Hello and welcome to Let's Pod this. My name is Andy Moore. Friends, welcome back and happy Halloween. Uh, joining me again this week is our good friend and colleague, Dr. Keith Gaddie. Welcome back to the Democracy Den. Good to be back down here. Andy. Uh, it's been a few weeks since you were on, and in our last episode we were talking about grievance politics. Yes. And the role of grievance in American politics more broadly. Uh, you know, one of the things that I think we can start talking about as a, as a reentry point here is particularly salient for you as a guest because you have a, a expertise in architecture. And that's the new White House ballroom that's going up? Yes. The construction there that has, at least from what I have read, not gone according to plan as the plan was revealed to the American public. Uh, but there's a lot more to it and I think it's probably helpful for listeners to get a little bit of bearings on some information about the White House and like how it got to be where it is today. So let's talk about the building itself and then we'll talk about the construction project and then. Where grievance enters into all of that. Right. So, uh, so, you know, the White House was uh, uh, designed in 1790s and construction was begun. And first occupant of the White House was, uh, uh, John Quincy Adams. I mean John Adams, the father who took occupancy up just before turning over power to Thomas Jefferson after the 1800 election. And, uh, the White House was designed, it's, uh. It is a, uh, federalist and neoclassical design building, which bears a remarkable similarity to the Parliament building of Ireland in Dublin, the old Irish pa. They're almost identical. Um, but uh, the building was meant to be a palace of sufficient. Splendor and awe that a visitor coming from Europe will be impressed by it. Um, and it is an impressive building. It is large. You could find plantation houses in select parts of the south that were much larger, uh, that were built in the early part of the 19th century, but it was one of the most magnificent buildings built in North America prior, uh, leading up to 1800. And it was a lot smaller originally than it is today. Right? Yeah. People have been there in the last, you know, 10 or 20 years. It's. Has become almost a little bit of a sprawling on campus is a little bit overstatement, but there's more to it than just what we think of as the White House. Yeah. Well the White House, you know, you think about it, you've got the core building, the original building, which is the center of the, uh, the center of the, the White House Complex. And there's a north and a south portico that were added to it during the 19th century, one of which is rounded front neoclassical, design portico, and the other of which is more of a traditional temple pediment. Okay. Temple Impediment with the columns on it. Uh, in addition to that, at the beginning of the 20th century, uh, expansions were added on the west side, the West Wing, which we all know from television and the East Wing. Soon after, uh, the McKim firm out of, uh, Philadelphia did the design on those parts of the White House, and they stayed inside this traditional Neoclassical style. Um, those wings are lower. Then the main house, they're connected at some distance from it. Okay. So you, you've got, you know, a small covered walkway. You can go down from e from the main house to get to either one of the wings and to a certain extent from the front of the White House, or largely obscured by landscaping. Okay. Um, beneath the East Wing, there is a command bunker that was put into place, um, many decades ago as an emergency management center. This is not the situation room that we hear about in fiction. This is a different facility. Um, and the East Wing has traditionally been sort of the domain largely of, um, the first lady. Has always been the perception of it. While the West Wing is the admin, the administrative center for the president. Right. The, the Executive Hub, the Oval Office was installed in the West Wing by William Howard Taft. Okay. A lot of people, they look at the White House, they see that rounded backside, and there are oval rooms in the main building. That's not the Oval Office, but inspiration for the Oval Office comes from those oval rooms. And then that Oval Office office was later updated by Franklin Donna Roosevelt in a renovation and expansion of the West Wing in the 19th. Thirties. This is to say that the White House has gone through a lot of iterations. And expansions, but they tend to be, um, these expansions tend to not threaten the primacy of the residents in the middle, okay? They don't distract from where the center of the building is. They don't draw the eye away from it. Um, in 1948, the Trumans had the White House completely renovated and actually moved out of the building for a couple of years. 'cause it had fallen into such disrepair. There was actually structural damage going back to the burning of the building during the war of 1812 that had never been fully addressed. So we've gone through some patterns and some iterations. Richard Nixon, uh, uh, there was a swim indoor swimming pool that he had covered up to make a press room, uh, for the press to be able to meet with the, uh, the president. So the White House briefing room actually does have a swimming pool underneath it. Oh, that's funny. It's kind of fun. Yeah. Um, there's a bowling alley added at some point. There was a bowling alley in the basement and, uh, since it's been moved, it's over in the Eisenhower building now. Mm. Mm-hmm. Which seems fitting. You know, it's, and if you've ever never seen the Eisenhower building, the old executive office building is a second empire style monster. Mm-hmm. That when it was finished was the largest office building in the world. Really? Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. When you get inside, I've been in that building twice, I think, and both times, I, I was struck by how easy it would be to get lost in it, because everything looks the same. Oh, it's insane. It's huge. Uh, of course it was, uh, supplanted in that, um, with that title ultimately by the Pentagon. Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. So, um, I've not been inside that building, but uh, I have, yeah, it's, you could spend days trying to get around it as well, but fortunately, eventually you'll come back to where you started. Right, right. After you make four turns, then you're back to where you started. Exactly. Yeah. And if, uh, listeners have ever gone to do a tour of the White House, like a traditional tumor that you would request through your. Member of Congress, you usually, at least in my experience, you enter on the east side through the East Gate and they take you through all the security. Yep. And then you are really doing a tour of that middle portion. Right. And you see yeah, the, the, the re the where the residence is and you're touring the public bill, uh, the public areas. Yeah. So, you know, the ballroom and things like that. You'll see the, uh, the display of China, the various first ladies. And you know, the truth is, I was talking with a friend about this this morning at the gym. Both the Capitol Tour and the White House tour were kind of disappointing. Mm-hmm. For anybody that's really a politics person. Right. I don't wanna see the damn China. Yeah. I wanna see the politics. Right. I wanna see where the history was made. Yeah. And you don't get that on either tour anymore. You gotta know somebody. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or be there on business. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's very difficult. I mean, the donor White House tour. Which I've never been on is really cool. Okay. Because that one you actually can, usually, you could get to the West Wing on that kind of thing, but that's a very special tour for very special people. Yeah. And there is a check you can write to go on that tour, but probably better off just watch the West Wing on TV and pretend Right. Most if it can't afford that check, it'll be more cost effective that way. Yeah. So under the current administration, uh, president Trump has done, I think, two major renovations that have been in the news. One is. The rose garden and mm-hmm. Converting into more of a patio environment Yes. Rather than just like a grassy lawn. Yes. And then the second is the ballroom that's currently under construction. Mm-hmm. Um, what do you know about the rose garden? And then let's get into, okay. Well, and we also have to remember the, also been some, um, embellishments inside the West Wing. For example, the introduction of the gilding. Uh, on the walls and gilded features, which ends up making the Oval Office in particular, but the West Wing look more Baroque. Mm-hmm. And Baroque and Neoclassical don't really go together that well necessarily. It can work, but not like this. I'm critical of this. Not that I don't like Baroque architecture, it just doesn't. Look. Right. Okay. There's something wrong about it. Is the, can I ask you, and that's being extended into the ballroom incidentally. Oh, right, right. Yeah. So on the, on a note about design Yeah. And, and style here. You mentioned that the White House itself is the Neoclassical Federalist style Yes. Of architecture. And you mentioned the one in Ireland that's very similar. Yeah. Um, I guess I, it would be technically Georgian, but Georgian and Federalist are highly similar. Okay. So yeah. Is the. I guess I probably always thought, because so much of Washington DC is in that same Federalist style and many other Yeah. Government buildings around the country are that, that was kind of a uniquely American style, but I honestly don't know the history. Oh, no, no. It, this is a fun thing. Um, I teach a class on this. I, I taught it at OU in the architecture college, and I teach it down at TCU, called Architecture, democracy. And what's really fun is that Neoclassical, which is. The temple elements, the pediments, the columns, the use of symmetry, uh, use of stone, um, uh, uh, Roman, Roman arches, for example, or Greek, uh, flat. Lets, um, that style was used by the British during the Empire. Uh, it was used in Germany during the Empire. You find it in a variety of countries around the world that. Don't necessarily have Democratic regimes. Mm-hmm. But the rise of Neoclassical in the US is very, very much. Associated with the rise of the Republican democracy around 1800 because Thomas Jefferson, when he designed the Virginia Capital Building, took inspiration from a Roman temple in South France and neem, and I mean it's, it's almost a dead wringer. Mm-hmm. This was the first inflection, and then by 1840, neoclassical become the predominant form for designing state capitals as well. In the North Carolina Capital Building is the first capital building, including the US Capitol. To be fully neoclassical capital form. Okay. So it in a way predates the renovation of the US Capitol that gave it its current dome. Gotcha. Yeah. So this, um, what about the Oklahoma State Capitol? Oklahoma State Capital is absolutely a classic capital design with neoclassical, neoclassical and some bows, arts elements to it. Um, you know, the, um. Uh, um, uh, Solomon Layton who designed the capital there, um, designed several of the historic courthouses in the state of Oklahoma as well and had some other notable public works around the us. Uh, but that capital building is really, now that it has a dome on it, which it's only had for about 20 years. Yeah. Okay. Um, it is a classic. US capital type. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's, and it's funny though, that style that we think of as being only American only became predominant in Washington DC after 1895. Huh? Yeah. What happened is if you were to go to the mall right now, you, you go to the mall now. The National Mall. The National Mall, right? Yeah. Now we're gonna go, go again, pause my, and do some shopping. Uh, no. You go to the Capital Mall. You have the Capital Building at one end, right? At the East end. Mm-hmm. At the West end, you've got the Lincoln, uh, Lincoln Memorial, which serves as the end piece. Then in the middle you've got, uh, the Washington Monument, and then you have buildings up and down both sides, which with the exception of the Smithsonian's Old Castle, which is Gothic. Yeah. And the Smithsonians Aaron Space Museum, which is, uh, um, which is uh, uh, kind of a mix up between international and brutal. Okay. It's very modern, very modern. Most of the stuff up and down is either Neoclassical or what's called Shrimp Classicism, which is a early 20th century version of classicism that it's associated with the New Deal in particular. So very flat. A lot of the details have been rubbed out. Uh, you use pediments instead of columns, but it still has that, that temple feel to it, that DC feel, to it. That all happened because, um, in 1893 there was a, uh, uh, a Columbian exhibition in Chicago. And they built a thing. Uh, they had a, a big architectural exhibition there and buildings were built for that exhibition and it was called The White City. And the predominant style that was used there was Bo Arts, which is an evolution from, um, from Neoclassical that rose up the EQU to Boose Arts in the 1890s. And everybody was so impressed with these temples that it became the new avant-garde style. Mm-hmm. For conservative architects. 'cause American architecture was very conservative at this point in time. You had guys like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright who were real rebels, who were coming outta the Prairie School in Chicago. Right. They were pushing back against all this and actually his building, uh, Louis Sullivan, who's the father of the Prairie School, his building at the Chicago exhibition was the best building there, but it ruined his career 'cause ran so counter to the Boza Arts and put him into conflict with the architectural community. Right. Well, the architectural community came to DC and there was a desire to fix up the mall in particular because the mall back then had a railroad station in the middle of it. Okay? Mm-hmm. It was before the construction union station. Mm-hmm. It had a garbage dump and it had a bunch of small versions of buildings that looked like the old executive office building. Mm-hmm. Second Empire. Well, actually fitting, we're recording this on Halloween. Okay. Second Empire is haunted house architecture. Okay. If you ever look at the beginning of a Scooby-Doo cartoon Uhhuh, or you look at Disney's Haunted Mansion, or the Munsters, that's all Second Empire. Okay? Okay. And it was a bunch of buildings that looked like that, and they wanted to, there was a, a movement that emerged outta Chicago called the City Beautiful Movement. And so the McMillan plan to redevelop DC. Embraced second, uh, embraced this neoclassical and Bozart's approach. And it's also what led to the creation of Emerald Necklace. Um, uh, the Emerald Necklace, uh, parkways that go around cities where I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky had one that was designed by the same guy that did Central Park, for example. And so everything in DC starts looking like a temple. Oh, interest and forgive they're hearing at the lecture. But you know, that's the story of how we got there. And, you know, when Trump became president, uh, around the third, uh, towards the end of his first term, he had argued that he wanted to make public buildings beautiful again. And he issued an executive order, which is now enforced, having been reissued that neoclassical shall be referenced. In the construction of public, federal, public buildings. It was not mandated, but it would be referenced, and this is a change from 60 years of public policy regarding public architecture, which embraced the diversity of different styles starting in 1962 in the Kennedy administration. So, you know, the architectural community largely reacted badly to this. They thought it was being a constraint on their ability to express. Mm-hmm. The. Public that doesn't like Donald Trump freaked out because it's something Donald Trump did, and we have to remember, anything Donald Trump proposes to do, whether it's a bad idea or not, will be greeted as a bad idea by his opponents, right? He set himself up well in that way, right? People don't want to agree, even if they actually do. Well, you, you and I were talking about this before we got on air, right? That remember what Lyndon Johnson said that if he were to go down to the Potomac and walk on the water, people would say, look, I told you the son of a bitch couldn't swim. Right? Right. This is, this is the Donald Trump problem right now. The thing is, the American public for over a hundred years embraces Nia Classic. Whenever you have a competition to build a building, a state capital, neoclassical tends to be preferred. Uh, and architects throughout the US knew this at the end of the 19th century, if they wanted to win contracts, the general public out there building courthouses and state capitals and schools campuses, they liked Neoclassical, and we still do. It's safe. And it has a particular affect in meaning that people instinctively associate with government in this country. Mm-hmm. So to bring that up to this ballroom is the ballroom in this style that he has mm-hmm. Said is preferred. It is. It is. And it's. I was looking over the renderings this morning. It even has, on the backside of it, it has a temple motif entry that looks just like the, uh, looks just like the portico to the White House. Mm-hmm. So it has a white house like entrance on it and, um, the interior will be more baroque. It, it is supposed to be gilded. Evidently, Mar-a-Lago is our new standard for everything. Mm-hmm. But that baroque piece is like. You, there's one as architecture, and then the other one is almost the style of the design. That's It's all changeable for sure. But yeah, exactly. And just to clarify, for anybody that's just tuning in, and for my architecture architect friends, forgive me if I don't get those precisely right, but I think I've got it. So the design is the physical structure. That is the layout, that is the flow, that is the movement, that's the elevation, that's the massing style, is the artistic engagement of that. Which can include massing. You know how hefty a building feels? Mm-hmm. It can include height, but also goes to, uh, it also goes to the artistic elements of the building. And so artistically, this building from the outside will be in the tradition of the White House. So it's not gonna necessarily look out of place from the street. Not in terms of its style. No. But it's big. Yeah. It's 90, it is 90,000 square feet. Yeah. So it's bigger than the White House. And even though it's set a bit far away, it is gonna challenge the White House. It, it's gonna draw the, the eye and the center of gravity away from the main building. It's gonna look, it looks lopsided. Okay. And this is actually an fence to neoclassical architecture, which prizes, symmetry. Mm mm-hmm. Symmetry and balance are very important in neoclassical design. They're very important in any. Italian design. Uh, if you go and you look at the work of Palladio, Palladian, architecture, prizes, balance and Symmetry mm-hmm. And this, what's happened is the White House campus is now out of balance. Mm-hmm. Every previous construction put it in balance. There's a way to do this thing and bring everything into balance, but it ain't gonna happen. No. I would almost imagine it kind of sets the stage for a similar. Expansion on the west side. Mm-hmm. That could bring it back into balance. But then you've got three really big kind of components that are loosely connected in the middle. Yeah. And what's happened is you're further dwarfing the, the executive mansion itself. Right, right. Okay. So that's part of the challenge there is, the thing is big, it throws things out of balance. Uh, the interior's gonna be a good bit more baroque. And you know, the nice thing is anything that's done by man can be undone by man. Right. Um, so. Some future administration if they're really that upset about this. If somebody is as petty as Donald Trump is about things, and this is actually relevant to what's going on with the White House, it'll get undone. Yeah. It may end up being a beautiful, it may end up being a really beautiful piece. Yeah. Well, and I, I've, you know, tried to read a variety of news sources on this, and it, it seems like the consensus is there really was a need for a larger. Gathering space. Mm-hmm. But people were like, eh, we needed it. We just don't like the way this is happening. Or Yeah. The where it is. Well, you know, it's, there's a, yeah. And part of this is an effort by the current executive to put his IMP Prada on things. Right. And you know, Donald Trump, every president gets concerned with legacy, but Donald Trump has a more visible need for legacy. And a personal imprint on things than most previous presidents. Right. And because he was a land developer, real estate developer, this is the place where he sees his expertise and he Right. And actually it's funny, he, he, he has a track record of doing a couple of things. Well, they, it was, uh, it was uh, uh, the Trump organization that turned the old post office Washington, DC into, into a luxury hotel. And they did a very nice job. Mm-hmm. They did a very nice job, uh, and were. They were true to the structure in doing so. Um, so it's not surprising that this is where he wanna leave his imprint. Mm-hmm. Because that's what he comes to the White House as is the man who builds spaces. Right? Right. Yeah. So I think the thing that I have been struggling with, because I recognize that like, um, I don't. I like the way that the design looks. 'cause it's off balance and just, yeah, like visual things. But in the grand scheme of how does this affect the country? Yeah. Building a ballroom I recognize as like small potatoes, right? Yeah. It doesn't really, it's a lot of money and it's a bunch of donors and I don't like some of the glad handing that happens. But that's politics too. Yes. And I find myself getting mad at the ballroom because it feels like a righteous indignation, not a partisan statement, but like just. Yeah, I just don't like it. Whether it's him or otherwise, I think it's gaudy. It's just not my style. But I've been, and I, you know, his friends text me similar sentiments. I'm like, Hey, I'm with you. But I also think this isn't the thing that should be the object of our ire all the time, because there are, well, I mean, as we sit here today, right? Today is the last day before the um, uh, we're in the middle of a government shutdown. Snap benefits end essentially at midnight to night. Mm-hmm. Many, many, many people in our country Yeah. Gonna wake up tomorrow without food. Yeah. And so that seems like something we should be legitimately upset about. Yeah. Exactly. And we should probably come back to Yeah. Snap in a month. We, we, we need to spend some time on Snap. Right. For a lot of reasons. And, and before we forget, if you're a federal employee and you see this before November 4th, go to Iguana Grill, they're gonna be giving you free tacos. Seriously. Look it up. It's absolutely worth it. Um, good lunch today also, but, um. No, the, uh, you know, it's, you always wonder. With anything with this administration, what are you missing while the hyperbole is going on? Mm-hmm. Right. And what are you being distracted from? But this notion, this notion of grievance, it actually shows up in the White House design redesign in this current one under Trump, or, yeah, the one current one under Trump. It's probably the only instance where this happens because if you were to go to the web and you check out the, um, and we'll, we'll put a link in for those. If you check out. The, um, the website that explains the new ballroom, the reconstruction of the East Wing on the White House website, on the White House, on the White House website. You have to wonder if anybody is still making is still, if, if the Hatch Act still exists, I'd be shocked. Okay. But when you look at those things you dig in, they present a timeline of the White House, and it notes a lot of the, a lot of the events that. I've described, right, the burning of the White House, the expansion, the renovation, this and that. But it also peppers in some other notable things in the design of the White House and its history. Uh, bill Clinton's trust with Monica Lewinsky and the Hova office gets a shout out. National Trans Day with Joe Biden gets a shout out. They're claiming they found cocaine from Hunter Biden and a laptop, evidently. Evidently Hunter Biden laptops. You know, it's sort of like finding Pokemon, right? You go around, you'll find them here or there if you keep digging right? And all this other stuff that's designed to do one thing. And there's also something for Barack Obama and there things that are meant to make Donald Trump's direct political opponents look bad. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's partial, it's bad history. It's a distraction from the thing, right? It's another example of this, of this politics or grievance and the use of grievance. And the question for the left is when, when liberals come back and control politics someday, do they just let Trump go into all this stuff going quietly, set things back? Or do we have grievance against him? Yeah. Or we're gonna say stay stuck down in this space. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, so I just googled the. White House building. Uh, like about the White House? Yeah. On the website. And it has like inspiration. This is about the East Wing expansion stages, so about the construction itself. Mm-hmm. And then, as you were saying, has a major events timeline going back to 1791. Design plans rebuilding after 1812 South Portico, north Portico, west Wing, oval Office, rose Garden, east Wing, total reconstruction briefing room. And then, yeah. Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinski, bill Clinton scandal, Muslim Brotherhood, visit a tennis pavilion. Cocaine discovered Trans Day of Visibility, north and South Flagpoles this year. Yeah. Rose guard. So it, it highlights several things that happened, obviously under democratic presidencies mm-hmm. That have arguably no relation to the architecture of the construction of the building. These are things that. There's no mention of a single Easter egg role or like, or, you know, like all the, uh, the other, many, many, many, many state dinners or other events that are helping Bacon, Sadat and Carter doing the Camp David Accord signing in the Rose Garden. Yeah. Which was probably the most monumental event that happened in that space. Mm-hmm. At the end of the day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Lost, lost to history. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. But we're lucky they didn't put an eye up. Also, I guess. It just feels very petty. Yeah, it is. And in a, in a conversation about grievance, it demonstrates somebody's grievance that's clearly very partisan. Mm-hmm. Um, taking aim at certain presidents and certain issues they think will elicit a grievance, like a supportive grievance from their Yeah. From their constituents. Well, and this would probably be critical of the left just for a minute, Andy. They've allowed themselves to be pulled down to the level of presentation made by this president. What do you mean by that? That the nature of the criticism. Well look in social media, the nature of the criticisms and the treatment and characterization of this executive, it's just as petty. We've all gotten pulled down there. Remember, remember the old saying about why you never wanna wrestle in the mud with a pig? 'cause all you do is get mud on yourself and you find out the pig enjoys it. Right? Yeah. This, this is where we are. Yeah. And somehow we gotta figure out how to make dignity win, whether it's from the right, whether it's conservative, dignity, or liberal dignity. You gotta get the dignity back. Yeah. Well we discussed this last time, right? Mm-hmm. Of the need for a message of hope or optimism or aspiration or dignity, um, and how that has. Is almost absent entirely in politics today. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I'm gonna say the, you know, if we go back to the White House and we go back to Dignity for a minute, there's a lot of space downhill below the, uh, where the East Wing was a lot of space to do stuff. Building a ballroom facility downhill from the White House down slope with a panoramic view back up towards the mansion and back up towards the fountain. That could have been exquisite. You could have done it in a sort of a modern strip classist interpretation or postmodern interpretation of classism, and it wouldn't have detracted from the building would've served to give you the view of it, so you could appreciate it even as you're having events. That's what I would've done. Something that's complimentary rather than, than competitive with the current White House. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It would make it more of a distinct space for those kind of events as well. Yeah, and you could even do something that was almost in the, uh, the international Saudi Kennedy Center and make it work. Yeah. Because would largely be glass. And that that could be, that, that could have, that could have charms also, but we're never gonna know. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was interesting when I first saw the plans for this ballroom about how much of it will be glass, just from a safety standpoint. I mean, obviously the Yeah. White House proper is, has glass. I'm certain it's quite thick. Yes. But, um, still is, and in some ways the idea of a building where the public could see even from a distance, you know. The elites, whoever they are in this ballroom, gives us a little bit of insight, but it, it could also feel, I don't know, insensitive or, or something even unintentionally. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, speaking of dignity, yes. Do you wanna talk about the dignity of having enough food to eat? Uh, yeah, I do. Um, so we are staring down the barrel of, uh, what I think is. One of the largest, if not the largest policy-based failures, um, when it comes to food security in American history, where we have massive programs that are designed to be safety net programs, snap being one, supplemental nutrition, assistance, assistance, um, uh, or snap, uh, those kinds of programs that are designed to help people. Access food who can't otherwise afford sufficient food. I've, you know, spent my whole career working in mental health or public health, uh, and often working at programs or designing programs aimed at helping reach these kind of folks, um, just to make sure that we all have enough food. Uh, and here there's seems a willful decision on the part of politicians, um, who refuse to compromise on other issues and are using this as a lever to try to. Win political points or win an outcome. Yeah. Um, but it means that going into the month where we traditionally celebrate Thanksgiving, which is a holiday, which we only eat, I mean, um, we are starting it off on, uh, by taking steps to reduce the amount of food access people have. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's very sad and we've never shuttered, snap. During a federal government shutdown before, uh, related to this, it's gonna take longer process social security because of the layoffs. Okay? And it's gonna take you more time to get through, um, airport security because there was no reason for TSA to show up. These people are gonna go and work other jobs so they can get food. Mm-hmm. Because they can't even go to a food, they can't even qualify. Snap now. Right? Mm-hmm. Um, so let's, let's talk about what this means for every one meal that's provided by the, uh, the various food banks around the United States. Everybody who's involved with Feeding America and all that, right? Nine meals are provided by Snap. So if people look around and say, oh, we can just fall back in the charitable sector and the food banks to take care of this, we are immediately putting upon them a 900% increase in demand, which they cannot provide. Not because they're not willing, but for two reasons. They don't have enough cash on hand to do it. Mm-hmm. In Parker, they don't have some federal money they're used to having also, because there's no food. There's no food to buy. Yeah. Right. You get rid of Snap, you're taking money that is spent to buy food. That means we are taking away money that goes to grocers and food wholesalers. Mm-hmm. And farmers, right? You're knocking the chalks out of a chunk of the economy. Uh uh, you know, one of my best friends, Cassie Gilman, is with the Regional Food Bank, and she described it to me this way. She said, imagine. If we have a tornado in every county of the, of the country at the same time, that's what's about to happen with food demand. Mm-hmm. Is like, like level of need and demand. Level of need is gonna be unprecedented. You haven't seen, you're not gonna have seen a level of need akin to this. You'd have to go back to the Great Depression to find it, and even if it's only for a few days. Okay. So this is a huge disruption. The other thing is when you start turning off food distribution in this country and you start turning off the infrastructure, it takes a while to turn it back on. We live with a perpetual 96 hour. Tail to our food supply. We only have food in the system. Good for up to 96 hours out. We're always four days away from having empty grocery shelves, but we just keep stocking it up, right? It's just part of the dynamic part of the industry. This is why it was so important to keep the infrastructure turned on during the pandemic. When we had Snap. Mm-hmm. Because if not, the shelves would've gone dry. Mm-hmm. And sometimes they did remember, sometimes they did just because of the disruption of the, uh, of the, uh, of the infrastructure of the food chain for distribution. Well now we're taking, we're taking the supply away that feeds the chain. So this could lead to some real problems. Mm-hmm. Some real challenges for people. And, um, the question is, who's gonna get blamed? Because this has gotten wrapped up in, well, I can't imagine what bigger politics there are, but this is wrapped up in bigger politics about trying to win some part of policy. Right? And this is the first time ever this chicken game has been played at this level with domestic politics. Yeah. And you know, a number of states are looking at ways to tap into their own state reserves mm-hmm. To help fill the gap if they can, at least for a short time. Yeah. As you, as you mentioned, it's an enormous gap and it's going to get wider and wider every day that this persists. Uh, Oklahoma's not one of those states, at least not yet. No. I know there are calls, uh, for Governor Stitt to call a special session. Um, he could call a special session and it would require a vote of two thirds of both chambers. Mm-hmm. To use some money from Oklahoma's rainy day fund that could fill this absent the governor's call, um, leaders from both chambers along with a three quarters, majority of both chambers could call their own special session Yes. And bring themselves back and do this if the governor was unwilling. Um, but I, you know, we've seen a few. News hits. I think there's a press conference today, like it's starting to be talked about, but it's been largely Democrats calling on the governor, um, to call the special session so they could go in and I would assume knowing a little bit about Oklahoma politics, that today is a Friday, um, that Noah wasn't doing anything until at least next week because it's the weekend. Yeah. And so they're gonna wait until at least Monday before they make a decision and probably go home and cross their fingers that Congress. Chooses to act by then instead. Thereby getting the state off the hook. Yeah. They need it. That extra hour of sleep they're gonna get Sunday morning. Yeah, I think that'll get 'em perk up. Ready to go. Perk up. Yeah. I mean, to me the really hard part about this is that it is a weekend. So kids who normally might get some meals at school, um, sometimes that's the only meal they get, um, won't have that option for two whole days, which is. A long time to go without food. They might, you know, beg, borrow and steal some ways to get food. Mm-hmm. The community is starting to step up and as you said, um, we don't have the infrastructure in place to actually get food out to everybody you want to give. Right. Um, if listeners are interested in giving the, what I've been told is to give to groups like the Regional Food Bank or the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma because they do have some infrastructure and they can. Access food supply avenues that we don't have access to. So yeah, if you can afford to buy one can of tuna, that same money, they can use it to buy four cans of tuna. So that expands the reach of your dollar. That's good. But as you said, if the need is actually ninefold, right, you should give us twice as much as you could before in hopes that it bridges the gap a little bit closer. Yeah, and you know this, you know, we, we think about this as being only. You know, we've mentioned farmers in passing and retailers in passing. Um, every dollar that's spent by SNAP has a $1 73 cent impact in the economy. It's a 73% accretive value to a dollar spent by the government. It's one of the strongest multipliers in the economy, period. You find me an investment that'll give me a 73% return on investment. Right, right. The moment the dollar is spent, I'm in. Right, right. Yeah. You, you can't find an index fund that'll do that. Well, no. And that's, that's gonna, somebody's gonna gimme an apples to oranges complaint. That's okay. Yeah. You know, you can eat both of those. You can't eat air. Right, right. And that's, you said this earlier, and I want to reiterate it that Yeah. Um, you know, some of the rhetoric around Snap is about who should and shouldn't, who's deserving? Oh, the worthy poor. Yes. The worthy poor. But let's set that aside. Yeah. As egregious as that statement might be, but like, let's set that aside and, and recognize that the only way food is acquired is that someone's buying it from somebody. Somebody's growing it, somebody's creating it, and then somebody's buying it and distributing it. And when the government is an enormous purchaser of food from our own producers, that means there are thousands of farmers across our country who are producing food. Yeah. And count on the government to buy it for programs like Snap, we saw this happen. Back in the spring with the U-S-A-I-D where a lot of farmers, including here in Oklahoma, produced food and sold it almost entirely to the US government to be sent overseas for folks that don't have enough food now, it's happening here domestically. Yeah. Well suddenly, yeah, you're, you, the one customer of these food producers is saying, nevermind, we're not gonna buy it. Yeah. And so not, it's not just hurting the people who are the end consumers of that food, which is like. Needy kids and families, but you're also hurting the people who produced it and everybody in between. Yeah. It's a, so while the system when it's running normally creates an enormous, uh, gain for the economies, like you said, 73%, uh, return on investment, when you stop that, you are not just hurting people, but you're hurting the economy too. Yep. Surely everybody in this country could be moved by an argument that's either we're meeting people's needs or meeting economic needs. Um, when those two things align, that's something we should be investing in. And here we have, um, outright refusal to, to make those investments. Yeah. And there's really nothing more to be said than that, Andy. That's just the reality of the situation. And, uh, we are in, we are in an environment where, uh, people are trying to choose their realities. Right? Yeah. But this one's a hard one to hide from. You know, it's, uh, because the consequences are that we both can't buy food and we can't find food. Yeah. And that means that even though there will continue to be demand, but we don't know how to pay for it. Yeah. And then the question is, are the pharmacists gonna sit on supply and not ship it? And that means that if there's less supply, it means prices ironically go up. Mm-hmm. Right. Uh, which means we get an inflationary spike mm-hmm. In the market basket. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, if you think back to the depression, people forget the things that happened with food during the depression. You know, everybody thinks, oh well, you know, wall Street fell right. And then there was some unemployment. Well now part of what happened is commodities prices collapsed also. Farmers couldn't get their crops to market, so they'd plow them under. Uh, there was a thing called the green corn strike in Iowa, which if you don't know about that, look that thing up. You wanna talk about some radicalism in the us. Mm-hmm. The green corn strike was an amazing one, but you also had dairy farmers that would drive their dairy product to the edge of town and dump it out rather than sell it at a loss. So you hit conscious protests for the destruction of food stuff. Which further exacerbated the situation. Yeah, so there's, there's precedent for really bad symbolism in this country and been a long, last time we had a really, uh, an an economic environment where farmers were actively protesting. Their plight was in 1970s when farms were regularly going bankrupt up in a hyperinflation environment of the Carter administration. You know, this is, uh, we're gonna see something we haven't seen in a while mm-hmm. Which is we're gonna see agrarian discontent mm-hmm. If we don't get this under control. Mm-hmm. And there's economic implications there around mm-hmm. Um, farmers utilizing, you know, making insurance claims mm-hmm. Around some of their crop insurance. And some of those programs that have a implication both for the future rates will raise and all of that. And also. A more immediate implication for some of the banks that have to pay out some of those policies, that it really creates a, a feedback loop that's pretty disastrous, I think. Yeah. And that's what you wanna avoid is the downward spiral. Yeah. And you know, we have been in an era of test. We've been stressed testing so many things, uh, in economy and democracy and, um, you know, the strain is showing. Um, you know, the question is, uh, is the public going to, um. How's the public gonna respond to that strain, right? Mm-hmm. And there are a variety of choices the public has. One is to vote change, right? The other one is to accept the circumstance. Uh, the third is to accept whatever comes after the circumstance as well. Um, because right now the institutions don't appear to be wanting to function. US House of Representatives is not in session. The Senate is, but the house is not. Mm-hmm. And therefore, any effort to try and make a deal. It either requires the Senate to take exactly what the house has passed in the hopes that the White House will sign it, or to wait for the house to come back into session. But that takes time. Well, if the House has pointed the Senate saying, oh, the Senate should do something, and then you know, Senator Thune, who's the leader of the Senate, had a statement yesterday or this morning. Yeah. It was basically like. I'm not, I haven't done anything 'cause the White House hasn't told me to do anything. It's, I could give you a vote. I don't know how it turns out. Yeah. Right. And you know, the, uh, you've never had a Republican administration so inclined to take guidance from the White House. Yeah. Uh, a Congress so inclined to take guidance from the White House is the current one. Yeah. Uh, no. Congressional Majority has been this. Subservient to the executive whim. Right, right. Uh, you know, yeah, maybe, maybe at some point during F D'S administration also, but you know, back then the Republicans said that FDR was a dictator. Right? Yeah. This is what happens when elector our large personalities from New York State, I guess Andy, I don't know. It's, uh, well, and you know, when, when you about the depression, the image that I have in my head, whenever anyone says the Great Depression is of. The FDR Memorial mm-hmm. In dc Yeah. Which goes through all, you know, he had four terms, right? Yeah. And so both world wars and part of it was the, the depression there and there's that, uh, relief sculpture Yeah. Of people in line at a, a soup kitchen. Yeah. Um, and you can stand in the line and it is, yeah. From the first moment I saw it, it has haunted me ever since. Mm-hmm. Um, because it, when you go there at night and the way they have the lighting provided. All the light bulbs are working. Um, they, it is haunting and like Yeah. Uh, the real, in the same way that, you know, walking through the Korean War. Yeah. Memorial is haunting where you're just suddenly in the jungle with the troops. Mm-hmm. Walking through it. It's a very, um, visceral experience. Yeah. Yeah. The, if you go looking for the FDR memorial, it is. Below the mall headed towards the Thomas Jefferson. Mm-hmm. It's over that way. More. Yeah. But it's very different because, you know, it's very modern. Yeah. And the bad relief that they've gotten there really is something else. Yeah. They're very moving. Very moving. Well that it's always my favorite memorial. Yeah. I'm sure I've talked about it on the show before, but when you first walk up, um, there's just, uh, Roosevelt Nno. Wheelchair, right? Yep. Normal size, right? Not where in DC everyone's a giant statue. Yeah. And this one's not. He's just there sitting in a wheelchair off by himself almost. Yeah. Even further back. His dog is more proportionally, much larger than he was at the beginning. Um, and as you walk through his tenure as president and read all the quotes and think about what he like experienced as president, it gives you a whole different perspective on. Yeah. What I think is the responsibility of the presidency and um, the role, I think the responsibility is the right thing. Like what you were supposed to do as president and how you shepherd a nation. Yeah. Through crisis. Yeah. Well, you know, that's in part of part to who FDR was, um, you know, grew up in the progressive era. He was a protege of Woodrow Wilson. Right. Uh, saw himself as walking in the footsteps of his cousin Teddy. Right. Pursued the same course of action it, but also possessed of the upper classes. No blis cliche. Right. You know, that, that, that need to provide and to provide by example and. The Giving Elite, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. FDR engaged in authoritative allocation of values, but they were supposed to be, they were supposed to be values of charity, right. And values of compassion, uh, tempered and possessed of strength. Mm-hmm. And we have a very different articulation of elite values coming outta DC now. And, um. I'm not sure where it attaches to the, I don't know. Maybe we're, we're getting who we are as a people. Maybe this is who we are. You know, Keith, I think you're exactly right. I've, yeah, I, as I'm sure like you and probably most of our listeners, right? You, yeah. Float through life day to day, trying to get work done, do normal things, take your kid to school, your dog to the vet, all that stuff. But in the back of your mind is this constant. Uh, strain, right? There's like a, it's like a process on your computer that's hung up and it's just running, running, running in the background. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And for me, so often it's like, how did we get here? How do we get out of this? And what does this say about us as a country? Um, and what does it say about me as a American? What are my values really? Um, which, you know, so to kind of bring this conversation back around to the ballroom. Yeah. Like when I see news about that. I wanna read about it 'cause it's kind of interesting and I'm into architecture and yeah, I have a passing interest in some of this stuff, but I find myself getting angry and then I feel, uh, not quite guilty, but I feel wrong. Yeah. For getting angry about that when I know there are much bigger issues. Yeah. That deserve some righteous indignation and some action on the part of us. Yeah. Well. For a moment, let's talk about how the ballroom's different. Yeah. Okay. Usually when you build stuff in dc, whenever you build a public building, there's a process and a system. Okay. And one of the things you do is you often, you'll put a thing out for you, put a thing out for competitive bid. So you have a design competition, you put out a set specifications and an RFP. And uh, I've participated in these things with some design faculty at ou and then. You get submissions and there's a screening committee and you get down to a final set of designs and then you choose one and you get a contractor, and that's put out to competitive bid as well. And the rules that govern that as well, that have been around for decades, and then you, then you get the contractor. But even before then, one of the things we tend to do in public policy is we prepare the playing field, right? We prepare the public for the need for the thing. This ballroom came outta left field. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if they'd just been building a ballroom, that would've been fine. But the fact that you're gonna demolish part of part, you're gonna demolish an addition of the White House to put a new addition on it. And it's so outta scale. It's just sprung on people. It's just surprising. Mm-hmm. And it's, and none of the rules are followed. The next thing in line after a whole bunch of other stuff has been sprung on people. Mm-hmm. Throughout the course of this year. Yeah. And, you know, and this is the, you know, the, you know, this executive that wants to be a man of action and you've got a, um, you know, a desire to simply rule by fiat. Right. This is out of the authoritarian playbook. That's what it is. It is an authoritarian play. Technically. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's that ability to act unilaterally, oh, I'm gonna do this thing. I'm gonna build this ballroom, I'm gonna decorate in this manner. I'm gonna put my imprimatur on the White House. Uh, and we're not gonna follow any of the rules to do it because there are no rules That's completely consistent with the environment we've been walking in, working in for quite a while. Right. Eh, there aren't really any rules. So, and if you don't like it, we got a camp down in South Florida, you can visit for a while to work on Yuan. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Um, uh, sorry, maybe that was a bit much. I'm sorry about that. Well, no, I mean, yeah. It's not you that built the camp. No. Yeah. Oh, good. Billy Joel songs now we didn't start the fire. Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, before we wrap up. Yeah. Um, you know, we try to end every episode with some. Highlighting of opportunities for how we can do something. Yeah. Because it's, I don't ever wanna put out a podcast that just brings people down and they feel powerless. Right. I think to our point about, um, and our larger discussion about grievance in today's politics and the need for change, we try to end on a note of, uh, optimism or at least opportunity. Mm-hmm. Um, and short of. Everyone driving to protest a ballroom, which doesn't help feed anybody. Um, there are things we can do right now. Yeah. In our communities. Um, okay. Uh, r fbo.org. Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, they need to raise an additional $5.5 million in the next month. Be able to meet the needs. Of people who are food less or food distressed that will arise from, that will arise from, uh, snap being disrupted. Our fbo.org. Give $50, give a thousand dollars, give 5,000. Give what you can give. Yeah. Right. That's the, um. You know, that's what you can do is you can help people feed themselves at this point. Mm-hmm. And going into this season, this season of charity, right? Mm-hmm. It's the most charitable thing we can do. Mm-hmm. Welcome an additional person to your dinner table. Right. Find that person who appears to need help and help them out. Mm-hmm. Uh, in the tradition I grew up in, extend the right handed Christian fellowship. Make good use of it. Right. And don't give into anger, but I would just start with, if you got dollars to spare, put a meal on somebody else's table. And the most efficient way you can do that is through Feeding America and the regional food banks. Mm-hmm. How's that one? That's exactly what I was gonna say too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, giving to food pantries, and this is one of those cases where the larger ones do have scaled, I think is really beneficial. Um. You're doing something, it feels inadequate to do nothing. Yeah. You know, you know the thing I started doing, I've, most of my life I've been inclined to kind of, I've always given, I've always been charitable to organizations, but I've largely not engaged with the street population. Mm-hmm. Okay. Even though I was spent a number of years as an urban dweller in New Orleans. Right. And one thing I've started doing is I always keep a, I've, I've gone through like seven sets of air pods in the last two years. I've always got the little boxes right. I keep losing the damn things. And so I always have a couple of those boxes in my car that I've always got some ones and fives and tens and a bunch of change in there. And I know people say, don't give to panhandler if I can get somebody a cup of coffee or hand them 10 bucks and tell 'em to get a hot meal. Mm-hmm. Or just get them to smile a bit. You know, paying for it in that manner, small acts of charity will add up. Mm-hmm. And in a way, those are more satisfying than any large check I might've ever written in my life. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, but yeah, I think we just have to find the humanity and the charity and who we are and maybe be a little, a little less scared of each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Keith Gaddie, thanks for being here again. Pleasure. As always. Door is always open. Please come back. Look forward to it listeners. Thanks for being here. Uh, as Dr. Getty said, right, go to r fbo.org, regional Food Bank of Oklahoma and make a donation. Um, you know, we have been getting ready to kick off a fundraising drive for, let's fix this. It's the end of the year. Every nonprofit's doing it. Um, that's not gonna happen, at least right now. Like, um, I think there's greater needs out there. Please, um, uh, consider giving to help those in need. And, um, don't turn away. I think it's, this is hard and, you know, take care of yourself too. But it is easy, I think, for all of us to want to turn a eye or to pull back or. Try to ignore some of the hurt in the world. Um, and I, with some of this thing, I don't think that's the right thing to do. So take care of yourself and somebody else and we'll see you next week.