

Zain 18:44

have interrupted if he was?

Corey 18:46

Would we have interrupted

Carter 18:47

he was? Does anybody have any sense of what my point is?

Corey 18:50

you're right. I mean, people come in at the last minute. They want to come in at the last minute. Their egos force them to come in at the last minute. There's a bit of hubris.

Zain 18:56

from you, Carter, is that there's a bit of hubris here, that I can create my own weather system in the last couple of days. In fact, that is part of it, that if I drop it in an endorsement or if we get John Troy to drop it in an endorsement, he creates a weather system. It's the conclusion. There's no other time for anyone else to get their point in, ergo we win. I've heard that. I'm wondering if there's anything deeper. Corey, I want your take on this. You asked the question. I want you to try to posit an answer.

Corey 19:21

So I do think what Stephen said is one of the forces that's driving us here. I 100% agree. There are so many people I've heard have some version of, well, now is not the time. We're going to leave that for the last minute. We're going to wow them on the last week, and we're going to do the big policy drop. It's just, it's kind of, I think in some ways, it's like learning the wrong lesson from a truth that you've learned about politics. which is people do make decisions late. But you assume they make those decisions with perfect information as of that minute, because you assume they're like you. And while they're making that decision late, the information takes time to trickle to them. And that's the reality that forces you to have to make these bigger plays earlier. But to your point, is there something else going on here? Yeah, 100% there is. It's the 11th hour phenomenon.

Corey 20:08

Listen, if you've ever done on any kind of negotiations if you have ever been involved in politics in any way shape or form you know that there's this pressure at the 11th hour where you're like something's

Corey 20:19

something's got to give something's got to change i got to do something now

Corey 20:22

right it's when status quos break down because you start to realize you're not going to get that time back and um that that's probably occurred to an extent here people sat there hoping i'd suspect for many weeks people who did not want olivia chow to be mayor, they hoped that it would become clear, and somebody would come forward, and that would be that, and yeah, everybody would consolidate, and there's no way they're going to vote for Olivia Chow. I'm sure that was a thought that many, many people had. And with a week left to go, they looked at those polls, and they said, oh, fuck, Olivia Chow is going to be mayor. Guess I better do something if I don't want to do that. And the conversations are happening with the campaigns, and they're putting more pressure on you, and they're also leaning on that ego and And that notion that you can come in late and change things at the last minute. And then, hey, if you're John Tory, you make an announcement. Hey, if you're Doug Ford, you record a phone call. Because you feel the fact that you've got to leave it on the field and you don't get to redo this when you get to the 11th hour. And so I think that's also part of it. I'm sure you saw this in your own campaign you refused to talk about, Zane. This

Corey 21:27

This desire to say, we don't get any more time. we better do something in the last day, two days, three days, four days, whether or not it makes any sense.

Zain 21:42

Carter, talk to me about this.

Zain 21:45

Olivia Chow seems to be the only one that hasn't changed strategy, that hasn't dropped a new noteworthy tactic. Is that a mistake?

Zain 21:54

Actually, let me ask, go back to our frame. Is that fine? Is that fabulous? She's the one sticking to strategy or is that fucked? If your key opponents, your second place and third place arguable opponents are getting key endorsements, they're trying to consolidate vote, they're trying to showcase strong ground operations, they're doing the thing that Corey says, 11th hour effect, right? They're trying to make something go.

Zain 22:18

Fine, fabulous, or fucked, Olivia Chow seems to be sticking to the script. And some might say that's protecting a 2-1 lead. Others might say it's sound strategy carter where are you on it it's

Carter 22:26

it's absolutely fine i mean when you're winning don't change you know if if olivia

Carter 22:32

olivia chow is is got

Carter 22:34

got her own numbers i'm sure she's got her own internals um you know you're doing fine don't fuck it up uh

Carter 22:41

uh don't suddenly become a new person like what would she change like she's gotta what she should be doing is the stuff behind the scenes that we always talk about making sure you're getting your vote out making sure that you've got all your your good ideas going, making sure that everybody is doing the job that they're supposed to be doing. That doesn't show up in the gen pop. No one's tracking that in the media. So if she's doing those things, then she is winning. That is the goal. That is the objective. So why would you suddenly

Carter 23:09

suddenly take a brand new line that may show that you're panicking? It may show that you've, you

Carter 23:16

you know, oh my goodness, we have to do something new because John Tory just entered. who

Carter 23:21

the fuck cares you're winning keep winning don't don't change it's totally fine cory

Zain 23:25

cory fine fabulous or fuck she doesn't seem to be changing the strategy at least not in a big public noteworthy way in the final days where our opponents seem to be doing big public noteworthy tactical drops or tactical sort of uh changes so to speak i

Corey 23:43

think we'll say fine as long as she wins but this is a question we would revisit and say fucked if she doesn't and we would probably point to the idea that she didn't bring in any additional i i

Corey 23:53

me it wouldn't even

Zain 23:54

even be so much sound strategy here this

Zain 23:55

what i'm trying to get at like what's the what's this rule here right like we sit here a day before what would the the normative rule on this be that's what i'm trying to get to well

Corey 24:03

well i'm not saying okay first of all i i think that we should unpack what the normative rule is but we should also acknowledge this is a 60 40 business and sometimes the rule isn't what you need to do but

Carter 24:14

but it's the armchair quarterback and that's why you're so good at this particular point the armchair quarterback that says well we'll have to revisit it the strategist says what's the best thing what's got the highest odds for us and the highest odds is that you maintain your structure if you were so here's the point if you're running a big organization let's say and you know your other you were running your strategy and it was going really well would you suddenly change your strategy just because you know a smaller organization changed theirs probably not probably not so

Corey 24:42

so here's the point i wanted to make but

Carter 24:44

but mine was really

Corey 24:45

we look on Tuesday, and Olivia Chow has lost to Bailao, which, by the way, wouldn't shock me, I just want to say. It would not shock me. I want to come back to that

Zain 24:54

that point in a

Corey 24:54

a second. It's such a massive field, and there's a lot of people who will just say, my person doesn't have a chance, I'm anybody but Olivia, right? But if that happens, and we look back on it, we're going to say it's because there was this big shakeup, and Olivia Chow didn't change her campaign at all. No, we're not. i'm i'm

Carter 25:14

that that's going to happen but that's

Carter 25:16

that's not what we're going to say what we're going to say is when

Corey 25:19

when you are sitting and constructing a strategy yes

Corey 25:23

you look for the fail points and one of the ways we identify those fail points is by asking if we have failed why would we have failed right

Corey 25:30

right i think we can agree to that and

Carter 25:31

and it will not one of the things that olivia chow

Corey 25:34

could have done because

Carter 25:35

she could have pulled a fucking what out of her ass like a wiener like some sort of uh i mean you could wait till the end of my

Corey 25:42

my sentence to hear what uh what i'm saying he she could have done okay

Carter 25:45

okay i'm sorry my bad i'm i'd like to apologize to zane i'm

Zain 25:48

i'm just gonna i'm just gonna predict he's not gonna like it regardless of what you say go ahead it's

Corey 25:52

fair point yeah she

Corey 25:55

could have found her own counterintuitive endorser somebody who is more on the right saying olivia chow is exactly who we need it requires no

Carter 26:01

no change in strategy base

Carter 26:03

oh sure great idea you think her base

Corey 26:05

base is gonna say

Carter 26:06

say okay goodness oh have you met the ndp base they're not they're not the normal base they're a they're a challenging base they're a challenging base cory i mean uh

Carter 26:16

uh so off track so off track so young so so let

Zain 26:20

me let me take us off track for a second because i want to get to the endorsements which i know we've talked about but let's talk about them you would love if

Corey 26:26

if you were were in her campaign, you would love an endorsement like that. No, I wouldn't. You would. I wouldn't

Carter 26:30

wouldn't take it. Yeah, you would. Who would it be? I don't do endorsements. Have you been not paying attention? Jesus.

Corey 26:36

Ghost of Rob Ford.

Carter 26:40

what's the difference? What's the difference

Zain 26:42

difference practitioner-wise and from your vantage point? You don't have complete information, but you have at least an understanding of a story.

Zain 26:50

Anna Bailoff seems to be making a late-breaking surge. Nahid Nenshi made a late-breaking surge in 2010. What seems seems to be different timing

Carter 26:56

we were a week a full week ahead on our at least a week ahead on our late breaking surge um the late breaking surge that comes this late i mean yeah you can win the election next week um but the way like that this is one of the reasons i love election saying i love elections because it happens now not next week it doesn't happen you know it's not like product sales where you get to have another go kick at the can uh when someone else makes their product decision. Um, it's everybody votes on the same day, give or take. And that means that the decision needs to be made now. So if you start to have a surge at the wrong time, the fact that you had a surge is irrelevant. The

Carter 27:36

The only thing that matters is getting things right at the right time. And it's so hard. It's so hard to do. It's, it's not like, you know, running a big comm shop for some government or something like that where you can just kind of you

Carter 27:50

know wing it and hope for the best yeah i mean that stuff that stuff's pretty straightforward but elections it's just on the day and you don't get a second chance i love that that's

Carter 28:02

that's what i love cory

Zain 28:03

cory i want to start with you on this one um it's it's leading

Zain 28:07

endorsements go right past that we just

Corey 28:08

just both shrugged we both visibly shrugged yeah that's

Zain 28:13

me about this we have have not, I don't know if we've ever talked about this tactic. We'll get to the endorsement, the Ford and the Tory endorsements in a second.

Zain 28:21

Ford used a voicemail drop, and I've never asked you about your practitioner take on a voicemail drop. Fine, fabulous, or fucked is a political tactic in your mind. Do you like it? Do you not like it? Tell me why. Carter, you've probably used them in recent memory as well. I'm going to get to you on the same one. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, that tactic, I don't know if we've ever discussed it, and why don't we do it now? Yeah,

Corey 28:41

Yeah, I mean, fine, maybe even fabulous in this context, but I want to be really clear. The tactic, whether it's good or bad, depends on your strategy, depends on your audience, depends on a million other things. This is such a blown up, like, there are going to be so many people tomorrow who are like, well, I don't know who I'm going to vote for. I think I'm going to vote for candidate number 18 on the ballot, but who the hell knows? There's so many of them. And to have somebody who can help clarify that for you, by the way, delivered through a channel that generally an older population, which generally skews conservative, is going to get, and they're going to get the voicemail of the Premier of Ontario, that kind of makes sense to me. Like, I think it works really well in this particular context, because it will help clarify who conservatives are supposed to go to. You've got somebody who's a leader of conservatives, and when you've got a field of literally 100, it tells you who, you know, conservatives should be rallying around. So that makes an awful lot of sense to me.

Zain 29:40

fine, fabulous, or fucked?

Carter 29:43

They're absolutely fine. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. I mean, Corey nailed it. And there is no one more surprised than I am today. He just, it was almost like he knew what he was talking about there for a few minutes. And well done, Corey. Way to pull it out for the listeners. Way to pull it out.

Zain 30:00

Carter, can I stick with you on this one? Sure. Doug Ford endorsing Mark Saunders, the former Toronto police chief. Yeah.

Zain 30:05

The sitting premier endorsing a candidate for mayor of the largest city in Toronto. know from its straight up democracy angle fine fabulous or fucked in your mind absolutely

Carter 30:13

absolutely fine i mean doug ford gets to to do this it comes with a cost right like it's not like it's cost free um doug ford will uh suffer some pain from

Carter 30:25

the strategy in a second from a

Zain 30:26

a democracy angle from

Carter 30:27

from a democracy angle i i mean everybody gets to choose everybody gets to say who they support no one is prohibited from that and i'm

Zain 30:35

i'm gonna get back to you on the politics Let me get Corey on that answer. Corey, fine, fabulous, or fucked? Doug Ford, straight democracy angle, endorsing Mark Saunders.

Corey 30:43

I think it's fine. I know there are people who think that he shouldn't be involved in this particular way, shape, or form, but the reality is he's a resident of—he was a councillor in Toronto. He has an opinion about the place where he lives, and to pretend otherwise is a bit ridiculous. In some ways, isn't it better you know those connections? And look, there is going to be benefits to the city of Toronto if Saunders becomes the mayor as a result of those connections. And there will be reasons why that should give you severe pause if you're residents of Toronto, because there's going to be some pretty significant alignment with provincial objectives, regardless of whether they actually support. Or you could reasonably believe, right, that he's going to owe something to the premier. And a lot of the job of being mayor of Toronto is standing up to the premier of Ontario. So, you know, I don't have huge problems with it. I think that generally speaking, I'm not wild about pretending clearly partisan people don't have an interest in elections and don't have opinions about elections. Of course they do. How much they act on them, you know, I

Corey 31:45

I would feel a little different about it if he used, you know, the government of Ontario. I'd feel a lot different about it if he used the government of Ontario's resources to advocate for, you know, for him. But that's not the situation we're in right now. We're talking about his voice as a political leader being used.

Zain 32:01

Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this one. It's the political cost. Tell me about Doug Ford's political calculus here. Fine, fabulous, or fucked. It doesn't seem like... This is not one of those evergreen episodes. This all will be resolved, at least in terms of

Corey 32:14

Monday. Yeah, thanks for this.

Zain 32:15

this. It doesn't seem like Saunders is going to win,

Zain 32:18

Third or fourth in the polls, right? If you're looking at a series of these polls, that's where it seems like he's going to land.

Zain 32:24

If he's not going to win, political calculus for ford fine fabulous or fucked in terms of what he's able to see right now you

Corey 32:31

know it's interesting because of one of the reasons why premiers don't do this shit is not because of democracy it's because they have to work with whoever wins yeah correct and it becomes a uh bit of a challenge when you're first meeting with say mayor chow as you walk in and it's like yeah i i endorsed your opponent right like that's that's not necessarily going to set you up for a warm and fuzzy fuzzy conversation, at least in theory. I think one of the things about Doug Ford that his opponents hate to admit, but I think I will just call out, is that he can kind of get away with that. Like, it sort of matches his shtick pretty good. I can easily imagine him going like, oh, geez, Olivia, I mean, you know I'm a Conservative. Of course I was going to vote for a Conservative. But you're here now, and we're all here for the people of Toronto. So we're going to figure it out. And by God, I'm going to work as hard as I can with you. And we got this strong mayor thing happening now. And God, I can't wait to see what we could do for the people of toronto like he could pull that off a little bit more i think than say uh you know somebody who's seen as more of a machiavellian for us more calculating i'll use jason kenney like if jason kenney came in after endorsing somebody like say jason kenney had endorsed jeremy farkas and then had to work with jody gondek he

Corey 33:41

he can't pull that shit off like he can't you know like so who you are also affords you certain things in those meetings going forward And I actually don't think that the cost will be huge because I think it's costed in. I think it's costed in both in everybody assumes that this is generally where Doug Ford's going to be. And, you know, it's just like, it's not going to shock Olivia Chow that Doug Ford didn't vote for her.

Zain 34:04

Carter, it's interesting because in a couple of ways. Number one, the Ford-Torrey Chow triad also ran for mayor. All three of them ran for mayor in a recent race where Tory won. Number two, it also speaks to, you know, if you were to tell me during the pandemic that Doug Ford would win an election handily and have coattails to even endorse in the city of Toronto thereafter, I'd tell you you were nuts. But here we are, Carter. But give me your political calculus. Fine, fabulous, or fucked for Ford here? Is it costed in, as Corey says, or is a Saunders loss actually quite difficult for him in a certain way? I

Carter 34:39

I mean, I was so impressed by Corey, and then he just throws it all away. And, you

Carter 34:45

you know, it's not just going into the mayor's office and saying, I endorsed your opponent. It's recognizing the weakness of your positions in Toronto, right? Right. It is. I, I, the guy I endorsed can't get over 14% in the city of Toronto. Um, where exactly am I? How strong am I? Doug Ford is, is the new leader of Toronto, Olivia Chow. Oh, so

Corey 35:09

I would have agreed with you, Steven, except for the fact that he fucking ran for mayor and lost. Like, I think we know Doug Ford is not the Doug

Carter 35:18

Ford, you know, he's, he's been able to, to resurrect himself to Zane's point, which is again, awkward to acknowledge. And he's he's in a position where he is seen as, you know, he almost an affable loser, you know, kind of kind of fellow. And he's he's fine. He's he's just kind of, you know, he's fine. And then he's going to go throw away his political capital to Saunders, of all people, who I think isn't is going to be really hard pressed to break 15 percent of the vote.

Zain 35:49

Carter, I want to get to

Zain 35:51

to this last point around endorsements in the Tory endorsement. And

Zain 35:55

And I'm going to try to, I don't want to take too long of a walk, but I want to kind of use the term you just used, which is political capital.

Zain 36:03

said he needs to work on his life, work on his family, I'm paraphrasing, right? But he said something like that when he stepped aside after the reporting came out. I heard that Corey

Carter 36:11

Corey wrote that for him. It was really good, Corey. Tori.

Zain 36:16

Carter, is there a conflation between political capital and just like outright, you know, sort of capital that he needs in order to let the people of Toronto know that he's kind of taken his time, he can come back in the political orbit, so to speak? Because he puts himself out here, like literally months after saying he's not going to get involved. You know, he's going to stick aside, they've asked him these questions, like, nope, nope, nope, not going to get involved, and then gets involved. Yeah. So it goes down the same sort of political political calculus question for john tory uh but maybe with a slight bent on like john tory the person less so john tory the politician the political calculus for him to make this endorsement fine fabulous or fucked i

Carter 36:52

i think it's fine for him i think that his he doesn't have he's not going to have a next act in political in politics this is his his act is over and i think he's even

Zain 37:01

even carter prediction i don't know man do you i don't know do

Carter 37:04

do you think he has a next act like that where Where does he come from? Like, what

Carter 37:07

what does he do? He's done in politics in Canada. I mean, maybe he goes on to see you. He's smashed out to

Corey 37:13

to four years from

Zain 37:13

from now and he's prime minister. You're like, you've made this happen.

Carter 37:16

I know he's done in politics.

Zain 37:19

Leader of the Bloc Quebecois. Aren't

Carter 37:20

Aren't we all going to be leader of the Bloc Quebecois? I mean, he's done. So this is his last gasp to try and keep what he feels is some sanity. And I think that that's why he's chosen to endorse the way he has. I think that he was a late comer to this because he really just doesn't want Olivia Chow to be the mayor, and he's trying to stop that. I think that that's his only calculation. I think he's coming at it from his own personal bias, his own personal point of view, and we can agree or disagree, but that's why he's doing it. Corey?

Zain 37:52

Corey? Fine, fabulous, or fucked for John Torrey, this endorsement for Adam Bailow?

Corey 37:57

I mean, it's somewhere between fine and fucked. It's certainly not fabulous for him, because of course, he's doing the thing that he said he wasn't going to do, which was get involved in the mayoral race. But I can imagine that, again, this is the 11th hour phenomenon. Emotions are ratcheted really high. People are now talking about the stakes in near apocalyptic terms. It was like the amount of reporting and conversations I've had with people in Toronto who are like, oh, my God. And if Olivia Chow gets these strong mayor powers, literally like streets

Corey 38:26

streets will be torn out for public gardens to be put in. You know, like there's just like there's a lot of extreme emotions around this right now. And those extreme emotions do have a habit of filtering back to people in funny ways. And one of them is I have no doubt there are people around John Tory saying, you have to do this. You have to do this. and in fact some probably even going further and saying things like we're

Corey 38:46

we're in this ship because of you right you owe it to the city of toronto to make sure we don't have olivia chow as mayor because the sky will fall john the sky will fall on your fat fucking head your fat adulterous head john so you come out now and you fix this john just

Carter 39:05

for the record then you

Carter 39:06

the strategist podcast does not believe that john tory has a fat fucking head but

Corey 39:12

but we but we do believe that yeah you gotta watch out for that so not too much mustard not too many dogs that's true go

Corey 39:20

go ahead cory out please but

Corey 39:22

but again that's not me that's the person yelling at john tory saying that but there are going to be people who are going to be putting pressure on him saying you have to do something i know you said you wouldn't but you have to do something now whether things Things are actually that apocalyptic. Let me tell you, from a few provinces over, it doesn't really feel like it, but that's the emotions that you get when

Carter 39:43

when you're running an election. We just don't like the Danielle Smith. It feels pretty fucking apocalyptic. So, you

Carter 39:48

you know. Please calm down.

Corey 39:53

From a few provinces over, I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure you guys will figure it out. You're still there.

Zain 40:00

was a light 40 minutes on the Toronto mayoral election. Anything else you want to talk about there? I've got a few other fine fabulous or fuck to roll through. Oh,

Carter 40:06

Oh, no, Zane. I let the show be in your hands, because you're the one we follow. Carter,

Zain 40:11

fabulous, or fucked for the federal liberals. Meta is planning to end news access to Facebook and Instagram in Canada. They said they were going to do it. Now they're saying again they're going to do it. This is, of course, in response to Bill C-18, where the government tries to save news, tries to save journalism, tries to bring back jobs. It seems like it was a noble mission, but not kind of saying it's over here for the liberals, but Meta saying that this is it. We're planning to add news access on Facebook and Instagram in response to legislation that would require us to pay news publishers. Fine, fabulous, or fucked for the liberals? Is this a fight that they want? Is this showing their principles? Is this fighting big tech as they wanted it? Many areas to discuss, but your top line, fine, fabulous, or fucked for the liberals, Carter? It's absolutely

Carter 40:56

absolutely fine, and there's two reasons why. Number one, they went through this in Australia, and guess what? Meta caved. Meta's going to cave again. So it's fine. And the second thing is maybe we just need to see more of our aunt's pictures. Maybe we need fewer people commenting on the news on Facebook. It's turned out to be an absolutely horrific way of spreading news and spreading information. So maybe, maybe it should just be for our aunt's pictures. You know, I posted a picture on the Discord today. Maybe I should have put it on Facebook. book you know discord you can get access for only six dollars a month through our lowest here which is called advisor to zane you could have advised him to do a different segment but you chose not to well done see

Zain 41:38

fine fabulous speaking better

Corey 41:43

you know what it's i have a hard time sort of separating the fact that i think the online news act is a bad piece of legislation i don't think it's particularly good the um the reality is when you post something on facebook right you know there's a little picture and there's the headline and there's the text you know the news organizations actually go to great trouble to make sure that shows up really beautifully and presents properly and if they don't want to do that they can actually through the same meta tags shut it down so that nothing shows up when it's being shared the fact of the the matter is the news organizations have been desperate to have their content shared over social media and you know what maybe that was a bad choice but it was their fucking choice it was their choice as organizations and they did it and it's not as though anybody held a gun to their head as much as we pretend otherwise now through things like the online news act they retooled their entire operations towards this and again that was a choice a lot of other organizations decided now we're going to paywall things right but the canadian ones said oh we'll give a bunch bunch of free articles and we'll make it super easy to share on social media and hopefully it'll all work out despite our content continually getting a little bit more tragic as we continue to lay off you know news personalities everywhere across the coast all

Corey 42:57

all right well maybe there's more foundational problems there and maybe uh we're kind of aiming our fire at the wrong people that's that's my first thought on c18 the online news act that's why cory

Carter 43:08

cory it was google who sponsored us not yeah meta so we can say whatever we want okay

Corey 43:13

okay oh that's good i you can

Carter 43:15

can you don't have to be nice to meta it was google so that's

Corey 43:20

that's that's good yeah but that's my personal feeling about it i don't like the online that

Carter 43:24

that was actually your opinion oh yeah i'm sorry i interjected incorrectly okay yeah

Zain 43:31

yeah no thank you carter for that uh fine

Zain 43:32

fine piece of uh interjection which

Zain 43:36

like most interjections that you make uh not necessary i

Carter 43:39

i misunderstood i misunderstood i thought he was doing that because hey man so

Corey 43:43

so that's my c18 side the other side is i just don't think that you know i particularly like the idea of tech giants like meta pushing around the canadian government either so that's a bit of a challenge for me so hey do

Carter 43:55

do you do you feel like we're to both sides that one hogan that was

Zain 43:57

was great rodriguez on this one thank you the minister mr cory i'll start with you on this um

Zain 44:04

frames this in the in the fighting against the tech giants bucket right like this is the saving news fighting against the tech giants this is jobs this is all this is the and and and legislation do you feel like fighting the tech giants is the right frame in your mind like do you feel like that's the most effective no frame here i'm very curious because there's many that he could choose from he goes with that one i get why he goes with that one with their larger-than-life monopoly powers, their sort of implications of democracy. Is it the right frame in your mind?

Corey 44:35

No, I don't, because ultimately, I think that's a fairly cerebral frame that people talk about the threats to democracy are ultimately not the people who are going to decide whether this government lives or dies. It's the people who say, why the fuck is Google News not working now? Why the fuck is Facebook broken for me, but it's working just fine for my aunt down in Milwaukee? Milwaukee, ah, that Trudeau, goddammit, has wrecked another thing here. I mean, this is the reality. You're putting these high-minded arguments on, and you're going to get total flack from people who actually don't give a shit. And they just know that the Canadian government is now breaking the products that they know and like and love. And so that's a challenge, I think, for the government in terms of politics. tactics before

Zain 45:16

before you jump in carter uh some milwaukeans may look at you strangely if you pronounce the l in their city's name for many natives the name milwaukee is not milwaukee thank you

Zain 45:26

carter um over to you thank you uh this is just this is random uh tidbit um it's good i like it pointed at absolutely no one uh on this podcast carter yeah

Zain 45:36

right frame no battling the tech giants what would you have gone what would you have gone with if

Carter 45:40

if you're going to say you're battling the tech giants, then you actually have to step up to the bar and name them because battling the tech giants doesn't tell us anything, right? If you want to go after Mark Zuckerberg, that, you know, go after the people that are personified, that are actually the people that you're wishing to fight, but they're too afraid to do that. They're too afraid to say, you know, Zuckerberg broke our news ecosystem. So we are going to go after him and we're going to try and and put this ecosystem back

Carter 46:10

back together now that he's already broken it. And it's going to be tough. It's going to be hard. It may be, in fact, impossible, but we're going to try. But he's not going to do that. He's not going to name names. He's not going to point fingers because naming names and pointing fingers is how you get into trouble.

Carter 46:25

And so he's going to say things like, well, we're battling the tech monopoly. And I don't know what that is. I don't know who that is. I don't know why we're talking about it. and i think that people need to be if you're going to pick up an enemy pick an unpopular enemy if you want an enemy right now you know you can pick i'm just going to throw it out there elon musk

Carter 46:44

elon musk right elon musk and uh you know mark zuckerberg are two you know and then throw in bezos just for fun the three of them you know like not very popular people you could go after them massively you could go after bezos for his environmental challenges that he's creating with With Amazon, you can go after, like, if you want to, but you don't want to because you're afraid, and so you're not going to. And therefore, you say words like tech giants, which, frankly,

Carter 47:14

frankly, just totally erodes your message and makes it nearly impossible for people to comprehend

Carter 47:19

comprehend or buy into.

Zain 47:21

Goy, I'm going to start with you on this next one. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Do you know who that is? Fortunately, I think, yeah, we all do.

Zain 47:29

do. Oh, yeah. There we go. So there we go. He

Carter 47:31

He looks so good with his T-shirt off. Have you noticed?

Zain 47:34

I've unfortunately noticed. Yes, Carter, this is the Democrat. This

Zain 47:39

This is the Democrats. This is part of the Kennedy lineage. He is running for the Democratic nomination in the United States against Joe Biden. He's polling somewhere near 20%, seemingly not going to be making many waves, but is making waves this week, Carter, because he was on the Joe Rogan podcast. He's an anti-vaxxer, a longtime conspiracy theorist. And Joe Rogan has offered any

Zain 48:05

any virologist to come in and debate

Zain 48:09

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And this has kind of started a media narrative where folks are saying, on one side, no, science is not to be debated. You don't debate a conspiracy theorist. You don't debate someone who is opposed to the science. And others saying, you know what, this is exactly how how you put someone in

Zain 48:27

in their place, someone who comes with a long list of conspiracy theories and misinformation. You debate them to put them into place. Carter, fine, fabulous, or fucked

Zain 48:37

debate someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a mainstream conspiracy theorist for the Democrats, which I think is quite fascinating in its own right as a makeup. Fine, fabulous, or fucked to debate RFK Jr.

Carter 48:48

It's absolutely fucked. I mean, first of all, you have to recognize how people's minds are changed and how people make decisions. And

Carter 48:54

And if we go to the end first, right, which and the end is that we we would prefer that fewer people held held these positions. If we start at that end, then you can absolutely not debate Robert Kennedy Jr. It just adds more smoke to the fire. It adds more confusion. And we know of all kinds of psychological effects that happen when we try and do this. Instead of getting people to believe us just because our well-reasoned argument really hit all the boxes, it actually has a backfire effect. It pushes people the wrong direction. And there's absolutely no reason for us to propel these ideas any further. Yes, at some point, we should try and find a tonic, something that creates remission of this this great epidemic of people believing in conspiracies. But we're not going to do it on a debate stage, and we're certainly not going to do it on a debate stage hosted by Joe fucking Rogan. Like, come on. This isn't serious talk for serious people.

Zain 50:05

Corey, here's a take from the New York Times opinion section. In the year 2023, the idea is that Kennedy champions are not obscure. They clearly have influence over millions of Americans who've declined the vaccine. The man himself is a famous figure and already has access to many prominent platforms. Debating him is what you need to do to put him in his place. Oh, God. Corey?

Corey 50:26

Okay, I'm going to have a debate right now with my friend Stephen Karp. Stephen's going to be a normal human being, and I'm going to be a not normal human being. I'm going to illustrate

Zain 50:35

illustrate a point. Oh, we're going to do some role play. Yeah,

Corey 50:37

we're going to do a little

Corey 50:37

little bit of role play

Carter 50:38

Carter, you're a theater major,

Carter 50:40

Well, believe me, this is a stretch for me, for normal. Steve, it's so

Corey 50:43

so glad that you're willing to have a conversation with me about the lizard people at the center of the Earth. Yeah.

Corey 50:49

And you say there's no lizard people at the center of the Earth. You want to explain this position?

Carter 50:54

There are no lizard people at the center of the Earth.

Corey 50:57

Well, I mean, there clearly are. I've talked to 18 reputable scientists, all of which have validated my views that there are lizard people in the center of the Earth. Well,

Carter 51:05

Well, my scientists tell me that that's not possible, because the Earth is, you know, made of molten lava and those types of things. So

Corey 51:12

So it sounds like a bit of a disagreement amongst scientists. And, you know, you seem to think that you've got this monopoly on truth. But my scientists say that there are lizard people in the Earth. And you refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that there are lizard people in the Earth. Don't you think that's a little suspicious, Stephen? Well,

Carter 51:28

Well, I mean, we don't know everything. As you know, science is something that we are... So you're all

Corey 51:33

all really conceding the fact that there might be lizard people in the earth. That's quite a walk down from, I don't

Carter 51:38

don't know, 30 seconds ago. Well, honestly,

Carter 51:41

honestly, I think that there aren't any, but, you know, yeah, I mean, we

Carter 51:44

we don't reject ideas just out of hand. Are you a lizard

Corey 51:48

lizard personologist? Because the people I've been talking to are lizard peopleologists. Well,

Carter 51:52

don't actually recognize in science that particular realm of expertise. Oh,

Corey 51:57

Oh, so now you're gatekeeping who's a scientist. Well, you know, these people went to school for a very long time. And just because they disagree with your so-called mainstream science,

Carter 52:06

science, it's molten lava. Lizards can't live where there's molten lava. I'm just trying. Oh, yeah.

Carter 52:13

I'm going to put that fact out there one more time. I don't want to upset you. I respect you and your views, Corey. I always have. There

Corey 52:21

There you go. So, here's the problem, Zane.

Corey 52:23

One person can be a lying sociopath, and what we're actually testing... Are there lizard

Corey 52:30

Now you're wondering, right? Now you're wondering. I'm convinced. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

Corey 52:35

A debate as we are generally talking about it, which is two blowhards talking on a podcast, as this would be with the Joe Rogan experience. Are you describing our podcast?

Zain 52:47

enough muscle milk to go around on this podcast.

Corey 52:52

it it is a test of rhetoric as much as anything else there's no there's nothing that stops and says hey wait a minute is that fucking true and so where i agree with the new york times is yeah i think you have to confront these things head on and you have to have conversations about them but the format has to be considered here and the format cannot be joe fucking rogan sitting there and scoring points the cigar

Corey 53:15

whether lizard person or normal person is right you know like that just can't be the thing you can here's another i'm gonna throw a crazy notion at you here's a way to have a debate bobby kennedy jr write down all of your bullshit ideas in a piece of paper and i'll write back on a piece of paper why every single one of them is wrong that's a debate why can't we have that debate it's

Carter 53:35

it's a good debate that's actually one where we can look things up and cite things yeah

Carter 53:40

talk about it it's

Corey 53:41

it's way in on whether

Corey 53:42

things make sense wow

Corey 53:44

we're not just going to rely on rhetorical flourishes here you know what's interesting about fairness

Carter 53:47

fairness he doesn't have any rhetorical flourishes i

Zain 53:51

carter you you've studied like the rhetoric of persuasion or you you you're you're a student of it right i'm

Carter 53:58

certainly wouldn't classify myself as an expert but yes i do study it is

Zain 54:02

is of okay so if it's not a debate it's cory's idea is an interesting one right like if you want to have how do someone whose perspective who's

Zain 54:10

who's someone one who's well known, whose

Zain 54:12

perspective is shared by millions, right? Who currently now has the platform to spread that information to even more people. The current strategy says, if it's not a debate, which many people are arguing, right? We just let this guy be himself. We let him continue to flourish, right? So as someone who's like, if you're like advised to strategize on this, and knowing, you know, and being a student of persuasive storytelling, is the answer to just just say, if it's not a debate, you just let him go do his thing? And has that been kind of a mistake of the mainstream to just let it flourish and not try to comment on it or kind of leave it in quarantine, being like, ah, we can't touch that. We can't touch that. That's not going to be something we touch. Because that seems to be the other side of the argument. You don't touch conspiracy theorists. Leave these fucking people alone. Is that a mistake from a political strategy, persuasion strategy perspective, Carl?

Carter 55:05

It has proven to be a societal mistake to leave conspiracy theorists to have and harbor their own conspiracies. That has proven to be a societal mistake. We are worse off today than we were in the past. When our conspiracies were much more contained, our conspiracies about Roswell, our conspiracies about the JFK assassination, our conspiracies about whether Elvis was alive or not, These are the conspiracies of my youth. And now they have morphed into, you know, the Las Vegas shooting was, you know, a false flag operation by the U.S. government. You know, 9-11 was another fall. I mean, they love their false flags. Pizzagate, you know, that there was a in the basement of a pizzeria, a children's sex trafficking ring. um they're just they're spreading faster but

Carter 56:00

but the the core remains the same people are willing to believe the incredible incredible right they choose to believe the incredible and we still don't necessarily have a single tonic where you know we we sprinkle a little of this tonic and people suddenly believe things that aren't true i would hazard a guess that we each believe something um that is probably not true that verges on something like a conspiracy theory like cory believes that the washington wizards will be stronger after today's trade it just isn't true it just isn't

Corey 56:33

them the opportunity to rebuild yeah but that's it's clearly true yeah

Carter 56:36

yeah but that that type of um it's

Carter 56:39

it's just how dangerous these things become and the real danger in them isn't frankly that

Carter 56:45

that your mother believes this and she's talking to her friends or or that your brother is

Carter 56:52

about this when he goes to see his barber. The

Carter 56:55

The problem is, when the people of power, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, the Donald Trump's, the Lauren Boebert's, when government takes these positions and grabs them because it is a useful tool to manipulate the masses, that's the problem. And again, we don't have a tonic.

Corey 57:17

no i mean but there are a lot of things that we can do and i think in many ways we just need to lean a little bit harder into them so steven's talked a lot about the fact that this is just a reality of human existence there are people who believe conspiracy theories and yes they propagate now and yes they seem a little more harmful now although i remember hearing false flags about timothy mcveigh you know and the oklahoma city bombing i remember you know waco well that's a a weird one so maybe but like the point being as long as we have had these conversations there have been these conversations around the conversations about what's really happened and a lot of psychologists will tell you this is because this is how people get kind of control of their lives they get the sense like i am on the inside on a truth that you're not and that gives me a sense of power and a sense of worth and that validates my worldview and i know it and you don't And the whole thing just meshes really well with my ego. Pretty fucking awesome. Why wouldn't I want to believe these things? And yeah, that's a problem. And I think we've got to unpack that in a hundred different ways. But one of the most imminent or immediate ways we need to unpack this, I suppose, is we've

Corey 58:26

we've got to know that there are different rules for debating a liar than somebody who's generally going to be trying to tell the truth. and we've got to stop debating liars as though they are good faith arguments and that we can have the same you know uh rules of engagement you know like the like the marcus rules of like boxing here like this is all going to be just fine as long as we just get in a ring with them because that's not fucking the case and uh you know what you do with a liar you've probably done this in your life somewhere i'm gonna implore my listeners to think about this you work with someone you don't feel they're telling the truth what do you do you paper them you start putting putting things in emails. You start recapping conversations. You start saying, so if I did this, you agree that we would meet the condition here. So if I managed to prove this thing was not true, Bobby Kennedy Jr., you would agree then that there was a problem with your vaccine argument. And then of course, they won't want to be pinned down. They're going to say, well, no, and they'll move the goalposts and you'll say, well, hold on. Let's just all agree on terms here. You do it in paper. You do it in a concrete way. You do it slowly. You don't give them kind of the flash and chaos that a real-time debate provides them. There are ways to have these conversations without giving them, like, a Joe Rogan-experienced 30-minute flash dance. Like, nobody needs that, okay? Nobody needs that.

Carter 59:45

that. there's been some really any

Corey 59:47

anything you want to share

Zain 59:47

share with cory's listeners yeah

Carter 59:49

thank you there's been some really interesting work done with flat earthers on this and flat earthers have um been asked you know to set the goalposts and then work using their own instruments to prove that you know the earth is flat and they keep finding this um statistical anomaly i think they call it that the you know they've got a 15 degree um curvature

Carter 1:00:11

curvature kind of situation i don't understand it i'm not going to try and explain it because they're fucking flat earthers yeah

Corey 1:00:16

yeah the earth is round turns

Carter 1:00:17

turns out the earth is round um and that

Carter 1:00:20

that they keep finding that and they keep discovering that but they keep thinking that their science is wrong because they have to hold so true to their belief and and at the risk of offending both of you who i know are religious this also ties into our desire for religion right the the desire to have these these things, if we were to take away certain brand elements of different religions and put them forward, people

Carter 1:00:45

people would have a difficult time agreeing with them.

Carter 1:00:48

But as soon as we put them into a single package, we're

Carter 1:00:51

we're now in a group that believes them. And that's the other thing.

Carter 1:00:54

The group dynamics is absolutely essential to being able to figure out how to break these things apart. Because as long as there's a group and as long as there's an internet, there's going to be a group.

Carter 1:01:05

So as long as there's a group, people will always choose to believe these things yeah

Corey 1:01:09

yeah but i guess my point would be when you start having that conversation at work with the co-worker via email who is just being kind of a liar about things you're not actually doing it for them you're doing it for other people like you're doing it for an audience but if

Carter 1:01:23

if you and i for example cory could agree that

Carter 1:01:26

that virgins don't give birth i

Carter 1:01:28

i think that we you know like could you agree that the

Carter 1:01:31

the virgins don't sure yeah

Carter 1:01:33

okay you just said he's religious

Zain 1:01:34

religious so i don't know there might be one exception to that rule i'm

Carter 1:01:37

i'm just saying keep

Carter 1:01:39

i'm just saying if we agree on that point wow

Corey 1:01:43

wow you're making me religious right now

Corey 1:01:46

it's fine i okay wow what a weird fucking curve this is taking a great

Carter 1:01:52

this is probably our best work guys i'll

Corey 1:01:54

i'll tell you but it's an inoculation strategy to serve oh

Carter 1:01:57

oh but you know we come back to inoculation strategy how many times have we talked about inoculation strategy One of the best and most important things is making sure that people don't feel this way before they start to find these things. Allow them to find positive groups. I mean, there's a whole another theory of group dynamics that says since we've lost religion in a large way, this has actually pushed people into different groups to find meaning in a new and different way. So, you

Carter 1:02:27

you know, there's all kinds of

Zain 1:02:29

of different ways. I'm going to move it on here. Before we move on, just a small plug for Islam. It's a faith that is very welcoming. Carter, fine,

Zain 1:02:41

fine, fabulous, or fucked. This is a series of questions. We

Carter 1:02:44

We can't do that.

Carter 1:02:47

can't do that. I'm not allowing it.

Zain 1:02:50

Depends on your audience. Depends who you are. It's very situational. Solomon, I've asked you not to do that.

Zain 1:02:54

Here's a very Corey Hogan answer for you for Islam. Carter, Vox Pop Labs. This is the company that publishes Vote Compass across the country. There was a screen cap here in Alberta where on a standard Likert scale, Corey, this was strongly disagree to strongly agree, don't know, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, right? Like those standards sort of – that's the scaling.

Zain 1:03:18

They had a list of questions. Oh,

Carter 1:03:20

Oh, my God. You're going to make my head explode, Zane. My head's going to explode if you keep going. I'm going to

Zain 1:03:24

to – this is – okay, here we go.

Zain 1:03:26

I'm going to just read these questions out. Women should be cherished and protected by men. Most women fail to appreciate all that men do for them. A good woman should be set on a pedestal by her men. Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist. Many women have a quality or purity that few men possess. Women seek to gain power by getting control of men. Strongly disagree. Strongly disagree. Somewhat disagree. Neutral. Somewhat agree. Strongly agree. Don't know on all these questions. Carter, the simple act of asking these questions. Are you able to ask these questions? This is a survey. you're trying to glean some insights find fabulous or fuck that these questions find themselves in in a survey i don't have the it's absolutely fine

Carter 1:04:03

fine it's absolutely fine i mean we ran into this exact first of all melanie thomas researcher at the university of calgary i think university of calgary chose to put these questions in because she's a fucking professional because she understands how to get at at help and and people always ignore they ignore there is a They strongly fucking disagree on the Likert scale. It's not how much do you agree with the following statements. It's literally there's a fucking strongly disagree. You don't have to agree. This is a professional researcher doing professional work in a professional environment. And I was all over the discord on this. Don't join the fucking discord. Don't join Patreon. Don't spend your six dollars because you wind up with these people who followed this. and they all had to have a remedial lesson in the Dunning-Kruger effect because they didn't know enough to get down off their fucking high horses atop the peak of Mount Stupid. But it's okay. I'm fine. There's some great work. Read Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind. Look at his moral foundations. Take a look at the questions. Researchers around the world use these types of questions to really see what's happening underneath the surface. And if you can't understand that, read a fucking book.

Zain 1:05:15

Wow. Thank you, Carter. Speaking of men on high horses, Islam. You know what? Fuck it, Carter. I don't even want to give Corey an opportunity to answer this. Corey, let's move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. Corey Hogan, we have to ask you. Actually, you know what? I want to ask you second, but I'm going to ask you first. Because you could set the... Because we do this for me.

Zain 1:05:32

We've always done this.

Zain 1:05:33

We do this for

Zain 1:05:34

Carter, but we'll see why we do it for Carter in a second. Corey? I

Carter 1:05:38

I had a little rant there. I feel bad.

Carter 1:05:40

Well, no, Carter. I feel like I took Corey's opportunity. Your rant was

Zain 1:05:43

was fine, and it allowed me to talk about the holy faith of Islam, which I feel like this has been a 1,078 episode journey towards for many of us. Corey,

Zain 1:05:54

Olivia Chow, will she be mayor Monday evening? Oh, God.

Corey 1:05:57

I'm glad you went in. I mean, the smart money says yes, so I'm going to take the long shot, and I'm going to say no.

Corey 1:06:04

Carter, Olivia Chow, will she be mayor on Monday? Of course

Corey 1:06:10

mayor on Monday, Carter?

Carter 1:06:13

okay now i'm just pulling shit out of my ass i mean i think i'll

Corey 1:06:16

i'll tell you what it's based on it's based on the fact i don't think i've heard him say bylou's name once i

Carter 1:06:20

i can't say bylou's name that's why you nailed it congratulations what okay too many vowels all together very

Zain 1:06:28

very confusing carter forget you just okay uh just forget her name yeah how would you have said it bailey

Carter 1:06:37

it's a great perfectly normal i mean i grew up with With Private Bailey in the comics. I'm

Zain 1:06:43

I'm sorry. You're going to say Bailey's perfectly normal, but what's Bailao?

Carter 1:06:47

many vowels do you have? How many vowels? Perfectly normal. It should have been perfectly normal.

Carter 1:06:51

Do you know how long it took me to pronounce Zane properly? Zane. I was going Zan, Zan.

Corey 1:06:58

to say was perfectly normal.

Zain 1:06:59

normal. All you had to say her name was perfectly normal. Now everyone knows that Bailey is perfectly normal, but Bailao has too many letters. Too many vowels. It's

Carter 1:07:07

It's vowels. I get confused by vowels. Well,

Zain 1:07:10

Well, Carter, it's been a good run.

Zain 1:07:14

We're just serving it to you, Carter. Just serving it to you. Jesus fucking Christ. Great episode,

Carter 1:07:20

episode, guys. This is my favorite episode. Okay, well,

Zain 1:07:22

well, we're not done yet. We've still got a bit more. Are we

Carter 1:07:24

we still recording? I thought it was over. Okay.

Carter 1:07:26

Carter, if you're Premier

Zain 1:07:28

Premier Higgs right now, what advice would you have for him? Another cabinet minister resigns on Friday. Is it to just call the question, go for an election? Is he digging himself a bigger hole? Cole, give me some advice for Premier Blaine Higgs.

Zain 1:07:41

I like what you did there, Corey. What's the advice you're giving him right now? Is it to just call the question? If you want to run an election on this, enough dithering on it, just do it. What raw, Machiavellian, straight down the middle political advice are you giving this guy now that he's gone down this track?

Corey 1:07:56

Jeez, Premier, I don't know. But if you talk to Stephen Carter, he's got some interesting ideas.

Zain 1:08:01

Carter, seriously, though, would you tell him to just call an election? If you want to do it, buddy, just call the election on this question. Absolutely

Carter 1:08:08

Absolutely not. He's going to lose.

Carter 1:08:10

I mean, you don't call an election when you're going to lose. That's like the first rule of politics. And he's going to lose. The question is never going to be the one that has been crafted about trans kids. First of all, it was a fucking horrible question anyways. And secondly, it's going to be about his leadership. and his leadership uh is led has

Carter 1:08:32

has led a party you know to lose uh what a third of their cabinet now or maybe not a third but certainly certainly a quarter of the cabinet has stepped aside i mean dude

Carter 1:08:42

dude you're you're done the the only thing you can do is is say you're sorry and try again and i don't think you get that many cards um where you can try again in in politics in this in this particular era. You

Zain 1:08:56

You think he's got no opportunity?

Carter 1:08:58

I think he's done.

Zain 1:08:58

I think he's dead.

Zain 1:09:01

starting last question with you.

Zain 1:09:03

Let's give it a timeline of a year, a year from now. Will

Zain 1:09:10

on Facebook and Instagram?

Carter 1:09:14

Well, news is a broad category. But

Carter 1:09:17

But I'm suspecting that we will see Breitbart. We will see Newsmax. We will see... Will

Zain 1:09:22

Will we see CBC? Will we see the globe and mail will we see post media will we see the characters and the and the companies that have been discussed as part of c18 the ones that meta is now saying you know what no longer on our on our publishing yeah not

Carter 1:09:37

not only am i going to say yes i'm going to say it's going to take way less than a year take

Zain 1:09:40

take way less than a year so we're still going to see it it's still going to be there they're going to cave yeah

Carter 1:09:44

yeah they caved before i mean they caved in fucking australia nobody can read down there i mean it's it's

Zain 1:09:50

jesus well they don't know how to spell mustard dog, so that's fair. They go

Carter 1:09:54

go with Bailey instead of...

Zain 1:09:58

Christ, Carter, stop it!

Corey 1:10:02

No, that's not good. I don't like

Zain 1:10:06

That's good. That's a good episode. That's not good. I don't like that. It's a good episode. It's like

Corey 1:10:09

like the soul show. One year from now, will we have

Zain 1:10:13

news on Metis platforms, Instagram and Facebook? Will they cave to C18? team uh

Corey 1:10:22

uh you will but i think it's i don't think it's going to be like australia here's the reality australia is a smaller country australia is not right next to the united states and i think they're much more spooked by what the canadian precedent would be so as much as australia might have been a bit of a training ground they can hone some messages here it's not the same situation and i'm sure that they're not very wild about the idea that canada would would go down this road and cause them this much grief. So they don't want to have to be paying all of this money all over the world. It's one thing when it's Australia.

Corey 1:10:54

What's the population of Australia? 27 million, something like that?

Carter 1:10:56

that? Yeah, we're like 40 million now as of last week. Yeah,

Corey 1:10:59

Yeah, we're like 40. But beyond that, we're right next door to the United States. And there's a certain permeability there that I think it would unnerve me if I were them.

Zain 1:11:09

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1078 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belger. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan and we'll see you next time

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