Ep 67 | WAKE UP! The American Dream Is DEAD

Summary

Zero Hour with James Poulos – Episode 67: "WAKE UP! The American Dream Is DEAD"

Host: Blaze Podcast Network
Guest: Chris Arnotti, PhD in Physics, Former Wall Street Bond Trader, Travel Writer
Release Date: October 6, 2024

---

Introduction

In Episode 67 of Zero Hour with James Poulos, host James Poulos welcomes Chris Arnotti, a former physics PhD and bond trader turned global walker and travel writer. Arnotti shares his transformative journey from the high-stakes environment of Wall Street to traversing the globe on foot, seeking to understand the universal struggles of ordinary people.

The Walking Project: Bridging Worlds

Chris Arnotti has dedicated the past seven years to walking extensive miles daily across various countries, including recent walks through Nairobi, Kampala, and Vietnam. His mission transcends mere physical endurance; it is a quest to connect with diverse communities and uncover the underlying issues plaguing different societies.

“I walked up the Rhone Valley in France and walked. It was like a 250-mile walk over two weeks...just sitting there and existing.” [54:39]

America vs. the World: A Dual Perspective

Arnotti contrasts the United States with other nations, observing that while many countries grapple with severe material poverty, their citizens often exhibit higher happiness levels compared to Americans. He notes a stark difference upon returning to the U.S., particularly New York, where he perceives widespread anger, mental instability, and a lack of genuine community.

“People are happier, especially when you jump from $1 a day to $100 a day, that's meaningful.” [07:49]

The Emptiness of American Life

Delving deeper, Arnotti discusses what he terms the "emptiness of American life." He attributes this to a societal emphasis on individualism and emancipation from traditional community structures such as family, churches, and even racial identities. This shift has led to isolated "communities of one," fostering loneliness and mental health issues.

“People end up becoming emancipated by seeing any community... as outdated.” [05:00]

Educational Meritocracy and Its Consequences

Arnotti criticizes the American education system for its focus on creating abstract, managerial units rather than fostering genuine human connections. This meritocratic approach not only narrows the definition of success but also undermines vocational skills, stigmatizing trades like plumbing or farming as lesser pursuits. The system promotes a relentless competition that erodes social bonds and self-worth.

“If you want to be a plumber or a farmer... that's called a loss.” [11:35]

Decline of the American Dream

The conversation shifts to the disintegration of the American Dream—a belief that hard work can lead to success and a better life for one's children. Arnotti observes that this dream is losing its luster, especially among generations beyond recent immigrants who maintain strong family and faith connections. The resulting societal malaise is evident in the rampant opioid epidemic and declining birth rates.

“The American dream is starting to basically tip over and feel exposed and feel empty.” [45:29]

Cultural Essentialism vs. Multiculturalism

Arnotti identifies himself as a "cultural essentialist," emphasizing the importance of preserving one's cultural identity. He critiques the contemporary left's approach to multiculturalism, arguing that it often reduces cultures to static identities rather than dynamic, lived experiences. This perspective, he believes, fosters superficial connections and undermines the deeper communal bonds found in other societies.

“We're all supposed to be the same. Well, no... Ugandans are very different than Kenyans and they're very different from Vietnamese and they're very different from Americans.” [17:40]

Impact of Technology and COVID-19

The episode also touches on how technology and the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated social isolation. The shift to online interactions has diminished the quality of personal relationships, fostering a culture of digital instead of physical communities. Arnotti laments that even essential communal spaces like McDonald's have become transactional rather than social hubs.

“Humans are fundamentally social creatures. And when you take the social out of existence, it becomes a void.” [52:42]

Arnotti's Personal Transformation

Chris Arnotti shares his personal journey from a life centered on numbers and finance to one focused on human connections and spiritual fulfillment. His "aha moment" came during his time on Wall Street, realizing the artificiality and lack of genuine human interaction in his previous pursuits. This realization propelled him towards his current path of walking and connecting with diverse populations.

“Somehow when you are isolated, when you are closed in on yourself...you realize that there are just problems that are intractable.” [26:05]

Future Directions and Conclusion

As the episode concludes, Arnotti reveals his plans for an upcoming tour across the United States, aiming to continue his exploration of the American Dream's demise. He reflects on the deep-seated resentment between the educated elite and the general populace, emphasizing the urgent need for real, face-to-face community building.

“It's bad because there's no shared experience, no shared direction. And that's bad.” [47:08]

James Poulos expresses interest in Arnotti's ongoing work and the potential for a deeper understanding of America's current cultural and spiritual crisis. The episode underscores the profound challenges facing the American Dream and calls for a reinvigoration of genuine human connections to restore societal well-being.

---

Notable Quotes

• Chris Arnotti [07:49]: “People are happier, especially when you jump from $1 a day to $100 a day, that's meaningful.”
• Chris Arnotti [05:00]: “People end up becoming emancipated by seeing any community... as outdated.”
• Chris Arnotti [11:35]: “If you want to be a plumber or a farmer... that's called a loss.”
• Chris Arnotti [17:40]: “We're all supposed to be the same. Well, no... Ugandans are very different than Kenyans and they're very different from Vietnamese and they're very different from Americans.”
• Chris Arnotti [52:42]: “Humans are fundamentally social creatures. And when you take the social out of existence, it becomes a void.”
• Chris Arnotti [26:05]: “Somehow when you are isolated, when you are closed in on yourself...you realize that there are just problems that are intractable.”
• Chris Arnotti [47:08]: “It's bad because there's no shared experience, no shared direction. And that's bad.”

---

This episode of Zero Hour provides a compelling critique of modern American society, highlighting the erosion of community, the pitfalls of an education system obsessed with meritocracy, and the fading allure of the American Dream. Chris Arnotti’s insights challenge listeners to reconsider the values and structures that underpin their lives, urging a return to meaningful human connections and communal bonds.

Transcript

[Chevrolet]

Looking for a pickup truck to get just about anything done. Look no further. The Chevy Silverado EV isn't just the most powerful Silverado ever with next level towing capability and technology. It also offers game changing versatility with the available multiflex midgate and tailgate. Which means Silverado EV helps you carry large, bulky and oddly shaped items up to nearly 11ft in length. Chevrolet together. Let's drive. Visit Chevrolet.com to learn more.

[James Polis]

He's walked farther than you and he just might be smarter than you too. Chris Arnotti is here. I'm James Polis. Welcome to Zero Hour. I'm not kidding. He's smarter than me too. Chris arnotti has a PhD in physics and worked for 20 years as a bond trader on Wall Street. Then he left it all behind. He spends his time traveling to every corner of the world, just about meeting every type of person on foot, learning about their struggles. And don't we all have our struggles Indeed. Welcome, Chris.

[Chris Arnotti]

Thank you very much.

[James Polis]

How are your feet?

[Chris Arnotti]

My feet are doing well. Irving's doing his best to make them hurt.

[James Polis]

Yes. Well, this is you, this is Texas and it's big on community, but it's also big on like super freeway clovers and makes it a little hard to get around sometimes.

[Chris Arnotti]

Correct.

[James Polis]

Okay, so tell us about the walks. You've been doing this now for how long?

[Chris Arnotti]

Generally all my life, but as a project for seven, six years. Seven years, which is just basically I walk 12 miles a day, 15 miles a day, 20 miles a day. It was generally initially just a way of kind of relieving stress. But then it turned into kind of, you know, I started making targeted walks, like started going to different parts of the world and walking.

[James Polis]

So walking is great. I never regret taking a walk.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, for me, it's a way of kind of how I meet people now. And so I just two weeks ago got back from three weeks in Uganda and in Kenya, where I walked Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and then I walked Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

[James Polis]

And you've gone from Kampala to Kamala here in the United States. What have you learned about our country and its unique craziness from visiting the far flung corners of the world?

[Chris Arnotti]

The entire world admires us still. Yeah, yeah. And you know, one of the things I hear when people say, like, the rest of the world doesn't like, they love Americans. The biggest problem you have if you go to, if you travel around the world is people want to, want to talk to you. They want to tell you how much they Love the United States. They want to tell you how much they love Hollywood, Netflix, pop music, and in some senses, what we represent. Yet at the same time, one of the things that's kind of hard to. When I come back to the United States, when I come back to the US Hard to kind of bring together, is the fact that the places I go are often a hundred times poorer materially. You know, Uganda, where Kampala is literally, you know, 50% of the country is in extreme poverty.

[James Polis]

Yeah, I saw some of the pictures you sent and just like getting around, just even getting from one side of town to the other.

[Chris Arnotti]

Vietnam, where I was two summers ago, you know, 20 times poorer, 30 times poorer. But people are happier, especially when you just for that difference in wealth. We're a very bitter country. And when I come back to New York, I always generally come through jfk. It's always shocking to me to come back to a place that is my home and was my home for all my life, which has so much. And it's just so, so angry. So mentally unstable people are. There's just a lot of. There's a lot of tension in people. There's a lot of mental illness, there's a lot of dysfunction, there's a lot of loneliness. And you just don't see that. To the degree you see it in the rest of the world, to the degree you see it in the United.

[James Polis]

States, what do you attribute that to? You know, you're talking about parts of the world where, you know, the climate is very challenging, or, you know, there have been genocides recently. I mean, real reasons to kind feel bitter about your lot in life, and yet you're not seeing the kind of like deep seated malaise and sort of psychological difficulty that, you know, I mean.

[Chris Arnotti]

A lot of it comes down to what I've kind of, you know, what I've ended up focusing my writings on, which is what I call kind of the emptiness of American life. Kind of a meaninglessness, a kind of a spiritual void, kind of metaphysical. You know, people in the United States, we are. We have made it a point to be so emancipated from anything. You know, we want to be individuals. That's the whole sole goal of being an American, is that you want to be true to who you are. And so you end up. People end up becoming emancipated by. They see any community that gives them kind of succour or give them. Gives them friendships, gives them meaning as kind of outdated. So churches, family, nation, even racial identity, all those things are seen as kind of backwards. And you're supposed to emancipate yourself from them. We've all been told, like, you know, the greatest thing to do as an American is to exercise your right to be true to who you are, to kind of fly your freak flag to find creation. Yes. And it ends up creating communities of one, you know, where people are so. So free. They have no. They have no friends.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

Nobody who understands them. And, you know, and if. And if you do have a community, you're supposed to, you know, you're supposed to find kind of the fault with it. Like, you know, that's the churches, you know, it's. That's repressive.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

Family, you know, is out. Structure is outdated. You're supposed to leave your community because your community is kind of. That's provincial. To stay where you are. And the rest of the world doesn't have that. They still have those kind of organic forms of meaning, you know, the ones that have existed for millions of years, literally, that give people a sense of identity and a sense of, you know, being a valued member of something larger than themselves.

[James Polis]

So it seems like word has not gotten around to the rest of the world that Americans are in such rough shape spiritually.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, the thing is, it's kind of. It's one of the things, this intention in a lot of my writing about this issue, which is, you know, I don't want to romanticize poverty. Sure. I will tell you that if a kid in Kampala, from the slums, you know, many of them did ask me this. Like, you know, they would ask him, can you get me a visa? I can't get them a visa, but if I could, I would, because, you know, there's a lot. There's a certain point of material wealth that just makes, you know, living a much more enjoyable experience that jump from.

[James Polis]

$1 a day to $100 a day, that's meaningful.

[Chris Arnotti]

And, you know, you know, I don't want to romanticize what it means to not have, you know, just the basics of life. But we seems to. We in the US Seem to have said, well, okay, once you have that, you don't need anything else. You don't need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You can, you know, and so when people. When people. When people. When foreigners look at the United States, they look at the things. They look at functional ac, you know, policemen who are not, by and large, relatively corrupt. You know, they look at the kind of, you know, they do have a somewhat Hollywood version of the United States. But, you know, large homes, you know, owning two or three cars, those are all things that people in general want. But I don't think they recognize with that, at least in the US comes the way we've constructed our culture. Also comes a kind of, you know, a loss of meaning. You don't have to have those. I mean, I don't think they have to go hand in hand. And I think Europe actually has a healthier balance of recognizing that people need kind of. We're humans, humans need people, we need to be around people, we need to have friends, we need to have a community. And so there's less of a sense of careerism, less of a sense of kind of a meritocracy in Europe that I actually think is healthier.

[James Polis]

Well, and you can flip the arrow a little bit and say, like, given the hollowness of American life that you're talking about, how much longer can we sustain all the kind of fancy quality of life stuff that makes such a big impression overseas?

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, what's depressing about being here is how depressed so many people are. There are very few truly content individuals in the United States. And, you know, we have this. We have this kind of meritocracy, this educational meritocracy, which says effectively that, you know, it's. It's kind of the version of the American dream, which says that, you know, if you. If you work hard enough and you study hard enough, you know, you'll be successful. Now, the elites love that one because it justifies their position. But, you know, the flip side of that, the corollary of that is if you didn't make it, it's your fault. You know, and what's happened, at least over my lifespan, I'm 60 years old. What's happened over my lifespan is that definition of success has narrowed very much into kind of this very simple path to success, which is through education. And, you know, there are. There are a lot of people, you know, and before I did the walking in the world, I spent 12 years all around the United States. And there are a lot. There are a lot of people in the United States who are immensely gifted, but not necessarily in school, who have skill sets. And it's like we've taken those skill sets and said, you know, if you're going to become a plumber or you're going to become a farmer or you're going to become a truck driver, or if you're going to become, you know, a nurse, you know, those, those things just, you know, that's. That's Called. That's almost settling. That's almost a loss. Like you shouldn't do that. That's, you know, and those things are.

[James Polis]

And those are going to disappear anyway. It's going to be, you know, foreigners or robots or whatever. It's not going to be you.

[Chris Arnotti]

And so, you know, we, we've kind of narrowed what we consider to be the one, one avenue to kind of the elite's form of morality, which is educational attainment. And the thing is, I've worked in academics. Those people are not happy either. The whole system is filled. And they're filled with neuroses, they're filled with mental illnesses, especially in the younger generation, who. Any failure you blame on your mental illness. Well, I'm just different.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

I'm differently enabled. And therefore you have to, you have to understand my, you know, it's just created a country of people who are just mentally, mentally unhappy.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

So, so many causes. I just want to pick at a few of them. I've really come to believe that a huge driver of that feeling of hollowlessness is the way that this education system that you describe, which is so caught up with this kind of managerialism. You know, what are you learning really how to do? Are you, are you learning how to master a particular.

[Chris Arnotti]

You learn how to. Brown nose.

[James Polis]

Yeah. You learn how to just kind of continue to become an ever more abstracted kind of unit of political economy. That system requires people to leave their hometowns, basically. It requires them to leave and go off to college, and then they do college and they leave probably again, unless they're doing the Harvard, Harvard, Harvard thing. And that's a tiny share of people. They leave again. They maybe do grad school somewhere, they do law school, or they get their first job out of college, and then they probably leave again. And then they might leave another time after that before, you know, okay, finally I'm going to settle down and you settle down and you maybe have one kid. And then, okay, that was my starter home. And then you need to move again. And just that kind of cumulative impact. At a certain point in your life, you feel like you're kind of from nowhere. And in a certain sense you come to feel that you kind of are nowhere.

[Chris Arnotti]

But, you know, when I was doing my work for my book Dignity, where I went around the world, around the United States, talking to people all across the United States. And one of the hardest things. And look, I came from the educated elite. I got a PhD in physics. I'm not pretending to be some working class hero. I'm an egghead. I worked 20 years as a bond trader, and I would go into. And I came from a small town. I left a small town as soon as I could. As I say, we intellectually strip my United States.

[James Polis]

Yeah, there are reasons to leave, and one of them is that they took away everything that there is to do.

[Chris Arnotti]

I would go to these people and I would say, where are you from? And I said, oh. I'd write to my little note, oh, you're from. You're from this town. They'll go, no, I'm from five miles away. It was very like, no, I'm not from this town. Place really means a lot to people. And when I would ask them, why haven't you moved? They'd look at me like I was insane. Why would I move? You know, that concept, you know, So I constructed this notion of what I call the back row and the front row. I think the biggest division in the United States is education. And I kind of came up with these ethnographic types of the back row and the front row. The front row was a striver class, which I am a member of. You know, we sat in the front row because we were the teacher's pets and we knew how to get ahead, and we wanted to learn, we wanted in. And that sort of. That sense of. Kind of that sense of impermanence was just central to who we are. And to the point where. That's where it came up with the whole concept of just learn how to code. Right. If you go into a failing town in West Virginia, or Portsmouth, Ohio, or all these places I went, and they would point to the factory that's gone because of nafta. And the answer that someone like me would give, well, just move. You realize how insulting that is to tell somebody, just move. That's a source of so much of their meaning. It's where they came from. You can't just tell somebody to move.

[James Polis]

I was in the movie theater not long ago, days ago, and I watched Twisters.

[Chris Arnotti]

Is it good?

[James Polis]

It's really good. It is a classic, big American movie. It's kind of all about how the most important thing that we can do is form teams of scientists, which is kind of esoteric, but the exoteric meaning is that, look, Oklahoma is full of tornadoes. And they might not be as terrible as the ones that are in the movie, of course, but there is Tornado Alley, and there are parts of the country which are just hit over and over and over again with these tornadoes. And I was born outside of Michigan, outside of Detroit, Michigan. And when I was, you know, three or four years old, like, I was watching TV and the screen turned red, and you have to run down into the basement, and he's looking through the storm windows, and not a good feeling, you know, not a good feeling. And years later, my father was like, oh, yeah, you know, that was a little too close for comfort. I'm terrified of these things. You know, the last place I want to be is getting sucked up into one of those things. I would rather take my chances with a 9.0 earthquake any day. Well, partly that's because of our own weirdnesses, that we have our different fears. But the larger part of the story is, you know, I am a Californian, and I am accustomed to the costs and benefits of being in the place where I came of age. And my instinct watching, you know, real or fictional cinema about tornadoes is, how about you just move? You know, you can leave right now. I'll. 25 bucks to get the U Haul. You never have to worry about a tornado again. And that's just not the way people think.

[Chris Arnotti]

No, it's not the way most. What. You know, most normies think. And, I mean, it doesn't mean that they're hard, fast, you know, but it's central to a lot of people's identity.

[James Polis]

People want a home.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

And not just within the four walls of their home and not just, you know, on. On the Internet.

[Chris Arnotti]

I'm. I'm at. I'm at. I call myself a cultural essentialist. I think culture matters a lot. And where I'm. Where I. Where I. Where I get a lot of grief from other intellectuals is especially on the left. You can't talk about culture on the left. But I effectively say, and it's intentionally provocative, that we're culturally groomed. Where you grow up matters. It teaches you essentially, your concept of who you are and how you see the world. And the idea that you can just hop around the world like I do, that's my job. That's not normal for most people. And it's forced me to recognize how unopened minded I actually am, being in a lot of these places where I'm forced to recognize, look, I'm an American as much as I, you know, just badmouth a lot of our country. I was raised here. I come with a lot of American, you know, cultural baggage. I don't think it's baggage. This is who I am.

[James Polis]

Right.

[Chris Arnotti]

But, you know, and so that's where.

[James Polis]

Your belongings are, in your baggage.

[Chris Arnotti]

And, you know, there's nothing wrong with that and you really. People need to get. We in the intellectual, the front row, the educated elite are so dismissive of the idea that people might slightly be different. Like we're all supposed to be the same. Well, no, actually, you know, Ugandans are very different than Kenyans and they're very different from Vietnamese and they're very different from Americans. And that's something you should be proud of and celebrate. You can't just, you know, you can't just get up and change places.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

Like, you're groomed from a very early age to believe a certain way and that's where you're comfortable.

[James Polis]

Yeah, this culture on the left stuff is really becoming crazy. I mean, you know, I'm old enough to remember that multiculturalism was like what the left did. It's like culture is the most important thing and everyone has their own culture. We have to celebrate. And you have to celebrate it even if you don't like it. And things have somehow changed and what we have now is like, oh, yes, you know, culture is important as long as it becomes kind of this like, reified identity that isn't actually like, it's only rooted to a place. It doesn't last for a long time.

[Chris Arnotti]

Only a few people be proud of the culture. And that's whoever the elites have as their pet minorities currently.

[James Polis]

Right.

[Chris Arnotti]

Like right now it seems to be Muslims. Like, I happen to be, you know, I happen to be very, very. I quite admire the Muslim faith. I spent a lot of my best trips in Muslim countries. But the weird fetishization that the left has, you know, is it's just they move on. They'll get tired of their pet and move on to the next group that they fetishize. Yes. But it's all very offensive.

[James Polis]

You have to keep the tumble of diversity churning. It's like those margarita machines where, you know, it's always gotta be going around or else it gets stale real quick.

[Chris Arnotti]

I mean, you know, and. Whereas, you know, what frustrates me is that they also see, you know, the elites see the US as this, you know, this place they actually quite hate. Like, again, I think there's a lot of problems in the United States, but, you know, it's a nation that if you, if you live here, you should be proud of being here. Like, you know, you can't hate your own country. Not just disdain for it.

[James Polis]

No, no good comes of it.

[Chris Arnotti]

I mean, you know, they look at the, they look at the country as being filled with, you know, just, just a, a racist hell hole when, you know, we're one of the least racist countries in the world. Yeah, by far, by far.

[James Polis]

Well, and you know, of course like the right has its own sort of weird problems when it comes to culture. And I think a lot of them have to do with the same sort of issue with education that you're identifying. Like intellectualizing culture just undermines the whole experience of culture. And you know, God bless them, I got friends on the right. We need to get back to culture. And politics is downstream of culture. And that's why you need to read my new essay about culture and its like, man, you know, I understand that a lot of us got sucked into that education system and succeeded up to a certain point. And one day you wake up and you're a mid career professional and you just can't really do anything except talk about stuff and write about stuff. And you see people's hearts yearning to restore the centrality of that which is cultivated and the life that is possible when things that you live amidst cultivation of things and they're in this position where they kind of can't do that, but they can write about it and they can quote their favorite authors about it. And I've written some books and I've written lots of essays and I'm not saying torch them all, but it isn't a substitute. And it's painful to see people trying to work their way back to the real thing.

[Chris Arnotti]

Right. I mean, I always feel very guilty and embarrassed when I tell people what I do who actually can do things.

[James Polis]

Really?

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah, I mean, you know, I was just in the Twin Peaks last night, like near here. I love Twin Peaks, by the way. But you know, when people ask what I do, like I'm a writer, like, you know, I don't lie about what I do. I don't pretend to cosplay as a working class guy. Like I'm a travel writer, which, you know, like when the zombie apocalypse comes, I'm useless.

[James Polis]

Well, at least you're doing better than a standing desk, which is as close to walking as most writers get, you.

[Chris Arnotti]

Know, So I do feel like I have a lot of admiration for people who actually produce stuff, who actually, you know, make things, who actually keep this country running, you know, who feed us, who keep us safe. You know, it's a luxury to be an intellectual and I wish more intellectuals respected that.

[James Polis]

Well, and you know, I am curious. I mean, you know, physics, Ph.D. and 20 plus years trading bonds. Like, this is not the classic profile of someone with deep preoccupations concerning like the source of spiritual well, being among ordinary people. So, like, what makes you different?

[Chris Arnotti]

Curiosity. Each of my paths. I was kind of a math prodigy as a kid, and so when you are a math prodigy as a kid, you kind of just do things without really questioning why you're doing them. So I got funneled into doing particle physics because it was easy. I know that sounds absurd.

[James Polis]

No, I get it. I mean, that's kind of what the education system is designed to do.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know what I mean?

[James Polis]

I identified the best talents and just.

[Chris Arnotti]

I mean, I dedicated my PhD thesis to the abysmal career department at my undergraduate school. Like, I didn't know I could do anything else. Right. But also, there was a. There was a bit of a shy kid who. And I've had to learn, you know, I've learned over the course of my life that I actually really like people. And I. You know, so it's kind of a shift from numbers to people and realizing that I learn more and I'm happier at a very selfish level when I'm just immersed with people as opposed to sitting around looking at numbers. So the step, the particle physics again, I know it sounds absurd, but it was path of least resistance. In some ways, it was easy. And then the pivot to physics, to Wall street was again, it was putting one foot in the real world. Like, I heard that you can make money doing math on Wall street. And like, okay, I've never made money doing math before, right. And it was fun, it was a challenge, and it was. It was interesting. But after a while, that also got to feel very fake. And I got lucky enough to have made enough money where I didn't necessarily need to worry about always hustling to make money. So I'm like, why hustle to make money? And, you know, I just went. I pivoted 180 degrees, and I started spending time with homeless addicts in the Bronx because, you know, I realized I had only known about that part of the world as something I drove through.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

Like, you know, and there were some spiritual moments going on. I was becoming more religious. I was starting to think about. Think about the world in a more holistic way instead of just thinking it as numbers on a spreadsheet is what most intellectuals do these days. They just look at the world as spreadsheets.

[James Polis]

Was there an impetus for you where that kind of religious awakening set in, or did it just kind of grow?

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, it was a slow. You know, I wish I could say I had an aha moment, like, you know, but it was much more Of a slow realization that you know the way. Being an intellectual who is shielded by books, who looks at things through equations. Someone's called it spreadsheet brain. Having spreadsheets brain actually removes you from the evidence for faith because there's an immense hubris that comes with being an intellectual. You think we can, we can solve everything, like, just give me enough cpu, give me enough computer hours, give me enough hours in the library, give me enough assistant graduate students. We'll solve that problem. And eventually when you go out in the real world, you realize that there are just problems that are intractable and that we're just kind of very. You need to accept a humbleness toward how, how large the world is and how magnificent it is in many ways and how unexplainable it is. And for me, you know, I spent four years becoming very close friends with heroin addicts in the Bronx, People who literally lived under, in Hunts Point, who lived under bridges.

[James Polis]

And we're just talking about you just heading down there and hanging out.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah, basically that's what happened.

[James Polis]

And striking up conversations that it happened over there.

[Chris Arnotti]

It took about six months to get their confidence, but it was really just basically that, just walking around and just being open minded and just talking to them as people.

[James Polis]

Well, and I gotta say, one of the deep crazinesses here, as I'm hearing this story, is for so many Americans, the obstacle to having that experience is not really fear of crime or, you know, fear of a gang of heroin addicts messing with you or, oh, maybe I'll, you know, succumb to the temptation. It's just the discomfort with walking up to a stranger, introducing yourself, having a conversation, and getting to know someone outside of your immediate bubble.

[Chris Arnotti]

I had a, I had an epiphany and I could, I can remember exactly where I was. I was on the end train coming back from Wall Street. It was my first. I was 28 years old. 28 years old. 29 years old. It was my first six months on Wall street and I was always relatively shy. And I never understood the awkwardness of initial interactions that we were like, do you put your hand out? You know, And I said, I had an aha moment. I said, holy. Nobody understands it, so I'm just not going to worry about it. Yeah. Like, so now I just barge in. Yeah. And you know, I am kind of. People say I'm most comfortable in a place I shouldn't be. Like, I've. For most of my work in the US I was the sole white guy. I've walked into black churches where I'm the only white person I've walked into bars. And Milwaukee's north side, the Scorpion Lounge, where I was the only white person. Chuck's. Chuck's bar over in north side as well. The first minute's a bit awkward, but, you know, if you're a decent person and you show that actually you have no fear in a true way.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

Not in a pretend way. And you're just there just because, like, you're curious and you just want to share a drink. You know, I spent most of my nights in Kampala in a bar that is. Was 30 black guys, you know, watching the Euro cup, right. You know, that had a deep freeze where they had the beer and there was. Down the alley was a place you could piss in a hole. Like, the first five seconds there was awkward. Like, well, you know, they call white people musingo what's the musungo doing here? Right. But you know, when they realize I'm there just to drink beer and listen to music and watch the game, I was like, okay, he's just.

[James Polis]

Just another bar.

[Chris Arnotti]

Just another bar.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, so that initial re interaction can be awkward, but, you know, it is awkward for everybody. Get over it.

[James Polis]

Do you think our education system is making us antisocial?

[Chris Arnotti]

Oh, hell yeah. I think, you know, I look at, I look at the generation, my kids generation, like, interacting with people is considered like a weird thing to do. And it's actually been institutionalized in the sense of if you, if you wanted to do what I did in academics, which is go out and talk to heroin addicts, go into trap houses at three in the morning, you couldn't get approval for that because they would say, you're going to harm somebody or you're going to harm yourself. So we've made it actually, you know, human interaction is messy. You can't formalize it. You can't like, put rules on what. There's unwritten rules. Just know what you do. Like, there are times I get, I leave, right. It's like when I realize, okay, I've overstepped my boundaries. Like, you just, you also know you can't write those down. You just know when those. Like, this is the wrong place to be.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

So we've made, you know, we've sheltered kids so much that they don't know how to interact. You know, I see it with, I see it with my own children. I see it with her friends. You know, there is messiness that comes with human interaction. That's just what it is. And you just accept it like, you know, you just move on. You get beyond that because there's a greater good that comes from it.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

And so, you know, you just need to. I don't have any, you know, some people have called it brashness, but I just, I just like, it's what humans do, man.

[James Polis]

Yes. That's now extreme.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

I mean, I'm even thinking of just like, you know, when you're going through higher education or whatever, if you need help on your studies or on your homework, like that's a humiliation. That's a bad, that's a very bad thing to have to include someone else in your learning process. You know, you're somehow supposed to be able to exist in this totally self contained, you know, really like a brain in a vat. And the pervasive competition, you know, you're supposed to be, have some kind of class identity with your fellow strivers, but you all sort of know that you're interchangeable in a certain sense. And the competition ends up turning into, can I be just like this person to my left but just that much better. That's really unhealthy.

[Chris Arnotti]

Right. But I think we've also, I think the other thing we've done is we've made so many avenues for harm available. Like when you interact with somebody. Oh, okay, that's true in the least space. It's not true in working class spaces. Working class people don't care. Whatever.

[James Polis]

Yes, harm is a part of life.

[Chris Arnotti]

It's like, you know, that person's being a dick or whatever. Just like, you know, you just write it off. But it's now been institutionalized that that person harmed me, you know, a myriad of different ways. So the net result is like, if you're, if you're somebody who likes people as I do, like why I'm not going to interact with people, they're going to see potential avenues of me being, you know, having insulted them in some way, shape or form. So people have just basically stopped interacting at a very basic human level. And you so, you know, go back to one of the first questions you ask about what have I learned being outside the rest of the rest of the world doesn't have that problem. Like, you know, there used to be like, you know, there's an old phrase from roughly, you know, my generation which is like, you know, you don't have to apologize for what happened in a bar because it's not a cathedral, like it's the bar. Like, you know, but you let, you let things roll over you Know you just roll with the punches and that sort of the messiness of being able to accept interactions and just being friends and being around other humans is not something the rest of the world is worried about.

[James Polis]

Is it really just as like night and day us versus the rest of the world. Have you been anywhere where you sort of see what ails us starting to.

[Chris Arnotti]

Seep in the English speaking countries. The well to do are following us leads of basically bubble wrapping humans emotionally and physically so that they're scared to deal with other people. And it's primarily elite thing again you know the working class in the US doesn't have this problem not to the Although it's bubbling down because I really do think culture trickles down. So I've started seeing, you know, when I spend time with what I lovingly call losers, you know the very, very bottom the street addicts. I'm starting to see harm language bubble down and being used by them. This so that everything is an avenue of harm. You've. You've done me an institutional racism like, like that never was there 10 years ago.

[James Polis]

Right. Seeing yourself as an object and not.

[Chris Arnotti]

A subject or as an object that is. Is always, always a very, a very easily harmed object. You know. So no, the rest of the world is like, you know part of the reason I spend so much time outside the US is it's just, it's just so nice in the sense of being around people who remember what it is to be a person. And so when I'm in the U.S. i try to stay away from elite spaces for the same reason which is they're so emotionally cold, they're so stale.

[James Polis]

You can almost feel that prophylactic thing.

[Chris Arnotti]

And that's something that's, that's happened over my lifetime that that wasn't the case.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

Well Covid really just took it to place.

[Chris Arnotti]

Covid accelerated the process.

[James Polis]

Yeah, but it was there before. COVID is there before the Internet. It's been building for a long time.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah, but Covid basically put in a fast forward and jumped at a decade ahead.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

Have you been anywhere where you felt like I wish I could stay.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, I had to. I'm. I'm leaving the US for the election. So I don't want to be here in October.

[James Polis]

November seems like maybe you're going to have a more peaceful fall than the rest of us.

[Chris Arnotti]

And I really. So I've always been running through my head where would I. Where could I live?

[James Polis]

Right.

[Chris Arnotti]

And so I had to actually the answers have been Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Seoul Korea, Ulamtar, Mongolia. Right. But when I actually went to book the trip, like about a month ago, it ended up. Ended up being Vietnam.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

And so there's just a healthy balance of kind of communalism, enough economic growth that. And just people are just so, so genuine.

[James Polis]

I've heard good things.

[Chris Arnotti]

And the other thing is it's about 12 hours different from the US so I'll be completely.

[James Polis]

Will be totally detached, as detached as.

[Chris Arnotti]

I can be from the upcoming madness.

[James Polis]

Seoul is an interesting one for me. You probably know this better than many. The demographics in South Korea are not looking good.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah. So that basically made. That was. Was the reason that I find it depressing.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

There's no kids. Right. And you know, so.

[James Polis]

And no. Seemingly not a lot of interest.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yep.

[James Polis]

Not a lot of regret.

[Chris Arnotti]

And it's. It's to go to fly from. I will fly. I'm land. My round trip is actually to Seoul because of logistical reasons. But I'll go from Seoul to Vietnam or probably Laos first. But that is night and day because there are children. And so I remember taking that initial flight initially and going, wow. They're like, what's, what's. What's different here? Oh, there's a lot of kids. It's very. It's very young and, you know, their soul. I like, had a kind of good food. Right. Balance of development. Very friendly people. But it starts to become depressing because it's very secular in a way, and a very. It's a very. What I call a very thin culture in the sense of they've raised cute to almost religious to the point where it feels very vapid and empty and it starts grading on you eventually. This sense of like you're celebrating cartoon characters almost as religious icons. Yeah.

[James Polis]

You look at K Pop and start to think like this is the last generation. Like there aren't that many younger South Koreans than the ones who are up there. That generation that's doing the K pop.

[Chris Arnotti]

Thing, they do love to drink, though. Yeah, they absolutely love to drink in a way that few countries like. One of my things I do when I go to a country is I like to watch the rom coms that locally produce rom coms. And they still have a. Every rom. Every Korean rom com has a scene where everybody gets blastedly drunk and is played for humor. So it's kind of like the old US concept of the funny drunk. So they love drinking.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

Has there been any place that really just surprised you that kind of has like a bad reputation or where you think that the people are really misunderstood.

[Chris Arnotti]

In the U.S. probably. Probably. Probably Amman, Jordan.

[James Polis]

Interesting.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, it's probably one of the most, I think in the US we have a very cartoonish version of Muslim faith.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

And there's a reason we have that we haven't seen the best necessarily. Whereas, you know, I walked all over Amman, you know, parts where I was told not to go because it was too dangerous. And I was welcomed everywhere to the point where, and this is the biggest problem I've had as a traveler is you're overwhelmed with gratitude to the point where like, it's like it slows your movement. Like, you know, hey, come have a drink with me. Hey, can I give you free food? Hey, come inside, let me show you my cat. You know, just like this continual friendliness that can be very embarrassing because people insist on buying you drinks and you're.

[James Polis]

Like, on drink 10, you're like.

[Chris Arnotti]

Or. But also like, you know, you're so. I make. I literally have probably a thousand times more than you do.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

And you're buying me a drink. You know, it feels very. And so, But Jordan was just. People were so friendly. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. You know, and a true generosity that's very central to what the Muslim faith, you know, the idea that you're supposed to be very welcoming to outsiders.

[James Polis]

Well, and that's also a part of the world where in many places actually the demographics aren't upside down.

[Chris Arnotti]

No, they're not upside down.

[James Polis]

You know, maybe there has to be a little war sometimes for that to happen. Iraq, Afghanistan, lots of kids now.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah. So I think the Jordan has probably been the one that I think where the reputation is probably the most different from the reality.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

Fascinating. When it comes to the demographics thing, when it comes to the kids, do you think that this country is headed for some kind of population bust?

[Chris Arnotti]

I mean, you know, I think if it weren't for immigration perhaps. I do think a lot of my writing and my future focus is going to. I leave in two days on a month long tour of the US Effectively talking to people about the American dream. And the American dream includes having kids. You know, it's this idea that you can, if you're, if you, if you have an idea, if you have a, if you work hard enough, play by the rules and have a good enough idea, you can build a life for your kids that's better than your own. And I think the only people I really see in the us the only groups that feel that still exist is effectively Mexican Americans, recent Mexican American immigrants, where, you know, and A lot of that is given is that they still have a very strong sense of faith, they still have strong sense of family, but also what they come from. They're still very happy with what they have because of so much more than what they came from. But families have been here three or four generations. I think the American dream is starting to basically tip over and feel exposed and feel empty. And so the most depressing stories I've heard in the US is, you know, I was very early to write about and focus on the. The opioid epidemic and ope. You know, basically shooting up drugs is a form of suicide. Yeah, it's just a slower form. It's a kind of almost Russian roulette form. But when you think about suicide, that's one of the most damning things you can do as a human being. It's a very human act. Animals don't kill themselves. And it's effectively saying, it's the ultimate, no, I don't want to be part of this. And the people I've heard that talk to who across the United States, I remember one in particular in Battle Creek, Michigan, this was in 2016, 2017 or so, who was maybe 75, older couple. And I remember I forgot what I had asked her, but she basically said she's glad she's not young. Wow. And think about that. Say that you're glad you're not alone young because she saw her grandchildren. What we're not going to have the life she has. That's effectively intellectual suicide. Saying, I would love to be 20. I don't know about you.

[James Polis]

Sure.

[Chris Arnotti]

I don't want to die. And I think in the United States, that attitude is what causes people not to have kids in some senses.

[James Polis]

I think back to one of the other great itinerant journalists, Hunter S. Thompson, who infamously went to Circus Circus to find the American dream that was sort of the conceit of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Was he was on assignment for Rolling Stone trying to figure out if the American dream was dead. And, you know, this was, I think, 1972. Right. And so the kind of dark comedy of the book is it's not dead. It's in Circus Circus, Las Vegas, Nevada. And it's kind of like become this exaggerated fun house, insane version of whatever it used to be. There's a lot of nostalgia now in this country, not necessarily for 1972, but some people it's the 90s, some people it's the 80s, some people it's the 50s. Not a lot of it's not just that there's not a lot of hope for the future, which bothers a lot of the tech guys I know. Come on, we are futurism. We need to bring that. Okay, maybe. But what about right now? What about the present? Does anyone have hope for the present? And a lot of that seems to be just so elusive right now. And that's not the kind of the weirdness that Hunter Thompson was trying to figure out when it was the 70s and America was looking like it had been through hell. And what's. Are we still who we think we are? We're beyond that now. We're somewhere else entirely. And I wonder if you feel like you have a bead on where exactly that is.

[Chris Arnotti]

I think there has been a shattering of any form of communities. You go back to the 70s. I was a child then. But there was a shared sense of being American. I still remember when President Carter came on the PA system to say that the failed helicopter attempt to rescue the hostages on Iran. That's something we all heard about. You went through a shared experience. I don't think there's a shared experience in the US anymore. Like, you know, we all watch Roots. There are these things that we all did as a nation together. And, you know, I don't feel very much like the US has a kind of codified whole. There's a shared experience. We're just a bunch of, you know, we're a bunch of atoms bumping around in this vat who happen, you know, I think the shared ethos when I'm in Japan. Right. Japan is very. Being Japanese is very important to the Japanese. They're preserving that. That's very central to who they are. Being Muslim is very important to the Jordanians. What's very important to the United States? What keeps us together? I've always thought it was the American dream, this kind of idea that it's almost a prosperity gospel that we've raised to this kind of religious level, that it's fully secular. But it's been raised to kind of a. Almost a metaphysical idea that feels like it's. It's. It's kind of collapsing. If you can't. If you. If you can't do that, then what? We have nothing together as a country. We're just, you know, like there's no. There's no shared. There's no shared direction. And that's bad.

[James Polis]

It does. I mean, it is bad. On the other hand, at least we're a big country. And it might not always feel like the land of plenty, but it's still pretty big, and there's still a lot of plenty relative to a lot of other places. So what I'm asking, is there a new center of gravity that people are gonna locate themselves in, do you think, where. Maybe it's not the whole country, but maybe it's something that would be more familiar to, you know, Americans from 150, 200 years ago, where it's, it's more regional, it's more local.

[Chris Arnotti]

You know, the people find. People have found online communities. They find, you know, you know, they're still niche, niche groups. I don't know. I don't know if Americans, you know, I feel that those, those groups have to be physical groups.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

I think the difference. I think. I don't think online friendships are as meaningful. Maybe that's just me being an old guy, but, you know, maybe there'll be a revival of the. Of kind of like, you know, hobbyists in the U.S. like, where, you know, where you find. You can find the same people who like to fly folk graph triplane mini planes, like, and you get together once a year, you know.

[James Polis]

Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of someone who has, I guess, a lot of online, you know, colleagues, associates, people I used to live near and don't anymore, I really feel like I wish I lived in a small town with all of these people.

[Chris Arnotti]

Right.

[James Polis]

But I often feel like I wish I could see them more and just having the entire relationship reduced down to, you know, a little video screen this big, which it's usually not a video screen. It's usually just like messages in a group chat. You know, it's, it's, it's not bad. Exactly, but it's not real.

[Chris Arnotti]

I mean, you know, I recently wrote a piece that for me went relatively viral, which was saying that European. Europe has a healthier place because of everything in the US is, what are you going to get out of this? Like, some people just want to exist. Like, you just go to the bar and hang out with your friends, just. Or you just go to the bar to hang out. Not because you have a career goal. Not because, like, it's like you just. And you know that the kind of third spaces, you know, the places those are less and less well.

[James Polis]

And what I've read from you, it's basically McDonald's in the Walmart parking lot, right?

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah. And, you know, Covid changed a lot of that. You know, I don't necessarily, you know, when I pointed out the McDonald's are community centers in a lot of places, that was not necessarily what that was supposed to show is that how much, how deeply people want community. They want it so much that they'll form it in McDonald's. You know, think about the whole point of McDonald's. It was designed to be entirely transactional. And people are like, no, actually I want to sit here and talk to other people.

[James Polis]

Yeah, right over fast food.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yes. And that just. To me, my whole kind of point on McDonald's was supposed to be that humans are fundamentally social creatures. And when you take the social out of existence, it becomes a void that gets filled with ugly stuff, drugs, extreme politics, you know, just ranting. Like, it almost feels like if I say to somebody, what did you do last night? Oh, I just hung out at the Twin Peaks. For what? Just to hang out. Why do I have to explain myself? Like, were you writing an article? No, just hanging out, just talking to people.

[James Polis]

Although it's. Now, you don't need to provide an excuse for why. If you say, oh, yeah, I was just on my phone all night. Yeah, just like stayed in bed, just scrolling.

[Chris Arnotti]

One of the long walks I recently did is I walked up the Rhone Valley in France and walked. I do these long walks. It was like 250 mile walk over two weeks. And I'd walk 15 miles, stop in these little small town cafes at night and just sit there and rest. Nobody's on their phone, man. Fewer. Yeah, but they were just sitting there existing. You know, there's this. A friend of mine just sent me this quote by the theologian about leisure and suggesting that, you know, if you ask an American, what, what's leisure? It usually comes with like, things that get accomplished. Whereas, you know, the leisure should be something where you just, you don't have to explain yourself.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

You're just, you know.

[James Polis]

Yeah, well, it's, you know, it's interesting. One of my favorite biblical parables is the parable of the talent. You know, and sort of three guys get. You get one and you get five and you get ten. The lord of the manor, and he says, you know, I'll be back, so go make some money with the money that I've given you. And the guy who gets one is worried that if he tries to make more money off of his one talent, he might lose the one talent and have nothing. So he buries it in a hole in the ground. And the Lord comes back and says, like, okay. And the guy with 10 is like, no, I have 20. And it's like, great. And the guy with five says, well, now I have 10. And like, that's also good. And the guy with one says, well, I hit it. And here's your one talent back. And the Lord is angry. He's like, you did not understand the assignment. And of course, this is a metaphor for spiritual treasure. The spirit is in you now, and you, you gotta go put it in circulation. And, you know, it's just, it's very hard to put the spirit in circulation when you are isolated, when you are closed in on yourself. And so, you know, you go down to the cafe and you see people kind of just hanging out.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

Maybe they're, you know, having the dignified solitary experience of remembering that they're human, but maybe they're also, you know, just in a small but very important way, keeping the spirit in circulation.

[Chris Arnotti]

I mean, that's become harder in the US Especially post Covid. Yeah, like we've, you know, we still have the plexiglass systems around. Like, it's become very impersonal.

[James Polis]

There's still those dots on the sidewalk sometimes. Keep your distance. What a terrible slogan for public health. Keep your distance.

[Chris Arnotti]

Exactly.

[James Polis]

And they made it up six feet. Oh, yeah, I made that one up. I mean, Fauci is on record as saying this. It's, you know, I mean, that's a sort of story for another day. But how long is your American Dream tour gonna be?

[Chris Arnotti]

It'd be, it'll be basically a little over three weeks.

[James Polis]

Okay. Because I'd love to have you back on and sort of see where people are at.

[Chris Arnotti]

I did exactly this project literally nine years ago, and it was during the rise of Trump as a candidate.

[James Polis]

So this is a decade long study that would not be permitted to go through as a PhD thesis because of the risk of harm to yourself and others.

[Chris Arnotti]

You can't. I would have to get all sorts of, what's it called, IRS or ieps or whatever it's called. There's some internal system they have where they basically say if you talk to people like you're a bad person.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

Okay, so nine years ago you did it.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

And you came away from that tour thinking, what?

[Chris Arnotti]

Well, first of all, I thought Trump could win the presidency, which got people laughed at me for. Because that's all people wanted to talk about. But it was depressing. It's kind of where I formulated my idea of there being a kind of, you know, it changed a lot of how I thought about the world because how the elites were completely and utterly out of touch with their own country. Yeah, absolutely. I can't even like it. It's frustrating. As a writer Because I can't describe how out of touch they are, you know. You know, they're just. They don't know their country. They don't like their. They don't like the people in their country. They don't know. They don't know them, and they're scared.

[James Polis]

Of them, and it's a dangerous combination.

[Chris Arnotti]

And so. And the problem is, you know, it'd be nice if you could ignore the elites, but you can't ignore them. They run stuff.

[Irving]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Polis]

And not always very well.

[Chris Arnotti]

And not very well at all.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

And so their values filter down. And so what I learned then was how deep of a resentment there was in the country towards the educated class, which includes me.

[James Polis]

Sure.

[Chris Arnotti]

And so that began some soul searching on me of, like, you know, okay, well, you know, maybe I should change how I. How I behave and question what I believe. But, you know, the. It's been a frustrating decade because when I saw this, I thought, well, I'll go back to my old elite friends and say, hey, look what I found. And they go, yay. Oh, great, we're going to change fieldwork. Instead. They called me a racist apologist. You know, all sorts of words.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

Like, they don't want anything to do with me being like, what do you mean? Like, you know, that they're. The population is deluded. They're racist, they're whatever. Like, you know, they're idiots. They need more education. You know, so it's like, at a personal level, it was very intellectually frustrating because I just wanted to say, just get in a car and go. Go visit Portsmouth, Ohio. Don't go to the nonprofit. Don't go talk to the activist class. Don't go talk to the mayor. Don't go talk to the three NGOs and the head of the Republican Party or the head of Democratic Party. Don't do any of that. Go to the McDonald's, sit there and talk to people. Go into the Walmart, go into the dive bars, go into the churches. Just talk to people and you'll see that you do not understand your country. And a lot of people feel insulted, demeaned, misunderstood. They feel unloved, unappreciated. They feel right. And they correctly understand that the elites see them with disdain. They understand the contempt.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[Chris Arnotti]

And, you know, so when you go back and tell the Elise, either give me an example of the contempt they feel, it's like, dude, man, you don't get.

[James Polis]

Yeah, well, it's damning. It really is. And I think one way or another, a reckoning is coming.

[Chris Arnotti]

Yeah. I mean, you know, the ability to ignore the problem and make it go away. And again, elites are elites because they have a lot of power, a lot of ways to deny and hide things.

[Irving]

Yeah.

[James Polis]

At least for now. Well, I, for one, will be very curious to see how your tour goes this time. And the doors open. So, Chris Arnotti, thanks so much.

[Chris Arnotti]

Thank you for having me.

[James Polis]

That's all the time we got this time around. Until next time. Thanks to Chris. I'm James Polis. This is Zero Hour, and may God have mercy on us all.