Transcript
Carter
0:01
The United States of America is the most free country in the world, so they tell us. Freedom is at the heart of their society. The freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the right of free assembly, and right there in the first sentence of the First Amendment, Congress
Carter
0:17
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
Carter
0:24
And yet, that freedom has been applied unevenly. The first case, one that stands out as the framers of the Constitution cared so little, was the freedom of African Americans.
Carter
0:34
Staggering hypocrisy. But there was a second group who were cast out from the protection of the Constitution. A group comprising 51% of the American population. Women. Fighting for the rights as basic as the ability to vote, open a bank account, control their own healthcare. Today, women can vote. They can open bank accounts. Hell, they can even hold elected office. But they remain unable to control their own health. They call it abortion and they've been fighting about it for decades, centuries even. But at the core of it, a desire for the religious to impose their beliefs on the uteruses of the nation.
Carter
1:10
Florida, Arizona, Texas and 25 additional states stand opposed to the first sentence of the First Amendment. They impose their religious values on vaginas everywhere. The
Carter
1:21
battle rages, and the battle appears to be ground upon which the 2024 election for president will be decided.
Corey
1:48
the less than hardcore fans welcome to you the people this is of course a good opening
Carter
1:55
opening i mean it
Corey
1:56
it was a good oh it was one of your stronger openings i have to tell you it was i've only done three inaccuracies i've
Corey
2:02
somehow still fewer inaccuracies than the uh yeah
Carter
2:05
yeah i know right
Carter
2:07
people like that last one they'll
Corey
2:09
like this one they'll
Carter
2:09
they'll like it they'll like it because
Carter
2:12
because you know i'm on the side of the people here they
Corey
2:14
it's been a while it's been a minute since we've done on this particular one here yeah
Carter
2:18
yeah it's because zane's
Carter
2:19
zane's been available that's
Corey
2:20
that's true this is our
Corey
2:21
our pod within a pod yeah this is
Corey
2:23
is us talking about america oh
Corey
2:28
mostly lamenting the downfall of civilization other times yeah
Carter
2:32
i mean do you dispute my uh my idea that this might be the issue that uh defines
Carter
2:36
defines the 2024 election well
Corey
2:40
well it's very interesting to me because Because, of course, the midterm elections, the Democrats did better than the polls. And one of the reasons that people often kind of attribute to that is the reaction, the backlash to the Supreme Court's decision to throw out Roe v. Wade and make abortion rights once again a state issue and make a real patchwork across the nation, including in a lot of swing states, some of which you mentioned in your opening there. Yeah,
Carter
3:08
it's been an adventure because it's not just the voters who are deciding these things. When the voters are given the opportunity to decide, like in Ohio, Kansas,
Carter
3:17
Kansas, it's gone very well for the
Carter
3:22
the proponents of abortion, the proponents of women's health. But in this, when
Carter
3:29
when the voters don't decide, when it's left to the courts, I mean, this most recent example in Arizona, where
Carter
3:34
where they were able to, or where the courts are basically going back to a law that
Carter
3:38
that existed before the state of Arizona prohibiting
Carter
3:43
That, I mean, that
Carter
3:45
that to me is, I mean, the doctors that we have today aren't even related to the doctors that we had when this law was constructed. And
Carter
3:51
And yet they faced five
Corey
3:53
A little more bloodletting back in the day. A little bit
Carter
3:56
bloodletting, a little bit more leeching, which actually is pretty good for some things, I'm told, but not
Carter
4:01
not all the things.
Corey
4:02
Oh, okay. Well, not all of them. Leeching, not good for everything. Not
Carter
4:06
Not good for everything.
Corey
4:06
everything. Hot take by Stephen Carter. Well,
Carter
4:08
you know, I mean, I could have been a doctor in the 1860s, you
Corey
4:13
here we are. That's probably true. You could have called yourself a doctor, at least. You could call yourself a doctor today. You know, that's not actually a regulated title in most of Canada. I
Carter
4:22
title in Alberta, though. Oh,
Corey
4:24
Oh, maybe it is, you know. I
Carter
4:26
think I get in
Corey
4:27
think that I get a spanking.
Corey
4:29
You should just try. Call yourself doctor for a bit, see if anybody comes and talks to you about it. I
Carter
4:33
I might just do that.
Corey
4:35
Give it a shot. I believe in you. Yeah.
Corey
4:37
Okay, let's talk about this Arizona law. This is something, for
Corey
4:42
for those of you who have not heard of You the People before, basically, Stephen walks me through American politics, and then I remember that I know things about it, too. But generally speaking, I've not been super engaged in this election. So obviously, this has passed my view. There has been a court case, an abortion law that was written, as you said, before Arizona was even a state, was deemed to still be on the books, and it's taken effect. I mean, I'm curious your thoughts on that and if you can expand a bit on that. I will say, in
Corey
5:13
in a way, isn't that kind of understandable? Like, nobody repealed the law. The law is the law. Like, laws don't die of old age. Like, why wouldn't it be the law in Arizona? What's
Carter
5:26
It's interesting because in our society or in our systems, our Supreme Court would
Corey
5:33
Sorry, just a little
Carter
5:35
Yeah, no, that's fine. The
Carter
5:36
The Supreme Court would refer back to legislature that they had a hole in the legislation or that the law was inadequate and there needs to be an update. In the United States, that doesn't hold water. I mean, as long as the law was really created, you know, by a legislature, by the right, by the appropriate group, then jumping back to it is not a problem at all. This is one of the things that the, you know, pro
Carter
6:04
pro-choice advocates were really worried about was going back to laws that predated, you know, a woman's right to vote, for God's sake. You know, this is an issue that we wouldn't have run into in Canada, and that's part of the reason that I was quite so fascinated by it.
Corey
6:23
Yeah, but okay, in your opening, you were talking about another law that is even more ancient than this that people continue going back to, and that's the First Amendment, right? You're going back to the 18th century on that.
Corey
6:34
So isn't this just kind of America? I mean, I
Corey
6:38
I don't want to simplify it or be reductive, but again, like, old
Corey
6:42
old laws are still laws for ill and for better. And what I think is fascinating here is, to
Corey
6:49
to me, I just have to say, and you know, I don't support what the Supreme Court of Arizona did in this, in the sense that I don't support the overall actions in this space that are happening by people who are trying to roll back the woman's right to choose. But, you know, to me, the surprising part is it was ever up for debate whether or not a law that was passed still applied.
Carter
7:12
Yeah, I think that the challenge
Carter
7:15
challenge of it, of course, is that this is viewed as an unintended consequence of the defeat of Roe. And I think that the problem with Roe always was that there was no legislative elements behind it. It was only a judicial decision. So a judicial decision that is undone by another judicial decision will
Carter
7:34
will result in the legislative process taking precedence. And
Carter
7:39
everybody gets to revert back to stage one. And
Carter
7:42
And this is where the impact
Carter
7:47
impact is going to be felt so far and wide for different women in different states because of the decisions that were made by a small group of justices to revisit Roe, even though it may not have been the best outcome through a judicial decision. Roe v. Wade at least gave clarity. This gives no clarity. And throwing it back to the states puts real hardship. And that's the best part about throwing it back to the states, Corey, and this is one of the other things I've been thinking about today, is that Donald Trump has basically said, we're
Carter
8:23
we're going to throw it back to the states. So he's essentially saying, yeah, I'm all for this Arizona law, where...
Corey
8:30
Except he literally said he wasn't, right? He said he
Carter
8:37
he said he was fine with the state's deciding. It
Corey
8:39
It is a pretty
Corey
8:41
pretty good bridge into the conversation. I do not want to let pass, though, your suggestion that the Supreme Court is just a small group of individuals, like literally any court decision. You know, Brown v. The Board of Education was just a small group of individuals, right? That's how the fucking system works. That's their rule.
Corey
8:58
rule. But then you see
Carter
8:59
see broader adoption and broader, you know,
Carter
9:05
recognition of the decision. And
Carter
9:07
think that Roe v. Wade never got that broader, you
Carter
9:10
you know, whereas, you know, other decisions are adopted as part of American society.
Corey
9:18
Okay. Talk to me about the politics of this. We started a bit in this, we talked about the midterms, but this is obviously still a live issue. And if there is kind of, I
Corey
9:31
guess there's two political questions for me, and I'll throw them on the table, but then maybe just take them one at a time. Give me your thoughts here. One is, because
Corey
9:38
because still underlying American politics is this court decision, the, you know, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, there might be Democratic support that's not showing up in the polls that's going to be reflected on Election Day. The other one is, this
Corey
9:53
this may become an issue around which conversation revolves, and that will help the Democrats, you
Corey
9:59
you know, ostensibly, because certainly when you poll on abortion rights, pretty strong support across America, especially, I think, in demographics that are considered more swing. So take
Corey
10:10
take them one at a time, ignore one of them if you want. But yeah, talk to me about that. Like, what's your theory here? What's your theory of
Corey
10:17
of how abortion will affect the US presidential election?
Carter
10:21
Well, I think we have to reintroduce one of our standby discussion points, one of the things that I've coined the GAF. You know, whenever we're talking about politics or issues coming forward, we talk about the give a fuck factor. Oh,
Corey
10:36
Oh, we haven't, we haven't chatted that in a while, but that is a Stephen Carter classic. The
Carter
10:40
The give a fuck factor determines whether or not a
Carter
10:43
a person, like how much does a person actually care? Like it turns out that I don't care that much about, uh, about NFL football until the Superbowl. And you don't care that much about AFL football until such time as you had to join a league and probably still haven't put forward your tips.
Carter
10:59
Uh, you know, so your give a fuck factor is low like 12
Corey
11:04
12 people who even know what you're talking about you
Carter
11:06
you know it's good though those 12 are gonna love it yeah yeah
Carter
11:09
um but this is the this is you know if you don't give a fuck about something then
Carter
11:14
then it doesn't matter if it's you know it's raised as an issue uh and i think this is one of the challenges the alberta or the the the federal liberals are facing is they keep talking about issues that don't have salience that the people don't give a fuck about and And this
Carter
11:28
this issue, abortion, is one of those issues that people do give a fuck about. And if you do care about it, it
Carter
11:35
it used to be that
Carter
11:37
that the right was able to rally people and say,
Carter
11:41
we've got to defeat Roe.
Carter
11:43
We've got to defeat Roe. And they would mobilize
Carter
11:45
mobilize an army of people to turn out and try and impact elections.
Carter
11:50
Now, it's working the opposite direction. The give a fuck factor has switched mightily to the other side. and
Carter
11:57
and uh whether it's complacence or whether it's like the dog that caught the car and
Carter
12:02
and uh the religious right isn't sure what to do with it this
Carter
12:05
this is a uh
Carter
12:06
uh a new time where the give a fuck factor favors the democrats and that
Carter
12:13
that means that when they when when applying
Carter
12:17
now the democrats get the advantage instead of the republicans yeah
Corey
12:22
well it you know on your give a fuck factor point this is something that i think governments often fall into i remember when i worked for the government of alberta one of the things that was under consideration uh and happened was uh creating an exemption in traffic laws for motorcycle helmets for practitioners
Corey
12:39
practitioners of the sick faith right like so there'd be you know if you're wearing a you know turban it can be very difficult to put on a helmet so the idea of an exemption and we polled on it and um you know there was generally i
Corey
12:54
i believe support for it right like or there wasn't it like either way like there was like one way or the other yeah
Corey
13:01
one of those two things happened but we
Corey
13:03
we also tested on salience and it was zero like nobody cared about the issue just it wasn't one that had any salience and of course one of the things you do as a government to try to make sure that
Corey
13:14
that you are tracking salience is you don't just ask how people feel about issues right because if i i could throw literally anything at you and you're going to give me an opinion that's
Corey
13:23
that's just human nature right yep well absolutely but
Corey
13:27
but if you ask people you know like name the top three things that you think are affecting the country or the province of the city right now you get there you get a sense of salience like across a thousand respondents if it has literally never come up you can say pretty confidently no salience on that particular issue right and that was certainly true of the idea of a sick helmet exemption every two weeks we ran that survey at the government of alberta asking your top three issues facing the province i
Corey
13:54
i would be floored if it showed up once across all of these many many thousand responses well
Carter
13:59
well and i think that you know you've often spoken of the idea of beware of testing novel concepts right and to me it's it's the same idea if people haven't spent a moment thinking about it then you're not really going to get you'll get an opinion you
Corey
14:13
you won't be a durable one yeah
Carter
14:14
yeah you're not going to get an actual thought or a real reflection of how people actually feel and i think that that's where um this is this is fascinating now the other issues that we're starting to develop in this campaign you know that didn't necessarily favor the democrats uh especially the economic issues right people did not feel the economy reviving i think and here's my premise and you can tell me whether or not i'm wrong I think the economy will have revived just enough that
Carter
14:43
that the give a fuck factor on it's going to going to drop. Oh,
Carter
14:47
Yeah, I think that it's not going to be it's not going to be people walking around, you know, feeling like they're absolutely flush. But I suspect that it drops enough just that the give a fuck factor moves from number one to
Carter
14:59
to number three or number four. And something like abortion may
Carter
15:02
may be able to slide in ahead of it because it
Carter
15:05
it is a more salient factor especially when the democrats are doing what they're doing and using it as an advertising opportunity to tell real human stories um about uh people who have suffered underneath this uh the dobbs decision so
Corey
15:21
so it's kind of a it's not the economy stupid a take to this particular election is this what you're thinking i
Carter
15:27
i think what it's going to be is that it's the economy's the
Carter
15:31
the economy's fine stupid deal
Carter
15:34
deal we got to deal with these fucking fanatics and
Carter
15:38
think that that's going to be that is going to have more salience uh as we're moving through the election period the question is you know um will arizona take steps to eradicate this law quickly probably not if when if we look at florida which just passed a 15-week ban now they're going to a six-week ban and they're actually going to go to a uh referendum on it or a voter initiative uh in the next in the 2024 election so a voter initiative at the same time has been absolute death for the republicans but i guess they feel confident enough that they can hold on in florida but man if it backfires and joe biden somehow finds a way to eat out florida
Corey
16:23
that's no longer a purple state that's a red state it's a red
Carter
16:25
red state it's a red red state um
Carter
16:29
and the polling on it uh
Carter
16:30
uh you know it may not get 60 but it's going to definitely get 50 and
Carter
16:36
and that's fascinating to me absolutely fascinating well
Corey
16:40
well so let's stay on the economy for a second because you opened up that bracket there today the um u.s central bank decided not to lower interest rates and there's a fair bit of discussion now whether whether interest rates will go down at all in the states before the u.s presidential election
Corey
16:59
do you think maybe that might cause a little bit of challenge to your whole idea of the economy's fine now i want to caveat as you gather your thoughts there that uh in the united states you get a mortgage you get a 35-year mortgage and you can get a 35-year mortgage in the united states it's at the same interest rate for
Corey
17:16
for the entire 35 years kind of an inexplicable thing for canadians to process but you know high interest rates don't kind of funnel into the economy in the same way in the u.s as it does in canada it has different effects locks people in the houses they're less likely to move they don't want to change that mortgage but it it has slightly different effects so what do you think like our interest rates of potential i don't even think you can call it an october surprise let's call it a november spoiler for uh joe biden and the democrats i
Carter
17:48
think that most people hold their debt in two places their mortgage which i think is going to be relatively inflexible uh you know it's going to stay where it is um and their credit cards and their credit cards were already at 20 plus percent right
Carter
18:02
right so given that that's the two places that are most likely to hold their their their debt i mean yeah the businesses are going to be upset because businesses are taking lines of credit at prime plus two or whatever yeah
Carter
18:16
um But this does not impact the regular human beings in the same fashion. So
Carter
18:20
So I think that the gen pop, what they'll be more worried
Carter
18:24
worried about is the inflationary pressures. And
Carter
18:29
And those inflationary pressures are basically backing out. We're now seeing a 3.5% inflationary pressure instead of significantly higher than that.
Carter
18:39
So the inflationary pressure, I think, was the thing actually driving this economic malaise. because if you can't buy things now prices aren't going to go down but
Carter
18:49
but the fact that they've
Corey
18:49
they've got going on fast
Carter
18:52
think people will start feeling like this is their new norm and their new norm is is probably just fine thank you very much bold
Corey
19:01
words bold words from an angry man i'm
Carter
19:04
i'm not that angry i think that this is right though i mean you tell me if i'm wrong i
Corey
19:08
i i mean I will say it would be pretty unusual for the economy not to factor in in a significant way in a U.S. election. It does seem to sort of always be there. And certainly when you look at some of the polling around Trump and what the people trust Trump on, the economy he does very, very well on. Don't know why I wouldn't trust him on anything. I wouldn't trust him to be a valet and park my car. But this is something that Americans just generally seem to give Republicans higher marks on. Not that confusing. I mean, it tends to be kind of the same thing you see in this country in terms of conservatives just get a pass on certain things and are seen as pro
Corey
19:48
pro-business regardless of what they do. Yeah,
Carter
19:50
I mean, the Conservatives in Canada are seen to be the pro-business party and the pro-economy party. But you look at any statistics and you're going to see a different story. So I don't know. I don't understand how people think this way. But what I do think is fascinating is that Trump's having to articulate policy in a different way than usual.
Carter
20:10
Normally, he just stands up at the microphone and does bombast. But he's actually articulated this position on abortion. He's articulating different positions with an eye towards the fact that policy will matter in this election. And I think that that that,
Carter
20:27
you know, if nothing else, that the fact that the Democrats are forcing Trump into taking a political policy position is forcing them is controlling the actual the actual
Carter
20:44
development of this election strategy. strategy. They're forcing him to take positions that are not popular.
Corey
20:50
Well, maybe, or maybe it's strategic ambiguity, right? You have Donald Trump saying, no, I don't think they got it right. I don't think they got that court decision right. And you have other Republicans saying, we're going to go for a six-week ban.
Corey
21:02
And you can kind of have your cake and eat it too. And if you're looking just for an excuse to get to yes,
Corey
21:08
right, you can say like, oh, that's not really what Donald Trump's thing is. Because never mind, it was by his own bragging, the appointment of his justices that got America to where it is. And if you're kind of a more evangelical anti-abortion protester, then you can say, well, but the Republican ticket, the Republican ticket will do the things we need him to do, and he's not going to stand in our way. But
Carter
21:30
But this is fascinating to me, Corey, because this ultimately is essentially asking the question, where
Carter
21:36
where are these additional votes going to come from for the Democrats? Where have they come from in the past, right? So
Carter
21:41
So when an issue like abortion comes out, it's not like we're seeing a bunch of Republicans switch
Carter
21:47
and go towards to
Carter
21:51
different new voters, right? These are different voters that are coming out of the woodwork, people who necessarily wouldn't
Carter
21:56
wouldn't have voted in the previous elections. elections so
Carter
22:02
trump's uh positioning i
Carter
22:06
think it's motivating the give a fuck factor is now i have a reason a singular reason i don't understand the economy i don't understand what's going on with foreign wars i don't understand what's going on in congress but here's what i do know i do know that my health has been threatened my
Carter
22:22
my friend's health have been threatened and i think that we can see young people that have been reluctant to move back to about biden in part because of the gaza war actually start to change the way that they think about how this election is going to unfold how it's going to be conducted and how they can participate within it okay
Corey
22:39
okay well you've opened the you've opened the biden narrative so let's talk about joe biden you know
Corey
22:44
what do the democrats what does joe biden have to do in
Corey
22:48
in order to push this advantage i like let's just accept your premise that this is actually a bit of a winner of an issue for the democrats i agree with that i mean i think we've got an actual election that's suggests that certainly there's polling and there's all sorts of other reasons to believe that but you're joe biden you are dealing with um an absolute collapse of support with your base on the issue of gaza you have general fatigue within the population that are just not necessarily still feeling that economic benefit to the level that uh you would want it to happen and um you
Corey
23:21
you know a lot of the the governing you've done is unglamorous stuff but unglamorous doesn't always always um you know workman-like presidency but not necessarily rocking people's worlds well
Corey
23:32
what do you do yeah
Carter
23:33
yeah well let's look at let's
Carter
23:35
let's talk a little bit about the transient nature of paul of issues right uh you you were talking about your polling you know your three issues you will have seen issues pop up to the top of the list and then drop back down again right yeah
Carter
23:50
things become uh it it's not a
Carter
23:53
a constant list that's one of the reasons we do polling every two weeks. The list does not remain constant, but things will drop, go to the top. Obviously, one of the things that's gone to the top is the Gaza war, especially within a younger subset of voters, the Muslim population, other groups. The Gaza war has really brought discord to the Democratic Party.
Carter
24:21
Well, what happens now that there's a call for a ceasefire? What happens What happens when Israel is forced into actually abiding to the United States' wishes or they
Carter
24:34
they would lose their arms transfers? What happens then? Because
Carter
24:38
Because I think that what will happen is that the salience of the Gaza war will
Carter
24:44
will turn out to be more temporary. Even the salience of the Ukrainian war, which continues to rage on today, has become less important to American voters if for no other reason than it impacts them less than
Carter
25:00
than other issues like the economy and abortion and gun rights and all these other things that Americans take positions on. So I think that Biden is trading one issue in and getting stronger on things like the Gaza war and getting a
Carter
25:19
a new issue through abortion that he is just massively
Corey
25:25
So you look at it on a state-by-state basis, though, right?
Corey
25:29
right? And you look at the swing states and where he's polling in those swing states. He's got—it's
Corey
25:34
got—it's not looking great for him, at least in most of the polls, not all of the polls.
Carter
25:39
I think that if you and I were to call this race today, we'd
Corey
25:42
call this— Let's do it.
Carter
25:44
We'd call this for Trump,
Carter
25:46
right? Like, the fundamentals are there for Trump.
Corey
25:49
However— Thank you for your service for
Corey
25:51
for American democracy there. Yeah,
Carter
25:55
Write it down. I want you to mark this moment. OK, I
Carter
25:59
I called it for Trump.
Carter
26:01
But the question of the fundamentals, there's still months to go in this in this election. How
Carter
26:06
How much will how much will shift in the next in the coming months? uh we'll do another podcast on uh what
Carter
26:12
what happens if he loses we'll do that one we'll do that one closer to the actual election but uh for right now i think that this is actually shaping up really well for biden to be able to do a conversation about women's health and about pro-choice and i'm always shocked i
Carter
26:31
i get your opinion on this i'm always shocked that they make it about abortion That they call it abortion straight out, right?
Carter
26:38
a woman who's had a miscarriage, in
Carter
26:41
in my mind, doesn't have an abortion.
Carter
26:45
I think in the Canadian context, a woman who has a miscarriage that needs to have further medical treatment is getting further medical treatment, not having an abortion. I mean, you
Corey
26:57
Yeah, I mean, terminology evolves in funny ways in different jurisdictions. It's another interesting, you
Corey
27:04
you know, almost George Lakoff style, like, analysis, right, where you say, okay, what words? Why do we use the words we use? What was everybody's advantage and interest in it there? I'm, you know,
Corey
27:15
I'm not really sure if that's pressing to one advantage or the other, or if it's actually really well dialed to various groups. But I
Corey
27:24
I have to say, like, you say things like this is Biden's well positioned.
Corey
27:30
Do you actually believe? I mean, I have that. It's hard for me to reconcile that with even just the current state of things. So
Carter
27:36
So Arizona's been one of his weakest polling states, right? So
Carter
27:40
he's not doing super hot in Arizona. All
Carter
27:43
All of a sudden, Arizona's Supreme Court, out of nowhere, knocks this down and turns it into a no-abortion state, right? They've gone from some mild restrictions to no
Carter
27:54
no abortions allowed, according to this 1800s law. I suspect that that's going to shake Arizona—how do you call them, Arizonans? uh the good people of arizona arizoners
Corey
28:06
arizoners i don't know i
Carter
28:07
i don't know arizoners is nice arizonites
Carter
28:09
um aramorons no uh here's the judgment
Carter
28:14
i know that was bad
Carter
28:16
i feel bad but
Carter
28:17
but i think that it's
Carter
28:19
it's going to shake them to their core and
Carter
28:20
and it could fundamentally move uh
Carter
28:22
uh one of the swing states that ultimately was really bad for biden into a more pro-biden friendly position
Corey
28:32
swing state really bad yeah well let's lest we forget he won arizona right so
Carter
28:38
he won a lot of these swing states that's why he's the president that's
Corey
28:41
that's my well it's almost my point you know but now now it looks a little bit more stacked up against him here well
Carter
28:47
well it's absolutely stacked because he's got to do like four out of six something
Corey
28:52
it's like a bad meatloaf song yeah
Carter
28:56
that'd be great meatloaf song four
Corey
28:58
four four yeah i got
Carter
29:00
got four out of six
Corey
29:04
just let's just sit on that one for a bit yeah okay
Corey
29:07
okay all right well i needed
Carter
29:09
needed seven i needed seven to go and i needed sorry
Corey
29:14
okay i just it was actually not a bad like you kind of hit the cadence of the way it sort of jumps into stuff like that i appreciated that but But, like, we're going to pretend that never happened. Yeah, you can go
Carter
29:26
back and edit that if you feel like it. I
Corey
29:28
I mean, I'm not going to. Well, just saying
Carter
29:31
saying if you wanted to.
Corey
29:34
Okay. Well, so that is interesting
Corey
29:38
interesting analysis by you. Okay,
Carter
29:40
Okay, so you tell me. I mean, what analysis, like, if you were advising the Democrats, what
Carter
29:46
what would you tell them to do? And what would your optimism
Carter
29:49
optimism levels look like?
Corey
29:52
so what would i run this election on like what is almost the ballot question in the united states right
Carter
29:57
right now you have you have to set a ballot question for at least the next few months
Corey
30:03
that's not a bad one it's
Corey
30:05
it's not a bad one because it's kind of as we've talked about a high salience issue right it's something that many people have personal experiences with it's It's something that I think
Corey
30:15
think in general is quite a meaningful and big experience in many people's lives, and especially as they start kind of going through the parallel universes where access to abortion was not an option, right?
Corey
30:29
I also think that some of the things that I think are like big, but philosophical, theoretical value of democracy just are not landing anymore. it's actually a bit shocking to me how much americans are uninterested with how close they've skirted to authoritarianism like in a real sense right yeah it's
Corey
30:51
it's so weird but it is what it is so maybe it does need to be something that's a little bit more personal like that i do think the economy fundamentals are there they're obviously having trouble telling the story and perhaps we're in such a such an environment where nobody even trusts if you don't want to you just say i don't trust the data right i don't trust what the fed is telling us about this i'm not feeling it can't be true right this totally vibe-based world we live in maybe
Corey
31:21
maybe has made some of those macroeconomic stories just worthless or or deeply undervalued relative to where they were in say the 90s or even the 2000s so maybe maybe this is the the issue are there other social issues that might have salience is this something that perhaps risks running the democrats down a road where they'll run too hard and too fast and too far and become too strident when we know by polling people feel fairly ambivalent about well they support abortion you know you can present a lot of cases to people where they start saying well maybe maybe
Corey
31:55
maybe not in that case right is
Corey
31:57
is there the chance they overswing
Carter
32:00
they could overswing They've overswung in the past on a bunch of issues. I mean, this is, you know, this is the problem with the far left, the far right. People who get a hold of these things just go too far. So, you know, I don't think that they've overswung to this point. But,
Carter
32:22
you know, is it within them to swing too far? Absolutely. Absolutely it is.
Corey
32:29
Amazing stuff. this has been an illuminating conversation i feel illuminated do
Carter
32:34
do you feel like you've gained something so that you can get through the next week and
Carter
32:38
and uh talk to people you know about american politics i
Corey
32:41
i did a little i'm i'm definitely gonna go fact check a lot of your stuff by talking to my wife or you know any of the other women in my life but i did appreciate your your middle-aged white guy takes on abortion in the united states for sure i
Carter
32:55
i do not think you should google the word vagina i
Carter
32:58
think that that's going to get you different results than you were hoping for what
Corey
33:01
what results would i have been hoping for there
Carter
33:04
when i googled it i wanted to learn a little bit more about the uh the abortion no
Corey
33:14
all right you got any any thoughts on like this election more broadly on trump his many trials this is trump trial minute this is your minute i know
Carter
33:22
know we have a trump trial starting on the 15th of april yeah
Corey
33:25
yeah we're really desperate to get out of it he's been appealing a lot he's been suing a judge it's
Carter
33:30
it's not working and uh the jury selection starts on the 15th they anticipate it taking two weeks and then we will be in trial land and he has to sit there in the courtroom uh through the trial so i'm i am really
Carter
33:43
really looking forward to it it will not be i think this one actually is in new york but it still may not be broadcast.
Carter
33:49
But I'm really looking forward to it. We're going to get all kinds of fucking
Carter
33:54
fucking wild stories as he's trying to, you
Carter
33:58
know, regain control of the situation that he's absolutely not in control of.
Corey
34:03
I mean, you think about a certain era that we both know well, the 1990s, Judge Ito, right? When we were all transfixed on one court case. Do you actually think it'll It'll be like that. I just, I don't think that Americans have the attention span for that kind of stuff anymore, even if it were televised, right? I
Corey
34:21
I just don't know if we're going to get the wall to wall.
Carter
34:24
I don't know. I mean, I don't actually know how long this trial is expected to last.
Carter
34:28
Do you have a sense of that? No.
Corey
34:29
No. I mean, you're my guy for that stuff. That's why I create the Trump trial. I
Carter
34:34
I don't think it's going
Carter
34:35
I don't think it's going to be a year long trial. so it's going to be relatively short i think and
Carter
34:43
that could you know just getting to a verdict will be shocking i think actually here's my big bold point or
Carter
34:49
or my big bold idea yeah
Carter
34:51
if he gets acquitted he
Carter
34:53
it might actually be
Carter
34:55
be good for the democrats explain
Carter
34:59
people will be you know people will have thought you know if he gets a if he gets convicted um i don't have to worry about on him being the president again but now if he doesn't get convicted in this case people are going to go holy shit this guy could come back and
Carter
35:15
and it sees an upswing because
Carter
35:17
the reality of trump coming back will hit them like a ton of bricks i
Corey
35:20
i just i really want to live in the world you live where joe biden is well positioned and trump not going to jail is a good thing and you
Carter
35:29
you You don't want to live here. I'm already, I'm buying windmills so
Carter
35:33
so I can power up the.
Corey
35:37
You move on from solar panels though. Like originally you were.
Carter
35:40
The solar panels, it turned out to be very expensive and also didn't generate the wattage one was hoping for. So the windmills each generate 10,000 watts if the wind blows hard enough.
Carter
35:53
figure if I need more hot air, I just call you and we'll
Corey
35:59
was a fake laugh. I want you to know that. I
Carter
36:01
I laughed, though. That was good for me. It was all that
Corey
36:03
that mattered was my happiness.
Carter
36:06
Hey, this has been interesting, not having Zane here.
Corey
36:09
Better, right? Oh, totally.