America, Actually with Astead Herndon
America, Actually with Astead Herndon

America Post-Trump

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What does US politics look like when Donald Trump is no longer at the center of it? In 2028, voters will get to decide. But for now, we explore. This show was edited by Kasia Broussalian, fact-chec...

Transcript

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Political polarization has been rising for 40 years now right and at some poi...

can't get much worse and if it means it gets better but at some point there might be a

reaction to that. Is it possible to talk about U.S. politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm asking on the new show from box. The idea of like a post Trump for a lot of exactly Trump focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items.

It's really does feel so reactive. Trump's 2028, America is supposedly turning the page on the current president. So who do we want to be? And what are the people and ideas that will shape our post-Trump future?

That's what this podcast is about, going deeper on politics by taking Trump out of the

center and talking about politics as it relates to real life and culture and everything else. Culture-wise, is Timothy Shalime properly rated, overrated, or underrated? Oh God, now you're going to get me in trouble. So from Obama's tan suit to the mannals fear and everything in between, what shapes

who we are? I'm a stead-hurned-in and welcome to America, actually. To pump to have two people here who are going to help us look at politics beyond Donald Trump from an expert lens.

First we have Hunter Harris, culture writers, screenwriter, and just generally coolness

extraordinary. And also Nate Silver, statistician, datawiz, and someone who's going to help us think of the specific ways that the numbers are telling us, that the country's changing. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you.

Funny thing is I want to start with a story like a couple months ago, we were thinking about the show and what it can be the organizing premise, and I was like, you know, what

would be the thing that would make you most excited about a podcast?

And my first thought was, I want to be Trump free. I want to think about something that does not put him at the center, and I kind of think emotionally. I wanted to start thinking about kind of what are the seeds of who the country is beyond this guy in the middle.

And when I initially kind of pitched it, there was some question about whether that is even possible. We can even see this political moment without a foregrounding Donald Trump. So I kind of wanted to use you all as our first real-life focus group about that premise. What do you think?

Like, when we think about the politics that does not center Donald Trump, is that possible? I mean, he is a president. Look, as we gain more perspective on the Trump era, maybe he seems as much of a symptom, as it caused in some ways, right? The Republican Party kind of built a coalition that

was maybe always a little bit unstable.

And people like me, like famously in 2016, 2015, I was like, yeah, we know how this works. You have the Rick Santorums, you have the Michelle Bachmans, the people that rise up,

and the flavor of the day, and then they dissipate when the electric gets serious, right?

And so like, you know, not realizing how much Republicans felt like, promises have been broken by the Bush era, how one popular things, the Romney Ryan welfare state was, but also like, obviously, the political potency of populism, of xenophobia, of racism. Yeah, I mean, what about the question of his Trump asymptome of a broken system, or the calls of breaking that system?

It feels like we've been in living in that question for a while. Like, do you think, culturally at this point, you feel like you know a clear answer to that? I don't know. I think that's hard. I mean, I've kind of been working through this thesis for the past couple of months

that like, the only model culture that like truly exists right now is Trump, and is like the sort of Trump-based reaction to pop culture, where he, I think is much more concerned by what the media is saying about him, you know, making these kind of like crazy over the top, like press conferences, and like, honestly, being a drama queen, I really do think that like Trump somehow ended up in the White House and not like on a bravo reality show,

like you're a bit of classic, like, Roni Housewife, and I say that, you know, with some respects. But I think that really shows in how he's sort of, I mean, I think the idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items.

It's really does feel like so reactive. Yeah, I'm like, in one way that monoculture feels real in the way he hogs attention, but it doesn't feel like the actual outcomes are dictated by some clear vision or some clear set of steps he's going through, more so than this kind of haphazardy nature. If we were to think about the individuals who are most likely to chart our post-Trump

future, who would come to mind, let me throw out the obvious names, out throw out the likely presidential candidates, people like Gavin Newsome or JD Vance, I would throw out prospective ones like former vice president Kamal Harris or even AOC as a person who obviously

Folks are thinking about that we get those names out of the way, like who are...

who you think might be some of the clues about the direction of power in our post-Trump

world. I mean, look, I didn't think the person that said the biggest rise to political fame were the past year is the mayor of New York, sir, and I'm done and like I'm aware that I'm in New Yorker, some probably biased, but like as something that was like very fresh and different, yeah, I think, right, I got through, but also a kind of pragmatic

streak, right, when you're in Mayor New York City, most of the she dealing with is like there's a blizzard or there's a budget crisis, yeah, trash collection, and he seems to be fairly popular and there's a big debate on a left in particular about how much an electoral penalty there is for being on the left is opposed to centrist or moderate, right,

you know, and something's what you want, if you want to push things to the left is you

want somebody who comes across as being reasonable and moderate, even though they actually

are kind of pushing things and resting behind the scenes, right, like in some ways Kamal Harris

was like the opposite of that, right, the centrist, all think she was way too liberal, the liberals, all think she was a centrist on gossip and stuff, right, and like that's just a matter of maybe not having maybe it's a skill thing, maybe there's like not all that much raw political talent there, even though in some way she ran a bit her campaign then I thought she might, but Moundani has a lot of political talent and kind of a proof

of concept that I don't know you're seeing elsewhere, I mean, on the GOP side, we'll talk, I don't know, right, it seems like I don't quite get the JD Vance appeal very much at all, right, he only won one election before becoming Vice President, he won by a relatively narrow margin in Ohio, which is now a quite red stain, right, you know, Rubio, you could see in that mix, you know, I think this around thing is also going to cause a big split

in the GOP, so far it doesn't among like people who say their manga voters are still with Trump, but like Tucker Carlson and I'm making, I have trouble keeping track of all these people, right, but like for the first time, and this is a reason why it's appropriate to maybe have a post-tripe podcast, right, for the first time, you see on a major issue, I hope in opposition from the start of this war, right, Hunter, is there someone who comes

to mind that you think could be a part of our charting our post-tripe future, or a group demographically or culturally that you think is driving the direction of what we care about right now?

I think so, right, I mean, that was going to be my answer to, and I think particularly

because, you know, maybe my own frustration with the Democratic Party is that they're just

so sort of bloated and slow to respond to culture and never kind of at the cutting edge

of anything, especially when we're having this like conversation about maybe respectability politics, the right is like kind of pushing past all of that, like it doesn't matter. Can you explain that for me, like, what do you mean by that? I think the left is too concerned with politeness, and the right is not, like Trump can say anything, JDVans can say anything, and that's sort of the appeal to some voters that

they like, that sort of candidness, and they like how it feels very kind of funny and casual, where the left is a little bit wonky, and feels a bit too, like, from, like, bird's eye view, and I think Zoron does this very well, or he feels casual, relatable online in some ways, and it's not just like the Jasmine Crocket, which didn't work for her, like kind of the clap-back sort of getting a viral moment, but then it's like, to

what in? Yeah.

And I think Zoron is really good at that.

I mean, even the photos of him in Trump and the White House, I was like, you, sorry, Trump is obsessed, Trump has found someone that he wants to impress. That is very difficult. No, no one on the right can, has gotten that, has earned that. I hear it, but Zoron point, do we think that that is a unique, that's because he is

articulating kind of where people are, or is it because he's younger, hotter, better looking, like, is some of this, like, just a question of the type of candidate that is in front of us? I think that's a little bit of both. I think that, yes, Zoron is young and charismatic and cool, but at the same time, I think

that his pushing past, getting secular, ideological battles with, you know, leftist and like, centrist, truly just to say, like, I'm running on one thing. That's affordability is maybe doing more for, done more for him than, you know, anything that comulated. Well, all right.

I want to ask about demographic groups, like, we are still in a changing country, like, I feel like we used to hear so much in 2016 and kind of 2017 about the changing demographics of America. And then all of a sudden, everybody ran to the other side and said, oh, just because the country is getting black and brown, or does not mean that we are in this inevitably liberal

direction. I think that's true. We've seen that, but those changes are still reshaping politics, they're still reshaping culture. Like, when we think about the ways America is changing from a hue perspective, from a makeup

perspective, what are the groups we should be looking at that, you know, might be growing in terms of political importance?

Yeah, look, these generational divides within the black community, within the...

community, within the Asian American community, which is always growing, is pretty important,

right? When we talk about generational divides, we talk in older 40, younger 40, like what's the what's the dividing line we usually see? 40s like a pretty good divide. Okay.

It's kind of like not quite Gen X. First millennial.

It goes kind of a few years into millennial, I think, you know, so I'm 48, right?

So my formative experiences are America wins the Cold War, and the Berlin Wall comes down. Mr. Goldfish off, tear down this war. And then we have September 11th, right? And the people who knock these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

Which yields a lot of conservatism, right? That's a great point. Let's stop you right there. How do you answer? Old enough.

I'm 31, I'm 31. Well, you're a formative political experience, like if we just take about that difference generationally, what would you say is like you're a defining political experience? Obama winning? Trump winning?

Um, yeah, Obama winning, Trump winning, Obama tan suit, that was the other big one for me.

But, we're thinking about basically the era after that.

Okay. Yeah. So if you live kind of, if you are my age up to a few years younger, right?

Like, the good guys win, right, Clinton's really centrist and he gets reelected, right?

Bush gets in trouble in his second term by going too far. And then, and then Obama wins, you know, like, this is like kind of the culmination, right? We elected, we finally elected a black guy and now, um, I'm not saying, I thought this I'm saying like, but like, now America, we fixed. Yeah, yeah.

We heard that all the time. I heard it all the time. We're in the post-racial America, like, you know, we did it, Joe. And then Trump comes down the escalator, Trump tower, right, and people like me were dismissive of it.

And so, yeah, I guess, you know, Francis Fukuyama, the Samford Historian, political scientists associate with the phrase, like, in the history. And now everything causes anxiety for everybody and in coming to all around the world, our unpopular and you wouldn't say we're trending towards stability, certainly. Yeah.

The last question I want to ask before we play a little game is Hunter, you know, I just going to see 2016 the 2024 is like an arc of political chapters, you know, like, I feel privileged to have kind of seen that change up close. But from first term to Trump to kind of his return, we certainly learn things that we'll never forget about.

It feels like some stuff has gotten fundamentally shifted or broken or reshaped in people's minds.

And they will never go back to that pre-escalator moment for Trump or that pre-moment

of him beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. I want to say, what are the lessons you think we've learned that stick and folks had from that time? Is there something that for you, you feel like, hey, they'll never convince me again because I learned some of this over the last eight years and it's fundamental to how I think

about politics now. Ooh, that's such a good question because I was seeing what this hit there day. It's like, you know, you can take any host of issues in 2016 that should have stopped Trump and none of them did because he was just momentum. And I think that's maybe the biggest lesson I've learned is that if you simply just

keep talking, if you stay on stage, you can get through anything. And I don't think that was true in the Obama era. Even the scandalousness. The scandalousness. Yeah, that.

It's hard to believe in the Marxian for its stuff. It's like all of that felt like, you know, we were talking about that in the news for weeks. It felt like all of those political scandals of the day. And now it's like, okay, so that's maybe Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, but

then, you know, by Thursday, it's like Trump saying that the Japanese are sneaky. They love surprises. Like there's like some new sort of insane moment that's like gone viral. And I think that really, it's both a, you know, cultural thing, the internet moves so quickly and happens so fast.

But I think it's also really Trump has just brought that into the forefront of our minds. Yeah. Yeah. There is a way that the civility piece has an actual impact because I don't think the kind of nice guy finished first mindset of politics folks think anymore.

I think there is some level of grossness that I think he has helped build into the cost. I think that some others expect. Yeah. I don't think the, you know, and presidential candidates to have this like, I did

look like life anymore. I think that he's really brought this truly reality of TV sensibility to the White House and to like our, like, how we think about politics. Mm-hmm. All right.

Yeah. I'm going to play a game. And I got to say, like, I don't know how this is going to go up.

I believe in you, which is the most important part of our business.

We have three buckets, every magenta e-color bucket, a purple bucket, and a green bucket. And all three of these are going to represent different policy areas that we're going to focus on later in the show. And so the question I'm going to ask you all is to think through three different things, three different questions that you have that are not related to Donald Trump that are not

related to an individual about politics, but more so things that you want to ask about the country and put it in to one of the three buckets of issues that we're going to focus

On.

First, and this is going to be represented by our magenta bucket is America's role in

the world. So a question about foreign policy, a question about the growing war in Iran, America's relationship to Israel and Gaza.

I think that is something that comes up in a lot of conversations and it's going to be

represented by our foreign policy bucket. The second bucket we're going to have is affordability and kind of domestic issues. So if we think about things that I think are you're kind of traditional kitchen table, things we talk about in politics, let's Paul this, the kitchen table. And I'll put Econ and my handwriting is is getting worse, I think, by the year.

So I'm recognizing this in real time, but we're going to have this be the Econ affordability bucket. So kitchen table issues, if we think about you have a question about something that you think we're following to this bucket, we'll use that right here. And then the last one we're going to do is like societal cultural things.

The woke wars, if I could use that term, we'll put that one here, culture.

So that is going to be represented by our green bucket. So we have all three buckets, magenta, purple, and green. So I would love for you all to write down anything that you can think about that is a policy question and one of these buckets. And I'm going to do the same.

Well, this has become a game. Yeah, it seems like too much work. It's not like that. This is labor. No.

No. I think I'm doing work right now. When we come back from break, Hunter Nate and I will go through the policy questions that are in our buckets.

Hunter Harris, which bucket would you like to start with?

Um, society and culture. Okay, now we are opening our society and culture of bucket. And we are going to ask one question, how can we let this politician harness and capitalize the manos fear interesting. I feel like this speaks to the growing and changing media ecosystem, pointing the folks

like Rogan, the pod bros, tell us, Nate Silver, what did you mean by this question? That was me. Oh, my goodness. That was such gendered reading of hand, right? Oh, my goodness.

That was such gendered reading of hand, right? Hunter Harris, what do you mean by that question? I hope that stays in. Oh, my goodness. Um, that tweet was a big turning point in the most recent election.

Where Kamlo was not reaching young men, and I honestly don't know how when their entire politics is like misogyny. You know, it does feel as if the kind of growing and dependent ecosystem, the role of influencers are all becoming a bigger question in our form of politics. And that was obviously changing the way we communicate overall.

I feel like this relates to one of the things I put in the societal cultural bucket, which is the, I said male loneliness crisis, but I actually would say loneliness crisis in general. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly post-pandemic.

I feel like people are increasingly engaging with the world that they don't physically engage in and how that changes, community, the way that we see each other does feel like an important kind of who are we question going forward. Let me make sure I prefer I say this. Nate, this is yours.

Yeah. Um, Nate, you said it's culture change happening so fast that vibe shifts don't even last for a single presidency. What does that mean? It means that so one thing we observed around the world is that it's like no longer

really an advantage to be an incumbent. You get one term and then you're out. So to me, the 2024 election felt quite different than the 2020 election. Obviously, 2020 is during a pandemic.

There's lots of crazy things happening right there, right?

But like we were talking about the kind of rise and peak of whatever you want to call wokeness, right? But like, but it feels very different for five years out from that peak and like, you know, I just wonder, anytime you kind of like betting on a rising trend, we both have a lot of admiration for Zoran's political acumen, right?

Not trying to make an editorial statement, but like maybe somebody copycat's that and the

second version doesn't hit in the same way.

Yeah. You know what I mean? It feels too forced. It feels like actually, um, you know, look, if we're, if I'm planning articles for the newsletter, the first break I hit that you have is great, I'm particular topic, right?

The derivative of that often falls kind of flat, right? One of the things I put in there was the question of kind of media consolidation and just still trying to change in trust. It feels as if less than people trusting experts, they more so trust, someone who's their neighbor, someone who's on their timeline and much more individual recommendations rather

than kind of top down, uh, you know, how much do we think like the elite backlash in the air right now is driven through like that steam files? I mean, I guess I'm saying kind of thing culturally, how much do we think that this

Anti elite moment is driven by the facts or more so driven by, uh, a trend th...

nates point could change here or not?

I think it's more of a trend only because there's something about the Epstein files that

was such an important issue for Trump coming in to the White House that now he's backing away from it so much because it's like, wait, you are the elite, though, like you are the coastal elite that you're talking about. Um, and so I do think that in some ways, maybe the pendulum will swing back to, you know, I think the, like, the horse has left the stable when it comes to media literacy and like

thinking maybe critically about where you're consuming news from, but I do think that maybe in some ways wanting to be seen as intelligent and maybe more learned like might come back into fashion. Oh, from your lips to God's ear.

All right, let's open up some from our second bucket, which is a focus on kitchen table issues.

So think he more domestically, think he more affordability. The first is one that I wrote down, which was health care costs Medicare for all. It feels to me that one question we have is when people even mention things like affordability. What is the things that are driving, um, uh, you know, their pockets being crunch? And for me, it feels like health care would be a big question, uh, big delineation for

the next set of presidential candidates. With everything feels like it's more expensive. Why? You think? Don't ask me.

I mean, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like a part of me feels like, you know, it's McDonald's fought for no longer having the $1 make chicken, like, well, things ever feel not expensive again. There's a component to the way that now you go order McDonald's online, or whatever, or you go to the kiosk, right, and you like get your little upgrades and stuff like that.

So there's something about, like, the way that algorithmic models induce people to maybe spend more money than they were and create, you know, the economics term is, like a, you know, producer surplus. I mean, they capture the profit, right? Like, I'm not a Elizabeth Warren, oh, they're just being greedy, but like, people are getting

smarter that had to extract money at everything from poor customers to, to rich customers. Right. So people feel like they're not getting this excess value that they might have before.

But yeah, obviously health care costs is a nation ages and housing costs America's always

been obsessed with home ownership, right? And that's not, not a cheap thing. No. The second issue we pull out of this bucket is one that comes from Nate. It says, what happens if and when a lot of white collar workers fear that AI is going

to take their jobs?

I think that this is obviously a clear big question in the air.

It's kind of the future of work, particular to kind of white collar workers or folks who might be even more susceptible to the job displacement because of AI. Like, are we looking at a 2026 and 2028 races that will be thinking of economies that are fundamentally different than the ones we have now? People still have their basis for AI based on these hallucinating models you had a couple

of years ago. And I'm telling you, man, these things are pretty fucking smart, right? They're smart in a way that they weren't even six months ago and I'm like, okay, well, I did a better job. I haven't been like my accountant, right?

But like, that's probably as good as my accountant or my lawyer on this type of thing. Right? It's hard to use a accountant. Yeah. No.

Not at all. And trying to think. No, I really don't. Do you worry about getting left behind, the AI wave? No, AI is honest funny as I am.

Oh, I mean, look at my job. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, maybe, maybe Claude can write a newsletter about changes in pop culture. Does that scare you? Claude does not have my encyclopedic knowledge of Justin Bieber.

So. Actually. Yeah. Am I like, like, literally in Justin, actually, in your career, I'm like, if I take it all, you're these letters, it's like with music now, it's a tough thing.

I don't think so. Hey, too much, too much. I want to ask about an important topic. You brought up in this bucket, too.

What will be done to rain an entertainment monopolies mentioning Netflix and Paramount?

What do you think is the importance of that issue in terms of shaping our coming future? Well, let me say, this is my kitchen table where I'm like eating a big egg and cheese and watching something on Netflix. But I think that's scary. And I think the idea of, you know, the sort of top-down media ecosystem,

coming from two places, two families, basically, is quite frightening.

And also, you know, as a labor issue, all of these things, I think, are putting jobs at risk and in addition to AI in a separate way, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. There's a way that the media companies have been reading, like, you know, David Ellison

at Paramount say, you know, we're trying to serve Americans with our extreme left or extreme right. And, you know, I folks left to leave a mention that's that. You know, I don't think they acknowledge the bubble that the center can also be in. Or that increasing amount of Americans aren't thinking about their identities from left

and right in general. And they don't really place themselves on that sort of spectrum. So this is going to be our last bucket, the foreign policy in America's role in the world bucket. Hunter, you said what will be done about Drake before the age it.

I feel like hasn't something already been done? I mean, God. I don't know.

I don't know.

He's still coming back in.

I mean, you saw Jay Cole saying, people are being too mean to Drake. And like, sister, you've lost the battle.

Say, I'm like, I feel like that's what it's you.

That was handled. It bind into America was all regret. This was an issue that I brought up, which I do think is reshaping both parties. But was just a changing system in the round Israel. I do think that both, kind of, the question of where pro Israel Democrats are going, how

that's reshaping the right, particular to even the questions of intervention with the Iran war, feels like a big, changing question. Right? With some qualification. So one thing about the Middle East, people who are politically engaged and politically

informed, they tend to care a lot more about the Middle East than like the average person. Right. If you take a list of like, where do the top 20 issues and ask like a swing voter, Israel Gaza was like number 18 or something, right?

However, it may be the single most important issue for like Democratic primary voters, for

example, right? So it depends on where we're talking about for it's terms, for it's importance to show up electorally. Yeah. And you still have so public opinion toward Israel has substantially worsened, right?

It's still pretty divided nationally, but maybe that divide now occurs kind of within the Democratic party.

And I think that's going to complicate the primaries for Democrats, but also for Republicans,

right? It shouldn't be lost on people that Israel is the United States partner in this war on Iran, right? And that's leading to weird coalitions, right? I don't want to try to get into like Nick Fuentes's head, right?

But if you have issues with Israel, then you're going to have more issues with the Iran War, which is supposed to be a maga thing. And so yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we've certainly seen the Nick Fuentes Tucker Cross and Canada, so which I am for

it, use this as a wedge issue among the GOP, and particularly impact things for terms of primaries going forward. You mentioned is America's standing in the world declining, and what would the tangible effect be on American politics? How would you say that issue is similar related to what we're just about?

I mean, look, I've been on the view that like America had like a lot of wind and it's back from being like the global reserve currency and the global superpower that people tend to like tend to defer to. And our economy has grown at 2% per year instead of like 1% per year, like in France or something.

I'm like, that has cumulative effects. My question is like, does everything in American politics good worse if we no longer have that wind or back because we fucked it up, right? We fucked up our reputation internationally.

We have fucked up confidence in the U.S. dollar, right?

Again, talking dating myself to like this era where I came a political age, right? That was when America had seemed to to win, and we didn't have this so we union anymore, right? And now I don't know about that anymore, right? In terms of like the profound sense of like anxiety, I don't know how that effects

and national psyche. Yeah. I appreciate each of these issues for being kind of helpful guys for where we're going to go. But it's on to me that they're also kind of all sad.

Like they're also all like kind of do-mery, like kind of look at heads or things that could go wrong. I want to end on maybe asking a couple of things that aren't in those buckets overall. Is there something that makes you more hopeful or inspired looking forward to 2020-26-2028? There's something happening right now that you think is kind of cool or kind of interesting

or that gets you going. No. Is there a way that you want to celebrate? I mean like, truly take your pen. Yeah.

No, no. It's one thing is in gender and confidence in me right now. No. Is there anything that you look across the landscape and you say this makes me feel good? Oh, point to two good things, right?

One is that voter turnout used to really lag in America, right? And it's been higher lately, right? So there is political participation. Two is that for all the problems I expect AI to cause. There is some early evidence that like it actually pushes people more toward expert opinion

as compared with social media. Yeah. Claude and catchy PT and Gemini hallucinate people accuse them of being bias in different ways. You probably will get a better answer than you're getting on Twitter, right?

And it probably doesn't answer that represents a consensus of different opinions that it's crunched all the data, right, and stealing all our IP, right? And calibrated that IP to give you kind of like this answer that is fairly moderate in some ways. May like the theft of your work is actually going to good youth.

Absolutely. That's absolutely true. We'll return us to the letter. Yeah. Wow.

Okay. But I will say I think there is something in the way that the kind of last era has exposed the brokenness of the political system. I think directly, I think there's a way that people and voters have been empowered, have been kind of left with the system as bear because very clearly the unsatisfactions

to you. Very clearly structures and parties haven't worked in people's interests. And I feel that people's agency about that and people's motivation about that is a lot higher than 10 years ago when I was on the road starting to ask some of those questions.

I feel like they know more.

Yeah.

Everything goes in cycles, right?

So maybe there's a comeback for a civility. Like the line doesn't just keep going up, right? But some of this in a flexion point, a flattening out or a reversal and like political

polarization has been rising for 40 years now, right?

And at some point, I guess it can't get much worse.

I don't know if that means it gets better. But at some point there might be a reaction to that. Yeah. Yeah.

You all, thank you for joining us so much on our first episode of America, actually.

And thank you for also helping us think through the topics that are going to help save

us in the future. You all were both fine and we put you to work with such a thing. Thank you for doing. You're in place in the mail.

America actually will be in your feeds every Saturday with an interesting interview in

culture or politics. You can also watch these episodes on the Vox YouTube channel. Just go to youtube.com/vox or click the link in the show notes. This show was edited by Kosho Pusolian, fact checked by Esther Gim and mixed by Shannon Mahoney. Mixed with a sniper is our video editor and Koon Louie is our senior art director.

Our executive producer is Christina Valis and our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Additional support for Miranda Kennedy, David Tattishore and Nisha Chichal. I'm a stead-herndon and this is America Actual.

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