America at 250: Case for the Defense

It’s the United States’ semiquincentennial … and one of us is not feeling it. The other is literally carrying a flag in her bag — and that’s just her road flag. Kathryn Anne Edwards makes her case for optimism right now: The U. S. is undergoing one of the most dramatic demographic and cultural shifts of any industrialized nation. Americans agree that Congress is broken. And the people's agenda on wages, childcare, money in politics, and Social Security polls above 80%. Maybe this isn’t a backslide. It's just what clearing the air looks like. Chapters: 00:01:21 Announcements 00:04:10 Retcon: More on the national anthem 00:06:36 Terms & Conditions: Origin of "the melting pot" 00:08:01 Big Pilcrow: Make Robin Optimistic about America 00:48:17 Executive Orders: End gerrymandering; mandatory hearings on supermajority issues 00:50:03 Spiritual Sponsors: Knicks celebrations; bourbon in Louisville Donate to Optimist Economy: https://optimisteconomy.com Video-curious? Watch the Optimist Economy YouTube channel⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@optimist_economy. We’re also on Facebook somewhere (search for it), on Instagram at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy https://www.instagram.com/optimist_economy or TikTok at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy https://www.tiktok.com/@optimist_economy. Chat with other Optimists on Substack. https://substack.com/chat/4604257?utm_source=pub-nav-bar Find utility with our merch: https://merch.ambientinks.com/collections/optimisteconomy Got economic questions, concerns, or executive orders? Send them to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Mitt Romney and Ted Kennedy were about as different as two politicians could be. The lanky businessman and the stout old senator, the conservative darling and the liberal icon. But did you know they once teamed up to tackle an elusive challenge? Universal healthcare.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  In season four of the Big Dig podcast, we tell the story of Romney Care and the odd couple alliance behind it. Find Mitt and Ted wherever you listen.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  I watched all of Ken Burns, the American Revolution on maternity leave and my husband would come into the room and he's like, do most people watch a documentary about the Battle of Brandywine with like the covers pulled up to their eyes?

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Or like yell out, cross that Delaware. Like, I mean, it's just, it's.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm economist Catherine Ann Edwards.

• 0:59Robin Rauzi?

  I'm editor Robin Rousey.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  On this show, we believe the US economy can be better and we talk about how to get there, one problem and solution at a time.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  And this is the single greatest episode we have ever produced because we are talking about America, baby. This episode will be released the week of July 4th or the week before. I'm actually not so good with the time lapse. And anyway, Trump is trying to make America part of his brand and [BLEEP] that guy. This is my favorite holiday. This is our country. In this episode, I will be convincing Robin to feel good about America and also convincing America to feel good about itself.

• 1:37Robin Rauzi?

  Feel good about America. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck with this.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  I feel like I was expecting you to just be like, maybe a little bit more like game. And now I'm worried about the good luck being lackluster. Okay.

• 1:49Robin Rauzi?

  No, okay. Good luck.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Okay. Announcements. Before America, there was announcements.

• 1:54Robin Rauzi?

  So, speaking of stripes and stars, stars, if you would like to rate the show on Apple Podcasts, we would really appreciate that. We've got about 840 reviews as I'm speaking. We would love to hit 1,000. So if you haven't yet rated the show on Apple Podcasts, please do so. Also, bad news, we're out of hats. We're going to have to restock on hats. Finally, thank you to our super supporter, Michael Hayhurst in Durham, North Carolina, who made a big contribution to keep Optimist Economy on the air. Thank you, Michael.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Thank you, Michael. I have a quick announcement. It's a call for one particular listener. I am right now in New York City, and I had a big event last night. I was in fancy wear. You should not have recognized me because I actually had on makeup. I was dressed up. I was in cowboy boots, and I was running through the New York City subway when someone yelled out, "Hey, Catherine, I'm listening to you right now."

• 2:48Robin Rauzi?

  What? No.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  One of our optimists was listening on the New York City, they were on the Fulton platform. I was with my cousin. One of our listeners saw me run by, yelled my name, and he said, "I'm listening to you right now."

• 3:02Robin Rauzi?

  I can't believe that.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  No, I said, "Pull out your phone and prove it." He pulled out his phone, and it was the maroon and pink of Optimist Economy was up on his phone. I gave him a hug.

• 3:12Robin Rauzi?

  Did you take a picture?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  My cousin took a picture with his phone, but I'm so unaccustomed to being stopped on the street or even really complimented, and I'm so uncomfortable when I'm complimented, that I was like, "Okay, bye," and like ran. Like, I think I yelled. I was like, "Thanks for listening," and just like ran away. Like, I couldn't handle the positive encounter.

• 3:33Robin Rauzi?

  You were a fan? Let me get away.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  I was like, "Okay, well, that sounds really good. Bye," and I just ran. And so, "Optimist from Fulton Street, you know who you are. I ran by while you were listening to me. Please send me the photo." It was such an amazing moment. Like, I had an amazing night, and I felt like I was being carried on the wind of like a supporter being like, "Hey, optimist." So, anyway, Fulton Street platform, optimist listener, please send me the photo so I can prove to everyone what an amazing good luck charm you were.

• 4:02Robin Rauzi?

  That's amazing.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Isn't that such a good story?

• 4:05Robin Rauzi?

  That's incredible. I walk around with my optimist tote bag all the time, just waiting for somebody to say something, but no, no.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I will say that my mom and sister and I all have an Optimist Economy tote bag, and my sister and I both use it to carry like gear for children, like diapers and toys. But my mom uses it for knitting, and so we were, my sister and I were over at her house, and the three bags were next to each other. And my sister was rifling through, trying to find the thing for her bag, and she turned around. She's like, "One of us needs to get a new bag."

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Little optimist.

• 4:39Robin Rauzi?

  Okay, next up is retcon. Catherine, do you have any retcon material?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I've actually already derailed production enough. I'm just gonna say retcon for next time.

• 4:52Robin Rauzi?

  All right, well, I'm not, because I can just waste Andy's time. Can I do a retcon about executive orders? Is that allowed?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 5:00Robin Rauzi?

  All right. My executive order two weeks ago, I think, was about singing the Star Spangled Banner. And since then, I have been thinking about why it is that I'm so irritated about people who add all of these flourishes to the Star Spangled Banner, because maybe it seemed very petty. And as I was thinking about this episode in particular, I thought, you know, maybe I had already been too petty about the Star Spangled Banner. But I think that when you sing the Star Spangled Banner in a way that draws attention to yourself, it discourages public singing of the National Anthem. And I think that there are moments when collective singing is important and valuable, and that the National Anthem should be one of those things. It should be sung in a way that invites

• 5:42Robin Rauzi?

  other people to sing it. So for instance, sing it in the key of E-flat. Don't sing it in the key that's too high for everyone. But also just sing it so that it's not just about you, or whatever your musical genre style is. That was just a further elaboration of my love for public singing and the importance of collective singing.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, Robin. I mean, the whole point of this episode was for me to get you, like, jazzed about patriotism, but like, here you are coming up in retcon with it.

• 6:14Robin Rauzi?

  I think maybe I'm just pro-singing.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  You're pro-singing. Well, we'll get her. This is a good lead. But, you know, I actually would say my little tidbit there would just be, I do love the Star Spangled Banner, but I actually more love singing as a group, "God Bless America."

• 6:29Robin Rauzi?

  For sure. It is a great one. It's also easier to sing.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  It's easier to sing for people like me who sound like something dying.

• 6:36Robin Rauzi?

  It's less about war.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  It's less about war. It was written by an immigrant.

• 6:40Robin Rauzi?

  I think if you took a survey, people would say that that should be the National Anthem.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, I will. Okay, so I don't want to like, enter like, a massive fight, but I just, I happen to like, I really love the song "God Bless America," and I think it's incredibly moving when everybody sings it together. And you're right, like, the more focus you put on the singer, the less it comes on, like, the other people singing.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Okay, patriotic songs.

• 7:03Robin Rauzi?

  Patriotic songs.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Keeping with the theme.

• 7:04Robin Rauzi?

  All right. Terms and conditions.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  I did look up the origin of melting pot.

• 7:12Robin Rauzi?

  Oh.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  And it's interesting, it's been around for a while, but became famous in America because of a play. This guy's name is Israel Zangwill, and he wrote a play called The Melting Pot. And it's about a Russian Jewish immigrant family in the US.

• 7:30Robin Rauzi?

  Huh.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  The main guy has survived a pogrom and he goes to the US and it's about immigrants becoming American. And so it's like an homage to America written by, so this is the part that got me really confused. He's not American, he's British.

• 7:45Robin Rauzi?

  Hmm.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  And I don't think he ever lived here, but he wrote a play about Jews in America right after the pogroms.

• 7:54Robin Rauzi?

  Huh.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  And it was called The Melting Pot.

• 7:56Robin Rauzi?

  And that became the, that's the origin of the metaphor?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  I think that's the origin. I think, so what I could understand, I'm not quite as good at like the words part as you of like, you know, when you use like website dot free slash biz backslash ads. I feel like you're not getting the best information. Maybe the OED would say something different. But they, it said like the idea of a melting pot had been used before, but it was popularized in this play in 1908 about a Jewish immigrant family in the US.

• 8:25Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  We're gonna take a break and come back for the big pill crow.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Okay, and we're back. Take it from me, someone who's been officially accused by Congress of not being a real American,

• 8:40Speaker 01

  that you should be excited about July 4th. So let's do a quick origin story of this episode.

• 8:44Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Perhaps maybe not feeling very patriotic.

• 8:48Robin Rauzi?

  It's been a rough, it's been a rough period of time to be an American. The last, you know, I don't even know, a while.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:59Robin Rauzi?

  We felt like we should do something for the 4th of July. And specifically because it's the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Are you gonna like, show us your flag?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Points to flag.

• 9:10Robin Rauzi?

  Points to flag, America 250.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  I have the official America 250 flag. When I said I could do prop comedy, this was the flag that was in my backpack when that guy was like, "Real Americans are over there." I was, I literally had on my person, an America 250 flag.

• 9:26Robin Rauzi?

  Anyway, so we had this on the agenda and I said, "Well, I mean, you know, why should we be optimistic about America?" And then Catherine had a short list and I said, "These are just things we like about America, but they aren't necessarily things that make me optimistic for America right now." So she said, "I can make anyone optimistic about America."

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Challenge accepted.

• 9:48Robin Rauzi?

  Challenge accepted. Or I guess you accepted the challenge.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yes. So I'm going to start with first, an admission or an acknowledgement that many people have been hurt, not just in the last two years, but really-

• 10:04Robin Rauzi?

  Two hundred and fifty years.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Two hundred and fifty years before that. Me loving my country and being excited about July 4th and independence and what it all stands for is not because I don't understand how that promise has not been fulfilled at points in time, for people in time, for people at this very moment in time. It's not about like a willful lack of acknowledgement that everything is great and America's never done something wrong.

• 10:30Robin Rauzi?

  Sure.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  And I think the culmination of feeling that a people have right now is watching someone who has no respect for so many things that are just so integral to our country, like following the separation of powers-

• 10:47Robin Rauzi?

  Constitution?

• 10:48Speaker 01

  -in the Constitution. Americans have always supported diversity and thinks it's a strong suit to have someone so absolutely run that notion into the ground and celebrates squashing diversity. I think to have made so much progress on the acceptance of people who don't fit into the white heterosexual cisgender box and then to have that both be walked back and become so threatened.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  All of these things are there and I don't want you guys to think that I'm like trying to do some softball version of feeling optimistic about the country. Like there are people legitimately hurting right now and feel that they're hurting because this is America and we have elected a despise who doesn't care about Americans.

• 11:36Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:37Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  So let's turn it around.

• 11:41Robin Rauzi?

  Reality acknowledged.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Reality acknowledged. So where does optimism about the future of the US come from? I think I have a couple of points I want to make, but I don't know which way to start this. Robin, when you and I did briefing, I had said, it feels like we're in an era of not pretending anymore.

• 12:02Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  If I think back to Catherine in high school versus Catherine now, there was this almost like, we don't talk about it. Like racism isn't a thing anymore because we have the civil rights movement and a generation or two has gone by and like

• 12:17Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  It was like, we didn't acknowledge that there were still deeply racist people. They were seen as like fringe. You know, once gay marriage becomes legal, it's an absolute celebration of people and joy and like, we don't really talk about the number of people who do not support gay people.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  It feels like what's marked this period right now is that there's just so much coming to the surface of like, we didn't really want to acknowledge all of these things that were in our country and now they are incredibly loud and it's a big reckoning.

• 12:50Robin Rauzi?

  This reminds me of, was it a Saturday Night Live skit where they're like, I didn't realize everybody was working so hard to keep these things inside and not articulate them. Like, if you could just go back to that, that would be fine, you know?

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Just keep that [BLEEP] locked up. Okay.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  But I think part of keeping that locked up was this kind of broad acceptance that the thing that we were supposed to be was accepting. And this thing that we were supposed to be was not racist anymore. And now, it's almost like, once you acknowledge that those people are there, it threatens this idea of what we're supposed to be. So, that's hard to live through.

• 13:29Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  And feel like you will get to the other side. I think that that is part of it, is just...

• 13:34Robin Rauzi?

  It feels like a backslide, you know?

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:37Robin Rauzi?

  I mean, I have, I have long been a believer that, you know, I think largely because I'm gay and I have seen where we have come in my adult life. I never would have believed that I would see legalized gay marriage in my lifetime. And I'm not that, I'm not that old. And I got it, right? So, I, I know that people's minds can be changed. But this has just felt like, oh, I thought more people's minds were changed than apparently were. Or their minds have been changed again. Or the people whose minds were changed are not strong enough to stand up for these beliefs. It's been hard, yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  So, the way that I, I mean, the only way to successfully design a solution is to effectively diagnose the problem. I think that that is part of the problem. At least the mood of like, it's not just that things are happening that I don't agree with politically. Like, there's something that's like underfoot that is truly making me depressed. And I think for me, that's a big part of it.

• 14:35Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. You think there's, do you think that there are advantages to clearing the air?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  What we are seeing so much negative reaction to is the idea that the US is not a white, Christian country that favors men, heterosexual men.

• 14:51Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Right? Like, that, we are stepping away from that norm. The Brookings Institute, using census data,

• 15:00Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  projects that by 2045, so within 20 years, Americans will be less than 50% white.

• 15:09Robin Rauzi?

  There's not like there will be another majority group, but we'll just be all.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  We'll be a plurality.

• 15:13Robin Rauzi?

  We'll be a plurality.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Let me just put some perspective on the backlash, not backlash, that's cheap, with some of what we're going through right now.

• 15:23Robin Rauzi?

  I think the magnitude of change.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  The magnitude of change.

• 15:27Robin Rauzi?

  That is always surprising to me.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Let's do like a little back in time test, as I like to call it. Okay, so if you think of the generation that was born before the boomers, they're sometimes called the silent generation or the war baby generation, but they were born before 1946. Okay, when they were in their twenties, 84% of them were white.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  When boomers were in their twenties, 75% of them were white. When exers were in their twenties, 62% of them were white. When millennials were in their twenties, 56% of them were white.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  So that is a massive drop off.

• 16:10Robin Rauzi?

  Demographic change, yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  That's a massive demographic change. And the Gen Z'ers are even less. So I don't have the same comparable statistics because they're in their twenties now, but it is a massive drop off in the share of the population that is white.

• 16:25Robin Rauzi?

  So we shouldn't necessarily be surprised that people feel that.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So in 2025, in a Gallup poll, roughly 9% of Americans identified as other than heterosexual. So they either identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual. It was 9%. Even in 2012, it was less than half that.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  So it's not that, it's not obviously that they weren't there, but to even identify in a poll as LGBTQIA+ that was less than 5% even 15 years ago, would say that in a poll. And now it's up to 9% and has been rising pretty steadily. The generations that came before us, there was absolutely no recognition or acknowledgement that LGBTQ people existed. Most generations were 80 to 90% white. Black people had almost no rights and we hadn't seen major waves of immigration that we were going to see in the eighties. So I kind of think like if you were to go back in time to 1980 and say, here's what's going to happen.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  How do you think this is gonna go?

• 17:38Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Like, I think reasonably you would think, "Well, it's probably gonna get bad before, it's gonna get worse before it gets better." Like, something, some type of clash that is negative and ugly has to come from so much change within a population. And I think that's what we're going through. I mean, I, I know that it's, it can seem like we're going backwards, but I think that this is just part of moving forwards, is to, to, you know, clear the air, or, you know, stop pretending anymore. I think this is part of moving forward. That's not to say that what's happening is good, or that it had to be ugly, but I think, maybe all I'm trying to say is, just because it's getting bad, doesn't mean we're going

• 18:20Speaker 01

  backward, because sometimes to move forward, you do have to clear the air. You do have to get out the ugly thoughts and the nastiness, and that's, that is part of moving forward.

• 18:29Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Now, I will say, added wrinkle to all of this change is that it's happening in America, which is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world. So that's, it's hard mode, for sure.

• 18:42Robin Rauzi?

  You wouldn't necessarily know that from, but it's, yeah, it's true.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  So there's a study that came out in the early 2000s called "The Fractionalization" of like, how do you measure diversity within a country? How do we do this across countries? So the idea was, you come up with a statistical measurement. If you were to randomly pick two people from the country, what is the likelihood that they are of like, different ethnicities, different religions, or different languages? And you can stack up all the countries.

• 19:10Robin Rauzi?

  So this is like, a way to like, look at diversity across countries?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:15Robin Rauzi?

  Like, an index? It's a diversity index?

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Yes. They have a pretty good accounting of it. It was published and maintained at Harvard with another professor at NYU, and then, actually, the Wikipedia page is the one that they direct you to, of like, this is the easiest way to play around with the data. It's from the early 2000s, but other than South Africa, the US was the most religiously diverse country. And it was very religiously diverse.

• 19:38Robin Rauzi?

  And does that include different denominations of Christianity?

• 19:43Speaker 01

  My understanding is yes.

• 19:44Robin Rauzi?

  Like if a Southern Baptist meets a Presbyterian?

• 19:47Speaker 01

  That's different for me. I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that it was different sects within Christianity.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  So then, in terms of ethnicity, the US is more diverse than any other industrialized country, except for Canada.

• 20:06Robin Rauzi?

  Canada is more diverse than the United States.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 20:09Robin Rauzi?

  Huh.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  They have a larger Asian and indigenous population, as a share of the population.

• 20:15Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I can believe that.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yes. And they have, they have very large immigrant populations, just like we do. But they're also, I mean, think about Canada, not a very populous country.

• 20:27Robin Rauzi?

  No, it's about the size of California, I think.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's, it's a smaller country and it has large diverse populations. So Canada is more ethnically diverse than us, but of the kind of like Western industrialized world, it's Canada and then us. But, yeah, I mean, we, we, we are a place undergoing pretty incredible demographic and cultural change. And we're doing it to a degree that almost none of our peers have seen anything like in combination.

• 20:58Robin Rauzi?

  And this makes you optimistic?

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we're, it's, it's a pretty incredible demographic transition. It's a pretty incredible kind of existing mix of diversity. And we're doing it in a place that, oh, how to say this without sounding offensive? Doesn't have like an anchoring gene. We occupy a geography, like we are in America. When you ask people what they are, they'll tell you like, oh, I'm part Irish, or I'm part French, or I'm part, you know, German. Like they, no one says like, oh yeah, I'm part American, because that doesn't really mean anything. Because, yeah, we're all visitors here. We all arrived here, descended from people who arrived here.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Or we're one of the, you know, indigenous tribes here, but you can't lump them together because there's more than 500 indigenous tribes in the US. Like I, I think that the, the, the mix of, there's no de facto genetic combination that would make one person more American than somebody else. Because there's no like version of that that's considered the most American. Like we all come from different places. Like, what does it mean to be like, to go back generations? Like, if you go back and you're French and you go, you're always French and everyone is French and you can come up with like a more French or less French person based by like their degree of Frenchness, like, what does that mean in America?

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Most of us barely know, like, what our grandfathers or great-grandfathers did. Okay, actually, perfect story. I went to a wedding in Italy. My Italian friend was getting married. This is like such a win in life to both know an Italian while they're getting married and get to go to Italy for a wedding. And it's at a castle.

• 22:38Robin Rauzi?

  Have fun.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  In this village near where his family has had a home for a long time. We get there a day before everybody else, so we spend the night in the castle. And there's a guy, Gio von Giorgio, who is the caretaker. Like, this is his family's castle that he has inherited and they run as a wedding venue now. And so at one point, he's giving us a tour of the castle and he stops in front of this absolutely amazing tapestry. He was like, so this is my family tree. It starts in the 1100s and like it's two branches, one from Italy, one from France. You can see the branches come together. And then, you know, up here at the top is a later generations. And I was like, oh, where are you? And he's like, he laughed. He's like, I'm not on here. This stops in 1850.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  And my husband and I were like, it stops in 1850? I don't think any American can reasonably say they know what their family was doing in 1850 because everybody came here and lied about it. He thought that that was hilarious. He's like, well, what was, how far back can you trace your family? I'm like, reasonably? I don't know, three, four generations, five tops, but like maybe into the 1860s. But even then, it's like real, real speculative if any of this is true. Because everybody came here to remake themselves and lie about where they came from. Like, have you ever read a Dickens novel? If someone falls from grace, they end up in America or Australia. He thought that that was the craziest thing he's ever seen, but I thought his family tree was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I was like, this is, what the hell?

• 24:05Speaker 01

  How do you know your family all the way back to the 1100s?

• 24:07Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Anyway, so I, I think that it's a lot of change to happen in a place whose national identity is not fixed by some kind of gene.

• 24:18Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  That means it's like you're fighting for space of like what makes American. It's like open ground. We can all claim it. I think that's part of what we're going through right now is through this incredibly... Just wild moments in US history that is very hard to live through.

• 24:34Robin Rauzi?

  I mean, you know, if you grow up believing that the United States is not about a biological identity of any kind, but that it is an agreement about a system of governance. I mean, I think that that make, it's just that that feels very vulnerable to argumentation. Where, you know, if you're French, you're French and nobody gets to argue with you. I mean, granted, the French are having their own arguments. I do not mean to diminish that, but if your whole country is built on an idea and then you've got a lot of people saying that idea isn't valid anymore, that's the moment I feel like we're in and that's what makes me anxious and it's what makes me spend, spend weekends doing things to distract myself from the news. Like it's just, it's a lot to take.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  It's a lot to take and I wouldn't want to minimize your feelings. I do think that in some ways, I find comfort in thinking that the problem is so much bigger than just one [BLEEP] hole on Pennsylvania Avenue. Like it's, this is an era of American history of like really big change. That's not going to be conflict free. And it kind of like robs him of agency and influence to be like, ah, whatever. You're like a byproduct of the times. Like, okay, you're not special. You're not influential. You're just riding high on a wave that was there, but latent and like bully for you, you did it, but it's not, I don't really think of him as being a catalyst for change, which would make me really depressed if I actually thought he was a catalyst for change.

• 26:00Robin Rauzi?

  Right.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  I think he's more of like a tool.

• 26:02Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I mean, I just feel like a lot of things are changing and not necessarily all for the better.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Oh, no, [BLEEP] is getting terrible, but I think.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  I'm not, I'm not, okay, come on. Let's remember that we have a very particular brand of optimism here, but like, yeah, shit's getting terrible and like, that's bad, but don't empower the people who have that narrative with more than they deserve. They don't deserve that much. This is a [BLEEP] generational transition of America, American identity, what is acceptable in America, what it means to be an American, that we're in a massive generational conflict as we turn from like one moment in time to another. And he's like, yeah, I did that. I'm like, the [BLEEP] you did, come on, we did it to ourselves. We're doing our best. I just, I wouldn't want to empower him with influence he doesn't deserve.

• 26:50Robin Rauzi?

  Well, I mean, and I guess what you're saying, whether or not I believe it is that it's all kind of still up for grabs, too. Like, it's not like we've turned this corner and we can't go back or take a different direction.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  This is exactly what I mean. We're not at the end of the book.

• 27:04Robin Rauzi?

  Hmm.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Chapters left.

• 27:06Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  And if we're optimistic, we fight for things that we want, as some of us are.

• 27:14Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Okay, so my first attempt at optimism is, there's a lot of [BLEEP] going on, but we aren't done yet. And if we fall into cynicism, we have more to lose than if we keep fighting. Like, don't give up on your country coming back to something that you recognize, you know, like...

• 27:35Robin Rauzi?

  Sure, sure.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  I'm not saying you have to have a barbecue. I understand, but, like, don't give up.

• 27:41Robin Rauzi?

  I'm not opposed to barbecues. And, yeah, and I can get on board with that. I mean, I actually have a lot of friends who have moved overseas, and I have been asked multiple times, like, have we thought about moving out of the country? You know, and my patriot wife, I don't think she would allow it. It's our experiment, and we do feel committed to seeing it through.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. That felt like, that felt like I was like, maybe a third of the way there. But that also felt like maybe that's what you thought before, and I haven't convinced you of anything. So let's keep going.

• 28:14Robin Rauzi?

  Okay, right. All right.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  The other thing I wanted to say was, I do think a lot of pessimism that people have about America rests on how bad Congress is.

• 28:25Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, right now.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yes, and the feeling that Congress is incredibly weak, that they don't listen to the American people, that they're in the pockets of rich people, and that if our whole system of representative government rests on power answering to the people through elections, like, Jesus, is a really hard moment to feel confident in that check on power.

• 28:49Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  I almost think I articulated that too well. I'm starting to be like, ooh, God, that is rough.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  That is rough. I'm just gonna tell you right now, that's rough.

• 29:00Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I mean, especially the House. I mean, you just feel like the House was supposed to be our voice. One of the things I was struck by, I can't remember, not that long ago, but I hadn't really taken on board is if a member of Congress steps down, or is pushed out, or dies, you can't appoint a replacement. Like, within a senator, the governor gets to appoint a replacement. Members of Congress have to be elected by the people. They have to have a special election. And they're supposed to be the closest to us in terms of representing us. And, you know, I think as the country gets bigger and bigger, and districts have more and more people, you know, maybe Congress isn't big enough, but it also just seems completely dysfunctional. And, in fact, not only do they not really

• 29:45Robin Rauzi?

  want to represent, not everybody, but they don't want to represent their constituents, they take pride in being like, "I'm an individual, and I stick with what I believe, and I do my thing." And you're like, "No, that's not your job. That's not your job."

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, perhaps it would make you feel comfort to know that Congress's approval rating is in the teens, so like, a lot of America agrees.

• 30:09Robin Rauzi?

  Yes, right. I'm not alone in this.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say it would be worse if like, this is what was going on, and their approval rating was in like, the high 70s, and it'd be like, "My god. Like, what is happening?" I mean, there's a general dissatisfaction with so many branches of government right now. I think that that, like, okay, it doesn't feel great, but at least, at least other people agree, this [bleep] is messed up. So, that's, I mean, again...

• 30:34Robin Rauzi?

  Small wins.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Small wins. Take the wins where you can find them. I mean, I think a lot of people benefit from America being told that we're in incredibly divided time. Parties have never been so divided. And yet, you will see these polls that are like... 80% of Americans want a higher minimum wage. 80% of Americans want paid family and medical leave. 80% of Americans want corporate money out of politics. 90% of Americans want social security, have taxes raised, so they don't have to cut benefits. I mean, Americans are actually much farther along and united than their Congress is. And I think I go back to what we talked about in the Progress is a Long Game episode of, it takes a long time for Congress to catch up to the people despite being what should be the people's house. Like, you can feel that they are just totally disconnected from the people.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  And Americans have moved on. Like, they're tired of [BLEEP] costing so much. They're tired of how obvious rich people's influencing politics are. They're tired of the redistricting. They just want Congress to find solutions to problems that are plaguing them. And everybody in there is like a million years old and not doing it.

• 31:38Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I feel like it's a game to them. I feel like the arguments in the Supreme Court in particular, like, it's just a game. How can I rig this argument so that I get what I want and make it a constitutional issue? Congress is sort of the same way. It's like, who can I influence? Who can I convince to vote for this thing? Or just to not take any action? I mean, I think that's probably the biggest thing, is just, just make sure they don't do anything. Large corporations, et cetera, just continue to do what they're doing, because nobody will rein them in.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Nobody will rein them in. Yeah, I, I was reminded of this political scientist interview I watched about the Equal Rights Amendment. And, you know, the ERA, I think the way a lot of people internalize it is, like, the height of third-wave feminism is that they were going to get an Equal Rights Amendment, but it was so radical, it was defeated by the states. But what really happened was that it was overwhelmingly bipartisan, passed the House, passed the Senate, almost no one voted against it. And the defeat of the ERA came really in the final moments before it was ratified as a constitutional amendment, that basically...

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Politicians realized they had more to gain if it was an issue that they could use to win elections rather than a problem to be solved.

• 32:59Robin Rauzi?

  Witness immigration in 2024.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yes, it's that, why would we have-

• 33:04Robin Rauzi?

  We had a bipartisan bill to reform immigration and threw it away because-

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Trump told them to.

• 33:09Robin Rauzi?

  It was a better issue to run on than it was to solve.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yes, so for y'all who might not know this, in the last year of Biden's presidency, there was a bipartisan Senate-led effort to pass sweeping immigration reform and the bill was sunk because then candidate Trump said, "Don't pass immigration reform because then I can't run on immigration."

• 33:32Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, and that's just a way to make sure you never solve any problems.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Okay, so I feel like we're getting pretty far in the problem diagnosis stage.

• 33:44Robin Rauzi?

  That's, okay, alright.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Okay, but I will say like, this is obvious. Like, I don't think you and I are like, high-level political scientists. Like, it is so obvious that people are disgusted with Congress because they are bad at their job. And they're bad at their job because being bad at their job gets people angry and getting people angry wins elections and we're in some kind of like doom loop of not solving problems.

• 34:05Robin Rauzi?

  Bad, exactly.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Like, as problems don't get solved and people get more and more pissed off, then you just get angry at people that don't look like you and be like, "Actually, it's their fault for being an immigrant or being black or being gay or whatever." Like, I feel like we're like looking up at the doom loop going around us being like, "Bleep, this is, this is tough."

• 34:27Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  So, I'm not saying that I'm happy about the doom loop.

• 34:33Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 34:35Robin Rauzi?

  No one's optimistic about the doom loop.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Except that it has a very, I mean, if not easy, obvious solution, which is vote in different people. Like, I know that sounds naive to say like, oh, and we just have to vote for other people. But on some level, like, we ultimately do hold the cards. We elect awful people. The mechanism is there. I guess is something that I feel good about, that we have elections. Like, if you don't like something, like, vote them out.

• 35:04Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah. And I think that that also means, frankly, I think it means challenging people in your own party. I would love to see additional parties personally. But the incumbency, if you're not solving problems, then kind of get out of the way for somebody who will.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yes. I could not agree more. The optimist party, let's just solve some [BLEEP]. Don't look at me, don't talk to me, don't come up and greet me in the subway or I'll run away. We're here to solve problems. I really love American history, and I think in American history, it's very hard to claim that this is the worst it's ever been. Like, I don't think we're anywhere near the, it's like, not great moments, but like, we're not like, I don't know if we're really scratched the top five worst moments for democracy in US history. I don't know, maybe, maybe you would disagree.

• 35:52Robin Rauzi?

  I don't know, I was actually, when I was trying to count, I was like, well, you know, like, are we? I think what I find troubling is that when you're in moments where the humanity of your fellow Americans is questioned, whether those people, it's because they are black, or because they are gay, or because they are trans, or because they are immigrants. That's just always feels really high stakes to me, because that's the kind of thinking that leads to really bad stuff. It leads to wars, it leads to genocides, it leads to internment camps. And some would say, we're, we're seeing those things, right? It's hard to compare things to say, the Civil War, or frankly, the war against the Indians.

• 36:36Robin Rauzi?

  I mean, there's like horrible things, like, the [INAUDIBLE].

• 36:39Speaker 01

  So the election of 1876, that one's like, that's a real bad one, in terms of like, low moments of US history. Which one's the Great Compromise, 24, 1824? That was another terrible one. Yeah, whole Civil War, that whole period. Anyway, listeners must like this a little bit if they actually listen to us, but I, I think that I, like, we know the path out.

• 37:05Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  We just, I think... The people's agenda, more than 75% of Americans want this agenda, is a really good agenda.

• 37:16Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  And the inability of Congress to function, the way that elections are threatened, all of it has solutions, you know, and we have in hand what people want. I think what's interesting to me is that this latest kind of wave of affordability, and this word that has become inescapable in our society and economy. What I think is really interesting about it is that it's a majority issue.

• 37:46Robin Rauzi?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  It's not that childcare is unaffordable, which is, or that parenting is hard. Everybody has put themselves under the umbrella of affordability. And they have their version of it of like, here is what is breaking me. Not like, I'm a housing person, I'm a student loan person, I'm a childcare person. Like, it's just the notion that it's...

• 38:09Robin Rauzi?

  Well, it's this notion that the economy is not functioning for American people, right?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  But it's funny, the word to me, unaffordable, the way that people describe it, it's really unsustainable. It's not that I can't have certain things, it's that I can't keep going like this. There's a total unsustainability to my basic economic life. And I think that it is mirroring the unsustainability of the terrible policy regime we have right now. Like, this is crashing into something. I don't know what it is. But the idea that like, the basic political motivation of Americans right now is to express how unsustainable their life feels has to usher in some kind of change.

• 38:49Robin Rauzi?

  Right. We hope.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  We hope. Okay, and let's do a quick check-in. Robin, are you feeling any more optimistic about the US? I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve. But how are you feeling?

• 38:59Robin Rauzi?

  Well, I mean, you know, it makes me optimistic that there are people like you, and others. I know there are others who are...

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Dozens of us.

• 39:07Robin Rauzi?

  Dozens of us, dozens of you, who can see beyond the [BLEEP] and sort of not get dragged into the...

• 39:17Robin Rauzi?

  Meyer of what it just feels like is endless setbacks. So, I mean, I think that helps. But I, you know, I'm sure I'm not the only one who just feels like we are just holding on until the midterms by our fingernails.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Don't put too, I always say, but let's not put too much of our self-worth on the midterms, though. Like, be prepared for the midterms to be slightly disappointing. Getting a note from production, Sophie's worried about gerrymandering and SCOTUS. I think this is a very valid concern. But to be fair, that makes it harder to win an election. But that doesn't mean it's, they haven't determined the outcome of the election, right? They're trying to cook the books in their favor, but that doesn't mean that it's like the election doesn't happen, or we don't get the chance to vote anymore. And I know that there's attacks on every aspect of voting, and I'm trying to minimize them. But the reason why they're attacking voting, y'all, they're playing their [bleep] hand.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  They know what their weakness is, which is that the American people need to approve what they do.

• 40:20Robin Rauzi?

  People don't actually want what they're selling.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  And people don't want it. Like, people don't want what they're selling. Like, y'all, they are telling us that they're wrong. They're telling us that they're weak. They're telling us that they stand on unstable ground. They're telling us that they are trying to co-opt America, and America is not on board. So don't let them think that we're on board. So, yes, that means we have to win bigger to overcome every obstacle they've put in our way. But they're only putting up those obstacles because they know that otherwise they're lose, which means they're close, we are closer than they are willing to admit out loud because they're showing it with their actions. So don't [bleep] give up. Like, that is what they want. They want you to feel defeated and give up. Sophie, if Donald Trump could do one thing right now, it would be to say, Sophie, your vote doesn't matter, Illinois, Chicago, garbage country. Don't, don't vote, Sophie.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Like, he doesn't want you to vote. Yeah, Sophie, I control SCOTUS, so you don't matter. Don't think about it, Sophie, just stay home, okay? Like, he does not want a resident of Chicago to vote and put up huge numbers in Illinois. Sophie, don't give in to the man.

• 41:21Robin Rauzi?

  I don't think I've ever heard you do the president's voice before. That's...

• 41:25Speaker 01

  I actually am just doing the guy from SNL.

• 41:29Robin Rauzi?

  You sound a lot like, you could be on SNL.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Uh, Chicago, city, no good. Sophie, stay at home. Don't vote that day, probably get shot on the way. Very violent. Yeah, so we just don't.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  You guys, just play Trump's voice in your head telling you, "Give up and don't vote." That's all the motivation you need to be like, "And you know what? I'm actually gonna throw two July 4th parties."

• 41:58Robin Rauzi?

  Well, Catherine tells the party starts on the 2nd and it just keeps going.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  It does. But like, yeah, y'all like, just imagine his voice in your head saying like, "I'm so glad you've given up." I'm gonna do a real quick, like, rundown of some things to keep in mind about America.

• 42:15Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Okay, ready?

• 42:16Robin Rauzi?

  Sure.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  We're [bleep] awesome. We have the greatest city in the history of the world, which is New York City. You can't match it. You can't, you can try, you'd be like, "I don't know, Paris is nice." Like, okay, 1700s aristocrat, I'm sure it's lovely. I am talking about New York City and the 21st century is amazing. And if you don't believe me, watch videos of the Knicks winning and people celebrating on the streets.

• 42:43Robin Rauzi?

  You cried, didn't you?

• 42:44Speaker 01

  I did, I cried, I arrived in New York the next day and it was like, arriving to an entire city that had just had the largest Thanksgiving dinner of their life. Like, people were subdued and full, just kind of like, calm. I mean, alright, so we, so, let's just review. Our country is awesome. We have the greatest city in the world.

• 43:03Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Other things great about America, we make the best music and movies, which like, going two for two is, like, going one, two on music and movies is amazing, because it's such a dominant culture of the world. We invented the high five. How's that? How's that? Americans? That's us. Reaching out a hand and just waving it in the air. And someone slaps it back? That is America, it was created in Dodger Stadium.

• 43:30Robin Rauzi?

  Yes, that does sound like a Dodger Stadium thing.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  There are many origin stories of the first high five, but the two most documented candidates are October 2nd, 1977, at Dodger Stadium, when LA Dodgers outfielder Dusty Baker hit his 30th homerun of the season and as he crossed home plate, his teammate, rookie Glenn Burke, raised his hand in the air and Baker reached up to slap it. Oh, that was from Wikipedia.

• 43:53Robin Rauzi?

  We didn't have a high five before 1977.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  I know. Think about it. We didn't have a high five at the bicentennial. How did people celebrate our 200th birthday?

• 44:02Robin Rauzi?

  What people do.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  They couldn't high five each other. I don't know. Did they just put elbows up? Hug?

• 44:08Robin Rauzi?

  Well, I guess, you know, there was a time before a fist bump, so I guess there was a time before high fives.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  I didn't know the high five was an American thing until I was in Europe and I met a British guy, who is a listener of the show, and if you're listening, hello. And he, he made this joke. He was like, oh, really? Was it awesome? Do you want to high five now? And I was like, yes, I feel so seen. And he was like, that's such an Ameri- I was like 21 and I was like, oh, is it an American thing to high five? And he said, yes. And I was like, but that's so sad for you.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  It's like a pure expression of joy. Why wouldn't you embrace that?

• 44:52Robin Rauzi?

  Yeah, I'm gonna watch the World Cup differently, I think now. I'm gonna be watching for high fives.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, the World Cup's the greatest test of how many high fives there are, but a high five is, yeah, invented on an American baseball field.

• 45:05Robin Rauzi?

  In Los Angeles.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  I, I feel people who aren't enthusiastic about the US right now, but we come from an awesome, difficult place. And sometimes it's more awesome and sometimes it's more difficult, but it's always a little bit of both. And, like, it's not his [BLEEP] holiday, it's our holiday. Like, this is an expression of us as a people. And so I think if you want to have a, like, bedazzled red, white and blue July 4th, if you want to spend July 4th inside watching Independence Day, as I often do, if you-

• 45:42Robin Rauzi?

  The Alien movie?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I've actually staged it, so I'll watch, like, the part that takes place on July 2nd, on July 2nd, and I'll watch July 3rd on July 3rd, and then I'll watch July 4th on July 4th. We throw a huge July 4th party every year, and I will put Independence Day on and just have it play on repeat during the party.

• 46:02Robin Rauzi?

  Have you seen Hamilton?

• 46:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:05Robin Rauzi?

  Because you're not a musicals person. I don't know what's wrong with you.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Don't say, I just, like, really, like, I feel like we just lost a lot of listeners. Not a musical person. Who the [__] is this girl?

• 46:16Robin Rauzi?

  I think that that would change for you if you saw Hamilton, like live.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  You sound like my sister six years ago, like, just like, just shoving that soundtrack down my throat, saying, I need to listen to it.

• 46:27Robin Rauzi?

  This is a musical made for you. I don't know why you, you have not gone.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Okay, so just a note to the optimist, production has just interrupted the recording to make sure that it's clear to me that I need to go see Hamilton. Okay, so stay with me.

• 46:42Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Musicals.

• 46:43Robin Rauzi?

  Also American.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, also American. There's a couple of forms of art that we have invented, other than just musical genres. I didn't realize this. We invented the short story.

• 46:52Robin Rauzi?

  Hmm.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Because we had literary magazines.

• 46:55Robin Rauzi?

  Hmm.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  And we weren't the only ones that did it, but it was the demand for short story was in periodicals in the US. So.

• 47:02Robin Rauzi?

  Okay.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  You know, not bad.

• 47:04Robin Rauzi?

  Not bad. We are storytellers overall, is what I'm getting out of this, which attracts.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Attracts.

• 47:11Robin Rauzi?

  I mean, we tell stories about ourselves to ourselves all the time.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  And here's the story that I'm telling for optimists. There is no act of resistance greater than people deciding they get to determine what America is. They get to determine what it means to be American and who gets to be American and one person being more American than other than to celebrate your country in their face of like, you know what? You think you love your country more than me and I don't matter. Like, I'll see you one and raise you another. Hold on. Points to flag.

• 47:45Robin Rauzi?

  Points to flag.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  And that's just my road flag. That doesn't count all the flags I have at home. This is the flag I took on the road to record in New York. I've always got a flag on me, baby. It's, it's, it's there. So that's, I think, it's not all I got. I just feel like we should stop letting me talk.

• 48:00Robin Rauzi?

  Okay. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. I get that you love America. I get it. I get it. And I am happy that America has you.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  I am happy that America has you because I actually don't think it would be a chill place if everybody was like me.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  I think, I think there's people who are like, I think this is what it means to be American is that you could be like me, but you could also be like you and be like, hey, I'm into it. I wish it were better, in a chill way. So I think that's also, I think it's, I think there's room for all of us.

• 48:37Robin Rauzi?

  One would hope that there's room for all of us here. All right, we're gonna take a little break. We'll be back in a second.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  So this is the end of the show where I, where I stop talking and we give executive orders.

• 48:53Robin Rauzi?

  So, in light of this episode, I was thinking about what I really would want out of a better America, and I decided, nonpartisan, independent congressional redistricting, done by commission, applying some really good algorithmic optimization so that our districts are compact and contiguous and have population equally distributed and just get rid of the gerrymandering. It's, it's maddening. My mother once said to me, I've elected five different congressmen and they're all still in Congress. And that's, was true, that they had been redistricted so many times. I'm not far behind her. Doesn't matter what state you're in, it's [bleep]. Anyway, that's my executive order.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  That's so good.

• 49:31Robin Rauzi?

  In the, in the rousy republic, that's what, that's what'll happen.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  God, the rousy, the rousy republic. Okay, maybe mine will be, there needs to be some type of official polling system, like it could be Gallup or Pew or whatever, but like once Americans are in like 80 plus percent of support for an issue, Congress has to like have hearings and develop legislation for it. Like you can't have this many people in support of something that's like, like, it's not like they're in support of like something crazy, like here, like give everybody a million dollars. It's like, we really just want paid family leave. Like this is such a reasonable want. I, I suppose my, that would be my like corollary, but my actual executive order is for every optimist to go out and enjoy July 4th however they choose to enjoy it.

• 50:18Robin Rauzi?

  Nice, nice.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  And if you just, and if you were like, I don't want to be very patriotic, just know I am more than making up for you, brother.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Did you just enjoy the holiday, whatever you want to enjoy the holiday?

• 50:31Robin Rauzi?

  Excellent.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  All right, spiritual sponsors.

• 50:34Robin Rauzi?

  Can you go first?

• 50:37Speaker 01

  My spiritual sponsor are the Knicks in five celebrations in New York City.

• 50:44Robin Rauzi?

  There have been roving gangs of Knicks fans in my neighborhood in Los Angeles, too. I had no idea there were so many New Yorkers in my neighborhood specifically.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  I mean, like, it's, I don't even think it's the Knicks in five, I mean, the Knicks four win that one. The, I mean, all of the celebrations for the finals have been great. I don't know if you saw, I think it was when they won game four, that Spike Lee was like, driving through the city like the Pope, just hanging out in the top of a car in Knicks gear, and people were surrounding him and like cheering him on as if the Pope, as like the pontiff himself is like going through Brooklyn at one o'clock on, on like a Friday night, but it's actually just Spike Lee after a Knicks win. I was like, what a ridiculous city.

• 51:31Robin Rauzi?

  Seriously.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  So, spiritual sponsor, I am, I am not a huge basketball fan. I would be loyal to the Rockets and soon to be Comets, obviously, but I just, that much celebrating, it was ridiculous. It like warmed my heart, so.

• 51:45Robin Rauzi?

  That's great. That's great. So my spiritual sponsor, I will be, this week in particular, I will be spending in Louisville, Kentucky. So my spiritual sponsor for the 250th anniversary of America is definitely going to be bourbon.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 51:58Robin Rauzi?

  Whatever bourbon they've got in Kentucky, and I understand they have a lot of it.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Let's do credits. The Optimist Economy Podcast is edited by Sophie Lamond. Our video production for social media is by Andy Robinson. We snap them out because they make this possible. And y'all, if this, this is another episode where like, if this sounds good, it's because they are [BLEEP] heroes. Anyway, t-shirts and tote bags are available on our website, but not hats, because you waited too long.

• 52:28Robin Rauzi?

  We'll have to order more hats.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Go to optimist economy dot com for more. Fulton Street subway guy, send me the photo at optimist dot economy at gmail dot com.

• 52:38Robin Rauzi?

  Video clips from our show are available on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. If you're on Substack, you can join our Optimist Economy chat there. And if you have the means to contribute, at whatever level is comfortable for you, we'll take your gift at optimist economy dot com.

• 53:03Robin Rauzi?

  Robin, give up, Robin.