Guess this the podcast edition. The latest episode of the Ezra Klein Podcast ("A Theory of Media That Explain 15 Years of Politics") had a guest that I suppose was a person with a very unique world view that I could only describe as "the new elderly right". Martin Gurri, a Cuban born author that chose to sit out 3 out of the last 4 elections but opted for Trump in the 2024 one due to his absolute concern with freedom of speech. Look, I'm not going to get overly into the episode because honestly I think I didn't put in my full attention and Gurri tended to ramble at times (Klein tried to rein him in but he went off topic a bit) but some of the things he said were kind of interesting. He framed the current administration's hasty actions as a political revolution and placed it alongside FDR's New Deal era and Reagan's economic plan. Both were major historical changes to the government where no one died or pulled out the guillotines. A part of me kind of believes that because I don't want to give in to the social media raised fears that this is the end of American empirical era of democracy. Maybe he's just downplaying it because he believes in the mental rationality of Trump. I don't know. Another thing he said was that he supports AI in government and Elon has the right idea by implementing it into federal framework so we can have a more actionable government. I wholeheartedly disagree, the technology is there but it's not the same as a person that represents actual constitutes, or staffers that can listen and supply actual support. Slimming down the government by handing over the reins to a supercomputer may not be a good thing. AI needs a core directive and that directive more than likely isn't going to be shared widely with the public. While I agree that the "transparency" that C-SPAN cameras causes a bit of grandstanding and politicians with YouTube channels (looking at you, Jasmine Crockett and Marjorie Taylor Greene), I don't think AI is a real replacement or cure to that. Other than that, NPR's Embedded new series, Alternate Realities, hit home and I almost walked off the floor at work to cry in the bathroom over the finale of it because it reminds me so much of my mom and my relationship with her. Things aren't as rough as they were when I was living with her but there's still some large cracks in our relationship that we have to deal with.
In other news, I gonna try and be sober from weed and alcohol again, in the middle of all of this, while my depression emrges from the depths of my brain. Hopefully it goes well, being realistic though, it probably won't. Also, I need to make an "about" page?