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well we are all getting ready for what
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could be a wild 2024 with the next
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presidential election on the agenda but
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we also know that there are concerns
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about what might play out and the focus
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on elections in general is getting uh
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quite a bit more traction after what was
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perceived to have occurred in 2020 as
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well as the impact from social media and
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the potential impact from Ai and more
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former Democratic presidential candidate
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Andrew Yang has co-authored a novel
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along with Canadian journalist Stephen
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Marsh titled the last election which
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puts forward a day where there are more
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candidates running for office the
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highest office in the land than just the
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two predominant political parties and a
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pleasure to have him joining us right
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now Andrew great to have you with us
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thanks very much well thanks for having
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me Dan it's a pleasure let me start with
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the back story on on your interest on
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doing a book like this and and what you
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potentially see could play out here in
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the years ahead
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uh I get asked hey are you gonna run for
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president all the time I ran for
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president I have a lot of experiences I
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wanted to convey and so the last
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election is a novel about what happens
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if a heavyweight independent decides to
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run for president uh and so I'm imagine
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uh streamline narrative with characters
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and motivations the main character is
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the campaign manager of the independent
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candidate and I wanted to paint a vivid
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picture of what could be on the horizon
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for on the horizon for us and why uh
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even folks who really like independent
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candidates may or may not be excited in
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large part because our system right now
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uh isn't set up to accommodate new
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parties or perspectives
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yeah that's the the unique side to this
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is that the strength of both the
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Democratic and Republican party in terms
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of the electoral process uh makes it
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such a challenge and I mean it even
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makes it a big challenge for somebody to
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win from a third party if they're
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running for congress right now
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oh congress is actually maybe the the
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biggest setup uh in terms of independent
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candidates so what's fun is uh Ford
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supports Independents around the country
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uh and uh we have Mayors we have state
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legislators uh we have County Executives
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but congressional districts uh that
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that's in some ways where it's most
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rigorously enforced I will tell you it's
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it's much much more likely to get an
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independent senator from a state because
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Statewide
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I don't know if your listeners know this
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but about half of Americans now say
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we're Independents uh it's something
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like 20
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25 damn 23 Republican and then 49
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independent so if you actually let the
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votes play out
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um more openly as in a Statewide race
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the independent can win
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but I think the perception is that right
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now is that there is still a belief by
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probably a lot of those people that a
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vote for an independent candidate is a
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lost vote that that that structure that
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is in place right now makes it so
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challenging for a candidate from from an
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independent side to be able to win the
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presidency right now
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uh yeah it's it's one reason why we need
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something like ranked Choice voting
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where then anyone can vote for whomever
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you want and you can't be labeled a
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spoiler can't be said hey you're messing
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it up uh you're a bully so I'm gonna
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imagine your audience is very very
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business-minded
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um and I I want to break down what I
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figured out about our system
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um what do you think the approval rating
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is for congress right now Dan uh I'm
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gonna say it's pretty low I'm gonna say
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it's down in the 20s yeah it's like 15
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to 24 what do you think the re-election
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rate is for incumbent members of
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Congress oh I think it's incredibly High
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I think it's probably up in the 80s
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94 yeah it's a better win rate than the
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Jordan Air Chicago Bulls uh so the
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average American's like hey what the
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heck is going on and they're like
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they're told hey nothing can change
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because 90 of the districts are drawn to
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be either blue or red to your point like
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if you have an independent memory card
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who's like no we drew the district so
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they're going to be blue or red uh and
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there's no suspense as to which party's
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going to win that District only five to
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ten percent of races are even marginally
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competitive in any given cycle so if
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there's one thing the parties agree on
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it's we don't like to compete we don't
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even like to compete with each other
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really
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um so in that system then we get more
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and more agitated and angry the second
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big fiction in American life is that our
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leaders have to make 51 percent of us
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happy they don't they just need to keep
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the 10 to 12 percent most extreme
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polarized hyper partisans off their back
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and then they Coast so in that system
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our incentives are getting dragged to
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the extremes and then you have media
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organizations separating us into tribes
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and teams and then you have social media
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pouring gasoline on the whole thing so
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that's why it feels like we're being
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pulled apart because of bad incentives
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and for your business folks who love
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this stuff or hate it whatever there's a
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book called the politics industry by
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Michael Porter and Catherine Gale that
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breaks down the incentives and it also
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has a solution which by the way now my
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forward party is focused on delivering
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the American people and that's this get
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rid of the party primaries make it so
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that anyone can vote for anyone and then
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that fiction that they have to make 51
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of us happy actually becomes real and
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there are several States who've done
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this Alaska got rid of Sarah Palin had
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Lisa murkowski fend off a trump endorsed
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Challenger even though she devoted to
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impeach Trump think about that in Alaska
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cost of six million dollars and that's
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Evergreen we're going to spend 10
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billion dollars hating each other and
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beating each other up next cycle six
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million dollars to get rid of the
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primaries in the state it's the best
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freaking bargain in American history so
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that is the work that we need to do we
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need to get rid of the party primaries
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and this now the last election is in
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some part about what happens when the
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parties deliver candidates that don't
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make any sense I'm going to call them
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Joe Biden and Donald Trump you know what
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I mean I like like the folks listening
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to this I don't know you at all I would
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probably take you
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as president over those two guys like
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you know and I'm not talking about you
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Dan I'm talking about anyone listening
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to this right now you know I mean like
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that's the absurdity of the system 330
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million people those are your choices
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think about what the system's delivering
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and then what happens next well and the
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book is interesting because it really
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does get into some interesting
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possibilities of of what could occur if
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there is strength within a third party
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candidate and what potentially would
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happen if you move forward with that
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type of a policy uh in terms of how
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we're looking at elections in general
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yeah I wanted to really game plan it out
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uh you know like uh I'm I'm like a
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numbers guy who's been in this mix uh
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and so I said you know what here's what
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you would do here's how the campaign
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would run uh here are the problems hear
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the opportunities and then here's what I
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think would be the most likely outcome
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and
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um so uh so for those of you who are
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interested in what I've said it's like
00:07:28
look about the system writ large again
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politics industry Incredible Book not
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mine Captain Gill and Michael Porter I
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wrote a book nonfiction called forward
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which is saying look this system is
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going to just tear us apart and uh and
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it's going to get worse and worse and
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then I tried to fictionalize it and by
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the way now this is getting shopped in
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Hollywood for a screenplay because
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people like stories sometimes more than
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they like nonfiction but I have a
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feeling your crown actually prefers
00:07:54
non-fiction so if so if so so if you
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want to check out nonfiction as to why
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our politics are so broken politics
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industry by Catherine Gail Michael
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Porter and then you can check out my
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book forward notes on our democracy
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because
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um you know I mean frankly I'm gonna
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just say it and I'm gonna say it I
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appreciate you uh adult men seldom read
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fiction
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so thank you for having me on for this
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but I'm just letting you all know it's
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like I get it you know like I mean I
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wrote a novel to get to certain people
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but um you know we're not the target
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demo well I was gonna say numbers are
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kind of important I think in many cases
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in and around our landscape but I think
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it's interesting you doing a book like
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this because you certainly have the
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experience firsthand of what it's like
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to be involved in that landscape
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involved in that process and to see all
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of this play out and at the same time
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see the problems that are there and
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maybe the things that we need to
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consider
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moving forward about our entire election
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process
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oh yeah I mean there's so much uh
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corruption now uh and again I mean you
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can I'm just gonna say again for the 24
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seconds everyone can see it hey don't
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like Joe Biden tough luck no process no
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debates no vote uh and the fix is in and
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every major Democrat is being told you
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will ruin your career by running against
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Joe so just wait in line and now we have
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the profiles and courage of crickets and
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73 of us think wait a minute this guy is
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going to be 82 at the end of 24. you
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know like I'm not comfortable with that
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that's Choice number one choice number
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two and a lot of folks listening to this
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you are what I'm going to call moderate
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Republicans before the Republican party
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just went haywire and now you're like
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what the hell am I if you are in that
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category check out Ford really because
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like we've got a lot of folks that
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resemble that a lot of Business Leaders
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I mean if you're a business leader what
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the hell do you do at this point so you
00:09:46
have Trump hovering over that entire
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proceeding up by 35 40 points and then
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the rest of the field unfortunately is
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competing for second place and that's
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how you wind up with these two dudes
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you know but
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but it if you had the general population
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and real choices you you don't end up
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with anything like these guys
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let me talk a couple of areas for you
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because we kind of go into this next
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year
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and one is AI and the importance we have
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obviously seen it pick up uh here in the
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last several months and the concerns
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that are out there about how AI while it
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may have great benefit in so many
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different areas could potentially have
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an impact in areas like political
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elections and social media and and and
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more misinformation uh that we've
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already seen
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yeah your your listeners will understand
00:10:41
this imagine an environment where a
00:10:43
synthetic deep fake video audio tape
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image uh text message all of it is
00:10:50
generatable for free uh and then imagine
00:10:53
a legion of Bad actors uh
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uh political or otherwise uh with those
00:11:00
tools uh I think the last month of the
00:11:03
election you're going to want to turn
00:11:04
your social media feed off because it's
00:11:06
just going to be so rancid they're going
00:11:08
to be so many weird videos you're like
00:11:10
wait he did what he said what and then
00:11:12
by the time that gets debunked there's
00:11:14
like you know another five in your feed
00:11:16
10 billion dollars spent trying to beat
00:11:19
each other up by the way we all know
00:11:21
what's going to decide this election
00:11:22
it's not you or me actually it might be
00:11:24
you Dan uh it's 250 000 swing voters in
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five states you know what I mean that
00:11:30
that's uh Pennsylvania Wisconsin Nevada
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Arizona Georgia uh and and so the 10
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billion dollars I mean geez like you
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know it's like if you break down
00:11:40
actually how much is going to get spent
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um we should just be giving all those
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swing voters you know
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like the keys to the kingdom
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trust me we saw it uh in 2016 uh here
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firsthand and uh we expect to see it uh
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here in Pennsylvania again in in 2024.
00:11:58
how much then does the does the
00:12:01
discussion around economy really play
00:12:04
into the decision uh about who is going
00:12:08
to be the next president and I asked
00:12:09
that again for you having been there but
00:12:12
we're also in a time where the economy
00:12:14
is very much kind of up and down at this
00:12:16
point and the term recession is still
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being talked about a lot as we head into
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2024.
00:12:22
yeah I I think that uh it's one of the
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real problems for Joe and the incumbents
00:12:29
is that even as the economy in some ways
00:12:31
holds up very well surprisingly well I
00:12:33
would say uh there are a lot of
00:12:35
Americans who are still very very ticked
00:12:37
off I don't know if you saw the headline
00:12:38
but child poverty went up from five
00:12:41
percent to 12 uh in 2022 so there are a
00:12:44
lot of Americans are like you know
00:12:45
telling me this economy is great like
00:12:47
that you know super mad inflation
00:12:49
obviously
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um that so that there are a couple of
00:12:53
variables going into next year the
00:12:56
economy is a major one I will say Joe's
00:12:58
agent health is another it's like he he
00:13:00
could just have a problem in any given
00:13:02
day Trump too obviously I mean Trump's
00:13:04
no no spring chicken
00:13:07
um but people think that this is uh this
00:13:10
is somehow safe I mean it's not safe uh
00:13:12
you know like Joe Biden it's a 39
00:13:14
approval rating I I wanted to I'm going
00:13:17
to say what I've said publicly in other
00:13:20
venues Joe should either step aside and
00:13:22
be like Mitt Romney he should say look
00:13:24
let's have a real primary and anyone who
00:13:27
wants can run let's have debates and
00:13:28
then I will Vanquish you all and then
00:13:30
you'll see I've still got it or I lose
00:13:31
and then someone else has it or at a
00:13:34
minimum have a primary for who his vice
00:13:36
president should be because uh if you
00:13:38
have an 82 year old like the odds of
00:13:40
your Veep taking over are pretty
00:13:41
significant and people aren't feeling
00:13:44
Kamala so it's like look just like say
00:13:46
hey Kamala like defend your spot against
00:13:49
you know all the other and then oh my
00:13:50
gosh holy cow would every Dem be like oh
00:13:52
I want I want that oh that one and
00:13:56
everyone listening to this if you're
00:13:57
running a business organization uh and
00:13:59
it was at all healthy you would do one
00:14:01
of these three things
00:14:03
what do you want people when they read
00:14:06
the last election really to take away do
00:14:07
you hope
00:14:09
uh I want them to think wow is this
00:14:12
realistic it is could it happen it could
00:14:15
and if I want to do something about it
00:14:18
what should I do uh and one of the
00:14:20
things I'm going to suggest again is uh
00:14:22
the two parties do not have our backs
00:14:24
they're crumbling before our eyes and
00:14:26
there needs to be A New Path a new
00:14:28
alternative but there also just needs to
00:14:30
be a better system if you had something
00:14:31
like ranked Choice voting problem solved
00:14:34
as it is that the two parties are just
00:14:36
going to try and Bully us into
00:14:37
submission and they're going to deliver
00:14:38
very very bad results because if you
00:14:41
have candidates that two-thirds of
00:14:43
Americans do not like someone's gonna
00:14:45
run I mean like you know nature of
00:14:47
course a vacuum business of course a
00:14:49
vacuum and a country of 330 million if
00:14:52
you offer us two
00:14:53
terrible choices someone's going to run
00:14:57
Andrew great to meet you thanks very
00:14:59
much for your time all the best with the
00:15:00
book
00:15:01
fantastic thanks and go PA you really
00:15:04
are going to decide things and we are
00:15:06
inside the future trust me we're getting
00:15:08
ready for what could be an amazing next
00:15:10
next turn off your TVs too don't just
00:15:12
turn off your social media turn off your
00:15:14
TVs thanks Andrew great luck with the
00:15:17
book all the best thank you Dan
00:15:18
appreciate it you got a former
00:15:20
Democratic presidential candidate Andrew
00:15:21
Yang the book by the way as we mentioned
00:15:23
co-authored with Stephen Marsh is titled
00:15:25
the last election
00:15:28
all right great thank you sir thanks Dan
00:15:30
appreciate it nice to meet you all about
00:15:32
you too
