Loading summary
Transcript48 lines
- [00:01]
A
Abercrombie just dropped the perfect swim book. That last minute beach trip you've been dreaming about. The new coastal inspired prints and patterns are great for any destination. Plus, thanks to Abercrombie, packing for vacation is even easier with reversible swim. Perfect for mixing, matching and customizing your look. Prep for summer with Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores.
- [00:31]
B
It's Tuesday, May 26, 2026 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. What's worse for a Memorial Day to endure? Wet and rainy up and down the east coast or in danger of chemical explosion like they experienced in Southern California? A race to stop a chemical tank from exploding in Southern California. About 50,000 people south of Los Angeles
- [00:56]
C
are all under evacuation orders at this time.
- [00:59]
B
Ok, evacuated and nearly exploded. That is. That is the worst one, right? But everyone in the New York area and New Jersey and up through Massachusetts and way down to Florida, we all got rained on. Whereas only 50,000 were evacuated. And what a story they have to tell. Plus, no one had much actual harm, except maybe the stress induced when not barbecuing in the sun of Southern California. California. But you did get to learn some chemistry terms.
- [01:29]
C
It's a very scary, intense situation. The chemical is called methyl methylcrylate or mma.
- [01:35]
B
Okay, mma. So, you know, it's not like anything can happen. No biting, no eye gouging, no 12 to six elbow strikes. Could be worse. And the fact that it was next to Disneyland, that's kind of a Nick Cage movie or a Nick Cage match feel to it. All right? In the end, the leak dissipated. And in the words of fire officials, they were pretty sure that the pressurized tank would not experience a quote, boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion or a believe. Because you know what I've always said, you got to believe. Or if you're one of the 5, 000, you just got to leave. On the show today is spiel about the impossibility of really and truly overcoming what is toxic. Our partisanship. But first, before the pessimism, a little bit of hope. I am joined by Beth Mallow and Doug Teschner. They are the authors of beyond the Politics of Contempt, Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Times. Ever notice how the second you Google something, every ad you get is about that thing or banner ads and they chase you all around and if the thing that you were googling is not something maybe that defines you, you don't want that. You definitely don't want that. Or try to watch something when you're traveling and that thing is just blocked. There are so many ways that the Internet, this miracle of communication is less than a miracle and less than open. And that's why I started using Proton vpn. This content isn't available in your region. Well, there are no regions with Proton vpn. Whether you're traveling or just at home and you don't want your online activity following you all the time, that's your activity. Proton VPN takes the power back and gives it to you. It adds a layer of protection that keeps your browsing habits private. Unlike most VPNs, Proton is backed by strong European privacy laws and and years of expertise creating safer, faster and more open Internet for everyone. So whether you want to watch content from anywhere, get around block sites, or just keep your activity private on public Wi fi, Proton VPN has you covered. It's easy to get started. Right now ProtonVPN is offering our listeners 70% off a two year plan when you go to protonvpn.com gist that's here's the spelling part. P-R-O-T O N V P N.com gist for 70% off your two year plan, that's protonvpn.com gist Abercrombie just dropped the perfect Swim book.
- [04:24]
A
That last minute beach trip you've been dreaming about. The new coastal inspired prints and patterns are great for any destination. Plus, thanks to Abercrombie, packing for vacation is even easier with reversible swim. Perfect for mixing, matching and customizing your look. Prep for Summer with Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores.
- [04:49]
B
We all need advice, but it's not always clear who to ask, even in 2026. Enter how to the long standing advice show and Ambie Award nominated Best Personal Growth Podcast. That's back with new episodes and a new host. And that host. Here's the reveal. It's me, Mike Pesca. Each week I tackle a listener question ranging from travel to finance to relationships and beyond, with help from world experts who actually know what they're talking about. Think of it as eavesdropping on someone else's therapy session without the copay or awkward silence. No question is too big or too specific. Some topics how to protect the elderly from scammers, how to take psychedelics therapeutically, and of course, how to emigrate to the Netherlands as a throuple. You've got questions. We'll find the answers, so follow how to with Mike Pesca on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. My next guests are on the side of the angels. In the case of one, a group called Braver Angels. I just wonder if their advice will be heard by the people who need it, as opposed to you and me, the people listening to the Gist and interviewing Beth Mallow and Doug Teschner. The book is beyond the Politics of Contempt. Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Times. Welcome to the Gist.
- [06:13]
D
Well, we're delighted to be here.
- [06:15]
C
Thank you so much.
- [06:17]
B
So the division of the times is exactly the hallmark of the times. And I'm glad you're attempting to bridge some divides, but tell me each. What was your moment where you said, this is what we need? Without this, we might go down a very, very dark path. Beth, you go first.
- [06:38]
C
Sure. I have been witnessing how much angst and frustration there are on both sides, and even contempt. I mean, that's why we came up with that word for our title. People have gotten into this us versus them mentality, and we need to just stop focusing on our identities and politics being so important that we forget about just common things that we can do together as. As Americans. So that really motivated me to. To write the book or to join Doug in the writing of the book. He is.
- [07:19]
B
Beth, we should say you're a physician, and I thought you were going to say some of your experiences during COVID de. Radicalized you in a way.
- [07:30]
C
Absolutely. I mean, that was part of it, too. I think that Covid was a major shift for me as a physician because how we could be doing science better than we were and communicating with the public. Well, maybe not doing science better, but certainly communicating with the public what we were doing with science. And I think it's a two way street that we have to communicate in a way that will be heard and that we also hear what people are concerned about. And I think Covid was a great example of that. It sent me back to school. I went back to take classes at the Alan Alda center for Communicating Science in Stony Brook, New York, on Long Island. And that was pretty transformative for me. Learning not just improv, but how do you communicate with people across differences.
- [08:23]
B
Yeah. And the Alan Alda center there. I don't want to get in the way of their entire. Of their entire syllabus, but the way they do it is. You have a laugh track during the Korean War that seems to help very much to communicate differences. Doug, what is your origin story as far as this positioning?
- [08:44]
D
Well, it's funny. I was in the New Hampshire legislature back in the mostly in the 1990s. And I actually found a speech I had given in 1998 and I talked about declining civility in the legislature. And my gosh, we love to go back to those times. And I've just watched it get nastier and meaner. And I was overseas for a while. I worked for the, I was doing a project with the parliament in Rwanda and then I was later in the Peace Corps working. I ran the Peace Corps in Ukraine and I was also in West Africa. And I heard a segment on this American Life Red state, blue state that was talking about sort of decline of the New Hampshire legislature. And they interviewed different people and one person said, well, I'm not going to invite my brother in law can still come to the barbecue because he had voted for Obama. He's got to bring his own meat. And I'm thinking, what is going on in our country? How has politics become so central to people's identity? And I was really, I've really become disturbed about this. And in 2019 I discovered braver Angels. Ironically, it was Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary who introduced me to the organization. I had first met Peter when I was in Ukraine running the Peace Corps and he came over and worked on an anti bullying project with our volunteers. And I saw Peter in 2019 and gave me a big hug and I said, I want to tell you about this organization, Better Angels. It's now called Braver Angels. And it was exactly what I was looking for. I knew I needed to jump in and I've been in with both feet ever since 2019. And we really got the idea that we needed to do more. And I had this idea to write a book thinking it was going to be an easy project and a New Year's resolution at the beginning of 2024. It took us 20 months to get it out. It's been a wonderful project and I think it's just really important because where are we going as a country if we can't find ways to talk to each other?
- [10:50]
B
Doug, were you a Republican or a Democrat?
- [10:52]
D
I was a Republican and I'm still a registered Republican and I was a John McCain Republican. I worked for Lamar Alexander when He ran in 1996 for president. And I went to the Republican National Convention in San Diego when darling, when Bob Dole was the nominee. And you know, it's changed a lot, obviously, I think on both sides we used to have pro choice Republicans and pro life Democrats. And what I'm seeing now in the way the politics is working, that people have really got to toe the party line. And I've been doing work with the New Hampshire legislature. We've got a brave Rangels caucus in the legislature, and they're working, you know, across the aisle, trying. And it's all about relationship. It's not about even compromise. Let's just get to know each other and. But it's tough sledding out there, and people are demonizing people on the other side, which is really, I think, very dangerous.
- [11:50]
B
But if we had one of those statistical analyses of how the members of the legislature voted or some other empirical metric that showed a left right continuum, would you say that those who are in the brave Rangels caucus, those who are committed to getting along, no matter your their disputes, are also the ones who are in the middle politically, either conveniently or just logically?
- [12:17]
D
Well, I would say to some extent, to me, the middle is, are you willing to talk to people? You know, and when people are willing to talk to people, they instinctively become more toward the middle, if you will. They're listening to people's other sides. But we're increasingly attracting more people, I think, to the legislature who are drawing a firm line. And there's a lot of pushback. You know, a lot of pushback comes from our side. Why are you talking to those people? I mean, I hear that in the legislature. We hear that people in their politics. I mean. Beth, could talk to that a little more if you wanted to add.
- [12:53]
C
I'd like to address that question because I've given that a lot of thought that I happen to feel like I'm more moderate because of the work I've done with braver angels and opening myself up to the folks on the right. I'm more left leaning, more democratic. On the other hand, I know a lot of people in braver angels and even braver angels itself, will say, we're really not asking people to move to the middle. We're asking them, and we want them to keep their strong red. We use red for conservative, blue for liberal, their strong red and blue beliefs. Instead, we want them to focus on something called courageous citizenship, where they're not as outraged and they're more willing to listen to people who are different than them. And I think that's a very different divide and something that we pride ourselves on. So the ability for me, even if I radically differ with a conservative or a progressive right, to be able to sit down and have a conversation and not demonize them and say, you're not my people is very, very powerful in our organ and something that we all strive for.
- [14:17]
B
Let's take masks. So you spoke at or were thinking of speaking at a Nashville. Your town council in Nashville, and you're a physician, and you wanted to speak about the importance of masking. And Doug, you held an event with Republicans and Democrats, six of each, I think. And all the Democrats were wearing masks. This was at a time of COVID and none of the Republicans were wearing masks. So if the divide is something like, I don't believe in a mask mandate, I'm not going to wear a mask. This is government overreach. There's a way to be nice about it, right? There's a way not to be so radical that you make threats. But here I'm, you know, screwing my heels to the sticking place. I'm not doing that. What would braver angels or any or your organization say about a way forward or common ground or other than the absence of physical threats, how to navigate that? It's a binary.
- [15:13]
C
Yeah, I can take that one. I think what we would say, I do training for Braver Angels. And I want to say these principles go beyond Braver Angels to a lot of other groups. Motivational interviewing, nonviolent communication. There's a variety of folks who write about these techniques. And I think the very first thing to do is to listen and truly make sure you are hearing what the other person is saying and making sure they feel heard. And then only after that, sharing your viewpoint in a way that really builds trust. And I'll give the masking example as an issue. When I talk to people who were concerned about wearing masks, I realized there actually was a kernel of truth to what they were saying. So, for example, I heard that some people had to wear masks during COVID when they were running in the park or going to the beach. And I thought to myself, wow, if it's super crowded, I get the beach thing, or if you're in a huge, big barbecue in a park. But if you're the only one running around or, you know, you're at the beach and you're just trying to take a walk to connect back with nature, heck, I wouldn't be wearing a mask, right? So I think that even saying that to them and saying, I get where you're coming from, I. I think it's a little ridiculous to have to wear a mask at the beach. That would open up our trust. So that when we were talking about being together in a crowded room that didn't, let's say, have great ventilation, they would hear me and hear my argument. So I Think that is one of the key principles, regardless of what people's belief is. Even if I vehemently disagree, I try to avoid saying to myself or to the people who I'm training, you know, even if they're working with a different set of facts, listen to them, because maybe you'll learn something and you can still disagree. Right. What you're doing is you're making sure that you don't discount them as people just because they have a different way of looking at the world.
- [17:30]
D
I think the fundamental idea, Mike, is that, you know, of course we have disagreements in our political system, and we've always had disagreements, and we fight it out, so to speak, on policy. But what's very dangerous, I think, is suddenly we become. If people don't agree with me, they're evil, they're stupid, they're ignorant. I can't talk to them. And we think this is really dangerous. And where is this gonna take us? Where is this heated rhetoric and. And looking down at people is going to lead us to political violence, civil war? Who knows where this is going to go? We need to take the temperature down and be a little more curious about people. And even if they have ideas that we think are pretty. The earth is flat was one idea that we were talking about. Okay? Listen to them, hear what they have to say, but we don't have to agree with them. But when we start demonizing people who have other ideas from us, this is what I think in politics, it becomes. Was so central to people's identity. It used to be family and work and hobbies and other kinds of things, but now politics. If you don't agree with me, you're dangerous. And this is very. I think this is very scary for our country.
- [18:49]
B
Yeah, I agree. Some of it seems obvious, though. There is a lot of work to get there, and it would be good if we all challenge ourselves to hear the other side. But to go to that mask example, here I am an angry person who looks at the ridiculous excesses of the mask mandate. I'm putting myself in the minds of. Of these people. And so I have Beth, who's a doctor, who's a citizen in the town, saying, I'm right, I'm right about a couple of these things. All right? We don't totally agree on no masks anywhere, but she's acknowledging that the part of the mask mandate about being outdoors or about jogging, and maybe we didn't talk about it. You go to a restaurant indoors and you take a mask off and choo, choo, choo, and talk, talk, talk, and then you put your mask on. It's a bunch of ridiculous government decrees, but the government's not changing. Beth's nice to me. That's fine. If Beth were in charge of the government, maybe she would relax those specific stupid parts of the mask mandate. What am I, as a person who's impassioned about this, supposed to do? I could say, have a nice carve out for Beth and then be unbelievably still pissed off at the people who don't meet me on the masking outdoor on a loosely attended barbecue issue.
- [20:03]
C
Yeah, no, you make a great point. I think that at least some issues can be solved at the local level. And I'm always surprised, especially being up here in New England, how much power we have as local citizens. So being able to go to a town meeting and talk with our fellow citizens and saying this is ridiculous. Why can't we just hold our fourth of July barbecue or whatever the town is doing and relax the mask mandate? Because we have a low risk of COVID and whatever. I mean, I think that's a great example. It was a very challenging time because we weren't even getting the testing right. And a lot of physicians and public health experts recognize that now that we didn't really know what the level of COVID was in a lot of these small towns. And had we had that information, we could have acted differently. So I think your point, though, is extremely well taken, I think.
- [21:05]
B
But also to interrupt the inconvenience of the barbecue is one example. Then it comes to opening schools. And this did radicalize a lot of people because they correctly said that the schools can be opened under certain conditions. And then many schools were in different places, had different rules. And sometimes I was talking to an author who wrote a book about this and lived, lived lives in upstate New York. And, you know, he, because he's one of the leading writers about this, maybe convinced his school to open months before the exact neighboring community where Covid was the same. And it had a radicalizing effect on a lot of people. And I don't know what to do with that anger or that radicalization or how to turn it into something other than contempt. What's a way to do that?
- [21:49]
C
Really interesting example that really hit close to home. My son was at University of Miami, and he wrote to the president to commend him on opening the schools. Both of my kids were able to go back to college in the fall of 2020.
- [22:08]
B
Where'd your other child go?
- [22:09]
C
University of Michigan.
- [22:11]
B
Oh, okay. Michigan they were slower to open than Miami.
- [22:15]
C
They were a little slower.
- [22:16]
B
Miami's a private school, but still, they followed state decrees.
- [22:19]
C
But Miami, yeah. I mean, he. He went back to Michigan because he was also doing some research, advising. However, getting back to my son at Miami, it was interesting because when he wrote, I was so proud. Right. And I posted his letter from the president, thanking him for the letter on my Facebook page. And one of my friends just started going at my other friend. They were fighting on Facebook, right. About how it's gonna hurt other people who are at risk that they opened the schools. And then my other friend was like, are you a bot? And, I mean, they were just going back and forth, and I finally asked them to both take their post down, but I wasn't even saying anything other than being a proud mom. Right. And I was so struck by how easy it is for social media, Right. For people to just jump in and go at it. So I don't have a great suggestion other than I feel sometimes when I respond to somebody in the way that I did. Right. And including with the schools, because we know that achievement test points were lost during COVID When I respond in that way to someone and I show them that I'm seeing their side, and maybe I'm even acknowledging that I have a good point. And you never know where that's gonna lead. Right. It actually could lead to a positive ripple effect where someone who's on the verge of committing political violence is like, they just don't repost that angry tweet or whatever. You know, they just. They take it to heart. So, yes, there's only so much we can all do, but if we all did it, right, it could make a huge difference.
- [24:16]
B
Yeah, but if we all did it, we wouldn't be so pol polarized that we were at each other's throats. Right. It's like if we all had a
- [24:22]
C
certain percentage of us doing it. Right. No, I agree.
- [24:25]
B
I think that if. If our enmities and passion weren't as high as they are because of a lot of things. And you're great at diagnosing much of the problem. The. The outrage merchants and social media and media and the mechanisms that we talk to each other, the polarization of our politics, all true. Great. Diagnosis. Diagnosis. The. To use, you know, the medical terms, the prescription for the diagnosis, the treatment, the efficacy thereof, seems only to work among the people who are least afflicted with the disease and maybe even the people where the disease would go in remission anyway.
- [25:05]
C
I would push back the reason I would push back is because I feel that in our book, that's why we wrote the book. Part of the book, the first half of the book is where how do we get here? The second half is how do we get out of this mess? And I would say awareness of the issue is huge. Americans don't want to be taken for a ride. We don't want to be manipulated by conflict entrepreneurs or other people who are pitting us against each other for power and profit. And then I do feel that another huge way out is this idea that's been brought up by others like Robert Putnam, Mike Smerconish, the idea of being able to get in there with other people who are different than us, like I did in Nashville for 21 years, and be able to see that they're humans and they're not evil. And that oftentimes can be the beginnings. So we encourage people to do that. And then some of these conversational skills that we've gotten into.
- [26:13]
B
Doug Teschner, Beth Mallow, along with Becky Robinson are the authors of beyond the Politics of Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Times. Thank you both so much.
- [26:25]
C
Thank you.
- [26:26]
D
Thank you.
- [26:36]
B
I want to talk about Navy dolphins. Did you know that our desire to assist the older, they don't like to be called aged, but the older Navy dolphins helped unlock a secret to healthy aging for all of us. Yes. I am excited to share with you. C15 from Fatty 15, the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. A scientific breakthrough that supports healthy aging. Here's the dolphin connection. So Fatty 15 co founder Dr. Stephanie Van Watson discovered the benefits of C15 while working with the Navy to improve the health and welfare of older dolphins. You know, the truth is as our cells age, our bodies age. 2 and as many as 1 in 3 people worldwide may have low C15 levels and fragile cells. And to say nothing of the dolphins, of course the dolphins. So if you want to get a little pep in your blowhole or whatever parts that you have, just like the dolphins did, fatty 15 repairs age related damage to cells and protects them from breakdowns and activates pathogens, ways in the body that regulate sleep and cognitive health and about metabolism, I've been taking fatty 15 and look, I can't say that I'm swimming large sections of the ocean without surfacing. I can say that things seem to be going well. The self reported pep in the step or ability to recall which Scott Baio characters other than than Chachi, he played, you know, things about cognitive health I'm feeling a little of the effect. I think fatty 15 is helping on that mission. Fatty 15 was developed to support healthy aging for all from kids to parents to grandparents. That's why award winning fatty 15 is now available as Pure Capsules, Delicious Apple Mint Gummies for teens and adults, and Yummy Berry Blast gummies for kids. Fatty 1515 is on a mission to support healthy aging for all, including all ages and stages of life. You could get an additional 15 off their 90 day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com gist and using code gist at Check out Abercrombie just dropped
- [29:03]
A
the perfect Swim book that last minute beach trip you've been dreaming about. The new coastal inspired prints and patterns of are great for any destination. Plus, thanks to Abercrombie, packing for vacation is even easier with reversible swim. Perfect for mixing, matching and customizing your look. Prep for Summer with Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores.
- [29:32]
B
And now the Spiel. Whenever I talk to lovely, inspirational, hopeful people, people with experience and enlightenment in their eyes like Doug and Beth there, I always wind up thinking that a they are the best of America and be those poor, poor bastards. They're not right. I wish they were right. Here's what's true. It's true you can't take someone out for a cup of coffee and get to know them as a person and maybe he could get to know you and you forge a one on one connection that can bypass the caustic polarization we're living inside. And it's also true that that's not scalable and if it were, you'd be overly jittery with caffeine consumption. Now look, it's true that if everyone did this one on one, then we'd all be the change we want to see in this world. But the world that we want to change is that we're all not those people who want to do this. Many of us are the terrible people who need this done to them. The hand holding and here's where you're coming from and here's where where I'm coming from. And no, I don't think 5G was meant to do that. And Gates might be a good guy overall. You have to understand that the world we're trying to change is not a world susceptible to one on one interventions. It's a mass media and mass opinion and sometimes mass hysteria world. So in Kentucky, it was Thomas Massie who was on Meet the Press this past Sunday giving an explanation as to why he lost in his race to be be renominated as the Republican in Kentucky's 4th district. It was interesting because this argument rested on actuarial tables and the hope that sucker baby boomers would soon die. They used artificial intelligence to create a video, lifelike video, that showed me checking into a hotel room with AOC and Ilhan Omar and holding hands with them. It was actually very effective on the boomers and. But here's the thing, Kristen, that's only going to work for a little bit longer. The boomers are going to, you know, leave this country to the Gen X and the Gen Z and the Gen Y and the millennials. And those folks are the ones that I won overwhelmingly. That makes me really hopeful for this country. Mazi also said that his biggest crime, the thing that drove the massive effort to unseat him, was bipartisanship, specifically as bipartisan push to release the Epstein files. And if bipartisanship would really go a long way to healing the rift, maybe Thomas Massie should be a poster child for what is possible or good. I don't really think so. It's true that in the current gop, the rare form of working across the aisle is something about the Epstein movement. But it's not so much that Massie worked across the aisle as that he was an apostate to Republican causes. To the extent that he rebutted the cult like Sheen that MAGA and the Republican Party has taken on, that's good. That's a force for correcting the caustic nature of our politics. On the other hand, he did have very many cult like opinions of his own. I don't want to get into them too much. I appreciated the fact that he's willing to stand up to Trump at personal risk and we need more of that.
- [32:46]
C
That.
- [32:46]
B
But to what end? It brings me to one of my observations about how toxic politics really are. I think it's okay if politicians, a lot of politicians are a little crazy. They've all got that thing in them that make them want to stand in front of people for people's approval to make probably less money than they would in the private sector. It's kind of fun that they're a little crazy. Can be, can be fun. And it's also okay. They have to, by the way, be not a lot crazy and they can't be violent crazy.
- [33:15]
C
But.
- [33:15]
B
But if you got a crazy electorate and the politicians are reflecting the will of the electorate, that's not the worst thing. And you might be hearing this saying, how can we want crazy people represented by crazy politicians. Because sometimes the things we call crazy or what later generations look back as like, I don't know, the abolitionist movement and say, oh, that wasn't so crazy. But also a lot of times you try the popular populist crazy idea if it's not out there to really make victims of great swaths of the population and you realize that didn't work and then no one acknowledges it out loud. But you do move on, right? Laboratories of democracy and all that, this is all part of democracy. I could live with all of that. But it's not just I don't just get upset when talking to people like Beth and Doug, who are great people, pillars of their own community and who know that through the steps they lay out and through personal interactions, we can pull ourselves from the brink a little bit. It's other people. It's people with higher positions, say in the media. Aaron Tang, who is a, he hosts a great PBS show called Breaking the Deadlock. I just talked to him today. It's going to air, I don't know, a couple of weeks or so. It's the old Fred Friendly seminars. And he brings together politicians, pundits, members of the media and they discuss, discuss hypothetical situations. Sometimes they have strange bedfellows like Kris Kobach, who's, I think it's fair to call him 2020 election denier, also a guy who definitely didn't try to expand the franchise. And then there's Rachel Bite Coffer, who was a political scientist and now is a person who makes, shall we say, a very impassioned case against anyone who is an election denier or these days even much of a Republican. So it's good. You could sit these two down or at least put them on the same TV set and they're not screaming at each other. That's good. It's good that you can have people who don't agree talk. And maybe the word is modeling that although all these people come in with their own sinecures in the university or on a network and they all wear nice suits and they're all well known people and they're probably not going to yell, the vast majority of them, that's also what takes to get booked on such a show. And it's kind of false hope a little bit. I like those shows because they can be kind of interesting. But the overall modeling of the way to do things, I think the kind of people who would read Doug and Beth's book and the kind of people who tune into Breaking the Deadlock are the kind of people who are very much not the problem. And the people who are the problem are the people who are getting a little bit of brain poisoned right now. Listening to Candace Owens or listening to Nick Fuentes, maybe not believing them, right. Some 27 year old guy is like, I take them all with a grain of salt and I like the comedy of name your comedy podcaster who might be similar to them. But that 27 year old might vote and the things they might vote on. Oh, might not be terribly informed or something that's an inspiration to us. I'm not even going so far as the really, really brain poisoned, as they say, kids who shot up the Islamic center in San Diego. I'm talking with a regular garden variety person who hates the other side. And you know what? It's not just the Candace Owens listener anyway. What is the other side of Candace Owens? Yes, I know it's sanity, but politically, where is she on the continuum versus some of her enemies? I watch MSNBC or Ms. NOW a lot and they over and over make the point that Republicans or the right or white nationalists or Christian nationalists, this are coming to kill the rest of us. They have the guns, they have the hate. But you know, I've talked about this ad nauseum. It's more alarming than it is true. And the Ms. Now is also indulge in the concepts of stochastic terrorism, which means look at an idea, look at an argument and imagine that that argument lands in a certain field that might be fertile and that field might also be a little diseased. And when that argument takes hold in the form of a person, it can be violent, which may be true, only the Ms. Nows never really say it when the talk is of Trump and fascism. Why? Oh, because Trump is a fascist. Yes. But if what we're talking about is a caustic political environment, the causticity abounds on all ends. And sometimes the causticity might be defensiveness. This it's not me, I'm the one who's threatened. But you know who says that both sides, all over the media ecosystem there is a wisdom to the not very clued in voter who hates all of this and hopes that maybe if they vote, government can deliver something of value to them. And that gives me a little bit of optimism. It's funny because the ultra informed voter has more of a chance to have been steeped in partizan argumentation or to take the person who is maybe the ideal of an Ms. NOW voter, the kind of voter who knows that the V Dem Institute's Liberal Democracy Index just downgraded the United States a little more and I think that person is less of a solution to our problem than a festering at least sign of it and maybe a cause of it. It there are and here's where I get optimistic. You just got to win some elections. The elections have to be free and fair, which I think they will be and it won't solve everything. But after a couple of successful elections where the MAGA movement really is rebuked in a real way and proof is given that this is no way forward that helps most people, that will be a very positive sign for not addressing what's going on in how angry we are at each other, but for sidestepping the anger, the theater of the anger, the public expression of the anger and just allowing government to do something. But then after these elections where as I'm positing, the Democrats win or the non MAGA brand of Republicanism takes hold, after these elections you do have to do something. So there is a bottom line for me. I don't see how the stories about our politics ever change. But I do think the politics and some of the policies have a chance of offering hope that the vast majority of non brain addled people look at and say I'm putting aside the noise. I'm just hoping that the people I vote for act like those people should and pass a couple of bills and a couple of laws and a couple of initiatives that make my life a couple of percent better. And that's it for today's show. Cory War is the producer of the Gist. Jeff Craig, he does how to A new one's out today. A new Just List is out today. That's done by Kathleen Sykes, Ben as there's our book booking producer and Michelle Pesca is the COO of Peach Fish Productions. Thanks for listening.