00:11:17 · Yoni Rechtman, Eric Newcomer
[00:11:17] S1: of it. And so, like, there is no democracy without... I I I really believe that there is no... Like, the systems of democracy, capitalism, property rights, institutions, independent judiciary, these are all actually one thing. And in countries that have one, they generally tend to have all of them. And And in countries where one fails, the rest fail shortly thereafter. Like, he's doing third world... You know, it's it's third world style corruption in The US and is is substantially undermining, like, the excellence of American institutions and the excellence of American capitalism, and, like, we are all gonna wind up paying for that. So even in the most strictly amoral terms, you don't care about any of the, like, ideas about the liberal world order, like, we're gonna wind up looking like Turkey or Argentina or Russia, where, like, there is no, you know, sort of free market, there is no meaningfully free market system, there is no central bank independence, there are no strong institutions, there is no, for the most part, judicial independence. [00:12:21] S0: What do make of these things all go together? That, you know, if you give Trump a golden crown or whatever, he's gonna treat you well. And Democrats, if you try and do it, they might say, oh, look, a billionaire, you know, we should I'm tax you not saying Democrats should get more corrupt, but there is this asymmetry where you get more out of cozying up to the Republicans as
00:12:21 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:12:21] S0: What do make of these things all go together? That, you know, if you give Trump a golden crown or whatever, he's gonna treat you well. And Democrats, if you try and do it, they might say, oh, look, a billionaire, you know, we should I'm tax you not saying Democrats should get more corrupt, but there is this asymmetry where you get more out of cozying up to the Republicans as [00:12:43] S1: a business person. Totally. I think the Democrats often really struggle to articulate a positive vision for America and the world. You know, there's this like Simpsons meme that people always share that is hysterical, and it's the Republican National Convention, and it says like, you know you know like... But we're evil. We're evil and we know it, and then the Democratic National Convention is like we hate every... We're incompetent and we hate ourselves. Right. I think that Democrats really struggle for how much they... Because of how much they point out problems instead of being able to put forth a, like, positive vision for America. I think it's really challenging to hold the two conflicting ideas in your head. I am, you know, notwithstanding his, like, personal proclivities, often very inspired by Bill Clinton and, you know, his line, there's nothing that's wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America. Like, I believe that very deeply. I think the idea of I still don't I agree with everything you're saying.
00:12:43 · Yoni Rechtman, Eric Newcomer
[00:12:43] S1: a business person. Totally. I think the Democrats often really struggle to articulate a positive vision for America and the world. You know, there's this like Simpsons meme that people always share that is hysterical, and it's the Republican National Convention, and it says like, you know you know like... But we're evil. We're evil and we know it, and then the Democratic National Convention is like we hate every... We're incompetent and we hate ourselves. Right. I think that Democrats really struggle for how much they... Because of how much they point out problems instead of being able to put forth a, like, positive vision for America. I think it's really challenging to hold the two conflicting ideas in your head. I am, you know, notwithstanding his, like, personal proclivities, often very inspired by Bill Clinton and, you know, his line, there's nothing that's wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America. Like, I believe that very deeply. I think the idea of I still don't I agree with everything you're saying. [00:13:47] S0: I just don't think it doesn't solve the corruption problem. Part of it is, I think, when Democrats are in power, they need to make sure you have severe consequences if you try to buy off the government. Totally. And it has to be, you're not allowed to do that. You can't have one party coming to power where you're allowed to sort of be pay to play and corrupt, and another party that says, we're the principled ones, but we don't have enough backbone to actually process No, mean, Democrats
00:13:47 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:13:47] S0: I just don't think it doesn't solve the corruption problem. Part of it is, I think, when Democrats are in power, they need to make sure you have severe consequences if you try to buy off the government. Totally. And it has to be, you're not allowed to do that. You can't have one party coming to power where you're allowed to sort of be pay to play and corrupt, and another party that says, we're the principled ones, but we don't have enough backbone to actually process No, mean, Democrats [00:14:09] S1: need to be more willing to wield power. I think Merrick Garland is a coward and an embarrassment, an idiot for not, you know, putting Trump in prison. The... What do you... Tech is built on immigrants. [00:14:25] S0: You know, Elon Musk himself is an immigrant. Many of these tech companies have H1B employees doing a lot of the most important work. Yet, there's a strain that's like, obviously immigrants are the ones being attacked here, but there's also some of the leader, like, know, XAI has tons of immigrants. Elon is practically a white nationalist at this I don't know, what do you make of the anti immigrant Well, but they
00:14:25 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:14:25] S0: You know, Elon Musk himself is an immigrant. Many of these tech companies have H1B employees doing a lot of the most important work. Yet, there's a strain that's like, obviously immigrants are the ones being attacked here, but there's also some of the leader, like, know, XAI has tons of immigrants. Elon is practically a white nationalist at this I don't know, what do you make of the anti immigrant Well, but they [00:14:52] S1: won't go after the good ones. That's... I think that is, I think it's, that's the cognitive dissonance of like, you know, it's all happening somewhere else over there, it's abstract, you know, it won't affect me, it won't affect the people in my life. And frankly, to some extent it might be true. I mean, because of this system of crony capitalism that we're now in, and like really third world, third world corruption that Trump has brought to America, it might be true that that the people who cozy up to the administration will get to keep the visas for their employees. [00:15:24] S0: But they're also not that competent, thankfully, I think, and so, you know, I don't know, I just saw a tech person the other day who said, you know, they tried to come back from The US on an O-one visa, and had gotten like jerked around and they're just like moving to London. Know, it is like we're gonna lose people who would be in Silicon Valley even if certain firms can get exceptions or special treatment Yeah, from the I mean,
00:15:24 · Eric Newcomer, Yoni Rechtman
[00:15:24] S0: But they're also not that competent, thankfully, I think, and so, you know, I don't know, I just saw a tech person the other day who said, you know, they tried to come back from The US on an O-one visa, and had gotten like jerked around and they're just like moving to London. Know, it is like we're gonna lose people who would be in Silicon Valley even if certain firms can get exceptions or special treatment Yeah, from the I mean, [00:15:48] S1: it sort of reminds me, there's a dark, there's a real sort of dark potential here, which is kind of like perestroika, which is, you know, could we be entering a period of like rapid sort of cronyism and privatization that leaves us overall a much poorer country and looking like looking like Russia with weak institutions, no judicial independence, no central bank independence, but oligarchs who have successfully, you know, seized power based on their proximity to, you know, this like fundamentally illegitimate government.