You know, I feel like I've been doing this same podcast and blog post for, I don't know, 30 years, it sources go direct. This is what has changed and The Gatekeepers are are gone and they've been gone for a long time. Um, To an extent that I didn't even realize it.

I mean, you could sense that Um, I don't know. It was 2016 was when it was very clear that The Gatekeepers weren't controlling things for the Republicans for Trump. No impact on Trump whatsoever. And at that moment, you know it would be like I mean some people don't like sports analogies.

I don't even make sports analogies. I just think this is the same thing as sport. Um, Because there's only one human type of human thing going on here and sport is tapping into the um tribal thing. The community thing, the The village the construct, which is what we've had for.

You know. Tens of thousands of years. If not more, I mean, you know, we grew up, you know, we came out of a tribal culture we but we don't have that anymore. You know, we live in in places where we have very, very little physical real contact with other people.

So we have things that fill the gap for us in that, and you could feel it if you like watching. Binge watching shows. Um, if you get comfort from that, if you find yourself thinking about The people in the shows. After you've finished binging it and going, you know, thinking to yourself just automatically, I wonder what they're doing.

Then you realize, that was a TV show that they're not doing anything. It but your your mind can't help but drift into that because it's very natural to do that. Um, And okay. So we don't feel very powerful in most of our life lives. We we have opinions, we share them online.

Has helped somewhat But we all have the sense that we don't really, we're not really having any impact ourselves, but we allow ourselves to be impacted Like, I, you know, I I mentioned this. Archie Bunker, and I know that. That's A generational thing and I'm sure there are equivalents to Archie Bunker in every generation in my generation.

It was part of a TV show called All in the Family and It was. Our common family, I mean, look at the name, it's called All in the Family. Everybody's in the family that includes you. You get to know all of the characters and and they're subtle. They're not one-dimensional.

Characters. And you you learned that about Archie Bunker that. You know, he has all the surface surface characteristics of the time at the time. It was construction workers, and cops and working class people versus, you know, the protesters which was Meathead, you know, and Gloria they were the Um, Relatively speaking.

Uh, protesters anti-vietnam pro-women Pro. Freedom K, you know, gay, you know, gay, people were fine. Black people are fine but Archie in his heart. You know, has So, it's hard because It reaches down inside. And you realize that, You could. You can trust Archie to be who he is.

That's the level of trust you could have, and that's actually pretty much the most trust you can have in anybody. I don't think Archie ever deliberately lies but he says, certainly since plenty of things that aren't true If you had a choice between Archie Bunker for president of the United States and somebody you don't know, You know.

Archie Bunker. What we have found out is that even though Archie Bunker doesn't represent the politics of a lot of people who voted for him, a lot of people voted for him. Their politics are more like Meathead and Gloria and Lionel and mud and mod, you know, none of those characters of course would ever vote for Archie Bunker.

But we're not talking about the characters. We're talking about actual voters. I don't think it's ever been different honestly. I mean you know it's not like, you know, people voted for Kennedy over Nixon. They didn't really know very much about Kennedy. He was a leader of a party that was in the middle of huge identity crisis.

He was the reason that he was the reason, but he was a liberal in the Democratic party, had a very big component to it, which was the opposite of liberal. They were the the, um, The ancestors of slavers they were anti-uh. They were pro-segregation. They were lynchers. They were oppressors of black people in the South Southern United States.

They were not. Who we think of as Democrats today. This is when the split happened. I mean, and it continued with Lyndon Johnson But that isn't, that isn't how why they chose anybody chose to vote for Kennedy. If he saw a picture of the debate between Kennedy and Nixon, There was your answer.

I mean they knew Nixon really well. I guess, I'm undermining my own Theory here actually because they didn't know Kennedy all that well, but when you look at him, you feel attracted to this human being in a way. That. Makes you feel like you really know him. It happens in, love it, it happens in human relations, have you ever gotten zinged?

Where you look at a person, you know, and you say, oh my God, that's the most beautiful person I've ever seen. And it doesn't come out in words like that. It all comes out in instant, in a feeling that just says, there is no more beautiful person in the entire world.

This is the person for me. Right, this happens. Like that in an instant, this doesn't necessarily take time. But bluntly you know I mean Kamal Harris was fantastic is a fantastic candidate. If she had been on a show, the Kamala Harris show. Starting at any point. She could have had a podcast going, you know, starting with the Kavanaugh hearings where she played a role.

Not, I wouldn't say a starring role, but she was that was her first appearance in any episode of The Great American political Pantheon, the the show that should be that That the journalists so-called journalists are doing a really terrible job of of keeping us involved. And maybe it's also up to the Democratic party because maybe they just haven't been finding really charismatic.

Interesting people you want to know more who you want to know more about This is how it works. I mean, you put out a pilot program and they see how people respond to it, and if they, if they respond to it, they then order a full season and Well, okay, so we also, by the way, FYI, the first campaign we had with her, she was awful, she was terrible.

And at the time, that Biden switched over to her. When that happened I was Far from satisfied. That I I assumed she was the same awful candidate. She had been also in 2020, she was not a great candidate but that was a very You know, that was a very difficult election because of the pandemic they had, you know, they had rallies within parking lots, where people honked their horns, and it was the most awkward bullshit you've ever seen.

It was terrible. It was really embarrassing. They couldn't find some way to use the online system, to, to get some of that going. They were so uncomfortable with the new media that whoever it was. She wasn't that see they were very good. Actually, in in 2024, I was surprised.

And she was charismatic. She was Charming. She was intelligent. She was forceful. She had really gone to school on winning. She had gone to winning school and she was surprisingly shockingly good. Because another thing I said this to a friend yesterday that I think people don't. Count account for here.

You haven't heard anybody say this. I haven't heard anybody say this is That my God. What an awful circumstance? What a botched campaign this was by the Democrats net. Net. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody in particular, although Maybe there are some place to point those fingers. But botched is hardly the word for it.

I mean, Up until June. I guess it was the candidate was Joe Biden. We all had a lot of concerns about him. What happened in that debate? I don't know about you but I I dreaded watching him speak because I knew someday that was going to happen and that goes all the way back to The 2020 campaign that the primaries for the 2020 campaign, I thought he was so fragile that it could happen anytime.

And if he made it through a speech without falling apart, like he did in the debate, Big sigh of relief, you know, and he was totally not the man for our time and so Okay, I don't care how it happened but he's running until the debate and then the debate happens.

I I despised the New York Times for the role they played in this. This should have been allowed to happen in the Democratic party. And for whatever it couldn't have had a worse outcome. Let's let's be clear about that. What we were risking was that he would lose instead of Harris losing okay And you know if you listen to Biden I listen to the turkey ceremony.

He sounded really good, he looked tan. Um, he was relaxed. He Sounded like, you know, the old Biden, I met Biden once, by the way, at the DNC in 2008 in Denver, and I just happened to be standing on the street, you know, the main street of where all the hotels were and the bars and shit, it's a really nice place um area.

And there was this little crowd, you know, and I walked into the crowd and there was fucking Joe Biden and he's tall and he's he's a he's statuesque would be the word I would use. He's a tall man, he's very very attractive. Um, You know. I mean, I guess you'd think he would have to be right because You know, look at where look at the level of power.

He's been at for his entire career. But he was anyway. So what a botched campaign, right? I mean so the fact that she did as well as she did is counsel lot. She also had two handicaps as well. She was a um, an African-American Um, and Trump was even able to make that a little bit ambiguous which is not good and she's a woman.

And she didn't, but the most important thing is, we never got to really know her. There wasn't enough time And this is really important, and this is something that the Democrats are not paying any attention to at all. Because they they take themselves off the air. After a campaign, all of the investment that they've made of our money.

By the way, they come to us with this plea, and we just give money and my because we're so desperate not to have to deal with them losing, not because we're so excited about what they're going to do. We're like everybody else. You know what they're saying about this?

About the Democrats and people who vote for Trump and what they're saying about the journalism, these are things that a lot of us agree with. Except we vote with. We we choose to see our vote as not. We would not vote for Archie bunker. Because the vote really isn't a way of expressing yourself.

Your vote is your way of governing. It's a fundamental different approach, but forget about, trying to convince people of that, there isn't time to do that. In any given election, you got to win the fucking election. This is what Carville said, I thought was so impressed with Um, He said that if you don't win, it doesn't matter what you think.

Isn't exactly what he said but it's a very sort of Texas. New Orleans type thing to say, it's something that Ann Richards would say, you know, it's it's like if you don't win it, don't matter. So, you know, winning in the American political system which isn't the worst political system in the world, false compromise, it involves that, okay.

You know, it's we don't know how it's going to turn out, but it's probably going to turn out better with a white man than it does with a woman of color. That maybe we should give ourselves the advantage one year and make it a little bit more likely that we win or win by a larger margin or just fucking give the people what they want.

You know? I mean it's like do we have to have this argument every freaking time, you know? We act, we don't, we should all be thinking about what Cargill said there. And that just general idea is so true, you know, it's like what a good sports player would say.

Uh, You know, well, I don't really care about how many, you know, assists I did or whether I got a, you know, double double or double triple, double or whatever. What I care about is my team won. And the reason in sports is a little elusive, as to why it matters in team one, in politics, it's not elusive.

It's very, very concrete, as we are going to find out. As we are so scared to find out, but now we're on that path and we're going to find out again. It's like, this is something we did not need. But we should let we should move. Now, we should stop it, doesn't matter.

Another thing, none of the things people are talking about matter. It's not about messaging, it's not about kitchen table, it's not being on the side of working people. The Democrats really are all those things in reality, that is what they are. In terms of what they do for us when they get in power and they're empowered enough to actually pass laws and you get an artist at Washington politics like fucking Joe Biden.

I mean, he did so much with so little You know, you you want that? And so you need to be as strong as you can be. And And what we have to never ever do again is, is have a candidate Running for president. The people really don't have a good feeling for And tolerate, that's the other thing.

I put that in my piece today. It's not enough that they, they are familiar with them, they also have to tolerate them. And I didn't say that they have to fall in love with them because typically, that isn't what happens. I mean, it happened with Kennedy, but, and but go look at Kennedy, okay?

You know, you find somebody that that can conveys that kind of confidence and authority and caring and ease of So American, you know, it's like he had everything, the whole thing, the whole package, you find it. Kennedy, let's go. We, we can elect him And and and I don't give up on on, on women, or women of color, or whatever, don't give up on that, but accept the reality.

Like any other candidate they have to Run the gauntlet. And that doesn't just mean for like You know, it means basically people have to feel comfortable with them and feel like they know them. This is very, very, very important. It may not be important. Every culture in every country, it is very, very important in the United States.

You can't wish it to be different from what it is, and you can't change it just because you want it to change. You have to accept it as it is. And it's not a bad country, it's just that. I think I've explained myself and I want to thank you for listening and we'll do this again soon.

Hopefully. Bye.