Michael Shellenberger on Why California Is Such a Mess

0:01 so I'm working on a I'm really going to finish a Trilogy of books on civilization that starts with apocalypse never included in San Francisco and then the third book is called pathocracy and we just settled on the subtitle which is why Elites subvert civilization and it speaks to yeah so you're thinking about this I'm glad yeah it speaks to well there's so much going on just in those four words and um when you're doing a subtitle you're like what

0:28 is the book about that's what the subtitle is about and so I'm very interested in the ways in which the people that have benefited the most from civilization are also in the process and doing more than anybody else to undermine it and that means that the elites the people that benefit the most from civilization meaning the security and the prosperity and the status and the freedom that comes from being high on the totem pole I think the

0:54 first thing though is like because Elites are obviously in the conversation right now we've been doing a lot of our own reporting not we're certainly not the only ones I think it's a big conversation because the the the public does not feel that the elites represent them in a healthy Society in a civilization that's working you have inequality you have Elites but people are not mad at the elites people are mad at the elites the elites have failed in

1:18 so many ways even if you look at Europe the heads of state are very unpopular in Western democracies and so so you sort of get at why is that and what what makes them unpopular you know I mean so different directions we can go but I think the fact that we're interested in Elites shows that it's be it's in part because they're actually not doing their jobs well and it's not even that it's not a radical like there's a certainly a

1:42 socialist or a communist criticism of Elites which is that there shouldn't be any Elites I mean that's what Marx is saying that's what the Communists want is there no Elites we're not saying anything any that radical we're just saying they're not doing a good job and so when you look at the you know something like a third of the public approves of how universities the media and other Elite institutions are performing and that just tells you there's something

2:04 profoundly wrong with with our civilization a good friend of mine Mike Gibson has a book paper belt on fire where he talks about that that sort of collection the paper industrial complex from DC to Boston uh Pol politics media Academia you kind of a perfect like the basically you can get on Amtrak and and touch on all of the failing broken sort of collusive disasters of American society in like a

2:36 4-Hour acceleride right is that part of the problem is it the connectivity is it the the community building that's taken place where people that are in positions of authority are just hanging out with each other too much I think it's I'm not sure if it's that they're hanging out with each other too much but they're definitely disconnected from working Americans ordinary Americans um disconnected geographically for sure one of the most famous stories that people like to tell in DC is that before jet

3:07 travel the members of Congress had to live in Washington they brought their families there they grew up you know they would spend you know decades and they'd become friends with people across the aisle from them they still had partisan disagreements there were still fights but there was still they humanized each other when you testify in front of Congress right now the relationships between Republicans Democrats are so toxic you know at first I remember when I started testifying a

3:32 lot more I testified a lot in the last couple years but when the first couple times I remember asking after I was like was that just for show are you guys just pretending to hate each other like that cuz surely behind the scenes you guys have a different relationship and was like no unfortunately that is how bad it's gotten and I think some of that then also is so some of it's we know it's Geographic some of it's the change

3:52 of jet travel some of it's also we know is social media um social media because it reduces face-to-face contact it's very dehumanizing so it's very hard for me to dehumanize you right now because we're here together and we can see the god in you he's the god in me and vice versa it's very hard to be dehumanized like that but when you're going after somebody online and they're and they're faceless and nameless I think those those naturally Psychopathic Tendencies

4:19 to dehumanize the other come to the for more and then I think then then they then bleed over into real world interactions I think that's one set of factors I think there's another set of factors which is is I just think Elite policies are not in the interests of the public and so the real challenge to this has come with the rise of populism particularly after 2016 with Trump and brexit and we're still undergoing that transition is very dramatic moment

4:43 obviously where the elites are trying to figure out what does our policy agenda need to be that's in the interest of the public and not in the interest of oligarchs or foreign interests or foreign oligarchs and I think that's a a Big Driver as well of the dissatisfaction that's occurring you have a new piece on um your substack about this about basic I think the title is basically how the Democratic Elite has um destroyed itself basically in the

5:12 face of rejecting populism I'm I'm sort of paraphrasing there but um what's your thesis in that piece well it's interesting to look if you look at the two parties there's these similarities in contrast I mean one of them is you have two populist presidential candidates emerge at the same time in 2016 one of them is Bernie Sanders on the left the other one is Donald Trump on the right the Republican and Democratic party Elites aggressively opposed both of those candidates at the

5:43 end of the day the Republican voters went with the populist candidate and the Democrats did not now we look at we describe how the Democrats engaged in some machinations at the elite level the DNC level the part delegates and whatnot moving money around and favoring Hillary to make sure she got the nomination similar you know different but you know similar approach to then snuff out the populist threat in 2020 getting Buddha judge and ab kashar to drop out endorse

6:13 Biden and then Warren split the vote with Biden I'm sorry with the vote with Bernie Biden gets the nomination so one interesting question is why did the right end up going the populace Direction rather than the left and I think if you look over history I mean I don't know I don't know what the measure is but certainly we find left and right-wing populists you know throughout history so why did it work on the right rather left we gave one

6:34 potential answer which is just that Trump had more money you was stronger in a lot of ways than Bernie was able to be just for who he was as an outsider business in person rather than a member of Congress that's potentially one reason but then I think what's so interesting about it is that the the fragilized process of the elite so by subjecting Trump to this just you know whatever you think of the guy you know

7:00 a trial of job you know like yeah like I mean they threw everything at the guy um from 2016 until today including you know lawsuits trying to get him in prison he narrowly escapes it in part because he gets this big truth social his company goes goes public he becomes a billionaire is able to you know pay this this uh this temporary fee anyway in New York so he gets through it all and he's he's the strongest guy whereas they

7:26 protect Biden for so long they overprotect protect him I mean I just love the metaphor you can see the implications of it they overprotect Biden and then you end up in a crisis that we're currently in and so I think one of the lessons is that because we say it all the time we go democracy is a really resilient system compared to authoritarianism but I we haven't had good ex we often don't have good examples of that and I think here you do

7:50 have a really good one which is that subject your candidates to testif fire the guy who comes out of it is going to be much stronger than the one who is sheltered and coddled and protected by the party apparatus you know one of the things that that leads me to think about is something that you know so you ran for governor in the state of California and um I don't know if you've had any conversations with um bii shavasan oh Shashi yeah yeah

8:14 yeah so he's um I I I I met him years ago trying to keep up with his mind is a challenging thing when you're talking to him he's so fast he has basically laid said that California in particular is is an example of essentially like communist China it's a single party state so there's only really competition within the Democratic party right you ran you ran as a republican candidate for governor no or or how did you run

8:44 actually I actually ran twice so I ran in 2018 but I didn't have any support and I was a Democrat I uh in 2021 I became an independent because I had just done all the research for San Francisco and I was like I can't be a Democrat anymore just for moral reasons and then in 2022 I ran as an independent and there is a path as an independent if you can get out of the because it's a they

9:08 call it a an Open Primary so anybody can vote for anybody and so you could have come out of the primary two Democrats two Republicans two Independents independent Democrat whatever so my The Hope was we'd get out of the primary as an independent and be in a good position to win by having all the Republicans plus a significant share of Independence and some Democrats um I still think that's possible we just didn't have the time or money really to get there so um

9:36 so I wouldn't I think BAGI just uh as is sometimes the case uh overstates the situation spending time in that political environment um and maybe even just starting with San Francisco what has that told you about this the problems of feedback loops there because it does seem like one of the problems is it's so lopsided and so single party in nature that it just gets crazy it just becomes like absolutely insane levels of

10:06 policy that are happening that don't pass muster I think I saw recently there was a there was um a bill to try to Federal uh make selling children for sex as a felony and there were actually activists saying this will harm the lgbtq community if we make child child sex trafficking a felony how's that that's like the level of insanity it feels like happens in this environment where there's no competition is that fair I mean it's worth taking a

10:37 minute and understanding the madness and how bad it is I mean first of all it's a lot of mentally ill and drug addicted people that are being left to die on the streets or revived a dozen or two dozen times by you know teams of EMT professionals and then they're no longer able to revive them because the fentanyl that they're smoking is at such high doses that the that the Narcan no longer works you have um sex trafficking we

11:01 discovered a 14-year-old girl who was being uh trafficked on the street uh the police had failed to get her we wrote a story about it able to get her off the street but that's not uncommon there's Street walking was basically decriminalized uh supposedly because it was hurting people of color disproportionately uh I'll allow the viewers to judge for themselves whether or not that itself might be a rather racist uh formulation of the problem and then on the issue you mentioned around

11:28 trying to increase the penalties for child sex trafficking and then also uh the latest one is effectively trying to get get the state set up to take kids away from their parents if the kids are identifying as the opposite sex and the parents are opposed to letting their kids go on drugs or have surgeries in a pseudoscientific effort to change their sex so things are absolutely out of control it's not the first time that you've had cult likee behaviors by

11:58 democrats in California in San Francisco I describe the jonest toown and this character Jim Jones in the 70s drinking the Kool-Aid famous drinking the Kool-Aid thousand people kill themselves in Guyana this country in South America after they' moved but when you look at the the people's Temple which was his cult in San Francisco they had huge support from Democrats in part because they were delivering votes and money to democratic candidates but very high levels of support and yeah it was just a

12:31 it's a religion so when you so so California look it's always had more you know had when they first came in the 19 century they're more saloons than churches it's not like Boston you know I mean Boston the Democrats are not what they are in the Bay Area that heathenism the the desire to create an alternative religion out of a kind of cult of compassion that's why I sort of say San FR sickness is a is a sickness of

12:58 compassion unbounded where it's not it's considered cruel to intervene in someone's life so they don't kill themselves on fenel as opposed to being cruel to let them die from fentanyl on the street so that's just how crazy it's gotten and then it it fall it fals prey to other pseudoscientific Cults like the idea that you can change your sex and so yeah how do you get the feedback loop in there very it's a very good question I

13:24 actually think that there is a way in other words I think politics is what breaks that stalemate you have a lot of very affluent billionaires in California uh more than anywhere else that are capable of supporting candidates that can make change for a variety of reasons that organizational Clarity hasn't kind of coalesced yet but who knows it may still happen it does seem like I'm I live you know we're in Austin and Austin has been the

13:52 beneficiary although it's not without its costs of sort of you know California migration and to some extent Elite California migration the most elite of being Elon Musk moving to Austin building the Giga Factory right but but others as well Joe Lonsdale other sort of um right of Center or just not crazy woke right Californians so there does seem to be a vote with your feet the feedback loop there although also seems like well now maybe some of the people best

14:23 equipped to stand up for sanity in California are just like it's just not worth it and I'm out of here mhm do you think that that's just going to be is that that feels like it could be an accelerating feedback loop yeah in fact there's a this is a pretty well it's called I think it's called the curly effect and it's named after I believe the Boston mayor named Curly who I was hoping it was going to be the the stooge

14:48 yeah no exactly I for one of the Three Stooges should be but yeah the effect is just that um the people that leave are the ones that would have created change and the people that stay are the ones that benefit from it and and I think there is some truth to that I also don't think it lasts you know forever you know a lot you know some Trends are linear some Trends are not linear so yeah I do

15:07 think there's some of that I think the thing to remember about San Francis about San Francisco but also about California is it's just such a desirable place to live I mean we like the climate is such that like I mean the weather yes um the physical natural climate is just so amazing like my wife and I we struggle with it um we don't have the community in Berkeley that uh we're already developing in Austin even you

15:33 know developing in London you know but it's you know it's Berkeley weather so I mean it's really hard so but I think that also means that it has two effects one of them is that the politicians take you take it for granted that people that really love it there will stay there and they'll put up with all sorts of awful awful uh things including just a decline of basic services but then the other effect I think is that then there you get some

15:56 people that will fight for it so the people that you know like me that are like stubborn and love it a lot are not willing to just give it up and and sort of walk away from it I've thought about what is the right analogy for the relationship between government and and the public because the notion that it's like some purely representational relationship is a fiction it's it's literally not true right like I know mathematically my vote will have no

16:26 impact I'm not saying don't vote right although you are encouraging the bastards when you do but um the best I've been able to come up with so far is that government is at its best is like a good Dairy Farmer so Dairy Farmers and I I've spent a bunch of time with Dairy Farmers actually because we've done some documentaries about Animal Welfare Dairy Farmers among the animal food producers are maybe the ones that have to care

16:51 about the health of their animal the most because there's a real high correlation between health of the of the heer and milk production so that seems like what the government is they see us as their as their mil keffers they want to keep us healthy enough to produce for them for tax revenue and if you're in Berkeley California they don't have to work even as hard because like oh you're free ranging you're grazing on Lush grasses

17:17 you're looking at the redwood trees so then they can whip the heck out of us and it's fine yeah is that do you think that's a fair analogy yeah I think it's well I think it's sort of fair although I I also interested I am really interested in Dairy Farmers as well um from my my mother's uh family in Indiana were Dairy Farmers um um I have a friend who's a Dairy Farmer in California in fact I just when I visited him the cows

17:42 were milking on one of those gigantic merry go rounds and I became obsessed with this technology where you know the cow marches in there and they stuck the udder on there and then they go around in circles why because it hypnotizes them I guess the cows love it um and there's like two it's mechanized there's like two guys like in this room of like hundreds of cows I think they're also coming off at a certain point and then I

18:04 went and then when all the controversy happen about new restrictions on nitrogen pollution were being put in place in Netherlands I went to the Netherlands and interview Dairy Farmers and I and the first Dairy Farmer I interviewed when I started asking him about his cows and his relationship with him he started to cry because he loves his cows that much so I would say the metaphor falls apart because the Dairy Farmers actually love their cows and the

18:29 California politicians Really Don't Care About Us um they really do take us for granted thank you thank you for this because they they know the names of their cows and they know their whole like literally they he said he's like the cows are my best friends he's like he's like I know that makes me seem ridiculous and I was like yes at one level but at another level it's the most beautiful thing I've heard on the entire

18:50 trip is so moving and such a there's a lot of different directions conversation can go but but certainly as just a really important counter to the awful disrespect that farmers have received in recent years deep disrespect deeply dehumanizing patronizing elitist you know that and and particularly like we're in this foreign capital and we know what the right nitrogen levels should be the main event is preventing the manure from breaking down not to get too gross but if you

19:18 capture the manure um in the proper ways then you prevent the nitrogen runoff that everyone's worried about they had done a good job in reducing the nitrogen runoff when the government was in a more collaborative relationship with Farmers it wasn't this heavy-handed imposition it wasn't just libertarianism I mean there was some sense in which let's try to reduce the nitrogen runoff but it wasn't this heavy-handed you know um top- down regulatory scheme so I do anyway to the extent there's a metaphor

19:46 there that might be one of them too if you like this clip we've got so much more where that came from so be sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and ring the bell so you won't miss our new videos as they come out each week