The Grim Future Of American Politics - Dean Phillips

1. 0:00 – 8:34

   Did Dean Found Belvedere Vodka?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Did you found Belvedere Vodka?

   2. DPDean Phillips0:03

      I did not find Belvedere Vodka, but I helped find Belvedere Vodka. In fact, we had a wonderful experience back in 1993, Chris. Uh, I was, uh, 24 years old. I had recently joined our family business after working for a startup company in the bicycle business for a couple years. Where my grandmother, who was the advice columnist Dear Abby, introduced, uh, my father, Eddie Phillips, and me, uh, to a man named Tad Dorda, who was a Pole, a Polish, uh, gentleman, who had a proposition, uh, relative to the vodka business. So we thought we could sell our Phillips Peppermint Schnapps, which we made in Minnesota, uh, to the Polish market. And we went on a trip to Poland in 1993, my father, Steve Gill, our business partner Tad Dorda. Uh, we thought we could sell some schnapps. Uh, what it turned into is the discovery essentially, uh, of what we thought was the most beautiful packaging we'd ever seen in the world and the most disruptive idea, the biggest category in spirits had ever seen, and that was what turned into both Belvedere and Chopin Vodka. And it was that trip that changed our strategy. We negotiated with the Polish government to obtain the distribution rights. Some years later, purchased the intellectual property and the distilleries, and created the world's first luxury vodka brand. And by the way, took on two big brands, Absolut and Stolichnaya. That is a little bit of a metaphor for what I'm doing right now.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:28

      What was disruptive about it?

   4. DPDean Phillips1:31

      What was disruptive, Chris, first and foremost, in- in a lot of industries, especially developed industries, you'll have a couple of really big brands, uh, that essentially command most of the market, and they spend all their time kind of fighting each other to the bottom on price, attacking each other. By the way, the analogy of course is Democrats and Republicans here in the United States. And what was disruptive is that we went into a category in which the most expensive vodka at that time was about $15 a bottle, and we came in at $25 a bottle. We came in with a cork finish. We came in with a very different proposition predicated on authenticity, but here is the special sauce. We recognized that this is in the analog era, by the way, Chris. You know, well before social media and- and the internet and the like. And people, but people were aspirational. You know, people want to always live better, do better, be more happy, have more stuff. And what we recognized is, you know, people couldn't buy the same house as the biggest celebrities of the day or have the same car or watch or dresses. But they could buy the same bottle of vodka for $25 that the most famous person in the world was drinking with his or her friends, and there was the disruptive nature of this whole thing. The luxury vodka category was created. It endured for over a decade. Now been replaced by tequila, of course. But it was the brand Belvedere that really redefined luxury vodka marketing and recognized that it's a fashion industry, just like so many others.

   5. CWChris Williamson3:02

      What is the competitive relationship or what was it between Belvedere and Grey Goose? Because if I was to show my mom two bottles of vodka, she might even think...

   6. DPDean Phillips3:12

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:12

      ... that it was two different versions perhaps from the same company.

   8. DPDean Phillips3:16

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson3:16

      This is one type, this is another. My background is in nightlife, so I ran nightclubs for a decade and a half.

   10. DPDean Phillips3:21

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson3:21

       Uh, a million- a million entries across my- my career. So I'm-

   12. DPDean Phillips3:24

       Wow.

   13. CWChris Williamson3:24

       ... intimately familiar with vodka, with spirits, with working in bars and clubs. Uh, but talk to me about that- that competitive landscape. You guys come first. You've got this sort of frosted finish on the bottle, it's very distinctive.

   14. DPDean Phillips3:37

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson3:37

       What, where does Grey Goose, did Grey Goose see that and then try and copy? What's the- what's the story?

   16. DPDean Phillips3:41

       Yeah. So Chris, you're- you're get... Here's another untold story. What most people don't know is that when we launched Belvedere Vodka, we also launched another bra- brand called Rohol, R-O-H-O-L, which means motor oil in German. It came in a little black drum, like it looked like an oil barrel. And we introduced that to take on Jagermeister. We thought Jagermeister could use a disruptive brand. And at the same time, we introduced Rohol. In the very beginning, Chris, we got a lot more interest and excitement and orders for Rohol than we did for Belvedere, and we were really excited about it. Well, Sidney Frank, who was the now deceased owner of the Jagermeister, I don't think he was very pleased seeing his, uh, baby being taken on, so he thought he would go after us, as- as the story goes, and came out with a vodka that looked exactly the same as Belvedere. So we sued and we won, but here's the lesson learned. We were able to have our graphic design team redesign the Grey Goose bottle, and let me tell you, the lesson is never ask a graphic design agency to redesign something to make it look worse, because it doesn't happen. (laughs) They made it look better. And we essentially settled, uh, they redesigned Grey Goose. It looked better than ever. Uh, but I'll tell you, I give Sidney Frank credit, because what he recognized, Chris, is we thought the Belvedere Vodka category, we thought luxury vodka might be a nice market, you know, not a huge one, so we marketed it with a very, very small aperture, and Sidney Frank, he came out with a huge aperture, advertised in USA Today, big displays on the floor of big retailers, and he did a better job of recognizing, uh, the size of the market and we didn't. So Grey Goose outperformed Belvedere eventually. We sold the brand to LVMH, did very well of course, but Sidney Frank did even better when he sold his brand to Bacardi. And like anything else in life, you know, you- you win some, you lose some, you learn lessons, and next time you do better.

   17. CWChris Williamson5:42

       This feels like a Ferrari-Lamborghini battle...

   18. DPDean Phillips5:45

       (laughs) .

   19. CWChris Williamson5:46

       ... between- between two sort of premium brands.

   20. DPDean Phillips5:50

       Yeah, you could say- you could say so. You could say so. You could say so. And a great story. And- and I... The oth- the other untold story about Belvedere is, uh, the fact that Jay-Z had a lot to do with its early success. It didn't do that well in the beginning, and I was getting ready one morning in probably 1996, 1997.... and I have MTV on, and lo and behold, Chris, I see a music video, Jay-Z video, where he's pouring Belvedere all over the place. He opens a f- a refrigerator it's filled with j- uh, Belvedere vodka. I call my dad. It's the analog era. I'm like, "Dad, turn on MTV." He didn't know what channel it was, so we waited til we got to the office that day, and the whole company sat around the TV waiting for MTV to replay the video. And when we saw it, we knew the brand was changed forever, and lo and behold, Chris, we got orders that maybe tripled within a couple weeks from all around the country. And Jay-Z and my dad ended up having dinner, uh, probably a year later. Jay-Z introduced his own vodka, called Armadale, which I don't think anybody remembers, because he saw the opportunity to do for his own brand what he did for ours. And, uh, that's the story of Belvedere. People don't really know it.

   21. CWChris Williamson6:55

       Talk to me about the principles that you carried over from that into the ice cream company.

   22. DPDean Phillips7:00

       Yeah, so the same notion of disruption. What we like is to look at a category that has two big brands that are not particularly special that dominate the category and have for a long time. And when we looked at ice cream, you had Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs, owned by big multinational, you know, food companies, essentially doing the same thing that Stoli and Absolut were. Not a lot of innovation, a lot of confrontation, a lot of focus on price versus, you know, value or, uh, or, um, or quality or innovation. And we recognized there was a grand opportunity. Um, the founder of Talenti was a young guy named Josh Hochschilder, who became our partner, and the beautiful part of that story is, because he had so little, he had a gelato shop that was not doing well in Dallas, Texas, got an order to package the gelato in containers for the local grocery store, but he could not afford to actually print, like, a nice ice cream pint that you see all over the world. So he had to go to a, a, basically a surplus store, and he found, on closeout, a bunch of clear plastic jars that he could just put a label on. It was the only way he could do it. And that is the beauty of Talenti Gelato. It was transparent, it was in a, a redefining package, just like Belvedere, and we did the same thing. We priced it just a little bit higher, more luxurious, and we elevated a category that was still an affordable luxury. So you could drink, you could drink the finest vodka in the world for $25, and you could enjoy the finest gelato made on Earth for only $5 a pint. And it's the same notion, affordable luxury, brand did very, very well, and we sold it to Unilever seven years later.

   23. CWChris Williamson8:33

       What did you learn

2. 8:34 – 12:14

   The Experiencing of Negotiating With Unilever

   1. CWChris Williamson8:34

      from the LVMH and Unilever negotiations? I've had a number of friends that have exited companies to, one of them to, to Unilever, and then, uh, a bunch of others to equally large, uh, negotiatingly competent companies. What were the lessons-

   2. DPDean Phillips8:51

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson8:51

      ... that you took, that you took away from that?

   4. DPDean Phillips8:54

      I will tell you, without diving too deeply into the details, let me just tell you that I think Unilever, uh, is a more principled, uh, corporation, uh, that I think stands more by their word, and, um, a company of great character, uh, that does a lot of good for the world. Uh, I think I could not say quite as kind of things about LVMH and that transaction, and I will just leave it at that.

   5. CWChris Williamson9:18

      (laughs) Okay, I understand. There's a-

   6. DPDean Phillips9:19

      And I think you know what I mean.

   7. CWChris Williamson9:21

      There's a really interesting principle from, uh, Chris Voss's Never Split the Difference, where he talks about, in a, in a negotiation, you can get yourself to the stage where you get absolutely everything that you want, but if it's so aggressive that the other party feels like they've been bent over coals-

   8. DPDean Phillips9:41

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson9:43

      ... uh, th- there is a, it's almost, it's not quite a Pyrrhic victory, but there is a loss in the victory to some degree.

   10. DPDean Phillips9:48

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson9:49

       Because, you know, uh, unless you don't care about the way that you leave the world after you leave it, you have sort of fundamentally, i- i- it's, it's become a, a zero-sum game, or even less than a zero-sum game.

   12. DPDean Phillips10:04

       So tr- I'm glad you say that. In fact, I had a great-grandfather, Chris, Jay Phillips, who emigrated from what was then, uh, Bela- well, then the Russian Empire, Minsk, came to the US as just a little boy. At age eight years old, started selling s- uh, newspapers on a street corner outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Eventually moved to Minnesota and entered the spirits business right after Prohibition, uh, and became one of the biggest distributors of spirits in the country, and of course, the company that ultimately, uh, introduced Belvedere vodka. He told me three things when I, uh, was a young man, and he said, "Dean, money is like manure. If you stack it up, it stinks, and if you spread it out, it fertilizes." He said, "Business is a means to an end, and the end is not aggregating as much wealth as humanly possible. The joy of business is to share it with as many people as possible in the communities that make the business successful." And he also said, "Dean, you always have to leave a little something on the table for the next guy," which was his way of saying, "In a negotiation, you know what? It's actually the mensch, it's actually the strong person that leaves a little bit more, uh, even when you're in a position of strength." Which, by the way, I've seen the same dynamic play out in Congress a number of times. But those are the, his lessons, and the same is true, I think, in business negotiations. You know, i- i- it's not just about the capital, it's not just about the money. It's about how people are treated afterwards, your employees, how the communities in which you've done business are treated. I, I wish more entrepreneurs would be mindful, uh, of how their exits sometimes impact families and communities in ways that they didn't anticipate. And I wish more deals were structured, uh, to guarantee a little bit more left over for a lot of people who work really hard to create success and are not really thought about at the end. And we've done a, I think a very nice job in our businesses to make sure that those who make it possible share, and I, that's kinda part of my notion in Congress and, uh, about government now, too. You know, how do we ensure that everybody has a foundation from which they can pursue their dreams? And right now, I don't think the United States in particular is doing a good job, and I think too many companies, uh, reward the very top of their management team and do not express the same consideration and empathy towards those on the bottom end of their socioeconomic scale.

   13. CWChris Williamson12:13

       Okay, so you

3. 12:14 – 17:36

   Is Politics or Business More Cutthroat?

   1. CWChris Williamson12:14

      pivoted from the muck and mire of business into the muckier, more mire-ridden world of politics. Which one's more cutthroat?

   2. DPDean Phillips12:22

      Oh, there's no... Congress is more cutthroat because it's... Because the rules and engagement are a-amorphous. Uh, friendships are not legitimate, they're transactual. And it is a strangely z- talk about zero sum game, uh, the spirit of collaboration of, of a culture of debate, deliberation, uh, of learning, of discovery, you know, the basics of doing better in one's life, whether it's business or any kind of pursuit, are, are almost totally absent. It is almost in- exclusively, Chris, a culture of self-preservation. People who wish to simply be a part of the club and to stay a part of the club and do what it takes to remain a member of the club. And as the only one, you know, there are 535 members of the United States Senate and House. I'm the only one that doesn't take any PAC money, what is Political Action Committee money, which is money from special interest groups, corporate or union. I don't take any money from them. I don't take any lobbyist money. I don't give money to fellow members of the US Congress or accept theirs. And I don't have what is called a leadership PAC, which is a, basically a slush fund that American politicians can use at their own disposal, which makes me the only one out of 535 people that doesn't play that game. Uh, I was the vice chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, uh, intending to get together with my Republican friends and talk, build trust, get to know each other because leaders on both sides of the aisle don't do that. I served on the Modernization Committee in the last Congress trying to fix the social, organizational, and physical design flaws of Congress. And then last Congress, I was elected to a leadership position by my peers hoping that I could really effect change. But as long as the culture attracts people who are almost exclusively government service folks that don't have a lot of private sector experience and as long as the culture rewards silence and staying in line, uh, and obediency, it's gonna be the same disaster for the United States, and frankly, I think for the world, as long as we populate it with people that are beholden to that system. That's one reason I'm running for president, to expose the truth, uh, provide a little bit of common sense and competency, uh, to a place and at a time we really need it.

   3. CWChris Williamson14:34

      It's becoming more and more like House of Cards, uh, every-

   4. DPDean Phillips14:37

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson14:37

      ... sentence that you say. It's weird, right? Because, you know, as a Muggle outside of the system, we see the rumors and the accusations and, and, and the, the, the gossip and stuff that creeps out, and then we see the dramatization with, you know, shows like House of Cards, West Wing or whatever. And-

   6. DPDean Phillips14:57

      Veep.

   7. CWChris Williamson14:57

      (laughs) And, and, and Veep, Veep, which, uh, Armando Iannucci, who originally did, uh, The Thick of It, which is where that came from-

   8. DPDean Phillips15:04

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson15:04

      ... the British equivalent, which is phenom-... It's my favorite comedy of all time. Um (laughs) , both of those actually play off the back of it's l-... There's some gamesmanship and there's some corruption, but the, the main joke behind both Veep and The Thick of It is ineptitude. It's that the people who are in char-

   10. DPDean Phillips15:24

       Yeah, stupidity.

   11. CWChris Williamson15:24

       It's, it's idiots all the way up. The people who are in charge are not only no smarter than you, average person watching this, but perhaps actually a little bit more stupid and a, an awful lot more sheltered. What... Is the average leader as smart as the average watcher in your opinion?

   12. DPDean Phillips15:42

       Oh, Chris (laughs) , you're gonna get me in trouble. Um, let me te- let me, let me tell you the oldest joke in Congress, and I felt it. Uh, the first day I'm elected, I'm sitting on the House floor, I'm looking up at this massive eagle in the ceiling of the United States House of Representatives, in the literally the temple of democracy as recognized by the whole world. And it's the evening and it's dark, I'm with all my new colleagues, and I look around and I think to myself, "Chris, how did I get here? How in the world did I get here?"

   13. CWChris Williamson16:10

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DPDean Phillips16:10

       And then about a week later, I'm sitting in the same room, the whole place is filled with Democrats and Republicans from all over the country, and I'm looking around and I think, "How did they get here?"

   15. CWChris Williamson16:19

       Ah. (laughs)

   16. DPDean Phillips16:21

       So to your point, that's an old joke in Washington. And look, and I don't... There's some wonderful, smart, uh, remarkable people in Washington, uh, both Democrats and Republicans. Are they the majority? No, absolutely not. Uh, and I think part of the problem is we are now in a, an era, not just in the United States, but where public service and pol- politics are attracting the people who are there for reasons that are much more personal than they are out of principle. And, and because of the culture of, uh, condemnation and anger-tainment and, uh, constant fundraising, it doesn't attract the kind of people of competency, of life experience, of professional experience that should be populating, at least to some degree, uh, our institutions of, uh, of government. So the answer is I think that's a big part of the problem. And one of my mandates and personal missions is to reintroduce the notion of public service, uh, to the younger generation that have great ideas that right now don't even consider it. And I think that's a big part of the problem. If we only hand the keys to people who have their own personal agenda, uh, or their, uh, interest is in tenure and preservation of power, uh, we're gonna be poorly served, as we have been in recent years. And that's something we gotta change fast.

4. 17:36 – 23:44

   Do Congressmen Actually Do Any Work?

   1. DPDean Phillips17:36

   2. CWChris Williamson17:36

      I read something that said it's recommended when people join Congress that they spend 25 hours a week on fundraising calls, and if you are what you do, we're primarily sending fundraisers to DC. And if you include flights and travel, it's-

   3. DPDean Phillips17:52

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson17:52

      ... perfectly likely that you'll basically have no time to actually get anything done. So how much do you do that's work and how much do you do that's fluff? Like, how much gamesmanship is occurring and how much actual graft gets done?

   5. DPDean Phillips18:05

      Well, Chris, I'm getting in good trouble by saying the quiet part out loud, and here's the quiet part. Members of Congress are spending 10,000 hours per week raising money. You just, you just said the number.25 hours times over 500 people. Do the math. 10,000 hours per week collectively. In fact, I wrote a bill, uh, that is pending, that would preclude fundraising in Washington from breakfast to dinnertime, because all my colleagues are constantly raising money. Uh, I told you earlier, I'm one of hun- 535 that does it differently, which means it's hard for me to find a friend to have dinner with on a Wednesday night, because they're all at fundraisers. And even during the day at committee hearings and educational opportunities and constituent visits, people are not around because they're across the street either dialing for dollars or raising money from PACs or lobbyists or at a law firm or something. It's sickening, but it's-

   6. CWChris Williamson19:01

      It's like a-

   7. DPDean Phillips19:01

      ... legalized corruption. And here's the biggest issue though, Chris. If I could just say, the biggest issue is this. Yes, the money corrupts, because if you are getting paid by somebody, even if it's going into your campaign coffer, if you're getting money from somebody, they're generally doing it because they want something in return. They want influence, they want access, they want you to vote a certain way. Of course, we're not stupid. The biggest issue is this, though. When you only congregate with the wealthy and well-connected, even if you don't mean to, but the system requires that you do, all you're hearing about is their problems, which tend to be issues that are the last things on the mind of struggling people all around the world. So we have a system right now that forces everyone to spend their time with the wealthy and well-connected, Democrats and Republicans, and that's why we have Trumpism in America. Because 150 million Americans are saying, "You know what? My member of Congress never listens to me. They never show up in my neighborhood. They've never called me to ask me for anything. I don't even know how to reach them. I'm unheard. My issues don't matter. I can barely afford my life. And all you all are sitting in Washington having steak dinners, getting your money, uh, and acting like morons." That's what people think, and that's why I'm trying to do this differently, Chris. It's the fact that our system is forcing people to behave in a way that is destructive to democracy, and all we have to do is change the reward system and re-empower voters and dis-empower the wealthy and well-connected in Washington. It's not rocket science, and I know how to do it.

   8. CWChris Williamson20:30

      It's why the Rich Men North of Richmond song, I think, caught-

   9. DPDean Phillips20:35

      Exactly.

   10. CWChris Williamson20:36

       ... fire.

   11. DPDean Phillips20:37

       Exactly. Exactly. He was speaking for tens of millions of frustrated people, and I'm hearing it every day. I get it. You know, I, I don't know if you know my story, you know, but Chris, I was- I lost my dad in Vietnam when I was just six months old. He had no money, uh, which is why he earned an ROTC scholarship to get his education, and then went to Vietnam and lost his life. I was six months old. My mom was 24 and widowed. We lived with my great-grandparents in St. Paul, Minnesota until I was three years old. Uh, and then I was adopted. I got really lucky. I got adopted into an amazing family with all kinds of blessings and privileges and love. You know, very few kids who lost their dads in Vietnam got lucky like I did. Very few kids who lost their moms or dad in Afghanistan or Iraq got lucky like I did. And I'm realizing right now that we have to recognize our good fortune. Every one of us who has succeeded had somebody that believed in us, somebody that gave us a hand, somebody that recognized something in us. This notion that only doing it alone is the American dream is nonsensical, and I think what we're seeing right now is a, uh, real erosion of a belief that things are possible in America and around the world if people work hard, because the system is stacked to support the wealthy and the well-connected. And I know it having lived on both sides of it.

   12. CWChris Williamson21:57

       It's like... I've got it in my head that it's kind of like a, a status-driven Ponzi scheme.

   13. DPDean Phillips22:03

       Hmm. Totally.

   14. CWChris Williamson22:04

       So, it constantly needs more favors to be bestowed from the bottom to pay the favors at the top. And no one really, except for the fact that in a Ponzi scheme the people at the bottom, uh, all of the people except for the people at the top, know, uh, are unaware of the fact that it's going on. Whereas this, it's a cartel. It's a cartel-

   15. DPDean Phillips22:22

       Yes.

   16. CWChris Williamson22:22

       ... of people permanently cycling through a variety of things, and everyone is, it seems, if what you're saying is true, everybody is on board with d- just don't stop the music from playing. We just need-

   17. DPDean Phillips22:35

       Exactly.

   18. CWChris Williamson22:35

       ... to keep the status quo going.

   19. DPDean Phillips22:37

       That's, and that's what happens in a duopoly. In a duopoly, both participants wish to protect the status quo because they know how to manage it, they're accustomed to it, they know the game, and they don't want competition. And whether it's Coke and Pepsi with Red Bull, whether it was Ben & Jerry's with Talenti, whether it was Absolut and Stolichnaya with Belvedere, when you disrupt a category, they come at you hard, man. And they're coming at me hard. They don't want the quiet part said out loud. They don't want the truth to be told. And they don't want the fact that this is corrupt to be exposed, even if it's legal, because they're trying to protect it. And I have faith. I have faith that if you tell the truth and let people know what's really going on that they'll take notice, and what you just said is absolutely true. I don't wanna impugn all the people, because the fact is the system requires this behavior for you to stay alive. You know, I, I, I made the decision to torpedo my career in the United States Congress after three terms. I knew by making this decision that I could probably never come back. And that's unique, because there are very few who are willing to give up their careers

5. 23:44 – 29:36

   Quitting Dean’s Job & Running for President

   1. DPDean Phillips23:44

      to do the right thing.

   2. CWChris Williamson23:45

      What did you do?

   3. DPDean Phillips23:45

      And that's what makes me a little... What did I do?

   4. CWChris Williamson23:48

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DPDean Phillips23:48

      Well, I re- I resigned my House leadership position, and I decided I'm gonna run for President of the United States against a sitting incumbent president, which is rarely done. But this is not a normal time. This is not a normal election. The opponent is not a normal human being, and our current likely nominee is an unelectable human being. But I tell you, the party does not like that I'm s- getting out of line, that I'm not waiting my turn, that I am not abiding by those unspoken rules of what you do or don't do-... with an incumbent president. And I recognized if I did this, I would be spending every ounce of political capital that I had earned, and I worked hard to earn it over, uh, my three terms. But I recognize that if I didn't do this now, I wouldn't be meeting the moment. And it's not about 2028 or 2032 or about a lifetime aspiration to become president. It's about doing this right now because it is existential. And Donald Trump, in my estimation, is an existential threat to the United States of America and to the rest of the world. Period.

   6. CWChris Williamson24:53

      Did people not say that before his last term?

   7. DPDean Phillips24:56

      Sure they did. In fact, a lot of my colleagues, my Republican colleagues said the same thing quietly and then they'd get in front of the cameras at night, Chris, and say something totally different. And lo and behold, little did I know that that disease was contagious because suddenly on my side of the aisle, Democrats were having the same conversations about Joe Biden. He's not electable. Bidenomics is ridiculous. His approval numbers are horrifyingly low. He's not gonna win in the battleground states. Vice President Harris is even in worse shape as it relates to her approval numbers. But then they get in front of the cameras and it's a totally different story. And we wonder why Americans have lost faith in their government, because they know. And when 260 or so Democrats serve in the US House and Senate and we see data that says over 50% of Democrats want a different nominee, 83% of Democrats under 30 want a different nominee, but only one person in the whole Congress, out of 260 is willing to say it out loud publicly, "That's me," you can imagine there's something wrong. There's something really, really wrong.

   8. CWChris Williamson26:01

      What do you think happens in 12 months' time if there's no change from here? Who, who do you think becomes president if nothing else changes?

   9. DPDean Phillips26:09

      Well, I think I will ultimately become the Democratic nominee. It's gonna take time. Uh, many people right now don't see that path. I certainly do. I think come May of June or, yeah, June of next year, we'll see head-to-head polls that will show me ahead of Donald Trump. I'm a former businessman and the, uh, board chair of a health system, a regent at an university, and the chair of the board of charitable, uh, philanthropy, served three terms in the House, a former Democratic leader. I'm the ranking member of the Middle East sub-committee on Foreign Affairs, and the vice-ranking member of the Small Business Committee. I've got a lot of experience. I think I will be able to put together the coalition you need to win in America by inviting Donald Trump supporters who deserve and are worthy of invitation, not condemnation. I'll be ahead of Donald Trump. Joe Biden is almost certainly, certainly going to be behind him even further. And then Democrats will have a choice at the convention. Do we elevate a candidate who is likely to win or do we literally choose the candidate that da- the data is saying is likely to lose? That's a pretty clear choice, and I think it's one that Democrats will do well in, uh, because I think they'll choose me. And by the way, Chris, if some other candidate appears, enters the primary and has approvals or polls that are even better as it relates to Donald Trump, then I should get behind that person. That's the whole point of democracy, is let people decide who is best positioned to win. But in the United States, uh, we are not a culture that is supposed to endorse and tolerate coronations, but that's exactly, exactly what this country is doing right now despite the fact that it literally secured its independence from that very system of coronation.

   10. CWChris Williamson27:51

       Yeah, it's the sort of every four-year cycle of, uh, hereditarianness where whoever's-

   11. DPDean Phillips27:57

       (laughs) Yeah.

   12. CWChris Williamson27:57

       ... in gets passed on again, and that goes down. What... So, i- in your estimation, if it's a Biden-Trump head-to-head come 2024, what's the outcome?

   13. DPDean Phillips28:09

       Oh, u- almost... If I had to put all of my money, if you had to... if you said, "Dean, you had to take every dollar and assets you have and put it on just one or the other based on what I think is gonna happen," sadly, I'd have to put it all on Trump, every single bit of data, every single bit, Chris. His approval numbers, the intuition when you speak with voters in our country, the intuition that Joe Biden is not only is he not better off than he was four years ago, he is so much worse off. Uh, the, the, the polling data in the battleground states, in the national numbers, you know, all of it points to the same thing. And by the way, the worst of it is today. There was a poll that was just released today that shows that voters in the United States between 18 and 29 years old favor Donald Trump by six points. Th- that is a cataclysmic change for Democrats, and that is why my proposition is we gotta wake up before we sleepwalk into a unmitigated disaster. So, that's the way things are going, but that's why I'm running, is because we need an alternative, need a change to a new generation. I'd be the first Gen X president in American history. You know, Joe Biden was born before the advent of television, before the advent of television. How in the heck can he or Donald Trump address the issues of AI for goodness sakes, everybody? You know?

   14. CWChris Williamson29:32

       What have you-

   15. DPDean Phillips29:32

       For goodness sakes.

   16. CWChris Williamson29:33

       What have you learned observing

6. 29:36 – 32:20

   The Rise of RFK Jr

   1. CWChris Williamson29:36

      RFK Jr.'s trajectory over the last m- few months?

   2. DPDean Phillips29:43

      Hm. I have to say, generally speaking, I admire how he's conducted himself. He's appealing to people using nontraditional platforms, which by the way, you can imagine the minute I declared my candidacy, uh, and was no longer part of the establishment, uh, I get stonewalled from a lot of the core, you know, the, the, the major media platforms, MSNBC and some of the others. I think RFK Jr. suffered the same thing. He saw the writing on the wall, so he started going to where people are, which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm doing that with you right now, for example. Uh, I think his videos, the way he expresses himself, the way he presents information, I'd say 80% of what he says sounds pretty darn reasonable to me. Now, there are a couple things, 20% of what he says is pretty damn unreasonable to me, I have to say. Uh, we see science a little bit differently, we see, uh, health and medicine a little bit differently, and we certainly see, uh, vaccinations a little bit differently.But I do believe he should be heard. I believe there's a place and, and space for people like RFK and Marianne Williamson and others to be heard. I just wish they were running in the Democratic primary so that we could all make our cases within this construct, if you will, that allows Democrats to choose the person best positioned to win. Uh, because when you run as a third-party candidate, Chris, in the US, it, it has the tendency to draw votes from the person you actually are trying to... you would rather see win. And since we don't have ranked-choice voting yet in the United States-

   3. CWChris Williamson31:03

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DPDean Phillips31:03

      ... that can be very dangerous. But I think, I think RFK is appealing to a lot of people for good reason. People are sick and tired of the nonsense. Uh, they're sick and tired of the corruption. They want someone to tell the truth. And of course, he's got an extraordinary political name. But I also have to point out the other obvious here too, Chris. You know, you've got Joe Biden has been doing this for 50 years. You've got, before that you had the Clintons, Hillary and Bill Clinton. Then you had the Bushes. Now you've got the Trump family, right? You know, and, and the Kennedy family is back. You know, I, I, I think it's time for a little bit something new. Uh, not a political dynasty per se, not a coronation, but it's time for America, I think, to move to a new chapter. And that's why I wish there were more candidates who are coming, coming from the outside, that are not part of that political industrial complex, which I think is why Donald Trump did so well. He appealed to people who, who saw him as a little bit of a messiah, if you will, as an outsider. And I have that ability to kind of build a bridge of both. I came from the outside, I'm a business person, and I'm taking on an establishment and a structure that is... that they're defending almost at all costs from the true, you know, from us telling the truth. In that respect, Kennedy and I and some others, I think, are going to expose what people should really know more about. And it's not pretty.

   5. CWChris Williamson32:18

      Just how bifurcated is the current

7. 32:20 – 40:55

   How Easy Is it to Work Across the Aisle?

   1. CWChris Williamson32:20

      system inside of Congress? How hard is it to talk across the aisle?

   2. DPDean Phillips32:24

      Well, I'm unique. Uh, out of 535 members of Congress and 50 US governors, I'm ranked number two most bipartisan. I'm a progressive-

   3. CWChris Williamson32:32

      Who's number one?

   4. DPDean Phillips32:32

      My heart's a progressive... Who's number one? Suzy Lee, my friend, Democratic friend from Nevada. I gave her a hard time on the House floor the other day. I said, "Suzy, you totally ruined my whole deal. I, I was number one last Congress, now I'm number two." But like Avis Car Rentals, I'm number two, but I try harder. So that's how I, I do it the old-fashioned way, Chris, man, I, you know, I break bread with people, I grab a beer, I get to know them. My dearest friends in Congress are both Democrats and Republicans. My wife Annalise and I, we've befriended wonderful couples by hosting them at our house for dinner, getting to know each other, spending time with each other's families. Because you can't work with people you don't trust, and you can't trust people you don't know. And when you've got, in the case of Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy, instead of them pushing members of Congress together when I joined the, uh, Congress in 2019, they did just the opposite. You know, they put us on separate buses, going to separate events. They didn't get us to tell each other our life stories. They didn't give us much education. They wanted us consumed with fundraising because they didn't want the power structure challenged. So I had to do it differently, and that's what I've been doing. And as president, I should tell you the most important. When I'm president, I'm gonna do it fundamentally differently. I'm gonna have a team of rivals in the White House. I want Democrats and Republicans on my cabinet. I want extraordinary, the very best and brightest Americans running the agencies who are competent managers, who've run multi-billion dollar enterprises before, who focus on customer service, who can deliver better value at lower costs. I'm gonna have a youth cabinet of a, a high school or college student from every state in the country, 50 total, sharing ideas on policy with me in the White House. I'm gonna have common ground dinners in the White House where we have Democratic and Republican Americans from all around the country having dinner with their president in a casual setting, getting to talk to him in this case, sharing what's important. You know, not just black tie affairs with celebrities and heads of state, you know. It is the old-school notion of people with people in an era where everything we're doing, Chris, is behind screens. A lot of it valuable, but it's also destroying the very fabric of what the world is gonna need much more of as we move forward, which is relationships between the US and China, between fellow Americans, you know, between Brits and Americans. I mean, if we don't build relationships by breaking bread and looking each other in the eyes, uh, it doesn't matter what the future holds in terms of technology or wealth. Uh, it's gonna destroy humankind. And that's just the truth.

   5. CWChris Williamson35:01

      It seems from the outside looking in to the political sphere and also to the cultural sphere of looking at the left, there is a huge amount of Puritanism, a massive purity spiral where any dissenting voice is treated with a unique kind of skepticism.

   6. DPDean Phillips35:20

      Disdain.

   7. CWChris Williamson35:22

      Absolutely. How... Uh, uh, just looking at that from the outside-

   8. DPDean Phillips35:29

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson35:29

      ... what, what do you wish that the left stopped doing so much? Why is that purity spiral so rampant? And, and, and how can you maintain any in-group favoritism without being totally at the mercy of ideology?

   10. DPDean Phillips35:44

       Well, I th- to answer your question very directly, I, I think those on the furthest left who believe that they believe in inclusion are actually practicing the very worst form of exclusion. And that's as it relates to debate and conversation. You know, the only... Uh, in business I... The same grandfather I told you about, my great-grandfather used to say, "If two people in a business always agree, you only need one of them." And his message was surround yourself with people who have different opinions, who have different life experiences, and have different ideas. And when you solicit them, don't just solicit them from the management class. Go into the, go into the production department, talk to the sales reps, right? This notion of discovery. The beautiful part of being a human being is learning. You know, what a blessing to be you where you get to listen to fascinating people provoke you all the time. What a, what a cool thing.So why would we as human beings wish to deny ourselves of the very opportunity to learn from another human being? Doesn't mean we're gonna like what they have to say.

   11. CWChris Williamson36:41

       But you do. Th- th- I, I don't disagree, but it has become almost the signature of the left-

   12. DPDean Phillips36:47

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson36:47

       ... now to not listen to dissenting opinions, to take a minority opinion and allow that to tyrannize everybody-

   14. DPDean Phillips36:54

       Yep.

   15. CWChris Williamson36:54

       ... including the people that aren't even a part of that party. Like is that something-

   16. DPDean Phillips36:58

       Yep.

   17. CWChris Williamson36:58

       ... that can even be fixed? Are you thinking about that?

   18. DPDean Phillips37:00

       Yes. That's why I'm running. Look at, Chris, I'm on a, I don't wanna say a last ditch effort because I hope this is the beginning of some fundamental change on a lot of issues as it relates to my party and, uh, my family if you will. And that's one of my, my missions is to restore those conversations, restore the public square, restore debate. Not stifle it, not shame someone for s- Lookit, if someone expresses a hateful point of view that puts another human being at risk, I think that is a dri- I do draw the line there. And I do think there are some bigots and some misogynists and some racists and anti-Semites and Islamophobes out there that will, that are terribly hurtful to other human beings and I, I do. I take exception to it and I have animus towards them. But as it relates to political perspective, as it relates to policy propositions, as it relates to differences of opinion, we should be fo- Democrats should be fostering those spaces and places, not shutting it down. And yes, it is salvageable, but it takes leadership. President Biden is not creating that space and place. I want Americans to see, I want it modeled by their president about how you actually engage different opinions. That's why I'm going to have a cabinet that is gonna be very different. And I'd like to have some of these meetings televised so that people can see how different opinions can be shared without, uh, condemnation and separation and segregation. To the, just the opposite. And that's why I'm grateful for platforms that are willing to invite different people with different ideas to share them. If you don't like it, don't listen. If you don't like it, don't listen. Or if you don't like it, take your turn and explain your perspective. But don't shame and shout people down into, um, into, um, and dehumanize them in that way unless it's painful speech that is hurting other human beings. And frankly, I think most of what the left is doing right now, the far left at least, is just shutting down all debate.

   19. CWChris Williamson38:56

       How do you know when the left's gone too far?

   20. DPDean Phillips39:00

       Lookit, I, I believe, first of all I'm a common sense human being. You know, I, more than anything else, before I'm an American, before I'm a Jewish American, before I'm a Democrat, before I'm a father, a son, a husband, you know, I'm a common sense human being that has an open mind and an open heart. I have a high threshold for anger. When I get there, I get there, and I'm resolute and I'm principled. But I have a pretty good instinct when something doesn't seem right, when someone seems to be lying, when something doesn't seem to be reasonable. I love new ideas. I love it when people try to convince me to this very day that the earth is flat or that we have UFOs. I love those conversations, Chris. We should have more of those. You know? But when someone says something that is just baselessly, horrifyingly dangerous, that's a little bit different. And um, I can't tell you I've got a meter or some type of a red light/green light system, but I tell ya, I'm feeling more and more that there are things that I wanna say that I sometimes can't, that I know a lot of people wanna say that they sometimes can't. And that's why one of my slogans is I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud, no matter what it does, no matter the implications, no matter the consequences, because I've actually suffered probably the worst consequence. Essentially ended my career in Congress and have drawn the ire of probably hundreds of people in Washington that used to be my very, very good friends. And I'm doing so because I think a truth has to be told that sometimes will be very much aligned with those on the left and sometimes will be very disappointing when they hear the truth.

   21. CWChris Williamson40:36

       Right.

   22. DPDean Phillips40:36

       And I would ask my friends on the right to be open to the same thing. There are gonna be some things I say that you are gonna totally agree with and you're gonna s- hear some things that I frankly think you need to hear that you may not at all. And so be it. I'll hug it out afterwards, as long as you're not threatening another human being.

   23. CWChris Williamson40:50

       It seems pretty easily defined when the right goes too far, but you know, we've seen over the last few years

8. 40:55 – 50:37

   Why Is it So Hard to Call Out Leftist Extreme Groups?

   1. CWChris Williamson40:55

      a total inability or ineptitude or just unpreparedness from people from the left to call out the extreme parts of that. You know-

   2. DPDean Phillips41:04

      Yep.

   3. CWChris Williamson41:05

      ... m- mostly fiery but peaceful protest comes to mind. Uh, why do you think it's so hard to call out groups like Antifa and, and other what are supposedly left aligned groups causing havoc?

   4. DPDean Phillips41:20

      Chris, I'm, I'm struggling with that right now as a, as a Jewish American you can imagine people who I consider to be protectors, defenders, progressives who, where I was the protector of the underdog, I've kinda seen that affection, um, stop at our front door. And that's hard, you can imagine. That's really hard right now and I'm trying to reconcile that. Um, there are a lot of communities that have been disenfranchised, that have been oppressed, that have been mistreated, uh, in this country and all around the world. And rather than condemning one another or separating from one another, my proposition is we should be uniting with each other. And I don't quite understand that. I'm processing that right now. Um, I don't want people to be colorblind. I want people to look at each other and love our differences and actually be attracted to those differences. And I don't quite understand what this disease is. Uh, there is a disease on the right and there is a disease on the left, and it is not pervasive, but I think it's contagious and I think it's afflicting more and more people every day, but it's still a small minority. And Chris, I would say that I represent the massive number of the exhausted majority. Not just in the United States, but literally around the world. People who just want decency and respect, have a chance to put food on the table for their families, take them on vacation maybe once a year, retire with dignity-... uh, and have the joy of living a, a life of, of pursuits and discovery and love, you know? It's not that much, and governments have not done a good job of protecting that, encouraging it, investing in it, and enabling it. And these on the far right and the far left, I think have to be disenfranchised, and that's my proposition to Americans right now. Go and vote in the primary, change this nonsense, break down this duopoly, and let's demonstrate to the world that it is still possible. That's exactly what I'm trying to do.

   5. CWChris Williamson43:10

      I, I do like the idea of the exhausted majority. I think that's a, a, a good way to categorize it. Would you define the problems of the extreme right and the extreme left in different ways? How would you... how, how do you conceptualize those? What is the problem-

   6. DPDean Phillips43:24

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson43:24

      ... with the extreme right and what is the problem of the extreme left in your perspective?

   8. DPDean Phillips43:28

      Well, I'll tell you, I think there's actually more that's similar than that's different. I think at the core of this, believe it or not, Chris, is groups of people who, who believe in their hearts that they have been mistreated and that they've been disenfranchised. On the far right, it's just a very different version of it. On the f- on the left, it's a lot of people who are representing legitimate gripes about mistreatment. Black Americans have been horribly mistreated by the United States of America. Slavery was a repulsive policy that should have ended far before it did, and it has a long, long tail. Native Americans were horribly mistreated in this country. S- uh, Muslim Americans, Jewish Americans, right? Hispanic Americans, Asian-Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans, everybody who can feel some degree of animosity, disenfranchisement, persecution, you know, have been mistreated, and they have rightful gripes about the need and desire and their rights to be included. So if you look at both sides at the... they're very different circumstances. I believe on the left, I understand that disenfranchisement, that persecution. On the far right, it tends to be more white Americans who feel that they are being replaced, who feel that somehow their culture is being changed, how they're, um, no longer... and at some point, the white Americans are gonna be the majority. They're... that they're being persecuted, they're being kept down, they're being, uh, eliminated. And I think that is actually, interestingly enough, a very kind of a similar ethos that actually connects the far right and the far left. It is this notion of mistreatment, and they're angry. I believe... like I said, I believe my brothers and sisters on the left, I understand that better. But on the right, I think in terms of their hearts and minds, that is the root of it. It's this notion of being replaced or being second, or being a lower class citizen or something that scares them, when the other side is saying, "We've been lower class citizen forever, and we just want a fair chance." But that connects people, and I think if we just sat back and acknowledged, you know, the human elements of both of these conditions, uh, we could actually have conversations about it, and um, instead we do it through television screens, often through angertainment or TikTok, and we're only getting further and further pushed into the corners, which is what Alvin Toffler warned us about in Future Shock, uh, you know, 50 years ago.

   9. CWChris Williamson45:48

      I think the problem that people have when you look toward the left and the empathy that is proclaimed to kind of drive the, "We are helping the underclass, we are bringing these people along," is that they don't believe that it's genuine empathy. They-

   10. DPDean Phillips46:04

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson46:04

       It's performative empathy or it's toxic compassion. So, toxic compassion-

   12. DPDean Phillips46:09

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson46:09

       ... is the prioritization of short-term emotional comfort over everything else.

   14. DPDean Phillips46:12

       Sure.

   15. CWChris Williamson46:12

       So it's saying, saying the good thing whilst doing something which may be bad-

   16. DPDean Phillips46:17

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson46:17

       ... or giving somebody a solution which in the immediate may make them feel okay, but over the long term could even result in worse outcomes for them.

   18. DPDean Phillips46:25

       Of course.

   19. CWChris Williamson46:25

       D- d- defund the police coming from people that live within gated communities, right?

   20. DPDean Phillips46:29

       Nonsense.

   21. CWChris Williamson46:29

       Like, it's, uh, it's all well and good saying, uh, uh, "Defund the police," when you've got private security or a locked compound or you live in a suburb that doesn't have any crime. Uh-

   22. DPDean Phillips46:40

       Exactly.

   23. CWChris Williamson46:40

       ... they talk about single parent households being no worse for children's outcomes than dual parent households. Like-

   24. DPDean Phillips46:47

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson46:47

       ... it's just... it factually not true, and-

   26. DPDean Phillips46:50

       Not true.

   27. CWChris Williamson46:51

       ... it doesn't inform parents, teachers, and, uh, the, uh, their friends about why the kids are behaving in this way. The body-

   28. DPDean Phillips46:59

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson46:59

       ... positivity movement saying that there's no link between body weight and health outcomes because they don't want to hurt the feelings of people that are overweight even if it causes them to die sooner, literally to die sooner. That's toxic compassion, prioritization of short-term emotional comfort over everything else-

   30. DPDean Phillips47:16

       Mm-hmm.
9. 50:37 – 59:47

   What the Democratic Party is Getting Wrong

   1. CWChris Williamson50:37

      would you say are the structural pathologies of the left when you're looking at the, uh, democratic institution, the democrat institution? Wh- what is it getting wrong? There's obviously this sort of purity test cannibalism thing that occurs.

   2. DPDean Phillips50:54

      Sure.

   3. CWChris Williamson50:54

      What is it from being inside of the machine, what is it that Democrats are getting wrong structurally?

   4. DPDean Phillips51:00

      Well, I think, I, first of all, I think, uh, you know, I'm a Democrat because I believe that... Hubert Humphrey was my idol, and he said it, "The moral test of a government is how it treats those in the dawn of life, the dusk of life, and in the shadows of life." I think that is the fundamental role of government, to protect those, uh, that need defense and support, uh, and to look out for those who are struggling. And I do think Democrats generally come from a position of fairness, pointing out inequities, unfair circumstances, and trying to fight for fairness. But I also believe that Democrats, the left if you will, are employing stereotyping just as, um, dangerously as, as any group. I believe, um, the lack of willingness to look at, um, uh, talent, uh, to look at possibility, uh, versus just looking at categories or identities, I think that's hard. Uh, for a country that prides itself on being a multicultural bastion where, uh, meritocracy should be ultimately the goal, whereas certain communities, I think, do need a little extra boost, not a handout but a hand up. I think that's not unreasonable. But I do, I, look it, I know, not I, not I think, I know that Democrats are being subject to the very, some of the very disenfranchising, dangerous practices that, uh, we have long accused the right, uh, of, of practicing. And that means stereotyping, and that means not looking at people for who they really are, rather just what they represent. And I think that's dangerous. And at the end of the day, Chris, this all comes back to the same thing. You know, if we don't create space and place for human beings to kno- get to know each other, we're gonna lose, particularly in an era in which we are so able to self-select not just with whom we live and eat and pray and sleep and think, but even where we spend now our, our virtual time. We can micro-target just to be surrounded by people who see things and think exactly the same way. Not only is that a boring life, if you ask me, it's a really dangerous condition that I think needs an antidote. And I think, uh, people like you and people like me and I think people who are watching right now can all play a little bit of a role in doing something over the next year that maybe opens up the opportunity to break bread with someone who see things differently or looks differently or prays differently. And there, we can actually lead some change and maybe end this nonsense.

   5. CWChris Williamson53:29

      I observed this really interesting dynamic occur with a, a lady called Melissa Kearney. So she works out of Washington actually. She is a, uh, statistician, uh, demographer, uh, looking largely at the outcomes of single-parent households, and she just wrote a, a book called The Two-Parent Advantage. Uh, the clue is in the title. This is the difference between single-parent and dual-parent household outcomes. I pushed her quite hard on the episode to try and get out of her, uh, statistician skis and-

   6. DPDean Phillips54:02

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson54:02

      ... think about, think about mechanisms, like what is it that's going on?

   8. DPDean Phillips54:05

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson54:05

      So get i- you know, a little bit of bro psychology. Uh, and-

   10. DPDean Phillips54:08

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson54:08

       ... she was fine to sort of give theories, but she was very reticent about, about saying, you know, "This is not my area of expertise," so on and so forth. So what, what I'm saying is that she wrote a book that was planned to try and inform people coming from single-parent households, people considering it, people working through relationships and marriages and, and family life and so on and so forth-

   12. DPDean Phillips54:29

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson54:29

       ... to better understand why the outcomes that they're looking at and why the dynamics and phenomena that they're looking at are the ones that are happening, and when I asked her to get out of her skis, she said no. So she was very aware of her own restrictions.

   14. DPDean Phillips54:39

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson54:39

       Before her book went live on Twitter, uh, just the title of the book was released. No one had seen a galley copy, no one had seen a review copy, nothing like that, and she was...... destroyed, mostly by people from the left-

   16. DPDean Phillips54:52

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson54:53

       ... for, "This is conservative thinking being repurposed. This is, you know, back to a Christian nation," all this sort of stuff. It's derogating people from underprivileged, uh, like working class backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And what I saw was a lady who, when I spoke to her on the show, very touchy-feely, didn't ask her about her politics, but I would guess that she's probably center left.

   18. DPDean Phillips55:14

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson55:14

       And I saw online the exact dynamic that we've observed occur publicly with tons of people. That-

   20. DPDean Phillips55:23

       Okay.

   21. CWChris Williamson55:24

       ... the Democrats and the left have made life so inhospitable to anybody who doesn't toe the party line, even if they actually do, but it doesn't sound sufficiently like they do because of that toxic compassion thing, where you need to say the thing upfront that sounds right, even if in the l- the long run, it results in bad outcomes. And as you inevitably meet the ire of your own side, you inevitably get welcomed by the other side. So, I-

   22. DPDean Phillips55:48

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson55:48

       ... observe, I didn't see this happen with Melissa. I'm not saying that she's, like swung right and she's now gonna be employed by-

   24. DPDean Phillips55:53

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson55:53

       ... The Daily Wire or something. But I saw the only support that was available for this lady, that had written-

   26. DPDean Phillips55:59

       Yep.

   27. CWChris Williamson55:59

       ... a very well thought out, very meaningful book and she wasn't prepared to get out over a ski, she wasn't trying to play a game, blah, blah, blah. And I, I saw this like, you know, purity spiral, witch hunt, lambast her, and then the only side that's left open is the opposite. So, you know-

   28. DPDean Phillips56:16

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson56:16

       ... there is this sort of polarity where people just swing straight back across and go across the other side, 'cause it's like, "Hey, guess what?"

   30. DPDean Phillips56:23

       Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 59:47