223- Overcoming Political Tribalism: Insights from Michael Anderson on U.S. Democracy, Third Parties, and Social Media's Role

Can political tribalism be overcome for the greater good? Join us as we sit down with insightful political author, Michael Anderson, to untangle the complexities of today's political landscape. Michael, known for his moderate yet conservatively-leaning views, provides a balanced take on the worldviews of both the left and the right, stressing the importance of tradition and gradual change. We dissect the recent presidential debate, critiquing both Trump and Biden, while reflecting on the tough job moderators face. Our conversation aims to shed light on the urgent need to diminish extreme voices and promote a more centrist, constructive political discourse.

In another compelling segment, we address the monumental hurdles third parties face in breaking through the U.S. political duopoly. Michael and I unpack the systemic barriers erected by Democrats and Republicans to maintain their dominance, making it nearly impossible for alternative movements to succeed. We also tackle the viability of libertarian ideology in today’s governance and discuss the public's yearning for fresh political candidates beyond the Trump-Biden era. Personal reflections on independent thinking underscore our discussion, emphasizing the merit of evaluating ideas beyond partisan politics.

The harmful impact of tribalism on America is our next focus, where we explore how social media amplifies divisive voices and fuels misinformation. Drawing on the book "America's Counterfeit Democracy," we delve into how wealthy elites manipulate political outcomes, often sidelining public opinion. This chapter highlights the need for public awareness and critical engagement with content to combat social media tribalism. As we wrap up, we call for thoughtful interaction and vigilance against misinformation, stressing that reducing tribalism is essential for a healthier political environment. Don't miss out on this enlightening discussion that points the way towards a more unified and effective political discourse.

Follow Michael Anderson at

Twitter

https://x.com/MAndersonsblog

His Website

https://www.mikeandersonsbooks.com/

Join Braver Angels- a group aiming to reduce political tribalism

https://braverangels.org/

If you want to be a guest on my podcast, join Podmatch for the best and seamless process.

https://podmatch.com/?ref=1626371560148x762843240939879000

Chapters

• 0:12 Navigating Political Tribalism and Ideology
• 17:41 Challenges of Third Parties in Politics
• 34:07 The Impact of Tribalism in America
• 42:32 America's Power Elite and Democracy
• 54:57 The Impact of Social Media Tribalism

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome everyone to Politically High Tech with your host, elias. I have another great reoccurring guest here. Trust me. Trust me, he is valuable to the podcast mission. I mean, at the very beginning I was discovering why tribalism is here and why it's sadly flourishing in its current political climate. I have someone here who was not just writing books about it and even doing very concrete actions. But that's going to be laid on the concrete action portion and, just to give a little more context, I'm going to put in a card somewhere in the top right, probably either over there or over there. Yes, I'm a little dyslexic because the videos like to do a little mirror Switcheroo kind of thing. So wherever you see the card, either for Left finger, right finger, once you find it, for YouTube only, you'll get that.

Speaker 1: 1:16

It was episode 192 when I last had this guest. We were talking about Primarily tribalism, how the left thinks and how the right Thinks, and why we have that, and so and I even listened to a good chunk of that interview again and it was a lot of worthy discussions, something to take account of. Grasp, pick up. If he's crazy, you're supremely mentally insane, because he's not attacking the left or the right, it was giving more of an analysis.

Speaker 1: 1:46

He defends his own opinions. He's allowed to have them. He's a human being. I'm allowed to have an opinion, and if me and him agree 100%, there's a problem. It's like Ed Koch said if you agree 8 out of 12 times, you're okay, but if you agree with me 12 out of 12 times, there's something wrong, and I agree with that. I was, of course, a classic, more classic liberal mayor of New York City, but that quote was great and I take that to heart. I can't say what person agrees with everything. That person is a sycophant phony and all from New York, and we could smell that for a mile away, ok, so I'm going to say about that.

Speaker 1: 2:22

So, without me going to a long, long, long monologue, I want this guest to talk because he has a lot of valuable things to say and you know time is limited. Especially when it's a good discussion. There's never enough time. You can agree with that. I don't care if you're left or right or center. So here he is, a political author. So here he is a political author. And there's a new group. I'm not going to say the name. He's going to introduce that later on. Let's welcome back Michael.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Anderson. Thank you, sir, for inviting me again. I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Of course it was a given. You know you head to one of the core subtly core missions of this podcast. Have more Consensus with the left and the right. Remove the extremists, these very, very Loud people who just suck up so much Oxygen the conversation. The far left, the far right, especially the name Calling Nazis, communists, all that stuff Is thrown around. All your racist, your, you know, communists All that stuff is thrown around. Oh, you're racist, you're, you know, you're anti-constitutionalist Well, that one I don't hear thrown around as much. But all these name calling or stupid.

Speaker 1: 3:36

That's why Trumpian I mean he goes for the vernacular Sometimes, especially that leaked Clip when he was having fun in golf oh man, he was. I'm surprised the media don't show that as much. They should have done that Sometimes, especially that leaked clip when he was having fun in golf oh man, he was so insane. I'm surprised the media don't show that as much. They should have done that for 2015-16. They really want to take him down. They held back on that one to some extent. But that's just my little thing. So with all of that, I'm rating up For this is more the reaction of the tragedy called the presidential debate Hosted by CNN, which I got a lot of criticisms on. The moderators did okay. That's the only thing I'm going to say. They did the best they could. It's such a crappy situation and, trust me, both Trump and Biden did bad in my opinion, but one just came out on top and I already talked about that before. I want to hear what's your insights or reactions to that horrible thing called a presidential debate.

Speaker 2: 4:37

Well, before I do that, let me just reintroduce myself for a minute because I think it's relevant for your viewers to understand my political position, and then that provides a perspective for what I'm going to say. I call myself a moderate. I'm genetically a conservative because I believe in traditions and I believe in moving slowly through change. I believe change is necessary and change occurs with every generation. But there's such a thing as too quick a change and conservatives kind of have the role in our society to slow down the left because the left wants to change much quicker than the right does. But I have an engineering degree, so the engineering degree part of me is focused on practical. They're practical because what engineers do is design practical solutions. They build buildings and things like that, and they're practical, they work. So I don't like government that doesn't work. I don't like government that is idealistic and impractical and causes problems. So I call myself a moderate because I believe that the country has to operate somewhere near the center, based on a consensus between the two sides, in order to move forward. So tribalism has been a and it's been going perhaps since the Obama years and only gotten worse.

Speaker 2: 6:23

Tribalism is a reflection of the different political morality of the left and right. The left and right do not believe the same things. They don't have the same worldview. Their brains are actually different and they don't think alike. So the notion that one is going to convince the other to convert is not going to happen. And what that really means is that for our society to go forward, there has to be a consensus. There can't be one or the other that determines the path of our society, because they're basically half believe one thing and half believe another. So I'm basically against ideology, because ideology puts you in a box. It has a set of rules that you're supposed to follow and you're not allowed to get outside that box. And the problem is ideologies do not lead to consensus because they're a very strict set of rules that you have to follow and you are not supposed to compromise. And both parties on the left and the right at the extreme ends are extremely ideological. On the right, extreme conservatives who want no changes in the country, limited government, no extreme. Outside, of course, you get extreme views like minimizing incarceration because it creates risk for minority groups. So if people commit crimes, for example in San Francisco, if you're still under $1,000 worth of merchandise, you don't go to jail, you're not going to get prosecuted. So to the right those represent extreme views, like the views of the right represent extreme positions to the left.

Speaker 2: 8:40

My point is that, if I respect the right, if I respect the fact that the right and left are different biologically, I have to believe that both sides have good ideas, and they have bad ideas too, but I have to respect no matter how conservative I might want to be. I have to respect the people on the left, because they have a different point of view, and we're stuck with these two groups in human society, with people lean liberal and people lean conservative. So that's the way it is. So you can't, I can't. No matter what my political opinions are, I can't reject the left as being wrong. I have to respect the left as having good ideas, just like the people on the right. What I don't respect, though, is the extreme left, which includes communists and Marxists, because their goal is to change our society into a socialist system, which I don't want to see happen. So when you get far enough to the left, I reject that ideology, and in my writings and talks, I talk against those things. So that's basically my political outlook.

Speaker 2: 10:10

The current election is crazy, it's emotional. When I look at Twitter, most of the dialogue to me is emotional and not based on facts. People on both sides are ranting based on supporting their candidate and trying to tear down the other candidate, and there's very little factual basis for those rants and so it's just a big waste of time. You asked about the debate, so I want to comment on that. The debate was, of course, surprising because and I think it was surprising more to the people on the left than the right because the people on the left didn't realize that Biden was in the mental state he's in, and many of them reported being lied to after the debate because their expectation was he would perform normally and he wasn't able to. So I mean it was a bad performance, for probably because he'd been criticized in the past for yelling and interrupting and he didn't do much of that, but he repeated all the typical platitudes that he comes up with and there's a lot of exaggeration there that he comes up with and there's a lot of exaggeration there.

Speaker 2: 11:45

So I think on both sides there wasn't I don't know neither candidate stood out, and the bottom line really, I think has to be Biden's performance and the surprise of it causing all of this blowback about whether he's qualified to be a candidate or not. You know, starting with the fact that if you think he's unable mentally to function, we have a constitutional crisis because he's the president right now. And should he be president if he can't run the country? And then the associated concern is if he's not running the country, who is? And they're not elected people, because the people surrounding him are appointed by him.

Speaker 2: 12:35

So in the time since the debate, the left has battled themselves about whether to continue with Biden as a candidate or replace him, and it seems like it's up and down about which way that's going to go. Stay in and he says he's going to fight on and maybe that will allow him to persevere as a candidate. He has to resign for him to be replaced because he owns the delegates. So unless he can be convinced to resign, he's going to be the candidate all the way to the election Again. I think the bottom line of the election was the surprise performance by Biden and the blowback from all that on the Democrats. I don't think any Republicans changed their mind based on Trump's performance, and so that's what we have.

Speaker 1: 13:36

And the only thing I want to reiterate is I don't take glee or even enjoyment of experiencing it. Like I said and this is the few times I'm going to be a hypocrite I normally encourage people to watch the whole debate. This is the exception here. The highlights would suffice To me. That's how much of a tragedy this debate was. And I'm not saying Trump was spectacular, because he was not either. But personally I'm just going to repeat this because I don't want to regurgitate too much that I say he was slightly better than Biden. And, to your point and I mentioned this indirectly or implied it Trump was more restrained and the muted mics actually helped him, because he wanted to interrupt a few times. It actually helped Trump. So that's the only thing I'm just going to point out.

Speaker 2: 14:29

The other thing we have to talk about is very important is the number of people in America who are voting for their candidate because they hate the other candidate more. The bottom line again is I mean, if you take a bipartisan point of view, neither candidate is optimal, because both candidates have a lot of problems and a lot of baggage and there's a lot of people complaining about why. Are these our only choices? And you know what can be done about it nothing, because voting for a third party candidate is not going to elect the third party candidate. It's a wasted vote, unfortunately. And yeah, there we get.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Let me cut you just a second. Sure, I know, because you said something very important about the third party thing and that's why I've been neglecting. I didn't mean to do that. You said something very important. Yeah, I have to actually agree with that, because that was always pushing the beginning. But now it's not viable. He cannot get 270, no matter what RF Kennedy and I have to emphasize that he can't. Everything was done too late. He can't. Everything was done too late. He's only what got. He's only qualified in certain states. 17, I think, yeah, 17. No, far from enough, Far from enough, Far from enough, Okay, and yeah, so it is a wasted vote. Yeah, I normally say try to the third party candidate and all that, but for this situation I'm going to have to just change my mind because there's just no viable way for that to happen, at least for this election cycle. That's all I wanted to say.

Speaker 2: 16:11

Let me take a minute to talk about third parties, elias, because this is very important for people to understand. I read all the time and you do too. People say where did Trump come from? And how can a businessman have been president? And here he's running again.

Speaker 2: 16:28

Whatever, trump is a populist, and populists appear in human society, in Western society, no matter what country, because it's happening in Europe too. Populists come from dissatisfaction among the public that the two main parties are not performing, so the public is looking for an outlet. Now Trump got started because of the MAGA people, and the MAGA people are lower middle class Americans that have been discarded by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is becoming the wealthy class of college-educated people and the Republican Party is becoming the lower-educated party, so they're moving in opposite directions, but neither party has done a good job of running the government and the people react through frustration and look to a populist, because a populist is answering the needs of a faction of the public and building his base off that, and building his base off that.

Speaker 2: 17:41

Our system is rigged against third parties. It's unfortunate and I wish it could be changed and I wish a movement would develop to change it, and the reason it's rigged is the two parties are automatically registered in every state, but no third party is. So whenever a third party although the Green Party might be, I'm not sure, but if you want to start a third party you've got to get yourself registered in every state, with the number of signatures different from each state, and then you've got to figure out how to campaign in that state. So you have to have tremendous amounts of money, which the main parties already have. So the deck is stacked against you and then the two parties work to make sure that you don't succeed.

Speaker 2: 18:44

Of Kennedy by the Democrats. They told him if he ran in New Hampshire, if he campaigned in New Hampshire, they would make sure he got no delegates as a result of that and the business about he can't get a security detail. He's asked for a security detail for six or eight months. They refused to give him that. His father was assassinated. I think it's an appropriate use and I think he's a viable candidate. So the system is rigged and it hurts the American people because there's no outlet for their frustration.

Speaker 1: 19:14

Basically, Everything you say is sound and as much much as I ideally and this would be idealistic what love a third party is to come and thrive. But everything you're saying is sound and logical. And you know that's a pill I always have to swallow, and a lot of the elections that would be great to have a different party, even, um, you know, even the libertarian, even if they had the largest third party. But they're rigged against Yep. I mean they have won how many offices. There you go, this little round number yeah, zero For those who are looking. Zero. They're the most largest and, I think, the most organized. I mean you could debate that between the Green and Libertarians. They're the more established third parties. They're the more established third parties.

Speaker 2: 20:05

And then, once you go even deeper, in a rabbit hole.

Speaker 2: 20:06

You can throw in all the other niche parties and that focuses on one issue or whatever. Well, the libertarians are interesting to me because they're very ideological. For example, they don't believe in government. I mean they want the government to be as small as possible and we're not going back to that. They also don't believe in foreign policy, which is enormously impractical. I mean you can criticize foreign policy and the role we play and the influence we exert, but you can't dismiss foreign policy as inappropriate or unnecessary. We have to have relationships with other countries. So libertarians I mean libertarianism is really similar to classic liberalism that started in the Enlightenment. It was basically protection of people from the government, minimal functions by the government so that it doesn't get too large. But the libertarians will never. I mean, with such a tight ideology and you have to put them on the right they're never going to make progress because their ideology limits their popularity. So it is where it is.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Oh yeah, definitely, yeah, I mean, I almost even consider being a libertarian. But, to your point, a lot of their point of views are impractical. And after I got deep into studying this I said, no, I don't think limited government or even foreign policy, no, we are too globalized, the government's already big and I have yet to see a successful government reduction, if anything, I've seen expansion. So for both parties. So even though Republicans say they're more for limited government which, let's be real, that's a big lie on their part. So I mean, left to their point, they're as pro-government as they could be. So they're consistent on that issue. I would say and yeah, I just think.

Speaker 1: 22:08

That's why I can never identify myself as a libertarian, and some of them are too let loose to the point that, okay, corporations can grow as big as you want. I kind of an. I'm kind of against corporations growing too much and having too much influence. I'm not against their existence, but I'm just oh, the list of the girl, whatever is it now, no, no, and that's why I got drawn away from libertarian part. Just my personal experience and that's what I'm gonna say.

Speaker 2: 22:34

But I'm gonna keep it short and sweet, yep um, I often make a comment and I may have said this when I was on with you before If I were given one wish, I would create a time machine and take the whole, all the American people, forward to 2028. Because all of the Trump and Biden would be gone and all of this stuff about Trump would be gone and we could start over with new candidates and be past this tribal situation. And not that Trump leaving the stage is going to fix tribalism, buteness and his demeanor, which offends a lot of people, particularly women. So it's unnecessary and uncalled for. You hear that MAGA.

Speaker 1: 23:28

I know you're going to be offended with that statement, but this podcast has no partisan loyalty. There's things I complimented Trump and there's things I'm going to criticize him. Don't expect me to be MAGA I will never be MAGA and just like for the him. Don't expect me to be MAGA I will never be MAGA and just like for the left. Don't expect me to be a full-blown lefty. I'm an independent thinker and I'm a registered independent. So that's where it is. Try to convince me, sell me your ideas. That's the best way you're going to get to me. But giving me partisan lingo, you're already turning me off because you're just a hack.

Speaker 1: 24:02

In my opinion, this is both criticized left and right and sometimes the center too. Sometimes the center. I gotta call you out more often. Um, you know I tend to. I think overall my politics is at the center. You know I flirt with the left and the right, kind of like a little pendulum swing that stays in the middle, like that mini pendulum swing that stays in the middle, like that mini pendulum swing. That's me politically. I don't go too far to the left or the right because I'm a pragmatist in the end of the day and I'm happy that more engineering, scientific people are getting involved, because too many of the humanist thinking is too abstract, it's too vague and it leaves so many room of confusing nonsense. I like it that more scientific, logical people are joining the political discourse. So I thank you for your engineering background. In other words, it's needed, it's a breath of fresh air for me personally, and I'm sure I'm speaking to some of my listeners at least some so let's move forward and talk about Braver Angels a little bit.

Speaker 2: 24:57

I mentioned my four books are about tribalism. Well, I found out about an organization that's nationwide called Braver Angels and I joined it in January and I went to the convention in Kenosha, wisconsin it was at the end of June and enjoyed that. But let me introduce the organization because I'm not sure how well known they are. It's basically a grassroots organization with local chapters around the United States. The goal of the organization is to get people on the left and people on the right to talk to each other rationally and come to consensus conclusions about the issues. So I belong to the local chapter in Columbus, ohio, and we have meetings once a month and at those meetings and there's more blues than reds in our particular chapter, which is fine, but part of the meeting, half the meeting is splitting up into groups where there's a one-on-one communication between a blue and a red, and so you first of all get to know the person with the opposite political views and after a few minutes you realize well, this is a nice person, even though they're opposite me. And so then you pick one or two topics that are relevant to left-right, for example abortion, immigration, size of government. I mean, obviously we all know what the issues are between the left and right and you try to work to a consensus by both applying facts or information that you have to the discussion and then reach a consensus. And I've done this seven or eight times and every time we've reached a consensus Because most people are interested in some kind of dialogue with the other side and not just their extreme point of view. Now I have to say that there's a standing joke that I tell at these meetings about the people that should be in Braver Angels are the ones that aren't in it, because the people that are in it are interested in discussing their views and learning more about the validity of their views. So I have never met a person in the organization yet that I thought was overly idealistic, close-minded, whatever. And I participated in a Bay Area Braver Angels chapter Zoom meeting that had 83 people in it and I thought going into it, oh man, this is a Bay Area, so there's going to be some crazy lefties there. There were some communists there, but they were open to dialogue and open to consensus, because that's why they got in Braver Angels. And there's about, I think, about, I think 18,000 to 20,000 people in the organization now it's spreading Much bigger. I mean, I think this is. The organization was founded in 2016, and this is the fifth or sixth convention, the one I went to. So it's growing and this is the kind of thing that can help with tribalism, because the more people communicate and talk about consensus and then spread the word, the larger the organization is going to be.

Speaker 2: 28:56

The convention was interesting because people request to come to it and they exactly even out the number of reds and blues, so they're equal. So there were like 800 people there and there were 400 reds and 400 blues, because they don't want a disproportionate number of one or the other, because the interest of the whole organization is in consensus, so you want equal sides promoting different points of view. That can be resolved. So that was very interesting.

Speaker 2: 29:30

My conception of who would join Braver Angels was completely wrong. When I joined, I thought there'd be more reds than blues, because I thought the reds would want to talk about ideas and the blues think they have all the answers, so they wouldn't want to talk. It's actually the opposite. Conservatives seem to be intimidated by Braver Angels because they think they're going to be attacked and they would rather just live their lives and not participate, rather than being attacked. And the people on the left are willing to talk. So I was completely wrong about it, but I'm hopeful that the organization will grow. There are other organizations like it that are smaller. There's two or three others, and it's a good thing. And I got involved because if I'm going to talk about tribalism, I better put my money where my mouth is and join the organization as that's what audience.

Speaker 1: 30:32

I really hope you're grasping this and before I have a follow-up question to that, because, look, look, this is the reason why I started a podcast, the reason why I got involved, because of such emotional and, to be quite honest, low IQ tribalism that's grown so much that it spooked me. I said, ah, no, it's going to sort itself out. Oh, I was wrong. Oh, I was so wrong. It's going to sort itself out. I said, well, I don't want to be involved. I used to kind of relate to the reds In your city and state, but no, no, it's getting worse by the day and I hope you're right by this whole Biden versus MAGA train washes itself Out by 2028. Because, oh, I can't wait for that, even though don't get me wrong, I personally Find Trumbull's entertaining Versus Dutcher Cannon of them all. But that's besides the point and we need to Get this more dialogue Going. And I comment you left Because I would have to say, preconceived notions that you have.

Speaker 1: 31:40

I thought more right-wingers was willing to challenge their point of view, be open about it, and the left will be scurrying like scared rats, but it seems like it's somewhat the opposite, because you do have right-wingers join. I don't want to discount that, but some of the Swiss want to just live their lives. I don't got time for that. I'm going to be a tag. There's a setup.

Speaker 2: 32:01

I mean the tribalism situation itself reflects the personalities of the two sides, because the left wants change and you see it every day, you see. You know they want the climate fixed, they want all, you know, they want equality, they want a socialist system, they want all these things. The right is status quo oriented and they do not want change as fast as the left wants to drive it. So they're reactionary in the sense that I mean they have to play the left's game, they have to rant and they have to do all the things that they do to play in the arena and do battle with them. But it's not their nature to do that. You know.

Speaker 2: 32:48

Conservatives basically want to live their own lives, control their. They want their freedom to make their own way, you know, if they want to work hard and they can move up, and they want to know that they have the ability to move up if they, um, you know if it's possible, but they're happy not engaging in combat, whereas the left love combat because they want to change. So, um, that's why we have what we have.

Speaker 1: 33:18

That makes perfect sense. So for the Braver Angels question, is there any charters? Probably, I don't know. Well, I'm in the state of New York or other states. Is it big enough to have multiple multi-state charters?

Speaker 2: 33:31

You mean for Braver Angels? Yeah, I will. I'm sure there's a New York chapter. There may be a New York City chapter and multiple chapters in other's a New York chapter, maybe a New York City chapter and multiple chapters in other cities in New York. Go to braverangelscom or actually org. You can get a list of the chapters and I remember meeting some people from New York City at the convention so I know they're there.

Speaker 1: 34:07

Okay, they're spread everywhere. I had an assumption it was kind of a big organization, so my impression was right and I'm going to link that website as well. I want to help kill, well, at least significantly reduce, this idiotic tribalism that's really hurting America. And I might have a future guest and this is a big might that might talk about the potential civil war. You've been warned, that's a little tease for a future episode. But let me shut up and get to the situation at the end here, not situation fun activity. It's really a fun activity for me because I actually light up and glow when it comes to these kind of conversation. There is hope for america, so he slowly convinced me. As hope for america I do have a negative, skeptical thinking. Naturally that's not going to work. I guess my NYC upbringing has something to do with that.

Speaker 2: 35:01

Well, I mean, it's easy to feel pessimistic, basically because of social media, because we're inundated with bad news. Bad news and rants and raves and hate and that stuff. Before social media we wouldn't have felt that at all. You know, 25 years ago if you wanted to rant about communism or something, you had to stand on a soapbox in a park because you didn't make it onto mainstream media. Now, everybody, every crazy person, can have a platform and if he gets enough viewers he'll generate advertising revenue for the platform owner, not good, yeah, as much as I'm open for opportunities for other people.

Speaker 1: 35:49

But unfortunately I mean you're saying you're not supposed to. You're explaining the very basis of social media infrastructure. It's all gravitated towards attention and sensationalism of social media infrastructure. It's all gravitated towards attention and sensationalism. So of course that's why it explains why the extreme left, the extreme right take all that oxygen, call attention and conversation control and this is why more people are believing them without fact-checking and that does damage some circuits in here. I mean so if it compared to shaping the brain to someone that has some drugs.

Speaker 2: 36:23

Well, one of the artifacts of tribalism is that if you are lazy, they do all your work for you, because all you have to do is join a tribe and you don't have to think anymore. Your tribe's ideology is your ideology, so you don't have to think anymore. Your tribe's ideology is your ideology, so you don't have to validate it.

Speaker 1: 36:42

And you see, and that's another you see, that's an excellent diagnosis. It's even hard for me to count on that, even if I put my best brain forward yeah, not best brain forward, because it's actually the truth. People are don't take this the wrong way, actually. No, you take it any way you want. Y'all lazy. Some of you are very lazy. That's why you're giving power to these Extreme groups.

Speaker 1: 37:07

Talk to someone who's politically savvy at least. Talk to a friend that you know, who's sound in the head, that has gained your credibility, because I know credibility Is important. You know this person could be the top Whatever, but that person Got credibility. That's gonna be a problem. Oh, he's a top right. He's important. You know this person could be the top whatever, but that person got credibility. That's going to be a problem. Oh, he's a top right wing person. You know I'm a lefty. I don't talk to that one, All right. So, who's in the center and the left? Find someone that you could trust, who knows their stuff when it comes to politics, and make sure you just make sure you listen to it. Don't take it as its truth, because social media can alter. Especially with AI deepfakes, it's getting harder to tell what's real and what's not. And that's a big, big problem with the whole disinformation, misinformation thing and it's just going to get worse.

Speaker 2: 37:54

The number one indictment of tribalism and the indictment is against the ideologues on both sides is as long as we're in a tribal state, the country does not move forward. So basically what this is saying is, the ideologues are more interested in proliferating their ideology than having our country be successful, because in the end, everything gets blocked by the ideologues.

Speaker 1: 38:24

Yeah, and George Washington, to his credit, has won against that. So he was against political parties because of this outcome that we are experiencing right now. Right, so you know, someone 200 years ago, or close to 250 years ago, was already on to something.

Speaker 2: 38:47

And most of the founders thought that Madison was very worried about it too. They were worried about factions and they knew the history of the Roman Republic, which died due to factionalism, because political factions developed and fought and then it degraded the Republic to a point where a dictator could take over.

Speaker 1: 39:10

Basically, oh yeah, no, absolutely. There's already a precedent. I mean, the most famous political one is the, and it's smart for them to be used to. For the founding fathers especially to use famous political one is the, and it's smart for them to be. For the founding fathers especially to use that as one of their frameworks about creating a constitution to try to prevent a second Roman Empire collapse. It could happen to America. America, you know. No empires last forever. So let's be very clear about that.

Speaker 1: 39:37

Even ones that last for a long time. They eventually collapsed.

Speaker 2: 39:41

I didn't finish because we got distracted. The part about the depressing thing I got in this soapbox about ideology. But our country has weathered a lot of bad things in its history. I mean the world wars we fought in the Civil War. I mean that's the ultimate tribalism. But that was an economic split because the South could not tolerate their economy being destroyed, so they felt they had to go to war to protect their economy. And they believe that the country should operate on states' rights and not dictated to by the federal government.

Speaker 2: 40:26

We're not there. I don't know if we're going to get there, because it's hard to know whether all of this arguing has substance or not. You know you talk about taking all the air, sucking all the air out of the room. Maybe that's all it's doing. I don't know, because you know a revolution, creating a revolution in our country, would be very hard to do. I've studied a lot about what you know, why economies or why democracies collapse and what does it take for a revolution, and it's a very hard, difficult thing, and so it doesn't seem like it could happen here. We just have to try to prevent it. No, right.

Speaker 1: 41:12

I mean, of course, creating a new revolution in America is extremely difficult. I don't want to make it seem like, oh don't worry, January 6th is going to happen every year and even though the Democrats exaggerate the insurrection claim, I just think it was more for trespass and violent breach.

Speaker 2: 41:28

That's the way I categorize it.

Speaker 1: 41:29

It's still a bad thing. I don't want to dismiss it, but that was more of the symptom.

Speaker 2: 41:34

Well, if it were insurrection, they would have had guns and nobody had a gun. Think of it that way. I mean you're not going to take over services.

Speaker 1: 41:43

So they once had a gun, but they were defending Right.

Speaker 2: 41:46

But I mean, if you're going to take over the government and prevent the election from being certified, you're going to have guns. That's that's what happens.

Speaker 1: 41:53

So copters and rocket launchers. You know the war, know I don't want to dismiss it, but yeah, but it was still very bad what happened, and that's all I'm going to say about that. I realize I'm spinning this conversation in multiple directions. Let me get laser focus on your book. I don't want to forget that.

Speaker 2: 42:17

Let me introduce a transition to my new book, because we talked a lot about tribalism and I wrote four books about it, but I'm changing my focus now to elite control of our country. So my new book that's coming out in September is called America's Counterfeit Democracy. Subtitle Rule of the Elites, and so my thesis there is that the public is deluded into thinking they have control of the government when they really don't, because elites control everything when they really don't. Because elites control everything. Now, elites try very hard to control elections, but they can't. They're still part of the election process that they can't control, because people are people and sometimes they vote differently than the elites would want. 2016 being an example, no elite wanted Trump to be elected because he didn't need any money from anybody and he wasn't beholden to anybody. And they can't. They hate being in that situation where they have to deal with someone they can't control. But basically, what the book is about is that there is an organization of wealthy families in the United States who are aligned with major corporations because they're either on the boards of directors of those corporations or they own them, or they own significant chunks of them. Those corporations or they own them or they own significant chunks of them, and the alliance between the wealthy and the corporations generates a group I call well, I didn't come up with the term, but it's called the power elite and the power elite are elites that are interested in control of the politics of the United States. Obviously there are many elites that don't participate. They just live on their yachts and travel and do that stuff. But the power elite are aligned with the corporations to influence everything the government does. They control the government, in my opinion, because they provide. If you look at the executive branch, you look at who the Secretary of State is, the Secretary of Treasury, those are all elites. Those are all people who went to private school, elite university, went to private school, elite university, worked as consultants, may have had high corporate positions, were in education, were in academia or worked for think tanks or whatever. Now they're in the government. So they're really elites that are contributing to the controlling mechanism.

Speaker 2: 45:19

This organization has a I don't know what to call it a sub-organization called the. Well, what it does is it's an organization of think tanks and academics and others who do research on policy. It's a policy planning network is the name of it. So they do research on policy under the elite's control and then they make policy recommendations to the government. They also control something called the opinion-forming network, since they own the big seven media companies in the country are all corporate, large corporate entities controlled by elites. So they broadcast both content that's designed to influence American opinion in their direction and other content that's designed to portray the United States as a happy place Don't worry about anything, we're doing great, the economy is going to get better, all that stuff. So it's propaganda supporting the fact that things are okay.

Speaker 2: 46:37

The power elite have two objectives in life One is to increase their wealth and the other is to keep the country stable, so their wealth is protected. So that's actually a good thing, because they do what they can to cut off instability factors that are creating instability, like if the economy is bad, they'll want to do something to fix it, which helps them, but it also stabilizes the country. So the power elites and there are members of both parties in it obviously it started as a pretty conservative organization, but now it's pretty divided between conservatives and liberals Big Silicon Valley influence, and so the allegiance of members of the power elite is not to the public, it's to themselves, because they're all in it together and they all have the same objectives. So there have been studies done. I mentioned in my book somebody did a study that looked at bills that pass in Congress and who influenced their passage, and so they looked at variables. And so the interesting result is, if a bill is mainly supported by the public and not by the elites, it has a 3% chance of passing. If it's supported mainly by lobbyists and not the elites but there are lobbyists that are elites it has a 56% chance of passing. If it's supported by elites only, not the public, it has an 86% chance of passing.

Speaker 2: 48:28

So, basically, the work of the government is the work of the elites and of course, the parties are owned by the elites.

Speaker 2: 48:36

So the elites control funding to the party I mean, you know this, george Soros and all this stuff and the elites also pick the candidates and then provide the advertising for those candidates to try and get them to win. And within the inner sanctum of the elites, inner sanctum of the elites they don't really care what party wins, as long as the elites win, they're okay exchanging parties every four or eight years because they're controlling everything. So that's really what's going on and that's what I'm talking about in the book. Elite control has been a factor in governments ever since governments began, because there have always been wealthy landowners and wealthy landowners were the people with the money who could create influence by using that money. So you know the kings and the nobility that supported the king. Those are the rich people and until the Enlightenment the public had no rights. And then classic liberalism was created out of the Enlightenment and the people started to get rights and elites have given those rights very slowly and begrudgingly because they want to keep control. So there you have it.

Speaker 1: 50:09

So follow him. I tell you he has some great stuff. He's a moderate himself, so his only stake in the game is getting people together, building consensus. It's not about red or blue, or the donkey or the elephant or all the other partisan gobbledygook that you hear either through the television and especially through the crazy social media.

Speaker 2: 50:37

One more thing that's important. Sure, we talked about tribalism and then we got to elite control. That's the final answer. Since the public is divided into factions, it can't act in unison against what the elites are doing. So we have to solve tribalism before we solve elite control.

Speaker 1: 51:14

Absolutely, and to me that's what I always noticed, even at the time I could articulate it, it well, for at least I would say one and a half decades, I would say this divide is what's really, that's like the biggest blockade we have just to move the country direction that the public wanted. Because you know, I already suspect, I already knew that it had some elite control, because I already looked into this, you know, studying that you already broke it down 3% of laws that the public actually favored were passed, 3%.

Speaker 2: 51:46

Public only yeah, public only right, If the elites didn't care enough.

Speaker 1: 51:51

The other one that has this lobby is just mostly lobbyist influence, and then, of course, the elite control. They have the vast majority. So, even if you spit it a little bit, they have great control, not total control, but they have great control of the government.

Speaker 2: 52:10

I mean to be perfectly fair. There are bills that pass that the elites favor, that help the public. For example, if there is something that provides an economic benefit, then it tide lifts all boats there. But too often the elite priorities do not match the public. For example, the public is much more liberal as a group even considering the conservatives about things like the welfare state. Like there's a lot of people that think childcare should be part of benefits offered to workers because of the cost of it. Well, elites will never support something like that because that's money they lose if they support it. So they're against welfare states. They're also against unions because they see unions as destroying corporate profit by raising wages.

Speaker 1: 52:58

I'm going to reference two other guests here I think it would have been great for you to have a conversation with. I have a government consultant who was I think it would have been a great conversation between you two that I had before twice. And then the other one, a real union person who has decades of union experience. Oh man, that would have been such a great panel. I'm already picturing future panels on basically great discussion. Well, the one asked, government consultant he's independent, like me, at least in registration, but I'm sure we have different ideologies once we break it down further. And then Mel Ron well, he's definitely more on the left, I will say almost flurrying with that Marxist area. Obviously flurried with that, but I think it would have been a great discussion. He's a real union person and a lot of them are phonies. He killed my skepticism with a good chunk of the unions. It's dead for me.

Speaker 1: 53:51

I'm generally pro-union as long as they're doing their job and not being corrupt by the elite influence Some of them have. I can say that confidently. I don't want to jag us down there. I think that's already a lot of wisdom there, especially trying to cure this societal disease called emotional extremist tribalism. We definitely got to reduce this so significantly that it doesn't cause much waves and, so far as we both know, it's caused a lot of obstruction. Because, I already knew this, the elite loves this division, keeps the public distracted and they can pass in other agendas as a grab patrol, little by little, by little by little and subtly too. So that's why the elites have been smart on that, because they would have did it out in the open, I'm sure a big protest would have happened and they would have to Retreat. They've been doing slowly and incrementally, so that's why they've been successful.

Speaker 1: 54:57

Public wake up, wake up. That's all I'm going. Public wake up, wake up. That's all I'm going to say, wake up. So again, follow Michael Anderson and his website. He has a sub stack as well. He's an author. He read four books diagnosing tribalism, both the left and the right, and now he has the one that's focused on the elite. What can you say? The Grand cause of the Tribalism? And well, the tool called social media has definitely Increased tribalism Because of people's laziness and lack of critical thinking. You know that. Good stuff, all right. Anything else you want to add before I really wrap this up? No, I'm good, all righty then. So phone. Wherever you're listening to this podcast. You have a blessed day, afternoon or night. Thank you.