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Andrew Yang
I first found out about Rising after hearing Andrew Yang on the JRE and searching out other interviews of him. After watching that interview I got hooked on rising/breaking points/the realignment. I have also continued to follow Andrew Yang, but currently it seems like he is losing a bit of steam. What are your all's thoughts on what will happen with him and the Forward Party? What is your analysis of their performance during 2022, including elections and ballot initiatives?
Gaetz + AOC: a Millennial Realignment?
Long time listener, first time supercast subscriber. (Please feel free to edit my question if you read it on air). Like many listeners I was delightfully surprised to see the AOC + Gaetz alliance form to put forward a bill banning members of congress from trading stocks. My take on this is that legislation like this is what happens when millennials lead in Congress. Not just in subject matter and issues we care about but also the fact that younger members of Congress don’t have a half century worth of baggage that Boomers come to the table with. I’m reminded by Kinzinfer’s take on this when he said the following: : "Frankly, the baby boomers are stuck in their same fights over and over. They hate each other. They've hated each other for a long time. It's going to take the younger generation to change all of this. Hopefully, the baby boomers can keep this together until we take larger power." I often joke with my friends that if student loans and housing were Boomer specific issues, that we’d see a bi-partisan 100 trillion dollar spending package to build 100 million sfh and cancel every penny of student debt. So my question is: Is the political dysfunction in Washington mostly a result of just a bunch of dumb old Boomers holding on to their jobs 20 years longer than they should? What would you think would happen to Washington if we could snap our fingers and reduce the average age in Congress by 30 years?
Why does DOD leadership despise the rank and file?
14:42 – “The military is drawn from the American public but it’s not a broad section of the American public. I am sure you know, the recruiting figures are highest in rural new England, the south, [and] rural west. That is hardly a picture of America, and these troops come in carrying the biases and experiences of where they are raised. I can assure you that military leadership is deeply concerned about the polarization in American politics infecting the ranks. Whether its hard right extremism, racism, misogyny and that is a real concern…” 15:23 The quote above is precisely why recruiting problems are occurring for the US military. From this quote Thom Shanker associates the people from rural New England, the South, and rural West with deeply polarized politics, hard right extremism, racism, and misogyny. From this it is easy to surmise where Thom Shanker sits politically and how he sees the vast majority of enlisted service members. Why would anyone join an organization who despises them because of where they are from even though those very regions are the only places with a long legacy of serving. I am deeply ashamed to have been a service member because all I hear are people like Thom Shanker insinuate that people of my pedigree are any of the things he claims are problems of people from those regions. To all who are thinking about serving do so with great caution because you will be directly serving under people who have no respect for you, your families, or your communities.