Hello everybody, welcome back to the show.My guest today is Anna Kasparian.She's a political commentator, journalist, and co-host of The Young Turks.
When we talk with normal people about politics, we usually have more common ground than disagreement.So how have public politics become so polarised?Why does it feel so tribal?And is it really that unreasonable to hold beliefs from both sides?
Expect to learn why Anna went independent and unaligned herself from the Democratic Party, the issues Anna has had with the political left, why the left are scared of speaking up against policies they don't agree with, why people seem to go from left to right but not the other way around, and much more.
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But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Anna Kasparian. What does independent and unaligned mean?
For me, at this moment in my, I guess, journey, if you want to call it that, is freedom.Not having this weird obligation to any political group so I can actually explore the issues and not feel pressured to think in one way or another.
You know, I thought maybe coming out as someone who's unaligned would maybe get the cultish individuals off my back, but that has not happened.
It's kind of amazing because, you know, they've been very critical of me and they've been pretty obsessed with claiming that I'm not pure enough to be considered on the left.And finally, I was just like, OK, fine, then I guess I'm not on the left.
I'm unaligned because I'm certainly not someone that really fits in with the right either.It's just I have far more nuanced views of some of these issues.It doesn't mean that my policy proposals are completely different.
It doesn't mean that who I am as a person is completely different.It just means that I have noticed some characteristics on the left that have essentially felt like
ideological shackles it has prevented me from you know allowing myself to dig a little deeper and maybe even consider whether the other side has a point and so I just want to be in a position to do my job. better than I had been doing my job.
And in that journey so far, I've realized that, you know, I've had incorrect opinions and perceptions of Republican voters overall.I think that there are gradations, there are differences.It's not a monolith.
I just feel a lot more in touch with reality and the world around me.And I love it.There's something very liberating about that.And so focusing on how good that feels has kind of helped me get past all of the bad faith attacks I'm dealing with.
Because ultimately, if you're an intellectually curious person, you're going to have a hunger for learning more, for exploring more, for talking with people who don't agree with you.
And if you find yourself in this cultish mentality where your, you know, your social group is pressuring you to avoid doing that, you're going to lose your mind.And I really was finding myself in that situation.
Why do you think everyone's so obsessed with labels?Why does it matter that you're from the left, on the left, now an independent, now this person's a libertarian, et cetera, et cetera?
I can't speak for the international community, but certainly in the United States.I think that politics has substituted religion to some extent.People have almost like this religious zealotry toward their political beliefs.
And when that happens, it's really difficult to have a conversation with someone without it immediately devolving into allegations of bad faith of, you know, lying deception, all sorts of things.And so maybe that's part of it.
But honestly, I didn't really notice this as an issue in America until Donald Trump was running for president, and then after he got elected as president, and I am 1 million percent guilty of
honestly allowing him to kind of break my brain for a little bit because I saw him as such a significant threat.And to be clear, there are things about Donald Trump that I still consider to be very terrible.
The inability to accept defeat, the inability to accept that he lost the election.You know, the Capitol riots get a lot of attention, but the Capitol riots were not as big of a deal compared to the fake elector scheme.
That was the real plot to overturn the election.So those are things that I still believe.I'm still critical of Trump.However, I do think that there is an orchestrated effort in legacy media to paint him as even more demonic.And it's unfair to him.
And what it does is it makes his supporters distrust media overall.So when the media debunks something and they do it accurately, well, Trump supporters aren't going to trust them.
because they have lost credibility for painting him exactly exactly i think that you can be factual in your reporting you can be nuanced in your reporting and still get a message across without having to omit certain information or cherry pick certain elements of what trump is doing and i'm just really making a an effort right now to be as honest and factual as possible as i do my job because
Really, my number one love, the thing that I was always passionate about since I was in middle school was journalism.And I think I forgot about that a little bit and became more of an advocate or an activist during the Trump era.
And I don't want to be an activist.That's not who I am.OK, I want to explore.I want to learn.And I want to get people accurate information.
It's this weird arc going from analysis to advocacy to activism, and that you can't analyze anything or try to understand it without it seeming de facto like a justification that it's happened.
Why is it that people on the other side of the fence think the things that they do?
It doesn't mean that you need to agree with them, but if you're not prepared to even understand, well, this is why somebody from the religious right may see Donald Trump as X, Y, and Z. Or on the other side of the fence, why is it that these people from fucking Seattle or wherever they are, why are they card carrying LGBTQIA, like all of this stuff?
You go, well, because the place that they've grown up in, et cetera, et cetera.If you don't play that game, but the purity spiral has become so pure that if you try to do that analysis, it is seen as justification.
That's so right.That's so true.I mean, an issue that I keep running into on our show, and I'm trying to find ways to get around it or get the audience to understand what I'm trying to do.
What I go out of my way to do when I research stories now is I'm not going to take any legacy media or corporate media's narrative on a story.What I'll do is I'll read it and then I'll go out of my way to find like the original source material.
Let's say they're covering a Trump rally, for instance. I will watch the entire Trump rally double speed because that man loves to talk and I'll get a fuller picture of what the story really is, what he actually said in context.
So when he was being chided in the press for saying that if he doesn't get elected, it will be a bloodbath.That was a lie.He wasn't saying that there would be violence.He was saying that there would be an economic bloodbath.
He was referring to the auto industry here in the United States.And so I felt that they intentionally took him out of context, unfairly did so.And I wanted to make clear to the audience, here's what he was really saying.
That doesn't mean that I'm a Trump supporter. That means I'm just trying to get them accurate information because I don't want anyone in this country, and certainly I don't want my audience, living in unnecessary fear.
And what happens with the way the media covers him sometimes is it does lead to a lot of unnecessary fear.He does things that are terrible.Let's accurately report on that.We don't need to add additional garbage to it.
That doesn't make any sense and isn't really based in reality.
What's the story of your worldview trajectory over the last few years?
That's a big question for me because I'm going to just talk about it from my own context and what I've personally realized about myself, and I think that kind of gives you a bigger picture of the world around us right now. I was so certain of myself.
You know, I was so certain that we live in a country that is just riddled with hatred and bigotry and racism.
I was so certain that, you know, the left was fighting to protect democracy and the right was dangerous and they didn't value our system of government.You know, I just had all of these certainties in my mind.
and then certain things happen to me personally which woke me up like that was kind of like the catalyst.
For me to actually start exploring a little more and I realized oh no no one really knows what they're talking about and it's actually a terrible position to think you know it all that you're certain that the other side is always wrong and your side is always right and so I can go issue by issue, I mean I remember thinking
you know, all the people who are in prison right now are the vast majority of people who are in prison right now in the states are there specifically for dumb things like marijuana possession that turned out not to be true.
I genuinely believe that pursuing policies like cashless bail
uh would be beneficial to society because if someone is poor and they didn't commit a crime it doesn't make sense for them to be detained pre-trial uh they lose their jobs their lives fall apart it's just unfair and i still believe that i just think that the way that those policies were implemented were uh
faulty and the left is just unwilling to recalibrate at all.We can still have a better system with the same objectives in mind, but there's just a rigidness to both sides of the political aisle, to be quite frank with you.
And it drives me crazy because it prevents the possibility of solutions to societal ills that we do have.
Yeah, the Venn diagrams are getting further and further apart of what anybody is prepared to talk to the other side on.Where did that certainty around bigotry and racism come from?Why were you so certain?
Given that you spend your time analysing stuff, reading stories, you would have thought that you would have been the front lines of uncertainty because look at all of the different viewpoints I've been exposed to.
My world was small.It was limited to one perspective.I only associated with individuals who agreed with me, which was a huge mistake.Uh, the, you know, even though I was critical of legacy media at the time, I didn't quite
realize just how much information was being omitted in the reporting.
And so, you know, you would just get a sanitized version of various stories if it covered, you know, the Democratic Party, especially if you're reading like the New York Times, Washington Post, you know, legacy media outlets.
But when it came to the other side, there would be a lot of cherry picked moments, a lot of sound clips, you know, sound bites rather than fuller context.And it's not even that, you know, a fuller story would necessarily change me politically.
It's just that it might have given me a different perception of a specific story.But I was really upset to realize that there's a lot of gatekeeping going on.
And since my media diet was so one sided, I decided to just diversify my media diet and go out of my way to actually speak to people real life people who believe things that are different from what I believe and understand what their logic is, what the rationale is, rather than reading the New York Times or the Washington Post and having some reporter tell me what they think their logic is.
Where do you think the left is at its best and at its worst at the moment?
I think the left is at its best when the people within the left remember that we are trying to improve people's lives.
that it's not about appealing to one activist group or another or one race or another when we realize and remember that what kind of connects everyone on the left is that we want to lift people up we want a world where we have equal opportunities for people to thrive like that is what.
appeals to me when it comes to left-wing policies.You know, when it comes to economic policies, I'm a big proponent of universal economic policies that anyone could benefit from.I think the left has kind of moved away from that.
The Democratic Party certainly likes to lean into the identity politics more than the economic politics.
It's unfortunate that, you know, with the Biden administration, I actually think that he did do a few good things when it comes to some of his economic policies.I like Lena Kahn, who's the head of the Federal Trade Commission.
She's been doing a great job preventing monopolies or breaking up companies. to ensure that consumers have more options.So there's some good stuff happening as well.And I do want to applaud Biden for that.
But Biden also did things that I think were not so great.Certainly some foreign policy decisions and certain reversals of Trump era immigration policies, which At the time, I didn't give Trump credit for because he wasn't really applauded for it.
And I didn't realize that, you know, the remain in Mexico policy was actually very successful.And Biden reversing it did lead to the crisis at the border that ended up being a political liability that backed him up into a corner.
And suddenly he's hitting up Republicans in the Senate, asking them to write legislation that Republicans would like.So there's There are some flaws on the left for sure, and I think it's important to be real about those flaws.
I think it's also important to be real about what we're getting wrong about the other side of the political aisle.
What has been the response from the left since you started talking about this and came out as unaligned?I love the fact that you had to talk about your announcement, like, I identified.I now identify as being unaligned.
It's been mixed.So, of course, there have been people who I look, I don't even know if they're really offended by it because the people who seem to be most offended by it are making content out of it.
You know, it's it's a great way of just easy content to make some money.But, you know, those people are particularly vicious and it's fine.I don't care.Like they could be as vicious as they want.
That's not going to persuade me to go in a direction that I'm uncomfortable with.But there have been a lot
of former TYT viewers who stopped watching us after Trump got elected because they felt that we were going too far and that we weren't being fair.
And I really love hearing from those people because they'll tell me things like, hey, we were paid members for X number of years.And we loved your reporting.It was great.It was awesome.It was funny.It was fair.
And then you just went a little too overboard with the Trump era, too much of the trashing America, focusing on identity politics and stuff like that.And so they just kind of stopped watching.
But now they're kind of coming back and they identify as Democrats.They're on the left. It's just that they are a little more grounded in reality and don't like the hyperbole that I think I personally fell victim to.
It is strange to me to see how seductive that seems to be to the left.Both sides of the aisle are fighting to become the people in charge of this country.
But if you hate this country, if it's awful and terrible and everything needs to be burned down all the time, it's like, well, why?Why are you doing that?It's not a very hopeful vision for the future.
It doesn't fill me with an awful lot of blue sky thinking and gumption for what's going to come.
Well, I started thinking about my own life and how that mindset was actually having a real world impact on my life in terms of like just this defeatist attitude, feeling as though I don't have all these opportunities that people used to have in this country.
And look, some things have devolved in this country.Like, that's certainly true.However, There is a reason why so many people from all around the world are trying to come in to the United States.This is a land of opportunity, even still.
And I want to find ways to empower people to get after it, to go for their dreams, to not have a defeatist attitude or mentality.I don't want to infantilize people.
I think people, regardless of their race, regardless of where they come from, have the capacity to do amazing things.And what I am just disgusted by right now with one faction on the left, it's not everyone on the left, but it is a faction.
They are very successful themselves.They've gone to wonderful universities.They've gotten a great education.They have lucrative careers.
But their lucrative career really hinges on spreading this message that there are no opportunities left in America.OK, everything is all of our systems are set up in a way to discriminate against certain groups of people.
They're never going to be able to make it unless we burn the system down.And what that does is it It puts ideas, it plants a seed in people's heads, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.And I don't want to feed into that.
I want to find ways to empower people while also understanding, hey, there are some systemic flaws that maybe we can reform and make better.
Yeah, is this strange denial of anyone who wants to improve their lives as like, you are already fine as you are and the only problems that you're going to face are the ones that are from out there.
There's this odd centralizing of yourself in the discussion about other groups and minorities, this sort of white savior complex that seems to come through an awful lot.And I don't know, it just It's not even thinly veiled.
It is just the soft bigotry of low expectations.Like, poor minorities, don't worry, I will come and save you.It's like, get the fuck out of the way.It's got nothing to do with you here.So yeah, I know exactly the dynamic you're talking about.
I mean, I think that the best way to help people is to empower them.Right.So I always give this example because I care about education so much and.Not to center myself too much, but when I started elementary school, I didn't speak a word of English.
I had I only knew Armenian because that's what was spoken in our household.
And I just remember feeling so much shame when I entered kindergarten because I had to take like a little test to see, you know, where I stood with language, with, you know, math, things like that. And I don't know, I just felt a lot of shame.
But I also remember that the school I went to had, you know, an extra curriculum attached for English as a second language speakers.Right.
And so they went out of their way to provide additional coursework or course material to catch me up with my with my fellow classmates. And I feel like if we see students falling behind, what can we do to help them catch up, right?
If we see that there is a disparity among Black and white students in AP classes or honors classes, okay, what can we do?What kind of additional help can we provide for the students who aren't making it to the honors programs? so they can get there.
Instead, the policies now in certain progressive cities across the country is to just do away with the honors program.I don't agree with that at all.When I was in fifth grade, my teacher, and she was the most Pivotal educator in my life.
Her name was Maggie Robson.She was from England.She was a total hard-ass.Okay, she was so hard on the students.But I thrived in that kind of environment.She had a huge sign in the front of the class that said, I can and I will.
And she had no patience for self-pity.Zero.And at that time in my life, I was a very sensitive kid.I reveled in self-pity.And she just wasn't having any of it.And she taught me to just have a stronger sense of self-esteem.
confidence, and this idea that if I really put my mind to it, I can do what I want to do.And I want to instill that in people rather than instill defeatism in people's minds.
It's so much more hopeful, right?As a kid who maybe doesn't have that much self-belief or a person that's down on their luck.
You want sympathy in as much as you want somebody else to see that things are hard, but you want that in service of you becoming better, not in service of them getting offended on your behalf and saying, don't worry, I'll step in and do this thing.
One of the dynamics I've been watching, which I think is really interesting, is that even if you're somebody on the left, or probably on the right too, although I don't know how pure the purity spiral is, if you criticize the left, you're essentially a supporter of Trump.
It's impossible for you to highlight the shortcomings of the left without being a supporter of the other side.I think the level of expected purity on the left is very extreme.
I think that is I think that's true.But there is also a component of the right wing electorate that is very like they're they're certainly purist in regard to Donald Trump.I don't know what percentage.
But, you know, if you are critical of Trump, they'll accuse you of having Trump derangement syndrome. And I think I did at one point.I don't think I do now.I think I actually see Trump for who he is.
I do see his downsides and we do talk about his downsides quite a bit.But I'll give you an example.I mean, I watched his speech last night.It was a dinner to celebrate Catholicism.It's an annual dinner.So Kamala Harris didn't go.
She had some other scheduling conflict, but he did his thing. I watched the entire speech beginning to end.And, you know, I understand why some voters find him appealing, right?
There's an element of his personality that comes across as charming or funny.And I love the way the media just tries to pretend like that doesn't exist.They'll cherry pick some of the moments of his speech that make him look bad.
And it doesn't give you a fuller picture of who he is.And that's a problem because it leads to less understanding in regard to Republican voters and what it is that they might find appealing about him.
Yeah, it's fascinating to think that 50% of the country thinks that the other 50% of the country are horrible, and they're both doing it in both directions.
I don't know, it doesn't seem to be a particularly good foundation to build anything on top of.
Yeah.Can I actually tell you a funny story?I've never shared this with anyone.Bring it on.
When I moved into where we live now, on the day that we needed to move, my husband was actually in a fire academy, so he was unable to help me, which was something I was very salty about at the time.
You know, because I'm like a pretty petite woman and I'm like dealing with a lot of heavy boxes and stuff.
A little bit, a little bit.But, you know, I got it done.I got it done.And so the one last thing I needed to get out of the truck and into our unit was his bicycle.And so I'm like, you're trying to get his bicycle, like, up the stairs.
And all of a sudden, this man stops me.His name's Jeff.And he's like, hey, let me help you out with that.And he starts helping me out.He stopped everything he was doing to help me out.
And then Jeff and I became very close, you know, one of my neighbors who I really like. He was my favorite person in the entire building.
And years go by, one day we're in an HOA meeting, Homeowners Association, and one of our, like, one of the people living in the building said something about Trump that was negative, I don't remember what it is, and Jeff whispers in my ear, ugh, she's gonna start trashing Trump, I'm outta here.
And it hit me that he's a Trump supporter.We had never talked about politics before. And I'm like, so I got to know Jeff before I knew what his politics were.Incredibly kind guy.He helps everyone in this building with anything they might need.
And so that woke me up to wait a minute. not all Trump supporters are like dangerous, evil individuals.And yes, I it was stupid that I thought that to begin with, like, I'm embarrassed admitting that, but it's just how I believed.
And that kind of was one of the moments where it's like a light bulb went off and something was telling me you just you need to scratch beneath the surface a little more because you don't have a realistic view of what's going on here.
Shock, horror, people are people outside of their political opinions.
Headline of the day.Yeah, talking about that, do you think some people on the left are scared of speaking up against immigration or homelessness or crime or whatever for being seen as Trumpists?
Yes, 100% yes, yeah.I was hoping that by being willing to talk about some of these things publicly, it would empower others who I know feel the same way to speak out publicly.
But I think the opposite unfortunately happened because, of course, I got attacked pretty viciously for it.And what that does is it serves as a warning shot to everyone else.
Hey, if you don't want to be treated the way Anna's treated, then you better shut up.And so what'll...
public humiliation will continue until political ideology improves.
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.And so what will typically happen is I'll get a lot of private messages from, you know, liberals, from Democratic voters, and they'll thank me and they'll say, thank you for, you know, drawing attention to this.
And look, I don't blame anybody for not wanting to deal with some of the stuff I've been dealing with lately.But at the same time, nothing is going to change unless more and more people on the left.
are willing to, you know, maybe fight back against people on the far, far left on some of these issues, like the police abolitionists, the prison abolitionists.Those folks, they're just not rooted in reality.
And I don't think that they are proposing policies that are beneficial to society overall.Everyone seems to know that.But on the left in general, people are unwilling to speak out against it.
What are the biggest third rails for on the left speaking out against the left?Homelessness, crime, immigration?What are the top few?
I really don't want to get into it, but you know nuances in regard to transgender rights because it's different from gay rights.Obviously, you know, I'm a big supporter of gay marriage.
I think they should be treated equally as everyone else same with transgender individuals, but then you also have certain issues where transgender rights clash a little bit with women's rights.And so those are difficult questions.
And how do you proceed in a way where everyone feels like they're respected and that they're safe and protected?And it's a difficult question.I've tried to broach it.
it's just really difficult to because, you know, transgender activism is very intense and very maximalist.So you can't really get into nuance without expecting a lot of backlash.
After the last few weeks, can you see the incentives of how people slide from the left to the right?The sort of denial by the purity party, the right is welcoming with open arms, disaffected Democrats, please come here.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do actually.So if you're grounded in your values, and I do think I am, you're not going to be seduced by people who are just nice to you, right?
Like, I actually really respect the fact that the right is welcoming, that they are willing to, you know, forgive past transgressions and say, hey, you know, we will take you in with open arms.
not everyone on the right, but generally speaking, that is what I noticed.Whereas with the left, there seems to be this weird obsession with exclusivity, purity and purging people who are, you know, heterodox or whatever.
And so I've noticed quite a bit of that on the left.But I really do value who I am as a person, and I just don't think that I'm going to change my political views entirely based on who's mean to me or who's nice to me.
But I will say this, I don't know if it's a strategy or if it's just who right-wingers happen to be, but their willingness to welcome people is honestly how you build power.It really is.And the left just fails to realize that.
I don't know why they want to treat politics as if it's like this cutesy little exclusive club, but that's certainly how they treat it.But then there's also this paradox because you look at the current Democratic Party
like Kamala Harris's campaign, for instance.And she's like luring in the who's who of Bush era Republicans.And I don't like those folks.I don't like neocons.
I think that, in fact, I became politicized when the neocons were in charge during the Bush administration.And the idea that I now have to
just hold my nose and support Kamala Harris even as she is talking about the value of having Dick Cheney endorse her and campaign with her just like grosses me out so so weird paradox because while I'm being trash pretty viciously.There's like.
this insane support for what the Democratic Party is doing in bringing in never Trump Republicans.It's almost like Trump is at the center of everything.
It feels it certainly feels that way.Yeah.
Yeah.So it's like if you're an enemy of Trump's, then you are welcome. But if you are someone who believes in a lot of left-wing policies, but you're critical in certain ways, well, you're not pure enough.We're going to purge you.
We're going to purge you.
Where does that degree of purity come from?
Have you tried to think about sort of what this mechanism is, this underlying dynamic?
It could be fear, right?Fear of betrayal.I think that one thing that has really given me some clarity about what drives people is Jonathan Haidt's work when it comes to moral foundations.I love that book.I love Coddling of the American Mind, too.
That was an excellent book as well.But what I appreciated about that is I was able to learn about my own inherent biases And also, I was able to learn what, you know, moral foundations the left has that leads to certain behaviors and certain beliefs.
So. the left tends to score very low on loyalty.And so that that was really interesting.I took the test.I don't know how accurate it is, but I scored the absolute highest in loyalty.
And so it's just when I see members of the left publicly trashing each other, like prominent figures publicly trashing each other in bad faith specifically, it really disgusts me.It genuinely does.
And even as all of these various public figures on the left are trashing me right now, I just, I'm not going to do that on my show.Like, I haven't done that on TYT.I'm not going to do that on TYT because it's just the whole thing grosses me out.
It's just not who I am.So I think moral foundations might play a role in the different behaviors that you're seeing on the left and the right.
I understand what you mean about this fear and especially the loyalty point that
I often think that if you know one of someone's opinions and from it, you can accurately predict everything else that they believe, even though they might not genuinely believe it, you have this reliable model that kind of projects out where Anna, we don't need to worry about Anna.
She was on board with X, Y, and Z last time.
But if there's a little, if you're this sort of perfect round sphere, we know that if we roll you where you're gonna go, but if you've got a couple of little sort of chinks out of you and a couple of dents and divots, you go, well, hang on, actually, she didn't quite agree with us so much on that side.
she's like an unreliable ally moving forward.I'm not so sure that I actually do trust her on this thing.So rather than potentially put your faith in someone who is with you most of the time, but not all of the time, it's easier to just cast you out.
But even though you said your political allegiance doesn't lie with whoever is nicest to you, you can certainly see the dynamic of how people would feel put off by the left's distaste.
It's all well and good saying, I don't go just where people want me, but it's very hard to stay somewhere where people don't want you.
That's 100% true.Yeah, I do think that the right is winning.I think there's a reason why if you look at voter registration for the first time, there are fewer registered Democrats in America compared to registered Republicans.
But that's not because they're registering as Republicans.It's because they're no longer registering as Democrats and just they're independent voters.They consider themselves independent voters.
That's a problem within the Democratic Party that I think they need to come to terms with.And maybe change their behavior so it stops happening.
But the thing that's been— LESS EXCLUSIONARY, LESS ELITIST.
Exactly.And it's actually been the most shocking to me that they are unwilling to recalibrate in any way.
Ever.Every single person I know who I'm friends with from the left, this is probably their number one gripe internally.And it's the thing that everybody has to sort of say quietly.
Like I can't actually talk about it fully because even calling out the fact that there is an elephant in the room is enough of a problem to cause you to be casting that the unreliable ally radar kicks off.
One other dynamic that I really wanted to get your take on that I thought is interesting, we do sometimes see people slide away from the more extreme versions of the left, right?
There's been a variety of arcs where people have gone fully from left to right or from left to center or whatever.We've very rarely seen people go in the other direction.Why do you think that is?
I don't think that's necessarily true.I don't think it's to the same extent as someone going from left to right.But, I mean, there had been people who you know, claim that they had been de-radicalized and now they're Democrats.Right.
I forget the name of this guy's name was David Weissman.I think it might have been, but he was a hardcore Trump supporter.He was on Twitter and he was, you know, tweeting, I guess, negative things.
And Chelsea Handler, of all people, decided to be nice to him and she de-radicalized him.But it's but like that goes back to what we were saying.Right.Like for some people, Those dynamics really do mean a lot to them.
So if someone is willing to be kind to you, even if they have a different political opinion, and if they're willing to have a conversation with you, well, there is an opportunity for persuasion there.And I wish the left overall realized that, right?
These people are not our enemies.I'm talking about voters here.I'm not talking about people in positions of power.When it comes to ordinary Americans, these people should not be viewed as our enemies because they think differently than us.
They should be viewed as our fellow Americans participating in something that we're supposed to value, which is our democratic process.
So if we stop treating them like they're pariahs, and we actually are willing to have good faith conversations with them, there are opportunities for persuasion.Maybe there aren't, maybe they're not willing to be persuaded, and that's fine.
But this idea that we should cut ourselves off from anyone who thinks a little differently from us, that is a losing strategy.
It just is.They're certainly not going to be persuaded if you just castigate them the second that they try and talk to you.
Yeah, you can disagree with your own side, but if the other side rejects you too, you go, OK, well, I guess I am politically homeless.I am just sat in the middle now because there isn't anywhere for me to go.It does seem oddly like a
kamikaze ideology for the future of a party if you continue to spiral the purity round and round and shave off the people who don't wholeheartedly take on board the things that you want.
And yeah, you mentioned earlier on when you guys, some of your audience had thought that you'd pushed too far on Trump and that that had been sort of disaffecting to them.They'd felt like it wasn't maybe as objective previously.
Do you think that the audience that you've built now is ready to hear you with an alternative perspective?What's that been like?
You know, my evolution, if you want to call it that, has not happened overnight.I mean, this has been a slow, painful thing that's been happening for a few years now.
And so I think that the audience members who were not interested in this evolution have already left. And they've found, you know, programming that makes them feel comfortable programming that they like.And that's great.You know, that's their right.
The people who have stayed behind, some of them are still very critical, but I really respect them.And it's OK that they're critical.I'm willing to take their criticism. because they are willing to hear me out.
They are willing to hear what I have to say.They're willing to hear opinions that might differ from theirs.And I have tremendous respect for anyone who has that kind of mindset.So I love my audience.I'm very grateful for the audience we have.
And I'm sad that there was a small portion of our audience who decided to leave, but that's their prerogative.And I'm not going to continue to be in some sort of like ideological prison to appease people.
I want to find what the reality is and I'm going to get things wrong still, but I also want to be honest about when I do get things wrong and I want to correct myself and I want to build the trust that I feel that for a few years I just didn't deserve.
It's a really reasonable, like a shockingly reasonable take.And the fact that that's kind of a radical position probably tells us all that we need to know about how the internet works.It's wild.
I saw, you know, I kind of watched dispiritedly, I guess, from the sidelines over the last couple of weeks, the fallout and reaction and re-reaction and so on.
The accusations of you sort of grifting your way toward the right or something in the hopes that a rumble deal is going to come your way.It seems wild to me that
The internet believes the only way that anyone can ever change their mind is if they're grifting.And it seems to me that you're pissing a lot of people off by taking this position.So you're not a very good grifter.
Like if this was a grift, I don't understand who you're picking up.It doesn't seem to me to be a pot of gold at the end of it.
Well, let me just start off by saying, to some extent, I deserve it.And it's because I engaged in that kind of commentary and those types of accusations.So let me just take full ownership of that.
Have you done some ayahuasca or something recently?What's this is like?I didn't know you ascended.I see the truth myself in the Matrix.What's going on?
I just I don't I don't I maybe it's just I'm aging I don't know you get older you get a little bit wiser I hope that's what's happening but there is something a little deeper so
One of my closest friends passed away during COVID, not from COVID, but his name was Michael Brooks.Two weeks before he passed away, we were talking and he struggled with depression at the time I did too.
And he asked me to work with a woman by the name of Susan who he had been working with for some number of years and she really helped you know, turn his life around, uh, helped his career.
He had started his own show because of her, and he just thought that I could really benefit from talking with her.And she's big into meditation and all, and I was not.
I thought it was all, like, woo-woo BS, but I really respected Michael, and he bought me a session, and I was like, okay, fine, I'm gonna do this for him. She's changed my life and she has helped me see the humanity in everyone.
And I remember, you know, one of the things that he instilled in his viewers was this notion that you should not be vicious to people.
You should be vicious to systems of, you know, unfairness, injustice, inequality, but never be vicious to people, love people, see the humanity in people. And I, at the time, agreed with it, but didn't really practice it.
And by working with Susan, I finally really realized what Michael was trying to do.And she was able to instill in me what he had already been practicing.And I think that that's a huge part of it.
I'm going to have a conversation with her for my Substack so people can get to know her and the journey that I went on with her.Because I think it explains a lot of what I've gone through as well.
But it's, it's a lot of work that I've done on myself, like really getting to know why it is I behave in certain ways and what I can do to maybe make the world a better place through the work I do, you know, to some extent.
I don't want to do harm with the work I'm doing.And I realized to some extent I was doing harm.And so I'm just trying to right my wrongs.
It's a type of harm.First off, I really appreciate you saying that.It's not easy to identify when you're making changes, especially in adulthood.It's cool for a young person to change their perspective on things.
But when you get to be an adult, you're supposed to be fully formed.Should you not have sorted this out already?Should you not have got your meditation practice and understood your position in the world?But it seems
hopeful to me, hope-inducing to me, that somebody who was as politically involved as you could actually come out and be, I'm a real person.This is not just me, you know, spewing talking points about one thing that you can probably predict.
in advance if you just see the title of the episode or the title of the topic that we're talking about.It's like, oh, we know where this is going to go.It's like, oh, this is interesting.Genuinely gives me a new perspective on things.
I wonder if there is a business for your meditation teacher friend in like detoxing people from their political addictions.I wonder if that's like an actual avenue that may need to go down once the Trump era is over.
Maybe.I mean, she's amazing.She's very much on the left.She's not independent.She's not a right-winger.But the thing that's kind of amazing about her is the fact that she sees the humanity in everyone.
We both agree that the only way that this country heals is if we can find ways to bring people together, even if they disagree politically.Right.And so I'm trying really hard to do that.
That is the hardest thing on the planet to do at this moment, because people like to dig in their heels.And it's not just that they believe in their political views, it's that they attach morality to their political views.Good, bad.Yeah, exactly.
I saw another criticism, one of my favorite criticisms, was that you shouldn't be complaining about the weaknesses of the left so close to the election.
You basically shouldn't say anything negative about your party at this crucial time, that if you're going to have a revelation now is inopportune.Anna, can you not just shut the fuck up?
Yeah, I'm not a political activist and I'm also not an operative for either political party.So I will completely ignore that criticism because it doesn't apply to what I'm trying to do right now and what I'm trying to do again, is not activism.
I wanted to be a journalist when I was young.I pursued that career path.I succeeded to some extent and then forgot about it.And that was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.So I want to do the news.That is my number one priority.
And I want to do it well.I want to do it accurately and I want to do it fairly.
Yeah, I think this overarching dynamic of vote for us because the other side is bad and scary, not because you actually love or really believe in your own side.I mean, there's a bunch of polls that showed this.
I think it was about 2012 when things started to cross over.It was largely a protest vote.It was a vote not for them as opposed to a vote for us. I don't know, in some ways, we can sit here and go, how can it be that we're so tribal and divisive?
Could you believe it?And you go, well, what did you expect?Look at the incentives online.Look at the way that the algorithms work.Look at the sort of content that gets pushed to the top of your feed.Look at the rhetoric that is most
opportune, most successful.You know, we have a negativity bias.There is more salience psychologically paid to things that are bad than things that are good.
Okay, so you just use the bad and put it over there, and then you get to improve your number of clicks.I had this really great conversation, this guy called Stuart Russell.
So for about the last two, maybe three decades or longer, the textbook used in like 80 languages around the world is on artificial intelligence.It's written by this guy, Stuart Russell.So he's the godfather, grandfather of AI.
And he wrote a new book called Human Compatible, where he's talking about how algorithms are interacting with humans.I always need to remind myself of this.
So there's two ways, he said, that algorithms become effective at serving you content that you will click on.So the first one is to learn your preferences.
I know that if I serve this thing to Anna, that she is likely to click on this, no, no, no, yes, no, no, no, yes, no, and begin to get better at serving that to you and predicting your preferences.
But the other way is to nudge your preferences to make you easier to predict because it's a bi-directional relationship between the two.And you're not just taking individual users siloed off.
What you're doing is it's all users everywhere and learning what other people like you did.And it doesn't know whether it's moving your preferences or you're just getting better at clicking on what it predicts.
But one of the easiest ways to do this, if you're in the middle and you sometimes fall left and sometimes fall right on different topics, one of the easiest ways to work out what you're going to believe is to just push you further to one way.
To go, okay, if you're right in the corner, you only have so many directions that you can go.Whereas if you're in the middle, it's actually a little bit more difficult to predict, right?
You like 80s jazz and pickleball and cricket and God knows what else.It's like, no, no, no, let's just make politics their entire life. And then I don't need to predict anything.
And let's actually make one particular brand of politics their entire life.And let's make one particular length of video, type of video, type of creator, et cetera.
So in some ways, I keep asking this question because I think I'm fundamentally interested in human nature and fascinated about the dynamics that cause people to behave the way that they do. But it's not that surprising.
When you sort of tie together the last 15, 20 years or so of technology, of politics, of culture, of incentives, and our predisposition, what did we expect was going to happen?
Yeah, that's a great point.In addition to that, you know, we used to have
community based clubs and basically opportunities for people in various communities to get together in real life whether it's going to do recreational things like play tennis with people from your neighborhood in a park, you know those kinds of things I think have
fallen by the wayside, certainly during COVID, when everyone was like forced to be indoors and isolated, people became more atomized.
And what that does is it leads to a situation in which individuals are kind of detached from their community, from other individuals, and they're instead getting information about the world around them from technology rather than from real life.
And look, I gotta be honest, would never be an eight hour a day streamer.I could never do that because I don't want to be in front of a computer or a camera all day.I like being outside.
I like talking to my neighbors, not necessarily all my neighbors, but when I walk my dog, I love talking to real people and understanding like what makes them tick.What are they stressed out about?
I feel more connected to human beings today than I've ever felt in my life.And there's something really magical about that because people are amazing. Regardless of what their political beliefs are people are amazing.
Everyone's got a story Everyone has some sort of struggle.It's just I don't know.I I feel that The fact that so many people are atomized now is really a disservice to themselves, a disservice to our communities, a disservice to this country.
We got to find ways to get people out outdoors, outdoors and speaking to their neighbors, to their community.Just understand what's actually out there rather than having someone else narrate to you.
what's out there.This is the opinion that you should have.This is what the world is like out there.Don't don't worry about going out there to see it for yourself.You just get you can live your existence vicariously through me.
This is the best.This is the best advert for like Sam Harris's waking up app ever.You know, it's like do the do the do the meditation or get the good coach and just the world becomes better.I feel more connected to the people around me.
I've let go of beliefs that weren't serving me anymore.
Just be open-hearted.I think that's a good first step.Be open-hearted, put your guard down a little bit, and just explore.I mean, I can't imagine having this closed-minded, you know, attitude my entire life.
There's so much out there that I would miss out on.
And so... You would have lived your entire existence imagining catastrophes that never occurred. That's how you would have lived.I'm going to try and tie two things together that may not work, but bear with me.
So do you remember, it was a couple of years ago, and there was a girl filming herself in the gym doing pretty average glute bridge.And there was a guy over the far side, and she sort of narrated over the top that this guy was looking too much.
And then I think he came over and offered to help her maybe unload the weights from the barbell that she was struggling with, or whatever it might be.And she put this up with this sort of,
Me to ask kind of narration that maybe this guy was being a bit creepy and the internet if you told me before that was going to happen Here's the video.What are the comments like 50-50?
I would have said it could be Everyone's saying that she's crazy for doing it and that this is unfair and the guy glanced over three times in 90 seconds While he was in the video or the internet could say yeah, totally correct.
I couldn't have predicted it it turned out that the internet went for the one where this is a little bit oversensitive, this guy did nothing wrong and you're sort of treating him poorly by doing that.
That was really formative or interesting to the way that I see how big inflection point events occur and then people take their cues for how they should behave in future from what happened at that big event.
So that one thing that happened, there's been a number of other videos not too dissimilar to that, but think about how many young girls
saw that video and then looked at the response and realized, oh, if a guy glances over three times in 90 seconds, I don't need to feel scared.I don't need to feel uncomfortable.So this sort of barometer for where comfort and discomfort sits
has been reset in some regard.
But kind of like how eventually a million years into the future there will be so many laws prohibiting so many things because they never get repealed, they only get added, that nothing will be legal and everything will be illegal.
I kind of think of it like that, that you're sort of accumulating these experiences because in future that same video could happen or a similar video could happen and in that one it's unacceptable and then the unacceptable level gets reset.
and that's where it is.And then it becomes more sensitive, and it becomes more sensitive.Very rarely becomes less sensitive in that regard.
So when you're thinking about demonizing the people that are out there, realizing the humanity, et cetera, et cetera, like you very much are in the actions that you take, the things that you post online, the sort of rhetoric that you do, your beliefs about other people, you are encouraging the kind of world that other people need to live in and the one that you're going to live in as well.
So basically, I just think seeing the humanity in everybody else allows the volume to come down so that we don't have this hypersensitized future that everybody's got to tread carefully on, that they move through in case that they mess up in one regard or another.
I think that that's mostly correct.I think it's a mistake, by the way, to take the mass reaction to a specific anecdote as a sign of how you should behave, right?And because, look, let's just keep it real.How she felt about that man
does not speak for all women.So if I'm at a gym and the exact same thing happened to me, well, I would view it as, oh, he's trying to assist me.And by the way, I mean, yeah, guys are going to look.It's called human nature.It depends.
Are they being disrespectful?Are they saying disgusting, dehumanizing things?You know, if that's not happening and they're just simply, you know, doing a quick glance, I mean, I'm going to expect it to some extent.
It might even make me feel good if I took some time to look nice.But during the Me Too era, the thing that started to bother me, it started off with very serious sexual assault, sexual harassment cases.
And then it turned into Aziz Ansari had a bad date, and that woman who went on a bad date with him tried to make herself out to be some victim of sexual assault when she wasn't.
And then that kind of started to change my my view of that entire me to era.Because then you have like women demanding certain consent like almost like written consent right or verbal consent.
I would it's I would I don't if a guy asked me may I kiss you I would say no immediately because I would be so turned off by that.But that's just me.There are other women who feel differently for me.
I hated how that era led to a situation in which one or two women saying something led to like all men thinking all women think this way.There was another story about a man who was trying to help a woman who works in media.
I don't remember what her name was.This was several years ago.He was trying to help her with her bag, which she put in an overhead compartment on a plane.And she flipped out.
because she felt that this was a sign of the patriarchy, that a man didn't think that she would be capable of getting her bag herself.And it's like, listen, lady, you speak for yourself.Guy wants to help me get my bag.I am grateful.
Man wants to open a door for me. Fantastic.I do that, too.I do that for people who are, you know, walking right behind me.I'll hold the door open.It's not that big of a deal.
So one woman having a, you know, freak out session online about something is not indicative of what all women want.
Yes, I mean, the Me Too era, I think, and where we're at now, which is this sort of odd no man's land, where we've still got a lot of the lingering effects of that, and I think guys are still very tentative about their interactions with women.
There was this phenomenal quote talking about how
telling men to not be pushy doesn't work, because the guys who need to hear it most won't take any heed, and the guys who could do with being a little bit more assertive and forthcoming will take it to heart, that this sort of message, when it lands, it doesn't land evenly, and it isn't distributed evenly either.
So I think, yeah, I really wonder what the future of male-female sort of dynamics, interpersonal dynamics, has in store. It doesn't seem particularly good at the moment.
I know that a lot of polls show that women say that they would like to be approached more, but there is also an awful lot of data that suggests guys are terrified.
Like, guys already, hey, before Me Too, guys were terrified of approaching women just because, right, for evolutionary rejection fear.
And then layered on top is, what if I end up on the headline of some newspaper, or what if this woman shouts at me for trying to help put the bag up, but she's cute, but maybe she's single, but maybe she's not, and, you know, like, what do you know?
Like, this is just, again, people are going to get things wrong.And I think that broadening the boundary within which you can get things wrong is probably a good idea.
I think that the guardrails have been brought in an awful lot and that you can step outside of them politically, relationally, whatever it is that you're talking about.It's a very small area that's acceptable for you to speak inside of.
Yeah, that is so true.And I think the key word is grace.
In fact, Susan, the woman I was referring to earlier, who I've been doing a lot of work with when she I was talking to her about the anxiety I was feeling about an upcoming debate with a conservative and
I, she knew what my typical style was at the time, which was far more combative, far more, you know, angry, I'm ready to fight kind of attitude.And she's like, what if this time you try to be, meet his arguments with grace, understanding.
Don't come at it so aggressively.Make your points, but you know, don't go in it looking for a fight.Go in it looking to have an exchange.And that was the best advice she gave me because it was a substantive exchange.It was a debate.
I definitely made my positions very clear and they were different from his.And I remember the reaction to it from both the left and the right was very positive.Yes, it was. It was very positive.And I was really happy to see that.
And I'm like, this is the way.This is the way.Because it's not like I sacrifice.
I think the main lesson from today is that we all need a Susan in our corner.
Yes.Yes.She's amazing.And so when it comes to the issue of dating or men approaching women,
I think we can all maybe meet people with grace if they make a mistake don't automatically assume it's coming from a predatory place or a bad place in some cases it does and I think when that happens it's pretty clear.
But if I just if you're a woman just put yourself in a position of a man who wants to approach you but is terrified, you know guys are going to make mistakes and it takes balls to approach a woman.It really does.
To make it clear that you find her attractive and you'd like to date her.I'm so lucky that I'm married right now and that my husband's married right now.We don't have to deal with any of it.We talk about this often.
Dating in today's era seems torturous.
Yeah, you've reached a relationship escape velocity and you're now safe.Anna Kasparian, ladies and gentlemen.Anna, I really appreciate you.I really appreciate the fact that you're prepared to own pretty embarrassing sort of failures in the past.
And it's super exciting.I'm a fully paid up fan and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do next.Where should people go to keep up to date with everything you're getting on with?
Uh, you can go to, uh, I just launched a substack where I write about some of the issues that I want to talk about in a more nuanced way.That's over at casperian.substack.com.Uh, you can also follow me at TYT.
That's, uh, youtube.com slash the young Turks.And all my socials are at Anna Kasparian.
I appreciate you.Thank you.
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