AJ Jacobs: The Constitution Comes Alive

32:0537 and a half cents every time they cursed. They were very lawyerly and said, I don't have a half cent, therefore I'm not paying. Anyway, it didn't always work. But then Connecticut had laws against jugglers and magicians and acrobats. And these were considered constitutional because back then you had your natural rights, but once you entered society, then your rights were balanced against the greater good. Your rights were mediated by the fact that there are others. So you can't just go around saying anything you want. It wasn't quite Stalinist Russia back in the 1790s, but it was nothing like what we have now.

32:50So no one should want to go back to the original First Amendment. The original First night comedian would be in jail for sedition if this was in the 1790s. But conservatives would not like it either because the argument that the First Amendment covers political donations from corporations would shock the founders. They would say, what? They were very concerned about corruption in politics. So they would not believe that the First Amendment covers that. So that is an example of why I think it's good to look at the history. It's fascinating, but we cannot rely on that alone. So when push comes to shove and bottom line, what do you think is more surprising how inadequate the Constitution is today or that it has worked as well as it works?

33:51Oh, that's a great question. That is a great question. Can I answer both? I think that is the proper answer. I believe in the First Amendment. Thank you. The new First Amendment. That's right. What I love about the Constitution is that it does contain multitudes. And let me give you a quick little story that I have in the section on race and the Constitution in the book. And that is, right before the Civil War, you had two great abolitionists. You had William Lloyd Garrison, a white man, and Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved man. William Lloyd Garrison, he said, the Constitution is a pact with the devil because it condones slavery.

34:35He says it deserves to be burned. And he burned it. He literally burned it on stage in front of hundreds of people. He was like a showman. At first, Frederick Douglass agreed with him. But at some point in the 1850s, Frederick Douglass changed his mind, which as you know, I love people who change their mind. And he said, I think it'd be more productive. Let's reframe the Constitution. It's not a pact with the devil. It is a promissory note. The Constitution promises liberty. It promises equality. And those are not happening in our country. We have enslaved people. We have racism, sexism. And he said, the idea is let's make America live up to the promissory note that is the Constitution.

35:21And that is such a powerful theme. Martin Luther King used that same language. That's a promissory note. Obama talked about how the problems within the Constitution are solved by the Constitution itself. The seeds of freedom are in there. We just have to make them grow. And we have to struggle to make it live up to its best ideals. So that is my answer. In some ways, it's a very troubling document. But in other ways, it's wonderful and amazing. And let's try to make it live up to those great parts. And what if somebody wanted to pin you to the wall and say, yeah, but we the people really referred historically to we the white males?

36:06Well, I think that that's hard to argue with. I think, yes, that was we the people back then meant we the white male people. That's who could vote. That's who they wrote it for. But what's wonderful is they use that phrase, we the people. They didn't say we the white male people. They use the phrase, we the people, and that has left open the door for Americans to struggle and expand the rights of marginalized people. And you can see that in the Constitution itself, in the amendments. You can see women got the vote with the 19th Amendment. Black people got the vote. Indigenous people got the vote.

36:45And we the people, we are very lucky to have that phrase because originally, the original version of the Constitution said, we the people of Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, et cetera, et cetera. And if that had been the case, it would have been a different message. It would have been, this is all about the states. Governor Morris was one of the founders and he struck out the states and he said, no, it's we the people. And that has made a huge difference. because then that has allowed us to expand the rights. Up next on Remarkable People. I've gotten liberals from the left who say, thank you for showing me how crazy originalism is.

37:30But on the conservative side, I get lots of thank you for showing that the founders did have virtues and this idea of self-sacrifice and that we do need to get back to some of this. So, yeah, people are just very good at seeing what they want. And so I don't think it's a big con. I really don't. Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners. It's our pleasure and honor to make the show for you. If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate, and review it. Even better, forward it to a friend. A big mahalo to you for doing this. You're listening to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.

38:15What do you think the impact would be of actually amending the Constitution, the exact places, as opposed to sticking everything as addendums that may have internal conflicts if you didn't actually amend the main part of the Constitution? Right. I love that question because James Madison, the father of the Constitution, he's called. That's what he wanted. He wanted when the Constitution was amended, he's like, you got to rewrite the whole thing and put the new language in. More like a Google Doc, where you rewrite it completely over or a Wikipedia page. But he was overruled. Some of the other founders said, no, we'll just stick it at the end.

39:00We'll put the amendments at the end, like a P.S. P.S., oh yeah, we forgot. You should have the right to free speech. And I think there are advantages to both. One of my advisors, because I talked to dozens of great constitutional scholars, one said that it's good to have this startlingly horrible language in the Constitution about, they don't use the words slavery. They use euphemisms like servitude. But it's good to have that to remind us we have made progress because you read the news today and it's 16 hours of negativity. And it's very easy to think we've made zero progress and we're worse than ever.

39:47That is the way I feel sometimes at the end of a day. But that's wrong. We have made progress and we can continue to make progress. Yeah, I think that nostalgia is vastly overrated. And when people say they want to go back to the 50s and the 60s, because as families, we all ate around a common dinner table. And then we talked amongst themselves, not looked at our phones. And then after we went and played board games, like this great family, like what family was that? I don't know any families like that. And I was alive in the 50s. I love that you say that because that is one of the big themes of the books is some parts of the 1700s were wonderful.

40:30There were parts like we talked about the virtue, the writing with a quill pen. You don't have 16 hours of negative news. You have newspaper comes twice a week. So you're not depressed from the moment you wake up and turn on the Internet. On the other hand, like you said, the good old days were not good. They sucked. They were racist, sexist, smelly. Cutting edge medicine was the tobacco smoke enema where they literally would blow smoke up your ass. They'd put a hose up your ass and blow smoke up it because it was considered good for your stomach. So we don't want that. What? Yeah, look it up.

41:14Tobacco smoke enema is very popular. bloodletting is also more well known, but you're making me fuck her up. I'm sorry. My point is to make you feel better, not to feel worse. You don't have to do the tomaccus. And let me give you two very small examples because I was trying to live it. So I never did blow smoke up my ass, but even just wearing the, even wearing the costume. Not even Mike Johnson has done that to you. it's funny i quote him as saying we should go back to the 18th century exactly you really you want that mike i'm not sure you do but i would put on my clothes every morning and i put on my my 18th century style socks these big stockings and they had no elastic so they fall down to your ankles so i had to put on these little sock belts every morning not even garters garters are too sophisticated.

42:12Just little belts around the sock and the amount of combined time. I must have spent like six hours putting on sock belts. I'll never get that back. So I am so grateful for democracy, but I'm also grateful for elastic socks. So I agree with you. Nostalgia is as vastly overrated. Oh, my God. So can we just talk about the Supreme Court for a moment here? Because the Supreme Court is just basically politically aligned. Why do we even have a Supreme Court at this point? There's no checks and balances. No. Or do you think that's a blip or do you think that's permanent? Oh, God, I hope it's not permanent.

42:54I think it's both sides would benefit from term limits. 18 years, I'd be happy with less. But I will tell you, from a founder's perspective, if they came back, they would be appalled by the Supreme Court right now, because they would say, this was not meant to be so powerful. If you look at the Constitution, the first article is about Congress, and it is by far the longest. It is two and a half times the size of the president's section, which is Article 2. And then Article 3 is the Supreme Court. Very short. I wouldn't say it's an afterthought, but it is not the main event. event. Congress was first among equals back then because that's who was elected by the people.

43:51Supreme Court was there and it was supposed to weigh in on constitutional issues, but it wasn't supposed to be the final say. Most founders wanted it to be a joint decision between the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court on what is and is not constitutional. And you can look at Jonathan Gnep from Stanford, who's done some amazing work on this. So they would look at the Supreme Court now and say, wait, these are nine unelected people and they are determining the fates of millions of Americans? This is not what we designed. This is insane. I am not a fan of the way the Supreme Court is structured now.

44:33I would be very happy if they had much less power. And likewise, the president. The president has way too much power. The founders would be shocked by that. They wanted the president to have some power. But again, it was the Congress who was number one. And over the years, the president has gained crazy power. George Washington had eight executive orders in eight years. Obama and Trump both had over 200 executive orders. It is a vastly different system, which is why, because as you know, my book, I was trying to express all of my rights. There's a right to petition in the First Amendment. And so I decided to start a petition to try to limit the power of the president, both Democrat and Republican, I think, need to be limited and give Congress back some power.

45:27And I went back to an idea by my favorite founder, Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin and others thought, one president is a terrible idea. We just fought a war to get rid of a monarch. So several of the delegates wanted three presidents, three co-presidents at the same time. Ben Franklin wanted, at one point he proposed a council of 12 presidents. It's funny to think about Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. sitting next to each other at a WeWork in the Oval Office. I'm not sure it's a great idea, honestly. But I do think that they were right to be worried about one person having that much power. So I was able to get hundreds of signatures with my quill pen and bring it to a sitting senator to talk about, let's rein in the president so that we don't have another monarch like the founders were afraid of.

46:27We may be about to find out about a monarchy, but anyway. Why do you say a Supreme Court is powerful? I'm being a little bit of a devil's advocate because if the Supreme Court makes a ruling and people refuse to implement it, what are they going to do? They can't call up the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That is actually what Alexander Hamilton said, is that they do not have the power of the sword. So they are the least threatening and dangerous branch. But if you believe in the rule of law, which I do, then when they do make a decision, then the president, presumably, and Congress will enforce it. They don't have to, as you say.

47:12And Andrew Jackson did say that he made that very point. I forget what the actual ruling was, but he said, I'm not going to enforce it and let them try to make me. But we want to have a country that is run by rule of law, because I do believe that that's better than chaos and authoritarians and tyranny. So yeah, I don't think Alito and Kagan are going to go out there with their arms and try to make and the Congress follow it. But luckily, Congress does follow their rulings, even though I disagree with many of their rulings. Yeah, but I would make the case that in today's environment, if the Supreme Court was controlled by liberals and they made rulings that the Republican Congress didn't like, the Republican Congress would not listen to the Supreme Court.

48:06That's interesting. That's hard to predict. But I will say that is how we got originalism in the first place, is that in the 1960s, you had a very liberal Supreme Court, the Warren Court. And they made a lot of decisions, such as desegregating schools, the rights of those who are arrested, like Miranda rights, and bans on intermarriage, abortion, contraception, all of these things that conservatives thought, this is too much. These unelected people have too much power. They started originalism with the idea of going back to the text and saying, let's make it very narrow so judges don't have all of this control over our lives.

48:56The instinct was good because even though I agree with the liberal Supreme Court's decisions, I don't think it should have come from the Supreme Court. I think it should have come from Congress. And now, because we have now a conservative Supreme Court, even though originalism was supposed to constrain judges, it's not at all. You look at decisions like Dobbs as having massive effects on millions of lives. Yeah, to me, one of the big solutions is make the Supreme Court less powerful for both liberals and conservatives. Do you think that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if she were alive and she could do it over again, do you think she would retire in time for a replacement to be confirmed?

49:45That is such an interesting question. I don't know. I can't be in her mind. But I think that it's interesting because reading the history of Ruth Bader Ginsburg made me in awe of what she did and how brilliant she was using men's rights to advance women's rights. She was able to sue based on this discrimination against a man, and that opened the door to women's rights. But I do think she made a blunder in not retiring, but people are complicated. I'm not going to criticize her because she's much smarter than I will ever be. But I guess the bigger point is the same with the founders. The founders had some amazing qualities and they had some terrible qualities.

50:38So response would be to completely reject them and say, we shouldn't listen to anything they say. But I think a more measured response is to say, everyone is flawed. And in 200 years, I'm glad I won't be around for people to judge what I did. You went on a vacation to Portugal and took a flight knowing that it would affect the environment and make the lives of your great-great-grandchildren horrible. And I'd say, I know, No, but I love Portugal. People are complicated. And I think instead of glorifying people, let's maybe glorify ideas. So the ideas, some of their best ideas of equality or entrepreneurship, all these things, instead of saying these are perfect heroes, which nobody is.

51:36Well, take me into the mind of an originalist. Do you think that they truly do believe in the concept of originalism or they just use it for justification of what they want to do? That's a great question. My belief is that they truly believe it, just as I believe the left truly believes what they believe and that they're not using confirmation bias. To me, we are such good rationalizers. That is one of our greatest skills as human beings. We are just so good at seeing the world the way we want. And that is why I love Ben Franklin for being aware of his biases. He was like Daniel Kahneman 230 years ago.

52:25And I've seen this even in the reaction to my books. So I wrote a book about the Bible that we talked about. And my point was that there are good parts to religion and bad parts to religion. I don't think we should take the Bible literally. But the reactions were fascinating because it was confirmation bias to the nth degree. I would get hundreds of emails from secular people, atheists. Thank you for showing how insane religion is. I would get hundreds, same number of emails from religious people. Thank you for reaffirming my faith and showing the good parts of religion. So there's a quote from a poet.

53:06I forget which one. Maybe it was Blake. We both read the Bible day and night. You read black and I read white. And I've seen this too in the reaction to this book on the year of living constitutionally. I've gotten liberals from the left who say, thank you for showing me how crazy originalism is. But on the conservative side, I get lots of thank you for showing that the founders did have virtues and this idea of self-sacrifice and that we do need to get back to some of this. So, yeah, people are just very good at seeing what they want. And so I don't think it's a big con. I really don't. Do you?

53:47What's your opinion? I got to tell you, I scratch my head every day when I read what some of these Ivy League graduates are saying that up is down and down is up and the world is flat and global climate change isn't happening or it is. And I just, as I've progressed with this podcast, we've had dozens and dozens of Ivy League graduates. And I got to tell you that maybe it's self-selection, but it's not the people I interviewed, but the investigation and discussion we've had about Ivy League graduates. I have a very low opinion of Ivy League graduate at this point in my life. I think you have to overcome your Ivy League education.

54:28And I cite as examples people like Ted Cruz. If he could overcome his Ivy League education, maybe he would see how wrong he is. But let's not. I don't want to go down into that cesspool here. I think the big point is you can be incredibly smart, but still be incredibly wrong. And yeah, for my Bible book, I talked to some creationists who believe the world is 5 ,000 years old. And I am an evolution believer, and I think the vast majority of evidence. But these people were not bumpkins, and some of them had PhDs. They were just really good at doing the mental gymnastics to convince themselves that reality conformed to their preconceived beliefs.

55:24And they would come up with the most brilliant ways to justify creationism. Like they acknowledged that the universe was several billion light years big. So how could it be that it's only 5 ,000 years old? And they would show me these complicated mathematical equations that were way over my head to prove to me, yeah, it's still 5 ,000 years old, even though it's vastly this huge, giant, billions of light years long. So yeah, people's intelligence, I don't think, is very highly correlated with how correct they are in terms of view of reality. When the framers were defining something like cruel and unusual punishment, was it cruel and unusual punishment at the time they were living?

56:20And if something becomes redefined as cruel and unusual, then you should interpret the constitution as you cannot have cruel and unusual punishment at the time you're living, for example. So if you're an originalist, you say cruel and unusual punishment was flogging, but now that's off the table and times have changed. So flogging is not acceptable anymore. That gets back to our first topic of the pillory because the pillory at the time of the founding was fine. John Jay, one of the founders, He sentenced to someone in the pillory. And the pillory, by the way, it wasn't cute. It was horrible. People were in there and there was rocks being thrown at them, mud, feces, dead animals.

57:13So it was not fun. And when I originally bought the pillory, by the way, I was like, maybe I could try it out on my kids if they are. I bet that went over big. It did not go over. I eventually was like, no, I can't even do it. I was going to give them the choice, like no screens for a day or five minutes in the pillar. But the only person I put in the pillar was myself. And it did not go well because my wife, as you can imagine, I was like, OK, I'm ready to get out. She's like, well, do you promise to fold your sweaters instead of just rolling them into a ball? So, yeah, I don't recommend it. But it's a great question.

57:52And it's one that originalists have struggled with. Most originalists today would say that the concept of cruel and unusual punishment is allowed to evolve, and they have complicated reasons why. But Antonin Scalia, who's one of the founders of originalism, gave a famous speech where he said, if you are a true originalist, not a faint-hearted originalist, a true originalist, you have to accept that flogging, branding, and the pillory are constitutional because they were constitutional at the time. They were not cruel or unusual. And he makes that point. More modern originalists say, no, he was wrong.

58:41But I think it's a very profound criticism of originalism. And I think it proves that originalists, they do evolve the meaning. It's just they evolve it in some ways, but they are stingy in other ways. They don't evolve the meaning of equal protection to cover gay marriage, for instance. It's sort of a picking and choosing of what has evolved. I wonder if Clarence Thomas lets the missus vote. I mean. There you go. That was when I was living constitutionally. Back then, the legal system for women was called coverture. And it was sexist. It was basically women were treated like children. And they didn't have right to vote or to sign contracts.

59:31Married women couldn't sign contracts. My wife owns a company, an event company, Watson Adventures, and she signs contracts every day. So I said, well, I am trying to do this project. So maybe I should be the one signing all your contracts for this year. And at first she's like, great. I hate signing contracts. The paperwork is boring. but I did such a terrible job. I messed up so badly. She fired me after an hour. So I don't recommend Coveture at all. But yeah, that is another problem. Thank God for the 19th Amendment and all of the women and men who fought for it. But we do not want to go back.

1:00:16And does she check with you about what kind of flags and how she can hang them outside your house? the only flag i hung was a 13 starred flag i don't think i will get in trouble with that and i'm not going to throw her under the bus i throw myself under the bus oh my god you you have got to ask her if i can interview her she will say yes because she believes in free speech she wants her voice heard so my absolute last question have you truly decided whether the sun was rising or falling on the chair. Oh, I love that question. Was it George Washington or Ben Franklin? Whose chair was it? Yes. For the listeners who haven't read the section of the book, during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, George Washington sat at the front in a big wooden chair.

1:01:12And on that chair was a wood carving of the sun, but it was only half the sun. You could only see the top half. The bottom was cut off by the horizon. So you didn't know, is it rising sun or is it a setting sun? And Ben Franklin, at the end of the convention, when they had this constitution against all odds, Ben Franklin said, I have now decided it is a rising sun. The sun is rising on America. The sun is rising on our republic, on our democracy. So one of the motivations for my book was, is the sun still rising on America? because you read the newspaper or the internet, I guess, and it's just 16 hours of negative news.

1:01:55And so it made me think maybe the sun is setting. This is it. This is the end. And I wanted to find some optimism. And I'll say two things. One, I did find optimism. And one of my favorite parts of the book was the election cake, because in the 1780s, elections were seen as a festival, at least for the privileged ones who could vote. It was parades, music, and rum, a lot of rum, and cakes. People would make election cakes. So I decided to revive that tradition, and I used Facebook, which I know is not very 18th century, but it is as one of the older platforms. So I thought at least it's closer.

1:02:40And I got hundreds of people in all 50 states to bake election cakes last November and bring into the polls to remind us that democracy, as flawed as it is right now, is we are lucky to have it. Democracy is sweet. That was our catchphrase. And we've got to fight to keep it. So I love that part. And I'm doing it again. If anyone wants to bake election cakes. It's just a joy. We share the pictures on Instagram. Is it legal in Georgia? That's a great question. I hope so. You cannot bring it too close to the polls. I had to be 50 feet away, but I certainly hope so. So that gave me some hope. But I guess one of my points at the end, I had 10 takeaways.

1:03:24And one of the takeaways was that the real sun rises and falls according to gravity. That's natural laws. We don't have any control. This sun of democracy is not like that. It's not a natural process. It's up to us. We were the ones who built it and it is fragile. So if we do want to keep it, we have to be the ones who make it rise or set. And so we have to go in there and fight. There are a lot of reforms we can make. Gerrymandering is just one. So let's go in there. Let's have our cake and let's fight for democracy and keep the sun rising on America. And that is how we're going to end this podcast.

1:04:06That is a great last question. It was that or the smoke enema. One of those two ways to end it. Both important. Both important. Thank you so much for doing this. Oh, my pleasure. Guy, you are an inspiration. I really believe that. I love your philosophy of life and your open-mindedness and all of the points you make in here. I think we have very similar worldviews. I, well, I don't have a pillory under my bed, but yeah, other than that. If you think this hasn't been funny enough, stay tuned because now here is my phone conversation with Julie Jacobs, his wife. And I have to say, she may be as funny as he is, if not more.

1:05:10First of all, thank you very much for doing this. Of course, my pleasure. I don't always get asked, so I feel honored. Must be a slow day. Slow day, exactly. All right. Obviously, we interviewed your darling husband, and I have to tell you, that was a very entertaining interview. you. My first question is, which way is it harder to live, biblically or constitutionally? Oh, definitely biblically. Maybe it's just the sheer amount of time. Things do get better as time goes by. The Constitution wasn't great to women, but nothing's like the Bible. We were barely anything. We're second class all the way.

1:06:00And when he picked up the Bible book, when he decided to do the year of living biblically thought that this was going to work great for me because i felt that i appreciated religion more than he did he wasn't really understanding why traditions were important to me but i didn't think about the fact that the rules of the bible are just not so great for women shall we say so the constitution book i think i was also well prepared having done living biblically i was ready to go i knew going in that women can't get the vote till the 20th century so i knew that it was going to be a little bit easier i bet you must be looking forward to america becoming more of a christian nation and going back to traditional christian values yeah really uh and you know that's the thing about this book that was so fascinating was as he was writing it, I can't remember any book he's ever done like this, where every day I was reading something in the Times or on the internet that was applicable to what he was working on and something was changing.

1:07:19Mostly Supreme Court related. It was just fascinating. Then I'd be like, oh my gosh, you have to work that in. Now you have to talk about that. And it continues. Now the books come out and it's just, gosh. It's just absolutely nuts. The Constitution clearly did not anticipate billionaires giving people rides on private jets. So that's going to need an amendment sometime. There was a few things that they just could not imagine. I actually was listening to your episode with Peter Sagal, who I don't know if you know I grew up with. And he was talking about how they just made assumptions that you were basically going to be a good person.

1:08:03That was assumed that you would never do certain things, which is fascinating. There were plenty of horrible people back then, too, but they had such hope for humanity. And I don't think they saw a lot of this coming. Being on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me was one of the high points of my life. and then interviewing Peter Sago was truly one of the high points. I love that. He's a funny guy. He is a funny guy. He's very smart. He has been. It surely sounds like you're a good sport. How do you even deal with your spouse coming home and says, Oh, we're going to live biblically. Oh, we're going to live constitutionally.

1:08:41Are you just that much of a good sport? The thing I have learned about myself being married to AJ is I am truly an optimist. in that I think oh this project's gonna be so good for him us our relationship him getting to know something and then now I'm at the point that I realized okay settle down there's gonna be all sorts of wackiness the drop dead healthy book I think was the best example of that because I really felt like he needed to get in better shape and I thought oh this is so good he's gonna to understand why it's so important but then he finds all these interesting i would almost say cult-like groups that do whatever it is that the subject's about and that one it was the people who basically followed the habits of cavemen and hunter and gatherers and so he was crawling around central park and he found the minimalist eaters who have a blueberry for dinner so he always finds these people that I don't even know about that sends him into a very extreme category that I never see coming.

1:09:55I've learned over 20 years that it's never going to be as rosy as I initially think it's going to be and I have to prepare myself for that but I have to say maybe it's just me getting used to it but this book I felt like I saw coming what was coming and I really did enjoy because I love the reenactments I love history yeah fascinating to get into the minds of the founding fathers all of that I really dug I was really into and the other big thing that's happening as our years are going by is our kids are getting older and they're able to participate more so it's not like when we did the year of living biblically and I was pregnant and And there was so much, and we had a toddler at the time.

1:10:42It's much more enjoyable when you have more free time and your kids are able to participate. Did he tell you that I suggested that his next book should be A Year of Living Magali? Oh, God. Can you imagine? Oh, God. I don't think of that one I would enjoy. I don't know. I don't think so. I have one last question for you. Yes. do your parents ever call up and say, oh, so what's our son-in-law doing now? And what do you say when you ask, oh yeah, we're living biblically, we're living constitutionally, we're living magaly. What do you tell your parents? So my father's passed away and he got a huge kick out of A &J.

1:11:28My father was very quirky and loved all, he just, yeah, he thought it was hilarious. He didn't have to live it, so what did he care? and my mother she thinks our lives are very interesting and i think she really appreciates that and because again she doesn't have to live it she's a side character i think she enjoys that it's my brothers who i think have had the hardest time because they think aj writes me as a saint that they're like that's not my sister what are you talking about she's not always so patient or whatever and they have provided a lot of interesting contrast to his experiments over the years oh my god it's a little like what's he doing next they get a kick out of it but they're like you know how are we going to be involved kind of thing julie you are truly a great sport and sounds like your parents were great sports too you are a remarkable sport julie what can i say it's only because i do get final say so when there is a project that i'm like that is just going to do nothing for me i either say how do you do that for a week a day a month let's talk to a year of it or i try and divert him to another subject so that is the secret to my success is the final cut okay julie thank you so much for spending this time with me oh my god you guys just You bring such a smile to my face.

1:13:00Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. All I can say is, oh, my God. O-M-G-R-O-T-F-L-O-L. What a funny couple. A.J. Jacobs and Julie Jacobs. The year of living constitutionally. I would pay to read The Year of Living Magali. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you learned a few things about the Constitution and let us all work together to preserve democracy. My name is Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People and I'm backed up by a remarkable team. That is Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez on sound design, Tessa Neismar on research, Madison Neismar, producer, and co-author with me of the book Think Remarkable.

1:13:57And then there's Louise Magana, Fallon Yates, and Alexis Nishimura. This is the Remarkable People team, and we are on a mission to make you remarkable and crack you up. Until next time, mahalo and aloha. This is Remarkable People.