The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:53:17 · Scott Galloway, Heather Cox Richardson
[00:53:17] S0: 100% agree. It strikes me that any other administration, Musk, would be in an interrogation room in Langley, Virginia answering very serious questions. So let's move on to some q and a from our audience here. Bill asks, Heather said Trump or Vance may veto. Thoughts on Trump leaving office and why? What do you think happens on... Is there a chance on January 2029 two people show up to be inaugurated? [00:53:41] S1: January 29 of? [00:53:42] S0: I'm sorry. January of '29. Is that right? [00:53:45] S1: Two people two people... No. No. What I was referring to there is I'd... Two things, that I think work together. Trump is not healthy. I am not a doctor. I am not a psychiatrist, but the dude is not okay. I mean, he's [00:54:00] S0: a of 80 or 81.
00:54:00 · Scott Galloway, Heather Cox Richardson
[00:54:00] S0: a of 80 or 81. [00:54:02] S1: Yeah. Yeah. He's... And he's he's not okay. And not but, but and, as of the midterms, he has nothing he can deliver to the Republicans. He's a lame duck. He's made it clear he can't turn out voters any longer. Why are they gonna try and keep him? And the bottom line is I would I would actually be surprised if he isn't moved off stage in one way or another over the next two years. I'm not suggesting it's gonna happen or not, but you can see JD Vance ramping up his performances, you know, being out there in front of people. You can see his attempt to cement control. And, of course, once you're past the midterms, he could have that time and go into 2828. Right? '28 as an incumbent. And you can also look and see a pea... Increasingly appears that certain members of the inner circle are getting iced out. So you can see JD Vance trying to consolidate power, and, of course, he's got the tech bros behind him. My concern about the period after this midterm... I have many concerns about it, but one of them is that what you're gonna see is JD Vance consolidating power with extraordinary money behind him and using the power of the federal government to do whatever he wants for two years. So I think, you know, we... We're all focused on the midterms. I think, Vance is a is a real place to be watching the next couple of years. Maybe it won't happen. Who knows? But I... Do you see Trump's continuing to be able to walk for two more years? I don't know. I'm not a doctor, but I... I'm... My money is not on him for two more years.
00:55:38 · Scott Galloway
[00:55:38] S0: Look, I think that biology is undefeated. And it does... And and one of the things about cognitive decline is one of the first symptoms is you don't recognize your own cognitive decline. I remember my dad suggesting we go to a go kart racing track the day I took his driver's license away. I'm like, you don't understand. You no longer have the hand eye coordination or the gross motor skills here. And I do think there are a couple silver linings coming out of the selection that I see. One, I do think there's generally a recognition that ageism is warranted, that 15 year olds should not have driver's licenses, 16 year olds should not be allowed to join the army, and 65 year olds should not be allowed to command troops, fly planes, or potentially a 75 year old should not be on the Supreme Court or run for precedent. It does feel like we are heading towards, there's renewed momentum around term limits or age gating. And then the second thing I would put to you that I see as a silver lining, I see the ROI on political spending or money dropping off the face of the planet right now. If they can't buy a senator in Texas, in GOP, dark red Texas for $800,000,000, that means that the ROI on money has finally finally really started to decay, if you will. Thoughts on either of those?
00:57:01 · Heather Cox Richardson
[00:57:01] S1: Well, on both of them, first of all, I think that that is... The latter is a reflection of the fact the American people have woken up and remembered that it is in fact their country and that they have agency to change the future. And that kind of organizing, you can't buy with money. And you've seen that in... And you saw that in Brazil, right, over the, over the the weekend. So there's that. I will say about about older people in office that we are in, I think, a unique moment right now because of the extraordinary improvements in health care over the last, you know, twenty, thirty years so that people are able to still, you know, be in public in a way that they weren't in our parents' generation, for example. And if you couple that with the reliability of air travel so that people don't have to have the grueling... You know, think about the Supreme Court in the early years. You literally had to ride a horse around the circuit, you know, and you weren't gonna have somebody who was 90 out there riding the circuit. It was a young person's game. And those two changes, we haven't yet reflected in our political system, but there's no reason to think we won't. Because, yeah, I I actually heard a focus group talking about this... The senate race here in Maine, and senator Susan Collins, the Republican who's running for a seat against Democrat Troy Jackson, is 72 years old, but she has some sort of a condition that makes her seem a great deal older than that. And one of the people who was a Collins voter in a focus group said she would not be a Collins voter this time around because... And I... This is not a direct quote, but she essentially said, I don't wanna pay for her nursing home in the senate the same way we paid for Mitch McConnell's. And I was like, woah. And then I thought, honestly, that's not really unfair.
00:58:48 · Scott Galloway
[00:58:48] S0: Average age of Americans is 38. Average age of our elected officials is 62. I see McConnell, Ginsburg, Feinstein, it's just it's become ghoulish. It's become very strange. And I also just I wonder if they when you're that age, if you price in the risk of your policies on youth, and if you're able to grasp an increasingly technological society, and also a component of democracy I believe is churn and shedding new skin. And to your point, what you said was really powerful about one of the benefits of a democracy versus an autocracy. It gives them kind of peace with honor and an exit. I think I think Mitch McConnell's family should be ashamed of themselves for putting them through that. It just strikes me that at some point someone, our kids, should come to us, professor, and say, you know, mom, dad, it's time to come home. And I think term limits and age gating, if you will, actually give more dignity... You know, provide the same type of dignity and graceful exit you're talking about that democracy provides. So we'll go... Sorry. Go ahead, Heather.
01:00:00 · Heather Cox Richardson
[01:00:00] S1: Well, there's also, I think, the... A corollary to the fact that we're in this moment where you do have this twenty to thirty year period that our parents didn't have is that we don't really talk as a society enough about what that should look like. And somebody said to me a number of books ago, this is the most famous you're ever gonna be, ironically. Right? What are you gonna do with the rest of your life? Like, what is your next move? And I remember being really taken aback, but spending time and thinking, yeah. What do I want to do going forward? And what I wanted was to support other people. And just having that question asked when I was in my fifties feels like that's something we should put more of an emphasis on so that people don't get to be 80 and still clinging to what... Not just, by the way, in politics, but also in business or in any profession. It is time to not just to pass the torch, but to to invest in younger generations.