[SPEAKER_02]: Michael Mera, Radio Entertainment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome ladies and gentlemen to this Michael Marisho extra and a return engagement of my buddy Aaron Pearlett who I went to college with and I won't hold that against your Aaron.

[SPEAKER_01]: How you doing today?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm great even better now because the Dave Mason intro.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm wondering you've done a lot of a press for this book that you've written has anyone played Dave Mason to bring you on.

[SPEAKER_02]: No one has, I've actually interviewed him the late Dave Mason, late great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he just like a couple months ago, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Just recently, Pastor.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have my on my load on music podcast, wonderful guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's well.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm pleased to bring the sound of 70s, late 70s rock, to a very valuable discussion we're going to have today.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason the air in has joined us is as everyone knows, it's one of the greatest times in American history.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is what we're here to celebrate.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're hot, we're hot, this country is hot, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, hot, baby, everyone wants to be us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone wants to date us.

[SPEAKER_01]: They want to be like us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm kidding, of course.

[SPEAKER_01]: Aaron is written a book.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's called The Death of Compromise, how an unquenchable thirst for power, racism, and media killed political and cultural compromise in America.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is by Aaron Perlet, and you can find it at Amazon, link in the description.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a compelling title.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think just by reading it, you kind of know where we're at as a country.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think we need to start by saying this is not a partisan book.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not trying to influence anybody on either side of the political spectrum, but more of sort of an analysis of how we got here, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's far from a partisan book trying to get someone to in any way change their political views, because I think that would be a fruitless endeavor.

[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it's more of an historical analysis as to how we got to the point we're at now in American history, which in terms of how we're working together with people that we disagree with at an all-time low.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's scary.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is literally a scary time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do, you know, five podcasts, sometimes six a week and I'm sort of forced to look at current events and try to put some sort of fun spin on it and it's gone to a point where you can't because it's just so grave.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, how did this project start for you?

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm a long-suffering centrist, which means everyone disagrees with me when you're in the middle.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I've been noting this kind of gradual rise in tensions and political politically-fueled violence that's been happening over the last, I'd say 15 years.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's been very disturbing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Last year, my son's 21st birthday, you know, I'm doing what a lot of

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sitting around thinking about how proud I am in my son and I see a news item that Charlie Kirk was shot.

[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really prescribe to to what Charlie Kirk had to say, but I appreciated how he went about doing what he was doing.

[SPEAKER_02]: He was essentially going to college campuses and speaking to young people and

[SPEAKER_02]: trying to engage them in thoughtful debate and conversation and change hearts and minds in that way, which I actually thought was pretty brilliant.

[SPEAKER_02]: And for that he got shot in the throat and killed as a father of a couple small kids.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it just I guess it was that tipping point for me because it was coming on the heels of two legislators in Minnesota that had both been shot

[SPEAKER_02]: And it just the snowball seems to be going faster and faster downhill and picking up speed and picking up girth and and it was very concerning and so you know I thought I'm not a political right to your point about not trying to change anyone's opinion I'm certainly not a political.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm I follow politics, but I'm more of a political novice.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I thought what what what can I do that and it's been it had been in the back of my mind for years and years.

[SPEAKER_02]: What can I do about this because it's getting worse and worse and I see my children being affected by it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I see my friends being affected by it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I see friendships torn apart by as your family members torn apart.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: I said, well, I'm a content creator at at at

[SPEAKER_02]: at heart professionally, I can write, I can write very well.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I spent probably the next eight weeks in my spare time researching and writing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was able to, fortunately, speak with some some really impressive people, former U.S. senators, former lobbyists.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let me, let me, let me jump in and ask a question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because you spoke it's a pretty impressive list.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tom Dashle, John Danforth, you even got an X Navy seal Dutch van Horn to write your foreword, which is incredible.

[SPEAKER_01]: Were they open to the discussion of this?

[SPEAKER_01]: Did they come in with an agenda?

[SPEAKER_01]: What was it like when you approached them and said, hey, this is what I want to write?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to comment to it?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or did they come in saying, oh yeah, I can give you all the answers.

[SPEAKER_01]: What were they like when you approached them?

[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, they were terrific.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right, everyone I spoke to, including, someone I'd grown up with, he was actually, he's a former lobbyist for the NRA.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he really surprised me.

[SPEAKER_02]: I expect him to come in with conservative talking points, and he was,

[SPEAKER_02]: wonderful to speak with and had great perspective that is shared with in the book.

[SPEAKER_02]: But Senator, Senator Dashrell and Senator Danforth, and then I also spoke to someone who a long time CEO in the energy industry, who at one point, he was actually tab to be the energy secretary had Hillary Clinton won the presidency.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: But at one point, he was the highest paid employee of the federal government, because he ran the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is quasi-governmental.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I knew that all these people would have great perspective and great insights.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I wasn't looking to, you know, again, to change anyone's opinion or what have you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was looking to find insights to help me better understand it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it was as much a process of me learning.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: Over the past 67 years of what has gotten us to this point today.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you talk to these powerful people, and that's something they all share, they all have a degree of power in different spheres.

[SPEAKER_01]: Did anything they say surprise you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Something that really sort of came out of the blue that they said, and you like, wow, I didn't think that person would say that opinion.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there was a handful of things.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll start with Bill Johnson, the retired energy executive.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: He really believed that the fracture began.

[SPEAKER_02]: after the civil rights legislation was ushered in by LBJ in the mid-60s because that did have a pretty tumultuous impact on the evolution of southern representation.

[SPEAKER_02]: South used to be completely democratic and then over the next decade after that there was something called the Southern Strategy that was implemented by the Republicans and it kind of

[SPEAKER_02]: around the civil rights act, okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought that was kind of fascinating.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not surprising because racism is our kind of original sin here in the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have sadly thought, oh yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's racism everywhere.

[SPEAKER_02]: We just have our special brand of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Senator Dashall had really interesting perspective in terms of, he felt that

[SPEAKER_02]: was an incredibly slippery slope and looking back, it really was because it, it, it,

[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't begin the era of performative politics, but it put on steroids.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't even thought of that, is that, you know, you've got, at that point, 200 years of government, where it is, I mean, the result is the same, it's law, but the road to law was sort of a closed club.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you got 100 senators, what, 435 reps, and outside of those 535 people,

[SPEAKER_01]: no one sees what goes on until they put it on TV and then it's a whole, it's a whole different thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like when movies went from silent to talkies.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the whole business had to be reinvented and so that's such a great word he used or you use, performative.

[SPEAKER_01]: That really altered the presentation of what goes on to make our laws, yeah?

[SPEAKER_02]: It certainly did and then, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: So the next, I would say, wronging the ladder with something called, there was something called the fairness doctor in that, that journalism had to be holding to until 1987.

[SPEAKER_02]: The people's time law.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well essentially it just said you had to be fair.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was because I actually more about how you covered media and being unbiased.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: In 1987 that was removed by the federal communications commission and that led to the creation of Rush Limbaugh Fox News MSNBC.

[SPEAKER_01]: Was this part, this was part of a lot of government deregulation, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I, it probably wasn't even heavily spotlighted at the time, because so much stuff was being deregulated.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was sort of all put together.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was one of the last bigger achievements I think, if I recall, of the Reagan administration, is, you know, de-governmentalizing things, and they got looped in with that, and they didn't think that it probably would have such a lasting effect, but yet it did.

[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that had been in place since 1949.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that was a really important thing because Rush Limbaugh truly changed the game and then, you know, Fox News followed on.

[SPEAKER_02]: And today you've got all kinds of online and traditional outlets.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then social media has taken that that has been the next step in the latter in terms of the performative politics where politicians have been able to leverage these digital channels to again perform for constituencies.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought what Senator Dashal had to say about C-SPAN was fascinating to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Senator Danforth, who is also should we note it in ordained minister?

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: He believes that religious leadership in this country has failed Americans in that it's they have an essentially rained in their flocks.

[SPEAKER_02]: They've allowed the framework set up this country with a separation of church and state.

[SPEAKER_02]: church doctrine in many cases, conservative church doctrine, and he really believes that there has been a failure of moral leadership by church leaders across the U.S. Do you feel that or did he feel that this sort of lacks attitude and raining in your flock was almost to make the religious community more palatable?

[SPEAKER_01]: Make them want to come in because I mean,

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say something here that's not always agreed on, but I mean running a church is a business.

[SPEAKER_01]: If the church doesn't make money, the church goes away because there are buildings that you got air conditioning, you got heat, you got everything that has to do, you got to pay the secretary.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if people stop attending that source of income goes away, is it financially driven?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you suppose that they got a little less strict in tending to their flock?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that certainly has a role in it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But what all of it comes down to is power.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, power or lack thereof.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we've, all of this is kind of creative what I refer to as an outrage economy.

[SPEAKER_02]: OK, we're compromise is kind of seen as this moral failure or capitulation.

[SPEAKER_02]: When in the reality, compromise is the art of designing coexistence, you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: And you actually, it's fascinating.

[SPEAKER_01]: You did a great comparison between healthy politics and a healthy marriage.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you explain about that?

[SPEAKER_02]: So in this gets down to power, in a successful marriage,

[SPEAKER_02]: You compromise because you care more about the relationship than being right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: In politics, we have entirely lost that because we love victory more than we love our country, than we love the republic.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it was actually Bill Johnson, the retired energy executive who made that point to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we see that so much, Adam Kaufman,

[SPEAKER_02]: past NRA executive.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had said that one of his biggest concerns, and this really shocked me was, was Jeremy Madred.

[SPEAKER_02]: He said it didn't matter if it's happening on the conservative side or the liberal side.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just bad.

[SPEAKER_02]: When you're gaming the system, it's bad, and you're taking away the value of a vote in essence.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, that's,

[SPEAKER_02]: kind of part of the challenge of our electoral system right now is that in this war of extremes, it's the reasonable who's suffer.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you think about how voting is done, yeah, the reasonable aren't going out for the most part to, you know, the Iowa caucus.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the hardcore voters that are doing and these are they tend to be the extremes and you would say that when you talk about the reasonable voter that's what 90% of America if not work it is I mean this is more probably more about 60% but all right and then you've got these these fringes on the outside that are highly energized and they simply care about power yeah and and power slipping away and it's

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the silent majority paradox, where most people occupy this kind of reasonable middle ground, some might be right center left center, what have you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yet they're often the least heard.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can the extreme for more louder?

[SPEAKER_02]: They're more organized, they're more savvy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you say something extreme, it's invariably more memorable.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's extreme.

[SPEAKER_01]: It sticks with you, whether or not you agree, it sticks with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is, and I see that a lot with Josh Hawley, who's a, I live in Missouri, Josh Hawley, who is one of our senators, has he is the epitome of a performant of politics, and he's exceptional at it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't say that in a critical way, I say that almost that I marvel at his skill at doing so.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a new breed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we go back to Rush Limbaugh when you mentioned him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that he was allowed to become Rush Limbaugh after the fairness act went away, make no mistake.

[SPEAKER_01]: Rush Limbaugh was a disjockey.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where he started.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was screaming over Alton John Records and taking the 10th caller and all that stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: He knew how to say what people that listened to top 40 radio wanted to hear.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was the first one to realize he could have a very successful career telling people facts they already agreed with and that's what his show was and it reinforced people's thoughts and it made them say oh my god there's a guy that's on 400 radio stations it's saying exactly what I think and reinforcing that which makes them less pliable to compromise and it's entirely divisive

[SPEAKER_01]: in the political sphere before rush with any great success that made a career of telling people what they already thought.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, you're absolutely right.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then on the heels of Rush, you also saw, there was an interesting pivot in Washington when President Clinton came into power.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that was also the rise of New Gingrich.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the contract with America.

[SPEAKER_02]: And to your point, before New Gingrich and the likes of Tom Delay, that you

[SPEAKER_02]: The kind of language that was used on the floor of the House and Senate was more muted, more respectful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And all of a sudden, it became very, very charged.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is at the same time when Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are bringing Fox News into reality.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: And which was, I hate to say it, the natural next step.

[SPEAKER_01]: because if, you know, if one is good, two's got to be better and then four and then eight, it's just going to progress until there's a breaking point.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was almost, Fox News almost had to happen, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: It did.

[SPEAKER_02]: And MSNBC had to follow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because exactly you're needed to be a counterpoint.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's, there's so many people have asked me in this process of after our written book and released it, who's a fault?

[SPEAKER_02]: You know who causes it and I'm like, well, nobody's at fault and everybody is.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's a there's a Governor the governor of Utah who we got the country got to meet after Charlie Kirk was murdered.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Spencer Cox started a model that he calls disagree better.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's about trying to remove this vilification of your political opponents and trying to work across aisles.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so he's gotten politicians from at all levels across the country to sign on to this program.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can easily go Google and find the website.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's essentially getting back to, I think more of the politics of the 1980s,

[SPEAKER_02]: the Reagan era.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: uh... there was a lot of of cross-isle partnership between tip o'Neal and Ronald Reagan uh... i mean i had this was a book i mentioned a lot man of the house yet that tip o'Neal wrote that is fascinating about the amount of time that he spent behind the scenes with president ragan and the way they really did work hand in glove to make things work it was not a busting heads relationship it was respectful relationship

[SPEAKER_02]: It was, and with your steel trap mine for pop culture knowledge, you'll probably remember this.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was an episode of different strokes where Nancy Reagan was on, and she had to call Ronald Reagan, and she made a joke about him being with Tip O'Neill.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That show was so funny.

[SPEAKER_02]: That show, until they did whatever 80s and 70s show does, they brought in the cousin and then you knew is, I thought you were going to decry the very special episodes.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, the cousin, whenever they're bringing the cousin happy for 80-bunch happened there.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like some cousin Oliver and then Sam played by Danny Cooksey for his who I want to Google him.

[SPEAKER_02]: A ginger to American, yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I see that's don't be divisive there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, but you're right.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a game of compromise and now you mentioned social media earlier and I want to bring it because it's so easy to vilify social media.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone does it at France.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe yesterday just we're recording this on Wednesday.

[SPEAKER_01]: France just yesterday Outlawed I believe TikTok for anyone under the age of 15 because they say it's detrimental to the mental health of youngsters Well, you know what I got no problem with that, but I think what people miss out on is social media

[SPEAKER_01]: allowed people to post any opinion as vicious or divisive as they want it to be, and in many cases do it anonymously.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can go out there and sprinkle the seeds of, I won't say hatred, but sprinkle the seeds of division without any consequence because they don't know who's doing it, that's going to be poison to compromise because you don't know who you're dealing with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you see that as another ingredient that we're dealing with today?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the role of algorithmic media has been remarkable, and that it's created this loss of a shared reality, because you can't compromise if you don't agree on the basic facts of a problem.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that we sit around debating facts these days is very sad.

[SPEAKER_02]: But essentially, social media algorithms are like the mean girls in high school.

[SPEAKER_02]: They reward whatever causes the most drama.

[SPEAKER_02]: of falsehoods and anger spread significantly faster than nuance and we're conditioning Americans to process politics through a lens of perpetual disgust and more than anything the most dangerous aspect of it is that it has separated us into online tribes and so if you're a liberal

[SPEAKER_02]: Facebook is in your own Facebook.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to serve you up more liberal attitudes and it's going to hide conservative attitudes.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the Russian.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the Limba Theory all over again.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be grouped with people you already agree with.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, for us what you already think.

[SPEAKER_02]: And when you think about the remarkable amount of time, we are all spending on social media, it's honestly just killing us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't blame social media companies.

[SPEAKER_02]: These are our own problems and yeah, it's not happening just here You know, it's funny they use this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, also The other the other interesting impact of this has been a reflection of it is is local communities.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay You know if you think about they you say all politics is local.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but Kind of the death of local news

[SPEAKER_02]: We've lost what 2,500 newspapers since 2017.

[SPEAKER_01]: And also, I mean, to take it to the death of local radio.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are no local radio stations anymore, which used to be the live-life blood of communications in a community.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_02]: So newspapers, television, what have you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what's happening is nationalization of local, nationalizing localness.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're seeing these cultural wars drop into school board meetings.

[SPEAKER_02]: Local City town hall meetings and local public servants are being threatened.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, death threats, doxing, uh, it recall campaigns.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, when you're when you're facing that as a local public servant, the whole every nuance of your job is destroyed because that you could be, you know, running for school board in Wisconsin, but if you're looking at it through the lens of New York City,

[SPEAKER_01]: It's different and they don't understand the problems but that doesn't stop them from coming out and just saying you're great, disagreeing with you and saying you're doing a lousy job because they don't know what you're trying to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't, you can't nationalize locality.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, that's weird because when you nationalize something in a sense you're unifying it but you're just causing more division.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because it doesn't mix oil and water.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and honestly, there's one thing that I'd like people to take away from this book.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was gonna ask, what do you think?

[SPEAKER_01]: Just be your one-year elevator pitch for the book, your elevator summation.

[SPEAKER_02]: We need to stop billifying one another.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's really, we want to, we want to vilify people so badly for simply having a disagreement

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you mentioned Dutch fan horn, um, the name is yellow, who wrote the forward to the book.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's, he writes about this thing called violent agreement.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll explain it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So in the military, um, if you, essentially, you argue fiercely during the planning phase.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: Challenging every assumption because lives of your team are dependent upon it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's extraordinarily important in that phase.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but once the decision is made, you execute as a team.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's about remembering the difference between the debate phase and the governing phase.

[SPEAKER_02]: And even now, we're talking about an election that has been, we're talking about an election from 2020 that has been proven to be fair, but we're having, you know, even addresses about it to the entire country.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: And here's the, I also don't want to, I don't want to make it seem.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know those are kind of a passive aggressive swipe at our president.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, I don't, don't necessarily take that opinion of yourself because I mean, it's happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, whether or not it's from one side or another, this is the situation we're in.

[SPEAKER_01]: But again, it's not partisan.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just we're commenting on where we are right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is a reality and you know, we need to spend more time listening to the words that are coming out of people's mouths, instead of if I share, oh, did you hear what the president said last night on television, if that person is a conservative, they're presuming already that I'm giving them

[SPEAKER_02]: Tainted perspective on something instead of going up and looking up for themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we get there?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I know that it starts with divisiveness and ostensibly from the late 1960s, mid-1960s, but where it was there a tipping point where we got to the fact that anyone that's in a red baseball hat is the enemy of someone who isn't automatically.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where did we, was there a tipping point?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or did it, was it gradual the whole time?

[SPEAKER_01]: Did it build up speed?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you did a lot of analysis here.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not asking for a full timeline.

[SPEAKER_01]: But can you just sort of explain it to a dope like me?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's some of the things we talked about earlier in terms of it's been driven by media.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then put on steroids by algorithmic media.

[SPEAKER_02]: And essentially what we've decided to do is go into our own rooms with our own tribes, our own people, our own voices, our own opinions, our own sets of facts.

[SPEAKER_02]: and we're creating our own realities, instead of building realities together.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is probably something that really elevated in the 80s, but over the last 25 years from 2000 until today, because of the amount of time we spend on social media.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say the influence that

[SPEAKER_02]: opinion news television and radio have had on us.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's really been these last 25 years because then if you look at the growth in political violence, they mirror one another.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you go back to say 1970 and look at the America of 1970 now, we weren't there barely.

[SPEAKER_01]: We almost were.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you look at America historically 1970,

[SPEAKER_01]: America wasn't armed with the tools to create their own reality.

[SPEAKER_01]: They couldn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: You could look at television, but I mean, you couldn't bury yourself on a screen.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had to go out and you couldn't, you had to go to the grocery store.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had to go out and there was no Amazon.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had to go to the stores.

[SPEAKER_01]: You dealt with people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it almost,

[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds really dark, but back then, it was more of a real-life world, and now you invent your own reality, and that allows you to say, I have no interest in compromise, because I'm in my own box, and I'm okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's technology part to blame, do you think?

[SPEAKER_02]: without question.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, not not only just the algorithms.

[SPEAKER_02]: You and I, you know, we're both born in set around 71.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we, you know, we probably, I know growing up, my father, he would read the Washington Post in the morning.

[SPEAKER_02]: He would drive to work and he didn't have any idea what was going on for the rest of the day until they came home and he watched Walter Cronkite and Dan rather in the news.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but now with the 24 hour new cycle, um, with online news, you know, normally we know the news before we even turn on television now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: that certainly gave us more access.

[SPEAKER_02]: Which you can argue is a very good thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm going back to C-SPAN.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think the idea, I know Brian Lam who founded C-SPAN.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's truly a great American-eformer Naval, served in the Navy, and all he wanted to do is bring transparency, which transparency is a remarkable tool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, on paper, it's a great idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you, you know, I'm sure he wasn't

[SPEAKER_02]: Correct, correct, and it's funny.

[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to get Brian to speak to me about this.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was a number of people who wouldn't speak to me that why do you suppose that is the biggest pool of people who wouldn't speak to me were academics and I think right now higher academia is really under attack.

[SPEAKER_02]: Academia used to be a place where ideas would format where you were allowed to pull

[SPEAKER_01]: this is ancient history, but to be fair, everyone agreed on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of compromise.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone enjoyed that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Mike Gilleen, for doing that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But still, I don't even know where I was, but media, I think we're talking about media and academia.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, academia was a place where ideas were discussed, where they were debated,

[SPEAKER_02]: Academics are terrified of, because there's, to your, to your point earlier, they're a real dollars at stake.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, real dollars and that have been from health care, from other sources that go to academics that have been removed.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, academia is on high alert and so they're very unwilling to kind of stick their next out in the way that they used to.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and so it was largely academics or some politicians, but largely academics that were unwilling to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: When academics are armed only with facts and not anything sizzling or sexy news wise, um, they're going to be targeted and they're going to be ripped down and not only not usually not by anything that is fact-based, but by something that is a little more exciting.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I can see that they would be hesitant to stick their neck out because they have little

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I mean, I think there might have been 50 times I was termed down at the very That'd be the low end Yeah, it was hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was very difficult.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was able to cite plenty of academics that are written papers Yeah, years and years ago, but it was very difficult

[SPEAKER_01]: it is it is such a scary time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen friendship and I've seen people that I very much respected like just end relationships, business relationships based on people that were adjacent that didn't share their opinions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And these are people that

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not, again, I'm not going to mention a name.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no need to.

[SPEAKER_01]: But these people benefited greatly from the assistance of these people that they disagreed with.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they just said, I can't do this because you think that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe I'm naive and maybe I want things to be a little better than they are.

[SPEAKER_01]: But

[SPEAKER_01]: If you totally shut out the notion of compromise with someone that you are diametrically opposed to and there's people out there that are diametrically opposed to me, I'm sure, but if you totally rule them out and won't even talk to them, you're no better than what you're opposing in them.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to, if we don't make an effort to at least try to coexist, we're doomed, especially when you're doing stuff that is personally to your own detriment, business-wise to your own detriment, or nationally to our detriment.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why aren't people?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are we so frustrated with the lack of compromise that we're at a point where we're going to give up trying?

[SPEAKER_01]: Please say I'm wrong.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would like to think you're wrong, because too many people are too fond of the sound their own voices to try to sound.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I will say that as you know, I come out of a kind of a marketing communications background.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's probably also one of the driving factors that led me down this path and that

[SPEAKER_02]: In business, in almost anything, it has been my experience that almost nothing is the creation of one human being, that great ideas, great products, great services, great movements.

[SPEAKER_02]: come from a collaboration of concepts ideas that are brought together and built to create something amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we do this in creating campaigns.

[SPEAKER_02]: It never comes from one singular human being.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of where we're headed right now in politics and that we're separating ourselves.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we won't have any kind of cross-pollination between ideals, between cultures, between values.

[SPEAKER_02]: And when you lose that, you lose the ability to improve.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you stay very to the stagnant.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that really concerns me and that we're going to stop getting better.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to be hot.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know we spoke of it, you know, sarcastically, ironically, the front of the interview, but it's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the change and the ability to change and the ability to collaborate that makes this great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we are by any definition, a young nation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, America, happy birthday, 250 years fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you think about the fact that you and I, we've been together and around for a fifth,

[SPEAKER_01]: of this country's existence?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's really exemplifies how young of a country we are.

[SPEAKER_01]: And

[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if you were to go back and talk to our founding fathers, your atoms, your Jefferson's, your Ben Franklin's, if they were able to come and see modern society, I mean, once they got past like the cars and the airplanes and they saw the political situation where how do you think they'd react?

[SPEAKER_01]: Would they see it as a total failure?

[SPEAKER_01]: Would they say it's rescuable?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's certainly not what they set out when they wrote the documents.

[SPEAKER_01]: in 1776.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really great point.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad you brought that up because the framers created a process, a government, a society that was meant to debate.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was meant to have a healthy debate.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was meant to create compromise.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was also meant to move slowly, purposefully, slowly.

[SPEAKER_01]: So nothing could be done in the heat of passion.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was bills had to go back and forth.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a slow deliberate process.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's also brilliant.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, but it was all about debate.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, I interrupted, but no, so.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when they see how things are now, what do you think they're thinking?

[SPEAKER_02]: I do think it's so tiered, I think you brought up a really interesting question there and that is, can it be rescued?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: I believe it can.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would like, and I'm an optimist, so, but I do believe it can.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it starts with,

[SPEAKER_02]: listening without fear.

[SPEAKER_02]: It starts with, you know, we need to stop vilifying one another for having these simple, pretty simplistic differences actually.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have to listen to a agree.

[SPEAKER_02]: We got to listen without fear.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: And

[SPEAKER_02]: You have to hold your own principles lately and have to understand that where the person across the aisle is even trying to protect.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's so, I hear people do this all the time how they will vilify someone who might be on, who might receive social services or what have you, but they don't understand where they came from.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think understanding being trying to put ourselves in someone else's shoes is very difficult, but it's something that has to happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why do we find it so hard to do it now more so than we did 50 years ago?

[SPEAKER_01]: To look through the eyes of our neighbor.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, why are we being, why are our senses being dulled?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because we're losing the empathy that

[SPEAKER_02]: We should have fear.

[SPEAKER_01]: Are we more is it because we are more with technology?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are we more self-sufficient?

[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't need our neighbors?

[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, if you talk to a psychologist, you can probably tell.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I have.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, too.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would also say this, like, in small towns, and I spend a fair amount of time in a very small town on the board of Missouri in Arkansas, in a town of 250 people,

[SPEAKER_02]: You can't, it's hard to vilify your neighbors because you need them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: You need your neighbors.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so as our society's growing, we've got a larger, it's, and we get separated, physically, emotionally, psychologically, it's easier to vilify people.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we're also, I think, we've become so consumed with power and money.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that,

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in terms of thinking about a path forward, it starts with listening without fear, but I think that things like campaign finance reform are essential, structural reforms to our voting, having things like open primaries, ranked choice voting, non-partisan redistricting.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have to make it politically viable for modern it's to win an election.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mentioned Jerrymandering earlier, and it's a tool that both major parties are using to ensure the playing fields on even, and

[SPEAKER_02]: These are all things that we need to think about because if we want to be this great society that the framers believe we could be, we have to embrace debate, we have to embrace our differences.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we have to stop vilifying people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that requires opening up at a personal level though, and that's tough.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a big ask.

[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't it doesn't.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't know if you need to be, you can, you can, you know, there's plenty of people we work with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you hate Michael Merritt.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've stopped it.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not too many times.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not for it.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's not for it.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not, let's be, we can say it as an example, but it's not true.

[SPEAKER_02]: All right, maybe you hated Geronimo.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but either way,

[SPEAKER_02]: trouble maker.

[SPEAKER_02]: But no, we have people that we work with that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know I do.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that I don't necessarily like them personally, but I really value what they bring to what we're trying to create.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: What we're trying to build their skillset.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that I dislike them, I just, you know, there's someone I work with that partner with in a workplace, and I think we all have people in our circles like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we need to think of politics like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have to, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to love someone that you politically disagree with, but you've got at least, give it a listen.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you don't agree with them, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, but fine, it works in real life too, folks.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not just politics.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just business.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to, like you said earlier about marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's when you value the outcome more than the victory.

[SPEAKER_01]: You get, you have to look at the big picture.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if that means you bending a little bit, do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because we're in a situation now that ain't great and it's a little disgusting to look at at times and you bring up a lot of really really valid points if people

[SPEAKER_01]: If your book sells dozens and dozens of copies of these three dozen, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, if it, if your, if your philosophy goes wide and people listen to what we're saying here today, 10 years from now, let's say 236, ideally where are we as a country?

[SPEAKER_01]: Have we changed?

[SPEAKER_01]: Have we gotten better and what has changed to make us better?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, certainly, if people were to buy into the idea that compromises necessary in writing a great society,

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that we're the very least listening to one another and listening without fear.

[SPEAKER_02]: If we can do that, I believe we win.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just that it's becoming increasingly hard to do that with these walls we've created, whether they're social, whether they're algorithmic, whether they're

[SPEAKER_02]: through television, we are isolating ourselves more than we've ever done before, and we're actually staying with young people, so they may be concerned about the state of young people and that it was our next generation.

[SPEAKER_02]: And speaking young people, we're also modeling some very poor behaviors.

[SPEAKER_02]: These behaviors that we're modeling of un- and unwillingness to compromise and unwillingness

[SPEAKER_02]: That's dangerous.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I hate to do this, but I mean, we think about what happened in this country on 9-11.

[SPEAKER_02]: And after 9-11 was one of the few times this country came together in the last 30, 40 years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the last time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, if you think about kind of the fundamentalist anger that perpetuated those murders of 3,000 people in this country,

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not altogether different from the road that we're heading down, where we are saying our way is the only way.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't care what these people in the left or these people on the right have to say, they are traders to me or what have you.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's our slippery slope and that's what concerns me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think,

[SPEAKER_02]: I believe we have the intellectual capital and capacity and the emotional capacity to stem that tide, but it's going to take all of us and not just a few of us to recognize this and to act on it.

[SPEAKER_01]: If everyone was in the sound of our voice can just realize the fact that having opinion does not make you fair game for acts of violence or something that is harmful to you as an in your existence.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's an opinion.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's all it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as you say, listen and listen, listen, listen, listen, hatefully.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Death of Compromise is a book by Aaron Perlitt.

[SPEAKER_01]: I graduated with him at VCU Class of 93.

[SPEAKER_01]: Aaron, I love you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know this.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've been with me and done stuff for me all along the way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this will sound giant.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very proud of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is an amazing project and a wonderful topic that needs to be discussed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you can find out all about this at AaronP Perlitt.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's AARO and P-E-R-L-U-T dot com.

[SPEAKER_01]: But let's talk about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Atomic.band.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are quite the musician and you are the only person I went to college with it.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I have some hot-breaking Tony Joe White news, I can call you and we can talk about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was reading your band's website.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me about the name Atomic Junction.

[SPEAKER_01]: It never occurred to me that really the Atomic Junction is sort of a piece of compromise in its own way.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's many things coming together in co-existing.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and that's

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the impetus of the music we make.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's a hybrid of country rock and blues.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you think about, I think the way we describe it on the story is if you think about the junction of a railway, it's kind of where bad decisions and histories and second chances where they all collide at junctions.

[SPEAKER_02]: And stylistically, our music is the junction of,

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, country and rock and roll and blues and folk music, the music is strong.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is so, so good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know you play all around the St. Louis area and Missouri and I know you've got a gig coming up later this year in Charlottesville, but the one I really want to promote.

[SPEAKER_01]: is a Friday the 20th I believe of yeah Friday on November 20th in Richmond, Virginia, you will be playing with Kai Grog, get Kai Krogetti and his band at a show at triple, triple, you know, I get paid to talk for a living, just not very much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Triple crossing fault and you're hitting Richmond in November, I'm excited because I will actually come down and see that show because you're within the Robb's B-Wex scope.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can make that trip.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've been touring, you've put out your music.

[SPEAKER_01]: It must be a great outlet in this frustrating time of the world to have the band, to as a creative, you're a very creative guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: We rose together in college.

[SPEAKER_01]: We both wanted to be amazing broadcasters.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we both failed.

[SPEAKER_01]: But at least you have this outlet of the band.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is it really rewarding?

[SPEAKER_01]: Does it help you mentally when you're out there

[SPEAKER_02]: love it is rewarding and actually first let me say thank you for those kind of things you said to me I will then know you as soon as we get off this call stop it you know it's true and you know you'll never give me some that's partially true but it is very rewarding it's nice to know that that you

[SPEAKER_02]: It's, all it is is telling stories.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's honestly no different than what you do.

[SPEAKER_02]: You tell stories every day through conversations like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is just telling conversations and having conversations in a lyrical manner where you're telling stories about things that sometimes are fictional and sometimes they're very biographical and oftentimes autobiographical.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I get to tell stories about my,

[SPEAKER_02]: you know, a sobriety, something that you and I share I get tell stories about my upbringing and the pain that brought me and it's very therapeutic sometimes for me.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've had a kind of a transformative period over the past eight years of my life for I've had to come to grips with.

[SPEAKER_02]: a lot of things in my life and my songwriting through atomic junction has allowed me to manage some of that stress and strain and have fun too and getting back to compromise.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my favorite aspect of creating music?

[SPEAKER_02]: is the creation with my band.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: I might write a song and I'll bring it over the band.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll play a form and if they seem to take to it, then it's, we build that song together.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's just the beginning of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We build it together and you're giving each other notes and building something that hopefully will have some type of positive effect on.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it goes back to when you say

[SPEAKER_01]: the greatest ideas in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing came from one person, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And that collaboration that exists is very healthy and it's very good.

[SPEAKER_01]: My outlet is podcasting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's more similar than many people might think.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's storytelling.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's getting stuff off your chest.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's saying things or communicating things to an audience and you hope the audience digs it and latches on and feels good because you're doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think either one of us landed where we thought we were going to land when we graduated, but we're both doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, I'm very proud of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm proud of both of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're doing what we do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Aaron Perlet.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can find all this information at AaronPurlet.com, a-a-r-o-n-p-e-r-l-u-t.com, and the band is Tom McJunction.

[SPEAKER_01]: Check it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Atomic.band.

[SPEAKER_01]: the book, Death of Compromise, how an unquenchable thirst for power.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is when you'd hold it up if you had it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you ever look at a talk show, Aaron?

[SPEAKER_01]: The death of compromise, how an unquenchable thirst for power, racism, and media killed political and cultural compromise in America.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure my copies in the mail.

[SPEAKER_01]: Aaron, you are a two-time visitor to the

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for your time and I hope if nothing else we got people to think a little bit about what we discussed today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for your time so much.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm going to get that book.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to read a whole mess of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is Michael Perich, a special Robbfield Aaron for it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you folks for tuning in.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk to you next time.