How We Get Out Of The Political Divide w/ Jeremi Suri #InvestingOnPurpose

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to capitalism.com, i'm Ryan Daniel Moran. Today I'm going to be sharing another episode with my new podcast project, Investing on Purpose. I partnered with my dear friend and mentor, JP Newman, to talk about emerging trends and places where we're putting our attention and our capital in order to stay on the forefront of all the change that is happening in the world, especially with projects that are creating meaningful changes. By the way, if you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to the Investing on Purpose podcast feed. This is its own podcast, so please look that up and subscribe to that podcast to get everything that we release on the Investing on Purpose podcast. Hi, everyone. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with capitalism.com and co host of Investing on Purpose today. JP and I have such a fun conversation with Professor Jeremy Suri. Jeremy is the author of this book. It's called Civil War by Other Means. And we talk about the divisiveness in today's society. We start this podcast by asking the question, are we in unprecedented times, are these issues that we face today of divisiveness and group think and this group versus this group, Is this new in our society? Or have we gone through this many times in the past? And how have we navigated times like that? Jeremy has some very interesting answers to those questions. And what's so fascinating about this conversation is all three of us disagree on a variety of different issues and even our favorite presidents. You'll hear more about that in today's episode. This is one of my favorite podcasts we've ever recorded. It's so much fun, and I hope that it gives you a unique eye into the issues that we face today and how we can navigate through them.

Hi, this is JP Newman of Investing.

On Purpose, and I'm Ryan Daniel Moran. And today I thought we'd start by sharing the most expensive investment mistake I've ever made, which is not investing.

Yeah.

Yeah. I lost so much money by just sitting on the sidelines because for a long time I was convinced that the world was going to get worse.

Yes, there's a lot of people who say that.

Yeah. And that's not a new narrative, but it seems especially loud today. In 2008, I was a new entrepreneur. I was making money, and I left a lot of my money on the sidelines looking at how we responded to the financial crisis. And I have a background in Austrian economics, so I was always convinced that there was just gonna be another crash right around the corner. And it's taken a few cycles to realize that the world kind of keeps on trucking does. And so today I'm. I'm interested to talk to Jeremy about whether or not we're in unprecedented times or if we've seen a cycle like this before.

And I think the theme you're going to love this show.

We.

We are so fortunate, Jeremy, to have you on this show. And the theme is, you're going to hear today is about how do you go from conflict to consensus? And what we're looking at is individually, as an entrepreneur, how do you go as an entrepreneur when you're in conflict, how do you get to consensus? Whether it's your team, your competitors getting past them or doing what you need to do, how do you do it in a marriage, which I'm going to share with you some very personal things about how I've had to learn to politically do some navigation that way. How do you do it as a country with.

You've been.

You've seen some partisan tension here and there. Here and there. And Jeremy, we're going to ask you the final big question, which is how do you do it as humanity when you have countries that are at conflict?

We want you to solve all the world's problems today.

Give me five minutes.

In 30 minutes, we're going to solve all these problems. Problems. But hopefully by the end of this thing, not only will it be an interesting conversation, I know we're going to talk about your book. And in the Civil War, which was one of the original untractable conflicts that nobody thought we'd get through without destroying the country. And so I think through that'll be a really interesting vehicle. What are the patterns? What are the things we can find of actually how we got from conflict to consensus? Yeah, Figure that out.

So the first thing that I want to ask is, are we in unique times? Because it seems so polarizing and we like to believe that there's never been a contested presidential election or there has never been two parties that really hated each other or that we always respected each other's religions. Like these divisions are new to us.

Sure.

As a professor of history, what is your take? Are we in unprecedented times?

Not at all. No. I mean, they seem new to us and that's the hubris of our time. That's the apocalyptic thinking of our times, which of course sells on the Internet and sells in many environments, but it's not true at all. I mean, we've been through cycles in our history of deep partisanship, and we are a country that's always been made up of People with very, very diverse backgrounds and very diverse interests. There's never been a unified period in our history. A number of months ago, I wrote a piece in the New York Times where I made this point and I got all this hate mail, people saying, well, don't you believe that there's an American way? And my whole point was, the American way is about debate, pluralism. Now, sometimes we handle these divisions better than others. We're at a moment now where we forgot or lost some of the skills we need, but I think we can learn these skills again.

Okay, so can you tell us about a time that it looked worse than it does now? Because if you ask most people, they'll say, this is. I was on a podcast recently. They said we're more divided than we were in the Civil War. I was like, I think you might need to read a book or two. So can you tell us a time in which we were more divided?

Sure. During the Civil War and after the Civil War. It's not like the Civil War itself got rid of our divisions. Everyone recognizes we were divided, north and south, slave and anti slave, before the Civil War. That's obvious. And obvious. That division, obviously that division was far worse. We had people mobilized on both sides and thousands, tens of thousands of people killed over those issues. So we were more divided then, but we remained divided in the decades after the Civil War. The decades after the Civil War, we had an election in 1876 where four months after the election, there was no agreement on who had won four months after. Months after the election. So. So this is not something new in that election. In fact, we also had someone who won the electoral vote, someone who won the popular vote. And each side did not recognize legitimacy of the.

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so who are the two candidates?

So this is Hayes and Tilden. So Samuel Tilden was the governor of New York. Rutherford B. Hayes was the governor of Ohio. Hayes was the Republican. Tilden was the Democrat. The Tilden won about 200,000 more votes than Hayes did. But when it came to the Electoral.

College, is this where the slave votes were not recognized? Is what it came down to.

So in part, in the south, those who had been former.

I'm sorry, not slaves, but former slaves.

Former slaves. You got it right. They were not, in many cases, allowed to vote. In some cases, people voted multiple times. You had all these claims about fraud as well. That's where some of the contemporary lying about fraud comes from. But what's so significant is, is that in three states, Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina, in those States the vote was so close that you couldn't really tell who had won it dependent if you counted certain votes or didn't count based on whether you thought they were legitimate or not. And so if Hayes won those three states, he'd have enough electoral votes to be president, which is what happened. But the Democrats refused to accept that. We had an electoral commission, believe it or not, of 15 people that was put together, five Republicans, five Democrats, five members of the Supreme Court. The five members of the Supreme Court, three were appointed by Republicans, two by Democrats. What do you think they said? Eight to seven. It goes to the Republicans.

Oh, my.

Wow.

That's a divided time.

In the end, a deal was made and I think that's where we're going in our discussion today, that it was more important to keep the country together and to compromise on issues that were important for both sides in order to get Hayes into the presidency and allow the country to move forward. That's where we get the Posse Comitatus act, for example. The Republicans agreed that they would not send the Union army any longer into the South. This is not a good thing for African Americans in the south, but it holds the Union together. Southerners agreed to recognize the President and recognize the power of the federal government.

Wow.

Now, I've read about this, and it seems like this was an important time in which the black vote started to change a little bit. And would you explain to us how that happened?

Great question. Really terrific question. So after the Civil war, there are 4 million slaves who become free citizens, full citizens under the 14th Amendment with rights to full citizenship. And about 2 million of them are potential voters in the South. In 1868, 800,000 of them vote and it changes everything. Ulysses Grant is elected president in 1868, winning Republic votes in the south from former African Americans who are now voting Republican.

And this is seemingly because Lincoln was a Republican, the first Republican.

He freed the slaves.

Yeah.

And he freed the slaves. Until the 1950s, African Americans identified with the Republican Party. Jackie Robinson was a Republican.

Yeah.

Not a Democrat.

So interesting.

And it's an outgrowth. It's an outgrowth of this, the 1868 election.

Southern and Southern blacks.

Precisely.

Makes it so interesting, right?

Precisely. There's a big flip in the 50s and 60s we can talk about now. What happens in 1868 is Grant wins all those votes. So the white Democrats in the south say, we will not allow this to happen again. They take measures to prevent African Americans from voting, including the use of violence. This is when we see the Ku klux Klan and other organizations like that formed. And that takes us through the 1870s and 80s with horrible violence and horrible efforts to stop people from voting, many of which unfortunately work. By the 1880s, they're parts of Mississippi counties that are 70% black, that have almost 100% white votes. Wow.

What year did you say in the 1880s?

Wow. That's amazing.

Wow.

It's so interesting to hear that story told in that narrative, but I'm dying to hear. Okay, what happened in the 1950s?

So in the 1950s, the Democratic Party began to move to undertake to support civil rights. Why did it do this? Because of the legacies of Franklin Roosevelt. The coalition that Franklin Roosevelt put together, leading with values, was a Democratic Party that also had African American voters in it. The African American voters wanted New Deal assistance because they were hit the hardest by the Depression. The white voters in the south also wanted New Deal assistance. So Franklin Roosevelt put them together. And then during World War II, when white citizens from the south were fighting in World War II, fighting over in Europe and in Asia, they wanted African Americans who were not in uniform in the factories, building the tanks, building the planes. So you had this big coalition that was formed around Franklin Roosevelt, and the Democratic Party moved to embrace civil rights. So what happened in the late 50s and 60s? The Republican Party decided they could get value. They could win elections by embracing white supremacy. And so you have in the early 1960s, the Republican Party moving to be against civil rights, just as the Democratic Party is embracing civil rights.

It's so interesting how that happens. So the short answer is no, these are not new times. We've been divided over things.

Wow. Maybe it sounds like this was harder on America.

Of course, you just didn't have the media talking about it 29 hours a day. But this, this affects all of us personally. I mean, you just went through navigating this split in your own life.

Oh, for sure.

And it's affecting all of us.

It is. I want to ask one more question, and I'll jump into that. So you mentioned something and you said literally, because I'm thinking again of conflict to consensus. So in this case, what I heard you say in that story was they all parties that weren't necessarily aligned, which were the Southern whites and the Southern blacks aligned around. You said Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Yes.

What was the value? Was it him? What was the philosophy or value that he espoused? They said that you took two people that generally have not been aligned for 100 years, and they went into alignment.

So Roosevelt did what Lincoln did he articulated a set of values in a time of crisis that brought people together and both sides could see something from that. Roosevelt said there were three secrets to the New Deal. Jobs, jobs, and jobs. So what he was doing was saying, I am going to use the government in a time of 25% unemployment to create jobs. I'm going to create those jobs for white communities, and I'm going to create them for black communities. And if you want jobs, support me, support this Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, and then support the war effort to protect our system from authoritarians overseas. That's how we put people together.

Beautiful.

I mean, that's really powerful. So taking the smaller issues for 100 years, white, black, all the things that were there, and coming up with a bigger value, which in this case was. Or objective, which is jobs, basically. And actually nationalism, America, America, democracy, Western liberalism, over communism.

Precisely, precisely. And giving everyone not just a sense of value, but also interest. You will all benefit from this. You will benefit as a white Southerner, and you will benefit as an African American voter by supporting my programs because you'll both get jobs.

You know, it's interesting. I'm going to just give you a little story. So when in the last election that obviously got incredibly polarized, my wife and I started basically politically right about the same way in the middle. And in the last 10 years, we've completely, or the last five years really completely went to, like, different directions. And I had no idea when you're married to somebody and you're raising kids, how difficult it is when you literally have a different worldview of the same incident. You could look at, you know, what was. You know, what was January 6th to one person is a very different thing. In fact, it was one of those tense days of my entire marriage. My 20 years of marriage was that day. Because literally, just seeing that interview, that event. And I guess to make kind of a long story short, in navigating very, very tricky times of how are we going to. Like, we may. We may never agree. In fact, to this day, I think there's a lot of issues we just don't see eye to eye on. But what we learned through this, basically, and it really has been amazing, is that when we started talking in values over issues, we've come to this place of incredible respect. And the easiest thing for values in a marriage are your kids. Yeah, right. So look at our kids. We're like, God, our kids are amazing. Like, they are so polite. They're so smart. They're so like, gosh, we Did a good job with that. Why did we do such a good job with our kids? Well, we had the same values about, you know, we value self determination, respect. We can just go on and on what we valued. And we actually injected all that. And then. So what I realized is, is that when things were starting to get tense in the last couple of years, like the last year or two, to start to talk in the framework of values, and a lot of times I'll talk about our kids or I'll talk about ultimately, because I know whether you're Democratic or Republican, what do we all really want as humans?

Peace.

We want safety. We want opportunity. And we don't want to get locked up by our government or told by our government what we can and can't do. It's like pretty basic. Human rights is really what we all. I don't care. It's just a different roadmap of how you're going to get.

That is so beautifully said, the difference between values and issues. Because we tend to talk about issues, we tend to debate those things. But at its core, we all pretty much want the same thing.

I want the same thing. You may say, I like my map, but we want the same.

I agree.

And that's where Jeremy and I kind of started on this conversation. We had a really rough conversation, a great group, it's called Austin 100. We were there a couple of weeks ago. Jeremy was leading it, and there were some smart people, people from Xcia about. They were giving us through Jeremy, this idea of where the Ukrainian Russian conflict is going to go. And the thing is, if you start to talk about this, if you stick to the issues, this can only go one way. It's going to escalate. You've got Putin who says, I am doing. I'm. I'll die. We're not going to lose this thing. And you've got this. And you really start to, if you, if you take that to its conclusion of two groups just absolutely not willing to go through values or what are not going through the issues, then you get to go to your weapons. The weapons that are faster, bigger, stronger, more powerful, make bigger holes in the sky and people and buildings as we're seeing. And that can't lead to any good thing for humanity. And so. But yet you have, you basically have. At this point, no one's going to recognize the damage that it's causing to humans because they're so caught up in the conflict and they can't see above it. It's happening in Israel and you know The west bank right now, we see it, we see it all the time. So I just, you know, I think I was saying to you, Jeremy, like the one thing I can see even going to my own conflict, I, I joked one night with my wife when she was starting to get me like into one of those conversations, I didn't want to go, I said, listen sweetheart, you're my fellow American and I love you. And she kind of laughed.

She's like, what?

Because she was going there. I go, look, isn't it great to be an American? Isn't it so great that we get to live in this country, the freedoms we have? I am so grateful to live in America. I mean it, I mean, there's nowhere else I'd rather be. Yes, we've got problems. Yes, there's this and that. What a great spot. Do you agree with that? Like, we live in a great country. I mean, you look at history, it's like, what a great spot. And that immediately. And I've used that now several times when I felt like things were becoming in conflict and it neutralizes the conflict because now you're sitting here and then you and I talked about how do you go from nationalism to humanism, right? Because ultimately we have the same values as humans. We actually want all the, all 9 billion of us basically want the same thing. And if we don't figure this out, bad things happen. They're already happening every day. But worse things can happen. So that's why I think this is such an important conversation.

I agree 100%. And I think it's so easy to lose sight of that because we become ahistorical. We think what we're seeing in the moment, as Ryan said, is out of the ordinary, it's unprecedented. And therefore that justifies our doing things that run against what we know are the tried and true methods of humanity. What are the tried and true methods? That we don't define people by the issues, we define them by their values. That we build relationships. Not because you and I agree on who we're going to vote for, but because you and I agree that we believe in a free society. And you and I believe in safety for our children and communities where people are all well fed and we become friends based on that. That's what works for humanity over time. But if we lose sight of that, if we become so short sighted, we can actually emphasize the things that matter the least which divide us.

Yeah, that makes sense to me in a one to one conversation. I mean, I, I'm, I'm More lean right, you tend to lean more left. And like, we can talk about the values that we agree on and, you know, we're BFFs. And it took me a little bit of stuffing down my nausea while you guys are talking good things about fdr. But I understood the values that you were talking about. But how do we do that in more of a one to many. How do we do that? How does a presidential candidate shift that language? How do we shift it in the way that we talk about issues beyond just the one to one coffee table? How do we start to shift the narrative?

I think that's the most important question. It's what I teach and what I talk about all the time and what I write about. Our political rhetoric today is all short term triggering. I say something to get you angry, so you click and support and send me $10. That's the incentive structure that people are operating and.

I'm sorry to interrupt, Jeremy, but do you think that's what's going on? I mean, is that intentional when you see the.

Yes.

Is it political?

I think. And I think it.

You see the Marjorie whatever and the AOCs and the very polarizing characters that are just saying things, just throwing red meat on Twitter. Is that part of the strategy?

Absolutely. And I'll tell you why I believe that. Because in many other settings, you realize they don't believe what they're saying themselves.

Okay, that's what I'm interested. I don't think mjt, actually, I think she's just a character.

Totally. She's playing a role. She's playing. Well now, she might also be dumb as well, but she's actually playing a role. I think, for example, and I've said this, I'm not saying anything here I haven't said before. I think our senior senator from Texas, John Cornyn, is actually a very good man. He's on a different side for me politically. He's a very good man. He's very thoughtful. When I've given him stuff to read, he reads it. This is a good man of great experience, but because he wants to win certain votes and please certain people in his party, he will often say things that I know and he knows he doesn't believe. And he does this not because he thinks there's a long term reason to do that, but in the short term, it appeases or triggers people who he needs to appease or trigger. He has to appease people so they don't support someone else in the primary. And he has to trigger people who are going to give him money.

Is that speculation or is that observation?

That's observation. Are you direct observation.

Are you able to give us an example?

Sure. So we recently had Senator Cornyn to speak to a group. It was a university group, but it wasn't a university event. And he's also very responsive. And it was a group of people from all around the country talking about the problems of classified documents. We've seen problems for both parties with this. And he was very reasonable and actually very praising, specifically off the record of President Biden and even President Obama. He said they did some important things to try to open up documents. He believes, as all of us do, in transparency. And he's been frustrated as a senator that things he wants to see, he can't sometimes see. And he said that Presidents Biden and Obama have supported him on this. He won't say that in public the same day I saw him later, and he won't say that.

This is so frustrating for me because we've talked about my miniseries on the World Economic Forum.

Oh, yeah, I love it. I was watching it last night.

I appreciate it.

Go to YouTube if you haven't seen.

It's great. It's fantastic.

I did this miniseries because I have so many friends who believe these bonkers things that are so easy to debunk. I mean, I need to, like, fact check a few things as, oh, okay, your theory doesn't check out. Like, this is very easy to fact check. And of course they're like, but are.

You fact checking on Google?

No, I'm going to your conspiracy telegrams. That's what I'm doing. So when we go down those rabbit holes, it's pretty easy to see that there are plenty of people who don't actually believe this stuff, but they say it because they know that it is what is getting attention.

Exactly.

And the fact that this is dominating our politics right now, it makes me feel a little helpless. What can I do? The truth doesn't even win out. So how do we overcome that?

We, as a society, as we've done before, we have to come together as voters, as supporters of candidates, with our donations and say, we will not put up with that. We will support people who are serious. Even if you trigger me with something that happens to set me off at that moment, we all have things that can trigger us. Right. I grew up in New York. I get triggered when I hear a taxi honking. Right. So we have to be able to look past that and say, that's not what our politics can be. It has to come from all of us. And we need to support leaders who think and speak to our values, not to our triggers.

I really want it to go in that direction. And right now it sort of feels like we're so far from that that I can't see it happening. But obviously this has happened in history before.

Yeah, so.

So what have you seen be some of the common transformations during our most divided times.

Two things. And one of them you're going to really like. One of them is a figure, not just an FDR or Lincoln. It can be a Ronald Reagan. Too many watching might remember the late 70s was also a very divided time in our country. A period of stagflation. And Ronald Reagan had his limitations, but he understood how to speak to our values. He does. And so you can have a figure who inspires people. Right. And someone who also figures out how to communicate in a new way. Every medium of communication is used initially for hate because hate is easier. So the most popular radio figure was Father Coughlin. For many years before fdr, Father Coughlin from Detroit said that Jews were responsible for the Depression.

Wow.

It took FDR years to build up the radio audience. Television. First television candidate in our history was Joseph McCarthy. Those were the first reality hearings. He would bring people together and embarrass them on tv. John F. Kennedy then turned TV into an uplifting inspirational approach. I like where this is going, as did Reagan. We need people of that skill set, of that understanding who will turn our current communications world into a world that brings us together. And then we need a new generation of followers, particularly my students, young people who are fed up, as my students are. They're fed up with hearing people argue over things that don't matter.

I'm so refreshed to hear that. And the person that comes to mind is I hated his. His politics. But Andrew Yang used podcasts and Internet totally means in order to. And he did change. Changed the conversation and did it in a mostly unifying way, which I appreciate.

I just didn't. And I think Greta Thornburg did too. I think she did as well. There are people who don't like her. But. But you look at her reach across her size. Malala. Right. I mean, there are figures who have begun to do this. It now has to be made into a standard, normal part of politics that's to be connected to our normal politics. But it can happen. And there's probably, you know, some Latina 20 year old in El Paso right now who's figured it out in our society. This is why Markets are good. Our society has to give her a chance.

I have a question, though. A lot of people, in fact, I heard this today at lunch. This idea that social media is dumbing us down. Like if you just keep going, we're actually reinforcing people's beliefs where we're, we're actually have dumbed it down. So. Yeah, but this might be, again, like a Mr. Maybe. You know, I don't think human beings are too dumb. We're living in the most incredible time.

Of all time, most educated we've ever been.

So it's not lack of education right now, but do you think with social, with social media, can we still literally, can a great communicator connect this day and age with social media?

There's no reason to believe that's not the case because all of the concerns now were first voiced about radio and voiced about television. Go back and read what Vance Packard and others were writing in the 1950s about television. They said everything you just said, JP that is dumbing us down. And to some extent it did. Right. But it, but we all made it through. Right. And in some ways we became smarter because of. We wouldn't know about George Floyd if it weren't for video.

Right.

We wouldn't know what happened in Memphis. We as Jews wouldn't be more conscious and understanding of antisemitism if it weren't for the communications media we have. We have right now. So I think it's about two things. It's about our disciplining ourselves and educating ourselves how to use this media. And it is in certain places about intelligent regulation. Right. One of the things that happened with television is they made it so you couldn't advertise during cartoons for alcohol for children. Right. Or cigarettes.

Right.

And we might have to have certain restrictions on people calling for insurgency or lying about voting in certain contexts. Right. But I think those regulations can be minimal, they can be targeted, and they can be smart.

Well, while listening to you speak, you sound optimistic about where we could go. Almost like if I'm putting myself in your shoes, the way that you're communicating is almost like it's about to shift. And I know this because it always shifts. And it gets better from here.

Yes.

Is that your sense?

Even though humanity always thinks things are getting worse? We've been thinking that throughout the history.

We are by nature pessimists, but the world moves in an optimistic direction. It has to, because that's how the world continues to spin and survive. Or in Martin Luther King's terms, Right. There's an arc to history and it bends towards justice. I think that's absolutely right. And I think the creativity of the human spirit wins out and we should be investing in that. I think the investment today is.

I love this is such a special, like, interview that we get to do with you because I think most people don't undergate if you think the world's just going to hell, like a lot of people do. They think it's the worst of times or just like. And the end of an era, you know, make America great again. As if there was like a date that it was not great. Or like, to your point, it's always great. It's this challenges and then you learn and you grow. How do you grow? Right. You got to go through these dark times. Times to get to the light times is kind of what.

Right.

And actually the struggles make you better. I mean, there is a network to Nietzsche. Right. I mean, it is the difficulties that you confront that actually make you better. When we have been most. Most precarious as a society is when we're riding high and we think there's nothing we have to worry about.

What do you mean, Jeremy? I've never experienced this in life or as an entrepreneur.

We may be in that time now, as the economy changes. What, you don't just make money by starting a business?

Exactly. And I see it in the eyes of my students. One of the great privileges of being a professor. I have 300 students. I teach every Tuesday and Thursday morning. They are better than their parents everywhere. It's funny. My wife and I met at Stanford as undergrads, and I'll say to my wife, these undergrads I have at ut, and it would be true if I were any university, they're better than we were. And she looks at me and says, no, they're better than you were you.

And it's particularly true about young men. I mean, there is a. There's a greater humility. They. They see the struggles their parents are going through. They don't take the world for granted. It's easier to teach them than it's ever been. Because all I have to say is, you know, the world is hard. You better do your work or you're going to get left behind. Whereas 10 years ago, they all thought they were God's gift to the planet.

That's fascinating to hear that shift. What do you think has been the impetus for that change?

I think it is seeing over the last 10 years how divided we've become and seeing how harmful that has been. In their families. I think it's just what JP was talking about. It's not economic. There's some of that. But most of my students are not in difficult economic circumstances, but they see their families torn apart.

Yeah. Don't talk to each other like literally. I've heard many, many stories like divorces, families have stopped, members stop talking to each other. They don't go to there for Christmas because it got so bad. Like that was, that was definitely crazy. I have a curveball for you. Okay, So I am surprised we say that humanity bends towards justice and we do go forward. And yet I am kind of surprised that it seems to me, of course, being an American and who embraces Western liberalism, that we've gone through this experiment that Karl Marx talked about, this socialism, this communism. And when you look at happiness scales of humanity, who are the happiest countries, it's pretty clear that Western liberalism tends to create happier people. I mean, it's. Of course that's just like empirical, like there's no opinion. And yet it kind of amazes me that we're still in this same thing where half the world or more than half the world is still being led. There's one leader who's really keeping the 1% super wealthy on the backs of the 99%. And yet the story goes on obviously with Putin. I actually like to listen to Putin because. Not because I believe him, but this is back to listening, listening to people. And he makes a very compelling argument.

Sure.

If you're in Russia, hey, NATO keeps coming right at our door. We're being threatened. Our way of life is being threatened. America, look, look, America is so immoral. Everyone, China, Russia, they look at America and other democracies that this is a failure of human humanity. Like we've lost our way from spirituality, we've lost our way from God. But if you give human beings too much choice, it creates disaster. Yeah. And that's the narrative that keeps the fan base or keeps your subjects going.

Do you mean like an anti freedom narrative that totally be popularized?

Think about it. And it's a very easy message if you actually listen. Too much freedom is not good. Look, look at the marches. Black.

The black.

You could, if you look at Black Lives Matter and all these other marches, like, this is dangerous. This is chaotic. There's no long term planning. It's people in chaos. There's no movement forward. These are people who are lost. These souls are lost. Which is why you need one man for 30 years or 40 years to.

Tell you what to do.

And that way you can have order, you can have.

I see.

You can keep your, you know, religious, you can keep your dignity, you can keep your morality by just listening to one leader who's going to tell you what to do and we'll arrest you if you don't follow the rules. Like, we need this discipline in order for humanity to succeed.

Yeah. So, I mean, there are two things going on, and these are age old issues. Putin is playing a very, very old game. The first is that when times are difficult and when people are divided and societies are divided and conflicts arise, it's very easy to outsource the answer. And that's what you're doing with a dictator. You're outsourcing. I don't have to work hard. I leave it to him and he'll tell us what to say. So instead of the three of us trying to find our common values and doing what you and your wife do, did. Right. No, let's just bring in someone else who will tell us exactly what to think. Let's go to Grandpa and grandpa will tell us exactly what to think. And then life is easy. We're less happy, but life is easy. So you're outsourcing your issue, right?

You're outsourcing your, your, your individuality, your choice, your freedom.

Well, because what we're talking about is hard work. What you and your wife went through, what our country went through after the civil war was really hard work. We have hard work to do now. It's very easy to say, let me just give it to someone else and I'll just continue doing whatever I want to do.

Right?

So that's one element of it. And particularly those who have the means and think they're on the side of the dictator, they think this is going to make their lives easy. And then the second thing is fear. And this is where dictators, across centuries, across locations, they use fear. People will discount the values they get from taking a risk and they'll sit where they are in their unhappiness if they think it's going to be risk free when they see fear and danger out there. Right, so.

Which is the same thing. So just like you were saying with the politicians, build the wall of fear to get people to basically give you a donation or to follow your lead.

Is what you're saying, what Ryan was saying at the start, right. You kept your money on the sidelines, right? Because, you know, at least you have your money. You're sitting in a money market. You're getting what, I don't know, 1% 2%. But you can't lose, right? You can't lose. Even though there might be a greater than 50% chance that by investing in something you'll do really much better and make the world a better place. But there's a bias to risk aversion, and fear works toward risk aversion. Don't raise any hackles. Don't do anything difficult. Just listen to Grandpa that lands.

Yeah.

Do you think back to, like, with open societies and the Internet and social media, like, it was easier to hide the Western way of life, but now you got, you know, McDonald's, you got fast food, you've got all this, like, Western culture. It seems like Western culture is the most interesting culture. It's almost all the world. So it seems like on one hand we're kind of losing this battle because you've seen less democracies and more communist socialist kind of autocracies coming. Do you see that? But to me, that's kind of confusing because as the world opens up and communication gets harder to hide, you would think that the world people would have a taste and a sight of freedom, and they would.

Absolutely.

I think there's evidence is overwhelming for that. So take China. Right now, the lengths to which the Chinese regime has to go to surveil and restrict its own population is extraordinary. Now, they might be able to get away with it in the short run, but unless things have fundamentally changed, and I don't think they have, they will lose, as every dictatorial surveillance regime does, because there's always a way to get around the surveillance. They block the New York Times. Every time I write something in the New York Times, I get emails from people in China telling me they've read them. I'm sure they watched your World Economics Forum videos. Right. Even though it's probably blocked from them. Right. And so people find a way around. You have to give them time. And I think that's what we're seeing. If the world was not moving toward freedom and democracy, the Chinese wouldn't need to surveil their people. They would naturally cling to an authoritarian party. But clearly they don't. And for all the difficulties in our society, and we've had some difficulties and we've done some things that are horrible, particularly to immigrants. We continue to do that. Yet people come to our society, society. They don't. Our applications are up at top universities in the U.S. it's extraordinary from all around the world, and it's not because they want to be with faculty. It would be nice for us to say that no. They want to experience what is the clearest representation of a free, creative society. Our universities. Right. Where young people come together, invent things, try new ideas, and anyone who can wants to come and experience that.

You mentioned the promises of dictatorship, and I'm curious if, in your opinion, you think that that can happen here while we are divided, while we are arguing over issues instead of values, does that create an opening for there to be that type of leadership here?

Yes, and I think it's always been here. There's always been an element of it. We tell too much of our history, of just the good stuff, the stuff that wins, but the losers matter, too. And there have been many dictatorial efforts. The Confederacy was a dictatorial regime. You know, they were against the federal government, they claimed, but then in their Constitution, they created the most restrictive limits on people and on local governments. Right. They forced people to serve in a way that initially the Union didn't. And then.

That's an interesting perspective.

I didn't know that.

Yeah. So. So it's. I mean, the allure of dictatorship has always been there for those who feel troubled, left behind, and are fearful within our own society. And I think in the last 10 years, there's been a movement, if I have to say, it's not the majority of Republicans, but there's been a movement in the Republican Party that has embraced dictatorship. These are often.

It's definitely leaned more fascist, whereas the left has leaned more socialist.

Correct.

You get more and more extreme. You're going to have those fringe people on those sides.

Precisely. And so I'm not. I'm just saying on the dictatorial side in the Republican Party, what you've seen are particularly people in small towns and rural areas who are fearful of change.

Yeah.

And again, they want to outsource the problem and they want to take no risks. So someone who says, I can change all this if you give up a little bit of freedom, they embrace that.

And what you are. You mentioned earlier that you are more optimistic than you are concerned. Is that because you're looking at the pattern of history and saying, okay, we're going to either have a uniting leader or we're going to change the way we talk to each other. Is that why you're more optimistic than concerned?

Precisely. I'm more optimistic because we have two advantages, and these advantages grow with time. The longer we go through these patterns and cycles, the more experience we have and the more there is a buildup of knowledge that people can use. That's why we study history. That's why we write about this so we can learn from what the good actors in the past did today. And we are learning from that. And then the second reason I'm optimistic is because a young generation sees this and they clearly see interest for themselves clearly in a world that embraces freedom and opportunity and innovation. I don't have a student, I really don't, who says to me, I can't work with someone because they have a different sexual orientation. That would have been common when I was in school. It's not common. That's no longer a debate. They want to work with someone. When I put them in teams, who's the best possible performer so they can get the best possible grade. They don't carry race, they don't care sexuality. That's our problem. I'm sure that's true in your, in your environment. That's the future that all the interest, all the money lines up with that.

Right?

That's true. Do we have to have a tipping point of negativity? Do we have to have a war or do we have to have an environmental disaster? Do we have to have a recession or depression? Are those things necessary in order to bridge the gap, or can they happen more organization, organically?

I hope we don't. That one I'm not sure of.

We had both in history.

We have. Okay. But more often than not, it is a shock to the system. And part of me thought that January 6th and Covid would be that shock to the system. And I think it has had. It certainly had that effect on young people. I don't know if it's had enough of an effect yet. So.

Well, I think. I think with other generations it may have made it worse because now we have the vaccine to argue about. Now we have the China virus to argue about. Now we have lockdowns to argue about. But, but with you're. You're seeing that in younger people. It's not that way.

Not.

What have you observed?

So what I've observed in younger people is, first of all, they all like vaccines because they know the vaccines allow them to go back to school. They allowed their lives to go. They might have been angry about the lockdowns, but they're also used to getting vaccinated, Right. Those who are in school systems in most areas. But there's another reason why they. The last few years have shaken them in a positive direction. They have seen that many of the promises that were made by those who offered dictatorship didn't make their lives better.

I see it as a great capitalist win is you have private organizations bringing this out. So it's interesting that young people don't see that as a dividing point when our, Our generation does. Right, but what do you mean about the. They see the failures of dictatorship.

That's really interesting to me. They see the things we've done in the last few years that look like they've taken us off course from what would have been a more traditional Democratic. I don't mean Democratic Party, I mean more embracing democracy. They've seen those things. I can give you some examples. And they've seen that they don't work. And so that has led them to recognize that doesn't make them Democrats or Republicans, but it makes them skeptical, quite honestly, of people with orange hair and tell them they're going to fix their problems.

Is that a. I mean, you're obviously referring to President Trump, but is that a skepticism of big government or is that a skepticism of a person?

It's a skepticism of policies and people who don't put freedom and choice first, but instead put someone else's choices ahead of yours and say you should just follow what they've done. So sometimes, sometimes government can help with making choices, sometimes not.

I'm, I'm, I don't mean to be a dunce. No, no, no. I'm genuinely curious what policies shifted that in young people.

So I think it's quite clear to young people that the effort by the Trump administration to.

Basically would change the tax structure to allow people to pay less in taxes at a certain level. Right. And drain money out of the economy in certain areas. And at the same time to embrace people like Vladimir, put Putin and other things, led to an economy we were in that was. Did not look very happy and good for young people. And the war in Ukraine, so quite obvious.

I'm a little puzzled because I see. I really don't have a strong opinion on Putin and Ukraine and Trump's policies there.

But.

I run capitalism dot com. You can guess what I thought about the tax cuts, Jeremy. But I see that as taking the power and the money away from possible dictatorships of people who have deep pockets in government and returning it to people. So I disagree with that assessment, but I want to understand.

I don't think we have to. I don't think we have to disagree on tax cuts. It's the way the cuts were done and for who.

I'm just curious what. Yeah, I just, I want to understand. Yeah, I have a different opinion, and I want to understand what. Pointing to what the other view is. So they're Seeing it as. As tax cuts. Specifically for the wealthy.

For the wealthy and for friends of his friends.

Okay.

As opposed to actually investing in the economy as a whole. So you could be. For tax cuts. It's certainly an argument to be made for tax cuts, let's say, in a place like Austin. Right. Where property taxes make. And this is JP's business more than mine. Right. But it makes property sometimes unaffordable for people that students can't afford to live here. You could use the tax structure to make it easier for ordinary people to live. They don't see him doing that at all. They see what the party was doing was actually what the President was doing. What this dictatorial group was doing was basically playing with the tax code to empower those who supported them.

Which, by the way, for instance, Opportunity Zones, which is a real estate thing, came as a favor. It was from the Trump administration.

But they were hugely beneficial for the middle class.

I asked that question many times, Ryan, because I'm curious, trying to find out how beneficial it really was for the middle class versus how beneficial it was for real estate people and developers.

Well, of course it's going to be beneficial for the developers at first. Of course it's going to be beneficial for the people who are going in to solve that problem.

In the short run. Maybe. Can we ask this question in 20 years?

Let's find out.

Okay. Because all we did was we basically forgave taxes to incentivize investment in that area. And so that is going to have an initial surge. But. Okay. He's looking at. He's looking at me like, no, no challenge accepted, young man.

And I think the point is this, right? We can argue over the substance and there are different ways. Yeah.

We're arguing over an issue, not a value.

And that's just what I was going to say. What are the values associated with the policy? Make the case that this policy is actually going to promote the values we care about. I'd make the same criticism to some of the policies pursued on the left as well. There are many things that we do on the left. Sometimes we're doing, it seems, diversity for the sake of doing diversity. I want more diversity. I think our institutions need more dei, but it has to be done for the right reasons, to create an inclusive, humane environment, not to support the identity politics of one group or another.

Yeah, very well said. Very well said. I was intentionally not going to bring up Donald Trump, but since we already went there, I'm curious from a historical perspective, especially having just written a book about the Civil War. Do you have concerns over if he were to run again and win? If that.

Yes.

If that is a unique situation that we haven't seen before. Obviously, we've had presidents who have had split terms, one at least. And I'm curious also, if you see, if he were to go third party, and I'm just curious from a historical perspective, what could happen?

So there are two points I speak to directly on this in the book. The first is that he's not our worst president. Andrew Johnson was our worst president. But what made Andrew Johnson our worst president. And I go through this in detail in the book. He said he tried to use the presidency to undermine everything all the other branches of government were trying to do.

Johnson was just after Lincoln.

Correct. He was the vice president who never was supposed to be president. He was drunk at his inauguration as vice president and then took over as president just a month later. Right. And he was unprepared for this. He tried to reverse everything based, particularly all the things that were done to create a more equal society in the. The aftermath of the Civil War. He tried to reverse all of that. And that not only was bad in and of itself, but it tied our government up, made it impossible for our government to function. You cannot have a president who doesn't care about what the other branches are doing, who sees himself as a dictator. I can disagree with you. But if you're willing to work with the other branches of government, you can get things done. But you cannot sit there and act out of ignorance and impetuousness to basically undermine our governments. That's the first thing I worry about. The second thing is criminality. Our society is built on being a society of laws. The laws apply to all three of us at this table. Right? I mean, and we have had a long tradition of holding our political elected leaders accountable. If he were to be reelected and not prosecuted for, or at least tried for the crimes he apparently committed, which.

Ones are you thinking of?

So there's a long list, but the most obvious one that we all heard the recording of is calling the Secretary of State of Georgia and saying, I need you to find me some votes. Any of the three of us do that, we're arrested, right? That's trying to tamper with the election. Right? That's what he was doing, Right. That we all heard that recorded. That's prima facie. That's prima facie illegality. And we could go on with a long list of things. There's a lot of evidence that he encouraged fake electors that Knowing. Knowing that the election did not have the fraud he claimed was there, he continued to make that case. If you're the CEO of a company and you tell people that you have a, you know, you have a way of measuring blood in the way that the Theranos was doing, right. If you. And you tell people the wrong information intentionally for your own benefit, that's fraud. Right? We go down the list, Right. I'm not saying I'm an expert on the details of the evidence in these cases. I am saying in a society of laws, people are tried for the apparent breaking of the law that has to happen. If he is to get back into power without being tried, I fear we'll see rampant criminality. We have seen that before, too. One of the points I make in the book is that there were a number, I talk about these individuals, a number of confederates, 50,000 total, who left the country, refused to surrender, joined the Mexican army of Emperor Maximilian, who was put in power by Napoleon nephew Louis Napoleon, and sought to actually wage war on the U.S. when Maximilian was defeated, they came back to the U.S. and they got elected to office because they were part of pardoned. And one of them, Alexander Watkins Terrell, wrote the voting laws in Texas. Just think about this. He joined the Confederate. He was a Harris county judge, Joined the Confederacy, became a Confederate general. So we can argue whether that's treason or not. Joined a foreign army after the war. That is treason by any definition. Then came back, was pardoned by Andrew Johnson, became the leader of the Democratic Party in Texas and wrote the voting laws that prevented not just African Americans, prevented Jews from voting in Texas for a long time. That's what happens when you allow criminals to come back into power. So that's what I worry about with Trump, the evidence of criminality and him being reelected and then having a perch from which to do more criminal behavior.

I'm very tempted to go down like a rapid fire question because now we're talking about Andrew Johnson and the Civil War. So I don't want to take the conversation too off the rails just yet. So I want to hand the baton.

To you for a minute.

Understanding. First of all, I am so enjoying this conversation.

Me too.

So many things. Like I could take you for the next two hours of them. Learning so many things. And I think the overall thing that I learned today, besides the facts, is.

Humanity. We tend to watch the news. It's very easy to get.

Passing. Yes.

But actually once you understand, the more you understand.

Yeah.

The more optimism you should have.

Amen. A freaking Man.

And the pessimism is so self fulfilling. We have to be optimistic. Yes, right. The thing, the thing that works against us is the pessimist.

And you have to be, to be an entrepreneur, to be an investor, to.

Be kind of a next point.

Like you think about like what you could take away from this besides an amazing conversation on where we're at and society as a leader. If you have your own company or you want to build your own company as a CEO, what do you need? You are like the spiritual, obviously. A lot of times I see you are like the spiritual energy, positive positivism based on facts. Not just, you know, optimism based on facts, but then also making sure whether it's, you know, impact, you know, investing or impact company. Making sure your values are firmly in place, not just your business plan of like what you're going to do. Abc, which can get very technical and important. But you look at the best CEOs and most successful companies, they're really espousing. When you call yourself a brand ambassador, you're really espousing values of your brand.

Yeah, yeah.

Apple, Steve Jobs. Right, Right. The more as a leader you are connected to the values that your product actually represents, the more, the more success you can have.

Totally.

People are now connecting to you on many levels beyond the product or service.

Totally. Totally.

I took that from this Congress.

Totally. And we need leaders who embrace democracy. Democracy in that way, I don't care. I really believe this. And maybe it's just being a historian that influences me. I will vote for someone, I will support someone who I disagree with on issue by issue, so long as I feel they care about our democracy. Reagan's an example of this. Right. I have a high regard for Ronald Reagan. He was the. I was coming of age, I couldn't actually vote yet. I don't know if I would have voted for him or not. But I look at Ronald Reagan and I have deep regard for him, even if I disagree with him. Tax policy, for example. Because there's no doubt he sought every minute of his leadership to embrace and further our democracy. And that's what we need. That's what we need.

I think it's so admirable today to.

Admit, but to be able to compliment people who stand on the other side. Totally.

One of my things with my wife is often recognizing candidates that during the same thing. Yeah. Like Nikki Haley, for instance. Yeah. She's running for president. I was just saying I was curious, what do you think about it? But also I've seen her speak before live. I Think there's a lot of positive things about her.

Sure.

Like, because it's the same thing. I think that whether you like her policy or not, my sense is just her brief time in the U.N. she showed her values over her policies and can feel her. I recognize that. I think the more we actually start talking those terms, the more we disarm this. Like, because it really shouldn't matter as much. I mean, the parties have flipped. What they stand for is flipped. There's so many ironies about this two party system that if you know history, it's almost a joke. Right?

Correct.

Southern Democrats like switching the nft and.

They have flipped in front of our eyes. By the way, Ryan knows this. Right. That the Republican Party was the party that was hard nosed on foreign policy traditionally. Now look at where a lot of the new Republicans are. They're the isolationists. They used to be the democrats. Right.

Well, Dr. Ron Paul cured a lot of our apathy. Yeah. I like to run a hypnosis test on people where I say, okay, you want to see if you're hypnotized. Okay. Who did you vote for in the last election? Like, I run this with a family member. I won't say who it is, but it's my mom and I say, I'll say, you know, she voted for Donald Trump. Okay, well, can you name, can you be critical about three things that he did? Absolutely not.

Really?

You can't come up with three, like three things that you didn't like.

Three things about him as a person.

That's when you know you're hypnotized.

This is so interesting because my view is, and I think this echoes jp, if you love someone, you have many things you're critical about.

Yes.

And the point is you love them despite those things. Me, My gosh. My wife could give you a long.

List of all my flaws.

Right.

But.

But she loves me. She loves me. That's the whole point.

That's a great point.

Right.

Since you mentioned that Andrew Johnson is your least favorite president or worst president. I always like to ask someone who are their top three and bottom three worst favorite and favorite presidents? I just want to go around and see where. Yeah, we differ.

Sure. So top is Washington and I could give all kinds of reasons. Second is Lincoln. Third is fdr. Those are the top three and we could take any. I'd love to have him back. Right. Worst three. Andrew Johnson is the worst. Right. Second worst is Warren G. Harding. And third worst is Donald Trump.

Okay, interesting.

Super.

Jp, you're up.

I not Knowing history the way he knows it. I would. It's harder for me to answer. You know, I. Well, I'm going to skip on that question because it'll totally lean me in a different direction.

You can't. You can't.

No, it's.

I'll go next. How about that? Because I'm going to be in a different direction. Okay. So. So favorites from third to first. My third is actually a very controversial Andrew Jackson. I think Andrew Jackson, I mean he got rid of the, the central bank and paid off the debt. Can you imagine president. If you, can you imagine if a president paid off.

You are consistent based on your videos. I. That's why you are totally consistent.

He's known for one thing. Right. But there's totally plenty to like and he was beloved.

He was one of the most popular presidents in our history.

Number two.

I, I'll go Thomas Jefferson. Just philosophically I wanted to throw Reagan in there, but Reagan was to me is like the, the modern day Jefferson. But my favorite is Calvin Coolidge. Wow. Calvin Coolidge.

Silent cat.

Yes. He was asked at a party. A woman came up to him and said, I have a bet with a friend that I can get you to say more than two words. And he looked at her and said, you lose. He was quiet. He just shut up and governed. The economy boomed under him. And then he said when at the end of his first. He served for six years, so he was vp, became president and then won reelection. When he decided not to run for reelection, he sent a memo to the, to the media and it simply said, I have decided not to seek reelection. That was it. No context, no reason. And I just love that.

And he slept, I think 10 hours a night as president.

Well, love it. My, my bottom three. Third, worst I go to GW Bush. Second, I go fdr. And worst, I don't even know why this is a choice. Obviously it's Woodrow Wilson.

Obviously there's a lot to say about that.

Yeah. Interesting.

Those are really, those are really thoughtful picks.

Well, thank you. Thank you. So we, we disagree on some.

Yeah, that's your turn. I'm going to stick more contemporary because you guys are obviously a much deeper of history and studying so I would be speaking out of tone, but I just say even during my lifetime, the presidents who I've actually enjoyed the most would be. Bill Clinton would be the number one, which I know it's be like for a lot of people they're probably shuttering.

And I think he's top 10 at least. Yeah.

I feel your Pain.

I feel your pain. You know, John F. Kennedy, of course, I mean, I wasn't alive, but obviously, like, what he did. This is back to like, your point about values, like bringing a country back together.

Totally.

And I think Clinton, the same thing. I think Clinton, you hear him speak, whether you agree with him or disagree, he's an, he's amazing.

He's amazing.

He's an incredible speaker. Now, obviously, on the ones that, that are the worst, I think during my time, I would say.

Jimmy Carter. I mean, I know he was an intellect and I'm sure he did some things, but just couldn't, this is, to your point, couldn't rally any energy. If anything, America went into a further kind of angst over the whole, you know, Iran hostage crisis. Everything that was mishandled. There's, there was no confidence. And that was the, really the difference between Reagan and Carter. A president's main job, besides policy, is making you feel good. That's why Reagan does such a good job. When we're feeling good, the economy booms, investors are optimistic, everything starts to change. And when you're scared or feel like we're in a deep hole.

Sure.

That the economy, the feeling.

Well said.

Yeah.

And so, so that was one of them, you know, and I'd have to say Donald Trump. I mean, and it really is the criminality. Figure out the policies.

The policies, you know, we'll just put those all aside.

What I love about being an entrepreneur and a capitalist in this society is rule of law. Without rule of law, we don't get to live these lives of freedom on all levels. For my family, you don't get to go out and create companies. And so anything, anything or anyone who threatens rule of law, which can threaten our system and our way of life is immediately to your point. It should be a red line, a red line of not acceptable, you know, prosecution when it, when it, you know, accused and tried.

Can I, can I say something here? It's just so, so interesting. You both have, have DJT in bottom three. I would have had him in top five until 2020. And now I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what I think of this guy. Like, I know I'll never vote for him again. Right, Right. But I would have him top five until 2020. And then like the last year, undid so much of, of it for me. Who do you have as your worst?

Well, I had Trump, but I also say, again, I'm contemporaries.

Wilson, I don't know enough about him.

So I would Be. So the easy one as a contemporary would be Nixon, obviously.

Okay.

For the same reason. Breaking. You know, there are actually some similarities. You breaking the rule. You're breaking the rules so that you can see your power as an individual is more important than the will of the people. And that's just the red line.

Jeremy, do you want to give context to any of your answers since we took way more time than you?

Well, I think what I'll say about George Washington. Everyone knows about George Washington, but I really encourage people, especially entrepreneurs, to think about Washington. He understood the importance of not holding power for too long. He resigns the commission as the general of the Revolutionary War army when he could have kept it. At the end of the war, he gives up power, and then he gives up power after eight years in the presidency. Twice he could have made himself dictator. Twice he could have made himself much richer. He never even took a salary. He never took a salary. He took no property from the government. He took a bit of fame, but he took nothing material from the society.

So you're saying he was a civil servant.

I'm saying he was a civil servant and he believed that the highest value you could have is serving your country. And that didn't mean the government. That meant the people.

I know we need to wrap, but I'm curious if you. You have Abraham Lincoln as your second favorite, but his vice president as your worst.

Correct.

How do you justify that?

It was a terrible decision he made in 1864 to choose Andrew Johnson as his vice presidential running mate. He did it because Johnson was the only Southern senator who didn't secede. Johnson's hero was Andrew Jackson. And as you know about Andrew Jackson. Right. He was pro slavery, but he was pro Union as well.

Yeah.

And Johnson said, as a good Tennessee and myself, I like slavery, but I like the Union even more. And so he didn't secede, the only Southern senator. So Lincoln put him on the ticket because he was trying to create a national unity ticket. The problem was he never expected that Johnson would become president.

That. That is interesting to me because I have. I have a mixed opinion on Abraham Lincoln because I don't see him as the great liberator of slaves. I see him as the great protector of the Union and the first big government president, and that the. That slavery was more of an economic decision to weaken the south to then win the war. So I'm curious if you have a similar or different opinion on that.

I have a different opinion on that. I think Lincoln's the great capitalist by the Way, he's the first CEO president we had. Think about Lincoln's life, right? He becomes the lawyer for the largest corporations in the United States, which are the railroads. In Illinois, he was actually the appellate lawyer for the railroads. He spent more time defending business than any other Interesting as president and throughout his life, he was opposed to slavery for a. Because he embraced capitalism. Young Abe grew up in a state, Kentucky, that had large landowners and slave owners. He had neither land nor slaves. How was he going to make his way? He needed a capitalist system where he could be paid for his labor. So the Republican Party that he helps to create is the party of free labor, free soil, free men, all free men should be able to work and get paid for their work and should be able to buy property and keep property. And if you go to Springfield, Illinois, you realize he became a kind of local business person in the community. That's why he was opposed to slavery. Why would anyone hire young Abe if they could get a slave to do things for free? Slavery is feudalism. Free labor is capitalism. Capitalism.

That is so interesting, isn't it?

Yes. What a great conversation.

Yes.

I'm having so much fun.

So, Jeremy, about three or four years ago, you invited me to UT and I think we were talking about constitutional amendments about, like, what things and how.

Long it would take, as you do at parties.

Yes.

He's a fun guy. So, Jeremy, if you had right now the power of constitutional power, what would be the one or two most powerful things you do that you think would create a positive effect on the democratic system?

I would create a right to vote, which we don't have. I would take the First Amendment and use exactly the same language. Congress shall make no law abridging the rights of any citizen to vote. What we have now Instead is a 15th amendment which says you can't take away the right to vote based on race. 19th amendment says you can't take it away based on sexual. But states, Democrat and Republican find all kinds of ways to make it hard for people to vote or to gerrymander the system. I would create a right to vote with a guaranteed right of representation, which would run against gerrymandering. Also, you should get to vote for the officials and you should actually be represented by who you vote for. So I would create an amendment for that. And I would also create an amendment to eliminate the electoral college.

Not much. Oh, Jeremy, I liked you so much up into that statement.

Oh, I like it.

And I would. We wouldn't need. I wouldn't pile on. We wouldn't need an amendment for this. I would make Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico states interesting. And I'm. I'm add one more and I'm. I'm filibustering here. I would increase the size of Congress every 10 years until the 19 teens. We increased the size of Congress and then we stopped at 435, which means our districts now members of Congress.

If we had more, if we had a larger Congress, we could have more representation. The German Bundestag for a country about a third the size of ours is larger than our Congress.

That's fascinating. Yeah, that is a really interesting answer. Your third one. I didn't like the.

You didn't like the election.

I want to go another hour.

Jeremy, thank you.

This was.

So tell us about the book real quick.

Okay, so the book, Civil War by Other Means, it looks at the Civil War and the period right after the Civil War and the unfinished business that we face today. And it has an optimistic message. I think that there are problems within our society. Our institutions are insufficient in the way they're built. Sometimes they're too repressive. Sometimes they're not supportive enough of democracy. And we can learn from that. I talk about voting, for example. I also try to show in the book that a lot of the violence and bullying we're seeing today has been normalized over time because we haven't done enough to call it out and build consensus against violence in our society.

Jeremy, it's great to meet you. What a great conversation.

I enjoyed this so much. Terrific question. Thank you.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed today's episode as much as JP and I enjoyed recording it, grab a copy of Jeremy's book, wherever you want to grab it. And if you haven't already subscribed to the show, we'd really appreciate it. JP and I are having so much fun. We started this little side podcast, Investing on Purpose, just as an excuse to have interesting conversations. And after this one, we want to do it a lot more. I hope you enjoyed it. Let us know your thoughts and thanks for watching. See ya. If you've read my book, listened to the podcast, or watch any of my YouTube videos and you're asking yourself, where the heck do I start? Where do I begin my journey to my million dollar business? We got you today. My team and I just completed a new Kickstarter start class called five Days seven Figures. This is the best on ramp class for any of you who are ready to begin your seven figure journey. In this five day class, you're going to choose your ideal market, what products to launch. Come up with a plan to get each one of them to 25 sales a day, and you'll know at the end of the class exactly what your business is going to be, how you're going to get it to a million, and exactly what your next steps are to get it off the ground. It's a five day class. It costs 100 bucks, and when you're done, a member of my team will get on the phone with you and review your homework directly with you. When you're ready to start, go take the challenge@capitalism.com 5 that's the number 55 days 7 figures capitalism.com 5.