America the Dysfunctional?

John Donvan
This is Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan. Hi, everybody. Today, we’re stepping a bit out of our usual lane. We have just one guest, the influential YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, who is also a podcaster and an author. His work places him firmly on one side of the American political spectrum, the left, but we are not talking with him to endorse his views. Rather, we wanted to explore how he explains the causes and the complications of the deep political division in the United States that is so frequently bemoaned, but in which he plays some part.

We’re interested to see if he sees a way across these divisions and how. We plan in a future episode to do the same with a voice from the right. For this conversation, I’m handing off the hosting reins to Nick Gillespie, a past debater with us and a good friend. He’s an editor at large for The Reason magazine, and also hosts an interview called The Reason podcast with Nick Gillespie. He’s one of my favorite interviewers out there, so get ready for a good one.

Nick, it’s yours now.

Nick Gillespie
Welcome to Open to Debate. I’m Nick Gillespie and I’ll be guest hosting today’s episode. We’re taking a break from our regular debate programs to dive into one of Open to Debate’s other preoccupations which is polarization. We’ve all heard the catchphrases and statistics about how divided we are as a country, how personal and vicious that divide can get, and how gridlock Congress has become because of it. And then, there’s the perennial question, how do we get out of it?

Well, this is exactly what Brian Tyler Cohen explores in his new book Shameless: Republicans’ Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy. He outlines what he sees as the causes of our partisanship and provides a roadmap out of the dysfunction. So, of course, we wanted to talk with him about it.

Brian is a YouTuber, podcaster, MSNBC contributor. He’s also from Central Jersey as I am which I wanna point out. He’s got over six million subscribers across his social media including a YouTube channel with two billion views and counting. His show No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen has a guest list that’s a who’s, who’s in progressive politics, people like AOC, Elizabeth Warren, also President Joe Biden, which made Brian the first YouTuber to snag an interview with the President.

Brian, welcome to Open to Debate.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Thank you so much for having me. Excited to do this.

Nick Gillespie
Uh, let’s, uh, jump right into it. Tell me what drove you to write the book Shameless.

Brian Tyler Cohen
I thought it was so important right now because as we head toward another election cycle and we start to see polling where Americans trust Republicans more, for example, on the economy, on national security, on the Constitution, they don’t actually deserve that branding. And so, I talk about how Republicans take their historical branding, this idea that they’re the party of the Constitution, the party of family values, the party of fiscal responsibility, of state’s rights, of law and order. The list goes on and on.

And they really benefit from that branding to give themselves cover to act in a way that’s completely antithetically to that right now. That’s one section. There’s also the fact that the media has played into this whole farce. And finally, I talk about what Democrats can do to rebalance the political landscape after so many elections where it’s the same thing over and over again.

Nick Gillespie
So, uh, in a way, I mean, you’re trying to depolarize things by kind of wiping out the Republicans.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well-

Nick Gillespie
I mean, if we … if we’re being honest.

Brian Tyler Cohen
It, it is just, it is just making clear the, the truth about the situation. And so, if it means, if it means exposing the reality of what the Republicans are doing right now, then, then so be it. But I think for so long, they’ve benefited from these misnomers about who they are. And, uh, and I think that it’s far pastime for us to have, have a clear understanding of what the Republican Party of today actually is.

Nick Gillespie
Who, who do you think you’re going to, uh, reach with the book? And when you look at, uh, Gallup, you’ve got, in their latest numbers, there- there’s about 30% of people who identify as Republicans, about 27, 28% as Democrats. And those have been fluctuating around that. And then there’s this big lump of people i-, who, you know, who identify as independents, they end up voting one way or the other. But, um, who are you trying to reach?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I think it’s important, and I talk about this-

Nick Gillespie
Yup.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… in the book, I think it’s important to actually reach my audience, but not as the end audience, so to speak.

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
It can’t just be that I reach a million people on a YouTube video and then those people have the information and they just sit on it.

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
It has to be that they take that and they use it in their circles of people. They use it to talk to their friends, family, neighbors, coworkers-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… whoever it is. And, you know, these are people who come to them, for example, for family dinners or whatever and, and spout off the misinformation that they’re being fed. And now, people who watch my stuff or listen to my stuff-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… will have the opportunity to rebut it with some facts of their own.

Nick Gillespie
Your core audience, I assume, mostly agrees with you. But what you’re trying to do is to expand that into that thick middle part where a plurality of American voters seemed to be.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Correct. Because i- inherently, it’s gonna be almost impossible to reach those people because they don’t consume political media in the same way that my regular-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… audience would. And so, you have to tap into those people to then reach the disaffected folks in their lives, to then reach the family members who don’t vote-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… or who don’t think that politics applies to them or who, who just aren’t interested at all. So, that, that’s kind of what this is. It is making more and more people tribunes for the actual message and, and imbuing them with a sense of agency so that we all realize that the onus isn’t just on journalists or reporters or politicians to-

Nick Gillespie
Or people, sadly, like you and me obsessed with politics, right?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Obsessed. The, the political, the political freaks (laughs).

Nick Gillespie
Or, or that’s, that’s how we butter our friend.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
So, according to Gallup, about 21% of the population of, of, of Americans said they, you know, they’re comfortable with the direction of the country. Um, do you … You know, that’s one sign of dysfunction, um, the loss in trust of confidence in institutions, something else that, um, Gallup has looked at, uh, you know, for decades. That’s another level of dysfunction or another sign of dysfunction.

Nick Gillespie
How, um … What do, what do you think the primary causes of that is? That, you know, when Gallup says, you know, “Do you have a lot of faith in the executive branch of government,” and you get, like, around 15 to 20%. It’s been low for a long time, but then Congress s- sometimes is as low as 2 or 3%.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
What do you think is driving that?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think that is a long-standing tradition of undermining trust in our institutions. Just on, on purpose, thanks to a Republican Party that recognizes that if you break government and then point to the thing that you just broke as evidence that government can’t work, and that you should then turn around and vote people into office who think that we should shrink government down to the size of nothing, that’s a deliberate strategy to consolidate power for themselves because them, and only them, are the party who, who actually seeks to shrink government to, to, right now, we’re hearing Donald Trump [inaudible].

Nick Gillespie
But they don’t, right? I mean, that’s part of your argument is that they actually, you know, just like they’re not really the party of family values, they’re not the party of smaller government.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I think-

Nick Gillespie
And then goes up under Trump.

Brian Tyler Cohen
It does go up under Trump.

Nick Gillespie
Just like it does under Biden.

Brian Tyler Cohen
It, it is, it is small government in the parts that they don’t care about which we’re hearing a lot about the Department of Education being eliminated.

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
It is big government in the instances where it helps them. So, for example, lowering taxes and then letting, letting federal revenues dry up, uh, because they wanna give a tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.

Nick Gillespie
Can I … You know, if you take the longer view, the decline in trust and confidence in government, really, uh, you know, from the early ’70s, that goes on. And clearly, a big part of that was Vietnam, the Vietnam War, which was masterminded and architected by Lyndon Johnson, a, a big government liberal, uh, the failure of the Great Society programs to alleviate many of the, the social problems that they, you know, said they were going to … another … something that’s clearly and rightly identified with the Democratic Party.

Then you layer in things like Watergate. Uh, but then you layer in things like massive inflation and unemployment and the inability of government to do anything about it, seemingly, under both Republican and Democratic, uh, administrations. Is it really … I mean, is it a winning message to say, “You know what? This is really all Republicans. They’re behind it all?”

Brian Tyler Cohen
I would say, right now, the modern, the modern political media ecosystem that we’re in right now, I would say that it’s very clearly only one side. And, and you take, for example, the fact that Republicans can now wield a right-wing disinformation machine that they have at their fingertips, fingertips to be able to spin this any way they want to.

Brian Tyler Cohen
The fact that we have, what is the strongest-

Nick Gillespie
What do you … Yeah, what do you mean by that?

Brian Tyler Cohen
The-

Nick Gillespie
I mean, they … because the Republican … or conservatives will constantly say, “You know what? Um, you know, we don’t have the media. The media is left wing. Uh, we don’t have the … Academy-

Brian Tyler Cohen
And, and I would-

Nick Gillespie
… the academy is left wing.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And I would immediately [inaudible].

Nick Gillespie
We don’t have Hollywood. That’s, you know, news and, uh, entertainment. That’s all left wing.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, it’s clear that Republicans have lost culture. But I think that in terms of the media … Look, and, and this is what I argue in my book, Republicans have a right-wing media ecosystem that is a … that, that acts as a propaganda arm for the Republican Party.

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
You’ve got Fox News, Newsmax, OAN. Fox just had to pay nearly a billion dollars because they were lying on Donald Trump’s behalf and continue to perpetuate, in large part, those same lies. What you have with the, the mainstream media is a media ecosystem that is so desperate not to be perceived as the liberal media, that they will actually bend over backwards and overcompensate to imbue all of this extra-credibility onto right-wing talking points.

And so, in the lead up to the 2016 election, for example, when we had f-, uh, the New York Times put 69 cover stories of Hillary’s emails on the frontpage when a similar situation happened where Ivanka Trump had used a personal email, uh, email address to do government business came and went like a fart in a hurricane.

Nick Gillespie
Um, and I, I say this as somebody, I’m undecided, I will tell you. Uh, you know, the first presidential election I voted in was in 1984 because I’m ancient and I voted for Walter Mondale. And since then, I’ve only voted for third-party candidates, typically the Libertarian Party candidate although I’m not a member. So, my vote is up for grabs.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Okay.

Nick Gillespie
So maybe, you know, part of the drama here is if you can convince me.

Brian Tyler Cohen
(laughs) All right.

Nick Gillespie
Um, one of the … You know, but, but then when you say, “Okay, it’s all on the Republicans,” um, and then I think back to, you know, what happened after Trump was elected, you know, all we heard for years and we still hear this is Russia. You know, that Russia, somehow the Trump administration was in cahoots with Russia or Russia won the election for Donald Trump.

And again, you know, all of the governmental investigations to that have said there’s no evidence of that of, you know, any collusion between the Trump administration and the Russian government-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I think that the, the-

Nick Gillespie
… or that the Russian government, you know, actually was able to s-, change the election. Do you agree with that? And is that a sign that the media is unbiased or even biased against the Republicans?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Not, not entirely. Um, I, I, I know that there was polling data that was shared through Paul Manafort.

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And that was given to the Russians. I know that, uh, there was, you know, a, a Trump Tower meeting where that Don Jr. wanted to speak with them. In any case, I’m not especially concerned about relitigating the impact that Russia had on the election, mostly because I think that in large, part it was the failure of, of a lot of voters to recognize their agency in terms of what happened in 2016.

I mean, you know, there were people who were calling out the warning signs in the lead up to the 2016 election that there was populist dissatisfaction in this country. And when you have Donald Trump come in and, and ride the wave of that, then it’s not especially surprising that somebody who presents himself as a populist could then wield that and use it to, to deliver himself the presidency.

My contention is in the immediate aftermath of that, did he actually govern like a populist? Did he actually help any of the people who he claimed to help? What did Donald Trump do with all of his political capital after writing this sentiment of populism into the White House? All of his political capital was basically filtered into a tax cut that overwhelmingly favored millionaires and billionaires.

Nick Gillespie
And how did that go for?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Not so well. He added $1.9 trillion to the debt on top of that.

Nick Gillespie
Well, and I was gonna say is the midterms didn’t work out so well for him.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Exactly.

Nick Gillespie
We’re gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, more of my conversation with Brian Tyler Cohen. This is Open to Debate and we’ll be right back.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m here with Brian Tyler Cohen, YouTuber, podcaster and author of the new book Shameless: Republican’s Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy.

Your, your argument is that the Republicans are the ones who have, you know, really hollowed out any kind of faith or trust or confidence in, uh, in the political system or in government’s ability to do things. What about the Democrats? I mean, is it … What have they done wrong? Because one of the things that you talk about in the book which is, you know, it … I, I wanna say it’s, it’s a breezy read, it’s highly footnoted, it’s, it’s-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Thank you.

Nick Gillespie
… well done. Um, one of the things you talk about is that we have, for all of the 21st century really, we’ve been going back and forth between changes in the White House, in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Uh, nobody’s able to hold what, um, Morris Fiorina, political scientist at Stanford calls a stable majority. Is that a sign of dysfunction or is that a sign that we are actually really doing democracy now?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think it’s a sign of both. I think it’s also largely a function of the fact that when Democrats do have power, we didn’t have the media infrastructure to be able to actually give anybody a reason to recognize why we should stay in power.

And, and look what Democrats did, for example. Um, let, let’s go back to, to the days of the ACA. I mean, obviously, Obamacare-

Nick Gillespie
Okay. Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… is so popular right now. That would be-

Nick Gillespie
The Affordable Care Act.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… the, the … It would be political suicide to try and overturn it and yet, Republicans still do try to overturn it. But they tried 77 times. It’s not gonna work anymore because it is that important to the American people.

Nick Gillespie
And, and to your point, you know, Donald Trump and the Republicans ran on, “If I win, I will repeal it and replace it.” He won. They did not repeal it. Uh, they, they took away the fine that’s affiliated with the individual mandate, but they did not replace it.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And, and in fact, Republicans had got shellacked at the ballot box in 2018 on the back of that. Uh, and, and thank goodness, there was John McCain there to, to vote down the last attempt at what I believe was repeal and replace, if not skinny repeal.

In any case, uh, there was such a void in democratic messaging that when Democrats were able to actually pass this monumentally important piece of legislation, it was first of all so distorted by the media that while the Democrats were trying to advocate for the virtues of this program and talk about Medicare Part D and just get into the intricacies of this thing, Republicans just basically called it death panels. They likened it to death panels.

The thing was wildly unpopular, led to a massive, massive, uh, uh, beatdown of Democrats at the ballot box in 2010, I believe. They lost over 800-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… state legislative seats. They lost half of their-

Nick Gillespie
But that was also … I mean, it was Obamacare but it was also because of the recession coming out of the financial crisis. People were unhappy, ultimately, with stimulus spending and whatnot. And, you know, and again, I, I want to play devil’s advocate here.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Sure.

Nick Gillespie
Obama, the biggest problem was he had a Democratic majority. He had to keep giving Democrats more and more what were called sweeteners in order to get them to vote for Obamacare. Is that really the Republican’s fault.

Brian Tyler Cohen
In, in large part, it was also a function of the fact that we had a much more conservative Democratic majority than we do, than we do today, for sure. But I think it, it is also a function of the fact that we have … we had very little democratic messaging actually going out, both organization and the infrastructure to actually get that message out.

And so, what was left in the aftermath of that was people actually thinking that the ACA would lead to some type of death panels.

Nick Gillespie
Do you, do you think, uh, PolitiFact is a wing of the Republican Party or of the conservative movement?

Brian Tyler Cohen
No.

Nick Gillespie
Yeah, ’cause in 2013 and, I mean, this is important, right? Their lie of the year, they would give a lie of the year and they gave it to Barack Obama for saying that, “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep it.” And they said that was an absolute lie. It always was a lie, you know.

And I’m … What I’m getting at here is like, you know, if, if you’re not a partisan already, like, I’m … I feel like you’re tipping the scale so much that it is, you know, it’s a little hard to take. That you’re saying that the media infrastructure is built up against the Democratic Party?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yes.

Nick Gillespie
Okay.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And, and I do believe that. And the reason that it’s different now-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… for example, is that for the first time, Democrats are able to have some semblance of a progressive media ecosystem that is able to promote the accomplishments that they’ve been able to, to pass in just the last two years with the … when Democrats had full control of government as opposed to the most recent two years-

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… where, where when Republicans had virtually the same majority in the House, what they did with their political capital was basically start-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… investigations into Hunter Biden.

Nick Gillespie
Right. I, I mean, it’s, it’s fascinating to me from again, you know, if this happened with Bill Clinton starting in 1992. He won, barely squeaked into office. It was one of the tightest races. And we’ve been in an era of tight races, I think, because nobody’s quite sure what they want. But, you know, by ’94, he had elected for the first time in, in decades of full Republican Congress and Senate.

And then, you know, George Bush comes in and he ends up screwing it up, like, Obama got what he wanted in his first two years and then elects a Republican Congress. And then, you know, so it’s, it’s kind of this back and forth.

And I, I guess my question with that is when you say, now, Democrats have a messaging machine, is it, is it the message or is it the content of the message that keeps things going back and forth?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I firmly believe that it is, it is having that messaging apparatus. And you look, for example, at the Ailes memo. And this was the precursor to what would become Fox News.

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And they looked at what happened with Richard Nixon and Watergate. And there was no messaging apparatus to defend Republicans. And Roger Ailes didn’t want that anymore. He, he didn’t want a Republican to have to, uh, face that type of accountability that Richard Nixon faced. And so [inaudible]-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah. [inaudible] Republican Party. They got blown out throughout the ’70s because of them.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And you, you fast forward to today where we do have Fox News in addition to the other right-wing, right-wing outlets. And-

Nick Gillespie
When, um … I mean, the, the Republican or the conservative rejoinder is like, “What are you talking about? ABC News, NBC News, CBS News are all left-leaning or they’re friendly to the Democrat.”

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think my contention would be while there may be left-leaning journalists and reporters-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… at those networks, those networks themselves bend over backwards to try and prove that they are neutral. And so, they show an asymmetry there. But what I’m … But, but-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… back to my initial point with Fox News, if you fast forward to today and you look at what Donald Trump did with January 6th, for example-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… not only is he not being excommunicated from the party-

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… as Richard Nixon was in ’74, but Republicans have rallied around him because he has that media apparatus that, as I mentioned before, Fox itself had to pay nearly a billion dollars while defending him. And so, and so, this is the culmination of those efforts to make sure that, that people are, are manipulated in such a way to believe that based on what they hear from this partisan … from partisan media which is … which was set up expressly to protect Republicans, uh, that, that in the case of Donald Trump, he’s done nothing wrong.

Nick Gillespie
Why is Fox News so popular? Is it because it’s tricking people or because it’s actually speaking to what they care about?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think that Fox has become … has gotten very, very good at learning how to manipulate people who watch them. Preying on fears. And also, in terms of popularity, the other networks have basically been able to slice up the half of the electorate that probably identifies as more liberal.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And so, it looks, you know, just from first glance, that Fox is just this behemoth and that conservatives must rule everything. But in fact, if you just add up the share of ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and all those other outlets-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… it would, you know, our country would look 50/50. But I do think that Fox has been extra-, extraordinarily effective in terms of manipulating people. We, we know, for example, thanks to, thanks to the investigations that have happened recently that behind the scenes be-, with regard to the events of January 6th, these Fox hosts knew exactly what they were doing. They were laughing at it and yet, they would go on air-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… and tell their audience something completely different to what they were texting each other, uh, unto themselves. So, they know the truth. But the point is to manipulate people who watch that network on behalf of the political party that they want to support.

Nick Gillespie
Can I-

Brian Tyler Cohen
And I don’t think that there’s any equivalency between, between that and anything that happens on ABC, CBS, NBC or any of the other perceived left-wing outlets.

Nick Gillespie
Uh, you know, one of the things … This has been arguably the most insane past six weeks in American political history.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
Certainly, you know, in any living memory. Um, we were told up until the presidential debate, you know, and by we, I mean people except at places like Fox News and, and some other, uh, right-leaning sources, that there was absolutely no question about Joe Biden’s mental capacity.

In your book which was obviously written months ago, you go into depth about saying, like, these whole questions, you chide CNN for having even, you know, discussed the issue. Of course, this was a fake kind of vaporware project by conservatives to undermine Joe Biden’s, you know, uh, confidence or, or, uh, the confidence of voters in the country.

You know, a, a Republican turned liberal, Joe, uh, Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe, saying, “You know what? I just saw him and he was never as smart and as, you know, whip-cracking as he ever was.”

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
And that was just obviously not true.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I think-

Nick Gillespie
And this is the type of thing that gets into the question of-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Totally.

Nick Gillespie
… you know, when you’re saying, “Oh, you know, but the media is right bias.”

Brian Tyler Cohen
Totally. Well, here’s the thing. Here’s what I would push back to that is that, clearly, if, if they knew the state that he was in or the state that he got to, when we got to the point of the debate, his own staff wouldn’t have pushed for that debate to actually happen. So, it, it wasn’t looking … uh, it wasn’t as if they were looking to actually sabotage their own candidate, their own boss, by getting him out there.

Clearly, everybody in the entire left-wing ecosystem who had heard these attacks about his mental state from day one, by the way, only to see him overperform at the first State of the Union, overperform at the second State of the Union. Every time he comes out and does his speeches, he overperforms. And then that talking point, that narrative goes away until he’s been gone for, you know, a few more weeks and then it simmers back up to the surface.

And so, this was always there. The, the, the unfortunate reality is that, is that we got to the point of the debate and he did have an-

Nick Gillespie
So-

Brian Tyler Cohen
… an abysmal debate.

Nick Gillespie
… he kept it hidden-

Brian Tyler Cohen
It’s not that he-

Nick Gillespie
… from even other people in the, in the Democratic Party.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Uh, it’s that when he came out in public, when he had … when we had the opportunity to actually see the guy, he always performed completely fine, if not, overperformed. When we, when we saw him at the State of the Union, for example, did you have any qualms about his mental state then?

Nick Gillespie
We have … Well, uh, yes, I do. But I have that about almost all politician so I’ll, I’ll put that up.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I guess, I guess I should say-

Nick Gillespie
But, but, I mean, it seemed odd actually. I mean, are you saying he just had an off night?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I’m saying that he-

Nick Gillespie
He’s not he should be?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I’m saying that he, that he certainly had an off night, that’s for sure. And, and we may have just gotten to the point where then he just got … where then it was just, you know, he, he just didn’t have it anymore. But I think that when they were making those claims in 2020, 2021, 2022, those claims were unfounded.

Nick Gillespie
But in this year, they clearly were.

Brian Tyler Cohen
In 2024, by now, I think it’s to the point where he can no longer prosecute-

Nick Gillespie
And that’s-

Brian Tyler Cohen
… the case.

Nick Gillespie
Yeah. You know, with Kamala, you know, I heard or, you know, there were s- stories in the press saying, you know, one of the reasons why Biden wasn’t gonna step down because he, he was old and he knew he would be very old by the end of his term, was because there wasn’t a lot of confidence and trust in Kamala as a candidate. And that seems to have vapor … completely evaporated.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
And, you know, now, everybody is like, “She’s the greatest thing in the world.” The way the press treats her, uh, CBS, uh, News had a story where she, um, said that she was proposing that taxes, uh, or, right, income taxes wouldn’t apply to tips which something that Donald Trump said two months ago. Um, and it’s been kicking around in various things for a decade or so.

When CBS News reported when Donald Trump said they quoted a watchdog organization saying this was gonna cost $250 billion in tax revenue over the next 10 years, that was, if it went through, that was the headline. With Kamala, it was, you know, this is, she’s rallying, you know, uh, wage, uh, you know, service economy workers. Doesn’t that show kind of an odd bias in the press?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Perhaps. In, in an, in an, in anecdotal-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… sense, um, there is always gonna be instances of data where you can prove that the press is either friendly to someone or unfriendly to someone. Uh, but, I, I, I think more broadly, um, the, the point stands that, that coverage of Donald Trump is much more forgiving given the magnitude and depth of, of his behavior versus what the Democrats have done. But it, but it kind of is baked into the cake and they are graded on a curve.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And so, if it was really one on one, I mean, the, the quote, unquote, scandals that Democrats are involved in, what, you know-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… wouldn’t, wouldn’t hold a candle to half of what (laughs) Republicans do these days. But, but because there is that curve, all of a sudden, you know, we have to dig into the intricate scrutinize like to the, to the nth degree, things that Democrats do while, while in large part forgiving or, or just accepting it as, as part of the daily routine what, what Donald Trump says, what Republicans do.

And, uh, even the things that Donald Trump has said just this week which ended up being one-day news stories, maybe two-day news stories. But by denying the ethnicity of Kamala Harris, by bragging that his January 6th insurrection crowd was bigger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech crowd, by trashing, uh, unions during his conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter.

If, if a Democrat said any of these things, I think it would just … I think it would completely dominate the coverage. And you talk about, you know, the, the new cycle of cognitive decline. But, but when Donald Trump does it, it’s … it, it is baked into the cake that he says crazy stuff and so maybe we’ll focus on it, you know, for one day and then write it off. And that is the asymmetry that I’m talking about.

Nick Gillespie
Let, let me ask. Uh, you know, Gallup, um, in, in 2000, 55% of Americans had a good deal or a great deal of confidence in the media. It is now down to 32%-

Brian Tyler Cohen
So, I think there’s-

Nick Gillespie
… so there’s pretty big decline.

Brian Tyler Cohen
There’s two aspects of that. I think, first of all, we have a bifurcated media ecosystem. We are completely polarized as a country. So, right off the bat, you are going to have very little confidence in the media because part of the media is the other side that you very much don’t agree with.

And I’m sure anybody on the right would say that any, any … what they perceive as being left-wing media sources are completely biased and so that the media is terrible. And vice versa, anybody on the left is gonna look at the existence of Fox News, Newsmax, OAN and all those other outlets and say,” Yes, I’m also decided that … dissatisfied with the media. Look at the state of the media in this country.”

Nick Gillespie
So, let’s, let’s talk about, uh, your YouTube channel and your show.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Sure.

Nick Gillespie
Uh, uh, give its name again.

Brian Tyler Cohen
It’s just my name, Brian Tyler Cohen.

Nick Gillespie
And, um, you’re up over three million subscribers.

Brian Tyler Cohen
I just, just passed three million subscribers. I started it about, uh, five years ago now. So, really went full time in 2019.

Nick Gillespie
Okay. And what, and what were you doing before you became a, uh, kind of like main, full-time YouTuber or a podcast or a talk show host?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, actually, uh, interestingly enough, I was just writing articles for HuffPost and submitting them as a volunteer because I was just, uh, you know, passionate about politics.

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And I just moved to LA to work in the entertainment industry.

Nick Gillespie
You were going to be an actor, right?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I was gonna be an actor. I was actually-

Nick Gillespie
You mentioned that in passing in the book.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, I, I, I wanted to be an actor. I also worked, uh, ironically enough, at Fox Broadcasting Company. That was-

Nick Gillespie
Oh my God.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… my first job out here. So, just like I was in the belly of the beast. (laughs)

Nick Gillespie
Oh no, this is … Well, stop the presses. Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Um, and, uh, and that was fine.

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And, uh, but, you know, a big part of, of acting is, is waiting for a lot of people to give you permission to do something.

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And, uh, and that was tough for me ’cause I’m very much, uh, very much a type A personality. And, uh-

Nick Gillespie
That’s the Jersey and the Central Jersey guy.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Oh yeah.

Nick Gillespie
Right?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
Like you’re, you’re gonna ask forgiveness, not permission.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Exactly. That is a mantra.

Nick Gillespie
So, let’s talk about the YouTube channel. Um, how did you build up? Like, who is your audience? And, um, you know, what are the, what are the demographics? Who … Uh, you know, YouTube has great analytics.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
Who, who’s watching you?

Brian Tyler Cohen
The demographics, interestingly enough, are, are pretty varied. I’m split effectively 50/50. And-

Nick Gillespie
Um, man and fe-, male and female?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Male and female, yeah. And they are from across the country, although the biggest metropolitan areas are obviously-

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… represented in order. And, uh, i- it’s, it’s pretty much a, a parabola in terms of, you know, at the, at the edges-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… the, the younger … the youngest audiences, 18 to 34 are lower represented. 65 and up are lower represented. And, uh, in the middle, you know, a big part of my audience is 30, 40, 50, 60 years old.

Nick Gillespie
And you have had … I mean, it is really just the who’s who, um, um, you know, mostly progressive Democrats on your show. And you, your, your book is, uh, The Forward is by Jamie Raskin.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
You’ve got blurbs by other people who will be known to everybody, uh, including Nancy Pelosi, uh, Jon Favreau, not the actor/director, but the host of-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Correct. (laughs)

Nick Gillespie
… Pod Save America which might be the largest non-Joe Rogan podcast in the world. Joy Reid, the, uh, MSNBC host. Um, what is the content that people crave? You know, let’s say it’s Brawndo from, uh, you know, Idiocracy. What, what do people crave in your content?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think it’s just a common sense, no bullshit breakdown of exactly what’s happening. And, you know, it, it is the antidote to the both-sides-ism that we see in the media.

For a lot of people, first of all, politics is very inaccessible. There’s no way to decipher what’s actually happening if you’re watching 24-hour news coverage. It’s just you have to dip in at some random point. You can’t actually get a full breakdown of what’s happening and you have to dip out. And some people … most people don’t want to watch news that day. They don’t want to be hitting … hit over the head with 24 hours of news coverage.

So, my videos are only 5, 6, 7, 8 to 10 minutes. And, uh, and it’s just a very clear breakdown of exactly what’s happening. My take on it which I think is a common sense take on things. And, uh, a- and people seemed to-

Nick Gillespie
And that’s for … I mean, you’re not hiding the ball either, right? You’re, you’re saying you’re not speaking-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Oh, and say that I’m a progressive. Absolutely-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… I am a progressive.

Nick Gillespie
Um, we’re gonna come back to this in just a second. We’re gonna take another break. And when we return, we’ll be inviting in some other voices to add their questions to this conversation with Brian Tyler Cohen. This is Open to Debate and we’ll be right back.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m Nick Gillespie. And I’m here with Brian Tyler Cohen, the YouTuber and host of the No Lie podcast. He’s written a new book Shameless.

Brian, when we were, uh … Um, just before the break, we were talking about YouTube. You know, we, we touched on this a bit but to return to it, is your core audience, is it kind of, uh, what sometimes get derided as low-information voters or people who are not politically activated? Or is it, you know, is it the, the true believers who then go and proselytize?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Luckily, it’s, it’s everybody. And that is largely a function of the sheer amount of people I’m able to reach on YouTube. I’m reaching between six and seven million people a day right now, so over 100 pe-, 100 million people a month. And so inherently in that, you’re gonna have low-information voters who stumble upon my content because maybe something caught their eye in the thumbnail or the title or even, or even just the video popped up itself, it seemed interesting.

And you’re gonna have people who watch every single video who call their Congress people who are writing letters, who are signing, you know, whatever petitions they have to sign. And these are the people who, uh, who I also hope are acting as, as tribunes to, to-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… carry the message forward. So-

Nick Gillespie
Is that … The tribune, is that from The Hunger Games?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Uh, actually, it’s from Dan Pfeiffer-

Nick Gillespie
Okay, yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… who, who I also spoke with in this book.

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
But that is a, that is my, that is my nod to Dan Pfeiffer.

Nick Gillespie
Yeah. And Dan Pfeiffer is a, um, [inaudible]-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Communications Director for Barack Obama.

Nick Gillespie
Right. And I mean a, a legend in kind of new methods of co-, of connecting with voters-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Correct.

Nick Gillespie
… things like that. And, you know, what you’re talking about in a way, I mean, your content is geared towards a particular audience, but that part of this is a shift in technology and, and a, and a [inaudible] to, uh, to coin a phrase, where what people want is direct information that i-, where you’re not speaking, you know, in the third person and pretending to have-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Right.

Nick Gillespie
… uh, kind of disinterest in-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Correct.

Nick Gillespie
… what’s going on.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Correct. I, I guess where I’m positioned in the progressive media ecosystem is, is, in a way, you know, i- it’s interesting because people on the, on the left will call me a, a, a neolib shill.

Nick Gillespie
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And people on the right will say that I’m a communist, Marxist. Uh, so, so, there really is no winning. But my hope is really to be able to, to reach people who are in, a little bit in the middle-

Nick Gillespie
In the middle.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… who, who, who may have been pushed away. And, and do it from the perspective, the, the unapologetic perspective of someone who is a progressive.

Nick Gillespie
Do you find that, um, when you connect on one issue, people start listening to on other issues?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, absolutely. I, I, I … And I think there’s something of like a, like a, like a gateway. And, and that’s … And, and it could be anything. It could be any issue. But I think a lot of the issues, by the way, that I talk about, a lot of the issues that today’s Democratic Party embraces are common sense issues. These are issues that the vast majority of Americans do support. You look at universal background checks, 90% of Americans agree with those. The Republican Party doesn’t, but 90% of Americans, including the majority of Republicans, actually do.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And so, if you’re able to find those issues-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… where there is consensus among both sides, including those independents, that’s where you can draw people in and at least get an ear so they’ll take you seriously for the issues moving forward.

Nick Gillespie
All right. We’re gonna bring in some other voices now, members of the audience who have been listening and I’m sure they have questions of their own for Brian. First, I’d like to welcome Joel Payne. Joel is a Democratic strategist and a political contributor to CBS News.

Nick Gillespie
Joel, Welcome. Uh, please come on in with your question.

Joel Payne
Yeah, Nick, thanks for having me. And Brian, good to be with you.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Thanks.

Joel Payne
Um, appreciate it, learning about your scholarship here and look forward to reading this book. Um, you know, one of the things that your conversation has struck for me is, uh, the idea of fatalism. Um, particularly on the Democratic side in politics, it’s just a topic that you hear a lot, right? The idea of doomscrolling and how fatalism, um, actually hamstrings Democrats.

And I’m curious about whether or not your scholarship touches on that and just your broader view about kind of how to guard against that as a Democrat. And looking at what Kamala Harris has done and kind of, uh, injecting joy into her campaign as a strategy.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Joel Payne
Be curious to your take on all those topics.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, thanks-

Nick Gillespie
All right, thank you, Joel.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Thanks for the question. That’s, that’s, that’s obviously extremely relevant today. I think Republicans largely benefit from, from focusing almost exclusively on the politics of fear. Donald Trump, in large part, emboldened exactly that. I mean, he definitely (laughs) got into office on the back of, of a Muslim ban, on, on attacking Mexicans.

Nick Gillespie
Uh, but can I ask, is that simply, um, you know, a Republican talking point? Um, you know, in 2012, Vice President Joe Biden said that if Mitt Romney who’s everybody’s friend now-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
… gets elected, uh, he said to Black audiences, “They’re gonna put you back in chains.” Is that doomscrolling as well?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Ah, pro- pro- probably, yeah. And luckily, we did have somebody in Barack Obama who was a candidate of, of hope. And so, even though Joe, Joe Biden can say something like that, I think the standard-bearer of the party, his message is gonna far exceed that.

But you look at right now and, and the, the reason that we’ve seen this, this, this change is because Democrats have been able to go back to that message of optimism. And there’s only so much potency that, that doom and gloom and the … and … is actually gonna be able to have in politics.

Nick Gillespie
Right.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And I think Donald Trump, the fact that he has this 46, 47% ceiling-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… is a testament to that. And the fact that, that Joe Biden who, uh, there’s really no, though, no difference between his agenda and Kamala Harris’s agenda, as far as we can tell right now, there’s really not a lot of data like-

Nick Gillespie
That’s kind of … I mean, as a YouTuber, don’t you want to have a one-on-one conversation with Kamala Harris-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Sure, absolutely.

Nick Gillespie
… [inaudible] that Donald Trump has actually gone into hostile audiences and, and talked with them? Is that … Is she missing a real opportunity to connect with voters?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think right now, it’s just been a few days and she’s talking to audiences of tens of thousands of people and making sure to very-

Nick Gillespie
Oh, she’s speaking at them, right? I mean, that’s-

Brian Tyler Cohen
And … But making sure to very rightly define herself for those people because there is a large, there, there, there is a, a, a risk of not doing that, not taking the biggest stage that you have as quickly as you do and allowing Republicans to fill that so that they can define you.

Nick Gillespie
That’s an interesting strategy. Thank you, Joel, for your question. Let’s talk to, uh, Diana Furchtgott-Roth. Diana is the director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at the Heritage Foundation. And she’s the author of many books but, uh, we are going to talk about, uh, the one from 2021 United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality.

Uh, Diana, what’s your question for Brian Tyler Cohen?

Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Oh, thank you. And I just want to say I’m speaking on my own behalf and not on behalf of the Heritage Foundation.

Nick Gillespie
Great.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Here’s my question. Democrats talk a lot about choice. But here, voters in 50 states chose President Biden as their candidate and he was just overturned by a coup. President Biden himself said three days ago, uh, that he was forced out by Nancy Pelosi and other leaders.

And then to take the choice further, uh, Democrats want to force Americans into electric vehicles and electric stoves. Environmental Protection Agency rules say that by 2032, 70% of cars sold have to be battery-powered electric. And Department of Energy rules are phasing out natural gas stoves forcing people into electric stoves.

And I’m just wondering, given that you, Brian, say that Democrats are the party of democracy, why are they neglecting individual choice?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Thank you for the question. So, a, a bunch to, to cover there.

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Uh, let’s start with, with gas vehicle … with, uh, gas-powered vehicles, electric vehicles. I think that first of all, that’s not happening for more than a decade before it’ll … those will be phased out, but we have an obligation to protect this planet.

We already know that climate change is real. We are clearly not going to engage in climate denialism here. I think any good-faith conversation would recognize that, that the climate is obviously warming and that we have to do whatever we can, as quickly as we can, to protect it.

And so, we have an obligation, and our leaders have an obligation, and consumers are speaking in terms of what they want, uh, for these companies to do in terms of bringing in electric vehicles so that, so that we can make, make good to our, to our obligation to the, to the planet here.

Uh, I, I, I can’t exactly speak on gas stoves although I would say that Democrats are not, uh, looking to take away anybody’s gas stove. And, uh, I think that’s a little bit of tired fear- fearmongering, I think.

Nick Gillespie
Um …

Brian Tyler Cohen
And, and just to-

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… just to answer the question on the coup of the Democratic Party.

Nick Gillespie
Oh, yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Look, Joe Biden is absolutely allowed to make the, the, the voluntary decision to step down. I, I can’t speak on what reporting has happened, but Joe Biden has the right to be able to step down. He ran with Kamala Harris. The American people voted for Kamala Harris on Joe Biden’s ticket in 2020. She is stepping in.

And, and now, the American people over-, the Democratic Party overwhelmingly supports her on that ticket. She consolidated support among all of the delegates. She’s consolidated support among Democrats, at least as far as we can see in the polling. So, I think this is more concern trolling from the right than an actual worry about any Democratic process being subverted because the people who, who you purport to be worried on behalf of are not worried at all.

Nick Gillespie
Diana, thanks for your question. Brian, uh, let me ask you about generational stuff. You’re 35 years old.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Correct.

Nick Gillespie
And so, you’re a younger millennial or-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
… you know, an elder Gen Z maybe or something like that. What do you sense are the most important issues for young people and younger people, millennials and Gen Z have been less partisan than, um, uh, you know, the previous generations? You know, what, what are young people, uh, obsessed with?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I think the issues that young people are especially focused on are, are the … For the first time I think in history, the more resonant issues among Americans, more broadly, usually, elections were really a referendum on taxes and earned benefits in the past. I mean, if, if I can be that reductive.

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm, sure.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Maybe even healthcare, but all of which are not exactly things that young people are, are jumping out of bed to go-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… and vote for. Now, think about the issues that are really gonna impact young people and that are mostly the focus of these elections. Reproductive rights, that is inherently more focused on, on young people’s rights, on young women’s rights than, than older folks.

Uh, gun safety, again, an inherently, uh, an inherently youth-centric issue. Uh, uh, climate change, for example, the future that young people, us, ourselves are going to inherit, inherently an issue that that young people are more focused on than older folks. And so-

Nick Gillespie
Do you find that there is a uniformity among young people? Or is there as wide a spread among, you know, 35-year-olds as there are among 60-year-olds?

Brian Tyler Cohen
No, I think that there’s l- largely uniformity among a lot of these positions. I think with climate change, for example, young people aren’t so … aren’t as susceptible to just like the Sean Hannity-esque, you know, propaganda about, about cli- climate change not being real. I mean, like we, we are, we are way-

Nick Gillespie
But then-

Brian Tyler Cohen
… we are way past that point.

Nick Gillespie
But if we’re all environmentalists now, doesn’t that then say, okay, well, you know, then that actually opens up a policy discussion. And do you say like, okay, you know, B-, uh, I mean, uh, AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, some years ago, said we have to stop all carbon within 12 years. We’re almost at that.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
Um, a lot of people her age don’t believe that. They’re like, “Yeah, we got to deal with it. But, you know, how we deal with it matters.”

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah. Look, I think (laughs), I think this is a situation where I would be more than happy to kind of defer to the scientists and, and-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… listen to what they’re saying. And so, we can have, we can debate until we’re, we’re blue in the face about the, the legitimacy of, uh, the validity of, of that point-

Nick Gillespie
Well, yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… but I, I think, I think when it comes to, when it comes to science, I think, I think most people recognize that, that the science is real. And of course, there are gonna be people who don’t, you know.

Nick Gillespie
How does … How do young people kind of find their way through that thicket of, you know, we’re … you know, reality is difficult and people don’t always agree or what the right thing to do is not always clear.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
And to bring it back to this question of kind of political polarization or having better conversations. You know, how do we, how do we get to a place where we can, uh, you know, not simply how do we all get everybody to agree with what I already believe-

Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.

Nick Gillespie
… but how do we have better conversations where we forge a meaningful consensus?

Brian Tyler Cohen
You know, I, I don’t know that that’s possible right now-

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
… to be perfectly honest. I think that at least from what I see on the right, there is no incentive structure to do that. By the way, I invite Republicans on my show all the time.

Nick Gillespie
Have you had any on?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I’ve had … The farthest right a Republican goes is Adam Kinzinger which should give you an indication of how, of how willing Republicans are to come on my show. But I, I, I just don’t see, I just don’t see the … that there isn’t even an incentive structure that exists today for people to, to, to come in, uh, and, and have, like, a civil conversation or be even be willing to compromise.

I speak in the book about how, you know, largely as the result of, of Newt Gingrich’s entrance into politics, compromise kind of went out the window and they inherently became the party of no. And they existed in government to block Barack Obama from doing, doing anything, really, even though Obama himself made it, made it a priority on his end to defer to Republicans and to extend them some good will and to make concessions with the ACA, for example, which he did and then Republicans voted against it anyway.

So, uh, uh, I do think that starting then, I mean, and, and leading all the way to today, I mean, this has been 20 years now where i- it’s … our, our political ecosystem has been created in such a way so as, not only to not encourage it, but actually actively discourage any working together. And so, it, it feels more like, it feels more at this point like terrain on which we’re fighting the messaging wars than any, than any venue where we can actually find commonality.

Nick Gillespie
I, I ask this, um, you know, genuinely of, you know, does that message mean that you are writing off and I don’t mean … You’re actually channeling Mitt Romney now where, you know, he famously was caught on a secret recording saying, “You know, there’s like 47% of the people who are never gonna vote for me anyway.”

Are you writing off, you know, the, the whole right half of the political spectrum in the short term because you’re trying to get people who might listen to you? I mean, it’s-

Brian Tyler Cohen
No, I’m, I’m actually doing the opposite. I’m making a concerted effort to be able to reach people who have been manipulated and exploited by right-wing media that is not acting in good faith. A lot of my videos are directly, uh, directly appealing to independents or even Republicans who have been, who have been kind of, uh, l- lied to, ma- manipulated by people who, who, who know what they’re doing and yet see no reason to, see, see no reason to, to, to behave differently because it, ultimately, certain coverage benefits them politically.

Nick Gillespie
Okay. Um, I think, uh, you know we’re gonna wrap up. But before we do, I’ve got one final question for you, Brian Tyler Cohen, author of Shameless. Is there any policy intervention? Or, you know, what is the top intervention you think that can be made that would decrease polarization? Or maybe it’s less about decreasing polarization and more about bringing in more voices to argue.

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think that what would be e- especially important is to continue along the road that we’re on right now. I mean, if you look at a lot of the, the policies that have been enacted within the first two years of the Biden administration, all of them enjoy broad, broad popularity. The infrastructure project was something that even Republicans advocated for. And by the way, a lot of these projects are taking place in red states themselves. Rural broadband, for example, inherently benefits rural communities which overwhelmingly vote Republican.

So, whether it’s that, whether it’s the American Rescue Plan which largely saved the US economy in the aftermath of COVID and led to the US to the, to the, to the strongest, uh, uh, to the strongest economy in … of all G7 countries, if not, the world. Uh, the inflation Reduction Act (laughs), you know. I mean, there, there is-

Nick Gillespie
Or the Inflation Creation Act-

Brian Tyler Cohen
That, well-

Nick Gillespie
… that so- some people withdraw?

Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, I think, right now, as of today, I believe inflation is down to 2.2% so I think that’s-

Nick Gillespie
Right. But higher than it was.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Higher than it was, of course, but it was a global phenomenon.

Nick Gillespie
Yeah.

Brian Tyler Cohen
Every country dealt with high inflation.

Nick Gillespie
Mm-hmm.

Brian Tyler Cohen
And every incumbent leader in every country around the world also suffered, suffered greatly as the result of that.

Nick Gillespie
Um, very quickly, if, if red states are benefiting so much from Joe Biden’s policies or democratic policies, how do you get those people to recognize that and then switch their allegiance?

Brian Tyler Cohen
I think it’s just a matter of continuing to, to, to disseminate good information. We haven’t had an ecosystem that has been able to do that before. And I think that’s large, in large part, what the Democrat’s top responsibility, top priority should be today is not just … is, is learning from the mistakes of the Obama administration.

For example, when you have, you know, the ACA and you can’t sell it to the point where it becomes a liability at first. Instead, when we have these policies that benefit broad swaths of the country, including maybe even disproportionately Republicans, our job is to just continue selling that. And that’s what I try to do on my channel.

I repeat this stuff on a daily basis. I have my list of, of democratic accomplishments that I say every single day (laughs) almost in, in nearly all of my videos, whether it’s the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, the PACT Act, the CHIPS Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Gun Safety Law, the Violence Against Women Act, codified marriage equality into, into federal law, all while adding 16 million jobs and bringing the unemployment rate down to a 50-year low.

Nick Gillespie
All right, that’s it for our discussion. Brian Tyler Cohen, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I’d also like to thank those who asked a question, Joel and Diana. And a big thank you to you, the audience, for tuning into this episode of Open to Debate.

As a nonprofit working to combat extreme polarization through civil debate, our work is made possible by listeners like you, the Rosencranz Foundation and supporters of Open to Debate. Robert Rosenkranz is our chairman. Our CEO is Clea Conner. And Lia Matthow is our Chief Content Officer. Elizabeth Kitzenberg is our Chief Advancement Officer.

This episode was produced by Alexis Pancrazi and Marlette Sandoval. Editorial aid research by Gabriella Mayer and Andrew Foote. Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support.

The Open to Debate team also includes Erik Gross, Gabrielle Iannucelli, Rachel Kemp and Linda Lee. Damon Whittemore mixed this episode. Our theme music is by Alex Clement. And I’m Nick Gillespie sitting in for John Donvan. We’ll see you next time on Open to Debate.