Well, We're in the Valley of Doom. Here Are Some Paths Forward.

5.15 | 11.15.24

I published the previous episode of Soonish in early October, and if you listened to that one, you’ll remember that I spelled out four scenarios for how the election could unfold. The fourth scenario was one where Donald Trump wins both the electoral college and the popular vote, with a margin big enough to claim he has a mandate for change. I called that the Valley of Doom. I had certainly hoped that we might end up in one of the other valleys, and I spent a lot of my own time in October and November visiting Arizona to talk with voters and help get people to turn out for Harris. But all the work that thousands of volunteers did in the swing states wasn’t nearly enough to counteract voters’ impatience with Democratic leadership.

So like it or not, the Valley of Doom is the scenario we’re in. Now that we know which path we’re really on, it’s time to think through through what’s next. Plenty of other smart people are trying to dissect the Democrats’ mistakes; what feels much more urgent to me is figuring out how to understand the moment we’re in now and how to respond to it.

• How did civic conversations that used to be built around mutual respect and a shared sense of reality devolve into a free-for-all where lies are more powerful than truth?

• How did trust in government and institutions decay to the point that a majority of voters were willing to hand power to a disruptor who feeds on chaos and confusion?

• What options are open now for people who still care about values like community and compassion and equality and enlightened self-government?

I reached out to two people this week who helped me think about those questions from different directions. You could loosely call them top-down and bottom-up.

The top-down thinker is Jamais Cascio. He’s a futurist and scenario planner based in California, and he’s a familiar voice to listeners of this podcast. The last time Jamais joined us was during the pandemic, and we talked about a framework he’d come up with to help describe the historical forces at play in that crisis. The framework has an acronym, BANI, which stands for Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible. Those feel like pretty good adjectives for this moment too, and in our chat we dived into how a BANI framework helps describe our experience of the Trump era and how we can adapt and respond to the coming changes.

The bottom-up thinker featured in this episode is named Rose Friedman. She’s the co-founder and executive director of a nonprofit called The Civic Standard. And she spends every day thinking about how to support dialogue and togetherness and mutual aid in her rural corner of Vermont. I think it’s the kind of work that could help build a new foundation for democratic dialogue and get us past the fear, terror, and loneliness some politicians would like us to feel. In the second half of the episode, I explain how I learned about The Civic Standard—and why I think their mission is so important.

Resources and Related Episodes

Harris, Trump, and the Four Valleys, Soonish, October 8, 2024

This Is The Dark, Unpsoken Promise of Trump’s Return, M. Gessen, The New York Times, November 15, 2024

Don’t Give Up on the Truth, Peter Wehner, The Atlantic, November 12, 2024

It Can Happen Here, David Remnick, The New Yorker, November 9, 2024

What BANI Really Means (And How It Corrects Your Worldview), Jerooen Kraaijenbrink, Forbes.com, June 23, 2022

The Hardwick Blueprint, Rowan Jacobsen, Yankee Magazine, February 20, 2024

Notes

The Soonish opening theme is by Graham Gordon Ramsay.

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Full Transcript

[Music: Hub & Spoke Sonic ID]

[Music: Soonish opening theme]

Wade Roush: You’re listening to Soonish. I’m Wade Roush.

Well, here we are. This is the future we all knew could be coming, and we worked as hard as we could to prevent it, but we ended up here anyway. Last week, more than 75 million Americans cast their presidential votes for a convicted felon, a pathological narcissist and liar, a reality show huckster, a serial sexual abuser, a man who's been labeled by his own former Joint Chiefs chair as a fascist to the core, and a man who says he wants to be a dictator on day one.

Donald Trump cares nothing for democracy or the Constitution. He wanted to return to power solely so that he could shield himself from legal prosecution and get revenge against his perceived enemies, and enrich himself and his family and his billionaire buddies along the way. I truly can't imagine anyone more unfit to be president. All that said, I can sort of understand what people were thinking when they cast their votes for Trump. It's pretty simple. Mostly, I think voters were just angry with the Democratic establishment for failing to get the cost of living under control. It wasn't just inflation and consumer goods that ticked them off. That kind of inflation has been backed down to normal for a while now. What mattered more was that the cost of housing and health care and childcare and tuition are still crazy, out of control.

People felt like Joe Biden had not fixed that, and they didn't trust Kamala Harris to fix it. Now, I don't think Trump actually knows how to fix it either, but voters apparently thought it was okay to put a fascist back in the white House if it might benefit their pocketbooks. That is going to turn out to be a catastrophic mistake, but here we are now. I put out the previous episode of soonish in early October, and if you listen to that one, you'll remember that I spelled out four scenarios for how the election could unfold. The fourth scenario was one where Trump wins both the Electoral College and the popular vote, with a margin big enough to claim that he has a mandate for change. I called that the Valley of Doom. I had certainly hoped that we might end up in one of the other valleys, and I actually spent a lot of my personal time in October and November, visiting Arizona to talk with voters and help get people to turn out for Harris. But all the work that thousands of volunteers did in the swing states wasn't nearly enough to counteract voters impatience with the Democrats.

 So, like it or not, the Valley of Doom is the scenario that we're in. And now that we know which path we're really on, I want to spend some time thinking through what happened and what's next. I'm not interested in dissecting all the mistakes the Democrats made. There's 100 other podcasts where you can hear smart people talking about that. What feels much more urgent to me is figuring out how to understand the moment we're in now, and how to respond to it. How did civic conversations that used to be built around mutual respect and a shared sense of reality devolve into a free for all, where lies are more powerful than the truth? How did trust in government and institutions decay, to the point that a majority of voters were willing to hand power to a disrupter who feeds on chaos and confusion? And what options are open now for people who still care about values like community and compassion and equality and enlightened self-government. Well, to talk it all through, I reached out this week to two people who I knew could help me think about these questions in very different ways. You could loosely call these ways top down and bottom up. And I'm going to play both of those conversations for you.

The top down thinker is Jamais Cascio. He's a futurist and scenario planner based in California. And he's a familiar voice to listeners of the podcast. The last time jamais joined us was during the pandemic, and we talked about a framework he had come up with to help describe the historical forces at play in that crisis. His framework has an acronym Barney or Barney, and it stands for brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible. Those feel like pretty good adjectives for this moment, too. And so in our chat, we dived into how a Barney framework helps to explain the Trump era and how we can adapt and respond to it. The bottom up thinker. I'll talk with later in the show is named Rose Friedman. She's the co-founder and executive director of a nonprofit called The Civic Standard, and she spends every day thinking about how to support dialogue and togetherness and mutual aid in her rural corner of Vermont. I'll explain a bit more later about how I learned about the Civic Standard, and why I think their work is so important.

But first, let's hear my conversation with Jimmy Cascio. This was recorded on Monday, November 11th, 2024.

Wade Roush: Welcome back to the show for the third time. Maybe the fourth time. I've lost count.

Jamais Cascio: I think third. I think third.

Wade Roush: Yeah. How are you feeling?

Jamais Cascio: Uh, that is an excellent question, because one thing that I've been trying to do since last Tuesday, since the election is, Um, avoid immersing myself in information, which is quite unusual for me. It feels like a dereliction of duty. But one thing I recognize is that right now, because he, you know, from Mr. Trump, is not in office because none of this is actually happening yet. It's all speculation and conversation and fear, and it's not really helpful to me to get immersed in speculation and fear. I can do enough of that on my own. Thank you very much. Um, and so I have I'm not feeling quite as devastated as I could be if I were following every bit of minutia about just who to blame, who, who's blaming whom. Um, and what horrible thing has been said by Stephen Miller today? Um, well. 

Wade Roush: I apologize in advance because I'm probably going to drag you through a certain amount of that.

Jamais Cascio: No, that's quite all right. It's good to have a it's good to have a a guide, a Virgil through my trip through hell. Hey, dude.

Wade Roush: You're my Virgil. Let's not get this confused. All right, let's go through hell together. So I wanted to start by asking you to reintroduce yourself to our listeners. So you are a scenario planner, a futurist. You can use lots of different terms, but I wanted you to kind of remind us what that craft is about and how it can be helpful even at a time like this.

Jamais Cascio: Uh, my name is Jamais Cascio. I am a professional futurist, which means I get paid to make stuff up. Uh, more. You know, more specifically, it's my job to look at the the landscape of what's happening now and what has happened in recent history and forecast out the possible, the possible combinations of forces that might have interesting results. Not to make predictions because I know that predictions. Nobody can actually predict the future. I want to make forecasts. So think about the your weather report. You talk about weather forecast. I'm not telling you exactly what will happen. They're telling you what quite possibly should could happen with different percentages. And they do so in a way for you to get ready. Well, that's what forecasts and scenarios and all these different kinds of tools of futurism are about. There are ways to get ready for possible futures. And my goal is not to be right, but to be usefully wrong. 

Wade Roush: I love that way of putting it. So I hear interviews all the time with historians, like, I don't know, Meacham or, you know, whoever is like the hot historian of the moment. Sure. And they get asked this inevitable question, is this a historic moment and they can't really answer it because like, they're like, I don't know, I'm a historian. I need like ten years of look back before I can answer that. But you're not you're saying you're not quite like that.

Jamais Cascio: Well, I'm an anticipatory historian. That's the phrasing that I like. I'm an anticipatory historian. I, I try to think about the same kinds of driving forces and dynamics that historians use to talk about the past, what led to different outcomes in the past. And, you know, go forward with them. You know, with this same set of drivers, these same set of current day events, what are the possible outcomes that echo what we've seen in the past? But but you're raising a very good question. That's something I've been dwelling on myself. One of the standard phrases that I've used over the, you know, 25 odd years of doing this work is that the future is banal and that I meant that to mean. Or I said that in a way of arguing that, um, for the people living in the future, no matter how odd or speculative or spectacular it may look to us today for those people in the future if their everyday lives. Um, Covid disabused me of that notion. You know, when you have big, big things happening, big disruptive things happening, it completely upends any notion of the future being banal. Yeah, it really makes us rethink our positions in society or economy.

Jamais Cascio: Rethink ourselves. The question that I have for myself is, will the next four years be banal or wholly, entirely unprecedentedly disruptive? And I think you can make an argument for both. You know, the argument for being actually surprisingly banal is that institutions are not perfectly efficient, and so no matter how hard they try to push through their agendas, there will be gum in the works. And not necessarily because there are any dastardly, disloyal non-trump people in the in the civil service, but simply because bureaucracies are complex, bureaucracies are often sclerotic, and getting stuff done is difficult. And that's partially by by intention, because you don't want governments moving fast and breaking things. To use the Silicon Valley phrase you want. You want government actions to be steady and slow. And so there's there is an institutional pushback against being very disruptive. Um, there is also, I think, a reality pushback towards this towards these kinds of disruptions, simply because so much of what they talk about is so utterly unrealistic and not just implausible, but just, you know, frankly, impossible. You know, the outcomes that they are arguing that they will achieve are not the outcomes that they will get.

Wade Roush: Right?

Jamais Cascio: Right. And so on one hand, you have the argument that reality will slap them hard in the face, that because of the bureaucracy, because of just the way the world works, it's going to be difficult for them to get done what they're trying to get done. It's not going to turn out the way they expect it to. People are going to push back when they discover that, hey, tariffs don't work by charging China for it. Um, you know it's not going to happen like that. However, there is such a a an aggressive push up and down the ladder of the bureaucracy to enact these. These highly disruptive and, um, you know, arguably dangerous policies and concepts that the system might break. And we've seen it break before. And the big danger comes from something that I think is the big lesson of the past eight years. Norms and rules without consequences are mere suggestions and can be ignored at your leisure. And so you have a a group of people who who have achieved quite a bit of political power by simply ignoring norms, by rejecting the the rules that we have come to expect as being what what's the right kind of behavior for a political candidate, for a leader? If there's no teeth. If there's no consequence. Then do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. It is you can. They can do anything. And frankly, the recent Supreme Court decision that said, hey, you're president. Go for it is just simply underscoring that fact that you don't have any as president. You know, as political leader, you don't have any restrictions.

Wade Roush: I think that all that all sets a framework for for everything we're going to talk about. So so thank you because I want to dive into the the forces that may push us in one direction or the other. Right. I would like to believe that this will be another banal presidency, that it will that Trump will turn out to be just as lazy and ineffective as he was the first time around. But of course, I'm worried out of my mind that he's bringing in a crew of people Who are going to literally burn down the institutions. Well, maybe not literally. I mean, they're not going to set fire to the Department of Education, but they might fire everyone there, right? Right. So, yeah, I mean, that's the that's the big question in my mind. And I'd like to come back at it from several different directions. But first I want to talk about the actual election. So with your futurist glasses on, what were your expectations about the election and what fit those expectations and what surprised you?

Jamais Cascio: I had a conversation with a colleague of mine, Bob Johansen, director emeritus of the Institute for the future. Earlier, early in the day, on election day. And he asked me a very similar question, and I said, well, you know, there are these superficial polling signs that suggest that Kamala Harris should win. And I talked about the woman in Iowa who actually who has been accurate since 2012 and said that Kamala Harris is actually three points ahead. Well, that wasn't true. There's that scenario. I think the most likely scenario is that Trump wins the Electoral College vote, loses the the popular vote, you know, like he did in 2016. But what what scares me is the possibility of the Bush w Bush second term scenario where Trump actually wins the popular vote as well, because that even more so than the Electoral College vote win that you get that gets turned into a mandate that, um, and that's what really scared me as, as a possible scenario. So that's what we got.

Wade Roush: That is what we got.

Jamais Cascio: And so it's not…That's what we got. It's it's not that I thought this was the most likely one. You know, I thought him losing the popular vote was the most likely one. But this I definitely saw this as being within the range of plausible outcomes. And so it goes. Right?

Wade Roush: Right. Well, we're going to come back to this later. But, um, anybody who listened to my previous episode and I think you did listen to it as well, knows I tried to lay out four different scenarios, kind of playing amateur futurist, amateur scenario planner. And the fourth scenario was the one where Trump wins both the electoral College and the popular vote, and by a, you know, a big enough margin that it's Trump and his supporters can plausibly claim a mandate. Right? That, for me, was the worst case scenario that I called that one the Valley of Doom. And I'm a little regretful now that I called it that, because I don't want to come off as a doomer a pessimist, I think we're not doomed. And what we choose to do, how we choose to act over the next, you know, three months and three years and three decades. Like that's important. And we can choose how to respond to this. And we are not we are not lost. But this is the worst case scenario that we're in. I think we have to be realistic about that. Right.

Jamais Cascio: So one thing I've been doing, because I get called a doomsayer a doomer quite often, I don't know why. Um, but, uh, one thing, one argument I've been making for a couple of years now is that it's not useful to think about the utter collapse and apocalypse. The future isn't apocalypse. The future is misery, you know, or the the possible future we're talking about, whether it's around climate or in this case, around this election. It's misery. And I think it's a really powerful term when we start thinking about what it means for family members, what it means for people who are culturally vulnerable, uh, to, you know, these culture warriors. Misery is the term that I think we will keep coming back to for people who are, you know, for those of us who are living through this. Uh, it's I don't think we are doomed because, you know, it's never the end. You know, we never reach a conclusion, um, until at least unless a meteor hits us. Uh, go! Meteor 2028. Um. It is. A situation where people that we care about are going to be hurt. But that hurt is going to be differentiated around the country. Some places will have local communities and regional governments that will protect them. And I feel very, you know, you know, not only safe because I'm an old white guy, but also safer because I live and my family live live in California, where we already have.

Jamais Cascio: Our governor, Gavin Newsom, couldn't get calling an emergency session of the legislature to start putting together the pieces of defending Californians from a Trump administration. But people who live in other parts of the country will not be so lucky. I have a sister in law who is who's gay, and she's married to her, you know, been married to her wife for a decade. They live in Ohio. I'm actually very afraid for them because one thing that we have seen that's actually been a bit of a surprise, but it shouldn't have been over the past week, is the degree to which the hardcore culture warrior MAGA populace, not the leaders, but the general people out there, have been aggressively attacking people they perceive as liberals. I don't know how If you've seen the scene these reports, but I've seen it a bunch of different places online MAGA types, guys telling women your body my choice. Yeah. Uh, and that, you know, that has been a recurring message. Apparently it's moved as I saw one report. It's moved offline into schools like elementary and middle schools, high schools. You know, boys saying that to girls.

Wade Roush: I've seen some of that on the news. I've seen some of that on the internet. Um, I think to use a phrase that is getting overused now, but I think it's clear that the election outcome has created sort of given permission or created a permission structure around that kind of behavior. Yeah. And people feel like maybe they would have restrained themselves before, but now they know they can get away with it. So there's no reason to restrain themselves.

Jamais Cascio: Right? They know they can get away with it. There's no there are no consequences for violating norms. Um, and so when you have a situation where, you know, the occasional situation where somebody does get pushed back, you know, there was a kid online, young men online who said something like, you know, your body, my choice. And the the recipient of that message sent it, forwarded it to his university, and he got in serious trouble for saying that and had like was groveling, saying, please don't ruin my life. I was like, dude, you ruined your own life.

Wade Roush: Yeah, but how much longer will universities have the cultural permission to to discipline people for those kinds of infractions? Right. 

Jamais Cascio: Well, this may have been an exception because his university was in Toronto.

Wade Roush: Okay. God bless Canada.

Jamais Cascio: Yeah, they have their own problems coming up. Um, anyway, you know, this is something. Yeah, that's a really good question. I think, again, it will vary by location. Some parts of the country will be less tolerant of that kind of behavior than others. Uh, I really feel awful for younger people living in the red states and broadly conceived. You know, the parts of the country that find that kind of crap acceptable. Um, and I'm especially angry at the young people who voted for it. That's actually one of the things that has been the most troubling for me is the degree to which Gen Z and degree to which 18 to 24 year olds have skewed to the right. The difference between the 18 to 24 year old vote in 20 and 2024 for young males, young males between 18 and 24 and 2020. It's a 30 point shift to the right, 15 point shift to the right for young women. Probably these were not just males, but white males, white males and white white females. But 30 point shift to the right among young people. Now this is two two different cohorts. But that's just showing that there is this cultural shift happening for young people where they are essentially shooting their own future in the head. And that's that's simply infuriating and disgusting to me that people will make that people, young people, are making a decision to ruin their own futures. And it's baffling, frankly.

Wade Roush: It is. Absolutely. You know, I've felt sometimes you talked about the meteor or the asteroid. I feel sometimes like we're in a moment in our culture where if astronomers said, hey, we just noticed there's an asteroid coming toward the Earth, We've got 90 days to decide what to do. Should. And we have a vote. Are we going to spend $1 trillion to try and deflect the asteroid? You know, I feel like we're in a moment where people would vote no just to spite the astronomers, because they're just sick to death of experts and elites. And that that was a big theme in the election.

Jamais Cascio: Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, it was, you know, Don't Look Up was a movie along those lines a few years ago.

Wade Roush: That making anything up there was a whole movie about. No, no, no.

Jamais Cascio: It's the sense that you're absolutely right. There is a rejection of elites and a really weird perception of what it means to be elite. Um, you know, essentially being a woman or a non-white person, you're automatically more of an elite because you are because society caters to you and that kind of crap. Um, and that's simply not true. Uh, well, there is an asteroid called Apophis, which is the Egyptian god of chaos that will have the closest approach to to Earth in 2029. And again, another close approach in 2031. In 2029, it'll be like 30,000 miles away, which is stupidly close.

Wade Roush: That's like, uh, way within the orbit of the moon. That's like an eighth of the distance. Yeah. Oh, that's that's amazing.

Jamais Cascio: Within the the orbit of a lot of a lot of satellites, right. What they have learned is that this kind of close approach is likely to lead to a partial disintegration, crumbling of the asteroid, which could have a significant effect on its, uh, its motion. So the original projection was that 2029 will be very close to 2031, will be a little close, like, you know, just outside the moon's orbit or something like that. There is a non-zero chance that Apophis, coming by in 2029, will actually have its orbit shifted so that it hits us in 2031.

Wade Roush: I, I for me, I didn't think we'd wind up talking about actual asteroids, but you've really kind of made my day. 

Jamais Cascio: I know. I, like I said, people call me a doomsayer and I don't know why.

Wade Roush: Uh, I want to go back to a word you used a minute ago, which was misery, and you were saying that we really shouldn't think about apocalypse and, you know, end times. We should be thinking about relative immiseration. But what? That I started thinking. Well, you know what? Um, if you tried to put yourself in the shoes of a Trump voter, I think the strongest explanation for the the massive swings to the right is the economy and the relative misery that people feel today. There's really no other strong explanation in my mind. Well, we talked about the elite resentment explanation, but like even stronger, I think, is the concept that at every level, people feel squeezed by the high cost of living, not just inflation, which is an emblem, really. But you know how much a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas or a loaf of bread costs is kind of just an emblem of the much bigger problem, which is that the cost of housing, the cost of health care, the cost of childcare, and the cost of tuition education are just way too high. They just are. You can't argue that wages have kept up with those things. They may have kept up with inflation, but like housing is way is just a huge problem that we haven't even scratched the surface of.

Wade Roush: And so are the others. And so I think it's possible to build a very strong argument. I don't subscribe to it, but millions of people do, apparently, that Biden and Harris should have done more on their watch to fix that. And that's sort of their argument, and they felt like it was worth rolling the dice on a potential sort of autocrat kleptocrat fascist dude. Um, in the hope that he would be better at managing the economy. And so I feel like I'm not inclined to blame anyone for the economy's performance over the past four years. I don't blame Harris for sure. I think Biden did the things Biden needed to do to to help the economy recover from the pandemic. That and inflation was kind of inevitable given the size of the necessary stimulus and the, you know, the the supply chain disruptions that no one could have prevented. So this is all sort of like, sadly preordained. It feels like sort of as long as four years ago, and it's just playing out. And so, um, that for me is not exactly comforting. It's not a comforting explanation, but it is an explanation. And I'm wondering how you feel about it.

Jamais Cascio: No, it that makes sense. I would add to that in particular, since inflation was a global phenomenon, the inflation of, you know, that was hitting in 2020, 2021, that was happening literally around the world. There was nothing, you know, Biden had nothing that he could do about that other than institute some small changes. But really it was just up to getting the supply chains functioning again. One other thing is that in the United States, we haven't seen big inflation for decades. The government, the the federal uh, the fed has been pretty good at controlling inflation for the past 40 years. And so you have a whole bunch of people who have never experienced what it felt like in the 70s to have prices go up very quickly. And so you have a lot of people who this was shocking. What is, I don't know, upsetting, expected and upsetting is that a lot of people are thinking that with Trump in charge or with some with some changes, uh, whoever's in charge, prices will go back down and they won't. That's not the way the economy works. These prices are the price of eggs is what the price of eggs is going to be. It's not going to come back down to where it was eight years ago.

Wade Roush: You're correct. But I just want to jump in because I feel like the there was no available response or argument to that effect, because as soon as you start talking to people about prices and how once they've risen, they do not go back down. And in fact, if they do start going back down, that's deflation, which is catastrophic for all sorts of reasons. People don't listen, they turn, they tune you out. That's not what they want to hear, right?

Jamais Cascio: Um, which, if you want to stick a flag in that, um, is a real problem around climate change for a reason we can talk to. Talk about in a bit. Okay. Um, but, uh, you have a lot of people who simply don't understand the way basic national and international economics works, and that sounds kind of elitist and dismissive, and I don't mean it that way. It means I'm talking about people who don't understand what a tariff, how a tariff works. You know, people who don't understand how taxes work. Uh, people who don't have a sense of understanding, you know, in what? Not just inflation rates, but interest rates, all of these things that talk to a great deal of ignorance among the American public of of basic social functions. Um, on top of that, you have people who are, uh, who's whose income depends on not understanding things, uh, who or certainly depends on making sure that nobody else understands things. Uh, there's a lot of misinformation out there, and it's easy to get to. It's it's easy to get to, um, people lying to you. It's easier to get to people lying to you than than not. So you have this, this big issue around misinformation and people not understanding the world. If you have this big issue around people being afraid because because they don't understand what's happening around them. It makes them very easy to have their buttons pushed around cultural issues, because those seem to be easier to grasp. Um, and again, there's a lot of mistruth and misinformation about those cultural issues as well. But those can be don't have to be don't have to have numbers associated with them. They're just simple. They're simply emotion based. And emotions are important. And we I think that's one of the things that that too often the progressives forget is that emotions are important.

Wade Roush: You can't defy gravity. Tariffs will not work and they will lead to higher inflation and and higher prices. And they're going to hurt. And I guess what a classic liberal would say well okay. People voted for that. They're about to experience the Experience the consequences. If they're rational at all, they'll they'll understand they made the wrong choice in giving Trump that kind of power. And they'll they'll hold him accountable during the next election. So the thing is though that they might not right? They might be persuadable. They might be amenable to misinformation, disinformation and emotion around that stuff. And I can imagine Trump World successfully convincing people that not to look behind the curtain. Right. These these higher prices you're experiencing, they're temporary and they're Biden's fault. Right.

Jamais Cascio: And they're they're Biden's fault. They're the Democrats fault. You know, it's not just, um, they're able to spread misinformation is that they have learned quite decisively that lies don't matter. Lies will not be punished and punished politically. You might get very, very stern editorials in the Washington Post about it. You know how many Pinocchios? Is that it? But there are no actual consequences for blatantly lying. And so there's no reason to believe that anything coming out of the administration explaining the, you know, increasing continued price, you know, price rise or explaining what's happening with the tariffs will be in any way factual. There's no reason to believe it will be any in any regards. True. Because they have learned the power of of describing their own reality. 

Wade Roush: I've got to keep going down that rabbit hole a little bit, because I feel like we do live in a different world where Pinocchios don't matter anymore. Pants on fire. Nobody cares. But that's our job. As journalists, as futurists, as people who care about truth. We can't just give up, can we? I mean, you see a spate of editorials coming out in places like The New Yorker. I mean, David Remnick saying, look, we're just going to keep doing our job. The New Yorker is going to keep telling the truth. We're going to keep covering Trump and Trump world, and we're going to face up to repression and push back where we can. But our job is just to keep telling the truth. And of course, of course, he's right. But I just I worry that that job is going to become less and less relevant, and we are ultimately kind of shrinking into our own echo chamber, telling each other about what terrible lies Trump just voiced, but with no real effect outside of that bubble. Right? Yeah. So is there an argument for like, we've got to keep doing it no matter what? Because that's the only way the truth ever survives. We have to keep this little flame of truth alive until conditions return for us to restore, restore this, this, this little dying fire.

Jamais Cascio: Your audience isn't the the current populace. The your audience is future historians making sure that there is a record of this era.

Wade Roush: That's a good point.

Jamais Cascio: You know, as journalists, you're you're not writing for people who aren't listening. You're writing for people generations from now who need to understand why this happened. You look back on, you know, imagine looking back on this era and trying to understand just what the hell were people thinking. You know, that's why I, you know, the I in Beni, which we haven't talked about. What we will is incomprehensible. It's because none of this makes sense. You look back on this and it's like, what? Why? And I'm waving my hands around wildly. Um. It is. I really do think that that's the audience that that will matter for for the future.

Wade Roush: I'd like to find an audience in the present who actually have some leverage.

Jamais Cascio: That would be nice. That would be nice.

Wade Roush: Because I'd like to blunt the the worst effects of this, this realignment and hasten a return. I feel like, um, you know, the Foundation's role in Isaac Asimov. 

Jamais Cascio: And I was just about to say that.

Wade Roush: They knew that the Empire was going to collapse, and they weren't exactly, you know, sad that that was going to happen. But their job was to make sure that the dark period was as short as possible. Right? Yeah. I feel like that's our role sometimes.

Jamais Cascio: You know, eight years ago, I wrote a piece where I thought that or I said that Donald Trump is the mule. Yeah. Because certainly at that 2016, he was breaking all the rules of what we thought the world, how we thought the world worked. You know, the mule was was outside of Harry Seldon's plans because he couldn't simply couldn't conceive of somebody with that kind of power, the power to manipulate minds like that. And so couldn't put that into his math. Well, we couldn't conceive of somebody who was able to come in and lie so blatantly, be so disruptive and yet still have, you know, gain political power. Uh, and so just to to return to that Harry Seldon concept. Yeah, we've been dealing with the foundation world, uh, and trying to shorten the, the dark ages, keep the dark Ages as short as possible. Yeah, I, I accept that I fully will embrace that idea that. But I wish there were people at present who were listening And so to a degree, we need to be talking in a language that appeals to people in the present and. Right. And that's actually one of the things that we've talked about about BANI before.

Wade Roush: We have and this is the right moment. This is the right moment to pivot to that.

Jamais Cascio: BANI is a an acronym for brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible. It's a follow on to the VUCA concept out of the Army. Us Army War College of volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. And so he came up with many about. Well, I made it public in 2020 and it has just taken off globally. It has. It is something that is in regular use, particularly in the Global South among business consultants and government and government leaders. It is a way of articulating the experience that seems to resonate with people. And so when I talk about having, you know, what's the language that we can use to speak to people, that's something that I've gotten a little bit of traction on with this with, with many of using terms that make people that people recognize in their own reality a brittle systems, systems that appear strong but shatter anxious. You know, that feeling of of fear and not knowing what to do, you know, nonlinear, you know, the power of disproportionality and incomprehensible, of just things, decisions and outcomes that just simply don't make sense. Right. And for a lot of people, that describes their world. And I think that just that could very well describe what the next four years will look like in the United States, four years or more, because there's a pretty significant chance that Mr. Trump will not make it through his four years, given his his preference for hamburgers and the like. And so we we end up with a JD Vance presidency. And that could that would potentially go on from there.

Wade Roush: I don't even want to think about it. Uh, but you're right. The other outside small possibility is, you know, Trump does survive. And, um, pesky little problems like the 22nd amendment. They snap their fingers and they go away. Yeah. Um, that's less likely because it requires messing with the Constitution. But, you know, again, incomprehensible.

Jamais Cascio: Who knows what happens over the next four years that makes something like that go from being really unlikely to. Oh, that feels inevitable.

Wade Roush: So the last time we talked about BANI, it was in the middle of the pandemic, and it seemed like a really useful framework for understanding what was going on at that time four years ago. How do you think Benny helps to explain the forces at work now during, during and after this election? Does it do you feel like your your framework helps you understand how the election turned out and does? Does the current course of history sort of fit neatly into your into Benny, in your mind?

Jamais Cascio: The big thing about BANI is that nothing fits neatly. But, um, I do think that the framing the language around Benny is is a useful framing for our present experience. Um, I think its main value, at least from what I have been seeing from reading what people are writing about, reading how people are using it, talking to people around the world is that it gives a name to what people are feeling. It is. It has become a way for people to articulate their Their emotional experience. Uh, and so I, I think for a lot of people around the world, certainly in the United States, it could be a way of framing what's happening, what they're experiencing. On top of that, over the past four years since we discussed this last, I've been doing much more work in formalizing the the positive. BANI, you know, I've been working a lot with Bob Johansen from Institute for the future, who articulated a good set of positive Vuca terms of just, um, instead of volatile. It's visible. You know, that kind of thing. Um, and so our positive BANI is bendable, which equates to resilience. Um, attentive, which equates to empathy, you know, paying attention to others around us. Um, neuro flexible, which evolves into improvisational of, you know, not following a script and inclusive, which is expanded to including a diversity of perspectives, because that's actually something that I found to be very important is having a variety of points of view, having giving you a greater ability to understand what's happening.

Jamais Cascio: Uh, the story that that I, that I tell for this is, you know, everyone's familiar with the whole black swan thing. You know, that initially Europeans thought that black swans didn't exist. And so that was used as a metaphor for things not existing. Then, lo and behold, they exist. And you just you there. Now they're a metaphor for things we thought we didn't think existed, but actually do. The one thing about black swans is that black swans were not unknown to the Aboriginal people in Australia. Black swans were not were not a mystery to be discovered. That's that's a very parochial point of view. They were part of reality for a different a different set of perspectives. And so broadening your set of perspectives brings in people who have an entirely different knowledge base, entirely different experiences with the world that may have a very different point of view about your problem. I mean, I think that's the the, the correct way of grappling with incomprehensibility is that pushing out the diversity of perspective, you know, the problem is that at least two of those terms, empathy and diversity, are bad words these days, at least for a lot of people in the world. And so. Yeah, that's where we stand. I think we can push back against a banning environment, building our resilience, building our basically our way of responding to the unexpected, having having backups, having extra, extra supplies.

Jamais Cascio: Whether you're thinking about it in terms of earthquakes or floods or just, you know, civil unrest, having stuff to be able to survive on your own for a couple of weeks just in case. Having that just in case. Um, being aware, emotionally aware of the people around you and what they're experiencing and not and not just assuming that everybody is getting by and you're failing, or just assuming that everybody is okay and things will work as expected. You know, everyone is experiencing their own traumas right now and being attentive to that. Being aware of that is going to be very important to be able to build the kinds of coalitions, the kinds of cooperation that we're going to need to get through this period of misery. Neuro flexibility and improvisation. We're so we're so often tied into scripts about how to respond to things. You know what the expected response Responses. What the expected behavior will be. The the positive version of the norms and rules don't matter without consequences is that you can invent new ways of doing things. You're not stuck to. You're not tied to a particular set of norms and rules that no longer apply. And so improvisation, being neuro flexible, willing to entertain different perspectives, different ideas, and then building that out to the inclusion of different perspectives as a way of countering incomprehensibility, bringing in more voices, bringing in more eyes. All of these speak to a need to be collaborative. 

Wade Roush: I'm really glad you took this in that direction. Yeah, I'm really glad you you talked about the the positive mirror side of BANI because brittleness, anxiety, non-linearity, and comprehensibility are all kind of scary terms. Yeah. And I, I love the idea that like in a world where those are unstoppable, seemingly unstoppable forces, you do have to see the flip side. And and so I've been trying to memorize this while you've been talking. So bendable, attentive. Um, neuro flexible. Inclusive. Yep. I love those words. And I wonder at what level you feel people can enact these ideals. You talked about collaboration. I'm going to have another guest on the show in this same episode, who is going to talk a little about a sort of hyper local collaborative? It's called the Civic Standard. It's it's a group. It's a nonprofit in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont that is all about helping people support each other, creating spaces where people can come together who might not cross paths on a daily basis, creating an infrastructure for people to provide mutual aid in emergencies, which they've had plenty of those in Vermont lately.

Wade Roush: Mhm. Um, creating community where there has been none for a long time. And I hear in this echoes of what happened or what people were saying after 2016, like, oh gosh, I guess the country is going in a direction I don't really understand. Time for me to kind of like hunker down a bit, pay more attention to the people around me, maybe reinvest in my community, like rediscover the power of human to human connection. Maybe that's what I should be doing. And it is. Obviously it is. At some level, that's where you have to start. Right. But and I want to I want to really marinate in those ideas as much as possible. But I also wonder whether that if you if you do rebuild the foundation at the local level, how do you how do you then leverage that or, or bootstrap that back up to a more national or global sense of reconciliation and ultimately, like calm, it would be nice to live in a world where we didn't all have to freak out about everything every day. Right? Right.

Jamais Cascio: The answer is I have no clue. I don't know how you how you ratchet all that up. I think it's important to recognize that this isn't just isn't just a personal thing. It isn't just a community or collaboration thing. It needs to be applicable across the spectrum, across the the levels of organization, levels of complexity. Um, there are two phrases. Well, actually three neighbors came up with a different one today. Um, there there are three important, important concepts that, uh, that Bob and I have found to be really resonant in this, both the bene and positive bene Worlds. The first is that certainty is dangerous. What you need to look for is clarity. Um, you can't be certain because certainty will tie you to a particular outcome that this world is just not going to lead you to. Uh, another is, um, this is not a world of problems and solutions. This is a world of dilemmas and responses. Um, so don't don't think you're going to fix a problem. This is not a problem to be fixed. It's a dilemma to respond to potentially live with. Always adapt to, you know, to try to re reconfigure your life to get around it. You know, these are not problems that we can easily fix and easily solve. Um, the last one was actually Bob had a really interesting observation that there's research showing that people who have some kinds of various, um, non neurotypical behaviors and conditions actually respond better in tense environments, stressful environments, broken environments.

Jamais Cascio: And, you know, we sort of shorthand it is, you know, and not just people who are who have ADHD or on the spectrum or something, but also people who have manias. And it's just really interesting research. You know, you don't have to be insane to survive in a Barney world. But it but it helps. Um, that's probably a bit too informal, but but the reality is that this is not this world. Whether it's. We're just talking about Trump world over the next four years. We're talking about the climate world. My God, this is 2024 was yet another warmest year ever. Um, you know, warmest year ever so far. These the what's happening with AI. All of these situations are really hitting us in ways that we that we don't have the experience to deal with. You know, the what we grew up with, whether we grew up in the latter half of the 20th century or the first 20 years of the 21st. These are alien experiences, and we need to figure out how to evolve with them. And so if Benny is the language for articulating what we are experiencing, then positive. BANI is the language for articulating paths that we can take. Because none of these are solutions, none of these are going to fix the world.

 Jamais Cascio: But the goal is to adapt. The goal is to evolve. Um, you know, I mentioned the climate thing. A moment ago. And that, I mean, the parallel with inflation is that temperature. Is temperatures. We can do all you can do our damnedest to stop putting out any carbon. Temperatures are not going to go down. We can go the globally to zero carbon with the snap of your fingers. Temperatures are not going down. In fact, they're probably going to keep going up for a while. At least five years, possibly up to 10 to 15. And that's going to be crazymaking for a lot. Of people, because they think I'm changing my life. I'm, you know, I've stopped eating meat. I've stopped driving a car. I've done everything you've asked and it just keeps getting hotter. And you know, that parallel with inflation is people don't understand. It's really difficult to. Understand these kinds of complex nonlinear Near phenomena. And that for me is is worrisome. And I think we'll end up being one of the longer term issues that we that we grapple with even after, um, Donald J. Trump is nothing but dust and memory.

Wade Roush: Okay, I'm feeling relatively hopeful, which means I think we should stop right there before we go back down. Jamais Cascio, thank you so much. It's always illuminating to speak with you, and I think you do help to restore some clarity to what's going on. And so I thank you for that. And I really value this friendship, and I, I hope we can keep having you back on the show to help us understand what's happening.

Jamais Cascio: I hope so too. I'm I'm really happy to engage in these conversations with you. You know, I am working on a BANI book. You know, Bob and I, along with Angela Williams from United Way International, and the title of the book, which is set to come out probably the end of 2025, is Navigating the Age of Chaos; A Sense-Making guide For a World That Doesn't Make Sense.

 Wade Roush: I think people are going to need that book even more in late 2025 than they do now.

 Jamais Cascio: Yeah. And so, uh, I call out in that, you know, in my introduction that you, good sir, were the first public platform for me to talk about many to an audience other than just people who wanted to read what I had to write. And I thank you for that. And I look forward to further discussions of the transformation of the world and what we can do to make it better.

Wade Roush: So do I. Thank you for sharing these ideas, Jamais and for sharing your time. This has been fantastic. So yeah, take care and we'll talk to you again soon.

 Jamais Cascio: My pleasure.

Wade Roush: Next, let's turn to my conversation with Rose Friedman at the Civic Standard. You just heard Jamais explaining how the antidote to brittleness is being bendable. How the counterweight to being anxious is being attentive. How the best way to deal with non-linearity is to be neuro flexible, and how one responds to our seemingly incomprehensible times is to be more inclusive about who you talk to and gather ideas from. Now, I think in a way the Civic Standard is trying to do all of those things, especially the inclusivity part. They do that by creating opportunities for people who live in and around the town of Hardwick, Vermont, to come together and actively collaborate to build the town's culture. Hardwick is a small town of about 3000, and in a way, the idea for the Civic Standard came out of a tragedy that unfolded in the town back in 2020. In January of that year, a 17 year old boy in Hardwick named Finn Riley committed suicide. Finn had been a popular and charismatic kid with a lot of ideas about how to bring people together and strengthen community bonds. So his death not only shocked everyone in the town, but caused them to think harder about what they could do to bring Finn's hopes to life. Finn's mom, Tara Reese, lived right around the corner from Rose Friedman, and the two of them went out for walks together and struck up a conversation that eventually led to the founding of the Civic Standard.

Wade Roush: Now, how do I know about all of this? Well, Hardwick is next door to East Calais, Vermont, which is where my dear friend and colleague Erica Hileman lives. Erica makes the acclaimed podcast Rumble Strip, and she's a longtime member of The Hub and Spoke audio Collective. Erica talked with Tara about Finn's death, and she eventually made a podcast about how it had affected the community. It's called Finn and the Bell. That episode took the podcast World by Storm, and it went on to win a Peabody Award, which is the highest honor in broadcasting. If you haven't heard it, you absolutely should listen. You can find it at Rumble Strip vermont.com. But anyway, in the course of making that episode about Finn, Erica became fast friends with both Tara and Rose, and she joined with them to put together the Civic Standard. As soon as I started thinking about what to say about this election, I knew I wanted to speak with Rose because I really do feel like the work that the Civic Standard is doing can be a kind of template for how to repair the breakdown of trust and communication that got us into this mess. So here's our conversation. We recorded this on Tuesday, November 12th.

Wade Roush: Hi Rose, it's great to see you. How are you doing this week?

Rose Friedman: Um, well, that's kind of a loaded question. And I feel, uh, all week when I've been asked that question or asked it of others I have felt a sort of pressure to perform an answer that I have been resisting.

Wade Roush: What's your real answer?

Rose Friedman: My real answer is that I am doing okay because there is no, um, there is no change that has taken place in verifiable reality around me right now. Um, it's all future, future based, um, feelings, fears, anxieties, um, relief, whatever, based on your political standing. And so when you're asked that question, depending on who in the community you're having a conversation with, it's loaded in one way or the other. Um, so some people are expecting you to sort of express a kind of a grief and, and mourning. Um, when asked, how are you doing? And other people are not thinking about the election when they ask you how you're doing. It's just a neighborly. How are you doing? So it's it's weirdly complicated this week to answer that question, depending on who's asking it.

Wade Roush: And I guess in some way you've become a sort of community mediator or ambassador for Hardwick or somebody who doesn't feel like they're always at liberty to say exactly how they say, because you're trying to, like, maintain an atmosphere of of, um, collaboration and welcoming. Right. So you can't necessarily share your, your unvarnished opinion all the time, I imagine.

Rose Friedman: Yeah. And I think more than that, I am trying to enact, um, in my own brain and, and person, um, a kind of openness and flexibility of thought and, um, Awareness of the multitudes of experiences and feelings, um, that I would like everyone else to be able to, to do also that I am encouraging other people to do so. I feel like I need to do that in myself most of all. So it's it's less that I feel representative of any group of people than it is that I want to demonstrate, like the most extreme and sort of aggressive curiosity that that a person could, could, um, hold while also holding their own experiences and opinions. And, you know, all, all of our political beliefs that are informed by whatever we came from, right?

Wade Roush: Yeah. Well, that's the trick. That's the complex thing. And that's why we're talking. So. Yeah. So to back up, I mean, this is our first conversation. We haven't met before, but I know all about you, and I know quite a bit about the Civic Standard, because I'm friends with and colleagues with Erica Heilman, who is one of your colleagues and co-founders at the Civic Standard. And I've been super interested in the mission that you're pursuing ever since Erica started telling me about it. And I am really pleased to talk with you right now, because I feel like maybe that mission is more important than ever. But to make to unpack that and explain, like what I'm hypothesizing, I wanted to kind of back up and, um, I wanted to ask you, as the co-founder and executive director of the Civic Standard, to explain what your mission is, because it seems like a simple mission, but maybe deceptively simple. Right. So how would how would you describe your, your basic activities and, and how they embody your underlying Mission.

Rose Friedman: So our mission is to provide lots of excuses for the people in and around Hardwick, Vermont to get together. And we do that through a variety of means. Um, we sometimes call ourselves a cultural community center. Uh, sometimes I think of us as being the cultural office of the town in the way that you would have a a town office. Um, you know, for for town business and for paying your taxes. Um, having a sort of cultural organizing office can mean a lot of different things. Culture is a pretty culture is a pretty wide net. Um, the idea isn't that we are the final word on what the culture of this place is, but that we take seriously the idea of the culture of a place and how it is an active organizing process. So reflecting back the history and the interests of a people in a community, and then also encouraging ways in which people see each other's cultures and get together around common experiences. So we're a town of 3000 people. We serve a lot of people who don't live in the town of Hardwick. There's a lot of nearby small villages and other towns that people are coming to our events from. Um, but we sort of consider Hardwick to be the epicenter of most of our attentions and activities. And so when we're talking to 3000 or so people, that's that's a lot of different experiences and a lot of different opinions to be talking to.

Rose Friedman: So we're certainly not trying to represent that as like a block. Right. There's no one anything in that group of people. Um, but just kind of opening up an awareness of each other in the simplest way, and finding a common experience through really simple and joyful means is how we're trying to approach this big project of common experience of culture building. Um, so we're not leaping right into, hey, let's really get into how everyone felt about that election. And that's not because we're apolitical or, um, you know, afraid of grappling with those difficult conversations, but because there isn't a basic commonality and understanding of each other as full human beings, and you really need that in order to have a rich and fruitful conversation. Because if you see the other people that you're talking to As idiots or half human in whatever way, as garbage. Like you're not going to get anywhere in that conversation. Um, and so the, the most to me, the most like profound experience that we can have of each other as human beings is to see each other with love and to see the other person's just very basic humanity and feel something for them. And there's really no shortcut to that. Like there isn't some like, hey, let's all just love each other. We have to act. That's like an action. That's an action to do together and continuously.

Wade Roush: So what have been? Just give us a flavor of some of the actions you've taken that you feel like have really succeed at best toward that mission.

Rose Friedman: So because we feel like we're starting with a sort of a basic shared understanding of getting together, um, you know, the the culture is so strangely subdivided at this point that even what we do for fun has like a political flavor to it a lot of the time. Right. And in our town, even what venue you go to has a political flavor to it. And there's a lot of assumptions in place based on, you know, anything from where you shop for groceries to where you go drinking. So in that sense, it's important as part of our mission that we're a mobile community center. So we're not trying. We don't own a giant theater that we're trying constantly to get people to come into. Um, we are nimble and we move around. We have a building, a little headquarters space that's more of an office, and we call it living room on Main Street. It has a kitchen. That's where we make our free weekly meal. So that's one of the programs that happens every Wednesday night. And that happens here at the civic. Um, and we feel like our space is a fairly neutral space in that it doesn't have was the newspaper headquarters for 100 years. So it doesn't have, you know, as much, uh, of a heavy history as, say, an old school building or. Right, or a privately owned something. It it has a neutrality as the newspaper. Um, but we know that there's lots of people who won't come in here. It's too weird and unknown. So we do trivia nights at the diner. Um, and we do karaoke and honky tonk nights at the Legion. Um, we do big original theater productions, and we have done those in multiple places, including the Legion, the townhouse, which is like the historic opera house of the village. And right now we're trying as an experiment, doing a theater show in an actual theater, which is very weird and not not how I usually work. But we're doing it down the road in Greensboro, in the town of Greensboro, because they have a very high tech performing arts center. So we're doing it there. Um, that's.

Wade Roush: The, uh, you're putting on A Christmas Carol, right?

Rose Friedman: Yeah, we’re doing a 45 person production of A Christmas Carol. So there's, you know, the idea is that there's multiple entry points to all of these shared experiences and that we don't judge something as successful based on the number of people that interact with it as much as the sort of profundity of the experience. Um, so, you know, we have held very small events here. Um, there's, you know, mending circles that happen here once a month. And there have been things like a haiku club was run here for a while, um, that, you know, had just small, small group of people sitting around the living room. We did a prom dress swap once, and, you know, only a handful of people came. But sometimes the sort of echoes around a thing, um, are a very powerful. And people are talking about it and hearing about it and understanding that it's happening, or donating their dresses, for example, to the prom swap and having all the feelings about that act of sharing, that act of generosity. So there's there's things that are happening around programs and events, even when there's not direct, um, interaction necessarily with them that I feel like are shifting and growing this idea of a shared culture that we're sort of promoting. Um, but then, you know, they'll like all out sort of ragers that are the honky tonk nights, um, where 150 people are dancing together are also really profound experiences of, of sort of shared joy and, um, you know, people belting out songs together at karaoke night and just unlikely groupings of people having fun together as just a really simple, simple notion of where a conversation could start and what even a conversation is for, right? 

Wade Roush: Well, I'm going to hazard a guess that those kinds of things, like the Honky Tonk Night weren't happening, or weren't happening much, or weren't attracting a diverse group of people before you started doing this. And so that leads to my next question, which is kind of like mixing the the global and the local or the national and the local. So, you know, I don't think it's controversial to say that there's been like a total breakdown in dialogue and civility across the country anyway in the last ten years or more. Maybe it goes back farther. When you started the Civic Standard, did you feel like you were trying to address that? I mean, how big of a role did that play in the back of your minds when you and Tara and Erica were talking about this? Were you saying like, there is a horrible breakdown in civility and we need to do something about it? Or was it more general than that?

Rose Friedman: I think some of our earliest conversations about this, this idea were about, um, the ways in which people don't see each other. Um, and it was more about that kind of invisibility and, um, you know, I mean, that plays into that, that lack of a civil discourse. But we were not so interested in being like corrective or are prescriptive in that way, as we were in just saying, sort of pulling back the curtain and saying like, there's all these possibilities for joy that we're missing because we're keeping ourselves isolated from each other. Um, and the wildness of like, shared experience is the is the experimental quality of it that you don't know. I mean, that's like, you know, live theater or anything. You don't know what's going to happen. Um, but bringing that idea into sort of daily life, like if we get out of our kind of routine, safe ways in which we only interact with people, that we kind of can predict what the outcome is going to be. Um, we almost that muscle goes a little slack in a way. Um, and we also, I think, get more close minded to each other. Um, whereas when people who you might really disagree with, uh, are in actively like in your, um, pool of people that you, you mix and mingle with and you see you're kind of forced to acknowledge their humanity and you actually grow to care about them, uh, differently. And I think that just opens up certain pathways in the brain that, uh, are probably really important for our, like, fullest realization of humanity. Um, so, you know, I mean, that's the part that worries me is like that atrophying. I think that happens when you're closed in, in your you're so isolated in your kind of social political group.

Rose Friedman: Uh, I mean, I grew up in New York City and was always kind of troubled by that, like the incredible diversity that surrounded me and the fact that I didn't feel like I had access to, like, deep and true interactions with that diversity. Um, and also, I had no idea how anything worked. Like, I didn't I never understood city council stuff, and I didn't feel like unless I wanted a political career, I didn't feel like I had real, uh, a real way of of accessing that information. So what totally stunned me when I moved to Vermont was how, uh, transparent so much stuff was and how I could see how things worked. It was like the the skin was peeled off and I could see the workings inside, and that I that just really excited me. Um, but also, I felt like because of the smallness of the communities and also because of some parts of, of living in a very northern rural place, you were forced out of need to call on those relationships in a more in depth way. Um, and so whereas in New York, there were sort of invisible hands that took care of a lot of stuff. You know, if your car breaks down in Vermont on the side of the road, you're going to encounter a stranger and be called on to to ask them for help. Um, but it may be that you know that person and there's somebody that, you know whose kid goes to the same school as yours, and then you're in this different relationship with them. So I was just fascinated by that.

Wade Roush: Or if there's a flood that flattens the state capital. Right. I mean, Vermont has had its share of natural disasters and community, you know, community challenges. So and I know that you've been active in those. Um, okay. So it sounds like what you're saying is you're not necessarily like sponsoring or creating space for out and out explicit political dialogue, but you are trying to foster the preconditions for that, which is like people seeing each other as human beings. Right. You're reluctant to engage in debate or even good natured discussion with somebody unless you can see them as a thinking, feeling fellow community member. So, okay, so do you feel that mission is going to be even more important now than it was a week ago, or how are we going to get through the next four years? How are the people who feel like Trump's reelection is a moral, political, civic calamity going to pull together and survive that? And how are they going to understand their fellow citizens, who may be perfectly happy that Trump is coming back into power? I mean, this is a moment when we could continue to fracture and point fingers and lay blame. Um, we can't necessarily afford that for another four years. We have to maybe find a different path. And you're doing that. It strikes me that you're doing that, and I just. Do you feel that way?

Rose Friedman: Um, sometimes. Yeah. Um, I, I don't know, I ride, I ride some pretty crazy waves every single day. Um, of of the good and the bad and and the the real and the true. And maybe this is all imaginary, so it's hard to take a full temperature on that. Um, because I'm not. If you can release the idea that you're trying to change people's minds or change them, and instead I just feel like the further I get into this kind of organizing work, the more, um, it becomes sort of, sort of, uh, community survival, um, and, and a kind of a Buddhist acceptance and recognition of like, the point is to be open rather than the point is to make somebody think like you. And I think that there is a real, um, extraordinary sort of sublime beauty that happens in that, um, that openness and that acceptance of each other. Then when you're talking about people's basic safety and their, um, access to, you know, life saving medical care, it's, you know, it's hard to talk about, like, the sublime beauty of being open minded, right? Because it's like, well, what about surviving? And what about, you know, what about any of the the million issues that people are panicking about about this, this next four years. But. I think that the the reality of what's right in front of us and, and who our community is, is often lost in the face of an idea about national and international politics. And there's a lot of fear and terror, um, that kind of paralyzes us. And then there's like real basic human need that's like right in front of us, like literally on, you know, on the sidewalk that we walk down. Um, and so I find that the only sort of hopeful and, um, strategic thing that I can manage is to address the need that is tangible, that is right in front of me. And that's not because I'm numb to the bigger picture stuff. Um, but because I find that stuff paralyzing.

Wade Roush: You know, my other guest in this episode is, uh, a futurist and scenario planner and author named Jaime Castillo. And we used a lot of the I talked with him yesterday, and we used a lot of the tools of scenario planning to talk through and think through what the next four years might look like. And he said one super interesting thing, which is it's probably helpful. And this echoes what you were just saying, it's probably more helpful to not think of things in terms of problems and solutions, because that language entails that there is a solution and that once you find it, the problem is going to go away. That's not really how life works or what we're up against. It's more like life is a continuing series of dilemmas, and we have to figure out how to respond to them. So it's sort of like choices and responses, not problems and solutions. And and it echoes what you were saying. I think because you're you're in a situation where, yeah, you're surrounded by people in need. And the only question is how are you going to can you help them and how and and I guess what you're saying is you're hoping and trusting that if you focus at that level, it will somehow start to reweave the social threads, the social fabric, and maybe create, um, support for some kind of larger shift down the road. Is that fair?

Rose Friedman: Yeah, that is fair. I mean, I think part of the the work that we're doing here, I consider a kind of demonstration project for like the world that we want to live in. Um, so the idea that there could be a building on Main Street that you walk into where there's nothing really for sale, there's no economic exchange that's being invited or asked for. But there's like a human exchange that's being offered as a possibility. And sometimes that's like a free meal. Uh, and sometimes it's a free program. Um, and sometimes it's just a space to be in. There's coffee and people come in and just chat. People also come in and help with stuff. I mean, recently, uh, an older man in the community came in and said that he just was stopping by to see if we needed help with something. His wife had died a few years ago, and he was dealing with a lot of loneliness and depression since then. And his doctor actually recommended that he go to the civic, sort of like a prescription for something to do that would be engaging. Um, so that just that idea as, like an offering, a cultural offering, um, you know, that should be everywhere is my feeling. Um, and we've lost a lot of those. Those threads that kind of hold a community together as various institutions and organizations have frayed and disintegrated.

Rose Friedman: Um, I think that was a lot of what held families together and supported people. And the way the economy has changed and everything, it's it's really, really hard to live now. It's just hard. Life is just hard for a lot of people. And so finding any joy and commonality in that feels, uh, pretty much like life and death. Um, you know, I mean, it's all, like, for fun and for laughs, and it's theater and it's dancing and it's just having a good time. But it also feels like pretty essential work in the face of what is often really a dismal reality, uh, for a lot of people right now. So there's that aspect that like demonstration project aspect of like, what if we did this for each other? And then there's also just like, um, at the risk of sounding kind of cheesy, there's there's just this like love aspect. Also, we have some kids who come into the building who just hang out here after school, you know, some sometimes they come and they've worked here through the Department of Labor, and sometimes they come and they just get homework help or they just hang out and, um, like allowing ourselves to just love those kids. Just they're not our kids and sort of inviting the community to love the children in the community, whether or not they are in the same social circle or it's not your godchild, or you have no reason to take any responsibility for this kid.

Rose Friedman: Um, but it's incredibly enriching to be in that, in those relationships with each other. And then I think we all, we all sort of get a little high on that. It's it's actually like it feels really good and it's really fun. And we're all enriched across difference because of that. The night of the election, I watched The Return, the whole beginning of the returns with three people. And this was not by design, but it was like some kind of social experiment that had been set up. Uh, I watched with, um, somebody who voted for Trump, uh, somebody who voted for Harris and somebody who left the presidential line blank. So those were the three three guys, uh, you know, in their 50s to 70s, um, and we we all watched the first hour or so of the returns and, and talked about, um, Gaza and talked about, immigration and talked about abortion and made fun of each other and watched the returns come in. And it wasn't clear at that point at all what was going to happen. Um, and that I that is an experience I've never had before. Um, and it did crack open a part of my brain that I hadn't had access to before.

Wade Roush: It almost sounds like the setup for a joke, you know, three, three guys walk into a bar. So, um, I want to ask a question that maybe takes a bit of a harder look or turns the question around a little. So if you'll if you'll indulge me, I want to I want to press you on sort of the, the other way to think about this, another way to think about this. I'm certainly hearing a lot of folks around my circles around the country talking about how, gosh, maybe this is a time for us to turn inward a little bit and nobody says hunker down. But that's sort of what it amounts to. Like, um, we were exhausted. We worked as hard as we could for the outcome we wanted. We didn't get it. Maybe we need to stop panicking a little bit about national politics and bring the focus back down to our local communities and see what we can do to help each other. Maybe there's a group I can volunteer for. Maybe I can give more money to a local cause. Maybe I can fight homelessness. Maybe I can work at the food kitchen. Right. And those are all wonderful, laudable things. But. But I also wonder whether that strategy has its own limitations. And, you know, if you hunker down too much and, and kind of like, stop caring about the state or national context, you'll never get the change you want to see at the state or national level. So how do you kind of like balance those two impulses? And do you think there is a danger in choosing the local over the global, and how do you guard against that?

Rose Friedman: Yeah, I have a bunch of different thoughts about that. I mean, one is that, um, I think there's still a kind of narrowness of view in all of that, like volunteerism and generosity. Even though I appreciate so much the impetus behind it, I still think that there's like a do gooder ism that that a lot of, um, progressives and liberals suffer from that still positions them above other people. Right? Um, and so, you know, instead of doing good, I, I think like reframing that more in like a mutual aid view of, like we all need each other. Like there is probably a Trumper in your community who you might need something from someday. Right. Um, and so how do we build those relationships and kind of smaller community coalitions of support, uh, with each other, you know, towards a common goal or just to be in support of each other as, as fellow community members. So I find that interesting. And then, you know, in terms of, like, I don't think that they're mutually exclusive. Like, I don't think that you're oh, I'm like deep. I'm deep in Hardwick and I am deep in Hardwick. And thinking about Hardwick all the time. And I sometimes feel like I'm doing some weird, you know, lifelong study of of Hardwick history. And I'm not really clear on what why that happened. I'm about the last person on the planet who has any, um, reason to to be doing that.

Rose Friedman: But I think, Again this like demonstration project of what? What would happen if, you know a flatlander Jew from New York City decided to fall in love with her town, right? Decided. Just made the decision to to dig in, to be committed to a place. Right. What if we all decided that even if you're only here for a year or six months, what have you decided to just go all in and and love a place and learn as much as you could about it and love whoever was in it, whether they just got here or they've been here for eight generations. What would happen, right? What if a theater maker wanted to make work just for this one community? And about this one community. What would that work look like? So those questions interest me, but I don't think that that means you're not paying attention to the rest of the world, or to your own experience, or to what has happened anywhere else. I think that those things are always in conversation with each other. I mean, Hardwick is, you know, it's a tiny town, but it's completely shaped and informed by what's happening at the state level and what's happening nationally. For better or worse. Right. So that national media sort of thing about how people hate each other now is like seeping into the town.

Rose Friedman: And sometimes I'm like, I don't I don't think that's really actually happening here. I don't really experience that on a daily level. I mean, I see still see a lot of really respectful conversation across difference and a lot of openness. But then there's moments, you know, with kids wearing certain t shirts to school or flags being flown that you see that, like that fracture. Um, so there's that. But then there's also the fact that the grassroots, small, localized, super focused, uh, approach and project, I think is often where new political ideas come from. And it's where the inspiration for what could become a new form of like. How we look at national politics really needs to grow out of, um, you know, I think I read something recently that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said about that, like the, the small, these small grassroots efforts, they're not really that small because the inspiration has to come from somewhere, you know, in terms of like a national politician trying to figure out what would solve this, this crisis of division right at the national level, looking at what a community is doing to heal some of those divides, offers a lot of information about what works. You know, it's it's it's. It's a launch project. It's it's like how anything has to start. 

Wade Roush: So, Rose, you've called this a demonstration project a couple times. So who you demonstrating to and who's paying attention? I'm curious whether you have people reaching out from other towns or other states asking, how did you do this? Could we do this? And what's your answer?

Rose Friedman: Yeah, we have had lots of people reaching out. I feel like we have several, um, different audiences that we're talking to at the same time. Um, and we struggled with that a little bit at the beginning. At this point, I don't think about it very much. I'm really just trying to get people to come to things and, um, trying to get people to support stuff when we need support or, you know, try out for the show or, um, tell us what they need or whatever it is that we're trying to to talk to our very close by audience. But I know that there's lots of people on our mailing list who are across the country and across the world, and I don't know what they're following along for. You know, I'm sure everybody has a different reason. Um, but I think a lot of them are wondering about it as an experiment. How's it going, what's working and what things are they trying that we might try in our place. Um, and we have had some of those people reach out to us from different towns. I mean, some towns just right down the road that are similar. But of course, every town has completely its own flavor based on a lot of different factors.

Rose Friedman: Um, and some people across the, the world just saying, you know, okay. So like, what's the blueprint, what ingredients would I need to make this work where I am? I don't feel I feel like there's a lot of things that are working about it, but I don't feel, um, like, confident enough to be like, oh, yeah, like, we're all set. We're all done. It worked. Here's here are the key ingredients. Um, because it's so in process and it's so experimental. And when we were brand new, it felt really different than it does now, like in year three. And, you know, it's it's a conversation with the town. So it deepens and it changes and it grows and the town is changing. So there's that. I think the key thing that we've sort of come to is that paying attention is like the most important thing, and that is something that people can do wherever they are. Um, and so that listening and paying attention, um, is, is just what, what I'm trying to, to model and to build into all of our programming.

Wade Roush: Well, thank you for doing it, Rose. And thanks for talking with me. And I think a lot of listeners are going to be really inspired by this.

Rose Friedman: Thanks for the opportunity.

Wade Roush: Soonish is written and produced by me, Wade Roush. Our opening theme is by Graham Gordon Ramsay. All the other music in this episode is by Lee Rosevere.

Soonish is a proud founding member of The Hub and Spoke Audio Collective. And this week I want to tell you about a fantastic hub and spoke show called Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!). It's a podcast all about the magazine industry, a cornerstone of our collective culture for going on two centuries.

Now, given the magazine businesses desperate economics right now. The show is part eulogy, but it's also a celebration of the amazing people who worked and still work at magazines. In one recent episode, Patrick Mitchell and his colleagues at Print Is Dead scored an exclusive interview with E! Jean Carroll. Carroll is obviously most famous these days as the woman who won not one, but two defamation lawsuits against Donald Trump worth payouts of over $100 million. But way before those lawsuits, Carroll had a long career as a writer and columnist for outside, Esquire, Playboy and Elle, and she built up a reputation as, quote, a goddamn swashbuckling magazine world legend, unquote.

Maggie Bullock:: Here's the truth the woman that most of the world came to know through the most harrowing circumstances really is, and always has been, that fearless, that unsinkable. It's not a persona, it is the genuine article. And when you hear her stories about how hard she slogged away for decades to finally get her big break in publishing listeners, you will have a whole new respect for her.

Wade Roush: As you can hear, the whole episode of print is dead. Long live print at magazeum.co or wherever you get your podcasts. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening and I'll be back with a new episode… soonish.