Martin Gurri
Appearances
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, let's give it time. I mean, you may be right. All I have to say is I find it remarkable— you can look at me, I am not a young man, all right, that free speech is a right-wing cause, all right? When did that happen, okay? I mean, you have several, all of them left people, John Kerry most recently, bemoaning the existence of the First Amendment. I have never seen that in my entire life.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Everybody always pretended, at least, they were for free speech. Even when secretly they wanted to control it, even when secretly they were trying to control it, they always talked the talk. And now, only on the left, you find people saying, no, we need boundaries, we need this, we need that, we need protection against... So that's my take on that. You may be right.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Maybe that this crowd ends up being even worse. So we got to watch that. I don't really, they're not, you know, I am not, I have an independent politically and have no dogs in the political fight. But in the free speech fight, I'm all in.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
It was free speech. It was normalizing the censorship of things that in the olden days, me as a 60s guy, okay, very, very aging hippie, okay, felt like this is crazy. This is crazy. This is what we fought for in the 60s was to be able to say whatever we wanted to and to expand that to whatever the limit is that doesn't break down social peace, right? So that was my number one thing.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
My number two thing was was I just felt like the world was becoming more and more dangerous. And I knew, regardless of what you say, that this was an empty skin suit in the White House, and that we were just like an airplane on automatic pilot, circling and circling, waiting to run out of gas. And I do not love Donald Trump. I never have.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
But I felt like he was for free speech, and he's a live brain in the White House. Hopefully, he will... be more than that.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, I can tell you the moment it happened, where I suddenly went, geez, okay. It was that near-assassination episode where... I don't know how lucky you've been, but if you've been lucky, you have never been in a place where bullets are flying. I come from Cuba.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I can tell you when bullets start flying, you think you're a hero until that moment, and then you hit the ground and you make like a pancake, okay? And here's a man who not only was being shot at, but had been hit. And he probably had no idea how badly, all right? And stood up and told the Secret Service agents, I mean, just presence of mind, You people have knocked my shoes off.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I'm going to put on my shoes. I'm going to turn to the crowd. I'm going to say fight, okay? I thought, number one, that took a lot of courage, just basically physical courage. Number two, presence of mind, all right? But there's a third element, and I don't even know what to do with that one. I mean, you can call it the... providential interpretation of Trump.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
You know, he thinks that God saved him to make America great again. Or you can give a mathematical explanation. He's kind of like a strange attractor, you know? And these incredible coincidences keep happening all around him that completely defy the laws of probability. The fact that the bullet missed him.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
That image where he's standing there shaking his fist at destiny and he's got those Secret Service agents reprotectively running. And there's a flag in the background. What are the odds of that thing happening spontaneously? No wonder people think it was acted, right? But if you look at the last, oh, 80 years, there's one series of bizarre questions. How did he beat Hillary Clinton?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
How did his popularity resurrect dramatically? From January 6th, 2021. How did he just kind of dispose of a pretty good field of Republican aspirants, including proven winners like DeSantis, you know? I mean, endless numbers of questions. Every event tends to skew in his direction. You know, you can say that what he did, being exiled and coming back, was kind of a hero's journey.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
You know, that's not necessarily a moral quality, and he could do many bad things with all those qualities. But part of what I think the mythic side of Trump is the fact that the world around him is not the world around the rest of us.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Yeah, I think you're 100% right. That's actually a pretty deep observation. And having lived through the 60s, which is kind of like that, you know, astrology brought it to mind. But there was that sense of mysticism almost, of connection to something beyond just everyday life. There must be something more to it than this. I think there's a huge hunger for that right now.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I think a lot of our politics... Sublimate that, honestly. It's impossible to measure empirically. I don't know how you do that. But I profoundly believe that. I think we have been living through a period of, yeah, I think the Obama era was cool, calm, collected, you know, the rule of technocracy. And that was very flavorless, I think, for a lot of people. People want red meat.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And I mean, what is Trump, right? So I think we're beginning this era. I think there's more down the road. So let's keep our eyes open because it can manifest itself in a number of good or bad ways.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Yeah. Yeah. I think there's some truth in that. I would say that a lot of people that I know who are pro-Trump feel that he's not their dominator. He's their liberator. In other words, he's the guy who's breaking up this very dominating system of elite institutional governance and allowing the normies, as they call themselves, to sort of do what they wish, all right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I think the word frontier that you used is critical. And I mean, this is a great country. I mean, I'm an immigrant, right? So I kind of feel like the frontier spirit is part of my spirit. I think Americans, basically, that's who they are. They have this craving for some far frontier-like thing that they must, you know, master or conquer or populate or coordinate. It doesn't really matter.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
The modality doesn't matter. It's the challenge that matters. And I think, honestly, under Obama, there was no real challenge. What were we headed towards? You know, it was unclear. And I think for the moment, and we'll see with Trump, for the moment, the clarity is in negation, in undoing that controlling apparatus that the Biden administration had set up.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, the argument of the book goes back to my days at CIA, where I was one of the least sexy jobs you could have. I was an analyst of global media, and it was a relatively straightforward job. I mean, you could—if the president asked you, how are my policies playing in France, you went to two newspapers that were considered, those sources, authoritative. That's what we called them, right? Right.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, I was probably de-amplified by Facebook at some point. I don't even know why I said that. When my wife would send out my articles, they got a lot more response than when I sent out my articles on Facebook. And I think when Mark Zuckerberg saw the light, suddenly realized I don't like censorship anymore. strangely, after Donald Trump got elected.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I think that is the way that the people on this side, and I'm not a Trumpist, like I said, I believe in free speech, and I thought the idea that you were supposed to say certain words, I mean, the right has never had this power, okay? The power to impose certain words, the power to basically declare
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
come up with entirely new definitions about things that were pretty settled, like who's a man and who's a woman, you know, been settled since Adam and Eve. And all these constantly changing new permutations of ideas that were Not intuitive, let's put it that way, but mandatory from the moment they get proclaimed and by whom I don't even know.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I had a friend who was a professor and this was like years ago, about five or six years ago. And I asked him, what's it like? He says, it's like a mind clearing operation being in college. You're a college professor. Sooner or later, something's going to blow up on you. You know, so it's not just the elites being controlling. It's a kind of a culture of control or or an ideology of control.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
There is, I think, an element of revolt to the public in it.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Around the turn of the century, this digital earthquake generated this tsunami of information that was essentially unparalleled in human history, all right? And there's numbers backing that up. And we just got swamped. The first response, of course, of somebody who deals with authoritative information is, what's authoritative in this? infinite mass of stuff.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Yeah, I mean, what is authoritarianism? That one, I do know that most of my friends are liberals. They don't think he's an authoritarian though. What is he doing to the government? Okay, what I see is being done is the very earliest moment in which AI collides with the analog world. That IRS thing you were describing, I mean, I was a bureaucrat for many, many years at CIA, all right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
So I know perfectly well how that works. And yeah, so first of all, there's all these controlling mandates. In the end, they all checkmate each other, right? So you have this paralysis. And it's all, take this sheet of paper, write the memo, take it here, take it there. In the end, it gets lost and nothing happens, right? What you have is Elon Musk applying AI to all those rules and regulations.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And you can identify exactly where you can go, perfectly legal, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, it is not unclear to me. I mean, they're moving so fast that there's probably a lot I don't know. But, for example, USAID was set up by executive order. So you can crash that down by executive order. There was no act of Congress. No, it was set up by Congress.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, all I can tell you is I see this as the application of the human AI mind to the analog world. And let's put the legality aside. It allows for the identification of things that can be cut way faster than the analog minds can follow. And I have to ask you, if you want to be an authoritarian, Are you going to cut back the government? I mean, let me tell you, I have lived under authoritarians.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Cutting back the government is not what they do.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
My take on USAID is that, what was the point of it? What was the point of it? And you look at a lot of the programs that were doing it, there clearly was no point to it. They were trying to find some point of it. We give aid, what do we give aid for? Well, in the old days, yeah, it was, you know, we fought the commies and if we could bribe some government or some movement or something,
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
to fight the communists along with us. We didn't care how corrupt that was. It was good. Now they're on our side. But now we're not in that kind of a world anymore. So these people are not sophisticated thinkers of what to do with government mission. And what you were saying, which is to what end, is the ultimate key, all right? So I am with them so far.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
but because the government is just such a monstrous bloat that honestly what they're doing is fingernail bearings. But to what end? Do any of these people in the Trump administration have an image in their minds of once we've taken the government and we squeezed it and we broke it and we reshaped it, and now it's going to do... What? And I am not sure. I have not seen that anywhere.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
The second part was, what's the effect of it? All right. What is the effect of going from a world where information is extremely valuable to one that is so abundant that you don't know what it's worth? And there was a tsunami of information that we could track it as different countries digitize. And right behind it, we could see ever increasing levels of social and political turbulence. Okay.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Some maybe marginal people to the Musk minions. There's this sub-sec person, mysterious, called Echo. I don't know if you've read his stuff, E-K-O. He's sort of like as close to an ideologist. and maybe this is a fantasy world, but he persuades you that with AI, the president has basically the entirety of the government becomes intelligible.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And it becomes intelligible horizontally, so you can follow every agency that is trying to find little cutouts and rabbit holes to hide, you know, waste in or whatever. But it's also intelligible vertically, right? So if you're allocating money for a bridge repair, it can show you the actual bridge and what's actually being repaired. But I mean, that's utopian stuff.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
It's very utopian stuff about where do we get to this bottom-up world or whatever. They themselves have not said anything. They are not very articulate about this. And should we be paying attention? Yeah. Should we think that it's authoritarianism that are doing it? I don't think so.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
What really matters, honestly, is the restoration of trust. I think today, trust has just evaporated. And I think we can discuss the justice of that. I think there is some justice to it. I think some of it is utopian expectations versus just the way the world actually runs, you know? But there it is. It has evaporated.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
What is done, honestly, as long as there is no law-breaking or anything like that, whatever gets done, whatever gets broken, if you can restore the trust of the public in democratic institutions, then you will have done a good thing. Whether these people can do it, that's a serious question.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
So the book It's trying to explain that. What became very clear was that our entire 21st century set of the institutions that hold up modern life, the government, the media, business, academia, were shaped in the 20th century. very top-down, very hierarchical, very I talk, you listen.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Yeah, there's an element of truth in that. I would say that I think you have the public wrong because the public is not two-sided. The public is fractured into many, many, many pieces, all right? And those pieces tend to coalesce.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Sometimes they do it spontaneously in protests, for example, you know, and they don't need an elite to tell them to go to Tahrir Square or, you know, Plaza del Sol or whatever. And they mobilize...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
entirely by being against you take the crowd in terrier square you know you had socialists you had the youth of the muslim brotherhood you had just everyday egyptians you had all kinds of people that if you ask them what do we do next then we start fighting with each other but they were all against mubarak right they were all against mubarak and the public is against and i think against is a very mobilizing emotion and
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
The thing we have to watch out, and I've been saying this for years, is, okay, taken to his logical conclusion, you become a nihilist, right? You basically believe that destruction is a form of progress. Now, that's my flag for the Trump guys, all right? Are they tearing this out to a purpose? They're going to a purpose? I'm willing to put up with a lot of noise, a lot of mistakes.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
This is the way this gets done tidily, all right? If there's a purpose and I approve of the purpose, I don't see a purpose, right? But are you doing it just because you can?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Right. Because I think the two-party system is a completely artificial construct. The two parties... don't really hold too much allegiance anymore. They're among the institutions that have lost a great deal of trust. And if you look at the numbers, the number of independents keeps growing. And what is an independent? Well, that's a hundred different things, all right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
So I think part of the difficulty of this political moment is that we look at it in very old-fashioned ways, Democrat, Republican, and I look at the ground level and I see this phenomenon fermenting mosaic of different passions. I think it's very fluid. I do think it's very fluid. Maybe the total numbers, overall numbers, not so.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
So what the internet did, what the digital revolution did, was essentially create the possibility of this gigantic information sphere that was outside of the institutions, all right? And it turned to the institutions, and the first one it turned to was your business, media, right? It was this big fight between the blogs and the mainstream media was the enemy, right? And
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And as long as we get given this choice of Republican and Democrat, maybe I won't change. But I'm wondering how long that's going to last.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I learned that in Virginia when there's still Jim Crow, there were no Republicans.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
No, I mean, you're 100% right in that we're still speaking in words that make no sense when you attach them to what's actually happening out there. And I would point out that not that long ago, Barack Obama was elected, and he was going to be a transformational figure. He was not elected to be lord over the institutions, and he...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
had a style of governance and a rhetoric that allowed him, while still being president and in charge of everything, to distance himself from the institutions. So, you know, he could say all these, criticize even the government very sharply, you know, as being racist or anti-feminist or whatever. And yet, you know, there he was, he was the president, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
That would have been a moment where the Democrats could have seized that high ground, I guess. So even what you're saying, what you're describing is just of now. At the times of the first Obama election, 2008, I guess, the Democrats were the ones who were trying to storm the institutions and change them.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Today, for a fact, and I think that's true on both sides. I think there is a core of people who have, because just of the accident of fate that the Democrats, or even more the Democrats, the anti-Trumpism has been identified with pro-institutionalism. There's a core of people who then will stand up. I mean, there was a... There was a woman, as I said, Ubered here.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
There was a woman standing in a street corner here in Washington with a sign that said, God bless the federal workforce, you know, just standing there with that sign, right? So, you know, God bless her. I was one of them. But honestly, the vast majority of Americans at the level of the publics or the various mosaics want reform, want change, want against, right? They are not for the institutions.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
They have no faith in them. So I would say that For the Democratic Party to regain its mojo, I mean, what they need is, what is it that they would like to change to bring government, this enormous construct, modern government, this enormous, towering, daunting construct down to the level of a human being? How do you humanize that thing, right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Sure enough, when that happens, you can find many errors and many mistakes and some bad faith in the institutions. And I think it's institutional failure and elite failure that sets the information agenda on the web. I mean, that's pretty clear.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
In some bizarre way, that's what Trump is trying to do without thinking about it very much. But the Democrats aren't even thinking.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I won't touch the Adams case because I don't really know the details of whether that case was good or not. But I think what the sensation is from the people on his side is here are all these bureaucrats, these deep states and these Democrats and so forth who have been lording it over us. And now they realize they're just like me.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
It can be any number of things, but the total effect of that is a gigantic erosion of trust in the institutions, which then builds up this digital world that is non-institutional even stronger. Yeah. So it's kind of an inversion of what had gone on before. Before you had the Walter Cronkite of the world, very respected, most trusted man in America.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
They're crying out just like we've been crying out, but they weren't listening when we cried. And now he's making them cry out. So I think it's a case of the high being brought down as much as, and I'm not going to deny there's a huge personalistic aspect to Trump, starting with Trump himself, but I think as much of that as he is perceived as the hero who's bringing the high down low, all right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And that is very humanizing and it's very democratizing if you believe that that's what's happening.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
if you tell me what I would hope it would all end up as, is it would be a much leaner, far more responsive, far less politicized, far more AI-friendly, far more digitized, and therefore the levels of hierarchy much lower than what we had in the 20th century. And trusted by the people, trusted by the people. So if you have a government that is...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
say, the equivalent of, in many cases, when you talk about services of Amazon, right? Amazon is this thing you trust it, you push a button, and it's there on your doorstep, okay? The government, you go with a paper, and you have to go, you know, please, can we do this? And they say, no, you have to change, you have to do it, do it, do it. So my ideal vision of where a democratic government
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
small d democratic government in washington would be federal government would be one that is very flat very responsive very interactive very ai driven very digitized and trusted by the people two things a couple things come up for me when you when you offer that vision and i'm not saying you're saying it's their vision but one is that
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Think of a journalist such as yourself being voted the most trusted man in America today. It's not even a joke.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
What we have is a revolution, and thank goodness it's an American-style revolution. FDR had one. Reagan had one. Guillotines were not brought out. Nobody died, okay? But you have a revolution. FDR and Reagan and this one are messy, all right? They're just messy, and mistakes will be made. I think if you want to have a pessimistic view, this is a— remarkably un-self-reflective bunch, all right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
They're a bunch of action people. I mean, Musk and even RFK Jr. and certainly Trump, these are people who want to do things. That's not a bad thing, but you need somebody to explain what the hell you're doing. You need to explain, as we were talking about before, what's the end state? Why did you take this step here?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Are you doing it because the next step is going to be over there and this is a logical place to be? Or are you just kind of like ramming through and tearing up things as you go along? It is unclear to me, by the way, which of those cases it is. It's clear that Elon Musk has a plan, that it's all AI, but where he's headed with that, I have no idea.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Large complex institutions need to have places where things happen in whispers that nobody hears to get anything done. Having said that, forget it. It ain't going to happen. We are now in an entirely different world.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
So what we need is elites, people in charge of things, let's just call them that, who can deal in this world where you're under the spotlight at all times in a way that is, number one, functional, you can get things done, but number two, Look trustworthy to the millions of people who are going to be watching you either online or through some system or another. I mean, C-SPAN is a joke.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I can't believe that Congress having a camera in front of it doesn't provide a show. There's anything more disruptive, bizarre, and almost like theater of the absurd than watching those committees work, right? But they had the opportunity. This is not the camera's fault. It's their fault, all right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
But that's not a show. That's grandstanding, right? There has to be a way in which the pieces of the show is there's a story and somebody's controlling it. There's a director and then there's opposition and kind of like a trial. It's kind of like a show. That's not what happens. So I actually think it's possible to do.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I think with the digital, with AI in particular, it's possible to get some version of that. But we need... People in charge, people at the top of the institutions who are comfortable and believable in that role.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Like, are you comfortable with that? Yeah. That's a great idea, ruled by sociopaths, you know, digital sociopaths. I think you're right. My take, though, is, okay, I said it before, there is this colossal transformation going on. We're moving from the industrial age to something that doesn't even have a name yet, okay? And we're at a very early stage of this.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And maybe the rule of the digital sociopath, hopefully, will be an early stage that we transcend. I would say, if you want to be present to the United States, you're not a normal human being. All right? That's fair. Already you are some kind of freak. And also, if I may give my 30 years war metaphor. Am I allowed to do that? Please. Okay.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, there you go. It's not even mine. It's originally from a fellow Cuban who said, suppose you take a time machine and and go to the Thirty Years' War. Now, you know, that's the bloodiest war that was ever fought in Europe, right? People were being slaughtered. And suppose you went there, and you asked the man on the street, what do you think of the printing press?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And the man on the street would say, it's the most horrific... conflict-inducing thing that has ever been invented.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Look, over there, there's this little church, and over there, there's another little church, and they're coming out with their books, their printed books, and the printed books have almost exactly the same words, but like eight words are different, and they have to kill each other over that. If we didn't have a printing press, we'd be safe, right? Well...
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Today we know that the printing press was the most liberating invention that ever happened in the human race. We had to get past that. And let's be thankful, I always say, building on Antonia's metaphor, we're not at a 30 years war level here. We're not anywhere near that. So I think we will get past it. I think information systems have, they cycle through Moments of adjustments.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
My concern always has been that when we get to the end, I won't see it, by the way, but when we get to the end, we have liberal democracy still there, maybe even more democratic, because there are many things about the digital systems and AI that empower people far more than the old analog world did. So that's my answer.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Anything by Andre Mir. He is the Marshall McLuhan of the 21st century.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
But if I had to pick one, I would pick Post-Journalism and the Death of Newspapers, which is basically a history of the art form, a very detailed history of the art form, kind of explaining, and your newspaper is kind of front and center, explaining how the business model has changed from selling eyeballs to advertisers to sort of commodifying polarization, right? Beautiful book.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Second one, a British economist, Paul Ormerod, has got a book called Why Most Things Fail. And you should read it. First of all, because it's a great title.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Number two, because as an economist, he's gone through the data, mostly British and American data that goes back 150 years, economic data, to show how, you know, governments have tried to solve, you know, basically they try to solve issues like unemployment, ethnically segregated households. And it's an all hypothesis. Nothing has changed. So it's a fascinating book. Third, Hugo Mercier.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
It's Not Born Yesterday. And it's about what we talk about right now is can somebody like Donald Trump talk to you, a fairly liberal human being, and through the magic of his disinformation, suddenly you walk away thinking, I will vote for that man, whatever he goes, right? Can he persuade you through this manipulative process?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And he has a lot of psychological data in there that pretty clearly explains No, not really. People tend not to be persuaded by oratory rhetoric and tend to believe what they believe. So Ugo Mercier, those are my three books.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Yeah, I mean, I believe that the information structure is one of the most determinative factors in any society, right? It shapes the landscape. It's an ecological force. So if you're dealing with a mass media 20th century style, it's top-down again, and you need to have a printing press or a TV station, and that takes a certain kind of overhead and money, and you can't talk back to it.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
So the mood of information, that's slightly Marshall McLuhan-ish,
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Yeah. I'm sort of like a semi-McLuhanist. I think he was right on about a lot of things. And I think one of the things he was right about is that the primary aspect, as we talk about everything else, everything else is downstream for how we exchange information, right? So politics is downstream. Even culture is downstream, okay, because it gets exchanged in certain media.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Now, I would say, in part, you're right, that the rise of digital media just crashed into a world constructed around analog media and broke it to pieces. And there's the question that digital media in and of itself stimulates controversy, stimulates hostility, political hostility, if not political, some kind of hostility. But I think also it uncovered a lot of
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
let's say, negativity, a lot of negation towards the institutions that were almost certainly already there, that was masked by that former system, top-down, you know, where the New York Times is talking down at you, you don't get to pick up your comment section and say, New York Times, you're wrong, or to go to Exxon, New York Times, you're wrong. No, you just got to either
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Throw it away or write a letter to the editor or something along those lines. So I think a lot of the hostility, a lot of the negation, a lot of what's happened with the public, which is now, it's a global phenomenon. By no means, we Americans are very provincial. By no means an American monopoly. This rise was there. It was just masked by the previous information system.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And this information system stimulates it, but also releases it.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
There is no question that we think that they're worse because we know so much more about them, right? I mean, how many sex scandals that we know about today would never have come up in the 20th century? I also think, however, that they are particularly bad. And they're particularly bad because they haven't made the leap to the new information system.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
In other words, in the 20th century, we had people like Kennedy and Reagan, people who were masters of television. They knew the information systems that they were... conveying their message on. Today, the elites, as a rule, number one, because they're old, but number two, because even the young people tend to have old heads, and number three, because it's a very uncomfortable medium, all right?
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Because you do get talked back a lot. So I think what we need and what we haven't gotten yet, although this crowd with Trump, that may be the beginning, is people who are just totally comfortable with this crazy information system Trump, for example, on Twitter, he was like the Beethoven of Twitter in his first term. Basically, he is the guy who said, no, I did everything wrong.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
You know, whatever scandal, he's like this gigantic bull seal with a hide so thick that no matter what you stab that thing with, it just kind of doesn't even touch him, right? And he's full of scars, but that's his magic. That is the guy's magic is that he's, Already done all the things.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
You can't find any skeletons in my closet because all the skeletons are right here in my living room and you can see them and I don't care. Right? Okay. Am I for that? No. But it gives you some idea of how you need a kind of an elite that deals with the fact that whatever you do, if you project an image that is false, you're going to crash. You're going to burn and crash.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
What I can say is what you said is true at the descriptive level. back, forth, back, forth, back, forth, right? What I think is happening is trial, error, trial, error. The electorate is searching for somebody to make sense politically out of this moment. And so far, everybody has failed.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
You know, Obama did okay, he got reelected, but at the end, he did not set the standard for how we deal for politics at the presidential level in a digital age. Trump came, out. Biden came, out. Now we have Trump, who knows what's gonna happen. If Trump succeeds, it may be that that's the model. The odds are massively against it, just massively against it.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, let's talk a bit about the Biden era.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
Well, first of all, I want to apologize to Joe Biden. If I had known... I mean, you could sort of see that the guy wasn't there, all right? But if I had known the degree to which he really was not in charge of anything... I've read you on this.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I know. I mean, that's pretty clear to me. Whoever was running the White House during that time, I think, had that impulse to go back to the 20th century. And, you know, the ideal... Internet for people like that would be the New York Times circa, you know, 1958 or something. Front page of the New York Times, 1958. That's the way information should be.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And they have converted this into some sort of almost—this is a fairly recent development—an almost ideological construct where—
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
where they now seem to be promoting what you might call a guided society, where the ordinary people like me and others need Sherpas to make sure we don't fall off the cliffs and keep going upwards and onwards, so we're protected against disinformation, and we're protected against hate, and we're protected against all these other things.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
an attempt to erect a censorship apparatus that would de-emphasize people or silence people, silence certain voices, silence certain opinions, get experts and bureaucrats to basically proclaim that certain truths were false. And, um, It was a futile attempt. I mean, it was completely futile as it was happening. And of course, it led, I think, it paved the way to Trump.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
You know, I come from Cuba, where censorship... I didn't know you came from Cuba. Oh, yes. I was... By the time I was 10, I had experienced a... pretty stern right-wing censorship and a left-wing dictatorship that basically killed the media. I mean, there was no media left. So I'm pretty touchy about that sort of thing. And I guess I have like antenna that can feel things coming.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
And thank God for the First Amendment. They can't do it here.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
I mean, you're missing dimension, I think. The dimension of censorship under Biden, he basically told the platforms, you have to adhere to European standards of good behavior online. Well, the Europeans don't have a First Amendment, right? And the Europeans, honestly, we tend to think of it as being just like us.
The Ezra Klein Show
A Theory of Media That Explains 15 Years of Politics
When it comes to speech, and this has always been the case, and it is more the case every day, there's like halfway between us and China. So... I think the difference is that, okay? Do you, as an ordinary person, feel like you can say whatever you want? All right? If you don't like X, you can go to, you know, Blue Sky or something, right? That's true then, too.