Social media algorithms and societal division

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If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler One of the great battlegrounds in modern American politics, and modern American culture is men. do about them, how to attract them politically, how to treat them culturally on the right, they're pretty sure They've done very well with men. The Trump campaign did well. The Republicans more generally do well, particularly young men who've been attracted to the right wing cause On the left, they're more conflicted. There are plenty of left wing people who do not approve of what they regard as masculinity. But there is also a sense on the left that something has to be done to attract men back to the left, back to the Democratic Party I've been talking to one person who has very strong views on modern American masculinity He's not someone from the right, he's very much someone from the left, but he's someone who believes that the left needs to change And we had a conversation as well about where America is going next. The character of America, which is so vital and in a sense so unpolitical, it goes to what the place should be in the post Trump era Welcome to Americast Ameraast from BBC News. You hear that? I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump arrangement syndrome. For you, turn the volume up Hello, it's Justin talking to you from the City of Bath and I'm going to be joined in a second by Marianna and we're bringing you something we've done instead of Americaanwers because it's a bank holiday in Britain. So we've done an interview or I've done an interview with the author Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway, who is not just an author actually. He's much more than that. He's a podcaster He's an influencer in a way, particularly in the world of financial affairs, but actually much more widely as well. He's a kind of cultural commentator and he wrote this book called Notes on Being A Man. And one of the things he's really passionate about is changing the way, particularly that the American left regards men and manhood and he thinks they're making big mistakes about it and it needs to change. So I've done this interview with Scott and we're going to bring it to you now and then Marianna and I are going to discuss what he says because what he says is controversial and it's certainly controversial within the United States, but I think it's fair to say as well that it's having an increasing influence on people who are affected by it and wonder about it and wonder whether the Democratic Party needs to do something about it. So here we are without further ado Scott Galloway, talking to me. ennjoy it Scott, you're not a Tump supporterter for anything but, but you are someone who is critical of the leftft, aren't you? You think the lefte are getting this wrong? Well I think Donald Trump is president of the United States because of struggling young men. and that is to the far right's credit, they saw the problem First The issue is they see that the remedy is to take women and non whites back to the fifties. which is not helpful But look at Donald Trump, he flew right into the manosphere, Crypto, Rockets, World Wrestling Federation, being somewhat coarse and cruel, if you will, which unfortunately people conflate. or some men conflate with masculinity. Whereas in the left, I went to the Democratic National Committee or convention It was a parade of special interest groups articulating the very real issues they still face, but not one mention of the group that's fallen furthest fastest and that is young men. And so I don't think either group is is quite frankly, helping or addressing the issue. The far right conflates masculinity with coarseness and cruelty. and the far left, basically their answer for young men is just acting more like you know you should act more like a woman, which I don't think is the answer either. It's interesting you mentioned the convention. I was there as well, up in Chicago and you're absolutely right, and there were loads of influencers there. and the one thing that definitely would not have been, mean committing a real kind of social faux p if you' suddenly said, what about the young men? or particularly what about the young white men and Why though? What is it prevents the Democrats seeing what you've been telling them Well, I think there's a natural gag reflex because unfortunately, well one, If you look at America from nineteen forty five to two thousand, we registered A third of the world's economic growth with five percent of the population. So we had six times the prosperity of the rest of the world. And then within that six acts of prosperity Ab a third of the population that was white, heterosexual and male registered the majority of the spoils. So you could argue that beinging born as I was in the sixties in California, a white heterosexual male, that I had fifteen to twenty times the prosperity that I had earned And so I think there is a natural response that, okay, you've had three thousand year head start If young men now are having a little bit of a difficult time, maybe that's okay. It's payback time. It's payback But what I think people are coming to the realization is that you know who wants more viable economically and emotionally viable young men? Women It's also hurting birth rates, it's hurting crime. And then what happens is when you have young men that don't feel seen, they're very receptive to sort of a a nationalist blame women, blame immigrants for your economic problems, blame women for your your romantic problems and it's not your fault, it's the enemy is within and I see you. And if you look at why President Trump got elected. If you look at the three groups that pivoted hardest from blue to red from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, it was one Latinos, which is hard to categorize into a single group. T young men And three, the most interesting demographic that win broke for Trump or went way more Trump is women age forty five to sixty four. And my thesis, Justin is that that's their motherss There's still a lot of women in America who will vote for who they perceive as best in the best interest of their husbands and their sons. And if your son is in the basement playing video games and v bang You don't care aboutial territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights. You just want change So I would argue that the darkest moments in history where we've turned a very very frightening nationalists that cause a lot of chaos in the world. There's always one static element And that is a large cohort of young men with a lack of economic or romantic opportunities You said earlier that one of the things the Democrats were getting wrong is they're just wanting men to be more like women I mean Why not What are they getting wrong in wanting that? Be I imagine there are quite a lot of women listening who say, Well, yeah, it wouldn't be a bad thing actually, but more femininity, but more embracing of all of that. G good thing You know, you said you don't want to go back to the nineteen fifties, but is there not a risk that this becomes a kind of nineteen fifties conversation where there are seex differences or gender differences that we pander to, but actually in a way just in our minds. To your point. Masculinity and femininity are social constructs. They're empty vessels we get to fill And I think that femininity is a wonderful attribute. And by the way, these things aren't sequestered to people born as males or females. I think a lot ofen demonrate wonderful feminine attributes. I think a lot of women demonstrate wonderful masculine attributes. but we've been celebrating feminity as we should, nurturing more thoughtful, better E Q You know, if I say women likely make better doctors, there's more in medical school, they're better students. they have better bedside manner. peopleeople clap their hands. But if I say on average, Men oftentimes make better entrepreneurs or combat soldiers because they're more risk aggressive There's a general sense, I don't feel safe around you. That is not allowed And I think masculinity frame correctly is wonderful I think being aggressive has its role in places. I think wanting to protect people has its place. I think being strong such that you can move to protection. I think we need to celebrate just so I can offend some of your Listeners, I think we need to celebrate men's horniness. I think wanting to have sex turns you into a better man It tells you to shower. It tells you to be kind. It tells you to make friends with women so they can help you understand women. It trains you to have perseverance to try and get through the much finer filter of women who are choosy, it teaches you how to endure rejection. It teaches you how to take chances These are wonderful attributes that young men are giving up on. So I think masculinity embracing it in an aspirational format and saying we've been celebrating feminity actually we should but also celebrate masculinity and also what I would call for is a renewal. I think we need to renew the alliance between Europe and America, renew the alliance between moderate left and moderate right, but most importantly, we need to renew the greatest alliance in history And that is the alliance between men and women. And I think a mix of feminine and masculine energy is a wonderful combination that has literally built the world that we know. I wonder whether actually part of all of this is the daintiness about language. and the walking on eggshells ness about language, which has been very much something from the progressive leftft, I suppose in the last ten to fifteen years in particular. So in a sense, it's not just about men and women. This goes to a wider argument about the ability of people to have these conversations actually in the first place. A great point, Justin If you were to reverse engineer that single point of failure or a boy comes off the tracks and becomes an unproductive male It's when he loses a male role model through death disease or management The moment I was raised by a single immigrantother lived and Iied a seecretary a lot of my life But the reality is when my father left us, at that moment, I became more likely as a boy to be incarcerated and graduate from college. What's interesting? is that girls in single parent households have similar outcomes. sameame rates of college attendances, same rates of self harm. So despite being physically stronger, what the data shows is that boys are actually emotionally and intellectually much weaker than girls, much less resilient But even saying that boys need men in their lives was triggering five years ago. What women can't raise men? Sure they can Again, see above raised by a single mother, but the reality is boys need men in their lives. We couldn't even We couldn't even have an honest conversation Even acknowledging a differe in the ninety five percent of us who assign is binary. And by the way, that doesn't mean People in the middle don't deserve the exact same opportunities. It doesn't mean in any way women should be prohibited or not have the same opportunities that men have What I'm saying is ninety five percent of us are born with certain attributes that are easier for us to lean into than the other gender, let's celebrate both those things and acknowledge that our society right now seems to be not ing young men, the young men are flailing and that is going to have all sorts of second order impacts on the well beinging of our society Are you getting somewhere, do you think, with the broad left? I'll turn to Trump in a second, but with the left, do you feel that The argument is now playing out on your side or not The conversation has become a lot more productive in the last five years. Governor California, Governor Newsom has sponsored programs for young men. Governor Moore. of Maryland said that in his state of the state address this year that the focus of his administration was going to be on lifting up young men and boys He could not have said that five years ago That's interesting and both of them potential actually both of them actually presresident c in twenty eight, aren't they or going for the nomination. no question of both of those. That's interesting. So be it's going to be there in the debates in the primaries. This is something people are feeling in their homes You know what, you get in a room of parents and you start talking about the problems between young men and young women just start nodding their heads There's just such a stark difference It's even biological. I don't know do you have kids Justin? Yeah, I do, yeah. Yeahah. If you have fifteen year olds over, this my son had fifteen year olds his class over The boys are nice but they're dopes They can't look in the eye Some of the girls that come over fifteen could be the junior senators from Pennsylvania. They could be in Parliament Girls are just maturing faster and a world that values And Ill think there's some bias K through twelve. What do we ask kids to do Be quiet, sit still, ask questions Look at the gross the gross motor skills of a boy are better, but the The oral skills and the dexterity of a girl is better. What do we ask kids to do? Push a pencil around, ask questions, articulate themselves, sit still seventy to eighty percent of our primary school administrators and teachers are female So basically education has been feminized A boy in primary education is twice as likely to be suspended from school for the exact same behavior as a girl. So we've built in some biases we're not even cognizant of accidentally that I think really, and not recognizing they're biologically behind, not recognizing the problem of single parent homes which conservatives have been talking about for a while, but through a different lens So there's just no arguing with the statistics here, but to your point The conversation has become much more productive. and we've also recognizeed finally, I think that this is not a zero sum Problem. Gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage, civil rights didn't hurt white people, helping men And recognizing their problems not will not hurt women And that argument is going to be felt right across the aisle in the States, isn't it? Because if you put Trump to an extent to one side and he is going to be gone at some stage And there is going to be a discussion about where the right goes. and there is obviously A lot of discussion on the write about masculinity. They're very interested in it and you think of the online write You think of of u Someone like Bronze Age Pervert, who a lot of Americast listeners will not have come across, but is you will know is a very, very big presence in the online kind of write manosphere slash political place. And you know, to what extent, I suppose Have they co opted all of the things that you've just been saying in a way that it's going to be quite difficult actually to pull people back, to pull young men particularly back The manosphere starts off fine Be fit, be action oriented be economically viable But then it comes off the tracks and it becomes about dominating women It becomes about propensity towards violence, demonizing immigrants. it just takes It takes young men to the absolute worst place And it's been such an unproductive part of helping young men because when People hear me advocating for men. They have a very understandable radar that goes up and says, hereere's another guy Who's going to start blaming women whileile advocating for men, what he's really doing is talking about dominating women and sending them back. And I understand that gag reflex and to a certain extent As a white male of my age, I may not be the right spokesperson for this because people see me and I'm sort of wrong before I open my mouth People immediately gag and go You out yourself as a misogynist, an anti immigrant and is a racist when you start advocating for men because the people who are advocating for men for several years have a tendency to be people who have crypto university or think that all you need to do is drive a Lambo and not let your not let your girl go out because she should be supporting your life. So I think there needs to be a more aspirational vision of masculinity. and I think we just need better role models that say Okay, being masculine is wonderful, but it's about service. It's about surplus value. It's about celebrating the progress of women. It's about it's about engaging at home. It's about being greatreat dad, a great partner. and you can also be strong and you can also be aggressive. but you are in the service of others There's no such thing as toxic masculinity There's violence There's abuse of power. But masculinity, that's like, I don't believe there's toxic feminity. I think feminity is a wonderful thing And I think we need to move to some sort of We need better spokespeople and better role models that help convince the nation in the world that masculinity is an aspirational, wonderful thing that helps move the world forward Just saying there's no such thing as toxic masculinity, I think really would have got you cancelled. maybe borderlines still would, certainly in universities in the states. I don't know whether you do commencement speeches still or whether you're allowed to Scott, but I mean, that that is a deeply controversial view among a certain And very powerful group of people on the progressive leftft, isn't it? And I just wonder whether They're not going to let that go without a fight I don't want toound make myself sound too virtuous, but It's not easy for me to be cancellled. I can be dragged and shamed and it happens a lot because sometimes quite frankly, I get it wrong sometimes and I'm prone to, you know, I'm not immune to saying stupid things But one of my role models is Sam Harris and he says, if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally and I both those things, you have an obligation to speak out So can I widen the conversation just before we finish to the context for all of this, which is where the US goes after after Donald Trump? And I was listening to you talking the other day to David Brooks of the New York Times actually worked right for the Atlantic now, doesn't he? So someone who's thought a lot, he's on the right, on the kind of moderate right. It's thought a lot about where America goes ethically now And it was a fascinating conversation because he's really quite optimistic, isn't it? Did he convince you? I struggle with anger and depression. And so I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. So I consistently have to ask myself what could go right But I do I do like to think that America is so dissatisfied with the way things are headed that they're going to make a change. Now my fear is we swing too far to the left And I think extremism on the left can be just as dangerous as extremism on the right. But if you look at the polls It looks like America is ready for a fairly substantial change, which makes me hopeful. Yeah, David Brooks was suggesting that I mean he was using the example of the fifties and the sixties and the fifties suddenly become the sixties. The fifties all up tight and all the rest of it and crew cuts and then suddenly the sixties happen and noobbody sees it coming and he was making the point to you, wasn't he we could have the same thing. So after Trump, we could be something completely different and it could happen veryer suddenly, But that point that you make is such an important one, isn't it? Because when you look at some on the left, I was just looking at the Luigi Mangioni trial which has been getting going in New York, hasn't it? and some of the hate filled stuff that comes from the left just as much as it has come from the right, you do wonder about whether or not There is something in the post Trump politics that has really changed in a kind of poisonous way that is not just going to be able to to be brushed off or cast aside Typically what happens when people are frustrated and angry. It's not that they attach to a political ideology, they just want change So no one was going to vote for the person they saw as the incumbent, Vice President Harris. And I don't think I think the same thing, one of the wonderful things about America is typically speaking, whoever's the next president is much different than the one now It's like when I see someone who's pregnant with their second child, I say all I can tell you is it's going to be nothing like the first And if you look at American elections, it's the same way. Usually we go for something different in our next election. I just hope it's not If you look at world, you, if you look at Europe, The communists on the far left were fighting for power and the versus the fascists on the far right. Now the far right won But I think this type of dangerous non plural non deemocratic societies, I think it can just as easily come from the far left as the far right. In my fear My fear is that my biggest fear is that Trump or Vance continues this mantle of corruption. and a lack of empathy in the coarsening of our discourse But I also think there's a real threat that we move too far to the left. We're starting in the US to demonize success. And one of the reasons we've always had so many people aspire, bothoth my parents are from the UK And the reason they got on a steamship and crawled across the Atlantic with three hundred pounds to their name, wasas they wanted to go somewhere where they thought they could be successful And I think that so many things in America right now in terms of an anti immigrant policy corruption, lack of rule of law, but also on the far left. demonization of success. I think all of these things add up to what I would call superpower suicide So I'm I just hope we can move back to a to an environment where we have moderates with common sense solutions that are pragnatist. And I also hope that we end up with a president that's not on our face every day that gives everyone thirty or sixty minutes back a day where they're just not thinking about the president, so to speak. That then goes to the social media. you know, I've mentioned social media and it's so much part of the conversation now and it's for another day for for us and you talk a lot about it. and plainly, there are good things about social media pllenty ofith they're bad and we're all aware One's name iss not really a controversial issue. is it except to say that You have to wonder whether the kind of America that you want to see and that David Brooks was was outlining to you as well can exist Wh are interacting with each other politically and in other ways as well with algorithms designed to make them ang nineteen forty five to nineteen ninety five, we thought the ultimate hook for attention was sex Buy this watch, you'll be hot, drink this beer, you'll have a six pack and have more random sexual encounters. And then the algorithms from Google found there's something even better than sex and that's rage And when you put something out, Justin, you immediately go back to look at the comments. And if someone says something really off color or mean, it creates comments, which is another Nissan ad and another more shareholder value So unfortunately, we have tied the economic well being, I would argue of our economy are creating elevating incendiary content that divides us. So Americans no longer see Putin Or she or income inequality is the enemy. They see their neighbor with a different political sign is the enemy So Social media creates a lot of positives, a lot of economic good These companies create a lot of positives, but they also have a lot of externalities and there's no regulatory body. fossil fuels areet positive, but we have Eission standards, pesticides are net positive, but we have a Food and Drug administration. I would argue big tax and net positive, but there's absolutely no regulation. So if you want to say that MRNA vaccines alter your DNA, You can say it and that content gets elevated beyond its organic reach because it upsets people. So we're creating an environment where we're more anxious, upset, don't like each other and feel that our enemy is our neighbor. It's literally tearing at the fabric off the West and also it attacks the selfish esteem of young girls. It convinces young men to stay in their homes You know, men ages twenty to thirty are spending less time outdoors in prison inmates So, you know, I and the reason I initially got involved in this was I see myself in these young men. I had a lack of economic and romantic opportunities when I was this age. and if I'd had False belief or a myth that I could have friendships on disiscord and Reddit and make money on crypto trading crypto or stocks on Robinhood or coinbase and that I didn't need to get out and figure out a way to meet women because I had lif likeike porn twenty four by seven I could have easily been one of these men that is flailing So I don't think men of our generation just realize what these young men are up against when the deepest pocketed compompanies with godlike technology are every day trying to sequester them for the most valuable thing in our lives and that is relationships People are now turning online for advice, turning online to think they can make money. They're not going into work, they're not going into school. They're not taking chances to meet friends. They're not approaching forty two percent of men in America eighteen to twenty four have never asked a woman out in person Think about that. And And there's this notion that if you approach a woman, you might get metooed Some of that is true, but mostly it's a cop out for young men. to basically sequester to their basements and have what they think is going to be a friction free life which ends up You know, which which renders them alone, obese and anxious by the time they're thirty without the skills to have a rewarding life Final thought then And I don't want it to be a triite one, but I mean, you set out a massive, a kind of civilizational level set of hurdles that have to be crossed Are you still optimistic about the U.S? should we be I am because if you look at history, We're aarcissistic species, and we tend to think that the time we're in is either the best or the darkest I think it's very easy to fall into the notion that this is the darkest moment in American history. And that might be true of the recent past, but at one point, one percent of the population who controlled the United States were slave owners. Not that long ago, we were putting people in concentration camps because they were born in Japan, even when their sons were serving in the European theater We were we had governors, deemocratically elected governors standing in front of schools and not letting in six year old black girls. We have faced really dark times And every time our nation has come back stronger, recognizing that we need to put in place standards and norms and laws, such that we can be a stronger democracy So that's the optimist view. That's the one I'm holding to Um And I would, you know, I know you got a big listenership. What I would say to the UK and Europe is don't give up on us I think the alliance between America and the U S is probably the strongest alliance or economic and geopolitical alliance I kn there's a lot of Americans that not only miss Europeans, I think there's a lot of Europeans that miss the old America. And I think there's a lot of us committed to making America America again D Galloway,'s such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for sparing us the time Thanks Thank you, Justin. Right, as promised, Mariana joins me now and we're going to have a little discussion, I suppose about some of the themes that Scott Gallowway goes on about Mariana, but more widely as well. It's such an important topic, isn't it? And it's a topic from your world too. Men, the manosphere Yeah, exactly. And I think that the conversation that you had touched on so many of the issues, particularly around the way that the world I Investigate social media could be impacting men, male voters in particular, and especially in the US. But I think that I thought it was really interesting the bit of the discussion you were having about outrage. The problem with the mananers feere is that It centres around anger and frustration often and a kind of feeling of injustice rather than necessarily solutions and positives. and how do we actually improve the situation? offtten, for example, pointing to women as part of the problem rather than actually dealing with voters, particularly younger men who feel like they are being underestimated or who for whom the kind of systems no longer support and are accommodating, doesn't mean it has to be at the expense of women as well. Well, that's the point, isn't it? And it's not just underestimated to be honest. I think the feeling is that a lot of young men in the US feel Disparaged, disliked even hate it by women and they now they've got into this trap of U sending that hatred back in the other direction. And that's the thing that got Scott involved. And we should say Scott Gallaoway, I mean, he's a kind of for me, he's like interviewing Taylor Swift would be Sarah because I listen to a lot of Scott Galloway. Ien certainly don't agree with everything he says or endorse everything he says on a wide range of topics. and he's someone who is a very powerful figure, I think it's fair to say, in the way that figures now can be powerful who aren't part of the political setup in the US, but have these big platforms where they can really have an influence and he is a supporter of the Democrats who wants Democrats to do well. He doesn't think much of Donald Trump. but he has got this knowledge as well of the manosphere that you're talking about. When I was doing the documentary I did for BBC two inside the Rager Machine, speaking to different insiders from the companies, I also spoke to people impacted by social media. And one was a young man who had had this very thing happen to him, basically. He was having a bit of a rubbish time and he felt like he was struggling to make friends, he was kind of struggling romantically. He wasn't loving school And once he started getting pushed this sorts of content on his feed, it was so alluring and appealing and it made him feel powerful and kind of have some agency in his life. But actually ultimately he realized that it was making him unhappy. And you can imagine that the Democrats looking ahead to the next election would think there is a place in the market for the kind of not cringy like be a good man, that kind of thing. but for the like, actually, I don't want to be in the man'phere. L I don't want to be part of this kind of group. But I also want to feel like, you know, my voice is heard and that it counts. I want to feel respected and understood. and I want to feel kind of you know I want everyone to feel equal. I think there's I remember speaking about this before when it came to Tim Walls who was running as for vice president alongside Kamala Harris, and that it felt like they really missed a trick that they could have used him who was very active in like school football and you know college football and that kind of thing. They could have used him to actually speak to men who are just kind of like quite reasonable and normal, which is the majority of people really. Like we're talking about the outrage algorithmic people, but most people you'd hope you know, want the same things ultimately. It didn't work with him though, did it? There was something No, no, they didn't even use him in that way. They didn't they used him in a kind of like pro progressive ideas. Yeah, and it didn't work because he tried to straddle a load of things and this I think goes to, that's a really interesting that you bring that up because I think one of the things I think is true is yes, you don't want to have some sort of ludicrously of high fallutin conversation about what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman. but actually what it means to be a citizen. is something that Americans often feel they don't properly think about now. And one of the things that it would mean to be a citizen in a better functioning America is the ability to make moral judgments and about each other and stand by them but not fall out. I actually think there's a huge appetite for sort of positive constructive discourse. It just doesn't feel like people often have the forums or fora in which they can do that anymore. And so you know they are turning to social media because that has just become sort of part and parcel, particularly younger people of their lives. And actually there's just not a place for sort of like nuanced, interesting discussion on these kinds of issues. And the problem is is a lot of the content that they consume, let's think about podcasts, for example, or social media influencers, succeeds by exploiting outrage. And I think and it's a really important thing that like and I know this from speaking to insiders at social media companies, social media platforms are ultimately built obviously you know to maximize engagement. And in order to do that, the in and out groups thing is really important, which is like us and them. It's very, very effective at kind of driving engagement. And gender is one of the perfect fault lines on which construct that. weirdly, we have this conversation on the day or hours after DNC, the Democratic National Committee. is forced into publishing their autopsy basically of the twenty twenty four campaign, the one that Camla Harris fought and lost which had been long kept secret. I mean, they genuinely didn't intend to publish it They've kind of been forced into publishing bits of it goes really to this subject actually, because it's very much reintroduces us to the idea of How much can the Democrats then, say, for instance, they want to accept what Scott Galloway says and they want to attract men back into the fold to the extent that they've been lost? How much is the party in the future going to be in the business of doing that and how much the party is in the business of just appealing to the core groups of people, which is particularly young and unmarried well educated women. So the DNC who had this autopsy, they published I mean it's an absolute mess. The executive summary doesn't have anything in it etcer. But I mean one of the core bits of it seems to be We need to appeal to everyone everywhere. So in the midterms, but more importantly for the presidential election, do the parties manage to find a way of getting into what we used to call the centre ground if it still exists at all or actually because of the way that people communicate Never mind, I agree with you. those people are there if they if you can't do your political communication in a way that reaches them then the really important thing is to get out the people you can depend on to vote for you. And of course, in Donald Trump's case, that meant people, many of whom had never voted before And I do think that the challenge for the idea that everything kind of reverts to the mean in twenty twenty eight is that actually the whole setup has changed so profoundly been changed so profoundly that maybe that's not so easy. Yeah, and that's where you know having a system that is two parties in that way, it feels quite incompatible with a world where people are increasingly sort of like siloed in certainly more than two groups And so the way that parties kind of seek to appeal to a broader audience just feels much more difficult, I guess than it used to be. although maybe ultimately, as we've chatted about, it actually just boils down to who do you think's going to make you feel So wealthier and happier and actually see all of these other issues because besides the point. Yeah. ye. I mean, maybe you know, it's inflation that's going to kill Donald Trump. in the midterms Not anything around that killed Yeah. Yeah exactly. And it wasn't only it was inflation really that killed Joe Biden, although his ancientness, if that's the word was also probably part of that. But yeah, no, I think it's a really important point that actually for most people, none of this stuff really makes any sense at all. Except that Just to go back to what Scott Allalloway was saying that there is a sort of haunting Oddness about Men and women voting very different and and it just feels somehow odd, doesn't it? in a modern reality that you have that sex difference in voting and it feels I don't know. it just feels unstable somehow and unpleasant I really don't think we can talk about it enough. The impact of the algorithm is because as well, the social media companies always try to argue that the algorithms are actually not gendered. So they try to say, oh, it's not about gender. we don't push people' stuff on the basis of gender. But yet, loads of the insiders have told me from the companies, all of the things that indicate how they build a profile of a user to push them stuff ultimately makes it very clear usually what someone's gender will be. And I think that does account for quite a lot of what we're seeing in terms of the real difference in politics kindind of all around the world really between between women and men Okay, the algorithms will never push us apartner. Yeah, actually that's quite remarkable sometimes. Nice to talk to you. That's it for now. Bye bye. Bye.