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COMMENTARY HEATHER COX RICHARDSON This Week In Politics, A Big-Picture Look at Where We Are Right Now Original article:
This Week In Politics, A Big-Picture Look at Where We Are Right Now \| Explainer Heather Cox Richardson 647K subscribers ... 503,439 views ... 19K likes Oct 28, 2025 ... From Politics Chat, October 28, 2025 Join us live on Tuesday and Thursday at 6 pm Maine time. Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack... You can also find me: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxr... Facebook: / heathercoxrichardson Resources: https://redwine.blue/ https://www.commoncause.org/take-action/ https://www.congress.gov/members/find... 00:00 – We’re in a “funny” place right now 00:44 – November 1st SNAP benefits will not go out 09:43 – At an unprecedented moment with this shutdown 13:21 – Trump is not okay 15:38 – Who’s calling the shots while Trump is away? 19:19 – Defense Department, strikes without evidence 23:08 – Pattern of Republicans messing with the upcoming vote next week 26:14 – How did we get from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era? 29:10 – Where we are and what we can do 31:26 – Keep up national pressure on the Epstein files 34:29 – Register to vote, push back against misinformation, keep the joy How this content was made Auto-dubbed Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated. Learn more Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 We’re in a “funny” place right now Let me jump into some of the stuff you asked about here and some of the stuff you didn't ask about because we're in this really funny place and I don't mean funny. Haha. Of course. We're in a funny place in the country right now where it certainly feels and and I'm going to unpack that. But it feels as if things are falling apart. Like everything seems to be falling apart right now from the the um military planes that are falling into the ocean to uh SNAP benefits that aren't going to go out to health care premiums going up to, you know, rural hospitals closing to people losing their jobs. I mean, there's an awful lot of stuff going on and let's see if we can unpack that a little bit because there's some responses to that I think are important. So, let's start here with um the fact 0:46 November 1st SNAP benefits will not go out that um the administration has said that as of November 1st, the SNAP benefits, supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits that are supposed to be going out to about 42 million Americans will not go out and they are saying that they cannot put those out because of the 1:04 shutdown. It's important to remember that SNAP benefits are paid through the US Department of Agriculture. And the reason for that goes back to the New Deal and the fact that the original nutrition programs were designed to uh to um create artificial uh um uh shortages to drive prices up for agricultural products during the the depression. So for that reason, you know, it was a little complicated all the new um what they called the alphabet soup of agencies that they were creating during the depression. Uh the one that ended up being in charge of getting rid of those surpluses to drive up prices was in the agriculture department and therefore our nutrition programs still reside in the department of agriculture which has always struck me as being very odd to be honest, but there they sit. Anyway, um the USDA said in September 2:01 when it was coming up for plans for a potential government shutdown that it would be able to use a reserve fund that Congress has established that has about $6 billion in it to fund SNAP programs even when the the government shut down. In addition to that reserve pro uh amount of money, there is another reserve in the USDA that is not specifically earmarked for SNAP that has about $23 billion in it. And it was that one that the USDA tapped to put some money into women's infants and children. That program known as WIC that provides nutrition assistance for women infant women infants and children. It's a great program by the way. um the uh so there are those two funds out there but one is specifically already earmarked for SNAP for the supplemental nutrition assistance program. All right. So when 3:01 they put together their um their plans in September, the USDA said that it would be able to use those resources to keep SNAP benefits coming because Congress has made it very clear that it thinks we need to keep those SNAP benefits coming for obvious reasons, right? and it's provided extra money for that to happen. Now, on October 10th, I believe it was, the administration abruptly said, 'No, we can't use those funds. That will be illegal. We cannot use those funds.' And it seems pretty clear that they were doing that to try and put pressure on the Democrats in the Senate to go along with the it's so complicated to go along with the uh continuing resolution that the House Republicans passed to uh fund the government only through November 21st. And mind you, um, House Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House out out of Washington because it 4:01 he doesn't want to negotiate over the continuing resolution. The government's still not going to be funded. They still haven't passed those appropriations bills that need to be passed to fund the government after November 21st. And they should be in Congress working on that um while while the government is shut down. The Senate's still in session, but Johnson does not want to bring the House back into session because he's trying to jam the Senate Democrats and because he doesn't want to swear in Adelita uh Grahalva of Arizona who was elected on September 23rd because she is going to sign the discharge petition that will means that the House will be forced to take a vote on whether or not to uh provide information about um the Epstein investigation. more publicly than it has. And we know that Trump's in those files. All right. So, to go back to SNAP, um there the Republicans are trying really hard to jam the Democrats into going along with 5:01 this continuing resolution. And the reason that this matters and the reason that the Democrats have said no, there's a number of reasons, but the most immediate reason is that the when the Republicans passed that bill in Janu uh July, the the continuing resolution, I'm sorry, the um the budget reconciliation bill that they passed without Democratic votes. Um that they basically threw everything in it they wanted. They cut Medicaid. They cut snap. They cut all kinds of stuff, but they did it in such a way that they thought that pigeons wouldn't come home to roost until after the 2026 elections. But they appeared to have overlooked those people who might have cared about it. Now that because the Democrats brought it up, they went ahead and refused to extend the premium tax credits which supported people buying health 6:01 insurance on the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare markets. And those premiums, the bills are going out now. They're going out at the end of October, beginning of November. And people's health care premiums are skyrocketing. The average increase average increase I believe is 114% which means that it's more than doubling and those aren't cheap premiums. I mean healthc care is too expensive in this country. Editorializing, sorry about that. That's happening. And the Democrats are saying you can't do this. Not only are you going to have four million people drop off of health insurance, but everybody else's health care premiums are going through the roof. This is not okay. The Republicans want the the the Democrats to cave because they don't want it to be their fault that this happened. They want to be able to say, 'Hey, you signed on to this, too.' And the Democrats are like, 'You can't take people's health care away.' So now the Republicans are saying, 'Okay, well, if 7:00 you're going to make a stand on this, we're going to make sure nobody gets fed.' And that's what's at stake right now. So, interestingly enough, and I'll try and pick this up again later, you know who is getting paid in this shutdown? ICE agents, ICE agents are getting paid. They're even getting overtime pay. Um, a real sign, I think, of where the Republican priorities are. But so, what happened today was that 25 um Democratic le states that had uh I'm sorry, it's a total of 25. So, it's either Democraticled states, so there are Democratic attorneys general, or the governors of states where the Republicanled legislatures would not sign on. So, that would include Kentucky and um and Kansas. and also the District of Columbia uh sued the USDA the head of the USDA um Brooke um uh Rollins the um Russell vote who's the head of the office of management and 8:04 budgets budget and the office of management and budget he's the one making these these decisions about where money is going and the US to say congress very clearly said it intended to have this money go out to people during a shutdown and um and the money is there. You can't just decide not to do what Congress wanted you to do. So, they have sued over that. Even still, obviously, there is going to be um a hiatus here, and that's on on SNAP payments. And that's a really big issue because not only does that mean people who were counting on that money are not going to see it for food, but a number of stores around the country depend on SNAP payments to keep their own margins alive, especially smaller stores um in in rural especially rural parts of the country. So, ironically, maybe not, maybe that's the wrong word, the people who are going to be hurt worst by this, 9:05 everybody in this country is going to be hurt, but the people are going to be hurt worst are going to be from Republican rural districts because not only are people not going to be getting SNAP benefits, but also the stores that depend on those SNAP benefits to keep current are going to be falling apart. At the same time that people's health insurance is also going up and rural hospitals are facing closures because of the cuts that were in that budget reconciliation bill to Medicare for Medicaid for example and there will be cuts to Medicare as well. All right. So that's what's going on with the SNAP payments that you asked about. But there's also something weird. I mean I 9:43 At an unprecedented moment with this shutdown mean these adjectives are wrong, right? I mean funny weird. It just we're in a really well an unprecedented period because we're having this government shutdown at a time when the Republican dominated Congress has been unable to pass a single appropriations bill, which 10:02 is I mean we're so overdue for that. But a a government shutdown is a really big deal. It's it's important. It's a really big deal. It's a bad thing. And normally Congress is in session and it is madly trying to negotiate an end. And in this case, the Republicans have simply said, 'No, we're not going to negotiate. You got to do what we say, even though it's going to hurt the country really badly.' And so it's this weird like pressure to get the Democrats to sign on to hurting the American people really badly. And that's just, you know, it's this weird sense of, you know, the the Republicans could talk the way they did for so long because there were these guard rails that everybody thought that that would never really get taken down. And between Elon Musk and Russell vote and the uh Republicans jamming through that um that 11:01 budget reconciliation bill back in July, the guardrails are gone. and it, you know, and now they're sort of saying to the Democrats, well, you have to sign on this, too. And the Democrats are like, we're not signing on to that. At the same time that the pain is starting to hit the American people, and at the same time, of course, that the Republicans have given uh $20 million in a in a um in a dollar peso swap and another guarantee of $20 billion to a Trump ally in Argentina. And at the same time that Trump has torn down the east wing of the White House. And by the way, there is circulating on circulating on social media a right-wing post saying this is a crazy liberal freakout. He only took down this little portico of the East Wing. This is it on Monday. Well, that was it on Monday, but by Friday, the entire East Wing, including the Colonade, was gone. And um and you know, when you see that stuff, if you're at all involved in that stuff, push back because the the East Wing and the Colonade is gone. It is a it is raised 12:01 our Azed to the ground. So you have that and this idea of this ballroom at the same time that Americans are facing and again I want to be really clear even if you're not getting SNAP benefits. You are probably shopping at stores that need those SNAP benefits to stay afloat. And certainly I am. And that's going to hurt all of us. So there's this weird like they kind of are wa I mean I feel like you're sort of watching this ideology of the last 40 years kind of hitting this wall and they're trying to get the Democrats to sign on and so far the Democrats are saying no we're going to sue you because this is not what Congress wanted when it provided SNAP benefits. But here's the other thing while Congress is while the the House is not meeting um the president has left the country. I mean, presidents do not leave the country during a shutdown. And Trump left. He was not going to negotiate. He doesn't appear to care about the American people at all. He just left, 13:01 which, you know, in the past, presidents have canled overseas trips rather than being away during a shutdown. But he, you know, he clearly is making the point he's not going to negotiate that. He wants the Democrats to do what he said. But here's the weird thing about it, and I got to stop using these adjectives. Um, Trump's not okay. You know, I've been saying that for a while, but if you are watching how he is behaving 13:25 Trump is not okay overseas. Um, he well, People magazine today said, you know, he he boasted on Air Force One about taking what appears to have been a dementia exam. And we know he had his first, at least by 2018. That's the first time that um I believe it was NBC reported that he talked about having one. Um he was boasting about what a great job he got a perfect score on what he called an IQ test. But I I promise you identifying a tiger and an elephant um and a giraffe is not on an IQ test. 14:05 So there was that weird boastfulness and then he got to he he was weirdly dancing. I think it was in Malaysia. And then he got to Japan for a meeting with um the my notes just went blank. So, we're going to see where we end up here. Um that's was my technical difficulty before. Hang on. Um with the Japanese prime minister and he just he just wandered off. He just started wandering. Um so, um Oh, now my notes are back. This is good. So, um, he's it is it is getting harder and harder and harder to look away from the fact that the president is not okay. And, you know, people are asking what they can do in this moment. And that's one thing really to push, especially a Republican representatives and senators and governors on, do you think that JD Vance is capable of taking over this 15:03 government? And do you think the president is okay? Because the fact that this dude has the nuclear codes, I mean, he probably doesn't remember he has the nuclear codes, but certainly his behavior is very erratic. And the fact that he felt able uh to tear down the east wing of the White House with no permits, no permissions, no consultation with Congress, nothing suggests that he does not have any inhibitions. And that is profoundly, profoundly dangerous. But so here's one of the other things that is going on while this is happening. While he is overseas, 15:43 Who’s calling the shots while Trump is away? um there have been big changes going on domestically in the United States, which does raise the question of who is making these decisions. So on the 27th, I think I've lost track of what day it is, the White House, and that's I I I hope I sat made it sound like that was 16:01 in quotation marks. The White House announced that it was switching out ICE field agents in critical uh locations and replacing them with officers from um CBP, Customs and Border Patrol. And that matters because for all that we have focused on ICE agents that is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE agents do have a a long his not long have a history in the places where the field commanders have been and they are traditionally charged with going after actual criminals and they have been focusing since Trump got in office of deporting undocumented migrants, undocumented immigrants, and you know, they have certainly overreached and they've certainly, at least it looks like that to me. I'm not a judge in a jury over here, but people are rightly unhappy 17:01 about the activities of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. But the real wacko behavior is Customs and Border Patrol. the the Blackhawk helicopter in Chicago for example and so on has been um Customs and Border Patrol and that's if you remember I've been really pretty careful to distinguish about which federal agents are doing what and also to point out that these are not military personnel um and who have been much more reluctant to have anything to do with with anything that the administration is trying to get them to do. But so it appears from reporting um I'm going to say reporting in general. I read it um at MSNBC, but I it's I've seen it elsewhere as well. And I I like to trace back who got the original story just because it feels like that's a lot of work for those reporters to do. And I try and call that out and I don't yet know where that original story came from 18:00 and I need to find that. But um the it appears from the reporting that is out there that the person who has made the lists is Corey Luwendowski. Corey Luwendowski is a special government employee working under the Department of Homeland Security and the Secretary Christy Gnome. Um he again an unelected official that is working with Christine Gnome. You might want to look that one up. Um those of you who are interested in that relationship there. Um, and it appears that he did those lists acting with um, um, Bavino. Uh, what's his first name? Greg. Hold on. I do have this written down. Um, yes, it is Greg Bavino. Who is one of the sector chiefs of Customs and Border Patrol, but who is one of the guys who's really pushing the tear gas and the and the real violence. He was in court today in Chicago for apparently um 19:02 breaking a judge's uh express order and he has been ordered to report to her every day to prove that he is not deliberately breaking the law. So there's this this big switch there. Um while Trump was out of town, there was also a really big switch in the defense 19:22 Defense Department, strikes without evidence department. Now remember the defense department has uh gotten rid of all the official original official defense department reporters who were very very good uh because they wanted the defense department officials under defense secretary Pete Hexith wanted reporters to sign an agreement saying they would report on nothing that was not expressly authorized by officials in the defense department. And to be clear, that's not just you can't re, you know, reproduce classified information. That's they wanted to have to get a be able to rubber stamp anything that came out of the defense department. Well, this is 20:04 part of Hegath's real attempt to stop leaks coming out of the uh department because he's, you know, he's, you know, he's having a hard time over there. But they got rid of those. They said you couldn't report from there unless you signed this non this dis this this agreement and uh all the traditional reporters walked out and they were replaced with right-wing podcasters and really kind of fringe people. If you remember one of the teams that walked out was the Fox News Channel. So we're talking the people who were left are people like Tim P who was uh is a right-wing podcaster who before the 2024 election was actually being funded by Russia. Right. So um the the defense department has asked members of the defense department to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Mind you, all these officials can't re release any kind of national secrets, but they want them to sign a non-disclosure agreement for anything 21:06 related to the strikes in Latin America. What's with that? Now, we've also had today another three strikes taking out four boats in the Eastern Pacific. And again, if you remember, the um the White House, I'm sorry, the Defense Department and the White House have both insisted that those people that it is killing are those who are trafficking narcotics to the United States. And yet those boats are small boats and they are, you know, a thousand miles from the US or more. they would have to stop significantly for refueling. There are a lot of real holes to this story and the White House has not provided any evidence to back up their allegations to lawmakers or to the public. And finally, even Republican lawmakers are like, you know, you can't do this. What are you 22:00 doing? What are you doing out there? And the um the um you and saying, you know, you have to give us some kind of information about what you were doing. And yet, um, now we've got this, uh, call for a non-disclosure agreement and increasing rumblings from people like Lindsey Graham, uh, senator from South Carolina, saying that, um, in fact, this is all a prelude to a larger military um, enterprise in Latin America. uh which is again Congress has been completely cut out of this and this has has taken on um you know taken off while Trump is overseas. So that is also going on and then there is the fact that um the oh wait there's some more stuff over here. Um um I'm going to give you a little bit more on this and then I will go back to uh some one 23:00 of the final large questions here. So one of the things that that you are seeing in the midst of all this and there's a bigger pattern here I think is also the attempt on the part of elected 23:11 Pattern of Republicans messing with the upcoming vote next week Republicans to um to mess with this upcoming vote next week. Next week. Yeah. Next week. week from today um to mess with this upcoming vote by putting um uh officers in the streets um and by having poll watchers in I think it's New Jersey and California both uh states where there are elections with national implications on the ballot and you're seeing an increasing focus on um I think trying both to undercut the idea that Trump has dementia by suggesting that Biden did, but also trying to hit home the idea that an that if Democrats are elected, the election was not legitimate. And you can see Trump setting up this argument through his posts on social media talking about how the election in 2020 was rigged despite 24:05 the fact his own people and all the courts that were asked to to look into it said it was not. you know, this idea that somehow there's going to be some uh something illegal going on in 2026 and 2028. And what they're really trying to set up here is the idea that nobody but a Republican can legitimately uh win an election. And that's, you know, completely contrary both to reality, but also to the principles of American democracy. And that um you know, again, you're seeing this in a lot of different places. And you're also seeing it, interestingly enough, in Trump's increasing emphasis on the idea he's going to run in 2028. That's interesting because that's in part, you know, him not wanting to take second fiddle to anybody, but also because I think he really doesn't want people to be talking about the fact that he's not performing his job very well and probably other people are starting to eye that job and he doesn't want that to happen. So, at 25:04 the same time, you've got the the all these things happening that are really bad for the American people. You've got Congress and the president basically checking out and and then you've also got them saying, 'But you have to reelect us because we are the only legitimate people to run this country.' And all of those things together to me don't work. That's an equation that doesn't work. And I think you can see that in the the truly abysmal poll rating that Trump has now. Uh lowest for anybody ever, not just him in his first term. Uh he's gone below that as well. Um and you also have um what else is this here? Um, you also again have increasing discomfort on the part of rep Republican electeds because as people lose food, as they lose health insurance, as they lose jobs, as the farmers are hit ba bad and so on, who 26:00 are you going to call? You're going to call your representatives and the people who are getting the hurt worst right hurt worst right now are those people in Republican districts. So, I think you're going to see a lot of that going forward. and and somebody asked um 26:08 How did we get from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era? me to to talk about how did we get from the guilded age to the progressive era, an era that the guilded age looked very much like today looks to us and um and how did the progressive era come out of that is in the way it does. And I wanted to answer that because um what the way we got there is very similar to it feels very similar to where we are now. when people during the guilded age got to a point where they really recognized that the system was rigged against ordinary Americans, you know, for decades the Republicans had been telling them that the problem with the economy was not the robber barons. the problem was, you know, the the African-Americans in the South or the immigrants in the cities or 27:01 lazy farmers or there was always some reason that the economy wasn't very good and that there came a time when finally people looked around and said, 'Wait a minute, you're building mansions in Newport, Massachusetts, and having parties um that are costing, you know, millions of dollars in today's dollars. Well, we're working jobs where we can't begin to make ends meet. we need to redo this system. Key to that was um having a press that recognized what was going on and was starting to report on it. And that really hits home to me today when I was thinking about doing this um this uh politics chat today. I hope you got that figuring out what was going on with SNAP and how Democratic states are trying to push back on that, that's really complicated and you know untangling it. I I'm pretty deep into this stuff now, so for me to untangle it wasn't a big deal. But I promise you that would have been really hard, at least for me, to untangle 10 years ago when there would 28:04 be a story about SNAP in a newspaper and I'd have to try and put it all together myself. The fact we have people like me, but also all the other producers now saying, 'Hey, you want to understand what's going on with this legal case? I'll walk you through it.' I think is key to understanding how the government works and I think it's been key to waking people up. So I would say we're going on a good track here for helping people understand not just that Trump is whackadoodle but that the system has not worked for 40 freaking years because the very wealthy took it over and took it out of the hands of the rest of us. And that's not to to say that um that you know I'm making some great communist argument. I'm saying that in order for democracy to work, one person needs one vote and we need to have accurate in information about what's going on so that we can use 29:04 our votes wisely. And I feel like we're getting toward that. So, let me um let br> 29:10 Where we are and what we can do me go to uh a final couple things about um about where we are and what we can do. So, lots of people frustrated, lots of people frightened, lots of people worried about where the country is going. And I say amen to all of that, but do not forget and you know there there are some of us screaming about this and everybody should be. A week from today, we have a major election on the ballots. 52,000 races out there. Um, in Maine, for example, people are tying themselves in knots over who's going to run for Senate in a year. Like, in a year, who knows what's going to be happening. Now, the primaries aren't even until next June. But, you know what's happening in a week? We have a vote on whether or not a measure that is backed by the wealthiest Republicans around the country is going to pass. And that measure will take away 30:03 the opportunity for about 40% of Mainers who vote by absentee ballot to vote. That's a really important vote. If you are in Maine, turn and you vote in Maine, turn out and vote to make sure people keep access to absentee voting. And that's one, you know, people are all, like I say, they're all upset about this Senate race that isn't happening until way over the horizon. This is happening in a week. Turn out for it. get people to turn out for it. There's gubernatorial races in Virginia and North and um New Jersey. There's Proposition 50 in California to try and change gerrymandering um until just until the uh 2030 census to try and counteract what the Republicans have done in Texas by their midterm gerrymandering there, which is going to be permanent until a new legislature tries to redo that after 2030. you know there get involved at in the states 31:02 Pennsylvania where there are state senate I'm sorry state supreme court races that are important you know there all of these races are critically important and showing up for them and turning people out for them because these will be turn these will be turnout elections is crucially crucially crucially important. So there's that you can do, but there is also pressure to be kept up at the national level. You know, I was not an Epstein 31:32 Keep up national pressure on the Epstein files conspiracy person like at all. I didn't even really pay a ton of attention to it except as oh this is a traumatic experience and I hope for the the survivors who have been heroic and I hope that the law comes after the guilty people. But I have come around because of what I would call the space around the elephant. Anything that that the Republicans are so afraid of that the House Speaker will not let the House hold meetings has got to be something we want to see. I want to see anyway. Keep 32:06 that pressure up on the Epstein files. And I think we really need to call out to our especially Republican representatives Trump's mental state because I gotta tell you this is not normal. I mean this is what is we've certainly had presidents before who were not okay. You think of um Richard Nixon who was drinking heavily in his last uh days in the White House to the point that Henry Kissinger said to people don't take orders from him without coming to me because he's drinking too much. Um, you think about, well, even for that matter, I'm not never mind. I'm not going to go down president's drinking habits, but um, but you think about the fact that Woodrow Wilson had a stroke while in office, but he too was kept pretty clo under pretty close wraps by advisers, including his wife, who were very careful to make sure that the orders that came out of a mentally impaired president did not impact the government. 33:02 And you know, throughout our history, we have had presidents who weren't okay. In this case, Trump appears to be surrounded by people who are using him for their own ends and are not therefore inclined to call attention to his mental incapacity or to um to stop it because, as I say, now that he's overseas, all of a sudden stuff's happening here. Um I think we need to call that out for our own safety. That's another big thing to do. Now, we also have the issue coming up of the fact we're going to we have these, at least on the books right now, these snap cuts. And you know what? Even if they end up restoring that money, we're going into the holiday season. People are going to be losing their jobs. Um, we need to make sure that we are looking out for our neighbors and making sure that food banks are supplied. And this is not my area of specialty. Please check with those people who are already in the business and ask them what they need. Um whether 34:04 I I and I'm not even going to speculate because it's not my my um my ballowick, but I will tell you there are people who've devoted their lives to making sure people who need food get it. They're the ones to ask what to do to make sure they do get it. That's one way we can remind people that we live in a country that helps each other out and that our politics should reflect that. Um, what else can we do? Um, I think the 34:30 Register to vote, push back against misinformation, keep the joy other things that I always talk about, make sure you are registered to vote. Help other people register to vote. Um, make sure that you push back against disinformation and spread good information and um, and make sure again that we try and keep the creativity and joy that we had in the no king's day. um and that we carry that forward as we envision what a new government, a new American government can look like because we clearly have to fix an awful 35:00 lot of things that we thought were going along okay and weren't. So, um so again, keep thinking about what that looks like. And one of the things that is interesting, and I'm not going to go into it right now because I've already run over, but for all that things feel like there are few windows opening in as the doors are closing, there are new and really provocative and to my mind potentially successful ways in which people are rethinking the way we do things in this country and um and you know some of them are going to take and that um that I think is actually really hopeful and I'm not going to go into that more now because I don't want to get people um um too excited about things that aren't I'm not a lawyer that are not necessarily going to work out but look around you people are coming up with interesting new ways 36:00 to do things that I think might pay off down the line so so do keep the faith and Um and um get people out to vote. Uh we got a week left for this election and and get your friends, get people out to vote, get in touch with the organizations turning people out for these elections and um and we'll see where we are after next week. Um I will see you again on Thursday. And um I'm doing a bunch of really cool interviews this week. Just a reminder, by the way, um I do write up a lot of what's going on in the country along with history at um at both on Substack and on Facebook. It's always free. And the YouTube channel, same thing. Um although what I do on the in the in the letters is keep a record of what is happening. Um and I don't talk about things you can do to change stuff. and that frustrates some people, but it's not the same project as these what's going on videos or some of the activist videos I do. So, if you're interested, those things are there. And um and I think that's it for

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