Andrew Heaton (ROUGH TRANSCRIPT)
The host of The Political Orphanage unpacks the big issues at stake before the midterms: abortion, inflation, and culture war stuff.
The following is a rough transcript of our conversation with Andrew Heaton, “Partisan Poison.”
Please note that this is a full, rough, unedited transcript. If you’d like us to polish and edit these transcripts, please consider supporting Uncertain Things as a paid subscriber!
Andrew Heaton
Adaam: Hey, Vanessa.
Vanessa: Hi, Adaam.
Adaam: And hi listeners. Welcome to Uncertain Things,
Vanessa: the podcast, ,
Adaam: as opposed to uncertain things. The thing,
Vanessa: the, the dream, the vision, the
Adaam: the idea, the idea,
Vanessa: the concept.
Adaam: Oh my God. So today we wanted to, we felt obligated to, I guess to do a special episode ahead of the coming midterms in the US because sometimes, sometimes you just need to do some punditry. This is not something that we love doing because. Politics is soul rotting, especially if you acquire it via Twitter, which I gotta say even by its own standard, has been remarkably moronic in the past couple of days. If you've been paying attention, if you haven't, I salute you. I salute your life choices.
Vanessa: Mm-hmm. , That's me. . I know that. I know that Musk bought it, but that's about the extent of my understanding.
Adaam: Well, you can imagine how all participants from Uhhuh, both sides, have responded to this benign piece of news with proportional equanimity and poise. You know, really showing their maturity and restraint. We actually touched on this point with our guest. When you see all the energy from the right in the left, Squandered by even politicians on Twitter, nontroversies, including the Musk takeover itself. You just have to wonder who the hell is left governing, who is doing government stuff. But for this interview, we invited an actual full grown adult to talk to us
Vanessa: and full grown adults.
Adaam: I wonder if he would even consider himself a pundit.
Vanessa: Yeah, he, he said he was willing to be our, our pinch hitting pundit. So, I think so.
Adaam: Wonderful. We are talking about drum roll. Andrew Heaton. Yes. Host of the political orphanage. Yes. A podcast that if you're not listening to you really should.
Vanessa: Yes. It's for all the misfits who don't fit into,
Adaam: That's what misfits means. Correct? Indeed. his show kind of like ours and kind of like ourselves. Aims to have a conversation with a politically homeless. You know, people are more driven by curiosity and, uh, lust for debate than partisanship. But what really sets Heaton apart besides his Patricia diction, is that he has this rare quality, which I like to call, not pulling shit out of his ass, but instead doing research,
Vanessa: which he could get away with if he wanted to, because he has such a, a, his natural voice is a radio polished voice. So if he wanted to say absolute, oh,
Adaam: he can fake authority about anything if he wanted to, he has that. Aita. Uh, but he chooses not to abuse his superpower and instead actually studies up on whatever he occasions to opine. Yes.
Vanessa: And this is your second conversation with Heaton. I was, I was gallivanting off on my honeymoon, I think for the first one. So this was my first and your second
Adaam: while being sold off to marry Heaton on the podcast.
Vanessa: Yes. Yes. I discovered upon my return that you had promised to be in marriage, although I had just gotten married. So your timing was a bit poor on that one. .
Adaam: Yes. We missed out by about three weeks. Yeah. Our discussion with Heaton revolved around themes. What are the themes, uh, that we can expect to emerge from the coming midterms? Mm-hmm. , because I didn't want to go into the details of specific races. Yeah. I wanted to. What's gonna matter? Big picture coming out of these elections. Mm-hmm. in the process, we discuss abortion cuz we can expect that's still gonna be a big topic.
And in fact, they pill for a question from, uh, former guest Sarah Isgur uh, from her podcast, the dispatch podcast about it. But you'll have to wait and see or here, what's the other thing? What was the other thing? Inflation, of course. Inflation and general cultural war. Brain fuckery, He brings heft, studiousness, and mm-hmm. and
Vanessa: humor. Yes. droll wit and a cute dog all in the background who you occasionally hear making, making himself known. Wallace.
Adaam: Every conversation with a Heaton. Um, whether on our pod or his is especially on our pod is euphonious. It makes the unfolding terror of politics feel a little more stomachable. Mm-hmm. when Heaton talks about it. Indeed.
So we are uncertain things. Three points of updates. As we mentioned before, we are churning out a newsletter now because we publish our episodes biweekly. So on the off weeks we started writing newsletter where we digest our conversations. And in my latest newsletter I did something that I've been planning to do for a while, which is Digest, not just our previous conversation with Peter Turin, but a variety of themes that we have been grappling with from the beginning of uncertain things.
Yeah. Why does it feel like everything is falling apart? What's at the heart of this pervasive institutional dysfunction? It's something that we talked about with I, in some ways we talked about with almost all of our guests, but specifically we had a few that tried to give it a name, including Neil Ferguson and Martin Gorie and I tried to weave the threads between them and our conversation with Churchi cuz there are certain issues that they disagree about and some that they actually come into.
Interesting confluence. So I try to bring it all together. So if you're interested and can read, then my newsletter is available. Unfortunately we don't have an audio version of that or fortunately, I dunno, you can tell us. Oh, and second point of matter is if you wanna follow us, we are uncertain.substack.com where you can also give us comments and you know, Feel free to come and tell us why we are wrong about everything. You know, we are fragile beings, but we, we, we can take it. Let's, let's have a good argument. And, uh,
Vanessa: third point, don't forget there is a paid tier for the sub stack. So of course you can subscribe for free just with your email. But if you decide you wanna give us some, put some schmekels in the pot for us.
We do provide you with some bonus content from time to time. And paid subscribers are gonna get an episode this week of, um, a very bad day that I had last week. And my question to AAM was, are we making the world worse with uncertain the Uncertain Things podcast? And we discussed both my day and the value of the podcast, what it, what it might do to help the world or, or, or hurt the world.
I don't know. We discuss it, we debate a little bit, um, and it's like, I don't know, a bit more of a personal foray, I would say. So if you're into that kind of a thing, you should check out the paid content. Or you should subscribe for the paid content.
Adaam: On uncertain.substack.com.
Vanessa: Uncertain.substack.com.
Adaam: That's it. Share us with your friends and enemies. Five star on the apple. And with that,
Vanessa: Andrew Heaton.
The Arts of Podcasting and Engaging Celebrities
Andrew Heaton: I think everybody accepts, sociopaths believes they are normal, that they, they're there at a normal situation still.
Vanessa: I just, I've something about like, look like it when it comes to like high level celebrity, I'm just like, don't, don't wanna touch it with like a 10 foot pole. There's just something about it that is, I don't wanna interact.
Andrew Heaton: But you know the trick though, cuz I can, I can help, I can help you with this. Okay, go ahead. Uh, cuz I, I've, I have met a, a surprising amount of celebrities at this point in one form or another, not just through my show, but when I was a television writer, a lot of people came through the Green room.
Mm-hmm. and I would hang out with them. And what I've figured out is if you can ask people that are famous stuff about stuff they care about, that they're not famous for, Then you get to have a good conversation. So like, uh, the, the, the, the big one for me is a, a, a fellow named Chris Nova Leic, uh, came, he, he was the basis for Nirvana.
I'm aware of Nirvana, but I'm not, It it, like, I, I, I was such a dork in high school that, that it wasn't a huge deal to me, but it was clearly a big deal to everybody else in the green room who were just like standing against the wall, eyeballing this guy in a noticeably uncomfortable way. and I sat down and was like, Hey, my name's Andrew Heat, and I'm Kennedy's writer.
I heard you're really had right choice voting. And he's like, Yes. And I was like, What do, what do you think about what's going on in Maine? And he's like, It's brilliant. And we had this like 20 minute, like you just 20 minute good conversation where you could tell this man was so relieved that I didn't say what was Kurt Cobain like?
Right, Right. Like that I, I didn't, I was like, I am also aware. That was 30 years ago. I don't wanna talk to you about that. I, I actually wanna talk to you about this thing that you've been thinking about. Yeah. And it was, it was a fun conversation with, from my perspective, a dad that works at a think tank.
Adaam: I don't get gooey eyed for, I think basically anyone, What does get me though are people that are just objectively faster than me on topics that I care about. And that just, Ah, that's annoying .
Andrew Heaton: See, they, they're, they're too, like I've, I had like a really good formative experience. What I, I've, I've lived in Oxford twice, and the second time I was just towny.
I wasn't studying there, I was just hanging out there, which was awful by the way.
Vanessa: Which first time you were at college? Which college?
Andrew Heaton: Brasenose.
Vanessa: Uhha. I was at Pembroke for a year.
Andrew Heaton: Ooh, nice. Um, I, I just did a study abroad. I don't, I'm not credentialed from there or anything.
Vanessa: Yeah, same, same, same. Z.
Andrew Heaton: Um, but, but it was fun the first time and I came back and I was, uh, a, uh, I was no longer in university and I'm from Oklahoma, which is a violently gregarious part of the country. And, and Southern England's just the planet Vulcan with Wool hats. It is the most closed off place I've ever been. So I was miserably lonely for months. The most miserably lonely I've ever been in my life. I did not, I now know that you make friends with English people, basically the same way you sneak up on rabbits, but I didn't know that at the time and so I was so miserable.
I ended up joining. Um, Toastmasters, which was great, uh, really, really lovely people. And I would go, afterwards, I would go hang out at, uh, a pub across from Christchurch with this crowd. And there was one guy, his name was Colin Bruce, and he was so goddamn smart. He, like, he would write, like his job was writing books on quantum physics in multiple languages.
Like he would write a book in quantum physics and then he would rewrite it in French. And like, and I, I'd hang out with him every week and I would go home and be like, Why the fuck is that guy hanging out with me? And what I, what I eventually came up with was, I'm not the smartest person in the room and that's okay, but I can have a good chat.
With the smartest person in the room. Like they will not get bored talking to me. And like, and that's all I'm shooting for. I'm just shooting for to be interesting for the smarter person to talk to me. A conversationalist. Yes, exactly. Well
Vanessa: that's like the primary skill set of a, of a journalist slash podcaster is just, can you keep the conversation going? That's, And if you can do that with people far smarter than you, than you're oak, you're just smart enough. .
Andrew Heaton: Well, and, and the, the great thing about the field that we are in, uh, is I find that. People that are experts in political economy, politics, electoral reform, whatever the thing is, enjoy being asked questions that are good questions from good faith people, right?
Uh, it, it's actually one of the things that I, I love about my job is, uh, do you know who doesn't flip the fuck out? Experts. Like if you're, if you're talking to somebody and you're like, Hey, like, uh, you know, why do you guys think volcanoes don't cause global warming? Like whatever the thing is, right? But you're, you're asking it genuinely.
They're like, Oh, well the reason is this, this, this, and this. And then you talk to people that, that aren't experts, that politics for them is just a big button, uh, for catharsis of all the things bothering them in life to vomit out. Those folks aren't fun to talk to, but the experts are great.
Adaam: Do you find, from your experience, talking to the people who, who only have the catharsis button in politics, do you find it mostly to be, uh, a show because people are in the business of politics, so they need to constantly manufacture a certain degree of out outrage order to keep themselves going? Or is it that they have really tethered their identity to a specific set of ideas that if they're upset or challenged, they lose it? They flip out.
Andrew Heaton: Yes. I think the answer to both of those questions is yes. I think we could, I think we can make a distinction between regular garden variety humans and, uh, the pundit class of which I suppose I am a member.
Um, the, the pundit class, uh, people, people have a lot of perverse incentives. Uh, or let's extend this both for politics and for media. There are a lot of perverse incentives right now. Um, we, we have a system which is ideologically gerrymandered to make everyone act as though there are only. Uh, uh, two political persuasions in the whole country, which is bullshit.
That's really stupid. Like there are 340 million. There's probably more since I left, I've been gone three months. There's probably 343 million Americans right now. The idea that there's one of two opinions and all of it fits neatly, right on a spectrum design by a bunch of goddamn dead Frenchmen to try and understand veto, like it's, it's ridiculous.
It's absurd, right? But that's, that's the system that we're pretending that we live in, and the incentive structure for people that are participating in that, uh, either politically or in media. Really rewards you for us versus them rhetoric and really rewards you for being emotionally evocative. And while there's nothing inherently bad about that, the, the shortcut to being emotionally evocative is hatred and fear.
Um, two, two emotions that I refuse to pedal for a living. I will not do it. But a lot of people, that's their bread and butter. There are a lot of very famous people we could talk about who made a whole career out of being fear mongers and just, uh, and, and hatred mongers, right? Um, I think that there's a big profit model for that.
Tribalism Games
Andrew Heaton: For regular garden variety of humans. Uh, I, I think there's a bunch of things happening, but I think it really all comes down to, um, basic human tendencies towards tribalism in one form or another. Uh, and in that capacity,
it's interesting to me that we as a species keep coming up with ways to, um, funnel impulses in positive directions. Virtually everything but tribalism. So like, I'm aware that I should eat donuts a little bit. I shouldn't always eat donuts. You can't eat donuts all the time. It's not good for you. I'm aware of that, right? So I eat donuts sometimes. I don't eat donuts all the time. Love fucking, But I'm not gonna fuck in the middle of the road.
I'm not gonna just get outta my car and bang some lady over the hood of my car on I 35. That would be inappropriate. And I don't even mean like, as a prude, I just mean like, given the opportunity you wouldn't No, I, I, Cause I, I hate traffic and I don't want everybody else including traffic. Uh, I, if, if they were to pull off of the shoulder, I don't care.
I don't care's. So manous of you if they, if they're out the shoulder, But I, but no, like if you're, you're including traffic rubber don't, don't do onto others. or we're like, you know, like, uh,
don't do it while flying a plane. You can do it when you get off the plane. But like this, the, we, we acknowledge there are situations where it's inappropriate to cater to that sexual instinct, but we acknowledge that the sexual instinct is there.
We don't seem to do that with tribalism, weirdly enough. And so a lot of people are, um, I think using politics as an aats religion. They are people that in any other century we would describe as devoutly religious, but they've, they, they think they're secular, they're not. They've just taken all of that spiritual energy and decided to put it into a different set of dogma, values, beliefs, songs, and traditions.
Um, that happens a lot.
Adaam: Funny thing about that, by the way, is that a lot of people who consider themselves religious tend to be more religious about their politics than they are about the thing they proclaim to be religious also true. Which is, I think that's an incredibly interesting thing in the country because I think. In one definition of secular America is probably becoming a lot more secular than it ever was, and in another, it is in, in the sense of the religious commitment to arbitrary ideas and its connection to your, uh, core identity and day to day meaning it is probably as religious as it ever was, if not more.
Andrew Heaton: Yes, I, I agree. I, I, uh, my undergraduate I did, I did a history degree and I did a religious studies degree, and as a former religious studies major. I think the most useful definition of religion would be one, based on functionality. Uh, that, that, cuz if, if, when people try to identify trappings of religion, no religion has all the trappings of religion.
Like, like there's always gonna be one or two ingredients missing depending on the religion you're talking about. And so what you end up doing is you just project your religion onto other religions and use those as the yard stick. It's not very useful. What's more useful is to say it's functional, that that religion is a schema that provide.
Purpose and value to life and orders, otherwise chaotic events into patterns. You understand? That's, that's what religions are on, on a, on a functional DNA level. And politics basically fills that void for a lot of people. I think
Vanessa: going, going back to what you were saying earlier too about the, the fact that there's, like, we understand there's, there should be limit limitations to self-indulgence essentially.
And you were kind of saying that tribalism is one that we for some reason don't wanna curb some instinct we don't wanna curb, but I think it's because of this relation relationship, it's, it doesn't feel like self-indulgence to be to people, to be indulge, indulgent. Um, sorry to be tribalistic. It feels like self abnegation in a way.
It feels like for, for the cause of justice, whatever that means in my mind, I am going to stick up for this cause and that means being combative against people who are against the cause and therefore because people don't see it as a self-indulgent instinct, they are, it kind of gets super charged.
Adaam: Say the same thing about religion, right? Any kind of religion, because it's just name of God in name of justice, in the name of, Yeah. My,
Andrew Heaton: If we, if we, if we, if we go, um, I, I feel most comfortable kind of dealing with abstract concepts as we've been doing so far. But if we were to shift that over to an evolutionary perspective, um, we, we are, we are tribal beings.
We are, we are mammals. We live in groups. Um, we are also hierarchical beings. We, we have a packing order in the, the tribes that we're a part of, and we all wanna be noting up on that. Mm-hmm. . And the, the two ways that you, you move up in a tribe are either through domination or through prestige. You either say, say like, either push the other chimps around and they, they surrender and you become the Alpha chimp.
Um, which I think you see in politics all the time through bullying and through, through, uh, I, I'm gonna go be combative to the, the, the other guys over here to show that I'm fierce. Or the other thing you do is prestige. Where, where you, you you're basically showing, um, I, I have inherent value to the tribe and that's why I should be high up in the hierarchy.
What is my value? One, I am completely dedicated to our tribe, and I will show this by, uh, showing you how much I hate the other tribe. So, uh, I'm gaining prestige through loyalty. I'm gaining prestige because I know all the words we're supposed to use. Notice that I'm using all the correct words and a, for our particular tribal accent.
I, I never say social justice, I always say patriot or I never say the wrong pronouns. I always say the right pronoun or whatever the thing is, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, and I, I, I, I think when you start to look at it like that, you're like, Oh yeah, there's, there's a lot of people that are, um, I, I think, um, really desperate for community and meaning, um, that have sadly glommed onto politics as this horrible, horrible substitute for these other things in their life that they're running a deficit for.
Vanessa: It, This reminds me of something that a, a Dom actually wrote, uh, for our newsletter, uh, which is kind of, we've, we've recently had a conversation with, um, Peter Turin, who was the historian who made that prediction in 2010, but that by 2020 we were gonna be on route for Civil War, essentially, uh, at least a lot of unrest.
Uh, and one of his main ideas is that one of the main drivers of social unrest is elite over production, um, and aam and, and the newsletter's gonna come out, I think before this interview comes out. So, but, uh, Aam ha kind of took that framing to, to talk about. The essentially like cancel culture and canceling people as, as evidence of elite over production because the more elites are competing for the same positions, the more likely they are to leverage whatever weapons they have at their disposal to get people out of their way and therefore cancel culture becomes a means of asserting their, their dominance in, in their particular, uh, sphere.
Andrew Heaton: I'm writing that down. Uh, I I will, I'm gonna sign up for your subscribe to our new Yeah, I will sign up for your newsletter. How do I find it? Uh,
Vanessa: uncertain.substack.com. I That sounds great. It's relate. I think what you were talking about is very much related to what Andrew was talking about in terms of the, the prestige and dominance. It's like they kind of, these trends are overlapping on each other. Yeah.
Adaam: And, and another way of thinking about this is that there's, there seem to be a lot of games. Are, uh, our elite class is playing, which is, there's the justice game, there's the religious game. There is, um, economic insecurity games.
There are many games they're playing. But when you realize that these aren't really the games being played and that underneath that facade, they're all playing a single game, and that's the domination game. When you realize that it's about that, when you realize that most things are. A form of social predation for status, you suddenly find that it eliminates a lot of the ADing factors that make our current social, political cultural moment seem more complex and incomprehensible than it really is.
Andrew Heaton: Uh, well you, you, you bring up a good point too, which is that a lot of the fights that we're having are elite fights. Um, or, or are to get demographic about it. Um, tend to be bunched up more among affluent white people. Uh, Dave, David Brooks, I think accurately has, has pointed out that a lot of the, the partisan tug of war we're experiencing right now is a kind of civil war amongst, um, affluent white people.
And the re the reason I put race on it, uh, and put money on it is, um, uh, because when you look at the polling like. Um, uh, affirmative action is not something that is really received well in the United States. Like Americans of all stripes, white, black, and other, just don't like the idea of having, um, racial quotas.
Racial quotas are seen as kind of antithetical to the American work spirit and that, but, but that, you don't see that like, um, the Democratic Party, it's very popular with upper middle class white people. Um, but it, but it doesn't scale down. And, and there's lots of issues like that too. There's lots of issues that, um, the, the, the pundit class and the political class are operating in this very specific, fairly dogmatic, uh, range of opinions, which does not translate to all of the people below them.
Um, like I, I don't suppose you've had Morris Fiorina on your program. No, we haven't. I like Morris Fiorina. He's over at the Hoover Institute, which is a fine think tank. Uh, his, um, his, the, the, the drum he's been beating for a while now is that America's not actually any more, um, partisan. Than it's ever been.
It's just better sorted, uh, that if you, if you go through the polling data, um, people really haven't changed their opinions that much on like gun control, abortion, things like that. And it's, it's actually much more evenly distributed. There are lots of Republicans that are in favor of gun control. There are lots of Democrats who are pro-life or pro-life at some point.
Like there's, there's some, there's some gradient there, there's lots of Republicans that want social welfare. There's lots of Democrats that like capitalism, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and the, what, what's happened over the last 20, 30 years is that, The, the parties have sorted themselves so much better. Like when I, I used to work on Capitol Hill, I was working for Blue Dog Democrats, so I was working for the conservative slash moderate wing of the Democratic party, which no longer exists just as there used to be the Rockefeller Republicans who were liberal, cosmopolitan, urban coastal Republicans.
And that's largely gone away. But if you go back 30, 40 years ago, like really in the eighties and back, you had all of these kind of intermediate characters that I'm a democrat, but I love guns and I'm able to broker this deal with the Republicans from Alabama. Or I'm, I'm a Republican. Uh, but I'd be like, But I'm a gay Republican and so I can talk to the like, and, and that seems to have gone away and it's really.
Predominantly in the, the ruling class, the, the, the political elites and the media elites. It's not really true, um, for everybody down below. Like people have, if, if you're a conservative, you are now a Republican. If you're progressive, you are now a Democrat. And then about a third of us have just gone, Fuck you, I'm out.
I don't wanna be in part of either of your awful parties. Uh, but, but the actual distribution of opinions is not that different people, people, regular garden, variety of humans are, are much more moderate, much more centrist, and much more politically distributed than, than the parties themselves.
Two party vs. Multi-party systems
Adaam: So what do you say to people like, Vanessa's now husband are recurring voice talking about the problem of the two party system. How much do you attribute our current hyper partisanship and inability to talk to each other and get normal candidates on the ballots to that, to the fact that we only have two options? Cause I, my sense is that this is kind of a red herring. If the main issue really is the big sort, then maybe more parties could truffle things up in a positive way. But my sense is if we're sorting ourself, we will end up forming the same coalitions through smaller parties as well, which will end up in similar polarities and with equal dysfunction. As you can see in multiple party systems in Europe, obviously I know it very well from Israel.
Andrew Heaton: I am very much on Team Zev for this one. I, I think Zev is, he's the, the, the lightning rod of sanity within our little group. Um, so, uh, yes, I, I think I, I think that the two-party system, or the two-party fallacy is a, a very, very big contributing element to this. I do think there's lots of other things going on that are, are causing tribalism to ratchet up.
Um, I, I, I think largely it's the decline of organized religion and just a, a general alienation that's going on with people. We're supposed to be tribal. We're supposed to live in groups. All of us, for some reason went, maybe I'll live in a box by myself with a cat and everybody's very lonely and wants to, So like those, those are big factors.
But the reason that politics has become the lightning rod for all of that, hey, for, for all of that, uh, uh, tribeless angst, I, I think is largely just structural problems. Um, So, uh, in the same way that I think people would recognize that, that gerrymandering is a, a geographic warping of the electorate to some sort of manipulative end.
The two-party system as it stands right now is an ideological gerrymandering. Uh, it creates the illusion that there's one of two options. It, it also, um, compels people to it. It compels people that might otherwise be more nuanced, uh, or have a. Political nucleus to, to go into one of these two big groups.
And, uh, more to the point, I think that the, the electoral regime that we have in place for the two party system is one which facilitates extremism and then that further motivates everybody in a party. Uh,
we have first past the post, uh, closed primaries in most states of the union, and that means that if I am running in a district in Texas, That is gonna overwhelmingly vote Republican. I'm not worried about the Democrat. I'm certainly not worried about a third party or an independent. I know I'm gonna win. I can, I can murder someone and win from prison. I'm fine. What I have to worry about is getting primaried, which means that when I'm, when I'm running in the primaries, because it's only the most vocal, extreme, passionate Republicans, they're gonna show up. I have to be an extremely passionate vocal Republican and I have to be very conservative and I have to be saying that Democrats want America to fail. They want it to fail for fun and profit because they're evil socialists and your neighbors aren't opponents. They're existential threats to our way of, I have to do that to get elected and to maintain office. I can't be seen as fraternizing with the enemy. I have no incentive whatsoever to me elected in a majority Republican district. I have no incentive available to. To actually represent the independents, moderates, or Democrats. In my district, I don't even really have an incentive to represent the Republicans. I just, the people who elect me are the Republican primary voters. That's who I, who I represent. I just need to not piss them off. And the same things happens with the Democrats. So what ends up happening is both parties are artificially selecting the most extreme, passionate, evocative candidates. And then everybody else like me has to choose between King Joffrey and Ramsey Bolt. We don't get to have Ned Stark as an option. We don't get to have like, you know, little fingers not great, but he, he, it is better than Ramsey. We don't get to have that. Right.
Um, so I, I think the two-party system, um, is, is facilitating that. And, uh, where, where I do think you've got a point Adom is if, if we had a multi-party system like Europe, you would find that the parties are, um, way more dogmatic and way more strict, um, than they have been the last 40 years, or particularly 40 years ago.
Right? If, if, like, I would be the cosmopolitan, uh, classical liberal party, uh, all, all eight of me, uh, of people that live in cities and have gay friends, but think government doesn't work very well. Mm-hmm. , that's, that's my thing. Um, there's, like, I, I'd be in that party and probably because it would be a smaller, tighter party, there would be a lot less variance in terms of the viewpoints that were established there.
Um,
Adaam: oh no. And there, there are two other objections. One is that, Multi-party systems tend to, not necessarily, but tend to devolve into a different kind of legislative paralysis. But I guess that argument is completely moot given our current state of Congress. So
Andrew Heaton: yeah, I, yeah. See, and that's, that's the only thing too is that like if, if we were having this conversation 40 years ago, you could make a very good case that like, hey, the benefit to having a two-party system is they're giant big tent parties and you can be a gay Republican, you can be a gun toning Democrat.
You can, you can be the thing that's mostly this, but that's 30% this, We don't have that anymore. The two-party system's not doing really the only benefit of the two-party system. Uh, and so if we were to switch to a multi-party system, you, you'd get smaller, tighter parties that would be more dogmatic, but they're really not that different than the two shitty parties we currently have.
Adaam: So I'm just gonna raise my other objection and then you can shut it down free. And looking at what is causing this political sorting. There is an element of not to plagiarize, uh, Bat Ya's, uh, book, but bad media patterns. It's not just our traditional purveyors of news, it's our entire information diet from social media to traditional broadcast and legacy newspapers they all thrive on and encourage the same kind of intellectual and political siloing.
Yeah. That means that even where you have a more dispersed variety of political parties, they end up blocking together. Along the same binaries, because that's our how our lizard brains think. So you said yourself, it's the us versus them. It's the left and the right. Right. It's the goods and the bads. It's this fundamental stupidity that media exploits and perpetuates, and it's a pattern that is quite beyond us, I think, to truly bring apart, especially at scale.
Andrew Heaton: Yeah. So I, I think the, the, uh, wonderful point.
Adaam: Well, I thank you, Heaton.
Andrew Heaton: The, the electoral downside to a multiparty system, um, uh, is, is, uh, not only that, you're gonna get tighter blocks of thinking. You're also gonna get less control over the coalitions so that the Republican and democratic parties aren't really parties.
They're coalitions. There's the neocons and the Never Trumpers, and the, um, the knuckle dragging maga people and like all, all that, right? And the Democrats, the Commies. And the market Democrats and the corporate Democrats and whatever aoc like they're, they're right. So you, you know, the coalition you're electing, whereas in Europe, you're, you're electing a very specific party and you don't know the coalition you're gonna get.
Uh, I would prefer that, I would prefer to be able to vote for, um, the, the Cosmopolitan. Let's have a tiny, compact, streamlined government party. And every once in a while I get surprised cuz we team up with a communists or we team up with a nationalist or something. And I didn't have a say in that. I'd rather take that risk to your, to your media point.
Um, I, I, I don't know a way that we could structurally change that. Uh, I think it would be palliative to alter politics. Um, in that, uh, uh,
media is always gonna gravitate towards binary thinking. And the, the reason that it's gonna do that is twofold. Um, television in particular, uh, that I've worked in is a medium predominantly exists off of engagement and drama. Um, and having a, a good team and a bad team is more dramatic than having five different viewpoints discussing juke tariffs. Uh, it's real difficult to get people animated when there's five options. Um, two options. Everyone understands us versus them, and that's the other reason that it media, particularly large media, is always gonna gravitate towards it.
Uh, not all. Not all binary thinkers are stupid. All stupid people are binary. Think. Any, any dumb fuck you can find thinks in terms of binary, because it's literally the smallest amount of options you can have. One is not an option, three is too many, Two us versus them. That's how all people, and we all do this by the way, when we're all, we're all stupid at some point in our life, when we're emotionally overwhelmed or we're stressed, whatever, we, we, we slip into that mode, right? So media is going to naturally slide into that, that dumb fuck binary thinking. Uh, what I do think would make more difficult for it though, is if there were multiple. If, if, um, if, if you had actually four or five options, you'd at least have a harder time portraying it as a mannequin battle of bread versus blue. If there was also a green, a yellow on an orange that were, were participating in it.
Vanessa: Uh, why, why multi-party though, as opposed to just changing the way we vote? Cause when you were giving the example earlier of, you know, like the primary system, it seems like if we changed that you wouldn't necessarily need to have a multi-party system because you would, you would, might be incentivized to, to vote for someone who actually more closely aligns with your ideology.
Andrew Heaton: Right. F fantastic point. And you're right. I think if we, if we altered the, the way primaries are done, I don't think we need to have a multi-party system because we would basically go back to that old big tent model, which might even be more preferable. Uh, I just, the episode's not up, but, uh, on, on my podcast, the political orphanage I just interviewed, uh, the mayor of Oklahoma City, uh, you would, what's his name?
David Holt, who's a great guy by the way. Uh, and you would think for anybody that doesn't know Oklahoma City politics, which I imagine is everybody outside of Oklahoma City and about half people in Oklahoma City, you would think that the mayor of Oklahoma City and the holster of the Bible Belt would be the most gun tot pro Jesus, anti-gay Mexican, blah, blah.
Like you, you'd think that it would just be Jeff Sessions with like slightly larger boots or something. Uh, and no, he's, he's a wonderful guy, uh, and, and, uh, and he's very much, I, I very much resonate with a guy. He falls into that classical liberal. Um, cosmopolitan vibe that I'm talking about. Uh, but the, the reason that he's able to exist in that ecosystem at all is because the nature of the electoral system they've got in Oklahoma City, they have a, a jungle primary where they, you just have all the candidates.
I, I don't, I'm, I'll be reductive here, but you have to get, let's say, 5,000 signatures to be on the ballot. You do that, you're on the ballot. Everybody votes on the 15 people that are there, and then it goes to like the top three and they go from there. And it's not, it, it, it, it's not partisans. You could theoretically have three Republicans running against each other, but everybody's voting in it, which is the key bit.
If you have an open primary, uh, or a jungle primary, the people that are otherwise cut out of the process are able to have. So like California does this to a point, I, I think that they would do very well to expand it beyond their current levels. Uh, Alaska does this right now, and I think you're saying people like Lisa Murkowski who can vote against their party because of it.
But if, if you theoretically in, in a place like Oklahoma or Texas, if it was top five candidates and it was just an open primary, The Republicans and the Democrats could endorse whoever they wanted, but they were not gatekeepers, they were just a stamp of approval. Um, in a place that's very, very heavily Republican, I the independent or the Democrat or whoever can, can go, Oh, of these three Republicans, I would prefer this most sane Republican like David Holt.
Uh, whereas right now I can't do that right now, I have to pick between Ramsey Bolton and King Joffrey. But, but if, if you had, if you had electoral reform with open primaries, with jungle primaries, with something that allows everybody to participate and you have the parties doing, doing it on the back end rather than as gatekeepers, you'd go back to having that big tent and, and you would suddenly find that places like Oklahoma City, which are Trumpian hot.
Are actually way more nuanced and politically balanced and centrist than you would ever anticipate. And if Oklahoma City is gonna yield somebody like that, then then places that are are more politically, uh, heterogeneous are gonna have different results than we're currently getting. Even more. So.
Punditry Part 1A: Inflation and Abortion
Adaam: Okay. Let's get to the punditry. That's really why we brought you in today. I promise that we're gonna have a, a heat.
Andrew Heaton: We're gonna start the podcast now
Adaam: yeah. , thank you for joining us, Andrew.
Vanessa: Warm up complete .
Andrew Heaton: Yeah. We never actually did introductions. Do you wanna tell anybody? Tell anybody who I am?
Adaam: No. That will be way too structured for us, but yeah. You generously offered yourself as our go-to pundit. Mm-hmm. Pinch hitter. Pundit Is Punt Tree something that we don't regularly? So
Andrew Heaton: I'm a grab bag to be. You don't know where I'm gonna go.
Adaam: You are, You are not only a grab bag, you are also a poised unheated grab bag. Which is,
Andrew Heaton: Which is, Yeah. I'm a tepid Grab bag.
Adaam: You're a tepid. Grab bag. . This is, this is wonderful. And, and
Vanessa: new tagline. .
Andrew Heaton: Yeah, Tepid. Grab bag. Politics.
Adaam: So this episode is supposed to be about the midterms. Knowing our pace, there's a chance that this episode will be released as people are going to the polls, which will render everything we say here, outdated.
Just the way we like it. So, with that in mind, what are the themes of the upcoming elections? What are the three subjects that are gonna be splattered on the front pages and homepages of every newspaper, Outlet Magazine in the country? Next Fri, uh, next wednesday morning,
Andrew Heaton: I think it's gonna be, uh, abortion. Uh, inflation and just general culture war scuffle.
Adaam: Okay, So start with abortion. Yeah. This is an interesting question that, um, we, in, in the, I, I guess it was the green room. I don't know cuz we never had an official starting point, but we mentioned Sarah Iser. Sarah Iger asked on the dispatch podcast, What happens if abortion doesn't play the role that Democrats expect it to in the coming midterms?
What does that mean politically? What does it mean legally and what, what does it mean to our society and culture
Vanessa: by the way that they're expecting it? You mean that it's just not gonna drive as many people to vote Democrat?
Adaam: Right. So it was kind of conventional wisdom among certain political pundits that vember is gonna change the tide for the midterms until Roe v Wade was.
Repealed by the Dobbs decision. Everybody agreed that Republicans are gonna take back the house and maybe the Senate Republicans just had an embedded advantage with Biden's favorability rating cratering in them being the out party in the midterms while the economy sucks. Then when Will fell, there was the idea that there's gonna be a backlash.
Democrat voters are gonna be galvanized and activated into the polls. They were certain that that's their winning issue, that that's their key to retaining control of Congress. Even today, I got, uh, an an ad on YouTube that was for Governor Katie Hossel in New York that didn't talk about crime, didn't talk about inflation, didn't talk about many of the things that seemed to be pre dominating the mind of voters.
But focused on abortion, say, do not vote for Lee Zelda in my Republican challenger because he's gonna repeal abortion rights in New York state. And there's some logic to that because voters don't like the status quo being completely disrupted. And that's basically what the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs caused subtly.
The whole question of abortion, which seemed to most Americans to have been settled, is up for grabs. But the polls right now don't really bear out that this is going to be a primary concern for people voting. And it's probably even worse because we know that polls are slightly biased to favor Democrats, which by all likelihood indicates that Republicans are gonna be very happy next week.
And if that's the case, what does that mean culturally, sociologically, politically, legally? To the question of abortion in the United States.
Andrew Heaton: Well, the, the, the first thing in terms of the big picture, um, I, I, I agree with your analysis that the polls are, are weighted for Democrats, and that even then it does not look very good for Democrats.
Um, in terms of big picture stuff, I think the Republicans are take pack, probably the House and the Senate. And, um, this will further ratchet up the, the impending civil war we're gonna have. And really the only release felt for that is electoral reform. Until we do that, I think this is gonna keep getting worse and worse.
But in terms of the short term, um, I, I think that there's, uh, the, the predominant phenomenon going on is this, uh, yes, abortion is a, a motivating issue. However, um, the electorate has a very short attention. The thing that we get mad about isn't sustainable all the time. You have to find new things to get mad about on a regular basis.
That's part of why the Trump years were, were so angry as everybody constantly had new things to get mad about. And then the, the other thing beyond the fact that I, I realize that, uh, that rights and, and bodily autonomy are not things that are, are momentary, but rather, uh, ongoing situations. The actual flash point of that happened back in November, or excuse me, hap happened uh, months ago.
Um, what's happening right now, every day for people in a non theoretical capacity is that gas costs a lot. That food's going up. Um, I think that there's a fair amount of people that are probably pro-choice or lean pro-choice, um, but it's somewhat theoretical for them. They'd like to have that ability, or they'd like their daughter to have that ability, but it's not a day to day phenomenon, whereas they are feeling the pinch of inflation going up.
So I think inflation is gonna be a, a more driving cause of this election than abortion will. And, uh, that is just gonna work in, like, the Republicans have two things going for them in that regard. Um, one, whoever is the, the, the, the president's party always suffers in the midterms, or usually suffers in midterms, I should say. But you're, you're already fighting. Like if, if this is d and d, you've got like a negative five strength. Mm-hmm. going into the midterms. If you, if you're the president's party. That's just how that works. So you have to overcome that hurdle. And then on top of that, Jesus Christ inflation's complicated.
I've, I've, on the political orphanage, I've, I've interviewed three economists and I, I consider myself well above average when it comes to political economy know how, and I'm still largely baffled by what's going on, because we could be talking about quantitative easing, we could be talking about supply chain.
We could be talking about there's like a whole difference between financial policy versus monetary policy. I thought they were the same thing. They're not. It's very, very complicated. Right? So if, if you're the guys in power, it's very difficult for you to go, uh, hey, this thing's super complicated, but it's not our fault.
Let's ex here's a diagram. All right, listen. Okay. Who, Well, if we get into the supply chain coming out of, Okay, the Port of Yemen, it's, it's so difficult to do. It's much, much easier to go, Who's in charge? Those fuckers throw 'em out, Maybe it'll get better. That's, it's just like, like the Republicans don't even have to do.
They're gonna have, they're gonna be well positioned for that. So I think that that's gonna be the main thing going on. I think that the people that are most animated by abortion are already gonna vote Democrat. So I, I think the, the, the possible voters that may not turn out or might have gone Democrat or Republican, I, I think they're gonna be more impacted by inflation than abortion itself.
Adaam: By the way, I'm just curious, I'm guessing that financial policy refers to regulating markets and monetary refers to the Federal Reserve and printing money. Where does bonds, the question of bonds, where does that fall between the two of them?
Andrew Heaton: I suppose I'd put that under financial policy. I think, I think monetary policy is really more, uh, as I understand it, again, I'm, I'm admitting a certain level of bafflement on this.
I think monetary policy is more to do with how much, how much money is being added to the supply of exist, Right. Printing money, uh, Right. Uh, whereas, whereas financial policy is interest rates and things like that. Um, so bonds, I suppose, would be in the financial side of it, but you could also argue that you're increasing the money supply by creating the bonds. So I'm not entirely sure and I,
Vanessa: but the thing is like, I don't think politicians know anything about it either. And I'm actually very skeptical that, uh, politicians can knowingly fix the economy. I feel like it's all a bit of like trial and error and something may or may not work. And so I, I understand the instinct to be like, whoever's in power, it's not working. Get 'em out. Yeah. Because sure, that's, that seems valid enough. But I'm also just incredibly skeptical that whoever you get in next is gonna be able to.
Andrew Heaton: Correct. Oh, a hundred percent right. I, I have, I had a great epiphany, Vanessa, the last few months where, up until about a month ago, uh, I, I would kind of go, you know, I don't really know a lot about this topic.
I don't know that I should speak on it, and just sort of assumed that all the confident gas bags knew what they were talking about, quo confidence. And I'm now like, Oh, you're just fucking lying , like you don't like the difference between me and you is that you get paid to be c. Whereas, like I I, I went on a British television show.
I I was in London last week and I, I went on, it was a good, fun time by the way. But like, we were gonna get into like, you know, Jeremy May Hunter, the new chancellor of the Eric Checker said the micro budget is, is gas. We need to pull back into the Bank of England. 2%. They're saying they're threatening to not raise it as high as a, And, and I like off camera, cuz I wouldn't do this on camera, but off camera was like, I'm gonna do my best with this gang.
But I do not know half of, like, I didn't know who Jeremy Hunt was until 10 minutes ago. Uh, I don't have strong feelings on Liz Trust or the cabbage. I don't know what's going on here. I'll do my best. But like, and and they were like, Yes, we don't know either. None of us , we're all, we're all flying by the seat of our pants.
You understand that? Don't you ? And I was like, Really? And they're like, Yes, yes. We, we'll get it to one. If one of your people is, is running in New York on a, on a porn ticket, that seems like it's your speed. Uh, we'll get to that later on. Uh, but, but until then, just we like, But they're all winging it. Yeah.
Uh, yes. I think that that's, that's very correct. Like, um, I, if, if. If myself and my friends that are usually in the know, in economics are, are admitting to a lot of shoulder shrugging on this one, then, then the, the pundits, uh, and, and politicians that are paid to get mad about, uh, Dr. Se and shit, don't know what's going on anymore than we do.
A tangent on expertise and authority
Adaam: Just one small thing about the, the question of punditry, because I find myself getting into difficult argument with people, Azi, um, our, our recurring character in this conversation about this question of expertise, uh, regarding punditry and experts in general, because a lot of people on the American Center left, especially for my generation, were raised with the expectation.
Credentialed people, people with academic training who have written the books on the matter know what they're talking about. Yeah. The priest class sometimes. It's true, yes. But the thing is that we have conflated the ability to send rockets to divert asteroids coming towards earth and being really precise about that.
Yeah. With people making judgements about the economy or the trajectory of history or political dynamics, things that are grounded in human behavior that we have not, are not driven by the scientific method. I mean, I mean, and, and some somewhat driven by the scientific method, but the scientific method doesn't really map onto it quite as neatly.
And the most important thing of the scientific method that sometimes gets tossed out when you're talking about things like the economy policy and, and human behavior in general. Not to mention nutritionism, but let's, let's leave that for now. Is that you need to be ready to constantly question not just your assumptions, but also to be able to immediately embrace or at least seriously reckon with contradicting results or failed predictions.
And the thing is, when it comes to human behavior, there are constant contradictions to any proposition, but it's very easy to discount them and saying, Ah, that's an anomaly, because this and that. Yes. Rather than acknowledge that on way too. Human centric issues. We lack the tools or we lack the framework to talk about it in a completely sci with total scientific confidence.
We pretend as if somebody with a PhD in political science belongs to the same class of authoritative experts as a rocket engineer. And it doesn't matter how many times assertions by said, experts are shown to be unmistakably false. As long as they have the right credentials, they'll still get to go up and make the same false assertions or pretend that they're false assertions. Were never really uttered.
Andrew Heaton: Right. Yeah. Um, these are wonderful points to bring up. I think our, our friends on the center. Have some epistemological foibles and some, some bearings, which I take umbridge with. Uh, in terms of the bearings, we could kind of think about the rule of experts as the following Option A, um, we should put experts in charge of things.
Option B experts are in enemy class. We should put non-experts in charge of things. Option c, , maybe nobody should be in charge of this thing. Uh, I am generally in the option C camp. So for example, I'm, I'm ethnically a comedian. I, I do not want, I do not want a ministry of humor guiding American comedy. I like nothing is more terrifying to me.
It's not that I want, like, oh, this academic from the University of Harvard is gonna be in charge of our, our comedy for four years. No, fuck that. We're having the owner of NASCAR being charge. I just, I don't want anybody in charge of it. We're very capable of, of doing this ourselves under principles of emergent order.
Uh, and I think most things are largely like that. Like, I don't want people in charge of art. We don't need a department of shoes. Like, like I, like everybody needs shoes, but we don't need a department of shoes. They're doing fine. We're okay. We're like, we're fine. Right. Uh, our friends on the center left do, do tend to have this like really deep set belief that if anything is important or complicated, it must have an authority in charge of it.
And, and if we're gonna have an authority, I'm gonna say if we're gonna have an authority, I would prefer it be an expert. But, uh, most things I don't wanna have an authority on. They do wanna have an authority on most things. And, and they, and they tend to also in, in the center left mind, it's not authoritarianism.
If it wears a sweater vest and went to Harvard, it doesn't count unless it, it's, if it's, if it, if it's a guy in a military uniform or like a football coach, then it's authoritarian. But if it's, but when it comes to things like the economy and politics, you would, you would be reasonable to expect that there should be expertise, right?
It's not it. Well, there's, there, there, there should. And, and there is, and I'm very much in favor of this, by the way, in the sense that there are economic consensus. Uh, there is an economic consensus on a ton of things. Like you, you, if you, um, like no one's fucking debating, uh, uh, supply and. In in economics?
No, no one is debating this. Like, like Thomas. So, and Pickety both agree. Supply and demand are a thing. Uh, there, there are certain, like, and there are certain dumb arguments that if you just put economists in charge of stuff, we wouldn't, there, there, there are arguments we'd still be having and then there are arguments we wouldn't be having anymore.
Like economists don't think price controls work very. Like even left-leaning, like it's very rare to find a, a left-leaning economist that thinks price controls are good solutions because they're just, they're at best, extremely clumsy. They're, uh, I think most of the time ineffective. And at worst they're counterproductive, right?
So like that's not something up for debate. That is a situation where, um, being knowledgeable in the field may not create a, um, a uniform position, but it does at least negate, uh, extraneous stupid positions so that that does tend to happen.
Adaam: But, so consensuses can or sensei form, around stupid ideas. Mm-hmm. stupid and yes, provably wrong ideas and get stuck. Yes. Because stupidity os defies, especially when you have a lot of, when you have an entire expertise class, depending on that stupidity being, uh, perpetuated. How do you tell these apart?
Andrew Heaton: Uh, well, I, I think you, you raised another good point of one of the epistological foibles that our friends on the center left have, which is, um, they are not getting input from anywhere further right from them.
I think this is, I, I say this as an independent who lives in Texas and very well might vote democrat. I haven't looked at the candidates yet and I. Make a decision every time. I, I'm, I'm never foregone how repugnant of you, you make decisions. How rep I agreed. Um, I, what, what I have noticed though is I think that, uh, Republicans have a leg up in terms of national epistemology of just how people operate o over Democrats.
And the reason I say that is if you're a Republican in Kansas, you're consuming media from the coasts. You're watching TV shows that were shot in New York or Los Angeles. You know, a lot of your favorite actors are well to the left of you. And so you're capable of, most, most of the time you're capable of going, Ah, Tom Hanks is probably a Democrat, but he seems like a good guy.
Whereas if you're living in New York City, you're living in Los Angeles, you're living in Silicon Valley, there's a very good chance you don't know any Republicans and you don't consume anything from the middle of the country and you don't consume anything by Republicans. And so you just don't know what anybody outside of your group thinks ever.
Uh, which is why the Democratic Party will. Dumb stuff. Like, like everybody's yelling about inflation and they're like, We really need to create a new pronoun. And we're like, What the fuck are you talking about? Like, just quit fucking up the, just, just make, make stuff cost less. Can you just, you don't even have to fix it.
Just quit fucking up the thing you were fucking up. Like the bit you're screwing up. Take that part out of the equation. Maybe you'll solve itself. And, and they're like, Now what we really need to do, what we really need to do is redefine the, the time America was founded. Let's put our capital into making this mm-hmm. about how America sucks. And it's like, what? Uh, so yeah. The, the Democrats do that a lot.
Um, to your, your point of consensus, uh, being of false consensus. I, I, obviously that can happen. Um, part of the epistemological model that we, uh, we fortunately have in, in the west in liberal societies. Uh, I, I talked to Jonathan Rauch about this on the politic board. Board.
Adaam: Oh, I've been trying to get Jonathan Roche for a while.
Andrew Heaton: He is great.
Adaam: I love Jonathan Rauch. The kindly inquisitor is just one of the must
Andrew Heaton: reads. Yeah, he, he's also astonished that that is a thing, by the way, cause that, like, it didn't sell anything until like a year ago, . Uh, it's like, so it was only, it's like literally only people that know what Cato is knew what that book was and, and like, and, and, and now, now he's, he's a great guy. He's a great gal. I'll be happy to put you in touch.
Adaam: Uh, I do want to pride myself that I, I I was reading the kindly Inquisitions B back when it was only a Cat Cato thing
Andrew Heaton: before it was cool.
Right? Hipster , right?
Yeah. You, you. It's still not cool, but it's more cool. You were doing it when it was not even cool for the not cool people.
Adaam: Exactly. And I will send listeners to our conversation with Moshe Sluhovksy who was my history professor at the time for context. But you were saying about Rauch.
Andrew Heaton: Well, and I think Jonathan Rauch would say that part of the, the epistemological model of the Enlightenment that accompany the Declaration of Independence and accompany the constitution is the scientific method and everything that goes into that, that, um, that you, you, that ideas are to be challenged.
That there is no permanent, there is no permanent consensus. Everything is perpetually up for debate, um, that we never rely on. Uh, just this is an authority, therefore they are correct. You have to back up your argument. Your argument is, is subject to criticism. Um, that needs to be built into the model. I think that that, um, is something that.
Weirdly, uh, expertise, uh, kind of like goes futile on a lot of the time where like expertise ought to mean this person has an accumulation of knowledge, therefore they are worth listening to. Whereas it, it oftentimes is taken to mean. Um, this is a priest in a lab coat, right? Who is telling us what the temple of science says.
That's very, very different. Sinism is very different than the scientific Methodism. Very different. Um, and then the other thing I'd go back to though is that like I I, I'm very much a systems thinker, aam, and I'm very much a protocol guy. I like having, like, this is the protocol. So the protocol for me is, does this thing need to have somebody in charge of it?
I'm gonna say most of the time, no, most stuff doesn't need to have people in charge of it. If it's gonna have somebody in charge of it, I'd prefer they know what they're thinking or what they're talking about is showing. And, and it, in, in those instances, I like a consensus would be good if, if we're, if we're debating something that has some level of demonstrable falsehoods, I want, I want a person in there who knows what the falsehoods are.
Punditry Part 1B: Abortion, Continued
Adaam: Mm-hmm. . Let's turn it back to abortion then.
Vanessa: That's, Well, I guess so I, I understand why. Why people would be more driven by inflation than abortion at this moment. It makes a lot of sense. I will still put my flag on the caveat that I don't think politicians are gonna make very much of a difference whoever's in office around the issue of inflation. And I think they might make a hell of a lot of difference on the future of abortion, especially in the near term.
Adaam: True. And so, which is interesting cuz that means that the problem would've been for Democrats, they should have acknowledged inflation, made it clear that this is something that they are aware of, not something that they're, you know, dismissing as they have for the first year. Just take it heads on and admit that this is a point of concern and then say, we are aware of this, we are working on it, but also we're gonna protect your reproductive rights.
Vanessa: Maybe. But, but I think part of the issue is with, with voters, I think right now, They're not necessarily, they don't trust that Democrats are gonna be able to do anything on inflation, first of all. And second of all, I don't know, I don't know if your average voter understands the stakes at this moment in time around abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade. Cause Andrew, you did an excellent podcast on Roe V. Wade kind of breaking down all of the
Andrew Heaton: Thank you,
Vanessa: the, the reasons why. It's kind of shoddy jurisprudence and your and you're in many others' opinions.
Uh, even if you are pro-choice and agree that it, it was a better outcome. The jurisprudence itself was not Right.
Andrew Heaton: Which is where I'm at. I'm, I'm broadly pro-choice and I think it was a bad decision.
Vanessa: Right, Right, right. And, and the fact that the fact that Dobs v Jackson has now changed where the fu the fate of abortion lies, it is now no longer in the judicial branch and is like moving towards. Legislative branch means that the stakes at this moment in time are incredibly high about who we're voting into Congress. And I don't think your average voter understands that this is the moment to affect change on that issue meaningfully, and that you're probably not gonna affect change meaningfully, no matter who you voted in around inflation.
Adaam: Um, which is funny because you're, it, it , It's a funny, I dunno, uh, idiocy that got stuck in voters' brains that abortion means judges.
Vanessa: Right?
Adaam: So whoever gets to appoint Supreme Court judges is the king of abortion. Partly this is why people don't even grapple with the question of whether Roe v Wade was a legally constitutionally valid decision. Um, and we were just take it for granted that this is the sphere of battle or this is the arena.
Andrew Heaton: Well, I think, I think the Democrats have also, they, they've got a problem there too in that, um, So, so first, as Vanessa points out, uh, yes. I think that that inflation's very complicated and there's no, there's no guarantee the Republicans would do any better. They just fucking spend money on tanks or something to try and fix the economy. Like, like it's, it's not as if they're gonna like suddenly bring in, um, some cure to it,
Vanessa: although they do have a better reputation on, on, that score
Andrew Heaton: they've got a,
better reputation. This is one of the weird things in America where the, the Democrats are always the party of peace except when they're bombing people. And the Republicans are always the party of financial prudence except when they're spending like a drunken sailor. Uh, but that, but that is like to go back to d and d Republicans get plus five
Vanessa: right
Andrew Heaton: on, on money for some reason. Um, when it, when it comes to abortion, I think that the Democrats are, are, on the one hand, they're trying to rely on abortion as a way to get ahead and the polls, uh, to, to get ahead on, on in the midterms. But on the other hand, like I, I think a lot of people, including Democrats are going. Did you all leave this unresolved intentionally to raise money over the last 40 years? Cause I think that, uh, I, I think that they've had several opportunities where, where under Baram, uh, Barack Obama, where there was a, a Democratic president, there was a Democratic house in a Democratic senate, and they could,
Adaam: Yeah, the Lindsay Graham bill
Andrew Heaton: Lindsay Graham was pro-choice back in the day, uh, or close to it, you know, Or like, there, there, there are times where there could have been, uh, a legislative, uh, constitutional fiat of the effects of Roe v. Wade, which I would've voted for and supported, um, that that could have happened. And I, I think the Democrats charitably didn't think that they could get that done because there were too many conservative Democrats who wouldn't vote on it to be cynical. I don't think they wanted to, because they knew that, like both sides, Republicans and Democrats both knew that keeping it up in the air as a, Listen, I understand that you've got problems with our party, but you really must vote for us this time because dot, dot, dot, they like having on that, about back pocket.
Adaam: And the other side of this is the, the, all the. I forgot the phrase, but the, um, The dormant laws.
Vanessa: The trigger laws.
Adaam: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Where. Legislatures just went as crazy as they wanted because very much so they never thought there was a, a world in which it actually goes into effect.
Andrew Heaton: They, they, to, to go back to our earlier electoral conversation, if you're running as Republican in a red state, you're gonna be the most pro-life. Uh, you're, you're, yeah, you're, you're, you're gonna, uh, do all of that. Um, I, I, I think Democrats have, um, they're now dealing with some of this, um, reluctance, uh, electorally. Uh, like another example of this is the dreamers. Remember those guys? Yeah. Uh, these, these poor, poor kids that came over, like age three to 10 or whatever, they've grown up.
I'm friends with one, uh, one of my friends from Tulsa, like he's. A Mexican national, but he, he's been in Tulsa for 20 years. It's where his friends and family live and, and they're in the state of limbo. And I feel for them, and I would love to resolve that it's not been resolved. It was a really big deal when Trump was there because it was a nice card to play of how evil Republicans were.
And then when they got elected, they went, Well, we don't want to get rid of that card. That's a good card to play. Like, uh, like, and then I'm not claiming the Republicans are, uh, paragons of virtue either. What I'm, what I'm, what I'm indicating to you is that politicians suck and that politicians like to do this and that the Democrats are in part dealing with, um, the, the, the fact that a lot of Democrats were like, You could have fixed this and you didn't.
Yes. Democrats had the votes from 2008 and I think up to 2012 to either pass a sweeping pro-choice bill, basically enshrining row in-law or going with the Lindsey Graham Compromise, which by today's standards seems completely pro-choice. Yes. This is, this is the one that would basically go, we're pro-choice, but you can't have late term abortions.
Something of that effect. It would, it would still be slightly to the left of Europe's abortion laws. But we But the conservatives would've got a thing, the, Yeah, yeah.
Adaam: Only late term ban. But even in late term, I think it included all the exceptions, right? Yeah. That, that right. Democrats want including rape or risk to the mother.
Andrew Heaton: Al also happens to be what the majority of Americans think based on all polling data.
Adaam: No, and in fact, it's a more progressive bill that Graham, uh, proposed at the time than I think most, if not all of current European laws.
Andrew Heaton: Yeah, very much so. I mean, like, yeah, people, people forget that, that's a wonderful point, that like, Um, Europe. I think part of the reason that that's not contentious over there is that they did this for, through, through their legislative branch. They didn't do it through judicial fiat. And the result is that they had a bunch of arguments in their respective parliaments and, and they went, Right, alright, listen and listen, here's the deal.
We're gonna have abortions, but you can only have an abortion for the first two months or whatever the thing is. And everybody went, Ah, alright, that sounds fair. We're not, uh, I don't, I don't know when it's a baby, it's probably a baby later on. Let's not kill the babies. But you can have it at the beginning and it's kind of not a thing anymore.
And, and, uh, yeah, they were all, uh, they were all more restrictive. Um, I think there might have been one exception and I forget which what it is, but uh, like, like it's what one of the Scandinavian countries. Right, right. That's what what I remember too. But, but, but other than that, all of them, uh, definitely had more restrictive timelines.
Um, like, like there are cases where like Germans will leave Germany to go to Sweden or whatever, um, because Germany, it's at x time and, um, you have to get a note from your doctor saying that you are at bodily risk and they're actually quite reluctant. So, uh, all of that is true.
Adaam: Uh, but all that doesn't change the, I think, fundamental question of what Right. if this election ends up as it probably will being decided not with the question of abortion front and center, where does it leave us?
Uh, I don't, I don't Because those are things that are now gonna actually play out in the coming two years, probably at a, at a faster pace than either party actually wants it.
Andrew Heaton: When, when you say, where does it leave us? Do you mean in terms of policy? Do you mean in terms of just where, where politics lies,
Adaam: all the things and, and you can take it, uh, one bullet at a time.
Andrew Heaton: Well, le legally, I don't think, I, I don't think anything is gonna happen for the next two years. I, I, I think that, um, the Republicans are gonna take that, not even state side. Oh, it'll happen in the States. Yeah. No, in the states, things are gonna continue to, um, accelerate. Like I, I think in terms of Roe v. Wade, I think you're gonna see a real ramping up on a state by state basis where, um, You know, uh, uh, there are already trigger laws in effect that have outlawed abortion in a variety of states.
Uh, I, I think the next step in escalation is that, uh, Democratic states are gonna put, uh, abortion clinics on the border with, uh, red states. And, and in an attempt to make it geographically easier, um, re red states are going to start to crack down on the finances of anybody that's pro-choice operating in them.
So, if I live in Colorado and I have a charity service that takes a bus, Dallas to, to Boulder, and we, it's all, it's all donation based, but if you're a woman in Boulder, we'll, we'll give you a free ride, or excuse me, or a woman in Dallas will give you a free ride. Uh, I think you're gonna see states cracking down on them where they, they try to, um, make it illegal to give any money or, or some i something like that.
I think you'll see that something instruct if it really escalates, you'll get to the point where, uh, the Democrats at the federal level are trying to play, where maybe they can't get enough votes to, um, legalize abortion. Uh, but, um, within the executive branch, still run by the Biden administration. Like you start seeing abortion clinics popping up in national forests or on, on federal land.
Um, and, and, uh, then like raising quagmires about, well, if it's federal land in a state, how does that work? Right. So I, I think that's gonna happen on the national level. I don't think anything's gonna happen. Uh, I, I, I think that the, the, the system is, is so. Veto heavy from all parties concerned. Even when you've got a sweep of one house, uh, uh, one party controlling both houses and the presidency.
When, when you got, uh, the, the presidency and, and, uh, a divided house, uh, or a divided Congress in the presidency, I, I, I think things will slow down. I mean, you think about like with, with Democrats or Republicans in control for the last 10 years, 15 years, how many laws do they actually pass? None What they do, and, and this, this is just, this is, I'm now talking about Congress sucking rather than any individual party.
Um, what happens is nothing gets passed until the very last minute when the government is shut down for two or three weeks and everybody starts screaming and then everything gets passed in a giant omnibus spending bill, that's just an oh shit bill at the end, right? That's, We're gonna get more of that. That's gonna keep happening.
Punditry Part 2:Partisanship and Ron DeSantis
Adaam: Okay. So culturally, where does it leave us?
Andrew Heaton: Uh, I'll tell you. Um, I, I am a congenital optimist. And I also, uh, hearkening back to our, our Morris Fiorina conversation. Uh, I do think that the American electorate as a whole is a lot more nuanced, uh, nonpartisan and moderate than our respective leaders and pundits are. That said, I am getting very concerned about the trajectory of the country. And, uh, I say this, um, when, when we kind of talk, when we're talking about partisanship and, um, you know, the hashtag national divorce and impending civil war, whatever the terms we wanna we use are, um, the, the ways that we can understand these things kind of boil down into just two or three categories.
One group of people, um, thinks that, um, partisanship is, is kind of like the weather. It's like a climate cycle where it just, it just kind of, just stuff randomly happens. But it'll pass. Don't worry, the storm won't be there forever. It'll pass. And they look to like the sixties and go, look, the sixties were, we had political assassinations during the sixties. We don't have, we haven't, so far we haven't had that. So like, these just, there, there are these crunch points, but then the pendulum will swing back. So just, we had attempt, We had attempt, uh, yes, we did. We had an attempt. Uh, and uh, and I think we're gonna see more of them. Uh, but, um, that, that's, that's kind of the, the big picture. Don't worry, this will sort itself out viewpoint. Uh, I, I don't, I don't share that. I, I I, There's also just the, um, the cultural perspective that culture does this. And in this instance, I don't think culture's driving it. And, and I don't If it is, I don't know what you could do about it. Uh, I, I think that this is predominantly structural. I think that we to, to hearken back to the electoral system, we, we have a system which artificially separates people into fake dueling camps and then exacerbates the most partisan tendencies in. That is not a good combination. So I don't see this going away unless we redo the plumbing of the building. I, I think you're gonna keep getting water of the same quality unless you redo the plumbing.
Adaam: And again, you are talking about voting slash um, elector the entire system, the inte electoral system.
Andrew Heaton: Yeah. Yep.
Vanessa: You did say earlier though, that you were seeing three major themes on people's minds for the midterms. Uh, we already talked about abortion inflation, and then you said also kind of culture, culture, war type stuff. Um, are you, does that derive from the culture, quote unquote, or do you think that this is also politically driven? Um, since you were saying kind of that you don't believe that the, the culture is really the main driver of our unrest at the moment.
Andrew Heaton: Uh, yeah. I, I think a lot of the time, um, like Matt Welch, who you mentioned earlier, um, we'll will frequently point out that politics is down river of culture.
And I think a lot of the time that's true, certainly true with, um, Debate on gay marriage. Uh, it's true in lots of things like that, but, um, I, I tend to think more in terms of input, output and structure. And, and I, I think that if the structure is misaligned, the culture really won't have a huge effect on that because it's going to, it's gonna keep going through this labrinth plumbing system and you're gonna get the same outcome.
Uh, yeah. The, the, the, the three categories that I identify Vanessa are abortion, inflation, and just culture, war morass. Um, we, we could drill down on that more. Like, I, I'd say like you could say education might be the biggest one in there, which I actually think is a relevant thing to be having a debate about.
Um, and I'd, I'd probably go center right on myself, uh, in that, um, I do not see the point of public schooling as to mold people into, uh, uh, the, the ideology we want them to be. To be blunt, every time I talk to an educator my age, they do think that that's the point of education. At least I know it's anecdotal, but all the teachers I've spoken to that are my age and under the last five years, believe they have a mission to teach children anti-racism and, and things like that.
And I think, um, conservative parents and just parents in general are in the right in saying, Look, we want you to teach your kids math and reading, but we, we want as parents to, to dictate, um, what our values are in our family. We do, we don't want the state to exist to compensate for us the evil NASCAR people that you want to breed out of existence.
Breeding's a very poor choice there cuz it opens up some, uh, other things that you, you want to educate away. Right? Uh, I think that that will be a thing. You've already seen that in, Excuse me. Hey, Wallace sees a squirrel. Yeah. He's, he sees a, his, if, if he saw one of those with a mailman, like if it was on a, on a mailman's shoulder, like a para, that would be the, the biggest thing in the world for him to, to wanna destroy.
Um, So I think like you've seen that with, with, uh, Glen Young in in Virginia. Uh, I think you're seeing that in some other states, but, Excuse me, I'm just gonna put him out. One sec. buddy. Oh, half the reason I got a dog was so I could trick a woman into mating with me to produce a child, but you need the child to take care of the dog. Is this horrible Catch 22?
Vanessa: I hate to tell you this, but kids don't do shit for dogs and 12, do they? Not 12. 13 at the earliest.
Andrew Heaton: Well, I don't, I don't mind doing the maintenance. It's just that like, he needs more playtime than I can give him. Like, I gotta work. Um, uh, but like, so, so I'd say the education one's big, but, but a lot of the culture war stuff, um, I, I think culture war stuff has a point, but I think it's like maybe.
I think it's significantly overweighted. Like I, I, I like, there are good conversations to have about, about certain things, but, uh, I think a lot of the time culture war stuff really does just boil down into, uh, I hate the other team. Here's another opportunity to hate the other team. And it becomes this really stupid, oppositional, reactionary thinking of, uh, you know, what do the Democrats want?
Well, I want the opposite of them cuz I hate them. Uh, and I, I think that that's playing out right now. I think, um, kind of the, the, the big culture war boss right now is Ron DeSantis. Uh, I, I don't have a firm opinion on Rh Ron DeSantis yet. I'm not sure whether he is gonna be a, a good Republican that has Trump's playbook or whether he is just gonna be a more competent Trump, which would very much frighten me. Uh, but he's been phenomenal at, at, uh, being able to make culture war issues front and center to campaigning like the, the whole Martha Stewart thing.
Adaam: I was just gonna bring it up because it's a, an example of how you can water down. What is half Repugnant culture, War at Half kind of savvy policy, which is Abbott's move of busing migrants to self proclaimed sanctuary cities. That made a point. It was disgusting and it used humans as a prop, but it also did make a point of, you call yourself sanctuary cities, but you actually don't want to be sanctuary cities. You're happy with border cities taking the brunt of the problem. Yeah. So he made a point. DeSantis in contrast, had to go to Texas to scoop up migrants. Right. And then temp them to go to Martha's Vineyard. That to my knowledge, never declared itself a sanctuary city.
Andrew Heaton: So, No. But is, isn't it a great stand in for rich liberals? No,
Adaam: but that's the point. It is nothing but symbolic cultural warism. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. As opposed to Abbott. That was a mixed bag of ugly and smart. Desantis is just, Playing this ugly, truly culture war.
Andrew Heaton: He, he might well be. And I, I think the, the concern I have there is that seems to be where politicking is going and where, where politics is headed. Like one of the, um, Uh, a lot of my friends are very much, I, I'm in favor of electoral reform, but I, but notice that I've not brought up, I've not brought up campaign financing.
I, I do not think that that is a silver bullet. In fact, I think that it, it, it's quite the opposite. Uh, I think Sarah Ger Flores has, has talked about this and, uh, um, I think is, is been very accurate in saying that, um, the existing campaign finance law has basically taken, uh, campaigning out of the hands of the candidates themselves and put it in factless, uh, ppac hands that, uh, are raising money.
Inflamed popular rhetoric. And, um, if, if we were to further restrict that, I think you'd get more Ron DeSantis. You'd get more Donald Trump. Uh, because right now, if I'm running for, for Congress as a wig party candidate, that's me. I have to go get donors and I have to convince 'em to give me money because I'm opposing juke tariffs or whatever juke.
But the t mind you, uh, tariffs or, or some, some, uh, of some other thing, right? But like, if, if you're not raising money or you can't raise money, what do you do? You get earned media attention. You say crazy shit and you pull stunts and you, you inflame the enemy. And that's how you get media attention. And, uh, DeSantis is figure that out.
He's, he's brilliant at it. Trump, who I despise is brilliant at that. Uh, Trump, Trump is a savant at media manipulation. And unfortunately, I think we're moving into a time period where that is going to be, um, the, the new norm. The, the new norm is gonna be Trump, uh, Alexandria Csio Cortez and DeSantis, and people that know how to be very, very big in social media.
And where this, this ends up happening in the culture, were. It plays on the US versus them thing. And it plays to, it plays to the masses. Uh, infl, like if I'm confused about inflation, most people are gonna be confused about inflation. But it's, but culture war stuff's easy because it's, it's just, it's, it's easy.
It doesn't take any brain power to understand culture war stuff. Uh, a a transgender professor yelled at a veteran. You don't need to know anything more than that. Uh, like you, you know exactly who the teams are. Like, you know, or, or, um, Alabama preacher caught in threesome while smoking crack. You know, Okay. Republicans are bad hypocrites. Got it. Like that, that shit is so easy for everybody to, to just mainline into their veins. Uh, that, that, that has now become a pillar of, of campaigning.
I mean, the, the real political advisors right now, uh, are what I forgot where they're called, like right wing, um, media alert or whatever the account is called, and libs of TikTok.
Those, that, that's where people get their sources for, not just for, you know, for their day-today, catharsis. But this guides political attention. This is how politicians know where are the pulses? Here's the issue that we should be hammering in today, and I need to pull out some stupid stunt waste public funds.
Yeah. Just to stick it to the other team and score this stupid point. It's depressive cuz it, it's not just culturally corrosive, it actually means that there, that who's left governing, who's actually doing government. Uh, yeah, I think it's incredibly corrosive. Um, I, I, I'll say that like, um, I'm planning to write an op-ed about this, but, uh, the Mike ICUs, who's running for, uh, Congress in New York, uh, who's, who's hit the national headlines because he did a porno mm-hmm. in order to illustrate his position on sex work. Um,
Adaam: we were looking for that video for,
Vanessa: We couldn't find
Adaam: purpose. You couldn't find it.
Andrew Heaton: Uh, the, like, I, I've not found the reaction to be prudish. The reactions mostly eye rolling. Yeah. But, but correct that, that said though, like, I look at that and I'm like, that is far, far, far less offensive to me.
Then the existing politicians who are regularly telling the American people, uh, uh, your neighbors are an existential threat. They are not opponents. They are not good people. They are, your neighbors are bad people. Half of America's evil and it wants to kill you and you need to be very afraid of them and vote for me.
I find that offensive because that is propelling the country towards civil war and there's a lot of factless opportunists that are cashing in for their own political ambition. And that is incredibly offensive to me. But unfortunately,
Vanessa: it's remarkable how far we've, we've come on that score. Cuz I, I mean, I feel like when I was growing up, the being nationalistic and American was, it was, it was so rude to be anti-American in any way. And it's ama it's remarkable how far we've come. Sorry, adaam what were you gonna say?
Adaam: No, I'm just gonna take, uh, Issue with the word factless. I think they're very effectful .
Andrew Heaton: They're good at what they're doing. Mm, Okay. Uh, o op opportunists who are willing to inflame the body, politic for outcomes, not yet known, so long as they maintain office.
Adaam: Political arsonists.
Andrew Heaton: Political arsonists. That's a great term. And, and uh, and that's the thing is using hate and fierce propulsive elements.
On friendship, dating, and getting fired
Andrew Heaton: And Vanessa, I think you're absolutely right. Like it, like I'm, I'm eyeballing 40, I'm in my high thirties. Uh, when I was a kid growing up in Oklahoma, a very conservative part of the country, I had relatives that were Democrats, not because they identified with the Democratic National Party, but because the time they registered Oklahoma was predominantly Democrat.
They just wanted to participate in the primaries and to. That was such an incidental part of their identity that like, it was, it was just like, do you wanna park in and lot A or lot B? And they were like, Oh, well lot B is closer to my house. I'll go. I mean, that was literally their thinking. It, it, they, they did not think of it the way we do now, which is it's religion.
When I was in college, I dated multiple people. I never found out their political. Their religion was really important back in the day, and now it's flipped. Now I go on dates with people like, like that, like, uh, uh, I don't know what religion they are because no one gives a shit, but I definitely know what political part of they are.
Adaam: Did you have friendships break apart on over politics?
Andrew Heaton: Yeah. Yeah. Um, less now and, and honestly, a. Like emotional trauma on my end. Uh, I, I, uh, I'm, I'm actually, I'm dating one woman right now, uh, and, uh, hopefully will be for a while. Uh, and um, when I was in, uh, uh, Great Britain here a couple weeks ago, I, I went on a, um, a gbtv, which from, from my vantage point is center right.
British politics, certainly to the left of Fox News. So I was like, Yeah, I'll go on that. That sounds fun. And then I, I had a fun time, but I, I had a friend of mine that was like, Oh, do not go on that. It's, it's, they're racists, they're, they're dabbling with fascism. And I was like, I they, for, for fascists, they sure talk about free speech a lot, and a lot of 'em are gay.
Uh, so I, I, I'm not getting that vibe. Uh, and I advised my girlfriend, I said, Please don't mention that I'm going on TV to this friend of mine who's advised me against this. And my girlfriend was very surprised and I had explained to her like, Look, for the last five years, Um, living in New York City as a non Democrat, the presumption was I was evil.
Like, I would meet people and I'd have to, I would have to convince them I wasn't evil, because of course, the only good people that are intelligent are us. Uh, I, and I, I don't think it's a Democrat thing. I think it's a homogeneity thing. If I were in, um, Dropsy County, Alabama, I, I imagine that shoe was on the other foot where if I'm a Democrat, uh, I I love torturing children in the womb and I'm a communist and I hope America fails and all that shit.
And you're like, No, I just, if you're a Democrat and drops the Alabama, you probably just wanna fund education by 10% more. And in any other capacity, you're a Republican. Um, I, I, I have lost less friends the last few years in part because I have taken proactive steps to not needlessly do. So, uh, I don't fight on Facebook or Twitter anymore.
Mm. I don't post politics on Facebook. Um, I, I, and I, unfortunately, I got outta that before 2016. Um, the last time I really got into it was like back in like the Romney years. Remember that? Like Romney was like the galvanizing thing. Um, I lost some friends there. I I remember, uh, one specifically over what, cuz you insisted that we did build that. In fact it was, it was the dumbest shit. Uh, I'm sure that I was irritating cuz I can be very, I don't tend to be, um, I don't tend to be angry or do character attacks, but I do tend to be condescending. I think that like, typically the, the, the emotional states people react to is either, uh, either we're the good people and you're the bad people, or we're the people in the know and you're a blithering idiot.
Like, that tends to be how I tend to be in the blithering idiot category. So I'm sure that I'm irritating to deal with. When, when if, if we're, if we're corresponding on Facebook. Uh, no. The one I remember was I, a friend of mine from my master's degree, I, I said something about like, I, I, something about Scandinavia came up and she now lives in Scandinavia and she was like, No, the reason that people like Scandinavia is cuz of the social welfare net.
And I was like, That's true, but also you all have. Way smaller governments, way smaller countries, and much, much less regulation and like I'd take that deal, I would take higher taxes and a big broad social safety net. If lower corporate taxes. Huh? Lower C. Yeah. Lower corporate taxes. Demonstrably lower regulatory regimes, like there's no minimum wage in most of the Scandinavian countries.
Or to be specific about this, the minimum wages in industry by industry agreement between the union. And the government, but there's no, like, I'm like, I'd take that deal. Right? And like, she, I, I don't know what it was that pissed her off, but the fact that I, I didn't just say, uh, yeah. America should, should, uh, have this element of Scandinavia, like the, the, the, the nuance was irritating.
I, I don't know. I, I, I, I'm sure she had a better reason cuz she'd never spoken to me again. Hm. Um, I, I had a friend, I, we, we've, we've repaired this incidentally, but when Thatcher died, I went on Facebook and I said, r i p, Maggie Thatcher up in heaven privatizing the pearly gates. Mm-hmm. . I had a friend quit being friends with me because I wasn't thrilled. Thatcher was dead. Like, first of all, I think that that's a fairly agnostic joke. You don't know whether I'm pro Thatcher, I'm thrill you with Thatcher. Well assume that she's in. Right, exactly. I didn't think she was in hell. Uh, and like, and I, but I emailed her and I was like, Did you literally just defriend me on Facebook?
Because I implied Thatcher may not be in hell. And like a day or two later, she's like, All right, that was harsh. And like, we're friends now. Right. Uh, but, uh, I had that happen. Um, no, I, I'd say that the, um, I'm at a point now where, um, fortunately my friends all basically know where I'm at and I'm a known commodity, and, uh, I either don't bring it up with them, uh, or, um, or, or they're okay with it.
Uh, I do, I do worry with a lot of my friends because like, here are the last four years I've, I've leaned more Democrat than Republican, but during the Romney years, I, I've leaned more Republican. That could happen again. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not permanently in the camp for anybody. Um, and I'm aware that when we go back to if, if we, if we should come to that point where somehow Mitch Daniels is running for president, and I'm, I'm like, Yay, Mitch Daniels, that that's gonna cause a strain on a lot of my relationships. Uh, mostly with friends of mine that live in homogenous environments. Mm-hmm. , um, I will say it made dating awful. Oh my God. Dating was horrible. If, if you were in political, Cause I couldn't step out of it. I, like, I was working for Fox Business and prior to Trump it was okay. Cause I'd go on dates in New York and they'd go, Where do you work? And I'd go, Fox Business, I love gay people. And like, I would just immediately throw that out. They're like, Uh, what about immigrants? And I'm like, Terrific. Double 'em. Double 'em. I just, I just, I think Reg, I just don't think government works well. The only difference between me and you is you think government works well and I think government's stupid. That's it. That's the difference. But like, in terms of values were both cosmo, polyps, intolerant, pluralistic people. And it was, and nobody gave a shit. Trump got in. Yeah. And it just, Oh my God. The, the, the, every drawbridge sucked up. Every, every, every castle Hold up like an old timey bank vault. You could hear the doors slam
and, uh, um, no. I, I, like, I went on one date with, uh, a woman that by now I'm working at Reason, which is a libertarian outfit. We sat down, we start talking and, and I'm like, What are you doing? She's like, I'm a, I'm an attorney for, uh, I'm a healthcare attorney that works for the government. I don't remember what exactly the situation was.
And I was like, Oh, okay. And she's like, How about you? And I was like, Well, I, I make political satire videos for reason and, and tried to get out of this conversation, but eventually I had to go, Yes, A reason is a, it's a libertarian outfit down in New York or down in Washington DC So it's very, very socially liberal, but very fiscally conservative, very fiscally restrained. And like her eyes and nostrils flared and, and we're talking and I'm just, I'm like, So how did you, uh, how did you get into being a healthcare attorney? And she goes, I guess I just think everyone deserves healthcare. And I was like, Yeah, I actually don't disagree with you on that. I suspect that if we were to get into this, that if we had disagreement, it would probably be in how best to achieve the outcome we both agree on.
I don't, I, I'm not sure why you'd think I want people dead in a gutter, but I don't. And, uh, and, and then like, and I, I'm, I'm trying so hard. I'm going like, you know, like, uh, I used to live in the United Kingdom. I gotta say I like their healthcare system while I was over there. I actually prefer it to working with Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Uh, I, I suspect it might just be a size and scope of the thing. I mean, like, Germany doesn't have single payer, but, but the United Kingdom does. She went, it absolutely has single payer. And I, I went, no, Germany doesn't have single payer. It basically has super Obamacare. Every one of their states has different private health insurance companies, but you can take them across state lines and if you're fired, you get to, you get to retain it like Cobra.
And, and she's like, No, no, no. It, they are single payer. And I was like, Okay, so you're angry. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Um, this isn't gonna work. Uh, like I, I can, I can hang out with you if you don't know what you're talking about and you're not worked up about it. Or I can talk to you if, if you're worked up about it and you know what you're talking about, but confident, uh, uh, not know. Anyway, that happened all the time. All the time.
Vanessa: Right. And that's the problem with dating because there's, you're not there to give someone the benefit of the doubt, right? Yeah. Every interaction is a reason to never interact with this person again. Oh God. And so it's just, And there's no. Often there's, I mean, people are theoretically looking for connection on the dating scene, but you have to just go through so many people that I think it like deadens your ability to connect with people.
Adaam: No, but, but also I feel like it's funny that people would have such a strong opinion about whether or not Germany has a single payer. No,
Vanessa: it sounds like she was ready to just pounce for sure. No, no,
Adaam: for sure. But I, I feel that's the case with a lot of people that I feel
Andrew Heaton: for, for her single payer, by the way, is whatever America's not in her mind that that's what I, there was a binary of single payer is people have healthcare and that's what that means, even though she's a fucking attorney for it. Right. Uh, and, uh, yeah. Yeah.
Adaam: Butt the thing is that people, and I don't know cause I, I didn't live in, in the US in the nineties and early odds, but from my encounter, especially in New York City, So many people just have as part of their daily vocabulary, some of the stupidest political culture war issues without any knowledge about them. But they do know that they need to feel very angry Yes. About, And that this is kind of the position that you need to hold right now. I'm, I'm stunned sometimes at the level of outraged that's married with equal levels of ignorance about a topic that actually don't think that. Per person in New York City should care that much about at all.
Andrew Heaton: And those aren't coincidental. The the one is compensating for the other. This is something that I, I've noticed all the time. Like, like, so on the political orphanage, uh, I, me being a comedian, I have a lot of comedian friends, and I do have comedian friends that are very knowledgeable. A good friend of mine named Jeff Maer, really funny comedian, and he wrote for, uh, uh, last week tonight with John Oliver.
He's a very talented comedian, but he is also a former EPA speech writer. He's worked for the Democratic Party. Like he knows what he, he's great. He's a switch hitter, right? So I love having him on. Uh, another one of my friends, Andrea Jones Roy, she's, she's a, uh, uh, or they are a political science professor at nyu, uh, and a comedian, right?
So I, I love those people. Um, However, I've also brought on comedians that don't have a political background, and as I start talking to them, not even arguing with them, it's just, I, I do this for a living, so I know I might be wrong, but I know what I'm talking about. I know the terms and I know the confines of the conversation.
And I've, I've had friends that I've brought on that as, as we continue talking, they feel more and more frustrated and more and more, um, uh, more and more backed into a corner cuz they don't know what they're talking about. And so they compensate with Prism. They go, Well I'm not sure what's going on here.
So what I'm gonna do is just really throw my weight into how much I love my team and how much I hate the other team. And if we're now talking about differences in healthcare policy and I don't know what's going on because I don't, by the way, there's no reason you would have to know any of this stuff. But like, I don't know that Germany has super romneycare Obamacare, whereas England has socialist healthcare. Like, rather than than going, Oh, I don't really know a lot about that. Just going well, I Republicans definitely want people to die. And then that puts me in a weird case where like the, the most thankless job in America is sticking up for the team. You disagree with no one. Like, I hate it when I get maneuvered into that position where I'm like, Well, Trump didn't rape a puppy. That didn't happen. Like I, and then all of a sudden I'm the Trump guy and I'm like, No, I, I'm the only person in the room who's taken career hits supposing this man. You never had to do that. I've, I've been, I got, I got let go from my most, uh, uh, high paying job of my entire life a week after I endorsed impeaching that man, I've put my cards on the table, but, but I, I'll sometimes set the record straight and then I get, I get, uh, uh, pummeled for it. Um, I, I think that, uh, people that are, um, Tribal, were stressed. Uh uh Lemme rephrase this. People that are in a an emotional state seek solace from the tribe. That's just how we're wired. When we don't know what's going on, we as mammals go, we better go back to the group. Right? And that happens in the political discourse where if I don't know what it's, what, what's going on, uh, I'm just gonna increase that, that volume about how much I love this group and hate the other group.
Vanessa: Aam, I, I'm assuming that we should probably wrap it up since we're a little bit over. Did you ask Andrew the line spots question in your last, last time
Adaam: conversation? I don't, I don't remember. But I, I, I, I, now I'm just stuck on the idea of losing jobs because of, of defending the wrong person. And it just reminds me of my, the one time that I got fired, which was, um, from an outlet that will not be named, but it was because I,
Andrew Heaton: David Stormer ex.
Adaam: Stop joking. You got me . Um, but let's just say it's an international outlet whose name you'd recognize. And it was so far the only time in my life that I actually got fired. And I'm not gonna go into details cuz I don't even wanna get anybody. I don't wanna put anybody on the spot. But suffice to say that me and my senior colleague, who is my boss, we started off agreeing on what kind of angle we want for the story, which is to say we came in with some assumption about what we're gonna find and what kind of story is gonna be told through our reporting.
And let's just say that it had a lot to do with some of the mainstream narratives that emerged after the 2016 elections. So I spend three months doing my reporting, looking into every piece of information that I can find. Doing the journalism thing. But to my surprise, when I came out of it, I discovered that I guess the, the facts just don't bear out our initial thesis.
And I was insistent about it saying that the story that we're trying to tell just doesn't exist in the facts as we have them. And, um, let's just say I was yelled at, and again, I don't want to go into the details of the complicated dynamic there cuz I don't wanna make it personal, but, um, the fact was that my senior colleague ended up bursting at me saying, Why are you being so obstinate?
Ooh. And ultimately he fired me.
Andrew Heaton: Wow. Cause you like, you buck the narrative.
Adaam: Right. He saw my insistence on being honest with what I'm finding to be tantamount to some kind of incidents or insubordination or I don't know what. Arrogance maybe. So that was fun.
Blindspots, conservatives, electorial reform
Adaam: Last question and which we may or may not have asked, uh, previously, but let's see, maybe it has changed.
That's our kicker question. For all or for, for the deserving at least. Um, .
Vanessa: Well, it's less, Less if they're deserving more if we, we are, we've had
managed to remember
Andrew Heaton: this is a very ominous buildup for this question here. I'm curious to see where this goes.
Adaam: What do you consider currently the most egregious blind spots on the right and on the left?
Andrew Heaton: I think the biggest blind spot on the left, just cuz my, I'm warm from this, is, um, that, uh, the, the folks on the left, um, are much. It's much easier for them to not consume culture from the right. And as a result, they, they, they fall into that, you know, how did Nixon win? I don't have a single friend who voted for him kind of mindset of being caught flat foot and kind of living in this echo chamber where just you'll, you'll see like the Democrats will, like the people running the show will really focus on things that you're, like, Have you spoken to any, like, including Democrats? Have you spoken to any Democrats that, that aren't within Frisbee distance of the Statue of Liberty or Silicon Valley? Like, have you spoken to anybody? And it's like, no, they haven't. They've only talked. So I, I think that they, they've got, uh, uh, a warping bear in terms of the blind spots that the conservative has. I, I don't know if this would be, I guess this is a blind spot of a kind. I, I think that the, the conservatives. To a great extent, um, forfeited their own compass and are now just reacting to whatever the Democrats are doing. And that invokes invi invites all sorts of blind spots of just, we, we stand for making you cry.
Adaam: Well, about that point, actually, about that point, have you been paying attention to the Postliberal movement? And there's been a recent article, I don't remember the name, the, the guy who wrote it on the Federalist saying, Let's just buck the, the term conservative. What are we conserving? There's nothing to conserve anymore. Have you been paying attention to that little trend?
Andrew Heaton: I, I have not. Uh, but it, it makes sense to me that that would happen. Like, like to, to harken back to the very beginning of our conversation, like, uh, I would prefer there be more, more camps. It would make, I think everybody's life easier. Like, uh, the, the conservative movement has been this combination of.
Um, re microwaved Goldwater libertarians, uh, arm in arm with like weirdly buchana, uh, religious conservatives. And they kind of came to agreement on, we don't want more federal agencies. We want lower taxes, but otherwise have really nothing in common. Uh, and, um, uh, I like, I like I the term conservative means a lot of different things now, like constitutional conservative means a completely different thing than like pitchfork conservative, right?
No na, National conservative, national conservative. So, uh, I, I don't know that that would be a bad idea for them to, I mean, just, I, I think part of the problem we have with labels right now is not that labels are inherently bad, it's that they're, they're being. Used incorrectly and too broadly. And so, uh, if, if the conservatives, I, I would love it if the conservatives broke into multiple camps because I would be very happy to join the, the Mitch Daniels, uh, Ben Sass, uh, camp.
Were, were even the, uh, less so now, but the kind of Rand Ron Paul Libertarian camp. Right. If there was some spectrum of Ron Paul de Ben Sass, that's fine. I'd love that. Right. But like for the, for the folks that are like, National nationalistic and or nationalistic or, or like authoritarian social conservatives.
Uh, I've, I've met some terrifying people in the last few years that are, uh, like, like literal theat that, that think that we, we need like the Crusades were good and like the Catholic church should be like, and I'm like this little ages nostalgia that has been resurfacing. It's fascinating. Yeah. And I'd, I like, I think it would be, But
Adaam: there was even a book like in Defense of Surf Dorm or something like that, right?
Andrew Heaton: Yeah, yeah.
Adaam: Um, Living the Feudal Dream
Andrew Heaton: And what and what, what you, So wait, What you had in Europe versus America, uh, up until now was, um, if you were to go to Europe 20 years ago, they'd have the, the, whatever we wanna call them, the, the, the Blood and Soil Reactionary Conservative Party. I, I say conservative.
Cause I think conservative's very different in a European context than the American context. The, the, the American conservative tradition has been one. Burkey and procedural realism conserving the enlightenment, whereas European conservativism has been blood and soil, old school, you know, monarchy, ethnicity and church institutionalism.
Right? They're very different. And in Europe, in these multi-party systems, you'd have that extreme right, like, you know, ethno, centrist group, uh, that was able to participate in, uh, in, in elections and, and would, would actually, would not have a majority, but they'd have seats and parliaments and things.
Whereas in the United States, that element of American culture was basically pushed out of the conservative 10 for a very long time. For a very long time. The conservatives were, uh, a struggle between the, the Goldwater libertarian wing and the, uh, the liberal Rockefeller Republican wing and the knuckle dragging nationalists were just not invited into the conversation.
And now they've taken over the 10. And are the predominant force within the Republican party, Certainly where the energy is. And, uh, I, I, I would again prefer we go to that European model now and go, well, let's just split these into multiple parties and I'll hang out with Ben Sass and Mitch Daniels, right?
And the folks that wanna fucking bring back the plant, Tat Dynasty or the Inquisition or whatever can, can be in their tent. But to go
back to my own regional position, my feeling and I emphasize feeling is that stripped away of all of the ideological, uh, rhetoric or sometimes even some of the policy suggestions that are being touted.
Adaam: Ultimately, both sides right now are just gripped by a will to power and not much more.
Andrew Heaton: Very much so. And, and that's, um, and
Adaam: I don't ne know if necessarily even systemic voting changes are gonna solve that, but Oh, think they a shot?
Andrew Heaton: I I think they'll can, I'll make my, my pitch there and then I'll, I'll bow out.
Like I, I'm about to go to a forward party meeting here in Texas and in a couple of nights, uh, Andrew Yang's outfit, and he's really the only force that I identify currently active in politics that's pushing for electoral reform. I think the, the libertarians and the greens would be in favor of it, but it's not their, their top messaging.
Uh,
I, I do not think that the current electoral system is gonna change unless you either convince the people in power that it would be better for them personally if we changed the system, or you scared them enough that they changed it. But, um, this, this attitude that we get every election of, Listen, I know you don't feel like a good Republican or a good Democrat. I get that. I get you've got these little tiny problems with us, but really this is a big deal. You have to suck it up and vote for us this time later on. Go back to doing your cute little asterisk right now. We've gotta everybody on the one, right? That always happens every single election. It's never gonna go away because it's a very useful tool.
It's a very useful tool to say, Look, at the end of the day, there's Republicans and Democrats, and you're one or the other, and you gotta vote for the lesser of two evils. Um, so that's not gonna go away. The only way that's gonna go away is if either a, you somehow convince the, the, the two parties who have built.
50 years worth of campaigning on Don't vote for me, vote against the other guy. Uh, and I don't see that happening. The the way to do it is basically, I think spoiler candidates, It's, it's gonna be either, either you enfranchise people into it the way the Forward party's doing, where they go, Look, you're the forward party, but you can also be a Democrat where you can also be a Republican.
Like, and you see how much hate they're getting from, and they're getting so much. See
the coverage of the forward party, You're just whistling a way of saying anything ideological. So you don't really have the policy? No. Their
policy is structural. Be because the, the, the powers that be do not like this.
They do not like the powers that be, do not want, uh, a situation where Aam, Vanessa and Heaton all run against each other in an election. And I have to make the case of why you should vote for me, not why you shouldn't vote for that piece of shit of Tom, obviously, but why you should vote for me. That's.
Actually making a case is difficult. They like, they, they like being able to operate on fear and hatred. This is very useful to 'em. Right. Forward party is, is a threat to that. Even though the forward party's literally saying, We want you to neuter us. We, we, we want rank choice voting. We want you to eliminate our ability to throw off the election.
That's what we're gunning for. Right. And I, I, I think it's gonna require folks like that, that are effectively trying to, even though it's not happening right now, they're trying to co-op the inside of the system by sort of having this straddling both worlds. And it's, I I, I've been saying for a while, if you've got any billionaires listening to your show, uh, do Vanessa, that want a team up with me on this,
I wanna create a super PAC called Joker Pack. And what Joker Pack does is we identify just the swing districts in. And we run candidates in it to fuck it up. And, and the whole point of it is, look, we're just gonna keep doing this until you guys do electoral reform and make it so we can't do it. If you have frank choice voting, it doesn't matter. We can't fuck up your, your swing state anymore.
But like, but it's, it's gonna take people, the, the system's not gonna go away by everybody going, Uh, okay, we'll play ball if you promise to, to alter the system in the future, even though it would hurt you. That's not gonna. Well, Andrew, we
Adaam: kind of also closed the, the, the entire circle, which is kind of awesome.
We've gone for a circle. It's, I, it's
Vanessa: like we're talking with a professional or something.
Andrew Heaton: professional tepid gas bag. Woo. . Grab bag. Grab bag. That's right. Yeah. Oh, gassy. Grab bag. Tepid. Gassy. Grab bag
Adaam: than intended. Yeah.
Andrew Heaton: Oh my God. Well, thank you so much though. Well, it's, it's, uh, been a pleasure, Vanessa and Aam.
Its, uh, uh, uh, wonderful to meet you, Vanessa Aam. I always have a lot of fun talking to you, uh, and for your listeners. I appreciate you listening to it. Um, uh, the, the Political orphanage is the show that I host, and if you feel like you are not lockstep with the Republican or Democratic Party, perhaps you would find a home over in our community over there, and I welcome you to check it out.
Adaam: Yes, you should. And it will be, will have been recommended in the. And
Andrew Heaton: a dom's been on
Adaam: it. Adom has been on it. Exactly. Um, but, uh, a no, but, but you should. Thank you for offering yourself as our recurring pundit, and we will definitely bring you back on again. Great, thank you. Let me know next time you're in New York.
I will. Thank you for listening to Uncertain Things. Follow us on uncertain do subt.com. If you also want our newsletter or wherever you get your podcast, give us a five star review and Apple podcast because that helps a ton. And share us with your friends and enemies. Until next time, stay sane then.
Andrew Heaton: What I, baited breath answer me
Vanessa: Wow. The, the technology is really failing him today.
Adaam: What the fuck just happened?