What if the Only Way Forward Was Listening to Those You Disagree With?

I think we're going to go through a bit of discomfort in different areas of the country. I do feel like there's kind of a glimmer of hope. I think there's a, you know, people want the same thing. People want media that's free of bias. People want the country to be in a better economic position than it is. People want peace. You know, when you change power, it's, it's, it just gets messy.

Yeah, I, well, I do think, I think largely people do want this. The same thing. I agree with that. But, and I think, you know, at a base level, like people want, you know, what they need to survive. They wanna be able to like make a living wage for their families and live, which of course is understandable. And like, I'm, you know, privileged enough that, you know, knock on wood, I'll always be able to do that. But I also want, I want the ideals of this country to survive. Whether it be freedom of speech, you know, civil liberties. Like, I want all of that to survive. I don't want the president to say, you know, you can't say that. I don't want the press, you know, that doesn't agree with the president kicked out of the— like, I have always thought truly that, like, it's always been a good thing in this country that the pendulum tends to swing.

Yeah.

And when we've had presidents that I didn't agree with their policies or whatever, I was like, whatever, it's not my time. I can exercise, you know, my right to vote. That's the kind of thing that I just hope survives. You know, I hope that free and fair elections, peaceful transfer of power.

Yeah.

All of that has to survive. Otherwise, that—

yeah, then we're gone. 100%. Yeah, 100%. I think there's a lot of stigmas in society that are you know, hurtful and offensive to people that are being touched upon right now.

Yeah.

A lot of which I agree with that other people don't agree with, you know, again, things are going to break, things are going to get fixed, but I do think we're on a good trajectory right now.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's as, as we, we talked about before, like, and this kind of goes back to the world of like intelligence, you know, it makes me realize, and I'm not, steeped in studying warfare, but like the divide and conquer as a basic strategy is so brilliant.

Yeah.

And I mean, one thing that's, that's really upsetting to me, aside from the division in the country, but you know, I'm, I'm Jewish. I, when I was a little girl, I was terrified of the KKK, that I was sure that they were going to, you know, come to— my mom's Jewish and my dad's Catholic and my last name isn't Jewish. So, but I was always like, they're going to figure out that, you know, that I'm Jewish. They're going to come, they're going to kill me. I was obsessed with the Holocaust and Anne Frank. And, and, and one thing about this current era that I think is so upsetting to me is that there's a real division between American Jews. On the right and the left. You know, I see it with my—

I'm Jewish too.

Yeah. Yeah, I see it with my relatives. I see it with my friends, you know. And it frightens me because my whole life I've— and I think a lot of Jews think this way— I've always had like how I've assessed people is like, would they hide me in the attic? Right. That's how I like, you know, would that person hide me in the attic? And I've gotten to, you know, a point in my life, I'm 55 right now, and I'm like, I have a very short list of people I think who would hide me. Really?

I don't get that at all.

Yeah.

No, and not in my life at least.

Yeah. I don't get that. But I think, and my point is like, there are some, I've had such rancorous discussions with some Jewish friends that I'm like, wow, they wouldn't hide me in the attic.

Because of the division.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It might not be true. I mean, I could be cynical, but like, I think, you know, I mean, you get it. Like as a Jew, that's, that you're always thinking, you know, and weird, you know, we all, I'm sure you did too, but, you know, like grew up with never again being a mantra. And I'm like, oh God, like I feel like to go back to Elon Musk, I'm not down with Elon Musk, like supporting the far right party in Germany. That's not, no, I'm not, I'm not cool with that.

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Elon Musk went over to Germany and like openly appeared with the far right. This is the descendant of the Nazi Party, like, and openly like advocated for them. And then he gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference and said that the problem with Europe is that they are curtailing the speech of groups like the German far right party. This is the Nazi Party. There's no two ways about it.

Yeah.

So like, point being, you know, Jews are always the scapegoat. And I feel like the one thing that we have always had is that tribalism, whatever, solidarity with other Jews, you know, like my mom, my Jewish mom's in memory care right now. So she doesn't make a lot of sense when she talks. I went to visit her the other day and she just kind of like out of nowhere was like, she's Jewish. I don't know who she was talking about, but it just made me laugh because it's like my whole life.

Yeah.

If there was someone we were talking about, my mom would be like, you know, yeah, he's Jewish. And then my grandmother, my Jewish grandmother, I mean, like with Son of Sam, do you know the serial killer?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Berkowitz.

Yeah.

My grandmother was like, I think he was adopted, you know, Monica Lewinsky too. She was like, oh, I don't think she's really Jewish. But anyway, so I have like two layers of anxiety operating right now. One is the division of— the deep division in the United States, which makes me very nervous. And the other is the deep division of Jews in the United States.

Yeah. I honestly think all of our realities are based on the inputs and the experiences we have.

Yeah.

And so like, I've been kind of living in my own bubble. Like, you know, not consuming a lot, not spending, not talking about this stuff too much. You're in the Washington area, you know a lot of people, you probably, you probably feel a lot of things that I don't feel.

Well, I'm also like an insane news junkie. Like, you know, like I'm living and breathing, and I'm, it's almost like an addiction. Like I'm trying to—

Oh, it is an addiction. Yeah. 100%. I was, I've been there, been there. I had just recently freed myself of it.

Like even with my phone over there, I'm kind of like this.

Let me check what's going on in the world right now.

Um, but you know, I mean, I have to say Jared, like, It's— I feel like it's good for me to even take, take this time to sit down with you because I don't sit and talk to a lot of people who are on the— like a lot of my friends who are on the right. There's some where it's just like we've agreed not to talk politics and we don't, you know, we stick to that. And I still have them as friends. Yeah, but that's not going to get us anywhere either if we're both just consuming our own news.

The problem, though, of talking, the sticking points, because like my father-in-law, is like far on the left, and we always talk. The sticking points are when, when someone states a fact that like if you agreed with that fact, you're all— you're inherently bad.

Yeah.

It's like, well, I don't know if I believe that fact. And it's like, now you're arguing over is that a fact or not.

Yeah.

And that happens a lot in these kind of conversations.

Yeah.

Like there was a fact that like, you know, Trump's personnel like pushed— shoved someone at this Arlington Cemetery.

Yeah.

And he said that to me, and I'm like, Well, if that was true, obviously that would be bad. I'm like, did they really shove the person, or was it more of like a move them aside? And then it's like, well, what are we arguing about now? Because we don't know what's true. We weren't there, right? We just know what we heard.

Yeah.

So my whole thing is like, we don't really know what's true unless we're there. It doesn't really serve us to get deeply connected to all these things and put our energy into it. If we can just enjoy our lives and the people around us and harness more love— yeah, it breaks that vicious cycle of divisiveness.