The other thing that you, that, that we all live in and I think has a tremendous affect on the policy atmosphere, is the political environment. Right? We all know that we are living in a, in a hyper-partisian age. And you know, partisanship has been with us always. It's baked into the cake. It's part of the design of our system. And in many ways it's good, right? You want to have a robust debate about important policy questions, and you want people to test their ideas against people with a different point of view. That's healthy, that's what you do here. I think we're at a place where it, it feel rougher than it has in the past. I mean, it's always been, the parties have always had different personalities, right? And they've had different kind of cultures within the parties, Will Rogers famously said, I don't belong to any organized political party, I'm a Democrat and that's certainly tracks with my experience. You know, Republicans tend to be a more hierarchical party, it's a more vertical party, there's actually, you know. Kind of a logical chain [LAUGH] democrats know, it's, it's a very horizontal party, everybody is you know, the same. If republicans want to make the trains run on time, democrats just want to make the trains bigger. Right, so we can get more people on them, you know, get everybody in and let's go. But I heard a, I heard a story recently that I think sort of sums it up best of all. There was a guy drowning in the Potomac River. Everything in Washington happens around the Potomac River. But, he was about 50 feet offshore. And this group of Republicans saw him there drowning and, and they walked over and they threw him 25 feet of rope. And the shouted, the rest is up to you. [LAUGH] Well, this group of Democrats standing near by saw the same thing and they were appalled. And they ran over and they threw this poor guy a hundred feet of rope. And they let go of their end. [LAUGH] So you know, I, I think that the, the different cultures and personalities of the parties are, are always at play and always a factor. And there is this, this partisan divide around that. But it does feel like it's, like it's, it's, we're in a tough place, it's harder than usual. And the question is why. Right. And I don't think there's any simple answer, but there's, but there's a couple of, of things that have, that have changed I think the political culture quite a bit. And, and one of them is a, you know, it's a pretty boring policy issue. And it's gerrymandering. Right? It's how we draw our political boundaries. and, and technology, you know, as you guys know it's. Most states do it by it's done politically by the state legislature, right? So whoever, whoever's in charge, Democrats or Republicans, both side do it will draw on districts that are as safe as possible for their party. Well, if you put all the Republicans in one district or if you put all the Democrats in one district. By definition you are forcing, you know, the other party into a relatively safe district two. And because technology has allowed us to thin slice voting records so carefully, that you can do that really, really, really effectively. You can figure out you know, Where are not just the precincts but the blocks that are most likely to vote with you, and the demographics of that. And put them into one district. And so as a result, what's happened, right? People no longer reach across the aisle. They no longer try to work with people from the other party. They no longer feel threatened by a, by a challenged from a person of another, of another party. The, the real threat for most members comes, member of congress, comes from the far flank of their own party. So Republicans feel, and we, and we hear this all the time, feel threatened by a conservative Tea Party like challenge on the, on the, on the right. And Democrats feel threatened by a, you know, a far left, more progressive, more liberal challenge in, in their districts. And so the ability for people to work together and the rewards for them to do, for doing it have disappeared. Right, and I think that has led to an incredibly partisan kind of culture and period in Washington D.C., and one where we haven't seen very much get done at all. You know, the national journal which you guys probably read a little bit ranks every member every two years, right on how liberal or conservative they are, forever. There was always overlap. The most conservative Democrats were more conservative than the most liberal Republicans and vice versa. That's no longer true. The most liberal Republican is now more conservative than the most conservative Democrats. The blue dog Democrats and the moderate Republicans they're all gone. And that means that there's no place common ground, there's no place to start a conversation. And so, I think again, that creates, that dynamic, that culture creates a very tough place to make progress. And it makes, it makes it hard to have a conversation about important policy topics where you even agree on what the challenges are, what the problems are, let alone what the solutions are and I think that's where we find ourselves right now. So where does that leave us? Where does that leave you guys? Like every generation you face your particular challenges and your particular opportunities and so, you know. A couple that I think I sort of worry about for people your age is, one is just the, you know, the country and younger people in particular have lost confidence, not just in government and politics, but, but all of the big institutions of our collective life, right? Whether it's Major League Baseball or the Catholic Church, or big companies. And part of the, part of the reason is transparency, right? The more we've seen into the practices or the flaws or the challenges, the less confidence we have. Sometimes it's been bad actors, but I think that creates a situation where there's a lot, there's a palpable loss of confidence in the large institutions across society. Now, if there's an upside to that, maybe that's it's that also seems to have sparked, fed, nurtured. A more grass roots approach to whether it's creating an app to solve every problem on Earth, right? Which is happening. To you know, creating a localvore food movement, right? We're, you, you know, we, people are finding way, creative ways to create smaller more local, more sometimes efficient ways of doing business. Right, going around these big institutions, so, that's interesting. As new technologies made the world smaller everything from capital to carbon is fungible, right. So, that, that's changed that, that had the effect of, of reducing barriers and breaking down boundaries, and. But it, but, but the flip side of that, is sometimes that, is there are more stakeholders in these policy conversations, the problems get harder to solve. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing, because if you think about, like, we used to take garbage or toxic waste and dump it in a poor community. We can't do that anymore, right? Or we can't do it as much, it still happens. But, so that creates a more complex problem which requires a much more complex solution and yet the reasons for it are, are positive. and, but I, and I also think one of the things that I think about a lot is what are the down sides to increased transparency. Right, in the political process there's no question that transparency has been really a positive thing. Whether it's you know, Edward Snowden on the far end, exposing NSA practices or just, you know, the, the way institutions work and who gets paid for what or how much they get paid or how these processes work. Transparencies, you know, sunlight is a disinfectant. I think that's generally true, but there's a downside to that as well. It's very hard to make policy when everybody's watching the you know, putting Congressional you know, business on CSPAN has not produced a more honest conversation in Congress, right? I mean, if you go back to this is the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which is arguably one of the most if not the most important piece of legislation to ever pass Congress, it's without a doubt, it's one of them. That never would have happened if there was cameras in Congress or if every meeting was, if people were leaking and talking to the press and all of it was transparent. There were a lot of members that went and met behind closed doors, usually in places called the Twilight Lodge or, you know, where the favored beverage was not water. And they, people could have a conversation where they were pretty confident. They could explore ideas. They were pretty confident, it wasn't going to end up on the front page of The New York Times. It wasn't going to end up on NBC news. and, so, transparency in the policy process be, has had, you know, it's a double-edged sword, as a lot of things are. How do you get people to move against their political inst, interests, their narrow political interests? If everything they do and every conversation they have is public, how do you do that? This is a problem that you will all increasingly face as you try to solve some of these problems. so, it's harder to get things done in, in this more complex, complex, transparent, flat, I guess as would say, world. And that's the world you guys are entering into.
