SIO188: Voicemail 2! AIPAC, Omar, and the 2020 Dem Primary

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 189, I'm your host Thomas Smith, and as kind of promised and alluded to last week, I've got some voicemail spillover to get to, I had so many really good voicemails from this past month, keep it coming, don't worry, I won't always do two-parters here, it was just, they happened to coincide with things that I had been kind of planning to rant about and talk about, so it went a little long, but please keep the response coming, coming. That number is in the show notes. It should be, unless I've messed up, it should always be in the Show Notes, no matter where you're getting this podcast. So feel free to chime in if you've got an opinion. But here we go. Part two of the listener voicemail from, I suppose this would be March, but they're good timeless topics or slash things that are worth revisiting. So here we Go. Part Two. Let's get to our first message.

0:01:24 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, in the most recent episode of Serious Inquiries, you referred to AIPAC as the Jewish lobby, 29 and a half minutes in, and maybe you just misspoke, but it's funny because that conflation is actually the crux of the issue, that conflation has been deployed cynically, particularly by conservatives to discredit criticism of imperialism and the actions of the State of Israel, and it's hard not to think that a lot of the prominent critics, the critics of Ilhan, on the left side of the aisle are being a little disingenuous. So, for instance, just a week after Nancy Pelosi was pushing this measure that seemed from the outset to be more or less a condemnation of Omar, it was announced that Nancy Pelosi would be the next president of the United States.

0:02:11 Voicemail: She was going to speak at AIPAC. So I think it's worth pointing out that even some members of her own party are likely engaging in a similar kind of dishonest attack on Omar are that the Ben Shapiro's of the world are, and I just want to bring that up with you. So, love the show, keep up the good work.

0:02:29 Thomas: Hey, thank you so much for calling that to my attention, yes, I absolutely apologize for misspeaking, that is definitely me making a serious error there, I apologize for that, I shouldn't use my language that loosely, and you're absolutely right to call me out on that, and to call attention to that, And I would add to that as well that Trump took that a step further because Trump told U.S. Jews that Netanyahu is, quote, your prime minister, to which some of them said, hey, I don't have a prime minister. I have a president because I'm not from Israel. I'm an American. And you're totally right to point that out. So, again, I want to apologize for that very big difference between saying this is a lobbying organization for the state of Israel and me incorrectly saying this is the Jewish lobby.

0:03:26 Thomas: That sloppy language, I shouldn't be making that mistake. I will be very careful in the future not to make that mistake in terms of criticizing Ilhan Omar. This, like so many issues in today's wider discourse, is so frustrating because I'm already going meta in my brain over and over on this. It's like someone does a thing that you might, or says a thing, whatever, that you might have a problem with, and you might want to express like, hey, maybe the way you said that wasn't quite appropriate, which is what I think was a valid criticism of Ilhan Omar. It just, it wasn't, the valid criticism of Ilhan Omar wasn't you're a Jew hating Hitler.

0:04:12 Thomas: It was maybe don't word your tweet in the way you worded it. And in my opinion, you can disagree. In my opinion that was valid to say like hey, you know, given the history of these anti-Semitic tropes, maybe don't use a bunch of dollar signs and say, like, just make your point a different way. I just say AIPAC uses money to to affect our politicians, whatever. Be be more precise that which I think was valid. I think that's a valid thing. It doesn't mean I think she's an anti-Semite. It doesn't mean I think she's evil and should be killed. I just I think it was okay for for example, Chelsea Clinton to tweet something like that. Don't traffic in these stereotypes, these anti-semitic stereotypes. Now, Ilhan Omar said, here's what she said.

0:05:01 Thomas: Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize. At the same time, I reaffirmed the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA, or the fossil fuel industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it. Yeah, great. So for me, you know, I'm not Jewish. So, you Know, if you are Jewish, if you were more offended, I am not going to tell you what you can find reasonable. But for me spectating on all this and seeing, and Collar, I totally agree with you on the the bad faith attacks on the right, like so much bad faith on this.

0:05:55 Thomas: And it blows up in a way that is absurd. And of course, if you are the party of Donald Trump, you have no grounds to criticize anybody for racism, anti-Semitism, whatever. You're the leader of the country who you elected and support is the worst example of all this stuff. So yes, that's all bad faith. And sometimes, and this, I need to emphasize this, when I'm criticizing somebody or something, or when I're maybe echoing some minor critiques of Ilhan Omar, I hope it doesn't need to be said that I would ever be validating the rights attacks on, you know, like I'm not agreeing with that. I think what we've learned and what I hope we can do, maybe as as Democrats, if you're on the left, like I identify as I hope going forward, we can realize that Republicans are completely disqualified from this game.

0:06:48 Thomas: They are complete. We do not have to listen to Republican attacks on anything, anything. We just do not. They have completely shown, unless you are a strong never trumper who has criticized Trump at every turn for all this bullshit and this, this uh, racist, you know, white supremacist, sexist, misogynist stuff, and you didn't vote for him, okay, well then maybe we can still talk and maybe we still disagree on some issues, you know, of course it's it's valid, uh, to have disagreements on issues of policy, and we can have that kind of discussion, but that's like one to two people in the country. Everybody else on the right has disqualified themselves. They've shown that all this critique of like, Obama, he's not really a family man, oh, he doesn't, he's now really a Christian.

0:07:33 Thomas: All this bullshit for eight years of Obama, you've shown that you did not care and that we do not have to listen to you anymore. You've shown none of that meant anything because the minute it was Trump, it was all fine and he's your president and it doesn't matter. So we do not have to listen to that. So sometimes I'm speaking, uh, from that perspective, like I'm not listening to that level of criticism. For example, another good example that this took place again after your, your voicemail. So I'm just adding it in to what you're saying, which is Ilhan Omar calls Stephen Miller, a white supremacist. Why? Because he's an effing white supremacists. And then now the, the right is going after her because Stephen Miller happens to have you know, Jewish heritage.

0:08:19 Thomas: So, Oh, another example of her being an anti-Semite. No, that's nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. We don't have to listen to it. Um, so it becomes hard, but, but because of this dynamic of everything being so polarized in that way, you know? Seeing things like, well, if you criticize Dilhan Omar at all, you're like joining the Fox news crowd and you're on, you know, like, no, but But I don't believe the solution is, well, if the right is critiquing Ilhan Omar unfairly on this thing, and they're just dogpiling on her, then you cannot voice your, in your mind, justified criticism of what she said, like, you can't do that, because then, therefore, you're feeding into this dogpile, and I don't really think that's going to be a good way of going forward.

0:09:09 Thomas: I think what we have to do is, well, it's very hard. You can't get anyone to do anything these days. You know, it is hard. Everybody has these disagreements and it feels like it is impossible to make a dent. But from where I am sitting, what I would like to try to do is if you are going to critique someone like Omar for this thing, make it limited, make it in accordance with what it is. You know? Like, do not blow it out of proportion and say like, ah, she is an ender, blah, blah. Wow. No, you can say she I think she worded this tweet badly and I fully accept what she apologized for. And it sounds like she gets it. And there you go. And I think there was some other statement at some point. But the point is, I totally agree that there's nothing but bad faith criticism of her on the right.

0:09:57 Thomas: But I don't think that means we can't at all try to launch a good faith minor critique of, you know, the tropes that she maybe played into with the wording of her tweet. That's all. Doesn't mean that, again, it also doesn't meanthat I think you can't criticize APEC. Of course you can criticize Apex. It's just let's let's just be a little careful with our language when it comes to dealing with age old racist tropes. You know, like it's just something that we should all try to do and, you know, call me out if I ever accidentally say something in a way that as I did, as I kind of linked AIPAC with all of Jewish people in the country, like American Jewish people, that's not fair to do. And I can just apologize and say, oh, I made a mistake.

0:10:44 Thomas: I hope that my apology will be accepted. But if there's somebody on the right who's going to do a bad faith BS dogpiling of me for that and say I'm an anti-Semite, they're just not worth listening to. They're just, we've, we've discovered in the past, you know, now eight to 10 years, that you just can't listen to that criticism because it's just not valid. We just need to operate as though it doesn't exist. Now, we can still criticize each other, like on the left, we should still try to make sure people are not being corrupt, not doing bad things, you, you know, but we're not going to listen to the tan suit crisis party anymore. Like they're just not, they're not, they've, they're, they, they they've shown themselves to be invalid. So, uh, thank you for the call. Um, that very, very, uh, good on you for pointing out my sloppy language there. And I apologize for that.

0:11:33 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas, I just wanted to disagree a little bit with what you were saying about the freedom of association thing, right, when you were, uh, saying that if we criticize them for, uh, who they bring on their podcasts or whatever, like, I think it was Sam Harris, uh, to ask, you know, that then freedom of associations did, it's not really that they don't, they're not free to associate, uh, free to associate with, um, Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, actual neonazis if they want, but we should be free to criticize them, so I think the The correct way to frame that argument is that if they don't let us criticize them for their association, that they're actually trying to clamp down on our speech. Thanks.

0:12:20 Thomas: Hey, caller, thanks for the call, yeah, you framed that as disagreeing with me, but maybe I said something incorrectly or something, and sorry if I worded something badly, but that doesn't strike me as anything I disagree with you on, so I think we're in agreement there, maybe, who knows, maybe just some barrier of my thoughts not exactly getting on the podcast the proper way that I meant them, so, but long story short, I don't think we disagree. And there's probably just some little communication thing there. I totally agree. I, and just to restate this, I think this is a good point you're making. And this comes up a lot in the context of people like Sam Harris or Dave Rubin having on these guests who, in my opinion, have horribly awful views, um, doing absolutely no challenging of their views at all.

0:13:13 Thomas: And then when people like me, you know, or others out there complain, like you are, you're giving a a platform to people with awful views, the response is, oh, I don't agree with them on everything, but now I can't even associate with them without receiving your criticism. Like it's just, you're not allowed to even associate it with anybody. And, you know, my, my thought process on that has always been that, um, I think it is valid to be, you Know, it's not as though you can never speak to anybody who disagrees with you. Of course, that would be a straw man. Man. But for me, I think it's just telling which things people view as, oh, you know, we disagree on some things, but we can still share a stage and we can still have a nice, joyful conversation.

0:13:59 Thomas: It's one thing if you're having a debate, you know? Like, that's a separate question. If Sam Harris had had Jordan Peterson on the show, and I'm talking back in 16 or whatever when this fall first started blowing up, if he had had Jordyn Peterson on the show and said, we're going to debate this Bill C-16 stuff because what you've been saying about trans people and pronouns, I don't know, to me, let's debate this. And he argued with Jordan Peterson on that. That would be one thing. I'm not going to get super mad necessarily for him giving a platform to him because it's Sam Harris's show. If he wants to have a platform and debate a topic, even if I disagree with Peterson on the topic, you know, whatever that's, he can do that with his platform. He can have it be a debate show.

0:14:45 Thomas: But what I'm saying is that's not what happens. What happens is Harris, this is just one example, but it happens all the time. Harris shares a stage with Ben Shapiro or Harris has a podcast with Jordan Peterson in which he says, uh, well, we disagree on some stuff, but we can still have an amicable discussion. By the way, I think you're totally right on all that C-16 stuff.

Anyway, let's talk about God, you know, and shows that he actually doesn't disagree with Peterson on the Bill C-15 stuff or doesn't care to learn enough about it, that kind of thing. So it's just, to me, it's just telling, and again, this isn't disagreeing with you at all, caller. I think we totally agree. To me, it's telling what people label, what people like Sam Harris and others, what people label as, you know, we disagree on some issues, but we still you know that versus what's disqualifying. And again, sorry to harp on Harris to use him as an example. He can't have a conversation with Ezra Klein.

He has decided that Ezra Klein, if you followed that whole thing, is disqualified from discussion with Sam Harris because of some disagreement that, that Harris then, uh, views as disqualifying. Like, oh, it's bad faith. It's bad faith because it's, and I think it's telling to see what those things are if they have a disc because that's still just a disagreement, you know, like if Ezra Klein, uh, disagrees with Harris on Charles Murray, that's, that, uh a disagreement, but it's telling that that's a disqualifying one in Harris's mind. Whereas Ben Shapiro being very anti-trans, anti-gay, anti all that stuff, that's not disqualify.

0:16:27 Thomas: They can still, uh, cuddle together on stage and have a nice amicable discussion. So that's all that, that, those are my thoughts on the kind of the platform and stuff. It's just very telling. Uh, but thanks for the call. I think, uh. Pretty sure we totally agree.

0:16:41 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, it's Nate from Vacaville. I was just calling about what you were saying with identity of candidates and how some people seem to think that, like, policy is the only thing that you should be allowed to consider, otherwise it's some kind of bigotry. And I, yeah, I just wanted to say, largely, I totally agree. I think a lot of Bernie supporters should be a lot more careful in terms of how they talk about that, that it's totally reasonable to consider identity. And I think the right way to think about it is, like, what is the effect of my vote? What effect is my vote going to have? And you have to weigh the effect of having an underrepresented minority or women, for example. Like, the fact that there's never been a woman president, like, that's a huge problem, and there's a number of actual tangible benefits that that would bring if we had a female president.

One thing that I I do think gets, like, kind of glossed over a lot of times, and I don't know if you've done this or not, but Bernie gets called, like a white man, and it's kind of an erasure of his identity as a Jew, and, like it's not, I don't think it's the same as having the first female president, but like having the non-Christian president would be a pretty significant achievement, and especially, Especially given the time that Bernie grew up in, what anti-Semitism was like when he grew up, that's a big reason why most of the white civil rights protesters like Bernie were Jewish, because they viewed there, it was still very bigotry.

0:18:19 Voicemail: There's a lot of bigotry that they were facing as well, especially given how religion is weaponized by the right today. Day. I think just having someone who's not a Christian who would change a lot of the talking points that the right would have to use. So, yeah, I just wanted to underline that aspect of identity as well, the candidates. All right, thanks.

0:18:43 Thomas: Thank you, very interesting points, and as always, I want to talk about them, but I also am going to branch off a bit, I've been thinking a lot about this, this could be a long-ish rant, but it's important, because I get this a lot, and I've kind of been trying to organize and gather my thoughts on this, there are, for me, this is just being personally thinking about it, there's kind of two different ways that I think about identity, and representation, and vis-a-vis, you know, know, the 2020 election.

And I think the problem is that there are a few, there are few assumptions that I have and assumptions that don't line up with assumptions that often people who are criticizing me have. So on one level, there is the representational, you know, how meaningful is it to have the first ex-president, the first black man in Obama, The first, would have been the first female president, Hillary and all that. And there's... there's that level. And on that level, I think it's important. But I also I actually don't put as much stock in that as maybe some other people do. And for reasons that I think you outline a little bit in your message, you know, that you touch on, which is I don't really I don't really want to be competing on that.

I don't think the valid question for an election should be, all right, which group do I think needs the representation a little more? Does it need to be like the first white woman or does it need need to be like the first, I don't know, maybe if there were like a gay, but black male candidate, would that be like more?

0:20:31 Thomas: And like, that's a question that I don't particularly find useful. You know, like I, for me, I DON'T find it useful to be Like, okay, which group needs the representation more? That's who we should elect. And then we'll kind of go down a list and like, make sure everybody's got their representation. No, it's not really that. I think that's how how people think that I'm thinking about it oftentimes. Like that's when I, when I get people who criticize me for saying like, yeah, let's, let's not have a white man. Let's let's move on. Let's have a, let let's give a, give a woman a shot. I think they think that's what I mean. And I also, here's another thing that I think that, I'm pretty sure certain people think have in the back of their mind, like having their assumptions that they would never admit to. But I, Here's what I think they do.

0:21:16 Thomas: I suspect, I can't prove it, of course, because it's hard to prove what people have going on in their own minds. I think people on the right, especially who criticize me when I say I want a female president because there have been 45 men presidents, like maybe let's give someone else a shot. I think that in their minds, if we've got a scatterplot of presidential candidates and let's say generically, they've got like a score on a scale of 100 that there's a bunch of, you know, mainly men who have who are, you know, they're the high scores. They would say they're like in the 90s in terms of how good of the president they'd be or how qualified or whatever it is, electability, all that stuff. They're like, in the nineties.

0:22:01 Thomas: And then like the women are kind of, they are in like the eighties, you know? They're not quite as good, but like we should reach down and elect one of these women And that's, you know, not as good of a candidate, but you know They deserve a shot That's not at all How I think about it, that's how I think These people often are thinking about it Like I can't prove it, you Know It's always hard to prove like when people are being Biased, and that's another topic I wanted to touch on It's impossible to prove this stuff, pretty much Because in this day and age There are always going To be, at any time For any candidate you like You listening right now, whatever candidate it you like, I can in 14 seconds find a billion reasons not to like them.

0:22:48 Thomas: I can Google it. I can find, oh, they took this vote. Oh, they're only a mayor of a town. Oh, they are actually in the past, they made this statement and that da da da. So you can always have another excuse. If I think I see a certain, let's say there's a certain man, uh, not to name any names.

Let's Let's say I have a male friend who seems to never support the female candidates for some reason, you know, back, back when it was Hillary, they said, well, I would support her if it was Elizabeth Warren, but I just don't like Hillary. And now all of a sudden they're not supporting Warren. Isn't that weird? They're still, they're on Bernie. They're on Buttigieg. They're in the Senate. They're, uh, they don't, uh. Uh, Beto, whatever. Isn't that weird?

I can never prove it because there's always an excuse to not like somebody. There's always a excuse. There's, we're not going to get some candidate who's like a hundred percent perfect and therefore for the only reason you don't like them is because you're a sexist or something, you know, like it's never going to be that, but I, I feel like what it actually is.

0:23:46 Thomas: So here's how I feel now. I've, now I've gone through my, uh, my attempt at mind reading, uh, you know that I can't prove it's on, it's, it's not a hundred percent provable because there's always, there's, always the plausible deniability that, Oh, sure. You don't, you don't, uh systematically undervalue women. You just happen to not like all the female candidates for the last two elections. Okay, sure, I can't prove that you're lying, but I suspect. Anyway, what is actually happening, in my view, is that we have a ton of candidates that are good. And again, if I'm to give some crude numbering system, I actually think that our biases cause the opposite to happen. I actually think that specifically Elizabeth Warren, and sometimes it's others too, that some of these female candidates are more qualified than their male counterparts.

0:24:38 Thomas: I think they would be better presidents. I think they have better policy ideas. I Think they are smarter. I think they are more emotionally balanced even than a lot of these shouty candidates. And I think that our societal biases undervalue them and overvalue the men. So this is very important. Important, I'm not looking at it as we need to, you know, kind of reach down and give some of these lesser candidates a chance because they're from these underrepresented groups. So, you know, we should kind of vault them up. No, no, no. For me, it's kind of the opposite. What I genuinely think is happening, and I particularly see it with women. This is just, again, this is maybe it's just a product of the particular candidates for this election.

0:25:25 Thomas: Could Could be totally different, you know, in four years or whatever. In this particular election, I personally believe that there is a systemic undervaluing valuing of someone like Elizabeth Warren and even somebody like. To a certain extent, Kamala Harris, but Kamala is actually doing pretty well. I've been consistently surprised because I don't hear about her a lot, I feel like the news media coverage that I'm seeing is more centered around Buttigieg and some other flashy male candidates, but actually, that could just be my media bubble because when you look at the polling numbers and you look Look at the fundraising. Kamala Harris is doing quite well, but what I see is an overvaluing of men, I'll just, just being honest, like, that's what I, we've got a, a mayor from South Bend, Indiana, and a guy who just lost his Senate election, who, yes, he was a member of the, of the House for, For six years, but that almost, almost no previous presidents were only members of the House of Representatives.

I, there might, I think, it's hard to find because it's not, the data is not organized in the right way, but I, from my quick tally, it is like two maybe at most, and talk about mayors, zero mayors. I think there's one president who had been a mayor previously, but no presidents who had ever, like mayor was the highest thing they had done. And yet the people who are getting all the praise, yes, Bernie Sanders is still probably a frontrunner right now,

0:27:03 Thomas: And, you know, we can talk about that, but the people who are really like the hot new things, who are sucking up all the media coverage that I'm seeing, is a mayor and a guy who just lost his election, who, yes, served in the House, but like, even, you know, like he served in the House, but that's rarely, uh, it's seen to be enough qualification to make someone president. What do they all have in common? They're men. Um, and like, I want to make clear that it's not that I hate these people, you know, and this app often happens, everybody has their favorite candidate, and if I say I don't want that person to be president, when I say, I do not want Beto to be president, I really don't want Betto to be present, I don not think he's qualified. That is not the same as saying I hate Beto.

0:27:49 Thomas: I think he would have been great as a senator from Texas. I find his speech and his way of campaigning and all that, I find it to be pretty vacuous. It seems to be largely inspiration, quote unquote. He is inspirational. I'm not going to deny that. He's very inspirational. Inspirational. I don't, what I want for 2020 though, and in general, is somebody incredibly competent. There's so much damage to undo. I, it, all right, this is a huge discussion, I'm going to try not not to spiral out so far, but the the broader point I'm making is I think the uh specifically a lot of the female candidates and and for me, for my money, uh, Elizabeth Warren, do not get the kind of press coverage that they deserve. And they are better candidates, in my opinion, than pretty much anybody else.

0:28:44 Thomas: Elizabeth Warren right now is my favorite candidate. It could change. We'll see how the debates go. We will see how stuff goes. Right now, I believe she is the best candidate. You know, look at the way Buttigieg was covered. And again, this is not to say I hate Buttigieg. I think he is a very interesting guy. I think that he is very smart man. I do, of course. I think it would be really cool to have the first gay president. That would be awesome. But what What I don't think is happening is I do not think that we are in an environment, and this will tie in your point about Bernie Sanders being Jewish. I do Not think, yes, while it is true that we have not had a Jewish president, we have not had gay president openly. There might have been a gay president or two. We haven't had an openly gay president.

0:29:30 Thomas: And I think it would be cool for that to happen. That would be a great thing. There are a lot, a lot of demographic groups who haven't gotten a chance yet. And I'm not going to, that's exactly the argument I don't want to have is like, oh, which would be better to have the first Jewish president, have the First Gay Man president, to have the first whatever. That's what I don'T care about. What I care about is who have we systematically undervalued? Who are we currently undervaluing? And I actually am pretty sure that if you look at the media coverage and how confident instantly confident people are in Buttigieg, I don't know that we're systematically undervaluing the competence of gay men as political candidates.

0:30:17 Thomas: Now, we still might, you know, we aren't electing enough gay men, probably. We aren't, you Know, I always want more LGBT representation. That's a separate issue, separate question. I totally want more LGBTQ in government, and I certainly want want people with great LGBT policies, all that kind of stuff. But when we talk about our biases and how we look at candidates, especially when you're talking about Bernie Sanders and his Jewish heritage, I do not think that anybody that I do is not see any evidence of us and even just confined it to the left, like forget the right, just the left within our own, the left primary primary process. I do not see any evidence of us discounting ability because someone is Jewish.

0:31:07 Thomas: I do see a lot of evidence of people discounting people's abilities because there are women. I do. I'll tell you right now, Buttigieg, I'm going to do a little comparison. Buttigieg is covered as a genius. He is, he is looked at as a genius. I saw the big article about, oh, is this guy a genius? He learned a language to read a book, which I, that I'm a little bit skeptical of a story like that, but okay. He's definitely a smart guy. I'm not saying he's not smart. He is definitely smart. You know what you don't see is Elizabeth Warren is a freaking genius. She would be a genius of a president and she is so qualified.

0:31:52 Thomas: She is so deserving of the label of genius. You know, Warren came from a modest background, and now I'll do a little campaign ad for her. No, but it's okay. Maybe you disagree with her policies, maybe you're somebody who's not going to vote for her for policy reasons, and of course, there's still the room to do that in a valid way, but I want to talk about, again, narrative, about how much Buttigieg is revered as a genius, and that same kind of coverage is not given to Warren, even though I believe she deserves it. I mean, she was, you know, her dad died pretty early on, she's not very well off. You know, I guess after her dad died, they were middle class, but her dad died and then the bills were very hard to pay. So it's not as though she came from a wealthy background. She came from pretty modest background.

0:32:38 Thomas: And nevertheless, you know, despite the fact that she graduated with a bachelor of science degree in speech pathology and audiology, which is weird. I didn't even know that until I just read it just now. She, as, as she was pregnant, had the first kid when the daughter was two. And when she was pregnant with her second child, she put herself through law school at Rutgers and received her JD and passed the bar. That's not easy to do. And then after that, somewhat shortly after that she was teaching law, ended up teaching at Harvard Law. You know, like that's not that easy to do. You have to be very brilliant to do all that and end up teaching in Harvard Law, you know, basically putting yourself as you're pregnant with your second child and raising your first child, also pass the bar and put yourself through law school and go on to teach at eventually at Harvard Law.

0:33:35 Thomas: You've got to be brilliant to do that. And that's all before we get to the fact that she invented the CFPB and The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was proposed in 2007 by then Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, and it made an enormous difference, it returned billions of dollars of money that was essentially stolen from us, from citizens, by banks, you know, so, she's a genius, she is a very, very, smart person, and you don't really see that same admiration for her genius. And I think, and again, it's not like sinister. I don't think it's a bunch of, you know, if you read Kate Mann's book about, you know, kind of misogyny and the system of misogynism, it is not a bunch of people running around thinking in their heart of hearts, I hate women and I want to hurt women.

0:34:31 Thomas: It is not. It is exactly not that, usually. It is these little biases we have. It is the fact that all our stories of genius, you You know, what are our traditional stories of genius and greatness? Well, Well, they usually are, especially if you go back in history, but still to this day, they're usually white men, who are these geniuses on their own, the, you know, the Doctor House or whatever, like they're, and they also, sometimes they can also be bitter a-holes about it, and then they still get away with it because they're the genius that everybody needs. They're Tony Stark, they are, you, know, they have Steve Jobs, they, you now, and I'm not saying that those are all made up, you You know, of course, there's going to be real examples and there's going to overblown examples. But like those are as a society, they tend to be the mold for genius.

0:35:21 Thomas: They tend to being men. And, you know, I think the racial component of it is softening up a bit. Hopefully we're portraying more racial diversity in our genius stories as a society. I think we're getting better at that, of course. But like that's who fits the mold. And so I think Buttigieg easily has that advantage, in that he can fit into that mold that we all have, that kind of in the back of our minds, that archetype of the genius character that we all know, it's usually this, it is usually man, and I think he, now, this is not to say, again, this is not say that he is not a very smart, I think that he might be a genius, he might be an incredibly smart man, he may be a genus, it, it that he has access to that kind kind of archetype that we all have in a way that Elizabeth Warren doesn't in a way that, you know, when Elizabeth Warren talks about stuff, it's all about like, well, how relatable is she though?

0:36:17 Thomas: Like, is she being relatable? Is she, you know? She's not very, she's just not very inspirational. Is she being inspirational? And I think there's all these, these little qualities that we, that they're kind of fuzzy qualities that you can't ever prove it. You know, you can never say like, oh, well that what you mean there is you actually want a man, not a woman, but like they tend to be things that we discount women for. We tend to discount female candidates if they raise their voice, if they speak, you know, if they're a little if they're we find a little shrill, if they're a little yelly, you know, in a way that Bernie can yell all day and night and it's only now maybe kind of catching up to him because a lot of people saw what happened to Hillary in 2016 and are seeing a little bit of the of the devil standard there.

0:37:04 Thomas: But but that that's my point. So I know this is a long-winded way of saying this, but when I'm saying that I support women candidates or that we need a women candidate and that kind of thing, again, it's not because of the single representative role that that would take. It's not like, okay, we got to have our black president, so now let's move on down the list and have our female president. Let's have our gay president. I also value that. I also want there to be more diversity. And stuff. But it's kind of working backwards. It's not that I want to, or that I think of these candidates as less qualified, but let's go ahead and hand it to them. It is that, no, we have been undervaluing these people.

0:37:49 Thomas: We have been undervaluating certain kinds of people and overvaluing, in my opinion, we've been overvaluating white men. They have an easier time, I think of being, being looked at as inspirational, especially when you talk about somebody like Beto, who, uh, for me, that was pretty vacuous, honestly, like in his policy is pretty center centrist as well. Like he's not, I see a bunch of progressives embracing him and it's like, he's, uh, uh, you know, he's a six year representative who now doesn't even hold an office, hasn't accomplished a whole lot and he he's inspirational. Yes. But like, Like, why do we find him inspirational and we don't find Elizabeth Warren inspirational? And it's it's frustrating to me.

0:38:35 Thomas: And it is. And another part of it is this electability part where you're like, OK, well, some people are like, well. That might be true, but we need somebody who can beat Trump. So we've got to we've got to, you know, elect the white man. We've got a go with a white male because they're going to have the best chance of being Trump. And I just what I'm hoping we can do is not do that. I'm hoping we can stop undervaluing some of these candidates who are not white men and show up and vote once it's the general election and elect who we want, who we think will be the best candidate. So, sorry, I know that was long-winded and I know, again, that branches off greatly from the voicemail and I do think it would be great to have Bernie be the first Jewish president.

0:39:21 Thomas: I think it'd be cool to have a Jewish president, that would be great, but that's the distinction I want to make. It's not that I support Sanders because we need a female president, it's that I also believe that certain groups are being undervalued and I I actually don't see, in terms of like bias, I don't think, somebody can correct me if they have data on this or anything, or they've seen studies or something, but I actually don't, I actually think we are discounting as Democrats, the ability, the innate ability of Jewish people in, especially Jewish men in our, in our elections on the, on the left. I don'T really think that's happening. Doesn't mean it wouldn't still be cool to, to elect a Jewish president. It would be absolutely awesome. It would also be absolutely awesome to elect the first gay president.

0:40:08 Thomas: And if Buttigieg ends up being the person that that people go with in the primary, I will happily vote for Buttigieg in the general. Same goes for all of these other candidates. I would probably be least happy with either Beto or especially Joe Biden. We'll talk about that later on. There's still a lot of time. I love I love how a lot lot of people are accusing me of being too divisive on Joe Biden already when he hasn't even declared that he's running. And yet it's still, it's already, I have to line up behind him as a candidate. So that's the point. I also hope that everybody realizes, I want to make this very clear and it's worth making it very clear. I will vote for the Democrat in the general. I'm not, this, this comes from when I criticize people on the left, A, now is the time to do it.

0:40:59 Thomas: The primary Mary is the time to do that. So let's do some fact finding. Let's do some soul searching. Let'S find who we like. Now is the time. And we've got, we still got time by the way. I'm not committed. I am absolutely not committed to Elizabeth Warren a hundred percent. She's who I like right now. We'll see. Maybe the debates will change my mind. Um, but you know, once we get there and once we have our candidate, once the convention, you know we're at the convention, I will be proudly lining up behind whoever that is because that is a a better person than Donald Trump. And furthermore, the Supreme frigging Court is what matters. You know, that is what really matters because Congress might still be red somewhat after 2020. I think there's a good chance that we'll still have divided government. And therefore, there will be almost no meaning to the different policies.

0:41:48 Thomas: I honestly believe this is true. There will be just about zero difference between a President Beto and a President Kamala Harris and all that, that given that we're likely going to have a split Congress still, it's going to be very difficult to win the Senate back. Could happen. Uh, but, but even if still there'll be a lot of obstruction, there's so, it'S so hard to get anything done. And I bet you that'll only last maximum two years. Like if we even have the numbers to, if we even have control of Congress and the presidency, I, you know, I doubt it'll last more than two years. It's just, it's just it's it's system, it systemic. It's, you know, it, it look what happened to the Tea Party in 2010. I believe something like that could happen again if we take back control in 2020. So anyway, all that is to say, in the end, there will be very little meaningful difference between these policies, because it won't get done.

0:42:40 Thomas: Call me cynical. I don't think much is going to get done, but we might be able to get a couple of things done. And so it's very important to have a Democrat in there to, A, stop the damage, because there's a tremendous amount of damage that will be done if Trump wins re-election. Also, again, the Supreme Court, probably the most important thing of all. I wish we could just vote on the frigging Supreme Court. I wish we could just popularly elect Supreme Court justices because that's what matters most now. That seems to be where stuff gets done the most, what impacts the country, our lives the most. So, all right, I will leave it there. I have so much more to say on that, of course, but we have a lot of time to do that. Thank you for the call. And here's the last one for this episode.

0:43:29 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, this is Hausdorff. I was calling today because me and my wife were talking about how to best use our resources for donating to primary candidates versus general election candidates, and we never really came to a consensus. I thought you might have some interesting thoughts on it, so my first instinct was that, you know, as far as all of the Democratic candidates so far, I kind of like them all, you you know, I've looked at Mayor Pete, Beto, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Kamala Harris. I like all of them. Everything I hear from all of these people, I like them. Whoever wins, I'm happy. And so my first thought was, well, you know, I don't have that much money to donate to the candidates. I feel like I should wait until the general election and then donate to whoever wins because I'm happy with all of them.

0:44:18 Voicemail: But my wife kind of pointed out that, you know, we want to have the best primary we can. We want everyone to have as much information as possible, and so we should probably donate some money to the primary candidates as well. And she suggested, you know, pick your handful of favorites and donate to all of them so that they all have enough resources to have a good run, and then, you now, let them fight it out, see who sort of comes out on top, and then a good primary kind of gives us the best general election. So I've been thinking about that, and I just thought you might have some interesting thoughts on the best way to divvy up our scarce resources. All right, thank you very much.

0:44:59 Thomas: Oh, I definitely have thoughts. Okay, so obviously some amount of this is going to be kind of personal philosophy. And I'll go ahead and skip the part where, you know, like there are obviously going to be people who don't want to donate to politics at all because they don't care about it. But let's say, assuming you want to donate to politicians, to some sort of democratic politicians to help elections, I do not, here's, this is my opinion, feel free to disagree, everybody. I do not even personally, I will be donating zero dollars to any presidential candidate. I just that's that's how I feel. I feel like your money makes very little difference now. But that's fine. Like if you are somebody who's excited about a candidate and you think how they need and they need my support, or maybe they're a candidate who's kind of on the outskirts and you're thinking, I just want to support them and I want to make them get into these debates.

0:45:53 Thomas: That's totally valid. I'm not, you know, obviously, you know, on some level nothing matters, yeah, on some level it's one of those uh problem of the paradox of large numbers, like no tiny amount that I'm gonna do is gonna make any difference in any of these things, and but but we'll throw that aside because that's, you know, that's a separate problem that that involves, it applies to voting as well, but I'm still gonna vote even though my technical one vote doesn't actually do anything. I'm I'm still going to vote because of the principle. Now, if you are talking about wanting to donate and wanting to make a difference in politics, for me, it will be all about Congress. That's what I think really matters. That's what I think your dollar is going to do the most good at. And that's not just my opinion.

0:46:39 Thomas: That's just true. Because if you what I liked a ton was Swing Left for 18, and there's, I'm blanking, there's some other, like maybe it was an Act Blue, I don't know, there's some other organizations. Here's what I would look out for. If you're dead set on donating to presidential candidates, let's see, I don't know if I have any. Personally, I just don't care. I don't. I don't. I don. I'm not going to do it because I just don't value that enough to want to throw my money at it because I think that we're going to see them and we're going to vote and that's who we'll have. And maybe I can almost see donating to the general. I think I donated to Hillary. But also, I'm realizing now what really matters is Congress, because had we elected a Democratic Congress in 2014, it would have absolutely made all the difference in the world.

0:47:37 Thomas: We failed, and I include myself, I was not as politically engaged in 2014. And so I will happily bear a lot of that blame as well. We failed. Had we had we elected, had we given Obama more than two measly years of Democratic control? Think what he might have done. And he did a lot in two years. He really did. We don't give him people don't give him credit. Pass health care, save the economy. You know, there are still a lot he didn't do. He wasn't able to do, but he only got two measley years of control. And so what I think I think Congress is is really important. I also think, uh, what I started to say and I'll finish that thought is start to look for when we get closer to the 2020 elections for, for Congress, start to look for, there are districts you can donate to where your money makes a huge impact.

0:48:31 Thomas: So like there'll be, because you know, when you're talking about the house, especially it's one thing, the Senate, you know those are statewide. Those are, it takes a lot of money to make a dent. But when you're talking about the House, every vote counts, every House vote counts. So if we elect a Democrat in a district that's got like three people in it, that is every bit as valuable as a Democrat from the most populated district. You know, it's kind of unfair, but you know, that's how it works. That's just how it worked. And so there are these organizations that, what I remember from 16 and from 18 is there are organizations that will kind of do that math and they will tell you, hey, here's a district and I'll try to call attention to these once it comes up.

0:49:18 Thomas: Here's a district where if you donate $20 or whatever, you're going to get so much value out of it. They will be able to buy a lot more media time, airtime, ad time, whatever. They'll be able do so much more with that money than if you're just throwing it into the black hole that is the general election. You know, like, uh, again, it's not to discourage people. If you, if you feel so strongly, and I still might end up donating, you know, I'll probably, I still may end up donating for the general. I probably won't for the primary because I just don't, I just don't care enough. Like I'm, I'm so into whoever the candidate is for the general that I've just not, you know, I, I that's how I, that's just me though. But if you're really looking at, I have a fixed dollar amount and I, for the the general category of politics and the general category of trying to make a political difference, I would highly advise you to look at it that way.

0:50:12 Thomas: I would recommend to look for those key districts, close districts, districts where it could go either way, districts where maybe we're going to take a seat from a Republican, and districts where the media market is, you're able to make an enormous dent with a low dollar amount. That's what I'm going to do. I'm I'm going to look for those districts in 2020. That's my plan. But again, if you're trying to make a difference of your donating, that's awesome either way. I don't at all mean to say that that's not a meaningful thing to do. That's awesome. You know, every bit counts everywhere. But that's personally what I would do if you have a finite resource and you want to do the most political good with it. That's what my view is, numbers wise, the best way to do that. So thank you for the call.

0:50:58 Thomas: Those are my thoughts. Thank you all for the calls. Those are awesome. As of now, still no baby. I'm still on baby watch, but it's good. I recorded an interview ahead of time for next week that I hope you'll enjoy. It's a very, very interesting interview. And I'm not going to announce it because you never know if then where the news will go, if I'll need to preempt it, but we're still looking good. No baby yet. Thanks for all the messages, everybody. And thanks for listening so much. I appreciate it. These voicemail episodes are are so fun, I love hearing from you guys and your participation is uh, makes this show so much more fun. If you'd like to support it, hey, please share it, share the show out, get it heard by more people if you think it's a good thing. And also please support the show on patreon.com/seriouspod. Uh, thank you for listening and I will see you next week.