SIO251: Dimensions of Political Identity

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 251, I'm Thomas, I've got thoughts, buckle up, it's gonna be one of those, and, you know, I'll obviously try to edit out my coughing, but hey, California's on fire again, and specifically, California is a big place, specifically my California, California near Thomas is on fire, and I will say this about the fires, I want to say one good thing, about the fires. No, I'm going to say two good things about the fires. Everything is awful, obviously, and fires are terrible and people's lives are at stake and their houses are getting lost. That, of course, it's awful. I'm gonna say two good things against all the bad things. First good thing, supposed to be 110 today, 108, 109, 110, depending on the forecast.

0:01:19 Thomas: Uh, the smoke really, uh, really, really keeps that temperature down, actually. When the sky is ash and smoke, it's uh, about 99 degrees, I think something like that. 9,900 degrees, which believe it or not is a lot cooler than 108, 109 makes a big difference. Second good thing I'll say about the fires is it is the appropriate lighting, you know, like honestly, the whole country should have been under this lighting since 2016, roughly speaking, November, 2016, you Know, because it I looked outside and it's really ominous. It's like yellowy, orangey, dim. It's weird. It's, like, when there's an eclipse or whatever kind of, and you're just like, what is, it's middle of the day. It's the Fire Nation is invading in Avatar the Last Airbender.

0:02:08 Thomas: Actually, it is kind of like that because the ash is everywhere and it is pretty much literally that. But, anyway, when you see the lighting, or when I saw the lighting I was like, oh, my gosh, this is ominous, and I was, like you know, that's how I feel though. Like, this pretty much how we as a country should feel. Forever until we, uh, until we get some stuff ironed out. So there you go. Uh, I'm always negative. I'm pessimistic. I just found two good things about the fires that are horrible and destroying people's houses and stuff. Oh man. Yeah. That's, that's where we are trying to find the bright side in a literal, literal fire. I think we're in a state of emergency. Anyway, Anyway, that's all just for funsies. Here are my thoughts. I have a lot going on today in my in this brain of mine.

0:02:56 Thomas: I, you know, it's funny. I'm obviously was very disappointed that Joe Biden was our candidate, of course, as a progressive Democrat. Very disappointed. Wanted Elizabeth Warren. Second choice with Bernie. Would have been ecstatic with Bernie, by the way. I didn't, I don't buy into that really all that enmity. I would have been very happy with either one. And we got neither one and we lost by a lot. And I've already covered that before and I'm not going to rehash all that. But, you know, I had mostly, mostly emotionally dealt with that. I'm sure like many of you who are also voting for Biden, I hope you are. I strongly advocate everyone do that. It's very important. And to vote for Democrats down ballot is also equally important, if not more important.

0:03:43 Thomas: But anyway, I, you know, I'd resign myself. I switched to sort of like the the wildfires. I switched to trying to find the positives and you know, there's always positives. It's I'm not quite doing the 180 that some I think some people are doing. I'm I'm worshiping at the altar of Joe Biden or anything, but you know he seems movable. He seemed it seemed like the platform was going leftward and I was mostly happy and then he nominates. Here's the weird thing. He nominates Kamala Harris, who is, objectively speaking, far more progressive than he is. I mean, it's just not close. We talked about this on opening arguments. Check out the opening arguments about Kamala Harrison's record. I think it's very fair.

0:04:28 Thomas: I have some problems with her record, but I think the problems are also largely overstated by a lot of people, which I'll get to too. But objectively, even people who don't like either of them, I'm pretty sure we can all agree Kamala is far more progressive than Joe Biden is. I mean, by the records alone, by her Senate record, she is one of the most progressive senators since her time in being there. And I know that's a short time and whatnot.

And you can kind of try to quibble with the methodology. But under several different methodologies that people have used, that organizations have used to score senators, senators she is and congresspeople she is among the most, I don't mean like top half, she's like fourth, she's very progressive. So anyway, that happens and then things somehow get worse like and again we're all we're just stuck in this, I mean, are we, we're, we're in this social media environment, especially in a pandemic where, like, I'm not getting out really, I'm going out and talking to people. My life has mostly lived online. I don't know about you guys. You're listening to me. I assume some part of your life has lived online and maybe, yeah, maybe we'd be better off if we're all not on the internet, not on social media, but, like, is that happening anytime soon? I don't know.

But anyway, you would think of my friends that I have through this show and everything that I don't even go on my Facebook, that my old, I have two accounts. One was like with my family and stuff, my friends from college and all that. I don't even go on that because whatever.

0:06:09 Thomas: People don't like talking politics, especially, I'm actually, and this is a side note, apologies, but I realized the other day I kind of have it lucky with the fact that I'm largely Facebook friends with people I don't know that are just listeners. I have a lot of friends I know as well, but mostly it's people I don't know.

And so when I see someone, which has happened, happened just the other day, I saw a super racist post and I was like, oh, I must have accidentally accepted a friend request that I shouldn't have. I don't, I don't request anybody. So I know that that means I accidentally accepted the wrong one. And I was like, delete.

And, um, I was realizing there was a certain level of privilege, I guess, to be able to, to, be on a Facebook account where I don't really have anything invested in a lot of the people on it. Um, yeah, a lot, again, I'm friends with a lot you listening, probably, and I do enjoy, uh, certainly a lot that I've talked to. But there, you know, there's a lot of people I don't have much invested in. And when I see them post something racist or whatever, like, yeah, white lives matter or something. I'm like, yeah, okay. Don't care about this.

But I was just thinking, what if I were still like, I'm sure most of you are like on a Facebook account through this time in 2020 in the year of our Lord, 2020 on a Google account with where all the people that I was friends with, I had like some sort of real relationship with, Oh my God, that'd be agony. I know. I Know. I must sound like a a space alien. I'm the only one actually who has this privilege.

I've always referred to myself as just a mountain of privilege. He I'm adding one more thing to the list. I had no idea. Um, you know, because what if scroll, how do you even do it folks? How do you scroll through your feeds knowing that like 90% of everything people post will probably be something horrible that you're like, Oh my God, I don't, what do I do?

0:07:55 Thomas: I don't to be friends with this person, but there's someone I know or their family member or the way, wow, must be horrible. So that's a side end of side note. I realize that's another particular privilege I have. But even that said, I saw so much stuff in the wake of Kamala Harris being nominated that somehow made me feel worse. Like I had felt like, OK, again, I covered that episode. You know, I did an episode where I covered kind of a postmortem on the primary, talked about how we as progressives, if you, you consider yourself pretty aggressive like I very much do, we didn't win, we failed. I am not one for coming up with a bunch of theories and conspiracy theories and sort of almost like victim narratives of how the DNC did it to us and the, so unfair that all the other candidates endorsed Joe Biden, even though Bloomberg didn't drop out until after, you know, it really didn't matter.

0:08:51 Thomas: And Bloomberg had taken far more of Joe Biden's votes than Elizabeth Warren, for example, took of Bernie Sanders. I'm just not really having it with these theories, with these, you know, I don't want to use it. It's hard. I use the word victim narrative. I don't what else to say. I' sorry if that' not quite the right word, but just all these reasons that progressives come up with, which is like, no, we, this person did this. I am just, I am sick of it. You know, like, young people didn't vote. And when you don't vote, you don't win.

0:09:24 Thomas: Believe me, I'm really disappointed. You know, like I thought after all everybody dropped out, you know, I thought Bernie had a real shot. I was actually one of the first. I might have done an episode. I can't remember. I remember some people being mad at how negative I was, but I'm not so much negative as I think maybe over the past few years I've proven to be just realistic. I'm too realistic. I'm not good. That's why I'm always depressed. I'm not good at like pretending things are better than they should be and I saw the polling and it was just ugly. It was horrible for Bernie. I don't know what happened. I do. I don't know how you can just keep making excuses. Okay. I do think I know what happened but I don't think it's a victim narrative. I think that what happened is everyone was very afraid of Trump winning and when you're afraid, you know, a lot of people are genuine genuine centrist, genuine Joe Biden people, or by the way, we always have to keep this in mind.

0:10:21 Thomas: People don't really vote in a way that's entirely rational. And maybe, maybe I'm including this, by the way, like if you, oftentimes people take those tests that are like, where do you, you align your views on policy positions? Which candidate is your top candidate? Sometimes it's surprising who comes up, you know, you might think you're, you, you're like, oh, I'm all for Elizabeth Warren. I'm all for Bernie. I am all for whoever. You take one of those tests back when there's a bunch of candidates, you know, and all of a sudden it's like Cory Booker. I love Cory Booker personally, but for some reason nobody else does. I don't really get it. And then, you know, so what I'm saying is there are a lot of factors. There are a ton of factors, of course, not one of them is people don't vote on ideology. People vote on kind of a weird feeling.

0:11:07 Thomas: There's a a perception, I think, among some people that, you know, most of those candidates up there wanted similar things, you know, like they pretty much wanted health care for people. They pretty much want to stop Trump. And that's enough for a lot of people, you know, and furthermore, there may have been some people who are on the bubble who maybe do vote a little more on ideology, but thought we just cannot risk it. We can't risk whatever. They may be wrong, by the way.

They may have been wrong in their calculation of risk. Um, interestingly, it's looking pretty good for that theory. You know, uh, I've, I think I've said this in tweet form. I don't remember if I've set it on the show, but if this primary was a largely a story of black voters choosing Joe Biden, because they're terrified that the other candidates won't win and they, they need to win because the, for the people who suffer most are those who are already suffering, uh... and are already, um, disenfranchised and all that. That, and they need the, they need relief the fastest, they need help the fastest and they cannot survive another four years of Trump. That theory so far, so far is looking very good, better than I thought it would. I, I, you know, maybe some of you were like me where you thought, okay, Joe Biden, he's, he's a joke, right? I mean, he is. He's so old. He is gaffe prone. He all this stuff. The polls can't be right.

It can't been right that, I'm talking, you six months ago. It can't be right that he has such an advantage over Trump more so than all these other candidates. But you know what? Honestly, at this point, it's possible that that was just correct. That enough people, the trade-off they made is, and again, I'll try not to repeat myself.

0:12:46 Thomas: I know I am somewhat because the last six months of this COVID have just been a blur. I don't remember who I've said what to, what and for what I've said to whom, I guess I'm trying to say. Anyway, um, it's, it's held up, he is doing really well. I think the trade-off, that's what I was gonna say, the trade-off was maybe a certain more center-leaning people. Now people, um, characterize this as Joe Biden is trying to get Republicans to vote for him, and yeah, there's a little bit of outreach of that, but it's not, it's not so much just he's reaching all the way to try to get like the, the, the warhawk Republicans to vote for them, it's more people in the center, center right, or people who are kind of like non-enthusiastic about Democrats and are kind of independent.

0:13:31 Thomas: It's reaching across the aisle a little bit, but it's also reaching for the middle and reaching for maybe the center left that just doesn't, for whatever reason, was really put off by Hillary. I think it's for bias reasons personally, because people, anyway, I've already said that. And that's a trade-off. And you know, the best way to make a prediction on that trade- off. So if you're sitting there and you're saying, okay, which is more costly? If I alienate the leftists who are going to be like, I can't believe Joe Biden. Joe Biden's a centrist. I'm not voting for Joe Biden, you know? So that's one group and that's a very real cost. It's a real cost. People are going be less inspired by Joe Biden that's just a fact. There is a cost there. I'm sure I'm speaking to some of you right now.

0:14:17 Thomas: Again, I hope you're all voting for him, but I, you know, I understand probability wise some people probably won't be voting for them. I, I think that I strongly disagree with that decision, but that cost is there. And then on the other side of the balance, how many more voters is Joe Biden getting? And that's a very tough question. It's a very tough question, how many more voters is a candidate like Joe Biden going to get for that? And you know, what's a good way to try to evaluate that, or if not a good way, you know, what's like kind of the only way you can, is to have a primary where the voters on the left fight out for who they want the candidate to be. Because if there was a bigger cost, if there was this huge cadre, cadre, whatever you pronounce that, of leftist, young, whatever voters who are like super progressive and want Bernie Sanders or, or Elizabeth Warren or both, or probably let's be real there.

0:15:10 Thomas: There are more support for Bernie. Um, you, Bernie would have won that. I mean, it's as simple as that. Like, and, and Bernie lost by a lot. He lost by more than in 16. He lost by a lot in the primary. Millions of votes. So when I see this DNC, this convention, which I've got thoughts on that. I'm not a huge fan, not a big fan of what's happening there. Step one, Bill Clinton. What the fuck is Bill Clinton doing at the convention? Me too has gone too far, folks. Me too's gone too far. You can't even, boy, I sound like Rush Limbaugh there, didn't I?

0:15:51 Thomas: Oh my God. I'm kicking Me too. It's gone too far, folks. I can't really do a good Rush. But anyway, that was essentially Rush. I haven't heard him in so long because I just physically will puke if I hear that guy. That's my childhood memory of hearing Rush Limbaugh when my parents would listen to him. But anyway, yeah, me too. Gone so far that a credibly accused rapist and an admitted abuser of their power in a sexual way, by the way, with Monica Lewinsky. So there's no doubt. There's no like he said, she said, like they both said, and we know what happened. That person is still speaking at the convention. And by the way, even if all we believe was Monica Lewinsky's story, that would be bad enough, but there's more.

0:16:36 Thomas: There's a very, very credible rape charge. There might be more than one. Why? Me Too has not gone too far. That's always been a joke. I think I've made that point before. There are certainly segments of our society and little slices of the pie of our social media that take stuff seriously, take Me Too seriously, of course. It's not like nobody does. Some people take it very seriously. And then wider society, including the people in power, it's just not there yet. So Me Too has not gone too far. Bill Clinton should not be at the convention. Hillary Clinton should, though, because a wife is not defined by her husband. Been. She has, I don't know if you know this, Hillary has her own very prestigious political career. I made a Facebook post saying as much, and there's a lot of arguing going back and forth because a lot people said, we got to move on from the Clintons.

0:17:35 Thomas: Really? We got to move on from both the, they were, they're tying that into my post of, you know, not wanting a potential rapist, Bill Clinton, to be speaking there, as though Hillary's included in that. And she's just not. You know, she was our nominee four years ago. Not only that, she was the first major nominee to be a woman and also she won a majority of the votes. Did you know that, in 2016? Crazy.

That's, uh, be pretty crazy actually to have that person not involved in your convention. So she should definitely be involved. Bill Clinton shouldn't. I know that'd be a little awkward at the dinner table or whatever, but that's in my, in my world, um, granted that we already had a Biden candidacy which is not, that's that's already not part of my world, but but stipulating that part like that's required, then further from that I would say, uh, okay, well, if I have to do that, at least no Bill Clinton. So that's step one.

And then also we got a bunch of Republicans for some reason, we got Casick, we got all these other, and I get it to an extent, I get a certain amount of using those people to say Trump is so bad, he, here's how bad Trump is, you could, I saw this on, on Twitter, there could be a super pack of ex administration officials that were like in the Trump presidency who would be like, who would constitute a pretty large number like that. That that's shocking.

No, that has never happened that I know. I mean, who knows? Maybe some other time in the 1800s or something that I won't know. But I like, hey, history buffs.

0:19:07 Thomas: I don't think this has ever happened. I don't think you could have ever had dozens, if not, you know, if you tried to go lower down in the food chain in terms of administration people, maybe even hundreds, I don't know, but at least dozens of high profile past members of the administration saying, get this guy out of office. I mean, that is just unheard of. And so, okay, I get a certain amount of that.

I understand a certain amount of using those voices to, you really want to drive the case that this person is terrible, you know, but it's a, it's a bit much. And we're, we're doing a lot of Republican-ing, uh, because there's just tons of Republicans up there all the time. Uh, and AOC gets like a tight 47 seconds. Uh, I just, I'm not a fan, you know, I don't know. Think, um, I, Biden said a lot of good things about being like, I am a transitional president. You know, he hasn't said it cause he shouldn't. Uh, but I think everybody kind of understands like, this is going to be a one-term president. I hope, you know, but again, it's smart to not say it. You don't want to say that no one, no one will, no, will work with you. You'll be a lame duck the entire time.

But like, I think we all kind of assume that's what's going on. So you would think that one might want to, uh, include some fresh new young voices, like for example, AOC, like Stacey Abrams, like people who were given like a second or two. I mean, it's not like they were blacklisted or something. I mean they're, they're the, the squad and so forth.

I mean, members of the squad get to speak for a little bit, but they, they are not by any means as prominent as I think they should be in this convention.

0:20:47 Thomas: And that is frustrating to me, but I guess that brings me to kind of one of the cruxes, cruxes of, uh, cruxies, I don't know, of what I wanted to say today, which is trying to find the right way to, I guess, be a progressive in this moment, in my opinion. I mean, we're all obviously operating under our own opinions. But for me, there's something that just, I was alluding to it earlier, that once Kamala was nominated, and I'm going to sound like the biggest boomer ever here, but I think it's the memes. And I don't know what to do about this.

Let me explain. Lane, um, I've seen so many things, I'm gonna go through a few of them and Actually, if you're, if you do follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod, I did a debunking of a, it's not exactly a meme, but I don't know, if something's like a tweet that makes a point but then gets shared in picture form, is that technically a meme or memes strictly speaking, you know, like the guy with the astronauts with a gun who's like, always has been like, that kind of thing, or the, or the guy looking back at the other girl walking by, is that a meme or is anything that gets shared in some way that goes viral, or whatever, is that, anyway, either way, um, the one I debunked on Twitter, which I, I hope you, uh, see and retweet, because I think it's valuable, um, I saw a tweet that made the rounds, and and when I say that, I mean on Twitter it was viral, and then also as a picture on Facebook it was viral, which is the stupid world we live in, um, but anyway, and it said, like, oh look at this, Harris prison stocks surge after the Kamala Harris VP announcement.

0:22:30 Thomas: And it has a graph. I'm going to sort of explain this again, skip ahead. If you already saw my breakdown, I suppose, but I instantly, I was like, that can't, could that be right? That can't be right. Because it just doesn't make sense. I know it. I don't, for a lot of you, that probably makes sense. And that's why this went viral. A lot of people were like, oh yeah, well, she is a cop. So definitely. Yeah, sure. But that didn't make sense to me because I, in my view, I think I have a more objective view of Kamala Harris than maybe some people do. That's my, it's my assertion here. And I can back that up because I did some research. And so it's CoreCivic Inc is the company and it's, it'S actually not exactly a company. So part of the research is there are pretty much just two and they're called, they're not, they'RE not literal prisons. They're not like a prison company per se.

0:23:26 Thomas: It's a little complicated, but it's a real estate investment trust, I guess that's the way that they're there. And again, there are only two in this prison, I don't know, I guess, sector of this. And what they've done is, in order to be traded in certain ways, they're sort of real estate, they turn themselves into like real estate holding companies, that then it's sort of like the land that prisons are on or whatever. But let's suffice to say that part of the meme is fine, that part of the point is fine, that it is true that they're these two, and this, this one is just core civic that they shared, but, uh, the prison REIT sector is small with just two large publicly traded REITs in the market today, core civic and GEO Group, both converted to REITs and 2013, combined these two REITs owning about 75% of the private prison industry. So I guess we can assume the other ones aren't publicly traded, these are, I think, in order to be publicly traded, maybe they had to do this, I don't know, one way or the other, that part's fine.

0:24:23 Thomas: And the graph shows like in the after hours trading of August 11th, in the after hours training, there's an uptick there from like $9.16 a share to $9 and 63 cents, which is, you know, that's significant. I mean, it's not like astronomical, but what is that? Like almost 5% probably or a little more, a little more than 5% or right around there. There. Okay. So, so far at first appearance, that might seem to be correct. But then I just did a very quick Google and just looked at CoreCivic stock. And wouldn't you know it, there's a Motley Fool article, which Motley Fool, if anybody does any investing, maybe they've come across Motley Fool. I do a tiny bit of investing and I, you know, of course I was an accountant, so I know something about stuff like this a little bit.

0:25:12 Thomas: I'm not an expert or anything, but I know my way around some financially stuff. And there's an article that just says, hey, it is true that CoreCivic just popped 10% this morning. And that was actually the day after. So the 11th, it did pop up. And then the after hours of the 12th, It popped up even more. So that gave it about, you know, 10%. And it just said this. It didn't say, guess what? Kamala's a cop.

That's why we're all buying up CoreC civic because Kamala is a cop? No, that's not what it said. It said, hey. It turns Turns out CoreCivic is being added to one of the indices. So it's the S&P small cap 600. And because it's being added to this index, therefore some traders, some sort of savvy investors thought, oh, if I buy it right now, Then there will be a little bump, in like a week, when this goes into effect, because some of the like indexed funds and mutual funds kind of thing, they will have to buy this to have it represented it in this, uh, S&P small cap 600. I know it's like slightly technical, but it's, I hopefully that made sense to everybody. Um, it's people trying to make a buck on a little thing. And, uh, so that's the explanation.

And, you know, the thing about investors, and again, I, yeah, I know a little bit about this, not a ton, but I, you know, I look at investments and charts and stuff from time to time, and you get like the comments and stuff, you can actually, it's kind of cool these days, uh, especially on like TradingView.com is one that I tend to use, and and you'll get all kinds of people with their stupid theories. It's something I've joked a lot about on Comedy Shoeshine because it really is astrology for well-off white dudes, essentially.

0:26:50 Thomas: They all have these theories, like these numerology theories and these graph theories that really are just nothing, in my opinion. It's all nonsense. Like the technicals is often a fancy way to say, like, oh, it's picking up steam here and it's going to challenge this, you know, number. I think it's personally, in my opinion, I think it's almost entirely nonsense and the markets are irrational and, you know, unless you have some like inside information, maybe, then it's, you can't beat the market. That's the time-honored axiom of finance is you can't beat the markets unless, you know, something crazy happens. You can get lucky for a while and you can think you're going to beat it, but you can't beat the bargain. Anyway, all that is to say when you go on something like TradingView, you can see all these comments and people with their theories.

0:27:37 Thomas: And none of them say, hey, Kamala's a cop. And it's not as though people who trade stocks, this is not the far left or something. So these people are conservative usually. So I don't think they would have a problem being out in the open being like, yeah, no, I'm buying this because Kamala is a cop and we think private prisons, blah, blah. So if you aren't convinced by that, I save the most convincing part for later, which is if you just look at the chart for five years, and obviously this is a better visual than audio, but I shared it on the Twitter thread. Maybe you can find it or I'll try to link it. If you look at the five-year chart, this is nothing. This little uptick is nothing in the grand scheme of things. What you will see is a stock that crashed when Hillary was the candidate, roughly corresponding to that.

0:28:28 Thomas: And I think there's good reason to believe, you don't always know in trading, it's hard to know for sure like what affects what, but it times out perfectly with, uh, Hillary being the, the nominee and the de facto, like, going to win the presidency, and then all of sudden, right around November 2016 into 2017, the stock climbs back astronomically, and I'm talking, this was at, you know, the, the price is like nine dollars, now this was that 35, so that is a massive percentage decrease, uh, and then it, it went all the way, crashed all the way down to $12.50 ish. And then when Trump won, it went straight back up to $35. And then it's been kind of a long extended downturn.

0:29:13 Thomas: And now it's at $9. If you look at this visually, you will see how stupid and insignificant this alleged Kamala Harris prison, private prison bump is. It's nothing. It's tiny, teeny little thing on the chart that is absolutely nothing. And it's already gone back down pretty much from there, which, which wouldn't really stand to reason. You would think if Kamala was making big bucks for the private prisons, it would just keep climbing.

It's much more explained by the thing I already read, that it was some people trying to make a buck because this thing is going on an index fund. That's basically it. And I will make one further point, which is that Kamala Harris is against private prisons. She wants to abolish private prisons, it's in her, it was in her, uh, uh, platform when she ran for president, um, it's, it's, and and by the way, She was in California, of course she was, the, and and California has one private prison that it contracts with for overflow purposes.

California is not one of the big like private prison states, they're trying to get, by the way, uh newsome and others are trying to getting rid of even that, but it's a, it actually, actually know something about this from my job, it's a tough thing, because the prisons are overcrowded here, and so that private overflow prison is so that people's rights aren't being violated, and how crowd, overcrowted it is, and like how bad conditions are, but then also, they don't, they want to get rid of private prisons, but they can't, because they're court ordered, they're like court mandated to not, you know, until they have this overflow handled, so it's complicated situation. As is pretty much everything.

0:30:46 Thomas: You know, it's it's much easier to paint a caricature and make something seem simple. But as much as they want and are trying and are moving to get rid of private prisons here in California. And again, there's only one they contract with. They're they're bound by some court orders and they're bounded by the fact that there's overcrowding and they can't consolidate everybody in. And by the way, they can't build a new prison either. They're kind of locked in from everywhere. There is no political will to like build more prisons in California. So it's a slow process of hopefully reducing the mass incarceration. But like the system is slow as F, you know, it's going to take a while to do that. So anyway, that's a quick look into into that. Kamala is not a private prison person. In fact, again, she is against she's for abolishing private prison.

0:31:35 Thomas: So it'd be pretty nuts for investors to think, oh, can't wait to buy up this private prison stock because the vice president is against private. It makes no sense. And why I'm so mad about this and why I make a big deal about it is, is it's exactly the thing. And I said this in the tweet. If private prisons could have a Twitter, which maybe they do. Who knows? Maybe it's this guy. This is what they would tweet. This is the kind of both sides nonsense. Stuff that is completely inaccurate. That makes it, it's a false equivalence to say like, I was a cop, private prison, blah, blah. So that people devalue her and don't want to vote for Biden and Harris. And then if Trump gets reelected, you can bet that this stock is going to go back up.

0:32:23 Thomas: This is exactly the kind of thing that a private prison would want to happen. So all this is to say that I've noticed, so in terms of how to be a progressive, I'm trying to get to, it's a long extended point, I understand, understand, it's also, I, I have, I've come to realize that there is this thing that we call like left and right vaguely, this this political compass or whatever, that we say like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm progressive, well I'm more progressive, I'm less whatever, and I think we often simplify it down to one spectrum of left or right, and it's actually multiple axes, and I think there's a lot of confusion is because people interpret different things different ways.

0:33:09 Thomas: So for example, I get called a centrist all the time, you know, and it's usually because I'm saying we got to vote for Biden or something else, you Know, like, but oftentimes it's because it's, because there's another axis. So if you, if you take like policy and what you, you knows, there aren't that many people that are that far left of me. I mean, obviously it becomes like a pissing match and people want, they look at it as a morally good thing to be more left. And, and maybe it is, you know, some people are genuine, like communists and socialists and, you know more power to you. I I'm not that. So sure. There are certainly some people that's not that many people though, like actual, it's probably more and more every day with how bad things are getting by the way.

0:33:54 Thomas: So maybe we'll all get there eventually. Um, but that's, out that many, people, um, in terms of policy, I mean, I, uh, I want universal health care, I want to, I want to ban billionaires, I don't want there to be such a thing as a billionaire, I think that when you get to 999 million, like the meme again, which is also a good funny tweet that is shared in picture form, says, congratulations, you get a voucher that says you won capitalism, capitalism, and we name a dog park after you or something. And it's hundred percent taxes after 999,000,900, blah, blah. I want to ban billionaires. I mean, that's, that're left of the party. I'm not trying to say that I'm, you know, again, if you're a genuine socialist, if you want full on like government control of all these things, I want a social, a lot of socialized stuff.

0:34:45 Thomas: I don't call myself a socialist, but I want, you you know, again, medicine, insurance. I want to get rid of insurance. No health insurance. I don't even think there should be car insurance. Any kind of insurance, I hate insurance. All it is is a scam business where you make money by having money. How is that innovative? How is that capitalism? How's that like the American bootstrapping dream? All it does is you have money and you charge people for you having money, so you know I'm pretty left. Like if we just talk about policy. If we just talk about different policy measures, I'm going to be, you know, quite left. Again, I am not a socialist, but quite left, but here is what happens. People see the way I talk about Democrats, and they assume I am a centrist, and that is because there is another axis here, and this is a joke, but only kind of.

0:35:42 Thomas: There is another axis. It is not just left or right? It's also how much you think Hillary Clinton is a lizard person. And I only am kind of joking here. Like there, there's a thing where it's not just about policy. It's not just about outcomes and what, you know, in healthcare and all that. It'S also a cynicism and extreme, extreme, um, uncharitable stance toward Democrats and people like Clinton and the DNC. And here's the thing on, again, like any spectrum there, you know, if we, if we kind of plot the measure to, if we measure it out to like the one side is all the way Hillary's a lizard and the other side is everything that Hillary and the DNc and all the mainstream Democrats do is right. I'm not on all the Way that side, don't get me wrong.

0:36:29 Thomas: Um, I don't think I'm, I don't want to call it left and right. See, that's it. That's what happens already in our minds. We get to this like left, right thing. Well, no, if you, but if you if you see that the DNC is corrupt, then you're more left. No, I don't, that's there. That has, in my opinion, this is the clarification that I've wanted to make that I'd been thinking about lately. I don't think that has anything to do with left, right. And actually maybe evidence of that is there's a horseshoe esque quality to this. You know, you it's there's, there's a reason that the far, well, no, not even far the mainstream, right? Basically all of the right right and a segment of the left agree on this axis. They are all on that. We'll go up or down just for fun. Or what's, what's another, I don't want to pollute it with left, right.

0:37:16 Thomas: You know, like a red, you know, a color spectrum. I don'T some other spectrum. Lizard, non-lizard spectrum. There we go. Once you start referring it to it in terms of lizardness or non- lizardness of the spectrum, separate it from the left-right thing. Because I want to firmly stand for the proposition that Hillary Clinton is not a lizard person, but also be firmly for progressive politics. And it feels, I don't know about you guys, it feels lonely right now. That's what's been so frustrating. Once Kamala was nominated, there's all these very reductive, inaccurate accurate memes and I sound like a boomer, but here's the thing. It reminds me of why trolling is so infuriating.

0:38:05 Thomas: It's one thing to, to have a disagreement with somebody, or multiple disagreements, and treat that person like an entity with thoughts and opinions that can be engaged with. And then it's another to just fully mock them all the time, full on trolling. And look, look, I do that to a lot of the, a lot of the right. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna pretend I don't do that to anybody. I do that to the right, I, I have no interest in, you know, the Ben Shapiro's, the whatever. I don, I have nothing but disdain for those people. But this is like a sort of another axis, maybe, to, to this left-right thing, that, to the, or I will say another axis to this political identity, maybe.

0:38:52 Thomas: Um, that is not, and again, I don't think it's left and right, and I think that's the mistake that we make. Like, you're not more left if you hate the DNC more, necessarily. It might correlate, you know, there could be a correlation, because, you know, if you're super lefty, maybe you, you are, you have been burned, but because, by the way, the Dnz has been shitty in some examples, so you have them burned, so you're more aware of that, and uh you've seen it, and you're not biased against it, like arguably some centrists would be. Like a lot of centrists might be biased in favor of the DNC and not really particularly take note of missteps. So there's a correlation. But in terms of policy or outcomes that I desire, that there's no necessary connection between how much I want universal health care for everyone and just how cynical and negative and uncharitable I'm going to be toward every Democrat who is not Bernie Sanders.

0:39:51 Thomas: And that, so that's the part of it that's been really bugging me lately. Cause those, those things do not have to go together. And so when I talk about the meme thing, I know I sound like a boomer, but you know, there's, I just saw a bunch in a row and it just, it depressed me to no end. And I, I, you know I hope some of you are feeling the same way. Um, because if, If not, then maybe you just agree with it. But there was something that was like, there's the meme that got shared that was like Republicans, or you ask Republicans to help the workers and they say no. And then you ask the Democrats and they saying no, hashtag Black Lives Matter. And that's the only difference. And it's like, I don't know what you're talking about. This was in relation to the stimulus stuff. And I just have to reply like, hey, the Democrats bill that was passed in the the house would have fully funded that additional unemployment through January.

0:40:47 Thomas: Like, and that was in March or whatever, whenever they passed, they passed that a long time ago, very early on. You know, it's not, they're not the same. And it just, it'S look, itS a simple minded thing to think my side is always right. The other side is Always wrong. Agreed. That's a simple-minded take. It's also a simple mind to take, to say, no, they'Re both the same, that's an easy thing to do. And it's an easy thing to do that makes you feel smart because you're like, ah, these people don't get it. No, you don't care. I know. Yeah. You think the Democrats are better. They're the same. And It's so much easier to make it, especially when things are so bad. It's so easy to say, look, nothing's changed.

0:41:33 Thomas: Good things haven't happened. And you know what? You're right. But you know, what else is also true? Democrats have not had the power to make change in forever. I've done podcasts on this before, but we had something like 72 days. I mean, technically speaking, we had two years from 2008 to 2010 of control of all three branches in the past 30 years. And it used to be that you didn't need control of all three brushes to get stuff done. That ended in the Clinton era. That That ended when, you know, and Insecure Majorities is a book that I've read that I strongly agree with. The theory, it used to be that there were compromise bills, there was a way to legislate to still get stuff done, just doesn't exist anymore.

0:42:24 Thomas: That is all broken. The only way things are going to happen is if we control all three branches. And by the way, we have to get rid of the filibuster. Now, we did that from 2008 to 2010. I know I'm telling a lot of people stuff they already know, but maybe a lot lot of people didn't get into politics until yesterday, or something, or listening, and maybe I guess I can understand like if you're sort of newer to it, maybe you would just think like, yeah, why haven't Democrats fixed everything, they must suck too. And like, that's not that unreasonable to think, if, if you know, from a prima facie view. But we, we have had control of all, and by the way, that super majority, we had, there's a good article about this, we only had it for like 72 days because of the way the special elections worked and all that.

0:43:10 Thomas: So people always say, you had a super majority for two years and the best you could do was Obamacare. That is, you know, that's a Republican bill. No, it's not really a Republican bill. Also, if it was a Republican Bell at one time, that's only because Republicans were less shitty then. That doesn't mean that it's like a right wing bill. Relative to where we were, it was very progressive bill, because the way you try to make progress in this country is by making progress. Um, now, would I have liked a better bill? Yes, absolutely. But that majority, that, uh, super majority again, only lasted 72 days. Also, Obama had to bail out the entire fucking economy and try to stop that, which he did imperfectly, by the way, like in all these things, you got to be like, that it wasn't perfect, there's a mistake here, they didn't, um, weren't able to prosecute any bankers involved, I know that's a, that's something that really bugs me as well, but it's also something that, like, when, when you look into it, it's hard to say, like, this was a corrupt thingy.

0:44:07 Thomas: Like, honestly, the laws aren't written well. Now, maybe you can also, okay, they could have passed a bill to kind of update some of these laws to make it so that it would have made sense prosecutorily to go after. Yeah, maybe there's a, there was a lot going on. There was a financial collapse. Um, you know, they're also, we're trying to do Obamacare, that, you know, sure. So not perfect by any stretch, which, uh, also quite flawed, but that's it. That 72 days, and that two years, technically speaking, when we had a majority, although again, the filibuster was still in place. Um, there was also all this obstructionism with not allowing Obama's nominees through and all this crap going on, unprecedented obstructionism within Republicans. We have not had the ability to make things better. And I sit here when Democrats, again, yes, led by Nancy Pelosi in the House, who is is pretty centrist, but not like right-leaning.

0:45:01 Thomas: She's centrist. But they passed a version of the stimulus thingy, the Paycheck Protection Act or whatever you want to call it, that was really good and would have been great. And you sit here and say, well, Democrats and Republicans are both not helping workers. I don't understand how that could be the attitude. And I'm sure it's born of of desperation, and so, like, psychologically speaking, I get it, and maybe that's why I'm so bummed out, is because I, I see why it's happening, especially in today's media environment, where, you know, they're, think people don't get that all that deep into stuff oftentimes, and maybe a quick little, like, meme that shows like, yeah, both sides are shitty because nothing changes, is just too attractive, and people like, yeah, and also there's something, the counter-intuitiveness of of saying that both sides are the same feels smart. Yeah, I'm smart because I see through both of their levels of bullshit, I don't go for either party, I know they're all the same, you like it, that feels smart, and I don't, but I don't think it is. I think that it it has a kernel of truth.

So I guess, getting back to that point I try to make, which is, like, what's the proper way to sit here and criticize? As I did, I just criticized the convention and Bill Clinton, and what, and all that. And I don't mean to say that the right thing to do right now is not criticize any Democrats. I absolutely don't think that. I demonstrably don't think that. And that's just not going to be the case. I think we should be very aware of the potential effects of what we say.

0:46:37 Thomas: And I, for one, try my best to keep saying, before any criticism, that we have to vote for Bite, we just have to, we are put in a shitty, horrible situation, and that is the only just thing to do, in my opinion. That's the only morally defensible thing to do. But I guess, if I were to try, so, so my theory of the case here is, in my opinon, I know I sound like a boomer, but, like, sharing those memes, it, that it's not just making a point. Making a point, I think, is fine. Making it, you know, Bill Clinton shouldn't be at the fucking convention because he's a rapist. That's a point I made, that point, I agree, stand by it. It's the, it's the creating the environment of complete disqualification of the Democrats.

0:47:27 Thomas: And, and I, I know no one person is responsible for that, it's a community-wide thing that happens, but, like, it really is prevalent in a lot of circles, it's the constant sharing of these memes that just make it, that just, the the sum total of it is Democrats are crap, that are not, you know, like, capable of anything. And, like, I don't, I don't know, obviously, again, that's why I'm bummed, I don't think I'm solving that. I don't think, you know, any one person, or even if if everybody listening were to take my advice, I don't think it's going to fix the problem. But that's, in my opinion, that's the line I'm walking. I think pointed criticism, specific criticism, which oddly is like probably more critical, you know, it's probably like more critical to be like, here's a thing they did I don't like, and here's why.

0:48:17 Thomas: And yet, I think that's like healthier than just this attitude of Democrats are disqualified as a party, they are just crap as a part, you know, like creating that environment is is far worse, I think. It demobilizes people, it it zaps them of their energy at this particular moment, it makes people not want to vote, it's not good, godspeed. I, I'm running out of time here, um, but because I, and I have more stuff, but along the, uh, lizard non-lizard spectrum, you know, again, I've gotten, I've gotten called a centrist so many times. You centrists keep telling us to vote for Biden. I'm like, what are you? No, I'm a progressive. I'm telling you to vote for Biden as a progressive. I'm not a centrist. Like, I told everybody vote for their candidate in the primary. And goddammit, I hope that a progressive wins. And I voted for a progressive.

0:49:11 Thomas: Like, that's what I said. I'm just gonna share a couple more things real quick that are contributing to this, just like, I don't know, this ennui, this just feeling like really depressed about the whole thing. You know, I had some people say stuff. Again, these are people on the progressive side of things. And they just say stuff matter-of-factly like, "Well, no, Bernie lost because they flipped the votes. They had these vote-flipping machines." Somebody said that in a thread. Like not a fake, like a real person. Just matter-of-fact, "They switched the votes." Votes? Like, what? "They switch the votes." Like, that's so, that's not, you're not more left of me for thinking that. I know that, and that's, I get that's the point of the specter, that's that's more, you're more lizard than me, or whatever you think, you think there's more lizard people than I think, that's nuts. "They flip the vote." There's no vote flipping machines in the Democratic primary.

Another one I just saw, this is slightly more plausible, it's not, I still think it's wrong, but but it's not like super crazy, where someone said, "Well, Biden only won the primary because the never Trump Republicans came and voted for him." And, uh, no, I don't really think there's any data to back that up. You know, like, I maybe one or two, but that's not, "Have you looked at exit polls?" That's not really what they say. And again, you can go full lizard person spectrum and say,

0:50:45 Thomas: Well, I'm all all the way on that end of things, and I think that, you know, they just don't, people don't tell the truth about why the blah blah, and you can have a nice logically consistent conspiracy theory, which it feels like a lot of people do these days about the world. And, uh, like, but for example, I just pulled up, you know, the exit polls on, I think, one of the latest, I say latest, like one of the more recent, uh, uh, polls, this might have been, let's see, Michigan, Missouri, yeah, this is Michigan, again, for example. And if you look at, of the people who are not, who identify as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate. Yeah, of course, moderates went for Joe Biden, of course. But then you look at people, like, have you ever.

0:51:33 Thomas: Here's question. Have you ever voted in a Democratic primary before today? Now, of course, if you think there are lizard people, you might say, well, they'll just lie. That's the great scheme. But why? What would be the point of that? Why Why would they lie, statistically speaking? And Bernie had the edge. Bernie had a 52-44 lead in people. By the way, it was 17%. So there's two levels to this. So of that question, have you ever voted in a Democratic primary before today? 81% said yes, 17% said no. So 81% had. So there weren't that many new voters. Again, that was the problem. And that was why Bernie didn't win. One of the main reasons was we thought there'd be this new voter turnout. There wasn't.

0:52:19 Thomas: And so anyway, my point here is, of people who identify independent, of course far more went to Bernie because Bernie identifies as independent. And of the people who said, "No, I've never voted in Democratic primary before today," Bernie has the edge, 52-44. So, like, no, no, there's no evidence that like a bunch of never Trump Republicans, you know how hard that is to do, to like change your registration and time.

Cause, like, I'm looking at the stats here, you know, to have a fully open primary where you can vote for whichever primary you want, that's only 15 states, for everybody else there's some level of, like, like there's full on closed primaries, there's like partially closed, whatever, which would mean you have to like change your registration or do like a declaration that you're changing party over to vote in that primary. Like, really, you think that, I just, oh, you're pretty far on that lizard spectrum, like, I just don't think that's what happened, I don't think, it is not, no data backs that up.

All right, one last thing to share, and I, I just recently read this article, uh, in Rolling Stone, about the Seth Rich conspiracy, conspiracy theory, and here's why I bring this up: because, um, of the people I know who are, again, on the, there are lizard people spectrum of, of politics, their political compass, that quadrant of lizards, they're, they're further to the lizard than I am, uh, they're big fans often of Julian Assange, and I see people, there's a heavy overlap with Bernie people on this that I've seen, and I, I think that has to do with the fact that WikiLeaks got hold of the, you know, DNC hacks and all that.

0:54:00 Thomas: And and I did this is something I didn't know. I already didn't like Julian Assange. I've made that clear. He doesn't seem like a good guy. He works with Russia. He's not helping the world. He's helping Trump. And there are all those reasons I did. I had never come across this. I didn't realize. So, gosh, I'll try to explain this as quickly as I can, Cause, um, I know it's getting, getting long in the tooth here on this podcast, but the Seth rich conspiracy is basically, there was a low level staffer, a 27 year old democratic party staffer who was, you probably know this, who was murdered in the streets, walking home one, one night after whatever, uh, think from work, working late or something. And, uh. He was on the phone at the time. There's a, the, the article went into the details, very sad.

0:54:47 Thomas: Um, and what happened was, because people wanted to blame the the DNC leaks on anyone but who actually did it, which was Russia, with the, you know, Guccifer and all that, and those were coordinated and leaked to WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks coordinated, we know this, WikiLeaks coordinated with the Republicans, and the timing of those, really, with the Trump administration specifically, uh, that actually just came out, by the way, in the Republican-led report that recently was published, just this week, I think, uh, made this more clear that they coordinated.

Um, and gosh, it's so frustrating, but anyway, this was the Fox News, Sean Hannity theory was, "Oh no, it's actually Seth Rich, this Democrat who was killed, he was the one who leaked the 43 000 emails," or whatever, somehow, and that, and and it, it's so disgusting because the poor family has been like going through this for years now about this. Um, it's completely crap. Like, there's no, there's no truth to it, but I didn't know this, Julian Assange, what, maybe they're one of the reasons this conspiracy theory has stuck around.

In addition to the fact that the right will just stick to any conspiracy theory with no evidence, Julian Assange, and by the way, parts of the left, Julian Assange gave an interview where he like alluded to the fact, here, here's, I'll read the quote to you, so he was on Dutch TV in an interview, and so, and the person asked him about how he got the DNC emails, and he said, quote, "There's a 27 year old who works for the DNC who was shot in the back, murdered, just a few weeks ago, for unknown reasons, as he was walking down the street in Washington," and the host said, "That was just a robbery, I believe, wasn't it?" And Assange says, "No, there's no finding."

0:56:39 Thomas: And the host says, what are you suggesting? And Assange says, I'm suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that. End quote. So he fed, I did not know this. I had, I don't know how I missed this. He, he basically fed these right-wing ghouls, this conspiracy theory all to avoid the actual truth, which was that that WikiLeaks got, you know, coordinated with Russia and the hacker and all that. This was not the, the Democrats didn't have a leaker that leaked these emails. That's not what happened. This is, this is Trump level QAnon bullshit, Roger Stone conspiracy thinking. And Julian Assange played into that.

0:57:25 Thomas: And this poor family, they sued him, by the way. Like, there's, this is the, I'm out of time, I'm going to link the article, you can read it, it's awful. I had no idea he was that level of shitty.

Um, so yeah, like, I, that was another thing I saw where I'm like, oh yeah, all my, uh, all my Bernie friends who are like fans of Assange, it's it's horrendous, he, the guy sucks, he's not a good guy, and this story was so bad, by the way, that Fox News, this was the only retraction, you know, it says in the article that Roger Ailes used to brag about never issuing a retraction, they issued a retruction for this, but then Sean Hannity is such a piece of shit that he was like, "I'm not foxnews.com," or, you know, that's where the retraction was, "I'm not foxnews.com, I'm still going with this."

So, blah blah, um, this is horrible, I, it made me so mad, I knew I didn't like Assange, but this is what level of crap he is, uh, I just wanted to share that, uh, because it is related to the lizard spectrum, my new, I'll have, I'll to refine that, I just came up with that at the top of my head while recording this, can we get a quadrant going, when you talk, talk about the political identity, political compass, the lizard quadrant, that's, that's somewhere in there, and so the overall point is, I want to hashtag normalize, um, being a progressive and not thinking the Clintons are lizards, is that, uh, is there anybody else with me, it's it's lonely here in the non-lizard quadrant, uh, for the most part, uh, very, you know, by the way, DNC, uh, flawed, but also DNC is controlled by, you know, the voters that control whoever gets elected, the last candidate, uh, you know, the, the nominee, etc, etc.

0:59:10 Thomas: And the bottom line with all this is, if progressives could vote or get more people to vote for their candidates, this would solve the issue. And I know there are barriers there, but like, gosh, I, I hate to keep going, going on, one of the frustrating things about this is there's a lot of people in in the in the mindset in the progressive circles with a mindset that like, anytime centrists win, there's something unfair about it, they don't, they don't, they seem to not view centrists or moderate Democrats as having like a legitimate position, it's all, everybody actually secretly agrees with their, their policies. And then if they lose, it's because there was cheating or something.

0:59:59 Thomas: And like, honestly, this country, it shouldn't surprise you. This country is not that progressive, I don't think. And that sucks. And I don't like it. But we have to change that. It's not always some cheating thing, scheme, if the results show that more people are in favor of these these moderate positions. All right. I know that was a lot, but I, gosh, I had lot on my mind. I actually didn't get to some stuff.

I want to talk about the fact that like, I heard somebody, here's another thing. People were identified talking about these different axes. People also tend to identify, and maybe this is our shit. I'm going into it. This is where this gets confusing. Uh, and where I'm hoping to clarify, because I saw somebody, a somewhat prominent person talking about the fact that like the the DNC right now, the convention rather, the actual convention, um, platforming more moderates showed that it was like going away from the Black Lives Matter, like more rabid lefty part of the party. And so essentially they were identifying again on the spectrum of left to right or whatever, left to center, if whatever the Democratic Party, one one would be left to centrist or something, they were associating Black Lives Matter and those kind of progressive social justice issues as all the way left. And on one hand, you might think, okay, yeah, socially or whatever, policy-wise, maybe that is a left position. But they also identify Bernie as all-the-way-left, and so they therefore put those together.

1:01:36 Thomas: And I'm sitting here here thinking that's not, I don't think that's accurate. If for no other reason, then if I look at the polling and I see who supports Black Lives Matter, obviously black people support Black Lives Matter by a lot, by a way wider margin. I mean, 71% of black people strongly support Black Lives Matter. Only 31% of white people. Now I get that most white people are going to be on the Republican side.

So take them out of it for a second, but still that's going to overcome those those numbers. And the other part of the equation is black people overwhelmingly in the primary voted for Biden. So I think it might be mathematically correct. I'd have to do some number crunching. I haven't been able to find a poll that actually asked this question, but I bet you there's more Black Lives Matter supporters who backed Biden than any other candidate, I think, just mathematically that might be true and so if not true, it's got to be close.

Um, but I, but I think statistically speaking, it might be that more, like, so when the right thinks like, oh, Black Lives Matter is all extremists, and therefore they're burning, and AOC, and blah blah blah, and they sort of fit everything over onto that left side and say like all those things over there are all the same, I think this is another one of those axes that's kind of independent. I, I know a lot of very, in my opinion, somewhat racist, but very hostile to Black Lives Matter Bernie supporters. For example, I think the El Chapo people are very hostile to anything they view as like identity politics. And they are huge, you know, like far lefty Bernie types.

1:03:20 Thomas: And so like, I just want to drive home the point that like, Like, we need to stop thinking of this as like one axis of left to right on which everything I think of is left, including Hillary Clinton being a lizard is on one side and Black Lives Matter is also on the other side. So that's point. I know I went on for a while. Sorry about that. And I don't know why this is so important to me. I think it clarified a lot of things in my mind when I thought of this. I don'T know if anyone else talks about these kind of issues. I have no idea. It's nothing I've heard talked about anywhere. But who knows? Maybe someone will tell me this is obvious and I shouldn't have even brought it up. I don't know, but that's my show. Thanks so much for listening. If you got this far, I really appreciate it. Thanks very much for supporting, by the way, patreon.com/seriouspod is where you can continue to do that.

1:04:08 Thomas: I do really, really appreciate the support and hopefully you enjoyed this. See you next time.

1:04:22 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, if you'd like to follow Jamie on Twitter, she's at Euthyphro. And follow me at SeriousPod. If you'd like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If you're not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.