JD Vance & Trump's Racist Lies About Haitian Immigrants are Feeding Online Polarization

Intro would you say what's happening in Springfield is another example of the consequences of declining Social Capital think of the pre-existing residents of Springfield those fols are on average been extremely welcoming against what you might call their Natural Instincts so the Haitians I mean it's hard to get to know Moon neighbors that's what my reserch show but they're doing a B Java there so yes I think that's I summarize that by saying yes hey everyone you just heard from today's guest the renowned political scientist and bowling alone author who's the subject of the new documentary Join or Die Robert putam I have to start by just nerding out here uh Dr putam is a political science Legend uh and I've wanted to meet him for a long time so many of the topics we've covered on this show have been inspired by his work which I first studied in college social isolation the collapse of American Civic life our growing distrust in institutions and bowling alone hasn't just been an inspiration for our little show it's one of the most influential pieces of political science ever published it shaped the thinking of presidents and become a cultural phenomenon that has left its Mark with millions of people who aren't poly nerds putam argued in Bowling alone that Americans were becoming increasingly disconnected from one another that the social structures that were once an integral part of American society ptas bowling leagues clubs of all kinds were collapsing and that the result of these weakened communal ties and Trust would erode the foundation of American democracy 24 years later we are living in the future putam warned us about and the question we're left with is whether we can change course not just by electing new leaders or passing new laws but by reconnecting and rebuilding the social bonds that make democracies work so we talked about that we also talked about the role that social media and the internet have played in fueling the collapse of American Civic life what role that collapse has had in the rise of Donald Trump and the Maga movement and what we can do to become better joiners and better citizens here's Robert putam Professor Robert putam welcome to offline thanks very much John and of Robert Putnam joins course call me Bob nobody if I get a phone call and somebody says they want to speak to Roberts I hang up because they don't anybody who knows me actually knows knows it's Bob all right Bob it is um well I just want to start by saying what a huge fan I am I read bowling alone uh 25 years ago as a freshman in college it had an enormous impact on my political worldview uh it's a big reason I went on to major in political science and sociology influence the speeches I wrote for President Obama who uh I know you know well and um and a central theme of this podcast um is that our fraying social connections make the work of democracy that much harder this is all to say thank you uh and to start with a question for listeners who might not be as familiar with your work um what is What is social capital? social capital and why is it important to democracy well Social Capital seemly refers to social networks our connections with other people our neighbors our family our community organizations the people I know in my bowling league for example and that's where the title of that book comes uh comes from um and those networks typically generate a sense of obligation to other people and um and that generates reciprocity that is all do this for you because down the road you'll do something for me or even all do this for you now because down the road you'll do something for somebody else and they'll do something for me that network of reciprocal obligations and Trust makes life in a million different ways easier that's the core idea of Social Capital it turns out to be the greatest thing say sliced bread that is to say the more connections you have the longer you'll live I mean your chances of dying are pretty high but your chances of dying over the next um year are cut in half by joining one so there there are big effects of social networks social capital on us personally um but what what makes those networks even more important is that our connections affect other people um in the community so I give couple of quick examples um if you're live in the neighborhood and you're worried about crime you might do one or two things you might spend more on the cops um or you might uh get to know your neighbors a little bit better so you could call them by their first name there's no question the latter is the more effective way I'm not saying we don't need cops I am saying um in an ideal world it's you and your fellow neighbors who are uh detering crime because you we going out for one another I'm not a big fan of jargon but I bet just it's a convenient word to say social capital and the more Social Capital there is in a community or a country the better democracy works that's the huge bottom line here and so let's go quickly to today I don't know about you I'm really worried about American democracy you know you have a lot of different things you can imagine doing let's you know have a different electoral system or or better politicians or whatever but actually in the long run the best way to have a better functioning American democracy in the long run is to have people more connected with one another and more paying looking out for one another yes and I think the central question of our time and it has been for quite some time now is what has happened to those um social bonds that we once had with each other your work and you talked about this in um a new documentary about your work Join or Die um you talk about how your work on social capital and democracy actually started in Italy um which I found fascinating to just sort of talk about that experiment and sort of the social science behind it because you were really able to test this out in a in a unique way let's let's go back if soose you were trying to you're oboist and you're trying to study plant growth and you wanted to know how much is the growth of a plant a tree or a shrub or whatever dependent upon the external advice and so what you might do is to take genetically identical seeds but you plant them in different pots of soil and you water them differently and then you watch and see what happens and you know if it worked out you'd be able to see some of these plants squishing and some of them withering and dying and then you do a soil analysis to find out what it is was it the water or was it too much iron or not enough you know phosphorus or what know who knows now political science is not an experimental science but while I was in Italy and this is a long time ago 1970 as you know the Italians happen to set the conditions for exactly that kind of un unbelievable experiment that is to say they created a new set of Institutions Regional governments they you could think of the state governments all across it from the top down to the boot so same organizations off faor they looked identical they had lots of powers and they had lots of money in principle but the soils into which they were introduced were very different I mean southern Italy when we went there I saw peasants in the fields harvesting grain exactly the same way that peasants in those same fields that harvested the grain 2,000 years ago I this is is was a really backward part of Italy but you go up to the new orth then it was one of the most post and noell parts of the globe so big differences in Economic Development big differes in culture because some of the regions of Italy were deeply communist and right next door were other regions that were deeply Catholic so you can notice we had lots of different cross cutting things and we could Trac them we did over well at the end over 20 25 years we could see which ones were flourishing and which ones were folding so we now we had the measurement as you would do at a bot Botanical experiment and then we checked the soils and we had many different ideas we thought it might be wealth because maybe wealthier regions could afford you know more computers or whatever we thought it might be education that's a conceit of Educators we think what we do matters so maybe it was you know more re better educated regions maybe we thought it could be you know Catholics versus Communists Etc well all those things had a little bit of effect but once you control for those the big thing turned out to be Coral societies and football clubs in some of the regions people were all the time you know they were um playing football having mean Italian football and pickup games I mean I'm not sorry professional leagues or they were you know singing in the talent choir or whatever and other places they weren't and that turned out to be the secret ingredient in the soil so that's the background the short version of that book which was called making democracy work what makes democracy work Social Capital like now summarize 25 years of work in one sentence I thought that was that's pretty uh pretty concise and so then after Italy you came home to the United States and you sort of saw the same thing as happening here and I think one of the trickier questions to answer about the decline of social capital and social bonds and and and the ties The decline of social capital between us has been why what has caused us to stop joining over the years um and maybe you can walk through some of the most compelling explanations and then talk about what you think are the driving forces today yeah My Views have changed a little bit I'll give you where I was when I published the book Bo alone the first thing the book Bo alone showed was astonishingly every measurable form of Social Capital was going downhill not just bowling leagues but also and not rotary clubs and you know and garden clubs they were all going downhill but also things like picnics I was luy enough to St stumble on the actal picnic AR going have turned out there had been a 60% decline in picnics over the previous I mean it's astonishing yeah and and you know um so and the connections that people have with their neighbors um the often the frequency with which they went to town meetings and I don't B formal tallia I me just hanging out with other people to talk about you know the schools or the sh system or whatever all those things are gone down and we could see some things had an effect um we could see suburbanization had had an effect for example that is to say as we move out from cities into suburban and even non exurban areas people were actually physically Less close to their neighbors and more were they were sping more time in the in a car I think I said that was sort of 10% of the problem um a big part of it it turned out was television um or at least that's what I thought at the time television gave you the illusion of connecting with other people you're looking at friends and you you think those are your friends that's the illusion but actually they're not your friends and you don't have any friends because you're spending all the time watching friends rather than having friends um so I thought that was a big part of the story much more recently only in the last five roughly speak last five or 10 years I'm now taken a much bigger broader look at this over a much longer period of time and I've now concluded that not the television was irrelevant but that it was just a small part of a much bigger change that was going on and if you want we can talk about that bigger change yeah let's do that b says looks at the world from roughly speaking um in 1970 or 65 or 70 to uh roughly speaking 2000 so the last quarter of the 20th century that's the data I had at that point um but but this last book I wrote my wife insists it will be my last book um it it well is called the upswing and here's the way in which the upswing differs from Bing alone first of all it's looking not just at the at you know the last 25 years or so it looks at the whole of the 20th and 21st centuries then I'm looking at trans long run Trends from about 19 1890 roughly speaking until now MH so in real numbers as look at the last 125 years and moreover it doesn't just look at Social Capital it looks at long Trends in four things one of which is social capital but then it also looks at politics and the degree which were polarized or not polarized politically and there are big differences in that over those over the last5 years and the third is economic inequality to what extent are we you know are we do basically a menop society or to what extent do we have huge gaps between rich and poor and lastly an interesting variable which is what I sort of call um Culture by which I mean do we feel at any given point in time that we're all this together or that we're not all this together this every man and woman for himself and we're all fighting um in other words the upway looks at the degree over time in which we think of ourselves as we or we think of ourselves as I we know that today I mean I think everybody listen knows today we're incredibly socially isolated probably as socially isolated As Americans have been ever in our history that is social below Social Capital we know that today America is extremely polarized when you look at the data probably the only time in our history when which we've been more politically polarized that is the gap between our two parties was the five years between 1860 and 1865 when we were pretty damp polarized we were fighting that those five years um we're extremely unequal in America today that is a gap between rich and poor is huge and probably the only time in which the gap between America Rich Americans and poor Americans has been that great um was in the guilded age 125 years ago and we're also very self-centered I'm not just talking about the former president Trump I'm talking about basically all those are focused on me me me so that's where we are now and it turns out that 125 years ago we were in the same situation in the 1890s big huge gap between Richard coure 1890s politics was very tribal there is no cross party collaboration at all 1890s America had very low Social Capital people had just moved to the cities and they didn't know their neighbors and they left their family and friends Beed the the six whether the six was in Iowa or the six was in southern Italy or Quebec um to take a an example you may be familiar with and um and we were also very self-focused okay now I just want to describe one curve and then we can talk about the substance the one curve is this it's a big upside down U curve and in 1890 we were very in equality big gap to rich and poor first skild of age then we become very equal and by the peak America is the most equal country in the world it's astonishing in the 1960s America looks like Sweden for goodness sakes in the in terms of the Gap that we rich Po and then we turned back around and now we're back in extreme Gap that we rich poor that's the economics Politics the same story then we were back in the day back in the you know at the end of the 19th century we were very polarized in politic political terms then over the course of the next 60 to 70 years we became much less polarized much more cross-party collaboration most of the New Deal most of the Great Society and most of Reagan's work for all was done by cross party collaboration it was both repblic because and well we know what that looks like now when you go to Congress there's essentially zero collaboration so a big upside down curve very polarized very unpolarized and and now very polarized again what I really want to say is in that picture TV couldn't explain that whole curve you s I'm tried to say in mind have something to do with technology maybe it does maybe it doesn't but it's something else is going on that's the bottom line I know I have some ideas about what it is but this latest work unlike Bing alone looks at four different variables looks at over a b period in time and among other things says it's probably not TV although media may play a role way more than you want to know no it's exactly what I wanted to know and like not to continue getting too wonky about it but you know I feel like there's a group of people who are more um economically determinist who might say okay well when we had policies that reduced wealth inequality then political polarization declined and then you know social bonds increase and social ties increase and we had more social capital and they would say that it was sort of the economic forces that drove the changes um John first of all we got to assure your your listeners and viewers we did not set this up but that'sa the right that's exactly the question I wanted you to ask okay good okay so we have really good data and therefore we can see which is the lady indicator that is which turn first because we prob know which turn first um that would give us an insight into what's going causally going on and just you suggested most people I even I thought well okay it's probably pretty obvious it must be the economics that's turning first that that's the leading variable and that if we can fix that then the other stuff would follow and the one thing I can say for certain is that's not true it's just false the data are unen it can't be because the economic uh variable in this set of equations always is the laging variable and unless you believe that a cause could occur after the effect which is a little weird it can't be that um now I can go a little further to say okay so what is the me but remember these curves are all the same so it's a little it's a little hard it's like when you're looking at a flock of of gulls at the shore and they all turn at the same time you can't tell who's the leader because they're all turn at the same time that's true here but you can make some efforts it looks like this is astonishing to me I was shocked at this looks like the leading variable is culture I mean which is may be bamby rough culture I like or even morality that's what it looks like is the leading variable astonishing so let's go back it's the late 19th century and for a while in the late 19th century um the leading intellectual fr for Americans was something called social Darwinism Darwin had just from on the scene and said you know the natural world is readed and tooth and Claw and um uh you know it's a zero sumon game he didn't use Ser because that didn't exist but it's we're all fighting all against all and that's good he said I have to say Darwin himself did not believe social nism which is the extension of this to society but lots of other people did and they said that's the way that's the way the world society should work and in fact we'll all be better off if we redistribute wealth from the poor people who obviously have poor genes to the rich people who obviously have good genes and I this Harden believe this hard sit with a straight face that this is what people believe but they do like could in the book I cite chapter and verse they said America would be better off if we just I mean come on are you serious yeah but then Along came a very different group of people Evangelical Protestants of all people who um in the in the late 19th century said read the damn son on the mount I mean just read it that does that sound like Jesus is saying we want to help the rich and and no it it's harder for the rich to get into heaven for and account theil and so that that cold American first of all Evangelical protestantism and then all protestantism and then the same thing happened among Catholics that it's a responsibility of the church and of churched people of religious people to worry about other folks not just yourself there was as a result of all those changes and it spread actually Beyond just Religious Street folks there came to be a moral Reawakening in America and people actually changed moral views I'm want to pause over that because you can see where I'm headed that's what you do now now okay suddenly the guy you're talking to is moved from being this rather boring academic uh nerd he's not preaching at you but I mean I really want to been I don't want to be a preacher but I we're not what the data say is we're not going to fix all these problems we have today polarization inequality self-centeredness social isolation we're not going to fix that until we begin to worry about other people more than ourselves then this is not not at all it's the it's a roll and Rule I know I mean look well you know it's uh it's very uh descriptive of sort of the journey that I took because I was raised Catholic in like a a suburb of Boston but then when I went to college of the Holy Cross in Worcester um it's a Jesuit institution right and same thing Jesuit emphasis on social justice the community and so my sort of political views were shaped both by the college and sort of the the spiritual um surroundings of that that and and sort of the emphasis on not just staying at the college but going out into the community and actually doing service and I think that's sort of why I ended up with these views um I know that when I started working for Barack Obama his views similarly were shaped by both the church belonged to in Chicago and the organizing work he did on the streets of Chicago which was again you've got to care about other people and work with other people right and so we had that's how sort of these social bonds were were created Facebook was not invented until six years after the book was published so I couldn't possibly have figured out I mean guessed but it turns out I did talk a little bit about it and I was more or less right you wouldn't people thought this was UN but the whole world was going to change and it was going to be wonderful and everybody in the world was going to love everybody because the world had become flat and blah blah blah yeah and but meanwhile also among academics there was a lot of resarch going on well whether bowling leagues were better or worse than Facebook you see what I'm trying to say yes is face to face better than um mean uh social media or Worse s is at the same and pretty soon actually research by by 2010 this a long time ago the academic search had begun to say no it's certainly not better that is Facebook is not better than bowling leagues but maybe it's worse and there's a lot in debate about that and then suddenly we had a natural experiment because with the pandemic well none of us were actually doing face to face I mean a few of us were in you know little groups but basically we were all cut off and I can tell you when public opting on that issue changed it completely swamped all the Pro social media people and that was on let me get this right November 25th 2020 because that was Thanksgiving and it was totally clear all across America the zooming with with Grandma was not the same thing as hugging grandma and believe me since I've got seven grandchildren seeing these little fa you know little postage siiz faces of all my gr it was not the same thing it's Hing them it's now perfectly clear that all the good things that I earlier in this podcast told you came from real face toac this and I was right don't come from screens um go back to bowling alone bowling alone said a lot of this was caused by television screens people today this in addition to all the stuff that people are doing scanning the web and talking to folks or maybe talking to bots or something on the on the internet we still watch more television than we used to more TV or riching the so it scream it screams all the way down and and screens are not the same as face to face so I want to say one more thing about the internet and social media this whole conversation has framed this issue as if we had two different kinds of net connections networks that's Social Capital right two different kinds of them the real one space to face that I have with my wife who was sitting in the other room and media um but that's simply factually false almost all the people that we know in person we also know I mean we're we're texting each other all the time and yeah like one I'm own ADV for my wife and me but she's sitting she's sitting in the other R all sort of 50 fet from me but often and including just two minutes ago she sent me a text asking be through here okay so what I so all I'm trying to say is most of our social NS today are are Alloys that is they're combinations of real and face to face net that's what that's what I said my connections with um I mean fortunately I mean I would love to get together some sometimes with you face to face at the moment ours are mostly just virtual but they don't have to be so there all of our networks are Alloys Alloys have different properties we could create very productive alloys by which I mean we could think about ways in which we could use um virtual ties to reinforce face-to-face ties next door is a way of using virtual connections to tighten your ties with your actual real next door neighbors and so that's a positive alloy that is with that alloy the the the the app um next you strengthen both your real face to face sies with other people who add you will long a rake or a s blower but you do it more efficiently because you don't have to be constantly running over there to say how's your do you have aook do you have a spare um you know snowbo I'm trying to use a very specific example to make a broader point we could today we know how to use Alloys that is mix pictures of face to face and real to make things way better both for us and for the for the rest of the community yeah and last point I I don't want to I don't want you to get sued over this I want to be sued myself face Facebook knows how to do this yeah they do know how to do it but their algorithm which is linked to their bottom line does encourage this and the contrary there the Facebook algorithm encourages polarization encourages people to fight with one other the algorithm itself does yeah that's not a technologically that's not a technological fact that's an economic fact you see okay I if I say much more than this I will get sued by meta or whatever it is whatever the Facebook label is now but that's my take on on the internet and social media yeah no I mean it it's certainly I mean this is you know my my guess on this and and I've talked to a lot of guests that there's research that's backed this up but that it's even if it's not the central cause it certainly fueled the polarization Division and especially social isolation um I want I want to read you a quote from a speech at this year's uh Democratic National Convention quote we chase the approval of strangers on our phones we build all manner of walls and fences around ourselves and then wonder why we feel so alone we don't trust each other as much because we don't take the time to know each other and in that space between us politicians and algorithm teach us to caricature each other and troll each other and fear each other uh and that was from someone who once participated in one of your seminars Barack Obama um and it's funny because I have been thinking about that passage in light of Donald Trump and JD Vance spreading this viral conspiracy about Haitian immigrants eating pets uh that's made people in Springfield Ohio and elsewhere more afraid of each other and I was wondering what your thoughts on both Obama's analysis and would you say what's happening in Springfield is another example of the consequences of declining Social Capital I I think the answer is yes and yes when we don't know each other well um we it probably is always true we don't other well we kind of are a little suspicious of the other this probably goes back way into our uh you know our our history prehistorically that if you didn't know somebody you better be careful historically Americans were unusually trusting compared to everybody for a long time not now but for a long time Americans were distinctively I mean America you know there's just debate about it's America unique or not well not every not everywh but we were distinctively nice to each other we connected with each other and we trusted one another not perfectly of course but more than most other people but that's changed it's changed in part or maybe almost entirely for the reasons that I've already laid out in in my books and in this place and another I've also written on this um when new PE new folks come to town especially new folks that don't look like us that makes everybody hunger down um and I just in that sentence I summarized three years of very quantitative research new new strangers in town causes all hunger down therefore think of the pre-existing residents of Springville they are an amazing group of people amazing group of people I mean we ought not to be laughing at Springfield we say this is astonishing this poor little bited Community I mean you know I can say because I'm from a small town Ohio too this been know the bited part of the country those folks are on average been extremely welcoming against what you might call their Natural Instincts so it's drives me up the wall me read this morning I was thinking about this this is crazy we should be thinking those are those are Saints and and and I'm not talking about the I mean there is nobody who's ever seen anybody as far as I can tell I've seen a Haitian eating a that's that really is crazy but quite the contrary the Haitians I mean it's hard to get to know Moon neighbors that's what my reserch show but they're doing a bam job of it there so yes I think that's I summarized that by saying yes yeah well it made me think of your distinction between um bonding capital and bridging capital and uh how bonding social capital is about our connections with the people we know and bridging social capital is about our connections with people we don't know and who aren't necessarily like us and it seems like in a multi-racial multi multi-ethnic democracy that bridging social capital is both more important and more challenging to build um what what are some what are some ways to make building bridging Social Capital easier find something that bonds you to the people on the other side um that sounds like I was being GLI so now I'll being GLI in a different way I mean a very good example of sports um I think you might have a passing acquaintance with my favorite sports team which is now on a down and speaking of course of the Red Sox of course yes you've you've heard of the Red Sox right I have I have and um and you and I don't know each other but when this podcast is over we could have a heck of a conversation about what happened this year and whether the owner of the Red Sox actually is willing to invest any money there and so that's I'm not that's I just it's true I just think it's alious maybe the rookies are coming wrong maybe the you know down the farm team the Magnificent four but we can have that conversation even though we don't know each other and even though we're in some respects different because this is the subed point we can Bond along the the Red Sox theme and therefore Bridge the other differences the short answer to the question is how do you do bridging you do it by finding something else some cross cutting um bonding that enables you to say I mean you know what I mean in a way it says is you know who the Magnificent four in the in the minor leagues of the Red Sox are and I do and if somebody knows that they can't be all bad even even French Canadian can't be that bad recognize I'm joking but what I'm trying to the S point is if you had bonding along some Dimension that enables you to stand in the shoes of the person who otherwise You' think was different as we get into the politics and the polarization of it all it it it brings to mind like a critique I sometimes hear from activists on the left particular those who spend a lot of time on social media and that is that politics and organizing shouldn't be about trying to help everyone get along it should be about building power to achieve your vision of the kind of country you want to live in so what's important is to build social capital with people who share that vision and then win the debate with the people who don't what do you think about that maybe in this particular political situation this year that's valuable but even then it isn't it isn't if we're going to win this thing and certainly we're going to win the the country I'm being now un I have I pride myself on being speaking of all sides in debates of course I don't want this dumster to to win the election and we're going to be better off in winning the election and we're certainly going to be better off after the election if we can build a little bridging Social Capital to revert now entirely what is that what does brid social capital means it means trying our best to understand the views of the people on the other side personal I grew up at this SL town in on in Northern on Lake ID in Ohio and um and it is classic Trump country when I was growing up there in the 50s it was very prosperous part of Greener Detroit lots of factories and the UAW was in town and so on but then the the rust Bel times came in the 70s and 80s it's classic country and it's now the the the folks I went to high school with well most of them are now dead but the people their kids um are almost overwhelming than Trump now I it wasn't that way before so I'm now talking to those kids I've got put myself in their shoes and in one point fromont point using that the r they went to high school work they went to pchs and I went to pchs and so on so I look for things like that that would you know but it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of people who have had a completely different life experience but that's what we have to do a in order to win this election we got to convince some of those people that we actually do understand them you know we won't convince most of them we will not convince because we're trying to tell them to act against their own lived experience of being out of work and losing their home and all that kind of stuff but that and we got to do that to win the election but mostly we got to do it to win the country I mean after this whole thing is over it's got to be the same we're all going to be here and save that country I think about this all the time because they also think that the Maga movement represents a very specific threat which is and it goes right to what you spent your life studying right which is it is sort of the um it is the opposite of bridging Social Capital um it is the idea that we're not going to just uh isolate ourselves from people who aren't like us but that we're actually going to demonize the people who aren't like us right and so then the question becomes how do you approach people in that movement and what is the best way to sort of um you know uh take the uh take the uh the pinch out of it right and and actually sort of drain the power and the appeal of of the Maga movement and um and that has sort of been an ongoing debate on the left and there's I'm going to take a hard swerve here into something that is um just a cultural thing that you may or may not have been following but there was a lot of social media drama um uh because a lot of liberals were upset with Taylor Swift because she's been very friendly at sporting events with Britney Mahomes who has dropped hints that she might support Trump and of course for people that don't know Britney's husband Patrick is the chief's quarterback and a teammate and a close friend of Taylor's boyfriend Travis Kelce I know that you know okay good I'm glad you followed this I'm glad you followed this so one would think and I think most people around the country would think this right that being friendly with teammates and their Partners as you travel to different places and different games is like a healthy form of building Social Capital even if it's with people who's have political V views you oppose or even political views you find uphor right but it's not how it was perceived by a lot of people and a lot of liberals what do you make of that and how do you sort of reconcile the like okay this movement is sort of a threat to democracy the foundations of Civic society and yet the people in it we have to live with in this Civic Society if we want to be a democracy well I mean I I feel actually you you you know perfectly well what I'm going to say but I did not know that there were liberals who were upset about that because of this just so nuts I mean uh it's nuts because of course they of course people who are on the same football team and their spouses or partners are going to P going to know each other of course they are and that's good not bad I mean nuts I mean Co yeah no it it's but it's I think those of us who are very uh who follow politics closely and especially people who have like you know are are influential in politics I think we happen to be the the joiners in politics but also don't necessarily um always have uh a good idea of what the rest of the people in the country who aren't as into politics are thinking which becomes a problem when you're trying to shape a political system where that is functional um where people are actually building social capital and disagreeing and and you know trying to debate each other and even fiercely but then at the end of the day have an election have trust in government and move on and and live together um and I think that's that's that's tricky no no I I don't know how much time we have but um at point I would like to talk about social isolation um and it's linked to political violence uh especially political violence by uh by young men yeah um and I I think that might turn out to be relevant to a lot of stuff we've been talking about but I don't mean to take over your job which is to have us move forward with your agenda no it's been I've been thinking about in the context of this election and just politics r large about sort of what's been we've talked about in the the show quite a few times about what's happening with young men social isolation the rabbit holes they're falling down in the internet the gender gap that is now opening up uh between KLA Harrison Trump not just between men and women of all ages but especially younger men yeah uh I'm going to try to do a little history here but I promise I'll come back to the date around 1900 uh remember that's back in the bad old days when I gave that a long time ago in our conversation I gave that upside down U curve and talked about at the end of the 19th century everything was going bad we were polarized we were uh unequal we were um self-centered and socially isolated and important part of that at the time and I'm going to use the language they used then was what was called the boy problem that was a label for it and what was the boy problem it was a lot of unattached kids unattached because they just been through this that is their parents had been through this enormous transition from the living on the farm to living in the city and they didn't have new friends in the city and their parents didn't and their parents were working two job is to stay afloat it was a very you know it was a awful time in for the working class and these working class guys kids boys were often left alone and isolated and they created Havoc they raised the crime rate and it wasn't just a fictitious raise like the one that the Republicans talking about it was a big deal raise a big deal an increase in in the crime rate they were constantly fighting with each other but mostly not with each other mostly they were they became straight thugs but not let fast forward and we're today at the O at the other side of that of that big U curve and the same thing is true now Richard ree has a book called uh boys and men I don't think I don't know that Richard knows about the boy problem back then but he certainly knows it about now and he's describing exactly the same thing he says I think completely independently from that history he says today's problem is that boys are just losing out to girls who has more education today by far young women have more education than men and that's growing rapidly who has a brighter job future for goodness sakes young women not young men um now I don't mean to say that all young men are I mean I've got five grandsons and two granddaughters and the grandsons are going to do fine um but they're not typical of Americans I of American young men and especially working class Young American working class man that is boys um are are a disadvantage in every possible way they're h health is poor their education is poor their well I'm just quoting Richard Reeves back then 125 years ago we had a boy problem and now we have a boy problem so what did they do about it it turns out that between 1905 and 1910 virtually all of the major youth suring organizations in America were invented the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and the boys clubs as they were called and big brother and also later on big sister and so on and I could keep going but they were all created invented in that period between 1905 in 1910 why because of the boy girl when we know they were done now think about the Boy Scouts the Boy Scouts as an institution first of all it's fun it's it's not spinach and if there's anything that I worry about in the whole Social Capital dialogue about connecting with other people it should not you don't want to connect with other people because it's good for you or everybody else you want to do it because it's fun I mean you're not going to get I I know that I lecture a lot but actually people are only going to get out connect with their neighbors or do whatever they do if it's fun if it's a picnic not just to because Pam says it' be better if you knew your neighbors and so got to be fun and that's what Scouts had that right you you get Mar badges for hiking or knowing birds or whatever I mean actually I was a boy scout not now but I was back in the day and I wasn't very good one I was certainly not Eagle Scout but I got my bad BS and so on so it was fun but it was also character formation it was serious so I haven't done this I think for 70 years actually 75 years so I'm going to try to do it now a Boy Scout is in your list are not going to see my fingers are raised yeah in in a Boy Scout salute Boy Scout is trustworthy loyal helpful friendly courteous kind obedient cheerful Thrifty Brave clean and Reverend I did it I think did it I didn't I don't think I made it to Boy Scouts but I was a Cub Scout so I do remember that I remember I remember the pinewood derby that was fun you build cars you race them okay so hold on just a second let's let's step back a little bit how about those virtues trustworthy well that sounds that's not oldfashioned that sounds like we'd like our young people especially our young men to our boys to be trustworthy helpful loyal helpful friendly courteous kind so far so good obedience sounds a little Victorian yeah um gra that's not bad yeah clean I don't know um Thrifty get a little bit of that that you know Victorian thing and reverence so what b bottom line here they had a boy problem a serious boy problem just like ours and they went about fixing it by inventing new ways of connecting that combine fun and character education now don't misunderstand me I'm not trying to say all we need to do is to reinvigorate the Boy Scouts maybe we do maybe we don't that's not my point my point is that our task and here I am deadly serious we need to find some for the 21st century not for my grandchildren right not for my grandsons who now in their 20s but for my great-grandsons we assume that will be some we're working on that you we're not working on it but we're hoping um we need this that will be fun for them but also serious the task is is to find things that will engage kids especially boys that will be fun and it will nevertheless be serious and and for character something I've I've thought about a lot just as a sort of political person but I have two boys myself uh four and eight months and as my four-year-old is starting to uh look at screens more and get more you know I I do start thinking about okay what what are the what are the social ties he has what is school going to be like what are his friends going to be like how to how to guide that and so um not just as someone who uh wants to save democracy but someone who wants to raise good boys uh I think about this issue all the time you have the whole responsibility for the fate of the Nation on your shoulders I hope you realize that I don't think that's a good idea but I'll do I'll do my best I'll do my part speaking of which um last question uh President Obama uh always talked about his presidency as as just trying to write his paragraph in history um you have had this wonderful body of work and career um what do you want your paragraph to say m I'm so old I even thought about that um the first thing you must say is he he was so lucky that he had a fantastic wife and you think that's P that is not P if any of your any of your listeners see the movie Join or Die they will see Rosemary putam is an absolutely full partner she certainly is the co-star of my professional wife I've written roughly I counted up roughly a million words over the over the the subject you know I've written a lot and she's read every one of them um and she still does um she's sitting out there with a draft email that I just tried to decide how I should change it um and she's raised two great kids and seven great grand a great so grandchildren and and we're hoping as I said for more she's a real social capitalist I talk about social capital but she's a real she makes for okay I'm making your sound like a state and that isn't quite right but it's close to being true so I look back in my life I mean I haven't fixed America which is what I thought I was going to do when I first heard Jo Kennedy speaking okay I haven't but it was a tough job it took longer than I thought it was going to take and we haven't gotten there but maybe we're going to get a little closer and maybe I've help inspired some other people who will help us get closer like you and and others I think it's an important answer to that question which is it for all the work you've done um sort of the the the social capital you built uh with the most important person in your life is uh is is what's most important to you um uh look the movie is fantastic the documentary is fantastic Join or Die everyone should see that if you haven't read bowling alone you should absolutely read that and the upswing as well um uh Bob it was such a pleasure to talk to you thank you so much for um joining us on offline and thank you again for for inspiring me appreciate it John thanks very much you probably can tell I had a lot of fun with this um me too so keep up the good work I'm counting on you thank you I won't let you down two quick housekeeping notes we're excited to share that the first two episodes of Empire City the Untold origin story of the NYPD are out now from wry crooked media and push black this official Tribeca selection reveals the complicated and largely invisible history of the largest police force in the world the series begins in the 1830s before the NYPD came into existence when a nefarious kidnapping Club targeting free black New Yorkers prowed the streets it's a must listen for anyone seeking what the badge was created to protect and who it really serves follow Empire City wherever you get your podcast binge all episodes early and adree by join wry Plus in the wry app or on Apple podcasts also this race in 2024 is incredibly close and every action you take between now on Election Day can and will make a difference vote save America needs your help right now to do the unexpected and elect VP kamla Harris as our next president help them hit their goal of 75,000 volunteer signups by national voter registration day which is just 2 days away on September 17th with votes save America you can take quick meaningful actions to help Democrats win and must-win precincts across the country this will be a fight in the margin so don't wake up on November 6th wishing you did more go to votesaveamerica.com 2024 to get started and if you've already signed up tell your friends this message has been paid for by vot save America you can learn more at votesaveamerica.com and this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee [Music] [Music]