Phoenix, the Most American City... for Better or Worse (w/ George Packer) | Bulwark Podcast
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2024
- Phoenix is a microcosm of the big issues in the election and the country generally, including political extremism, climate change, and the border. But when it comes to the state's water crisis, Arizonians are showing signs of sanity-by accepting facts and downplaying partisanship. Could the city be a guide for America's future? George Packer joins Tim Miller.
show notes:
George's piece on Phoenix: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
George's 2019 piece on his son's education: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
0:00 - Intro
1:45 - George Packer on Phoenix, Arizona
4:21 - Rusty Bowers Standing Up to MAGA
11:57 - Climate Change and Water Crisis
19:57 - Issues with Messaging in Current Policies
29:04 - Dangers of Climate Change Affecting Hotter Summers
35:26 - Building Up Cities and Housing Crisis
42:57 - The New Progressivism in Schools
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The Bulwark Podcast: Tim Miller and guests discuss the latest news from inside Washington and around the world. No shouting, grandstanding, or sloganeering. Conservative, conscientious, and civil.
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I was born in Phoenix and lived here most of my life. My family was dirt poor and didn't have air conditioning in the house. Summers were miserable but not as hot as they are now. We also had shopping malls that we could go to during the day to cool down. Those malls are all closing. I really don't know how the homeless people survive. The political extremism has increased with the heat. I sometimes wonder if the Republicans here are getting brain damage from standing out in the sun to prove they don't believe in climate change. I am fortunate to have pulled myself out of poverty during my lifetime so I have the resources to relocate and the pull gets stronger every year.
I doubt very many people except demographers noticed that Phoenix became the 5th largest city in the last census. It " pushed" Philadelphia to 6th.
PHL will have climate change issues. There are predictions that parts of South Philly will be underwater.
I left phoenix after the Great Recession as I was afraid of loss of water in the desert. Just didn’t seem sustainable
The ladies are going to vote. Women will vote, we are motivated and we get Biden.
I’m going to deal with reality. Joe is who we got so that’s who I’m voting for.
Me also!
Of course but and can hope for the good of the country he will drop out a week or two before the convention throwing the process open to any of the younger electable candidates.
@@James-hd4ms Do you think this would lead to a good outcome for the Dems?
@@James-hd4msI’m curious. Who do you think would be a better candidate that would unite the dems?
@@nazcraz11 ya gotta get elected.
I live in Apache Junction, in a complete MAGA neighborhood. These people are nice, until they find out you're a progressive. Then, they are downright mean.
In Rural Gilbert here, same about the neighbors.
I live in the South & I wouldn't admit to be a Democrat unless I was going to be set on fire otherwise. It is a terrible idea.
Progressivism has ruined so much and deranged so many, completely derailing education, love of country ,etc. i find the anger understandable
))
@@christinem9183There are plenty of Democrats in the south. Just not enough..
Am Canadian… liked phoenix during our visit…and this conversation with Tim Miller… this is all before I was hooked into American politics. Can’t believe how Americans and America are in its current state. Don’t get me wrong… I’m the last person to speak about Canadian politicians. I’m a liberal and am furious to see women liberty taken away, the lying words from the previous occupant of the WH & the so-called Republicans… I’m cheering on Biden’s 2nd term. Vote Blue with all your mights, for you, the future, future generations. 45 cannot win!
go there in the winter and parking lots are filled with canadian plates from the snow birds ...
We are the world now, here in the US. Our elections are the world's crucial elections, our pop cultural stuff the world's culture, our technology the world's technology. The problems we don't have solved are the world's hard unsolved problems. Didn't ask for this to be our role, but everyone else who wanted or demands to be the world's lead society either can't create enough, let alone a genuinely desirable vision of how to live, or seems to fall on their face when made to deal with even one hard problem.
Canadian ladies understand why I miss golf outings to campaign in Mesa.
Being hooked on politics that being a Canadian you can't do zip about. 😅
New AZ Dem can't wait to vote for Ruben and for anyone running against Gozar. Found out who my rep was and wanted to puke.
Mine is Biggs
Mine is Biggs too, and both are POS’s
I don't know how Tim was ever a republican, he's a decent person and trumpism is taking a heavy toll on him. He appears to have the weight of the GOPranos on his weary shoulders. Maybe stepping back from this nightmare that is trump would benefit him, thing is he's fighting for democracy bigly and for that thank you Tim from Scotland.
Well said!
Not a bad guy. But he will just never get it. Doesn't even pretend to know or care what lower-middle class and poor people go through. And let's be honest, he would vote for Romney were he running. In sum, he mostly just cares that the Dumbald is a big meany.
I suspect that Tim is one of those decent gays that just loved tax cuts so much he had to vote Republican. Eventually, Trump showed that things were going to get SO much worse and Tim saw the light.
@@lyledalyou have to be realistic about tax cuts. They always come from somewhere.
His judgement brain areas had yet to mature.
The 2024 election turnout will be big for Democrats. Vote Blue! I’m from the Phoenix area.
Same here, and I sure hope so.
Same!
Out in Buckeye myself. Originally from El Paso, Texas. Praying for a Blue Wave and one so profound MAGA won't know what hit them...
It will only be big if _Repuglicans_ haven't purged _non-Repugiican_ voters from the voting rolls before the election, and you find out on election day that you're no longer registered to vote, and you can't re-register to vote on election day.
I'm really pleased that you're covering climate change, Tim. Great guest.
Tim's point about teaching kids basic civics before they learn every national crime in history is dead on.
oK boomer
You can do both. It isn’t an either/or proposition. Teacher speaking here.
There are few national crimes. The country is not a responsible moral thing. The people who ran the country at one point are responsible. The left has ruined education
My civics question is not why should the majority rule it is why doesn't the majority rule? Without the electoral college we would never have had the Trump problem.
There was a big AZ Republic newspaper feature 1 or 2 years ago about how many groups violate regulations on who can withdraw groundwater (and how much), especially Saudis who own industrial sized farming businesses, golf courses who withdraw far more water than allowed (with no penalties, BTW). Almost all golf courses apparently use far more water than what is allowed, but are never penalized because the state does not have the manpower to enforce the loosy-goosy rules.
After states tip from Red to Blue there's always full discovery of just how corruptly and horribly/negligently mismanaged their resources were. A lot of what we know concretely about abuses/misuses involving water in Arizona has to do with the new D governor exposing this sort of thing and then the rapid follow-on discovery that similar things are going on in Utah and the Imperial Valley (California). The big picture is that implementing European(ish) agriculture in a North American desert like Arizona is an inherent mismatch.
Many of the golf courses and lake communities utilize reclaimed water. Phoenix resident of over 40 years and worked the landscape industry all of my adult life. The Saudi's did have a sweetheart deal paying only pennies on the dollar for unlimited amounts of ground water. It's important to note who was the governor at the time and which governor quashed the sweetheart deal. On the bright side of things, Phoenix will be recycling sewage water into drinkable water to not just be used on golf courses and lake communities, sounds appetizing doesn't. What's really amazing is that people still deny the harsh reality of climate change.
I remember a draught when I lived in the Bay Area and everybody I knew was being responsible... not taking showers everyday and sometimes not even flushing... we did that for a month or two. Then we find out the damn golf course nearby wasn't doing a damn thing.
I am not a fan of charter schools. They lend to social separation. If curriculum is the difference, rase the bar for all. Address the printers of learning materials throwing in untruths and historical revisionism and political idolatry.
Please keep parents out of the classroom. My parent destroyed my senior year by Crossing off almost all of my required reading. My IQ is a hell of a lot higher than hers and it just made me thirst for the books. That was the 60s and it seems to have gotten worse, much worse
The guest is exactly right about the NIMBY attitude in this area. There is a huge fight now to build an apartment on the edge of my town...right near the main street and hwy for commuting to work. People expect to have waiters, service workers, etc. who do not get a good wage...but no place for them to live. People are not going to commute 30 min. to our little suburb to work minimum wage. The fights over housing are incredibly nasty. I guess, God forbid people live on the edge of town (we have no public transportation) in affordable housing for fear it would ruin our lovely, affluent town.
This guy nailed Phoenix. Absolutely nailed it.
I'm sorry I've seen the supposed interest of parents in "Good" education in my hometown and it's led to the Republican school board being replaced by a Maga board that wants to teach from a Christian nationalist perspective. Packer is vastly underestimating the bad actors at the local level.
Agreed
Well, well, well. What perfect timing. I just pulled into the valley of the sun last night from Los Angeles to visit my parents. Let's gooooo!!!
Thank you Tim. Great interview. I continue to believe that after we beat Trump again this year we need to create a new movement a combination of democratic thinking people that can contain liberal and conservative values that will continue this American democracy into the future. And bury MAGA for 100 years. 💙🌊🙏 VOTE BLUE
It will take more than one election cycle. I agree with you. We need to start thinking about 2028.
This is what moderate conservatives and liberals are doing in Europe, they're joining forces to fight back against the far right parties that are rising
Democrats have always been conservative. Republicans have always been kind of nuts.
The only problem is that why do the marginalized people in this country who have been and continue to be seriously harmed by our institutions and socioeconomic system have to always wait before the see needed reforms?
Forget 100 years, make it forever.
I saw this coming in 2012 with the tea party.
... Reagan and Nixon set the table for modern Republicans they get nastier every year 😎💙🇺🇸
I moved to the Phoenix area in 1962. For all of my adult life the state has been conservative. However, we’ve seen the rise of extreme heat, extreme drought and extreme conservative politics in the last 10-20 years. 2020 may be a pivot point in Maricopa county. I feel more optimistic on the political front than I have in a long time. We are making minute progress on the water issue (Louisiana can send its excess water to us). The extreme heat is a more complex issue. I prepare for grid failures in the summer like people in northern states prepare for grid failures in winter. I think the comments on our educational system is spot on. There has been a steady push by the wealthy to funnel tax payer dollars from public school to private schools. Our former Governor was known for this and many of our state GOP legislators are profiting from this.
Edit: I do disagree about the characterization of Tempe. Affordable, multi family housing is supported in Tempe. Tempe municipal operations will be 100% renewable by 2030, they have goals on planting native trees and reducing water consumption (of course Tempe Town Lake is probably not the best example of wise water use), Tempe supports sustainability initiatives.
what brand of generator did you get ??
@@direwolf6234 I don’t have a generator. I live in a small condo and a gas generator is not an option and I don’t have the right conditions for solar panels. I’ve done several things to reduce heat transfer and energy consumption. For short term outages I have coolers that run on the batteries from my power tools. That will give me about ten hours of cooling. I just ordered a Bluetti EB3A that I will charge using my home AC outlets for now. It can be used to power other small devices. I have a small solar battery pack for my cell phone. Our outages tend to be resolved in less than ten hours. If the outage is longer term, my daughter has both a gas generator and is getting a larger portable power station. She has vacation property in the mountains so that is also an option.
I think we need to encourage people to have hope and a purpose in our future and confidence that we can beat the Trumpism ou there. Vote Blue 💙💙💙💙. Your votes matter!!!!! We don't need pessimistic thinking now!
The attack on public education is the original sin. Here in ohio, our schools were defunded by over a billion dollars by this voucher peogram. I have very rich white friends using this program.
What an opener. George talking about how if you have kids you can’t give up on hope for the future. Right in the feels.
Great episode. Getting to it late but staying up because it’s so good. Normally I’d catch up tomorrow
Cities like Phoenix and Vegas have no rational reason to exist from a resource usage basis.
Lol why would you say that? Energy usage? How much energy does it take to heat homes? Water yes it’s an issue only because our government hasn’t even recognized that it’s an issue. Look at the federal help New Orleans got to rebuild the dykes. The senate is not functioning and thats the problem!
False blanket statement There are resources in Phoenix, and it has existed and produced for well over 100yrs. There is a limit though on those resources. If Phoenix is to continue to produce, it will need to manage itself with an eye on the long-term
It’s why I moved
@@CHEDDARANDWAFFLES Good move!
I was born in Scottsdale Az and have watched it grow and change both good and bad but usually the true zonies do what they believe is good for the state.
Yes we do have the far right crazies and they are loud but as in 2020 they don’t always win!
I so appreciate the relatively balanced but pro-democracy dialog on the Bulwark. I recoil from low rhetoric and propaganda on either side of the political spectrum from the opinion based 'news' media. I'm a life long Democrat though I've had many Republican friends until recently and have grown up and lived in Republican states most of my life. I appreciate hearing the perspectives from Republicans or disaffected Republicans. There is an honesty at the Bulwark which is insightful and penetrative.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my 72 yo father. He is environmentally aware, is the product of a Sputnik era education and wears a science is real tee shirt. He commented that he believed science will solve climate change at Christmas. I turned to my gen Z kids and said that his comment made me sadder than anything I’d heard in a long time.
societies have adapted to climate change in the past .. the 'little ice age' ..
8 billion people on Earth and less than ten countries still produce significantly more food than they consume. Meanwhile, the oil and fertilizers our agriculture depends on are running out. And, water shortages are increasing across the world.
He's not all wrong. It's 90% a social/political and engineering problem. But Science is needed- the way to get the carbon out out of the air and back into probably graphite will take some new studying of and rejiggering photosynthesis, to capture CO2 more efficiently. Plus some much larger scale/technology of nuclear power to supply the energy needed to reduce the captured carbohydrate (a zillion tons of bioengineered algae or seaweed) to carbon and transport/inject that somewhere deep into the Earth. On the other hand, if human population had stayed around 200 million rather than expand to 40-50x that this crisis may not have happened at all.
Did your father mean this xmass?
@@freeheeler09 and usda estimates that 40% of food grown here gets wasted ...
Excellent pod ... thanks to both of you. I grew up in CA and GA and have lived in Boulder County since the late 80's ... all three directly affected climate change, well, every place is now but it's why this is so important. People in the US are moving south at exactly the wrong time given what y'all have been discussing but from TX east, and this is for you Tim, there are real issues with very outbreaks of malaria, dengue fever ... pick one ... because it's fertile ground for southern hemisphere disease.
I was looking at land in Southern Colorado but finding a place with access to ground was an issue so I did some research and the Ogallala aquifer (the southern most part hits the places I was looking) was drying up ... that 10-15 years ago. The Ogallala is the largest aquifer we have and it takes centuries to millennia to recharge. Humans are pretty f-ing stupid and we're getting dumber by the minute. I was thinking about moving to Duluth MN but you can't breathe from spring to winter because of fires in Canada. Sadly, JVL seems to be right ... we're fucked as a country and probably as a species.
Please keep doing these because my head hurts from trump and bashing my head with a rock.
We are down here in Grays Creek NC (outside Hope Mills / Fayetteville and the smoke from the Canadian fires makes it so that my father and I stay inside and use our stairs for exercise. Crazy it comes down this far.
There was absolutely no way to know that pumping an aquafiar dry would lead to a lack of water.
Totally unpredictable.
This reality is not convenient for Republicans to observe, like every reality right in front of them they deny. There in lies the whole modern Republican Party platform. Shame!!!
snark?
The heat is getting unbearable in Las Vegas also. They keep building with no water coming in. Lombardo wants to release more and more land
From blm. It’s so hot her from all the buildings and homes. Yep, desert, yep hot but we ARE making it worse
Biden is the best president since FDR by far.
I come from a. Pioneer Mormon family. I think the LDS concept you’re looking for is “Do What is Right let the Consequence follow” a childhood song all Mormons know. I think this is Mitt Romneys thinking as well as Rusty Bowers- a distant relative of mine. You should speak with Denver Ringleman for better understanding
Mormons in the US are largely descended from 19th century people living in the colonies/states north of the Mason-Dixon line, who were the people who learned from each other and adopted as culture the optimism and desire and felt ability, and implied duty, to reform and fix the world by nonviolent liberal means- example/demonstration, protest, persuasion, improved technology and humane management. Whose origin imho traces to the late 17th century Quakers of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania (the Holy Experiment). Salt Lake City lies on the latitude of New York City, btw.
@@trillian23x Spot on. We have been here for over 400 years. On father’s side they were French Huguenots, Quakers and Separatists who settled in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Those people eventually converted to Mormonism in the 1830’s and went to Ohio, Illinois and eventually Utah, Idaho and Arizona Territory. Part of my family are the legendary Pecks who had a huge part of founding the LDS Church. So many fought in the Revolutionary War and that impacted the idea that Mormons believe the Constitution to be divinely inspired
* neglected to add, setting in New Amsterdam and Upstate New York
On Five Minute News with Anthony Davis he uses his show to highlight the Biden/Harris accomplishments the list is long I’ve heard too many podcasters say there are too many to mention but it’s because it’s a lengthy list that everyone needs to either share that or make your own show on it and put it out daily people need to know without a disjointed nod to it in pieces it needs to be in americas face in full over and over
As someone who's had Phoenix on his "possible cities to move to" list.. I find this episode extremely fascinating and well timed !.. Thank you so much !
Come to Michigan. We have water. Not a ton as Nestlé is taking it too... but it's water. 😅
@@browneyedgirl6050 Detroit and Chicago are on my list !... Sadly I moved to west coast where a Union job doubled my pay..and now I'm finding it really difficult to find any other city in the US that has similar pay-scales. :(
@@jasonnugent963the pay scale is set to the cost of living. We would welcome you in North Carolina too. Trying to turn purple blue.
@@catpaladin1 Tempting !.. I have visited before (Mt Airy and Outer Banks) but Charlotte and Raleigh might be worth me adding to my list. Probably won't make it for this Election but keep turning things blue where you can !
@jasonnugent963 yeah... West coast pay probably won't happen here, or really anywhere. It's a high cost of living out there. We have so many people moving from CA to Ann Arbor and they are blown away by what they can get with their money. And Ann Arbor is an overpriced market.
Using the water reserves means they are no longer RESERVES! It’s a short sided way to look it. NOBODY in our government is talking about it. The government will only act when people are running out and it’s too late. This issue should have started a solution 15-20 years ago! The Army Corps of Engineers are the only ones that might find a solution BUT THAT WOULD REQUIRE THE SENATE TO ACT. But we know that ain’t gonna happen.
So we are FFFucuked.
I have grandkids, I have to believe in a good future, not one of dictatorships and climate change.
Take education from politicians, leave it to educators.
I visited Phoenix for my nephew’s graduation. My time there was like the “normal”, opening 20 minutes of an end of the world movie! I (unsustainable sprawl) saw sign (absolute dependency on cars) after sign that (green lawns in the desert) the disaster was approaching (unchecked population growth), but I was distracted by the glitz, the universities, etc. The signs are clear. Even ignoring the climate crisis, Phoenix is a train with no brakes going off the rails and careening over the cliff!
casey jones you better watch you speed .. trouble ahead trouble behind ...
Amazing show, thank you both! From Mesa, AZ
In California's San Joaquin Valley, so much groundwater has been pumped out that parts of the land have dropped by as much as 20 feet.
Me too. We got a two year reprieve and too many people have already forgotten how tenuous our water situation still is. I know too many people putting in new pools because "it rains again". 🙄
I think AZ outside the Phoenix and Tucson and Flagstaff metro areas is very different. But with Maricopa Co. having the highest population and still growing, hard to say which way things will swing. I think those who are not in the hard right are very bothered by the fanatic fervor. And the old fashioned conservatives like Jeff Flake and McCain were very popular with many who don´t identify as strictly Republican. I think a lot of people who live here have plenty of news info on water scarcity, but many seem to still be in denial about it. Ground water problems are really bad.
I grew up in Phoenix. I was Barry Goldwater in my high school’s mock senate. A lot of good politicians on both sides of the fence Republican and Democrat was an Arizona tradition. Goldwater and the Udall, Rhodes, etc. McCain and Flake were more in that tradition. Trump and Fox News totally screwed up Arizona making MAGA zombies. So sad!!
I pay fairly close attention to politics. I had no idea AZ was rewarded with so much infrastructure $. Maybe surrogates need to start focusing on progress in the making & trumps crazy proposals & what they’ll cost us. Fiscally, environmentally, and mentally.
Phoenix is now 5th largest metropolitan population in the USA 💙🇺🇸🌵
I love living here, but there are days… The maga’s are extreme. I live in Biggs district, and feel pretty outnumbered
... hang in there Arizona is BLUING best wishes from much more Red Buckeye AZ 😎🫵🏼💙🇺🇸🌵
We are here with you we just get pounced on when we say it.
Why would somebody be building mega factories in a place that from a climactic point of view may not be viable much longer?
When I tell a friend about something George Packer has written. I always refer to him as "The Great George Packer". You certainly are, and it was such a treat to hear your words! Tim, thank you for bringing on this wonderful guest.
Im not a prepper or whatever, but living with millions of other people in a place with no water isn't the brightest idea. An earthquake or EMP attack and BAM! Millions of people with no water. I don't need a lot of imagination to visualize what would happen. 39:39
We bolted Phoenix area 11 years ago for the Ventura County CA coast where it’s 69 instead of 110. The long stifling summers got too much. I don’t even have ac at my house, it rarely goes over 72.
Listening to this in Phoenix! My theory is the extremism issue is due to the heat frying brains.
I honestly don't feel bad for them they go out there way to shit on black , brown and everyone else. In my eyes this is what they wanted.
True
George Packer's article in The Atlantic was excellent, insightful and very troubling.
Why are people moving to Phoenix? Isn't it stupid due to rising heat and strained water?
Sounds like hell
Everywhere else is quite full and expensive, American population is still growing. The Western desert and dry Texas plains are what's left to fill.
@trillian23x
And maga is pushing forced birth & no birth control, it makes you wonder if they have taken Swift's 'Modest Proposal" seriously. Is that their plan?
Jobs in Healthcare. Unfortunately once people move to the Phoenix area they want to leave due to the Republican Parties war on women's Reproductive Healthcare.
Excellent podcast, thank you Tim and Mr Packer, a little slice of sanity
Happy Juneteenth 😊
Such a lovely holiday.
As I'm listening to this mid-morning at 103° in Phoenix while weeding my SRP irrigated property, I am thankful for my trees and very cognizant of the Hohokom.
Mormons are more communitarian than most. This is a good thing and represents something genuine. I say this as a Catholic who normally thinks of LDS as a religion based on a poorly written book. But they do have a better sense of community.
The oceans are rising, other cities like Miami and New York and California will eventually be under water.
Buy property in Yuma-- it'll be beach front.
Interesting that Parker mentions education re Phoeniz. AZ school system is ranksed last in the country. Behind Alabama, Mississippi.,etc
Nevada has to be the worst. Casinos are raking in billions but nada to education. Nada. Look at the sorts book numbers Look at the money spent on sports venues. It’s horrific.
Thank you George Parker for your comments on education.
Excellent interview! As an AZ native water has been the issue for a long time, and now heat has entered the picture. Doctors are concerned when nighttime temperatures rise above 90°F as the body can not repair itself.
Excellent conversation Tim. Thank you!
Same thing for cold cities - go from heated car - heated house - heated employment ect !
Interesting interview. Tim and his guest were clear and concise with great speaking delivery.
We didn't have to suffer through pauses in sentences, pauses in-between sentences or pauses between paragraphs with a long drawn out uhhhh.
Thanks guys. 👍
Arizona needs to stop growing water intensive crops like hay and cotton.
Which is such a well duh.
Arizona needs to stop buulding so many apartments and houses when water should be the priority not housing.
Happy Juneteenth day
Tim, I love you but I think you and JVL are not looking at the right indicators. Sure your cohort is doing great, and airports are full and people are buying lots of boats, but that only shows that SOME Americans are doing well. More than 50% of American households earn $75k or less and the avg household has 2.5 people. That is barely surviving. Meanwhile only 12% of household make $200k+. There are 127 million households in the US. So yeah, 15 million households are doing fine to great. But the remaining 112 million can barely pay their bills. That’s the vast majority of Americans!!
A bit crazy to build such a large city in the desert with extreme heat and a water problem. The water issue also affects California.
Good report by George Packer.
I went to a very good public school near Los Angeles. I am an old guy. Charter schools are a racket. People have gone crazy.
This is such a well researched, comprehensive discussion of the water & political situation - also scared the hell out of me as an AZ homeowner. Thank you 😢
💙💖 Excellent discussion!
This is how capitalism ends. Some get very absurdly rich, some make it but need to work continuously to do so, risk takers make it or sink and those who cannot make profit die slowly on the sidewalk as a warning to others.
It is social Darwinism under another name. After all, anything can be sold with the “proper” marketing…
Regarding how difficult environmental activism makes it to build stuff, Ezra Klein has brought that up frequently, and I believe it’s going to be an emphasis of his upcoming book. (I would actually LOVE a conversation between Tim and Ezra, either on The Bulwark podcast or The Ezra Klein Show-maybe one of each?)
Honestly, I don't feel bad for those people. I don't know how anyone can. They been cruel, ignorant, evil, attack anyone different than them.
Honestly, why even help them when the first chance they get will fuck around people that look like me?
True
I enjoyed this pod cast today!
George Packer is a genius. Read his books, they are poetic and so truthful. He is able to suspend political and moral judgement and query the circumstances we are in. The best nonfiction writer of recent history
I live in the Phoenix area, you definitely are presenting AZ like it is. The good news is that we have a very active non-partisan Team-Arizona volunteer group organized through The Union.
Water is indeed a huge issue, especially with the continued high development.
GREAT discussion. Thank You.
We have got to start pushing hard to get wallstreet out of housing and other important parts of our lives they are now starting to move in to our area where normal rents were 500 a month for a three bedroom house now the rents are exploding it will cause homelessness where we didn’t have that much before
I'm one of those California people who moved to the Phoenix area and are helping to turn the state purple. My husband and I grew up in very conservative families, and we voted conservatively for a long time. Trump and his Cult 45 have turned us pretty blue.
GREAT SHOW, Tim. I have quite a bit to say about this episode, as I reside in the, ‘West Valley’ about half way between Phoenix and Buckeye. Like you, Brother, I had many years of employment that took me all over the United States, and whenever I had business in the Southwest, I would fly to Las Vegas {because I am a little bit of a gambling degenerate) and then rent a car and travel about- AZ, NM, Southern CA and NV. Whenever I would enter the West Valley of Phoenix I would look around and say, ‘I could live here’! About ten years ago I bought one of those 2K SF homes with a nice view of the mountains in a subdivision and have never regretted it. But anyway, the reason I began to respond was the one thing neither of you mentioned, the Valley of the Sun is the biggest small town in America. There may be 4-5 million people residing there, but there is a hoakieness to it that is inescapable and undeniable as well. Where I reside is a booming locale that has doubled in population in the past decade and shows no signs of slowing down. Three are literally 100,000 new jobs along a highway that was barren desert a decade ago. But my Congressman is Paul Gosar, perhaps an unrivaled combination of useless and completely batshit in the currrent House of Representatives, and my bet is he’s reelected by twenty points. After living here for ten years, I know three neighbors by name and can’t get a wave outta the remaining ten or so families in my little cul-de-sac. There is no explaining the politics out here as far as I can tell other than JVL’s analysis, which i understand to be a societal malaise
Regarding the last point George made: I think that the problem here is a lack of liberal arts education. I was taught rhetoric and the art of persuasion as well as Civics about the way we have majority rule *with minority consent*. That's something I think a lot of people miss these days. Everyone wants "their guy" to get in and "undo the damage". But what we need to do is build the country TOGETHER. A liberal arts education teaches how to argue with your opponent and arrive at a solution that benefits BOTH parties. We need this in education. NOW. And then maybe in 20 years we can fix the government.
what's even more scary than an 2nd trump term is running out of water
Great conversation. Thank you.
I live in Peoria, AZ08. I’m a blue dot in a sea of red here. Blake Masters is running for the congressional seat to replace Debbie Lesko who is staying local. She was BAD, he is INSANE. I’ve lived here 12 years and it is an odd combination of Wild West and modern day. There is a lot of tension here. Great interview, thanks.
Classical culture embraced slavery, genocide, treated women as a lower class, etc. I am not in a big hurry to glorify thinkers who were fine with inequality, racism, etc.
Those things can be raised in discussion of the texts.
A friend of mine even back in the late 80’s worked for awhile in phoenix. He said it was the first city where when he got off work at 1am and went to his truck, he got burned opening the door. He bought gloves back then 😂
Hello Tim, always great to her you and your info.
Excellent episode!
I used to live in Tucson; it was hot then in1977, so it must be brutal now. The last time I was in Phoenix was in 2003, and it was hot as hell in October. It's a beautiful state; I hope it can rid the maga lunatics, so real climate change policies can help.
Thank you both
💙💙👍👍💙💙
Go toward the border w Nevada... gozar, trump, amd confederate flags on trailers in the middle of the desert.
Gaza?
Thanks for THIS!
Explain why the world NEEDS more people. Not that there won’t be more people or that business people yearn for more plebs to manipulate for their profits. Why is curbing population growth considered a monstrous idea, when simple math will offer an answer, too many people. And Phoenix is growing. Yep, we’re doomed if growth is the only popular economic plan, unless we can get off the planet in large numbers, which is a fantasy. (And go where? )
Note: lots of futurists/science will save us people disagree with me. When we’re standing shoulder to shoulder in the livable zone, where would potable water come from for 20 billion people, let alone 8 to 11 billion.
But maga dictates forced birth & no birth control. I can only imagine they have something like Swift's "Modest Proposal" in mind.
And maga is pushing forced birth & no birth control. One can only imagine they have Swift's "Modest Proposal" in mind.
One can only imagine Swift's "Modest Proposal".
Thanks for the wisdom of talking about talking civilly to one another as a basic skill. Figuring out how to talk across differences with basic respect, making it an expectation. Trump has helped created a culture of insults and intolerance and mutual spite rather than a functioning spirit of collaboration even when it's difficult - which a democracy depends on. We need to work our way back to civility.
I agree with you guys on a number of these issues. My sister served for over twenty years in the Air Force and will not be voting in her words “ever again” because neither party will “share their crayons.” And they act like children.
Sigh. Well, when fascism comes to America I guess both sides were equally bad.
Has she considered that she may be the child in the room, not the adult?
@@trillian23x I'll have to ask her... Those are her words, but then again her education was in childhood education, prior to her service.
Ha. Read Mr. Packer article it was really interesting to hear the interview. God I feel sad.
My brother has scars from falling on a Phoenix sidewalk, even in the middle of the night, and even 15 yrs ago. I can only imagine it now.
I don’t get the same vibes that David gets from his liberal friends. Mine are just as scared and see clearly how bad it is as any Never Trumper. We see it. Maybe David should school those that can’t see it.
An old MH in Ehrenberg AZ. It is as close to the beaches of CA I can retire to. I truly live in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the state. I feel of I threw a rock it would land in CA
Good information great guest
You may find the LEAP project plan in Indiana where they are proposing a pipeline from the Wabash River from Lafayette.
It’s a new commercial tech district.
Tippecanoe county folks aren’t happy.
I might be forced to move to Phoenix. I'm a cancer patient in the Verde Valley area, and my poverty-level income limits (I need to access the treatment keeping me alive) are not keeping up with skyrocketing rents. I already live in a vehicle, and if I lose this place there is literally nowhere to go. The housing crisis is so bad up here cos you know, the tourists are way more important than the working class residents. All the resources in this state are concentrated down there, and there's more affordable housing. I really don't want to go there. I'm so afraid of being homeless in Phoenix! If only my government would allow me to work and not punish me for getting cancer!
You’re right, sadly Phoenix is building massive apartment complexes. It heats everything up and towers over single family homes.
We elect people who claim they are for low growth and low density, and turn around and support the developers. Everything is about money, not quality of life and protecting our natural resources.