1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:00,400 Alexander: Foreign. 2 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:12,040 Blair: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of the Secular 3 00:00:12,040 --> 00:00:13,280 Foxhole Podcast. 4 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:16,239 Today we're very fortunate to have a guest. 5 00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:22,560 Alexander Marriott is a historian with a PhD in early American Political and Intellectual 6 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:26,320 History from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. 7 00:00:27,220 --> 00:00:32,700 He is the Department Chair of History at Alvin Community College in Alvin, Texas, directly 8 00:00:32,700 --> 00:00:37,860 south of Houston, where he has been teaching US and Texas history since 2016. 9 00:00:39,300 --> 00:00:43,420 Before that, he was Department Chair and Assistant professor of History at Wiley 10 00:00:43,420 --> 00:00:45,140 College in Marshall, Texas. 11 00:00:46,500 --> 00:00:48,860 He has published reviews, chapters and 12 00:00:48,860 --> 00:00:55,670 articles with the Objective Standard, the Journal of the Earlier Republic, the Journal 13 00:00:55,670 --> 00:01:01,790 of Southern History, the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Excuse me, and the 14 00:01:01,790 --> 00:01:03,190 University of Tennessee Press. 15 00:01:04,150 --> 00:01:06,750 His second in a series of detective novels is 16 00:01:06,750 --> 00:01:11,190 to be published by the UK based Vanguard Press on June 26th. 17 00:01:11,270 --> 00:01:16,510 Following the deadly adventures of transplanted Chicago native Virgil Colvin in 18 00:01:16,510 --> 00:01:23,720 Greece, Murdered with a Glass of Malvasia will be available on all line bookselling on all 19 00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:26,920 online bookselling platforms in the United States and the uk. 20 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:32,360 And if you're in the Houston area, Murder by the Book, one of the nation's premier all 21 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:37,720 mystery thriller bookstores Hello Alex hello. 22 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:38,320 Great to have you. 23 00:01:38,320 --> 00:01:38,760 Alexander: Thank you. 24 00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:45,840 Blair: The reason I wanted you on is because you and I are friends on Facebook and you 25 00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:54,730 wrote a great just a simple paragraph that just eviscerates our political situation 26 00:01:54,810 --> 00:01:55,130 today. 27 00:01:55,130 --> 00:01:57,210 And if you would, I'd like you to read that 28 00:01:57,610 --> 00:02:00,010 and then I'd have some questions for you about that. 29 00:02:01,210 --> 00:02:02,330 Alexander: Sure, yeah. 30 00:02:02,330 --> 00:02:03,130 Friends on Facebook. 31 00:02:03,210 --> 00:02:04,730 The only place that matters. 32 00:02:06,090 --> 00:02:09,050 Martin: So there are alternatives here. 33 00:02:09,050 --> 00:02:11,890 It's Martin here, so we will talk about that 34 00:02:11,890 --> 00:02:12,490 in the future. 35 00:02:12,490 --> 00:02:13,690 But yeah, you're right. 36 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:17,040 Alexander: So shoot the all right, so here's what I wrote. 37 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:22,800 Despite the play for nostalgia built into the marketing of the MAGA movement, there's 38 00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:25,200 nothing inherently American about it in the least. 39 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,960 It rejects the Enlightenment thinking of the Founding as fully as the Progressive movement 40 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:36,280 did and does, and all of the corollary policy prescriptions, constitutional commitments, and 41 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:40,080 the classical obsession with virtue, sobriety and reasonableness. 42 00:02:40,750 --> 00:02:46,070 If I handed a MAGA platform to James Madison, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, 43 00:02:46,070 --> 00:02:52,270 Thomas Jefferson, or George Washington, they'd be annoyed, alarmed, and disgusted when I 44 00:02:52,270 --> 00:02:53,950 showed them maga's leader in action. 45 00:02:54,030 --> 00:02:56,469 They'd condemn MAGA for what it is, a 46 00:02:56,469 --> 00:03:01,310 demagogic and unmoored pack of hyenas looking to pick clean the carcass of the Republic. 47 00:03:02,030 --> 00:03:07,070 That the aforementioned progressives just as shamelessly led us to this point only to 48 00:03:07,070 --> 00:03:10,950 recoil at the advent of MAGA hardly makes them heroes. 49 00:03:11,110 --> 00:03:15,350 It only highlights their shameful and useless perfidy and hypocrisy. 50 00:03:15,430 --> 00:03:16,710 Blair: Bravo, Bravo. 51 00:03:17,830 --> 00:03:20,310 Now you argue that the mega movement diverges 52 00:03:20,310 --> 00:03:22,070 sharply from Enlightenment ideals. 53 00:03:22,950 --> 00:03:24,390 Let's unpack that with. 54 00:03:24,550 --> 00:03:30,750 Can you name obviously some specific principles you believe are under threat and 55 00:03:30,750 --> 00:03:33,030 why they're foundational to the American identity? 56 00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:42,100 Alexander: So one of the interesting things about the enlightenment of the 18th century 57 00:03:42,100 --> 00:03:47,260 and what makes it kind of special, and the fact that our revolution occurs in the midst 58 00:03:47,260 --> 00:03:53,300 of that moment and our founding documents are written in that moment and sort of has kept 59 00:03:53,540 --> 00:04:00,820 it's kind of a time capsule, the Enlightenment as part of our lives in some way for a couple 60 00:04:00,820 --> 00:04:06,790 hundred years, well past the Enlightenment shelf life as a philosophical movement that 61 00:04:06,790 --> 00:04:08,190 one could identify easily. 62 00:04:08,190 --> 00:04:08,590 Right. 63 00:04:08,590 --> 00:04:13,030 It used to be every thinker in the world was an Enlightenment thinker or aspired to be an 64 00:04:13,030 --> 00:04:17,230 Enlightenment thinker for a good at least half century or more. 65 00:04:18,270 --> 00:04:21,070 You couldn't, couldn't be hard to find Enlightenment thinkers today. 66 00:04:21,070 --> 00:04:26,990 I mean, so one of the things that really makes that movement special, that I think MAGA has 67 00:04:26,990 --> 00:04:37,610 no time for at all, is the notion of reason as the mechanism or the method by which all human 68 00:04:37,610 --> 00:04:44,730 questions and all questions that humans have about non human things should be approached 69 00:04:44,730 --> 00:04:45,610 and dealt with. 70 00:04:46,010 --> 00:04:49,650 And so in the 18th century, you see this as a 71 00:04:49,650 --> 00:04:57,090 sort of flowering of questioning the natural world and being willing to honestly go, not to 72 00:04:57,090 --> 00:05:02,730 use Star Trek here, but where no man had gone before, in terms of being willing to ask some 73 00:05:02,730 --> 00:05:08,790 very difficult questions, the answers to which could have very profound and disturbing 74 00:05:08,790 --> 00:05:09,430 implications. 75 00:05:09,430 --> 00:05:11,430 And some of those relate to what I think 76 00:05:11,430 --> 00:05:13,750 people could probably easily anticipate. 77 00:05:13,750 --> 00:05:16,230 The age of the world, for instance. 78 00:05:16,710 --> 00:05:23,990 You know, one of the cool stories of the 18th century is kind of just discovering the age of 79 00:05:24,230 --> 00:05:30,950 the earth through some fairly what seemed to us simple observations of things. 80 00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:36,560 For instance, the presence of, of marine fossils on the tops of mountains and things of 81 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:37,160 that nature. 82 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:39,120 And of course, the beginnings of the 83 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:44,360 discoveries of dinosaur fossils and things like that, which implicated, again, kind of 84 00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:50,760 disturbingly, that the, the notion of a biblical creation or an Earth that was several 85 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:57,160 thousand years old could be wildly off if one began to start looking at these things and ask 86 00:05:58,330 --> 00:06:05,010 honest, unfearful questions rooted in, again, a kind of an approach to the world that was 87 00:06:05,010 --> 00:06:09,970 grounded in reason and not one that was grounded in fear or superstition and things 88 00:06:09,970 --> 00:06:10,490 like that. 89 00:06:11,210 --> 00:06:13,569 So I think reason is probably the 90 00:06:13,569 --> 00:06:18,210 Enlightenment's sort of greatest gift to itself, because these were people who were 91 00:06:18,210 --> 00:06:23,370 really interested in their own present and how exciting it was to live in their own moment. 92 00:06:23,370 --> 00:06:25,690 But it's also one of the greatest gifts to every. 93 00:06:25,940 --> 00:06:31,340 Everybody who comes after them and sort of having a kind of unguilty devotion to the 94 00:06:31,340 --> 00:06:36,460 power of the human mind to sort of figure these things out and ask these questions in an 95 00:06:36,460 --> 00:06:40,020 honest, rigorous way and pursue the answers wherever they go. 96 00:06:40,980 --> 00:06:50,740 And MAGA is, I think, like many postmodern movements, not wedded to that as an ideal in 97 00:06:50,740 --> 00:06:51,300 any way. 98 00:06:51,540 --> 00:06:54,540 And, you know, you can see the consequences of 99 00:06:54,540 --> 00:07:02,320 this in the embrace of quite a number of what would normally be very fringe characters and 100 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:04,600 fringe ideas, and they become. 101 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:10,080 They become suddenly laudable or, you know, 102 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:13,160 ideas that we should really pay attention to because they're fringe. 103 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:13,480 Right. 104 00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:15,440 And Blair, you and I were telling you a little 105 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:22,080 bit about this, you know, the sort of domination for a couple of generations of what 106 00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:22,320 we. 107 00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:24,360 What we might in shorthand just refer to as 108 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:32,120 the left, of a lot of cultural institutions in our society that pushed a lot of these figures 109 00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:39,760 and ideas into the fringe with, I think, for a lot of them, good reason, because they were 110 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:41,240 pushed into the fringe by the left. 111 00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:43,520 Everybody who gets pushed into the fringe by 112 00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:45,720 the left is now equally valid. 113 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:46,280 Right? 114 00:07:46,280 --> 00:07:51,570 So if Ayn Rand was pushed to the fringe by the left and so was this other insane person, 115 00:07:51,650 --> 00:07:51,930 right. 116 00:07:51,930 --> 00:07:54,570 They're both equally valid sort of people we 117 00:07:54,570 --> 00:07:56,690 should pay attention to and. 118 00:07:57,090 --> 00:08:00,330 And now have a regard for, because the left 119 00:08:00,330 --> 00:08:01,330 did that to them. 120 00:08:01,570 --> 00:08:04,130 That's not a rational approach to evaluating 121 00:08:04,130 --> 00:08:04,690 ideas. 122 00:08:04,690 --> 00:08:06,729 That's just sort of a. I don't like that group 123 00:08:06,729 --> 00:08:07,090 of people. 124 00:08:07,090 --> 00:08:09,050 And whoever they didn't like is now therefore 125 00:08:09,050 --> 00:08:09,410 good. 126 00:08:10,050 --> 00:08:10,690 That doesn't. 127 00:08:10,690 --> 00:08:14,610 There's no attempt to evaluate on any kind of principle that would be. 128 00:08:15,010 --> 00:08:18,130 And MAGA kind of basks in that kind of world. 129 00:08:18,980 --> 00:08:21,980 Every idea, if it's an enemy of the left, will 130 00:08:21,980 --> 00:08:23,700 be equally sort of considered. 131 00:08:24,660 --> 00:08:27,020 It's how you get this kind of weird hodgepodge 132 00:08:27,020 --> 00:08:32,140 of characters in the 2024 election that never would have gotten together before, at least 133 00:08:32,140 --> 00:08:33,940 not under a Republican banner. 134 00:08:34,340 --> 00:08:34,700 Right. 135 00:08:34,700 --> 00:08:41,940 How does Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. And some of these other fairly peculiar figures advance 136 00:08:42,020 --> 00:08:45,540 into our midst and become part of the same team? 137 00:08:46,610 --> 00:08:49,130 Right? Again, it's kind of just this sort of the 138 00:08:49,130 --> 00:08:56,130 gravitational pull of power or the promise of power, not a rational process that says, hey, 139 00:08:57,090 --> 00:09:03,530 RFK Jr. Was shunted into the fringe because he developed some grand theory that could be 140 00:09:03,530 --> 00:09:05,570 easily proven with scientific fact. 141 00:09:05,570 --> 00:09:05,970 Right. 142 00:09:06,290 --> 00:09:11,370 I think he's having a difficult time trying to present ideas back with scientific fact now, 143 00:09:11,370 --> 00:09:18,600 which is why you had this very peculiar scandal of AI generated science that 144 00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:22,120 elucidated footnotes and studies and things like that. 145 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:27,240 And in the past, that would have been a debilitating, horrifying scandal. 146 00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:29,320 And of course, I'm reminded of. 147 00:09:29,560 --> 00:09:30,720 Blair: Or just laughed out of it. 148 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:32,200 Yeah, just laughed off the stage. 149 00:09:32,200 --> 00:09:32,600 Yeah. 150 00:09:32,680 --> 00:09:35,040 Alexander: And of course you get the what about asm? 151 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:36,800 Well, yeah, that happened to Joe Biden. 152 00:09:36,800 --> 00:09:37,080 Right. 153 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:40,200 He was laughed out of politics in a serious way for. 154 00:09:40,490 --> 00:09:44,810 For stealing a bunch of speech lines from a British labor politician. 155 00:09:44,810 --> 00:09:48,890 And some you live long enough, you come, you may, you survive it. 156 00:09:50,010 --> 00:09:55,250 Now, in Biden's case, it took, what, 40 years to survive that MAGA has truncated the 157 00:09:55,250 --> 00:10:00,050 survival half life of these scandals to almost nothing, especially if it's Donald Trump that 158 00:10:00,050 --> 00:10:00,810 we're talking about. 159 00:10:02,010 --> 00:10:04,010 So I think the rejection of reason is pretty 160 00:10:04,010 --> 00:10:11,940 easy to see in almost every aspect of maga in terms of the policy prescriptions, in terms of 161 00:10:12,180 --> 00:10:18,740 the approach to politics, in terms of figuring out what ideas to suddenly vaunt forward. 162 00:10:19,380 --> 00:10:23,660 And I think that's the most obvious way in which the Enlightenment's rejected some of the 163 00:10:23,660 --> 00:10:26,580 other ways I hinted at in the post itself. 164 00:10:27,300 --> 00:10:27,620 Right. 165 00:10:27,620 --> 00:10:33,210 If we're talking about an Enlightenment era politics, which is where our revolution is 166 00:10:33,210 --> 00:10:37,450 rooted and where our constitutionalism is rooted, then we're talking about a politics 167 00:10:37,450 --> 00:10:44,410 that as much as possible is kind of trying to apply reason to all the sort of classical 168 00:10:44,410 --> 00:10:47,650 political questions to figure out, how do you divide power? 169 00:10:48,370 --> 00:10:51,770 You know, is it, is it just a convenience that we divide power? 170 00:10:51,770 --> 00:10:59,580 Or is there actual, really sound, philosophically very profound ideas that go 171 00:10:59,580 --> 00:11:03,780 behind the reasons why we divide power? Why do we have this separation of power and 172 00:11:03,780 --> 00:11:06,060 checks and balance? And why should the people in the different 173 00:11:06,060 --> 00:11:07,740 branches value that? Right. 174 00:11:07,740 --> 00:11:12,180 Why, if you're in Congress, why should you value that the courts can check you? 175 00:11:12,180 --> 00:11:15,580 Why should you value that the president can veto something that you do? 176 00:11:15,660 --> 00:11:19,140 And if you're the President, why should you value that you have to work with Congress, 177 00:11:19,140 --> 00:11:24,020 that Congress has a bunch of really important powers that you don't have, and you need to 178 00:11:24,020 --> 00:11:31,210 persuade them, or the public needs to persuade them, or the courts have a very compelling, 179 00:11:31,210 --> 00:11:35,610 valid reason to step in and say, even though you all wanted that to happen and it's very 180 00:11:35,610 --> 00:11:41,650 popular, it's still actually illegal and you can't do that, or it violates the rights of a 181 00:11:41,650 --> 00:11:44,330 very unpopular group of people or just one person. 182 00:11:44,730 --> 00:11:49,930 Those are really important ideas that are rooted in our Enlightenment political 183 00:11:50,010 --> 00:11:55,930 philosophy that is still with us, thankfully, through this notion of constitutionalism, 184 00:11:55,930 --> 00:12:01,200 which again, is kind of a. An important Enlightenment concept, not that it's invented 185 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:03,080 in that moment, but it's sort of brought. 186 00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:03,880 Blair: It flourished. 187 00:12:04,040 --> 00:12:05,960 Alexander: I think it brought to its apogee. 188 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:06,200 Right. 189 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:12,000 The whole idea of we have to have this kind of a classical idea in a lot of ways, the sort of 190 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:13,560 mythical way in which the. 191 00:12:13,959 --> 00:12:15,000 I shouldn't say mythical. 192 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:20,040 It's got some good archaeological finds supporting it, but this idea that the Greeks 193 00:12:20,040 --> 00:12:26,510 would sort of write down or chisel in stone, literally the laws of the city and they would 194 00:12:26,510 --> 00:12:27,310 always be there. 195 00:12:27,310 --> 00:12:29,230 You could always see that they were there. 196 00:12:29,230 --> 00:12:31,870 So if somebody came along and said, well, the law is not this. 197 00:12:31,870 --> 00:12:32,870 They say it's. 198 00:12:32,870 --> 00:12:33,590 It's literally. 199 00:12:33,590 --> 00:12:34,350 I'm looking at it. 200 00:12:34,350 --> 00:12:34,910 It's right there. 201 00:12:34,910 --> 00:12:35,470 Blair: There it is. 202 00:12:35,470 --> 00:12:35,870 Yeah. 203 00:12:36,270 --> 00:12:38,070 Alexander: You can't tell me that this is. 204 00:12:38,070 --> 00:12:39,110 That this is legal, right. 205 00:12:39,110 --> 00:12:39,310 That. 206 00:12:39,310 --> 00:12:43,190 That all that stuff which kind of glibly just 207 00:12:43,190 --> 00:12:46,310 gets brushed aside today by maga. 208 00:12:46,310 --> 00:12:47,310 And I'm not, I don't. 209 00:12:47,310 --> 00:12:51,830 I don't want to let the left off the hook here because as I pointed out in the post, right. 210 00:12:51,830 --> 00:12:59,390 That this is all kind of predicated on, you know, Wilsonian era progressive legal thinking 211 00:12:59,390 --> 00:13:03,590 that did the same thing that sort of shunted all of these things aside. 212 00:13:04,230 --> 00:13:04,550 Right. 213 00:13:04,550 --> 00:13:08,310 Blair: They are MAGA and the progressives are philosophically aligned even. 214 00:13:08,550 --> 00:13:11,790 Even if it's allegedly on the surface are the. 215 00:13:11,790 --> 00:13:12,550 Alexander: Are the same. 216 00:13:12,630 --> 00:13:17,670 And again, the sort of just glib way that our 217 00:13:17,670 --> 00:13:24,640 established institutional norms are sort of swept away as no longer relevant, with very 218 00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:30,040 little argumentation provided as to how that could possibly be true or why that would be at 219 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:33,320 all safe strikes me as very similar. 220 00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:38,440 Both of them had no ability to foresee 221 00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:41,080 eventually losing to anybody else. 222 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:41,600 Right. 223 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:45,280 Because that's sort of the most obvious reason why you would sort of point out, well, hey, 224 00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:47,000 even in the short term, this is a bad idea. 225 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:48,680 You're giving a lot of power to all of your. 226 00:13:49,250 --> 00:13:54,490 To this other side that you claim is existentially evil and will destroy whatever 227 00:13:54,490 --> 00:13:55,810 is left of the Republic. 228 00:13:56,450 --> 00:13:58,650 Why would you give them all of these tools to 229 00:13:58,650 --> 00:14:01,130 make it so easy? And. 230 00:14:01,130 --> 00:14:02,250 And there's no answer to that. 231 00:14:02,250 --> 00:14:03,330 It's a total blank out. 232 00:14:03,410 --> 00:14:08,170 I haven't been able to fish out an answer in that real world that we call Facebook where 233 00:14:08,170 --> 00:14:09,090 you saw this post. 234 00:14:11,570 --> 00:14:12,490 So that. 235 00:14:12,490 --> 00:14:15,530 That ends up being something else that I. That I think is. 236 00:14:15,530 --> 00:14:16,250 Is pretty important. 237 00:14:16,250 --> 00:14:18,250 It's funny, I was reading this again in 238 00:14:18,250 --> 00:14:24,090 anticipation of this interview, and I list off this whole cast of worthy revolutionary 239 00:14:24,090 --> 00:14:29,090 characters, but perhaps the most important person for sort of giving people, I think, a 240 00:14:29,090 --> 00:14:35,290 real shorthand for figuring out why MAG is so not really American, at least in the sense 241 00:14:35,290 --> 00:14:37,330 that we think about it as we near 4th of July. 242 00:14:37,410 --> 00:14:39,570 Here is Franklin. 243 00:14:42,610 --> 00:14:50,030 Franklin is as curious and brutally honest a character as there really is in the American 244 00:14:50,190 --> 00:14:51,070 Enlightenment. 245 00:14:51,390 --> 00:14:53,630 Willing to call people out, willing to call 246 00:14:53,630 --> 00:14:58,510 himself out when he's wrong, change his ideas when he realizes he's made a mistake. 247 00:14:59,070 --> 00:15:04,550 Again, kind of always curious, constitutionally curious on things that you 248 00:15:04,550 --> 00:15:10,790 would think a man with his background and education and profession wouldn't care a whit 249 00:15:10,790 --> 00:15:11,070 about. 250 00:15:11,070 --> 00:15:14,110 And yet he never stopped himself from sort of 251 00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:20,640 curiously entering these other fields, asking questions, doing it with some bravado, but 252 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:25,120 ultimately sort of knowing that at the end of the day, if he was going to have anything to 253 00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:28,240 offer, it was going to have to be rooted in value. 254 00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:34,480 He was going to have to offer the goods, something that other people found interesting 255 00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:37,120 because they could do it or they could see it themselves. 256 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:40,640 And most of all, of what we remember of Franklin's career. 257 00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:44,000 And I talk to students all the time about Franklin because we always. 258 00:15:45,010 --> 00:15:47,010 I always force them to read the autobiography. 259 00:15:47,010 --> 00:15:49,010 So before we do that, I'd do a little. 260 00:15:49,490 --> 00:15:51,650 Let's talk about the guy on the $100 bill. 261 00:15:51,650 --> 00:15:52,890 What do we know about Frank? 262 00:15:52,890 --> 00:15:53,410 Martin: Him in. 263 00:15:54,850 --> 00:15:58,330 Alexander: And of course, because he's on the $100 bill, there's always some assumption he 264 00:15:58,330 --> 00:15:59,410 was president at some point. 265 00:15:59,410 --> 00:16:01,010 I said, nope, for president. 266 00:16:01,010 --> 00:16:04,850 He's one of the few people not to hold that office on our currency. 267 00:16:06,290 --> 00:16:10,050 And then they all remember the kite, right? The experiment with the kite. 268 00:16:10,050 --> 00:16:10,610 Blair: That's it. 269 00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:16,920 Alexander: And it's funny that he's remembered Fed, but it's also great because if you had to 270 00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:20,680 go to Franklin and sort of dig him up and he was fine, and you could say, hey, talk to you 271 00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:24,640 for a few minutes, everyone remembers you and be like, great, that's fun. 272 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:26,520 Why? And he said, well, you're on our hundred 273 00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:27,040 dollar bill. 274 00:16:27,520 --> 00:16:29,840 Okay, that's lovely. 275 00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:32,880 And then he said, everyone knows about your kite experiment. 276 00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:35,200 He'd be, of course, **** kite. 277 00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:37,320 Because it kind of took over his reputation 278 00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:39,360 for a while in the 18th century, too. 279 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:41,470 It's kind of funny he'd be interested to know 280 00:16:41,470 --> 00:16:44,550 it just had persisted as the thing to remember him for. 281 00:16:44,550 --> 00:16:49,430 But Franklin is this sort of undonald Trump character, as you could think of. 282 00:16:49,590 --> 00:16:53,870 And I know that might sound surprising to some people because on the surface, Franklin does 283 00:16:53,870 --> 00:16:58,870 sort of seem like he'd be this great reality show kind of media maven, right? 284 00:16:58,870 --> 00:17:02,470 A person who knows how exactly the cameras would be pointed at him. 285 00:17:02,470 --> 00:17:06,950 A person who knows exactly how to Play crowds and schmooze. 286 00:17:07,190 --> 00:17:12,199 And he has this womanizing reputation that sort of fits our expectations for Donald Trump 287 00:17:12,199 --> 00:17:13,359 and all the rest. 288 00:17:13,439 --> 00:17:16,879 Somebody who fits in very well in 18th century 289 00:17:17,039 --> 00:17:18,639 Late Royalist Paris. 290 00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:21,519 But Franklin is this sort of inveterate 291 00:17:21,839 --> 00:17:24,719 reader, right? And if you know anything about Donald Trump, 292 00:17:25,199 --> 00:17:26,159 he reads nothing. 293 00:17:26,399 --> 00:17:29,039 He reads the newspaper, he reads social media 294 00:17:29,039 --> 00:17:30,399 posts, but he reads no books. 295 00:17:30,959 --> 00:17:33,039 And that always strikes me as a very odd 296 00:17:33,039 --> 00:17:40,880 characteristic for a person who's going to do anything big now I guess for a professional 297 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:47,720 athlete or, you know, God, somebody who's, who's already trained in whatever field 298 00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:51,560 they're in and is now just doing it all the time and it's taking up all their, all their 299 00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:57,280 moments like a, like a neurologist or an oncologist or some sort of surgeon of some 300 00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:00,760 sort or I don't know, some sort of researcher. 301 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:01,560 I don't know. 302 00:18:03,810 --> 00:18:07,130 Peculiar to have to have no reading in American presidents. 303 00:18:07,130 --> 00:18:13,290 The only one I know that has that there's such a good literature about them not being a 304 00:18:13,290 --> 00:18:16,530 reader, and I mean modern presidents, is Franklin Roosevelt. 305 00:18:17,170 --> 00:18:22,610 And in a lot of ways I see both of them as pretty analogous to each other. 306 00:18:22,610 --> 00:18:27,250 And I know that'll strike people as odd, especially fans of Franklin Roosevelt, but 307 00:18:27,330 --> 00:18:28,690 they're both very mercurial. 308 00:18:28,690 --> 00:18:30,410 They're both these New Yorkers that don't 309 00:18:30,410 --> 00:18:30,810 really read. 310 00:18:30,810 --> 00:18:32,610 They listen and talk to lots of people, 311 00:18:32,690 --> 00:18:34,770 unofficial people outside of the government. 312 00:18:34,770 --> 00:18:37,070 They don't really like all these official 313 00:18:37,230 --> 00:18:38,070 government types. 314 00:18:38,070 --> 00:18:39,910 Now Roosevelt, of course is sort of the anti 315 00:18:39,910 --> 00:18:44,070 maga because he was talking to people at Columbia, a bunch of academics who had no 316 00:18:44,070 --> 00:18:47,390 government posts, who were feeding him ideas and information. 317 00:18:47,950 --> 00:18:51,230 I'm sure they would have recommended books, but I think they knew him well enough that he 318 00:18:51,230 --> 00:18:51,950 wouldn't read them. 319 00:18:52,030 --> 00:18:55,070 So in that respect it's quite different. 320 00:18:55,070 --> 00:18:59,150 Right, Frank? The sort of unofficial cabinet that Trump 321 00:18:59,150 --> 00:19:03,470 surrounds himself with is Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and some of these other 322 00:19:03,470 --> 00:19:04,110 characters. 323 00:19:05,810 --> 00:19:08,050 But, but it's very unfranklin like, right? 324 00:19:08,130 --> 00:19:10,130 If it's very un. 325 00:19:10,530 --> 00:19:11,730 Enlightenment, right. 326 00:19:11,890 --> 00:19:16,970 I'm anti intellectual obsessed not with reading for its own sake. 327 00:19:16,970 --> 00:19:17,970 They wanted to learn. 328 00:19:18,690 --> 00:19:20,610 They wanted to learn things that were of 329 00:19:20,610 --> 00:19:22,930 practical value in the world they lived in. 330 00:19:23,650 --> 00:19:25,730 So it's not that they would turn down a novel 331 00:19:25,730 --> 00:19:30,490 and novels were just kind of starting to become a widely read literary form in that 332 00:19:30,490 --> 00:19:35,450 moment, but they really, if you go through their libraries, are reading about farming, 333 00:19:35,610 --> 00:19:37,690 which many of them were engaged in farming. 334 00:19:37,690 --> 00:19:39,890 So this was a practical necessity to read 335 00:19:39,890 --> 00:19:44,650 about the latest scientific discoveries for good agriculture and that led to some real 336 00:19:44,730 --> 00:19:48,370 developments at some of these large estates that some of them owned. 337 00:19:48,370 --> 00:19:52,530 You know, they changed what they were doing and in kind of profound ways that had other 338 00:19:52,530 --> 00:19:54,810 consequences that we don't necessarily think of. 339 00:19:54,890 --> 00:20:01,090 For instance, Washington, employing some of these things he was reading, changed his 340 00:20:01,090 --> 00:20:05,110 tobacco plantations that he was inheriting to wheat farms. 341 00:20:05,670 --> 00:20:10,350 And because he made a commitment not to break up slave families without their consent, he 342 00:20:10,350 --> 00:20:16,710 ends up with a giant amount of slaves that ends up becoming, at least in some parts, free 343 00:20:16,710 --> 00:20:19,510 after his death or after the death of his wife. 344 00:20:20,310 --> 00:20:22,870 So these decisions have. 345 00:20:23,270 --> 00:20:25,590 Or these readings have some kind of profound 346 00:20:25,670 --> 00:20:29,640 implications in other ways that we don't necessarily think of at all when we think 347 00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:31,200 about these practical reads. 348 00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:33,720 Of course, Franklin's reading, as he tells us, 349 00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:38,440 to become a better writer, right? So he's going to find who sort of asks around, 350 00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:41,360 who's the great writer? Who should I be reading to see a good writer? 351 00:20:41,360 --> 00:20:42,560 And so they give him some names. 352 00:20:42,560 --> 00:20:44,040 He says, all right, I'm going to go read them 353 00:20:44,120 --> 00:20:45,200 and I'm going to write. 354 00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:47,400 I'm going to practice writing as if I'm them, 355 00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:50,040 Right? I'll write about something today, but I'll do 356 00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:54,440 it in the style of Joseph Addison or one of these other people. 357 00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:58,740 So the reading to learn, the reading to get better. 358 00:20:58,820 --> 00:21:03,300 They're reading to broaden their horizons, to learn things. 359 00:21:03,700 --> 00:21:04,860 And these are grown men. 360 00:21:04,860 --> 00:21:06,580 These are not always young boys. 361 00:21:06,580 --> 00:21:10,420 We're talking about people in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, their 60s. 362 00:21:10,900 --> 00:21:15,860 One thing that always kills me about the long correspondence of John Adams and Thomas 363 00:21:15,860 --> 00:21:22,300 Jefferson is that in their retirement, I think it's Adams, but it could be Jefferson. 364 00:21:22,300 --> 00:21:24,590 One of them starts learning classical Greek. 365 00:21:24,590 --> 00:21:27,150 They really start working on classical Greek 366 00:21:27,150 --> 00:21:34,470 as their kind of obsession to master it better from way back when they were in college or 367 00:21:34,790 --> 00:21:38,870 William and Mary or Harvard, or where those two guys went to school. 368 00:21:38,870 --> 00:21:40,070 But sort of working on. 369 00:21:40,470 --> 00:21:42,430 I've never been comfortable with how well I 370 00:21:42,430 --> 00:21:43,390 mastered classical Greek. 371 00:21:43,390 --> 00:21:45,510 So really working on reading Aristotle and the 372 00:21:45,510 --> 00:21:48,270 original classical Greek so that I can sort of work on this more. 373 00:21:48,270 --> 00:21:48,870 And it's sort of. 374 00:21:48,870 --> 00:21:51,370 It's kind of laughable to think about it in 375 00:21:51,370 --> 00:21:57,250 today's context, because who in our politics reads Aristotle, let alone attempts to do it 376 00:21:57,250 --> 00:22:01,210 in classical Greek, or it would even consider this a worthwhile use of their time. 377 00:22:02,410 --> 00:22:03,050 Blair: Nobody. 378 00:22:03,130 --> 00:22:06,250 Alexander: And no, I couldn't think of a. I couldn't think of a single one. 379 00:22:06,250 --> 00:22:08,250 I mean, I'm not saying they need to be. 380 00:22:08,250 --> 00:22:09,690 I'm not saying they need to be. 381 00:22:10,010 --> 00:22:11,290 Blair: Well, that's it wouldn't hurt. 382 00:22:11,530 --> 00:22:12,290 Alexander: It wouldn't hurt. 383 00:22:12,290 --> 00:22:13,210 It wouldn't hurt. 384 00:22:13,450 --> 00:22:19,620 But I'm saying in the sense that who has that type of mind? 385 00:22:19,940 --> 00:22:20,700 Who would even. 386 00:22:20,700 --> 00:22:25,300 Who's reading to learn to get better, to get 387 00:22:25,300 --> 00:22:26,740 practical wisdom. 388 00:22:27,300 --> 00:22:28,900 And that's really what the Enlightenment is 389 00:22:28,900 --> 00:22:29,100 about. 390 00:22:29,100 --> 00:22:29,340 Right. 391 00:22:29,340 --> 00:22:35,820 How do we achieve practical wisdom in all aspects of life to make our society more 392 00:22:35,820 --> 00:22:43,180 civil, to make our government more rational, to make it possible to protect rights and have 393 00:22:43,180 --> 00:22:49,040 a rule of law and self government in a way that no people before this moment, moment in 394 00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:56,560 the 18th century has been able to pull off for more than either a generation or within a very 395 00:22:56,640 --> 00:23:02,880 small geographical space that obviously has no applicability to the American experiment. 396 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:05,160 And those sorts of. 397 00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:08,800 Let me get back to being, being off on its own 398 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:14,130 path and not really, you know, this idea of making America great again or where 399 00:23:14,130 --> 00:23:16,290 everything's America this, America that. 400 00:23:17,250 --> 00:23:19,570 Sure, I guess a notion of America, but it's 401 00:23:19,570 --> 00:23:27,330 definitely one rooted in the 20th century in a post New Deal America versus America, as I 402 00:23:27,330 --> 00:23:31,650 think a lot of people on Facebook are thinking about it, who've thrown themselves into Maga, 403 00:23:31,730 --> 00:23:37,490 who are sort of thinking about the 18th century revolution, the Constitutionalism, but 404 00:23:37,730 --> 00:23:42,380 they're not in a movement, I think that really actually cares about that too much. 405 00:23:42,540 --> 00:23:43,460 And I think Vice President. 406 00:23:43,460 --> 00:23:45,100 Blair: Or they're against that or against. 407 00:23:45,100 --> 00:23:45,740 Alexander: Yes, of course. 408 00:23:45,740 --> 00:23:47,260 I think Vice President Vance has been pretty 409 00:23:47,260 --> 00:23:52,540 openly honest about not not being for it and perhaps being quite against it. 410 00:23:52,700 --> 00:23:52,980 Right. 411 00:23:52,980 --> 00:23:55,060 Talking about Caesar and the need for a Caesar 412 00:23:55,060 --> 00:24:00,860 at this point, or Americans wanting a Caesar, which would have been interesting talk to, to 413 00:24:00,860 --> 00:24:04,340 America's founders because they were, they were always kind of worried that such a 414 00:24:04,340 --> 00:24:05,500 character would emerge. 415 00:24:05,740 --> 00:24:06,780 Blair: I know, I know. 416 00:24:06,780 --> 00:24:10,260 I mean most mega people, their life is 417 00:24:10,260 --> 00:24:13,240 centered around the Bible and they don't anything else. 418 00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:15,640 They don't study anything else. 419 00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:16,360 But anyhow. 420 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,560 Alexander: Well, if it was Jefferson's Bible, that's another great little part of the 421 00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:23,320 Enlightenment I always like to tell students about. 422 00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:27,840 When Jefferson decides to slice and dice the Bible, it takes out all the miracles and all 423 00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:30,680 the impossible things that couldn't have happened. 424 00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:33,800 What's he left with Jesus's sermons? 425 00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:43,420 Blair: Well, speaking of the founders, if they were, if they were around today, what do you 426 00:24:43,420 --> 00:24:46,820 imagine their response would be to contemporary populist movements? 427 00:24:46,820 --> 00:24:51,660 And how would they assess the current state of American constitutionalism? 428 00:24:51,660 --> 00:24:54,780 And here we, you know, we continue that conversation. 429 00:24:55,100 --> 00:24:59,020 Alexander: I think they, I think they'd, they'd see it in broad historical terms. 430 00:24:59,100 --> 00:25:03,500 I mean, and I think, yeah, there's no originality Here, lots of people have said 431 00:25:03,500 --> 00:25:08,300 this, and I think it's fallen on many deaf ears because nobody, I mean, quite frankly, I 432 00:25:08,300 --> 00:25:14,480 don't think the people in MAGA care about these ideas or the trajectory of things or 433 00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:15,560 even if they ended up there. 434 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:17,800 I think J.D. vance is onto something when he 435 00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:24,920 suspects openly that there are a lot of people clamoring for Caesar, for some dictatorial 436 00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,880 character who can set things right. 437 00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:30,840 Now, in the Roman period, which would be the 438 00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,600 period they would think of, of course, the idea of a dictatorship was a legal 439 00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:35,240 institution. 440 00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:37,800 It was built into Roman constitutionalism as a 441 00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,360 temporary way to fix the Republic. 442 00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:43,560 We don't have that for a variety of reasons. 443 00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:47,720 Now, of course, in the Roman case, we know it ends up poorly at the end of the day because 444 00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,800 it doesn't remain temporary, which of course is what gets Julius Caesar killed. 445 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,120 And I would argue rightfully so. 446 00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:58,640 But I'm not here to argue the pros and cons of 447 00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:00,120 assassinating Julius Caesar. 448 00:26:00,120 --> 00:26:02,360 But the, but I think they would see it in that 449 00:26:02,360 --> 00:26:02,800 context. 450 00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:06,360 They would see it in the context of a late 451 00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:12,350 stage republican imperial moment where the citizens. 452 00:26:12,590 --> 00:26:15,630 Right, the, in Rome's case, it was of the city itself. 453 00:26:15,630 --> 00:26:23,590 But the citizens of the Republic are clamoring to hold on to as much of what they see as a, 454 00:26:23,590 --> 00:26:28,110 as a sort of fragile pie for themselves as they can. 455 00:26:28,670 --> 00:26:33,710 And they're willing to follow leaders who promise them the ability to do that. 456 00:26:34,110 --> 00:26:38,830 That's how I, that's how I sort of interpret the angst surrounding immigration. 457 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,800 A lot of people will see it purely in racial or cultural terms. 458 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:48,520 I think a lot of that is fairly an easy way for MAGA to sort of play on some of those 459 00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:49,920 fears that are out there. 460 00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,120 Martin: No doubt they're still called proud boys. 461 00:26:53,360 --> 00:26:55,080 Alexander: Yeah, yeah. 462 00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:57,560 But I think the one thing that strikes me 463 00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:04,040 every time I talk to anybody who's really that concerned about it, it always drifts back to 464 00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:10,360 this sort of, well, they're taking all of our stuff, you know, jobs or entitlement benefits 465 00:27:10,360 --> 00:27:15,420 or healthcare services or educational services or tax dollars and things like that. 466 00:27:16,060 --> 00:27:21,660 And that almost seems to me to be the more universal concern as opposed to. 467 00:27:21,660 --> 00:27:22,940 I hate Guatemalans. 468 00:27:23,260 --> 00:27:24,620 You know, I don't know how many people are out 469 00:27:24,620 --> 00:27:25,780 there who hate Guatemalans. 470 00:27:25,780 --> 00:27:28,060 I guess there are probably some, but whatever 471 00:27:28,140 --> 00:27:29,180 nationality you want. 472 00:27:29,180 --> 00:27:32,860 Yeah, but it seems more the, the, the supposed 473 00:27:33,020 --> 00:27:36,460 threat to the bread and circuses that we have here. 474 00:27:37,190 --> 00:27:42,070 You know, someone who can promise me more of that bread and circus and keep it for me. 475 00:27:42,630 --> 00:27:47,750 And I think that's the way in which Most of those 18th century figures would have. 476 00:27:47,750 --> 00:27:49,830 Would have looked at things because they're so imbued with. 477 00:27:50,150 --> 00:27:55,710 With those stories as a. As a background to their own fears about whether or not they 478 00:27:55,710 --> 00:27:57,510 could successfully build a republic. 479 00:27:59,270 --> 00:28:02,150 That for them, you know, it's kind of the way 480 00:28:02,150 --> 00:28:02,750 they viewed. 481 00:28:02,980 --> 00:28:04,580 Ended up viewing Aaron Burr, right? 482 00:28:04,580 --> 00:28:11,900 Aaron Burr becomes kind of a stalking horse for this classical boogeyman, Catiline, right? 483 00:28:11,900 --> 00:28:15,540 So that Hamilton will call him a cataline or an embryo Caesar, right? 484 00:28:15,540 --> 00:28:19,900 He'll use these kinds of terms to talk about Aaron Burr, which from our perspective is 485 00:28:19,900 --> 00:28:25,340 just, okay, what is that supposed to mean? But for them, in the late 18th and early 19th 486 00:28:25,340 --> 00:28:28,100 centuries, calling someone cataline, everyone read that story. 487 00:28:28,260 --> 00:28:33,990 They knew who Katalin was, how dangerous he could be to a republican form of government. 488 00:28:34,550 --> 00:28:40,870 And so I think for them it would be easy to sort of say, okay, so we're looking at the 489 00:28:40,870 --> 00:28:42,710 United States in 2025. 490 00:28:43,190 --> 00:28:45,350 There's lots of fantastic, interesting things. 491 00:28:45,350 --> 00:28:51,150 But it seems to us, right, you have the Gracchi brothers here and you have over there 492 00:28:51,150 --> 00:28:55,590 a Caesar character, right? People promising these things and who are sort 493 00:28:55,590 --> 00:29:00,010 of whipping up the masses to get themselves elected and then have to deliver, right. 494 00:29:00,010 --> 00:29:04,890 It's the sort of real negative downside of populism, right? 495 00:29:04,890 --> 00:29:09,330 You whip people up to get you thrown into office and then you have to deliver for them 496 00:29:09,330 --> 00:29:10,490 or they'll throw you out. 497 00:29:10,890 --> 00:29:11,690 Blair: Or words. 498 00:29:11,930 --> 00:29:13,850 I know this one. 499 00:29:14,170 --> 00:29:20,410 The comment that really made me just laugh out loud was your depiction of MAGA as, quote, 500 00:29:20,410 --> 00:29:23,450 demagogic and unmoored pack of hyenas, unquote. 501 00:29:25,850 --> 00:29:30,570 What rhetorical or political tactics do you see them driving this characterization? 502 00:29:31,330 --> 00:29:31,810 What do you. 503 00:29:32,050 --> 00:29:34,570 I mean, other than the people themselves. 504 00:29:34,570 --> 00:29:36,050 Alexander: I guess I was gonna. 505 00:29:36,050 --> 00:29:37,890 Well, I was gonna say all the, all the main 506 00:29:37,890 --> 00:29:39,970 figures of maga, Right. 507 00:29:40,050 --> 00:29:42,530 You know, some of them, I guess, are wedded to 508 00:29:42,690 --> 00:29:43,970 systems of ideas. 509 00:29:43,970 --> 00:29:47,129 And maybe Bannon fits that mold. 510 00:29:47,129 --> 00:29:53,010 I think his system of ideas is wildly bizarre and Atlantonesque, I think. 511 00:29:53,890 --> 00:29:54,850 Yeah, he's. 512 00:29:55,330 --> 00:29:57,690 Well, I mean, I think he lends himself into 513 00:29:57,690 --> 00:30:06,440 this kind of weird radical Catholic faction of almost Mussolini type characters in terms of 514 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:11,040 just the nation predominates amongst all and its blood, its culture. 515 00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:15,080 And, you know, he went to Germany. 516 00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:17,800 Martin: And helped the alternative for Germany. 517 00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:19,360 Alexander: Yeah, yeah. 518 00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:20,680 And that's not surprising. 519 00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:22,760 I don't think that's at all surprising. 520 00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:23,520 And that. 521 00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:27,640 That's his milieu, right? Those are the characters he's comfortable with 522 00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,600 and is appealing to in Orban and Hungary. 523 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,140 That these are kinds of people Swirling around 524 00:30:33,140 --> 00:30:35,860 the same soup, as it were. 525 00:30:35,860 --> 00:30:37,460 And I guess that that's an ideology. 526 00:30:37,460 --> 00:30:38,260 And this. 527 00:30:38,340 --> 00:30:40,500 Some of these other bizarre characters who are 528 00:30:40,500 --> 00:30:42,980 kind of calling openly for dictatorship or. 529 00:30:44,020 --> 00:30:45,020 And things like that. 530 00:30:45,020 --> 00:30:46,900 It kind of fits an idea system. 531 00:30:46,900 --> 00:30:48,780 But for the most part, you sort of see in, in 532 00:30:48,780 --> 00:30:51,460 Trump the appeal of the. 533 00:30:51,460 --> 00:30:54,020 The unmoored guy, right? 534 00:30:54,020 --> 00:30:57,700 This is a person who probably has some fixed ideas. 535 00:30:58,490 --> 00:31:01,930 The tariff and protectionism thing seems to stretch back his whole life. 536 00:31:03,450 --> 00:31:09,050 But Donald Trump would just as soon as, you know, kill you as be your political ally. 537 00:31:09,050 --> 00:31:15,610 I mean, this is a guy that will flake out on his friends or supposed friends as easily as 538 00:31:15,930 --> 00:31:16,730 promote them. 539 00:31:16,970 --> 00:31:18,890 And I think there's just a. Especially if you 540 00:31:18,890 --> 00:31:22,850 sort of look at the trajectory of his whole first term, and I think in the second term, 541 00:31:22,850 --> 00:31:25,680 we're going to see that play out as we move along as well. 542 00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,560 You know, all these people that he, that he said, these are the greatest people I've ever, 543 00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:30,640 I've ever had these. 544 00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:32,360 I've hired the greatest people that are 545 00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:32,640 available. 546 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:33,720 They're the best. 547 00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:34,600 The geniuses. 548 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:36,920 They're all of them, my best friend, you know, 549 00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,600 and then six months later, no, the guy's an idiot. 550 00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:41,360 Martin: Elon Musk. 551 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:41,920 Blair: Yeah. 552 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,960 Alexander: Yeah. Of course, Musk has groveled his way back. 553 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:49,760 It's one of the first times I've seen any of these breakups where the person actually 554 00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:51,760 grovels his way back in. 555 00:31:52,770 --> 00:31:54,770 And because he's so, you know, for all the 556 00:31:54,770 --> 00:32:00,530 talk of Elon Musk as some sort of visionary businessman, you know, he has sought rents at 557 00:32:00,530 --> 00:32:03,650 the trough of the, of the government for all of these businesses. 558 00:32:03,650 --> 00:32:07,970 I think he realized that if there was ever a vindictive bone in Donald Trump's body and he 559 00:32:07,970 --> 00:32:10,210 really wanted to stick it to him, it'd be pretty easy. 560 00:32:10,770 --> 00:32:13,010 So I'm not surprised the groveling occurred. 561 00:32:13,650 --> 00:32:15,450 I guess he was just lucky that whole, that 562 00:32:15,450 --> 00:32:19,290 whole brouhaha in LA broke out and gave him a reason to suddenly say, hey, remember. 563 00:32:19,290 --> 00:32:21,720 I remember why I loved MAGA so much. 564 00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:23,400 And Donald Trump is the best. 565 00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,080 So the unmoored part, I think it's fairly, fairly easy. 566 00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:33,880 Trump especially, just floats around ideas and picks and chooses and grabs a hold of people 567 00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:39,080 and things and casts them aside just as easily for whatever serves him. 568 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,680 Blair: Let me say this, I mean, most of these people, and I won't put Trump in that 569 00:32:46,990 --> 00:32:49,390 category, but they're all Christian nationalists. 570 00:32:49,630 --> 00:32:55,110 In other words, America is a Christian nation and no one else should live here. 571 00:32:55,110 --> 00:32:58,670 Alexander: Or if you do, you better accept that that's the reality. 572 00:32:59,790 --> 00:33:01,230 You know whether you like it or not. 573 00:33:01,230 --> 00:33:03,910 Yeah, you can have your weirdo aberrant age to 574 00:33:03,910 --> 00:33:04,190 this. 575 00:33:04,510 --> 00:33:06,670 That was always Bill O'Reilly's shtick when he 576 00:33:06,670 --> 00:33:11,150 was on the O'Reilly Factor was so pointing out the Judeo Christian roots of the United 577 00:33:11,150 --> 00:33:11,550 States. 578 00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,840 And yeah, you could belong to these other 579 00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:19,600 groups but you had to, you had to respect that the country was still Judeo Christian. 580 00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:21,600 That's like a thing wherever. 581 00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:28,120 Martin: I have a question because you wrote an article about 20 years ago and what's going on 582 00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:28,880 in Iran. 583 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,280 And I remember didn't Dr. Peacock went to the 584 00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:38,160 show and O'Reilly had a fit there and didn't had a problem having a discussion there. 585 00:33:38,900 --> 00:33:41,380 He really tried to cut him off because Dr. 586 00:33:41,380 --> 00:33:44,820 Pikov, Leona Pikov, he said what they should 587 00:33:44,820 --> 00:33:47,940 do with the terrorist regime and the supporter of terrorism. 588 00:33:49,380 --> 00:33:52,020 Alexander: That's so long since I've seen that. 589 00:33:52,980 --> 00:33:53,940 But I don't doubt it. 590 00:33:54,420 --> 00:33:59,500 Martin: Yeah. So do you have any now we continue with Blair's questions, but do you 591 00:33:59,500 --> 00:34:04,940 have any thoughts about that, what's going on now in Iran and how Israel is doing? 592 00:34:04,940 --> 00:34:12,760 Very precisely take them out and what will be the MAGA and Trump's role then? 593 00:34:13,240 --> 00:34:19,760 Could Israel trust what's going on or will it be a so called diplomacy and bargain or flip 594 00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:21,040 flopping and so on. 595 00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,680 But we saw like the Bushes and others did back 596 00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:24,280 in the day. 597 00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:30,200 Alexander: Well, Trump's instinct seems to be to do just that, to flip flop and bargain and 598 00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:31,320 negotiate. 599 00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,760 I mean his whole brand is that he's some sort 600 00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:41,960 of epic deal maker who can get out of any problem with his own charming ability to make 601 00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:42,200 a deal. 602 00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:44,600 I always liken it to the Ellis character in 603 00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:51,280 Die Hard who tries to make a deal with Hans Gruber to get this whole thing settled and to 604 00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,880 get John out of the building and making problems. 605 00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:59,800 And it ends up getting Ellis, of course shot in the head at the end of that negotiation. 606 00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:06,990 That's always who he reminds me of, that kind of like that 80s guy who would do that. 607 00:35:06,990 --> 00:35:11,390 And that's I have to think that at the end of the day that's definitely where he prefers to 608 00:35:11,390 --> 00:35:11,710 be. 609 00:35:12,110 --> 00:35:14,950 Now Bannon, of course, who definitely doesn't 610 00:35:14,950 --> 00:35:23,350 want to do anything related to Iran in this moment, is predicting that Donald will fly the 611 00:35:23,350 --> 00:35:29,630 coupe on this one, that he will throw in in some way with the Israelis this weekend. 612 00:35:30,350 --> 00:35:30,790 So we'll see. 613 00:35:30,790 --> 00:35:32,510 I don't have any insights on that. 614 00:35:32,590 --> 00:35:37,710 I have ideas about what we should do and I think they've been pretty consistent since 615 00:35:37,950 --> 00:35:39,710 September 11, 2001. 616 00:35:40,110 --> 00:35:41,870 And here we are, 25 years later. 617 00:35:41,870 --> 00:35:47,870 So you could tell how much sway I've had on the powers that be. 618 00:35:48,510 --> 00:35:53,070 But I have friends, I have family in both countries, actually. 619 00:35:53,470 --> 00:35:55,440 And it's. 620 00:35:56,710 --> 00:35:59,950 It's a real tragedy that the government in 621 00:35:59,950 --> 00:36:07,990 Iran has made this, its sort of guiding principle for 30 or 40 years in terms of 622 00:36:07,990 --> 00:36:13,630 pursuing some kind of nuclear program that, unlike all the civilian programs on the 623 00:36:13,630 --> 00:36:20,110 planet, requires an incredible amount of highly enriched uranium and a ballistic 624 00:36:20,110 --> 00:36:25,410 missile program and a bunch of terrorist flunkies spread out all over the world. 625 00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:30,360 Yes, but no, none of us should be concerned that this program exists. 626 00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:31,880 I mean, it's a bizarre. 627 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,000 The idea that we're having this conversation. 628 00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,480 We're like, well, where's the proof that they're trying to do this? 629 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:44,760 And I said, well, at some point, you sort of have to just open your eyes to the facts that 630 00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,520 are easily publicly verifiable and then look at what they add up to. 631 00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,800 Because best I could tell, they don't add up to anything good. 632 00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,940 You don't have to like Bibi Netanyahu to come to that conclusion. 633 00:36:55,940 --> 00:37:03,900 I think what's been interesting to me watching this is just how clear and fairly unequivocal 634 00:37:03,900 --> 00:37:08,940 the Germans have been with the Iranians and the IAEA has actually been in terms of just 635 00:37:08,940 --> 00:37:13,820 saying we think they're pretty dishonest, actually, about how they've been doing this 636 00:37:13,820 --> 00:37:16,220 and not really living up to what they told us they were doing. 637 00:37:16,220 --> 00:37:20,740 And they're kind of in violation of all the laws that they've agreed to follow related to 638 00:37:20,740 --> 00:37:21,820 having a nuclear program. 639 00:37:22,300 --> 00:37:26,720 Blair: Well, that's why Israel acted, because the aaa, is it iea, whatever. 640 00:37:26,720 --> 00:37:27,000 Alexander: Y. 641 00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,000 Blair: They said, hey, these people, they're, you know, they're crooks, they're liars. 642 00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:35,080 Alexander: Unanimously. So. And yeah, of course it's a. 643 00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:36,880 Blair: And so Israel said, okay, that's. 644 00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:37,560 That was our key. 645 00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:38,120 Let's go. 646 00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:40,680 Alexander: And I mean, the first. 647 00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:41,680 The first strike. 648 00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:44,680 I mean, where there was two exchanges before this right of. 649 00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,040 Of strikes between Iran and Israel. 650 00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:48,320 And the first one was launched by the 651 00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:52,520 Iranians, you know, in response because they didn't like that a bunch of their terrorist 652 00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:58,420 guys were blown up in Lebanon who were meeting for plotting with Hezbol in a very precise. 653 00:37:59,220 --> 00:37:59,700 Yes. 654 00:38:00,020 --> 00:38:03,460 Just to team up to strike the Israelis. 655 00:38:03,460 --> 00:38:08,180 Like, the Israelis were just blowing up the random Iranians in various spots for no 656 00:38:08,180 --> 00:38:09,140 particular reasons. 657 00:38:09,140 --> 00:38:10,820 It's sort of kind of a joke. 658 00:38:10,980 --> 00:38:15,220 So the fact that they launched a ballistic missile attack, huge ballistic missile attack, 659 00:38:15,220 --> 00:38:16,260 that first attack was. 660 00:38:16,260 --> 00:38:17,140 Was pretty large. 661 00:38:18,420 --> 00:38:19,860 And, you know, The Israelis. 662 00:38:19,940 --> 00:38:22,100 Is that supposed to lessen the Israeli concern 663 00:38:22,100 --> 00:38:25,380 about an Iranian nuclear program? I don't see how that's possible. 664 00:38:26,700 --> 00:38:28,460 So I think that the. 665 00:38:29,500 --> 00:38:34,300 Aside from the general problem created for the 666 00:38:34,300 --> 00:38:38,860 Israelis by October 7, in terms of being surrounded by people that would do things like 667 00:38:38,860 --> 00:38:46,020 that, Iran certainly didn't prevent this particular war by deciding that they were 668 00:38:46,020 --> 00:38:52,260 going to react to getting caught, which is what happened in Beirut with direct missile 669 00:38:52,260 --> 00:38:54,050 launches at the Israelis. 670 00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,040 I think that was a big miscalculation, and I 671 00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:57,560 think it's. 672 00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:00,560 Unfortunately for the people on the ground 673 00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,000 there, it's, you know, who aren't involved in any. 674 00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:06,000 In any of the IRGC's activities. 675 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:06,400 It's. 676 00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:07,160 It's coming home. 677 00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:12,600 Blair: All right, Alex, for maybe our last question, I wanted to. 678 00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:13,680 And we touched. 679 00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:15,680 We touched on it before we actually started 680 00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:16,360 recording. 681 00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,040 Given your critique of MAGA and the 682 00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:26,340 progressives, where do you see hope for reinvigoration of classical liberal values in 683 00:39:26,340 --> 00:39:29,660 modern American politics, if at all? 684 00:39:30,700 --> 00:39:32,700 Alexander: Well, obviously right here, Blair. 685 00:39:33,660 --> 00:39:34,300 Right here. 686 00:39:34,460 --> 00:39:36,300 No, things like this are important. 687 00:39:36,380 --> 00:39:37,580 I mean, yes, they are. 688 00:39:37,740 --> 00:39:39,500 I'm not trying to be glib about it, actually. 689 00:39:39,500 --> 00:39:42,500 I think, you know, the more that we talk and 690 00:39:42,500 --> 00:39:49,960 write about it, the more that we make everyone aware that there are alternative ideas, there 691 00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:54,160 are other ways of interpreting events than the ones that we see in the. 692 00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:58,080 Is the predominant narrative in the universities, or the predominant narrative on 693 00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:05,120 the news media, or the predominant narrative with MAGA or on X or on whatever the AI du 694 00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:05,760 jour is. 695 00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:06,720 Right. 696 00:40:06,720 --> 00:40:11,440 That there are other explanations for the phenomena around us. 697 00:40:12,240 --> 00:40:12,640 I think. 698 00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:14,920 I think those people who are confused or who 699 00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:20,280 are sort of told by one of these groups, hey, this thing that you can see with your eyes 700 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,920 that isn't true is actually definitely true. 701 00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:26,320 I think those people who are intellectually 702 00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:33,880 curious and honest, but who don't know about some of these other things can only be helped 703 00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:38,200 by having more voices out there to discuss it, to talk about it. 704 00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:42,200 Because, Blair, I haven't seen you on any of the big news channels recently. 705 00:40:43,210 --> 00:40:49,130 And so these big panel discussions end up just being, you know, hey, instead of having those 706 00:40:49,130 --> 00:40:53,290 two voices, we have four voices saying the same thing the two voices said before. 707 00:40:54,570 --> 00:41:00,330 Blair: Well, to toot our own horn for a second, we are in the top 10 of the secular 708 00:41:00,330 --> 00:41:02,330 podcasts in the country. 709 00:41:03,610 --> 00:41:04,330 Alexander: That's awesome. 710 00:41:05,290 --> 00:41:05,890 That's awesome. 711 00:41:05,890 --> 00:41:06,650 And things like that. 712 00:41:07,130 --> 00:41:08,370 I think things like that are important. 713 00:41:08,370 --> 00:41:13,040 I know you're coming up on the big hundredth hundredth anniversary show, and that's great. 714 00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,200 I mean, that means you've got 100. 715 00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:19,040 Blair: Has the statistics, but I think we're downloaded in like, 90 countries. 716 00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:22,240 They have downloads in, like, 90 countries. 717 00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:22,800 So. 718 00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:24,560 Alexander: And I haven't plugged my. 719 00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:26,080 Blair: Having some impact somewhere. 720 00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:28,240 Martin: What do you say? 721 00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,120 Blair: Any money? But, you know, it's okay, though. 722 00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:35,760 But did I lose everybody? 723 00:41:36,250 --> 00:41:37,250 Martin: No, you're okay. 724 00:41:37,250 --> 00:41:38,570 We hear you loud and clear. 725 00:41:38,810 --> 00:41:42,250 Blair: But, yeah, I mean, that's quite an accomplishment, quite an achievement to be in 726 00:41:42,250 --> 00:41:45,050 the top 10 of secular podcasts in the country. 727 00:41:46,730 --> 00:41:47,370 Alexander: I think so. 728 00:41:47,370 --> 00:41:48,130 I think so. 729 00:41:48,130 --> 00:41:55,450 And, you know, there are people out there in both in academia, in the media that are 730 00:41:55,610 --> 00:42:01,130 bringing interesting conversations to the fore who are being contrarian to these predominant 731 00:42:01,130 --> 00:42:03,050 narratives, and I think that's really important. 732 00:42:03,130 --> 00:42:09,900 Tara Smith, I think, is still at the University of Texas, and that is a tremendous 733 00:42:09,900 --> 00:42:15,580 achievement for someone who has such a, I think, very contrarian take on legal 734 00:42:15,580 --> 00:42:20,580 interpretation and jurisprudence, but a really, really wise and needed one. 735 00:42:20,660 --> 00:42:26,900 And I think stuff like that is happening more than we give credit for, because we're all 736 00:42:26,900 --> 00:42:30,260 stuck in the sort of fire hose of the news cycle and just sort of. 737 00:42:32,620 --> 00:42:37,180 And, you know, and in these social media bubbles where a lot of voices are just 738 00:42:37,180 --> 00:42:43,500 amplified for a variety of reasons that say or do really bizarre, strange things, and you 739 00:42:43,500 --> 00:42:47,020 sort of think, oh, my God, everyone in the country believes that. 740 00:42:47,099 --> 00:42:51,020 And then you go out into the country and talk to people, you don't find a lot of people who 741 00:42:51,020 --> 00:42:53,580 are just willing to admit to your face, oh, yeah, I believe that. 742 00:42:53,580 --> 00:42:54,540 You know, whatever that. 743 00:42:55,900 --> 00:42:57,260 So let me, let me, let me. 744 00:42:57,260 --> 00:42:58,700 Blair: Throw this out at you real quick, though. 745 00:42:59,090 --> 00:43:04,050 One of the things that scares me that's under the radar is this. 746 00:43:05,170 --> 00:43:12,690 I mean, basically what Trump's team is doing to the rule of law, I mean, there's some 747 00:43:12,690 --> 00:43:20,770 things that are in this big, beautiful bill that just rip to shreds any individual 748 00:43:22,210 --> 00:43:24,210 recourse to challenge the government. 749 00:43:25,620 --> 00:43:27,700 And that is extremely frightening. 750 00:43:28,500 --> 00:43:34,900 I mean, today he's rounding up Venezuelans, tomorrow it'll be atheists, you know. 751 00:43:36,100 --> 00:43:39,940 Alexander: Yeah, the Venezuelan thing is so bizarre. 752 00:43:39,940 --> 00:43:44,420 You have a bunch of people who fled what traditionally would be an American adversary 753 00:43:44,420 --> 00:43:46,340 state, communist dictator. 754 00:43:46,340 --> 00:43:49,020 We would normally say, hey, great, we get all 755 00:43:49,020 --> 00:43:49,900 these people and we've. 756 00:43:49,900 --> 00:43:51,320 No, no, no, we don't want them either. 757 00:43:52,830 --> 00:43:55,910 Again, all the talk of 1930s parallels. 758 00:43:55,910 --> 00:43:59,310 I mean, that'll be one that is interesting 759 00:43:59,310 --> 00:44:03,870 because it kind of parallels this, right? The fleeing Jews of Europe couldn't find any 760 00:44:03,870 --> 00:44:06,750 place to go, even in the United States. 761 00:44:08,270 --> 00:44:11,550 And again, fdr, circling back to calling back 762 00:44:11,550 --> 00:44:14,830 to these previous things that have already mentioned, although I didn't necessarily 763 00:44:14,910 --> 00:44:16,670 intend to make that callback. 764 00:44:16,670 --> 00:44:19,940 But yeah, the, the assault on the rule of law, 765 00:44:20,020 --> 00:44:24,020 the idea that a republic is supposed to be an empire of laws and not of men. 766 00:44:24,500 --> 00:44:24,780 Right. 767 00:44:24,780 --> 00:44:26,180 We're right back at the one of those 768 00:44:26,180 --> 00:44:31,380 Enlightenment values that was so important in the 18th century as a defining characteristic 769 00:44:32,260 --> 00:44:35,460 of the kind of self government that we wanted to have. 770 00:44:36,020 --> 00:44:36,340 Right. 771 00:44:36,340 --> 00:44:39,020 The one that would not be subjected to the 772 00:44:39,020 --> 00:44:42,900 whim of a single officeholder. 773 00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:45,680 And yeah, there is some stuff in that 774 00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:53,000 supposedly beautiful bill that makes it much more difficult for citizens to seek redress in 775 00:44:53,000 --> 00:45:00,880 the courts without having to go all the way to the Supreme Court, which is a crazy desire 776 00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:07,200 because getting a case to the Supreme Court is really improbable and super expensive. 777 00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:12,470 And all of these people in MAGA who are, oh, we need to make sure those **** district 778 00:45:12,470 --> 00:45:14,790 courts never get in President Trump's way again. 779 00:45:14,790 --> 00:45:15,710 It's okay. 780 00:45:15,710 --> 00:45:16,270 All right. 781 00:45:16,270 --> 00:45:18,990 But when it's President Bernie Sanders Jr. 782 00:45:19,790 --> 00:45:21,110 You're not going to be able to get to the 783 00:45:21,110 --> 00:45:22,670 Supreme Court, kiddo. 784 00:45:22,990 --> 00:45:24,750 That district court that could have helped you 785 00:45:24,750 --> 00:45:26,830 is not going to have any power to intervene. 786 00:45:27,390 --> 00:45:29,910 And that's just the start of your, what should 787 00:45:29,910 --> 00:45:31,950 be your intellectual problems with this bill. 788 00:45:32,110 --> 00:45:35,790 But, yeah, nobody thinks more than two steps, 789 00:45:35,790 --> 00:45:37,310 two steps ahead of where they are. 790 00:45:37,570 --> 00:45:38,210 It's very strange. 791 00:45:38,210 --> 00:45:43,570 Blair: Yeah, well, there's, again, they're setting, you know, you think you're avenging, 792 00:45:43,650 --> 00:45:46,130 you know, your side by doing this. 793 00:45:46,370 --> 00:45:48,090 Well, the other side, when the other side gets 794 00:45:48,090 --> 00:45:52,210 back into power, they'll just use what you gave them to. 795 00:45:52,530 --> 00:45:55,970 Alexander: They'll use it and they'll use the argument you made to do it. 796 00:45:56,370 --> 00:45:57,410 And they'll quote you. 797 00:45:57,650 --> 00:45:59,930 They'll say, look, don't, don't take my word 798 00:45:59,930 --> 00:46:00,210 for it. 799 00:46:00,210 --> 00:46:00,850 Donald Trump. 800 00:46:01,090 --> 00:46:02,010 Blair: Trump said this. 801 00:46:02,010 --> 00:46:03,650 Alexander: Yeah, and you love Donald Trump. 802 00:46:03,810 --> 00:46:08,210 So, hey, and so one, one basic question. 803 00:46:09,010 --> 00:46:10,170 Yeah, I'm sorry, go. 804 00:46:10,170 --> 00:46:13,890 Blair: I'm sorry, One, one basic question, then we should wrap this up. 805 00:46:14,770 --> 00:46:17,370 What's the, There's a basic elementary history question. 806 00:46:17,370 --> 00:46:20,050 What's the difference between a republic and a democracy? 807 00:46:21,490 --> 00:46:24,370 Alexander: Ah, no, I did write an article about that 20 years ago. 808 00:46:24,850 --> 00:46:25,490 Blair: Okay. 809 00:46:25,570 --> 00:46:30,370 Alexander: So it's interesting in, in classical terminology, a democracy is a 810 00:46:30,370 --> 00:46:32,130 government by everyone meeting together. 811 00:46:32,630 --> 00:46:36,030 And so in an ancient city state, all the 812 00:46:36,030 --> 00:46:38,150 citizens would meet together to govern. 813 00:46:38,470 --> 00:46:41,470 Now, did this happen in ancient Athens? 814 00:46:41,470 --> 00:46:44,950 It was very difficult to actually get all the citizens together at one time, but they made 815 00:46:44,950 --> 00:46:50,270 attempts at getting groups of them together at various moments for different functions of the 816 00:46:50,270 --> 00:46:51,270 Athenian state. 817 00:46:51,830 --> 00:46:55,750 And voting, of course, was quintessential to 818 00:46:55,750 --> 00:47:00,590 making the Decisions and casting those votes and counting them and letting the simple 819 00:47:00,590 --> 00:47:03,230 majority rule, right? And of course, there are many famous examples 820 00:47:03,230 --> 00:47:03,670 of this. 821 00:47:04,210 --> 00:47:06,650 The trial of Socrates and the execution of 822 00:47:06,650 --> 00:47:09,570 Socrates, right? Being decided by a jury of 500. 823 00:47:10,050 --> 00:47:13,010 And they didn't have to reach unanimity, it was just a majority vote. 824 00:47:14,210 --> 00:47:21,330 So democracy, this word that comes to us from the Greeks is that the people rule directly. 825 00:47:21,570 --> 00:47:25,090 And elements of our government, of course, still retain that idea. 826 00:47:25,330 --> 00:47:31,500 A republic, this Latin innovation from the Romans, getting a good definition of it is 827 00:47:31,660 --> 00:47:34,380 trickier, but an easy way to think about it. 828 00:47:34,380 --> 00:47:36,620 A couple of defining characteristics. 829 00:47:37,180 --> 00:47:44,180 One would be the idea of representation versus having all the citizens together at any given 830 00:47:44,180 --> 00:47:45,660 moment to make decisions. 831 00:47:45,660 --> 00:47:47,740 So representatives now become an important 832 00:47:48,300 --> 00:47:54,140 intermediary in making the decisions, right? They will get together and have a slower, more 833 00:47:54,140 --> 00:47:58,300 methodical, more reasoned process, in theory, to make decisions. 834 00:47:58,300 --> 00:48:02,360 In the Roman case, we see that happen in a variety of different, different groups being 835 00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,360 represented, right? So the Senate would represent the old families 836 00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,200 and aristocratic wealth of the Roman state. 837 00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,640 Eventually there would be these other offices 838 00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:15,880 to represent the people of the city who didn't really have too much in the way of property. 839 00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:17,120 The tribunes would be. 840 00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:20,040 Those consuls would eventually be added to 841 00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:24,840 sort of represent an executive branch function out of the Senate itself. 842 00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:29,000 And so, and you'd have two of them, so you wouldn't have one of them gain too much power 843 00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:30,920 at any particular moment. 844 00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:33,400 So republic is going to be defined by that 845 00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:39,280 representative principle, the idea that we're not going to rule on everything as a group of 846 00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,720 citizens, we're going to delegate that authority off to some other representative 847 00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:43,000 group. 848 00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,160 And the other function that Adams, I thought 849 00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:49,520 had summed up, and I think I quoted him earlier, was this idea of law, that law 850 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:50,680 becomes supreme. 851 00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:53,280 It's not a person, it's not an office holder, 852 00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:54,360 it's the law itself. 853 00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:56,920 And if you could have a society where the law 854 00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:03,000 itself remained rooted in reason and it remained the authority over the whims of 855 00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:08,200 individual characters, then you could have, hopefully for a long time, but you could have, 856 00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:13,280 at least in that moment, a republic, an empire of laws and not of men. 857 00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:21,120 So representation and law, I would say as the rule, are the defining characteristics, at 858 00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:26,190 least as, as defined in the Classical and Enlightenment periods. 859 00:49:26,430 --> 00:49:27,070 Blair: That's great. 860 00:49:27,070 --> 00:49:29,230 Thank you, Alex. Where can people find you on 861 00:49:29,230 --> 00:49:29,710 the web? 862 00:49:30,030 --> 00:49:33,830 Alexander: If type my name into Google, you'll find a whole bunch of. 863 00:49:33,830 --> 00:49:34,670 Whole bunch of things. 864 00:49:34,830 --> 00:49:38,750 I had a long standing blog where I talked a 865 00:49:38,750 --> 00:49:40,270 lot about politics and current events. 866 00:49:40,270 --> 00:49:41,790 I haven't really updated that in a while. 867 00:49:41,790 --> 00:49:47,230 I think maybe the 2020 election is probably the last time I made a remark. 868 00:49:47,310 --> 00:49:49,870 Which is interesting because lots of things have happened since then. 869 00:49:51,790 --> 00:49:55,070 Martin: You could do some guest blogging on the secular foxhole. 870 00:49:55,870 --> 00:49:58,510 Oh, right there. 871 00:49:58,590 --> 00:49:59,510 Alexander: I'm an idea. 872 00:49:59,510 --> 00:49:59,910 I guess. 873 00:49:59,910 --> 00:50:00,830 I guess that'd be great. 874 00:50:00,830 --> 00:50:01,310 Yeah. 875 00:50:01,390 --> 00:50:04,190 That'll hit much more people than my old. 876 00:50:04,270 --> 00:50:07,910 My old blog I'm doing, as was mentioned, the 877 00:50:07,910 --> 00:50:13,550 intro, I've been doing some fiction writing, so if you Google me now, you'll see lots of 878 00:50:13,710 --> 00:50:20,680 links to the two detective novels I've published and the little blog I run to promo 879 00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:21,400 those books. 880 00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:22,520 Blair: Okay. 881 00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:23,720 Martin: Okay, that's great. 882 00:50:23,720 --> 00:50:26,320 And hopefully we could talk more about that in 883 00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:26,760 the future. 884 00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,400 Alexander: I'm available if you want to talk detective novels. 885 00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:31,320 I'll be more than happy. 886 00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:36,640 Martin: Yeah, we have some others that we have been talking about with that recently, so that 887 00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:38,360 could be a good combination. 888 00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:39,640 Alexander: I think that's right. 889 00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:44,200 Andy Bernstein published a detective novel a 890 00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:45,080 little different than mine. 891 00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,800 It's a little prettier, A little more of a 892 00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:49,520 Mickey Spillane vibe going on in that. 893 00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:49,880 Right? 894 00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:51,370 Blair: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. 895 00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:52,400 All right. 896 00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:57,520 Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to Alexander Marriott, author and historian. 897 00:50:58,240 --> 00:51:01,120 Alex, thanks for manning the foxhole with us today. 898 00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:02,640 Alexander: It was my pleasure. 899 00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:03,520 Thanks for having me. 900 00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:04,880 Martin: Thanks, Alex. 901 00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:06,080 Alexander: Thank you. 902 00:51:17,050 --> 00:51:31,850 Blair: Sam.