Ep 15 - Politics Interview with David Burstein
This is our corresponding interview following our episode, "Politics is a GOOD Word." Join us as we interview David Burstein, founder of Run for America and Generation18 - two organizations dedicated to improving American politics. We'll take a behind the scenes look at politics in America and in Washington today. We'll also talk through what gives us hope in this contentious moment in our politics today.
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TRANSCRIPT:
David Gaines : Well, hello third place-ers. Welcome to another episode of the third place podcast. This is an interview that coincides with our episode “politics is a good word.” And we're excited to introduce and interview with a new friend David bursty. David is a social entrepreneur, storyteller and investor. So for me very excited to have him as a guest just because he shares some similar passions. He is the founder of run for America and generation 18, two organizations dedicated to improving American politics. He is the author of the best selling book fast future, how the millennial generation is shaping our world. And has regularly advised large organizations and companies on the many issues surrounding how to understand and engage millennials. He's a contributor to Vanity Fair, Fast Company and has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, and in the New York Times, Politico salon and many others. We're really excited just to share with you this conversation, and take maybe a little bit more of an in depth look at how politics work. what goes on in Washington, DC and and honestly, like, the hope that he has for the future and why politics is really good and healthy. So welcome, David. David, thank you so much for joining us on the third place podcast. We're really excited to have you.
David Burstein : Happy to be with you guys.
Mary : I get to speak to two David's today.
DB : Two Davids are always better than one
Mary : Two David's are always better than one my oldest brother is David too. So I yeah, I have an affinity towards you guys, for some reason.
DG : That's fun. Well, um, yeah. So obviously, we're a week away from the election is just a huge time in our country. For many people. It's a stressful time. It's contentious. It's something to avoid. It's something we can't wait to be over. But I'd love to just dive into your view of politics. How did you get into politics? And maybe we can even start with that when you were growing up? And you heard the word politics? Like, how did it make you feel or think? And how did that inspire you to take a career in politics?
DB : Well, you know, it's interesting, because I think everybody has a different access or entry point, right. And I was extremely lucky and privileged to be able to have a, what I think is a pretty special entry point, which I got to meet, then President Clinton when I was about six years old, on New Year's Eve. And in a large room, people got to ask him a question. And I asked him, you know, today, I probably would have come up with a better question, but my six year old self, came up with what the best part of being president was, which I guess is a question for a six year old, we won't be too hard on my six year old. But yeah, and I got to in the room of people and hearing him answer that. And to me, in that interaction and processing, that is a very, very young person. What I took away from that was, you know, a sense that one of the things that made American politics, so unique and so special was this opportunity we had to be in to be in direct dialogue with our representatives. And you know, and that may not mean everybody actually getting to meet the representative, but being able to theoretically have this direct dialogue with representatives, at least at some level. And it's funny, because when I think about where I've been since then, and the various different things I've done in the space, it all kind of tracks back to the broad through line, it didn't get a lot of ways is that our politics has become less that than it once was. And I think the dialogue between constituents and their elected officials and their elected representatives is really important. And it's not something that we're doing well and the further away elected officials get from being in direct dialogue with their constituents I would argue the worse at leading and governing they become as there's a degree to which - people talk about this right in the context of town hall meetings and you know, the various different people who when something controversial is going on, and they don't want to do a town hall meeting. But actually, you know, to the degree that anything is required, it should be required of all elected officials to do a meeting with their constituents once a week because just having that experience will force them to be more grounded in what their constituents actually want. Because in the absence of that, where they end up spending their time, is with a broadly problematic set of people. We're not bad people. But anybody shouldn't be monopolizing the time of elected officials. And I think we're getting here and what is really actually at the core of the problem of our politics is just like any of us become the average of the five or 10 people you spend the most time with. That's true of everybody. And politicians are human beings. And sometimes the way we talk about our politics, we forget that they respond to the same kind of incentives you and I respond to, generally speaking, they don't want to lose their jobs, generally speaking, they can be influenced by people that are closer to them versus people who are further away. Right. And sometimes I find it's helpful to think of it in that contract, because you can start to understand how to better address the problem.
DG : Yeah, I was literally talking to my brother last night about this. So we're driving. And he's, he does not want to engage in politics at all. And he knows he has to vote. He's like, I think wrestling, he's still wrestling with who to vote for. And I mean, I don't know what I honestly don't know how he's gonna vote. And I think that the conversation came up just around like health care, like, you know, he's younger, he there was a time like, he was mad at Obamacare, he didn't have insurance. And he was frustrated at the penalties that the ACA placed on him at a young age. And, you know, we were just talking just about the economics of it. And I think to your point, like politicians are just so far removed, where he was like, can they just have the same health care system that we have? Right, like, and therefore, what he was really saying, then they would understand what we're dealing with? And they fix it?
DB : Sure. I mean, what you're really talking about there is empathy. Right? Which is the difference, I think, between power politicians historically, who’ve been able to be effective and win over broad coalition's of people who haven't is people with higher empathy. And empathy is the ability. But I think your brother's point is important, you know, to be an elected official, you have to be able to imagine being in the shoes of someone who is totally unlike yourself. So if you if you need to have it happen to you in order to do it, that I mean, I mean, maybe it gets it done here or there. But ultimately, that's not a good foundational principle in terms of the quality and the character of the people who run for office, you need to get to have that.
Mary : it makes me think I mean, first of all, it made me think of business right away. And just that the farther removed a CEO is from the ground floor, the warehouse staff or anything, that there's clear, it starts to fall away. And so I can relate to it from that perspective, and then starting to relate politics to business is then where my heart gets a little bit sad, because I'm like, man, it is just business. And it feels less human, I guess, in that way, to me, but then the other thing I think of too, is that I'm wondering about, like your perspective of the way that we are electing these officials or recruiting whatever it may be? Is it really leaning into or employing empathetic type people? Or is that process really not even serving? Yeah, the human perspective?
DB : I think that's part of the problem is that some of the work that I've done in politics has been broadly focused around this question of talent recruitment, I really think part of the core challenge is we don't have the right people in office and we don't but even more than that, we don't know how to think about that question. Because though, there's an increasingly wider gulf between what it takes to be a good candidate and what it takes to be a good elected official. So if you go back to the early 1900’s, right, I mean, you know, their qualities, you know, in a pre television era, for instance, qualities like people's weight and people's physical appearance. You look at some of those presidents in the in the 1800s, 1900s a little long in the tooth, you know, people would have made it in today's era, right. So that's just this is one easy to understand example, but overall it's representative of a broad trend. Which has been more in charisma has always been an important characteristic and leaders for all time. And, and I do think it's not without merit to that, that you need a president who can have that kind of inspirational role. But one of the things that has happened is we've demanded more and more inspiration and charisma from our elected official potentials, and obviously, to the presidential level, but it should be true across the board. And so there are a lot of really talented smart people out there who just don't have the skills to run the campaign gauntlet, or maybe they do have the campaign gauntlet running skills, but they don't have the intellectual capability to actually govern, there's a lot of people who get elected on that basis. So that's one of the core problems is you don't actually, you know, and voters at the same time, I have gotten ever more emotional. So they're more desirous of the people who are more charismatic, willing to kind of throw red meat, as we've gone on, so that's so so what you're talking about Mary, I think, usually one of the challenges because no one who's even saying here would be an objectively good set set of skills for these people to have go and just the different basis, you're gonna find people who value the ability to work together or versus the ability to deliver for our district versus the ability to stand up for the current occupant of the White House or be against that, and be a bulwark. So that's one of the big problems.
DG : Yeah. And I think that that is why the people that I know that are disengaged from politics, it's almost a what's the point? You know, the people aren't representing me, it's just a popularity contest. And even hearing you talk about that, I'm like, Huh, I wonder if there was some real damage that things like American Idol did for us, because they turned voting into they almost gamified it to where now we just need that big personality who can sing the best or look the best to be elected?
DB : Yeah, I mean, that certainly is a piece of it. I mean, I think there's a broad trend in a social media and a media era, you really mean, just to go back over saying you can you can you can build a through line for this, really, with the next Kennedy debate, which is obviously much discussed always when this topic comes up. And all the natural evolution of that into what is it you know, I don't think Nixon or Kennedy would be very good on Twitter. Right. So, you know, it's a different skill set. But every medium requires something else of people, and we're now communicating in shorter sound bites than ever before shorter pieces of content. So you have to not only be able to inspire but inspire quickly and inspire with a minute or two. So I think the other thing that happened to your point, Dave, is that there's, someone like Barack Obama gets elected, you know, we have we have this problem, which is kind of unique to the United States, in which our executive, basically plays three different roles, the the functional head of the Armed Forces, the basically emotional or inspirational leader for the country, and the person who sets the legislative and policy agenda, you know, a lot of other countries have a possible for any one person to do. Exactly. And when people vote, some people are voting on the basis of what some people are much more concerned about foreign policy or a military issue. Some people kind of are like, who do I want to wake up and see on TV if something's happened, and other people are kind of looking at a pile of domestic policy agenda. And in other countries, right, they have premiers, and they have presidents and they have, heads of state that serve other functions, or they have separate militaries, you know, or, you know, not the person involved with that. So, I've often thought that it would be interesting or wise to think about something like that here. You know, people joked about Oprah running for president this time around, you know, if Oprah's job were to run around the country, and to borrow the phrase from Bill Clinton, you know, feel people's pain while someone else was in charge of running the government that might not be the most terrible idea in the world. You know, but of course, of course, that's not going to happen anytime soon. But it just shows you how deep the needs are of people in their elected officials and how inadequate the current setup is for actually filling those, leaving us in a place where people are constantly underwhelmed, disappointed and dissatisfied with their leaders.
Mary : I have a quick question. I'm wondering because you've alluded to other countries in the way that they do their politics. I'm wondering, is there another country that you think has a gold star, gold standard that is that we could implement some things that would actually make people more satisfied?
DB : Yeah, I mean, if you look at the data around the world, I always say the problems that we have are not hard problems. They're definitely solvable. Because other countries are solving them, who are democracies, we have a couple of things that make it harder, one we're much bigger, we're much less homogenous than a lot of other places. You know, right. You're always shooting examples about things in, in Nordic countries, and how happy people are. But you know, one of the things that's different about those countries is they have they have much more homogenous populations. So they don't have to deal as much in a substantive way with a lot of the questions we have here. And that being said, doesn't mean there aren't things that can be learned. So when you look at the needs of people in those countries, though, if government is helping you have a good quality of life, and you feel generally good about the direction of the economy and the employment market, and you have things that allow you to raise children and not fall into so easily into poverty, then, I don't think you demand as much of government. So one of the things that's happened here in our country, is, the whole system of governance we have was set up in such a way as a republic, right? To say, all we need to do here is have people vote on some frequency for six years, depending on what office for elected people, and then they can go do their work all year round, knowing that these people are good and trusted and confident, and then we'll come back in a few years, and then you'll get to weigh in again. What's happened is that people no longer trust, that doesn't work if you don't trust the elected officials. So there's not a baseline implicit level of trust in those elected officials. that trust is broken down over the last 20, 30 years completely. So now what we have is people wanting to weigh in on every step of the process, which renders that our republic system totally ineffectual. Because the people who are elected never have a long enough leash, to actually go out and make those decisions. Right. And, and that manifests in things like the way that polling works, right, every issue is being pulled, and people can tell, within a week of something coming up, you know, how it might play out in their district or not. And that kind of real time sentiment is problematic, because that then becomes a factor in the debate or not, it doesn't allow people to, for instance, have a closed door series of negotiating sessions around something and then come out and say, we've come up with a great idea and allow people to look at that final product in Totem, you know, right, the Constitutional Convention, if that had happened in this day and age, there's no way that would have gotten solved, the only way you solve these really hard complicated problems, I mean, people have really deep disagreements is with some kind of leash, to be able to do it some kind of cover. You can't do it just just sitting around back and forth, in the way that we do it now.
DG : Yeah. When it comes to things like let's just say healthcare, for example, like I've been so frustrated that it isn't this closed room like to me, I own and have on several businesses. You know, I'm looking at other businesses best practices, there's lots of things to be able to compare to and lean into. And I don't know, bits of wisdom that kind of can infuse into whatever conversation and then make an informed decision. And to me, something like healthcare, what's frustrating or white? What doesn't happen is to me to solve the problem is you bring in nurses, you bring in doctors, you bring in patients, you bring in health care officials, you bring in the left, you bring in the right. And it's like, what does this really look like? But I just don't think we're in a climate where we can even have a dialogue anymore. And that's just frustrating.
DB : Yeah. No, I mean, I always think it's helpful to try to deconstruct these things a little bit, because we use these right, so like, what are the preconditions for having a dialogue? Right, one of the preconditions is some baseline interest in what the other person has to say, right, kind of implicit trust in the system.
DG : even that even having implicit trust, and again, trust, like you said
DB : so one of the things that keeps happening, I think, is people keep trying to do things that are definitionally not going to go well. Right. So trying to convene a dialogue when the conditions that need to be present for productive dialogue to happen are there is useless. It may seem like we need to do it or something but it, you know, I think we need to be more cognizant of what is actually true or not and what is actually possible politically in this environment. Right. I think a lot of people talk about that, in the context of the election this year has shifted from trying to woo over Trump voters on the democratic side to bringing new people out to vote and or activating people who, you know, didn't vote, because the reasonable argument was made. Look, you know, how many, how many of these people who are listening to a whole different set of information than we are, and who are clearly very steadfast and support? Are we really going to convince. That defies some of the normal way of thinking about campaigns, right, that you try to go after, you've got to bring some people from the other side over. And so there's a different reality for the way this campaign is being conducted, which also, by the way, has the byproduct of meaning that those people who are supporting the president actually are getting even less as time has gone on even less contradictory approaches to them, right? Because so many people have just kind of given up and they're watching their own information sources. So you know,
DG : yeah, we don't even have the baseline of what is facts or right, fiction at this point. Right. All the all of the things that are required,
DB : that's one that I actually think is a little bit more, it has, it has always been a little bit more disputed, than people think, you know, people like to talk about, you know, it's a mask for really deep disagreements. And I would say, a better way to say that is I actually think we don't have a system where everyone is the most invested in the country as the primary stakeholder at large, or their state or their district, which, you know, the fights that people had, and the facts people threw around for much of American history, over various different legislation were quite brutal, and quite antagonistic. And people definitely manipulated information left and right. But what they all really had motivating them was a lot of conviction, and a lot of deep desire to see a good outcome. And they genuinely believed in many, if not all the things that they were arguing or suggesting would be the best outcome. I think today, there are a lot of people who are much more interested in outcomes for themselves, outcomes for their political party. We've had political parties for a long time. But we people have never been so interested in what's best for their party, as I think people are today in both parties, if that makes sense. So those all those conditions really change, again, the ability to have a dialogue or not,
Mary : it's almost like I feel like you're saying no to that people are, there's just so much more ego, really, when you distill it down, that it's beyond what's right for the party or for the collective and it's more about, how can I just be right? How can I just win?
DB : Yeah, and in a way that I mean, that that's the definition of tribalism, I like to think of this analogy. It's a great book, I'm forgetting the name of it, that just came out about the comparison, the relationship between politics and sports. And I think it's really apropos. Because the way that we do politics now is very sports-like, you know, if you're a Red Sox fan, or you're a Yankees fan, your team could do anything, your second baseman could kill people and be sentenced with criminal negligence. They could lose every day. And you would still be saying they're gonna win this year. You’d still be going there showing up watching every game, and that they think, a useful metaphor to think about where we are realistically at right now in our politics. And the result, all the incentives are constructed around that now. Right? There's no incentive in baseball, for you to root for a team that is not your team.
DG : I've said that often. You know, I've gotten more politically engaged over the last five years, and I didn't feel like I was that disengaged, but it's definitely been something I am trying to be play a better role be a better citizen and I've been frustrated again like, I look at sports is like is ultra competitive, it's us versus them. And it's kind of infused in our society, and therefore, it's infused in our politics. But even just now hearing you talk, like I love baseball, I live in Cincinnati, and just a big reds fan, I grew up watching the Redskins, the whole Yankees, Red Sox thing I can relate to because they truly hate each other. But at the same time, if there is no other team, there is no baseball. And you know that's where I'm like, why aren't we realizing that we need each other? there is value in a conservative perspective balancing with a liberal perspective. And one of the things that you said earlier, like, one of the beliefs that seems to be gone right now is that we at one point, we all believe that what we were doing and what we were working on was for the best interests in the country. And that's why you and I might disagree on the path to get there. But we at least had this underlying belief that you were looking out for the best interests of the country. And we agree to disagree on it on the way to do it. Right now. That's gone.
DB : Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. I think the challenge has become, if we don't agree, that's fine. But if there's no incentive to agree, that's where it becomes problematic. I look at the whole system in terms of incentives. So what is the incentive for someone to work with someone else? If there is none, then people will not work with each other. So then you, one of the things we can't do is expect people to act against their own interests. And I think we constantly have this expectation that somehow our politicians are supposed to be these noble, you know, servants who are going to humbly sacrifice themselves. And that's a nice idea. It's never really been true. We don't ask ourselves to do that. And there have been looked at most of the things that politicians have advanced and gotten credit for. Have advanced, and they've also advanced them, they haven't there. Are there a handful of examples you can point to of people who, you know, really who cast the deciding vote, there was a Congresswoman from Pennsylvania who cast the deciding vote on Clinton's budget IN the 90s, you know, all but knew that she was going to get voted out because of it. And she did. And so there are people like that, you know, along the way. But they're, but they're really the exception, mostly people who do important, and consequential things in politics are acting in their own interest.
DG : Yeah, I agree. Today, I actually listened to an interview from Susan Page, the moderator from the vice president debate, and she was talking about, I guess she's working on a biography for Nancy Pelosi. And she told a story, and I actually felt the opposite. So apparently, Nancy Pelosi’s plan was to retire in 2016. But then on election night, like, she's old, she's ready to spend time with the grandkids and write a memoir. And on election night, 2016, as Donald Trump was becoming clear that he was going to when she put all of that on the shelf, and the person that was interviewing Susan page said, you know, what do you think her plans are, like, just kind of guessing. And their comment was, she probably was assuming if the polls happen today, and we're recording a week before this publishes, but if they'll polls happen today, it looks like the democrats would take the presidency, the Senate and the House.
DB : I would be careful about polls, but
DG : yeah, right. But that is at least a possibility. And that, for her the next two years would be, she would still remain for the next two years to try to unpack the last four years. The point of that, though, is whether all that happens, or not the point of what I what I heard was like, well, there was a version of self sacrifice in that, like, she's even not putting paws on her retirement was a version of sacrifices, like, Well, you know, I'll do what I need to do to keep this thing balanced. So I really appreciated that perspective.
DB : Yeah, I mean, people do sacrifice their families, and this is why I kind of say the importance of the human side understanding who people are and why did they do this? And there are a lot of great people in politics. I think. The system does not really support them. You know, it's really interesting because if I think of the word thinking about it's like, we really just don't think about politics as a workplace, right? We don't think about it as a place where people need all the same things they need everywhere else to thrive the way for instance, it might be some stuff that folks might not be so familiar with, you know, the average congressional staffer is paid between 34 and $43,000. a year, right. So what that means is, the only people who can afford to be congressional staffers and live in Washington, DC around are basically people who have their own independent source of wealth, or their parents or their income, and the way those people are treated, the way they're paid, you know, there's a whole series of problems around that. And that's one of the foundational building blocks, and you know, got a bunch of attention around all the me too, you know, conversation two years ago, but there's no HR in government, there's, if you're a member of Congress, and you feel you're being personally, you know, attacked or made uncomfortable in your workplace by somebody else, you know, they didn't have a women's bathroom in the senate until two years ago. I mean, these things might sound trivial, we've got an election coming up in Canada, but I think we need to reorient our thinking about government around to what makes you feel good and able to do your best work, what makes you, whatever your job is out there, able to thrive and think best and what kind of environment not just focus solely on the environment, we as voters and citizens are created, but the actual place where people go to do their work, because there's a lot more ways that that could be much more supportive, there aren't and people people talked for years about the change that happened in the 90s. From what was basically a congressional schedule, that required people to be in Washington, basically, all week, every week and go back to their district for kind of a month here or there to a new schedule, which is the current schedule, which basically has them there three days a week, which means, most people don't want to buy a second house in Washington. So they go home on the weekends, which means they don't enroll their children in the same schools, which means that they don't go to soccer practice and see their political colleagues, you know, after school activities, which means tthey don't get together and hang out on the weekends and have drinks, you know, all those kinds of things. It's not a coincidence that when that schedule was in place, we had a more cooperative kind of governance, but not perfect.
DG : That's so fascinating. I mean, yeah, it makes so much sense. Like, I'll get wrapped up into work, like, I'm part of an 80s cover band, just something for fun, right. And we play music together, because it's fun to play music together. But when we practice, it's work. And we realized, like, wait, when was the last time we all just went out for a drink and just right, we're with each other because we were friends before we did that. So to put it in that same context,
DB : what you realize after you do that, is it's actually essential to your ability to turn away. It's not a side thing. We have a fundamental biological need as human beings to be in community and be in connection with other people. And I would defy anyone to find an example of a workplace where people have worked worse, because they've formed closer relationships with the people that they've worked with and feel more comfortable and more safe in the environment. There a great story I once met this guy. He died a couple years ago. He's a real character. Out of the 70s, 80s. I think he was in office maybe the mid to late 70s to the mid 90s. This guy Malcolm wallop. He was a senator from Wyoming. And he told me this story about he was the lone vote in the United States Senate in the 90s to to keep open the senate bar in a row where they were you know, he was in the midst of all the cost cutting and pork barrel spending and the cost was a couple million dollars a year maybe maybe a million dollars a year for his number exactly that the Senate paid, you know, for drinks and things to have bar and he said he was the only person who voted against it because he said was the only place where anybody talk? Yeah, I don't like to over romanticize these kinds of things. And they're all kind of you know, these are anecdotal, but I think they point to this larger concept of, I guess, we've been talking about throughout here, of making governance more human. If we look at the people who participated as humans, we look at the incentives. It's just a much better way than to look at what we need, we need campaign finance reform because campaign finance reform, we should have it better certainly than not, doesn't actually end up fixing a lot of the problems because people still are incentivized. Okay, so now I only have now I can now I'm capped at $100,000. For my campaign, well, great, I still need to win. And the incentives in winning are still the same. Okay, now I spend a little bit less time fundraising, I spent a little bit less time you know, all those things are net improvements to the system. But they don't fundamentally change the incentives, right, because people still need some money, they still need to get elected, they still need to be competitive, they still need to throw out the red meat, they still enjoy our contest with their opponent, right. And it doesn't really fundamentally change much.
Mary : I hear you talking a lot about how the lack of connection and lack of human being human or human connection is one of the greatest problems with the current climate. And I'm wondering, the work that you do, and how that impacts this problem. And, you know, what is a day in the life for David?
DB : Yes, well, you know, it's interesting, because I have spent basically the last most of the last 10 years, you know, working on these issues in various different ways. And I currently actually split my time between political work, and work in the mental health space, which really, I got into, because of my experience in politics, and really forced me to think about a lot of these questions about what creates human thriving and well being, and how essential that is, if anyone is going to do good for anybody else, they have to be able to do that for themselves first. And it may sound cliche to people, but I think it's one of the things that's really missing from our politics. And the reasons we don't have a human centered view of things like health care, or these other kind of issues is because the politics process and the system it is operating in is not human centered. And so it creates that kind of problem. So, you know, I have worked hard to, through an organization that I founded, called run for America, as well as through helping and working with individual candidates over many, many years. And another organization I ran prior focused on voter registration, to really look at those fundamental building blocks, how do we change the participation of people in to the system? And how do we change the people who choose to run, it's kind of like thinking about it as a house, you know, these things are really on the ground floor, you can't get up to the next floor without going through the lobby. And that's really where you find these fundamental building blocks. And one of them is just a different kind of person. And look, admittedly, when I started thinking about this question, it was really, it seemed really opaque. But we broke down, what makes a good leader, what makes a good candidate, which of those skills can be taught which of them have to be innate? You know, things like integrity is not something that you can teach people, there are other things like how to kind of stay true to your principles that actually are skills. But having principles is not a skill. But there's an important difference there. Because when people go into the system, one of the things that I've seen over and over again, having been close to many people who've been in Congress over the years and had these kind of frank conversations with them along the way is, is they find it really difficult to actually stay true to those principles. They came in really solid about them, but you know, the system that again, the system doesn't work to support them. So literally every day, they're confronted or challenged by staying true to their core principles. So it's, again, an unreasonable expectation to expect that everybody's going to just figure out how to stave that off without some kind of extra preparation or support.
DG : I remember when John Kerry was running for president, one of the biggest things against him was that he was a flip flopper, right. And I'm hearing some similar things around Kamala Harris, but I'm looking at Kamala as from my perspective, I see it's more of an evolution of changing like, there is this core value of principle there is this core value of, I don't know being a good prosecutor and dancing between police support and criminal justice reform. Right. And so of course, in that world because there's such a dance of that fine line. Of course, your opinions are changing, you're growing up, and I see it as a sign of maturity. And I think it's rare. And I think to your point, is there a way to even reset the system so that when we let's first get better people in office, I curious your thoughts on how we do that? But then how do we also get it to where it's a system that doesn't eat them? Eat them up and chew them back out, and transform them in a negative way?
DB : Yeah, I mean, it's really tough, because the kind of reforms that we need are going to get we talked earlier about campaign finance reform. It's hard to pass, it's been hard to pass. But practically, it's pretty easy to understand. And there are a lot of different proposals where I always like to say, I wish that there were more people in government who were taking cash bribes, because it would be easier to root out the problem. And you could just arrest all those people for corruption. Right? Because it's almost makes it worse, because that's not how it happens. Because the ways that it gets into people are much more subtle and insidious. And, you know, people get people, donors very rarely, actually ask people, you know, I gave you this money, I need you to vote this way, they come in, and you hang around them, and you spend time with them. And they tell you their ideas, and you're hearing more of their ideas, that other people's ideas, and you start to think, you know, gee, that person actually isn't so bad. You know, he says, they're, you know, terrible, blank. And they're nice, they have some good ideas, and you start to just become favorable to their ideas. And because you start to like them personally, maybe the kind of the ways that these kind of things get in. So the whole system needs to be rewritten. I mean, look, most of the changes don't actually require changes to the Constitution. Again, we've been talking mostly here about Congress. But you know, and kind of the federal government. But it's also important to recognize here that one of the reasons this stuff plays out very differently at the local level, is because necessarily, being a mayor is much more tied to tangible achievements. If you're the mayor of Chicago, and snow doesn't get plowed, people are upset, and you know about it, and so you're forced to react. And that's a very direct impact on people's lives, because that's where they live, that's where they see everything today. You know, one of the problems that federal government is we don't always see or understand what the role of the federal government is in our lives. So the way we tend to judge their performance, that's why it more easily defaults to these kind of tribal mechanisms in a way that mayorships typically don't a little bit different at the gubernatorial level, because that kind of sit somewhere in between, again, that place where you can have that tangible sense on your life, you know, usually a mayor or city council is the most easily divisible unit that you can connect to their decisions the most, because they're ruling on plastic bags and whether or not they can be banned or not, and how streets, you know, public transit should be funded. All those kinds of
DG : Yeah, I mean, that to your point, that's something that we talked about, in our episode. Last week was when politics is working really well, we don't even notice it. Like when we turn on the water and clean water comes out. That's politics at work, we drive over bridges and the bridges are safe to drive on. That's politics at work. It's only when the things fail, that we see it as a problem. You know, and the failures are the ones that bring out all the talking points and the necessary attention to action.
DB : Yeah, I think that and people don't get people don't get voted out for not working together. In other words, the argument that someone hasn't accomplished anything is not usually the reason that they get voted out, people make that argument. Usually, the more effective version of that argument is that the person has lost touch with their constituents, you always hear about this, right? Someone has a house, you know, their kids are registered, or they're, everything's registered in Washington, not in the place where they live, right? Or so those kinds of things are, they're a proxy for not effective outside or whatever. But if you just say, Joe hasn't gotten anything done, so he should be voted out, you know, if you think about your job, right, if you haven't done anything all year, and you've been a dead weight on your team, do you get rehired? Or are you asked to leave? I mean, you know, who has that kind of job? Right. And I think that's a really good way of thinking about again, just all the way the system is working very poorly.
Mary : So then, I mean, I'm wondering, how do you get the average person to engage?
DB : ook, I think people are restricted to voting, which, you know, despite all this voter participation is going up. Right? And if you..
Mary : Do have any, like, stats around that, I feel like Yeah, that would be something you would have in your brain. I'm just curious.
DB : Yeah, I mean, look, overall voter participation still hovers around 60% in presidential, which does not put us in the top participation rates in the world. It's a little bit complicated, because the way that our voting system is has changed dramatically, and voter participation was much higher at the very beginning of the country's history, but it was also obviously restricted to a pretty small number of people. But the reason why I point that out is because that was a time period where everybody was deeply invested in the success of the government, right, because we were a new country. And people were eager to see things work. And so they felt that their participation was essential. I think today, there's a lot of reasons why we're disengaged to talk about some of them here are also not if that instilled in people early on it. And also, one of the things Israel is interesting among and it's the Coronavirus, when you look at countries, like Italy, and particularly European countries, I think are interesting to look at. Because in Europe, people have this ability to trace their heritage and history back, you know, for 1000 plus years, right. And the idea of nationalism, and someone in Italy says you have to do something for Italy, it's much more resonant. Then, here where we, you know, we have basically about 250 years of history. Yeah. And so we interpreted some of these things and concepts like freedom, as being more about privilege than responsibility, you know, and freedom doesn't mean I should be allowed to do whatever I want. No government agency or elected official can tell me what to do. And that doesn't even make any sense because government officials and laws tell us what to do all the time. But it's kind of been perverted over the years into something that I think has become really foundational for a lot of people, the way that they understand or interpret freedom. And for instance, that freedom means I should have the right not to vote. Yeah. Which is something I've changed my view on over the years. And I think it would be good to have a compulsory voting system in this country, you know, or an automatic voter registration system where people are just automatically registered when they turn 18 to vote at minimum. But one of the arguments against that is that somehow anti freedom, because people should be given the right to choose to opt out or not.
DG : Yeah, when a lot of masked mandates were first coming out. Lots of people saying, You can't tell me what to do, you're squashing my freedoms. And I'm like, yeah, and I'm going to start driving on the left side of the road, because you can't tell me what to do. 'm like, the context is where we live in these rules all the time. We just are so used to them, that it's okay. Well, David, this has been just a fantastic conversation. I feel like I've learned so much just not even around American politics. But having it in context with some global politics has been really helpful, like the nationalism conversation. I would love to ask this last question, though. Like, I think for many people, so many people feel hopeless around politics. What about politics gives you hope?
DB : Look, the United States government is the single most effective scaler of solutions to large complex problems when it chooses to be got basically clean drinking water for most people. We've got an interstate highway system that works pretty seamlessly, we've got a system of commerce, across state lines, that allows us to do amazing things. You know, there's a lot we can do. The problems are not so intractable, we say that a lot, we have these big intractable problems. That's not the challenge. The solutions are out there. It's just that we have to have and find the courage as citizens and voters and as leaders to actually take the hard choices along the way. And people do do that from time to time. And, you know, we're in a moment where I think a lot of people feel really acutely, the pain and the concern. And those tend to be the moments where we actually end up doing the most, and it's, you know, it's unfortunate, in some ways that we have to, you know, it has to be darkest right before the dawn. But that's that's how it's always worked. You read if you read the hero's journey, if you read any of these kind of fundamental texts that are repeated over and over through mythology through history, through time, you know, that we can't get to progress without pain and suffering, just how it goes. It would be better if everybody knew the right thing to do all the time without having to go through it. But that's how it works. And so I have a lot of hope, that in this period we're going through right now is great turmoil and great stress and great pain, that ultimately on the other side of that, it means that it will provide at least some opportunity for things to be better for some group of people.
DG : Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Thank you.
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Mary : Yeah, it's beautiful. I think that that discomfort serves such a purpose. And I think that you said that so eloquently. So thank you.
DB : My pleasure. It's great to be with you guys. Enjoyed it
Mary : We had loved every moment of this. And thank you so much for your time and for speaking with us on such a present matter.
DG : Yeah. And where can people find your work?
DB : You can find me on Twitter. I'm @DavidBurstein on Instagram. And there's lots of stuff online, you can find it on Google.
Mary : Thank you, be well.
David Gaines : Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as we did. Super insightful, again, just kind of behind the scenes of a little bit more of the nuances of politics. And ultimately, I think legitimate hope, how we can all play a more active role in our political system, what that role means and, and really how we can be engaged with bringing some of the changes that we're looking to bring. I love to encourage you just to pass this on, and we'll pass our other episode on to your friends, please comment on our podcast feeds, both on Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcast, ratings go a long way to be able to share the work that we're working on. And that's just a great way to support what we're doing. Also, specifically, every episode that we produce, we're trying to make super interactive. So one of the things that we really enjoy is creating a music playlist that goes along with each of the themes is a topic. So there is if you check out on Apple Music, and on Spotify in the music section and search for third place, or again, sign up for a newsletter, or go online to our website, thirdplacepodcast.com, you'll be able to see the links to these playlists, and get those and it's music that just talks around the topic. And it's interactive, you can add any comment, but mainly, like engage with it. Music is just such a great way to express our feelings around these difficult topics, especially sometimes as we don't have the words for that. So that's just another great way to engage with us as we unpack these difficult conversations. So check those out. engage with us, review us, like us, give us feedback. You can always email us David@ or Mary@thirdplacepodcast.com and we really just thank you so much. You're engaging in a larger third place community. Be well
