Raging Moderates: How Trump Remade America in Just One Year

26:32So this notion that it should be one consistent policy, again, that's a good talking point, but it's a lie. Also, states' rights, they're always saying, oh, it's a states' rights issue. Let's the states decide. Abortion. It's up to the states. But no, on AI, we should have a federal policy, which will be nothing. And there should be, I mean, there's just some immediate wins. We should age-gate synthetic relationships. There are probably certain safeguards that should be in around mental health queries for kids under the age of 18. I think character AI should be absolutely regulated and limited.

27:12People are spending on average about 15 minutes on OpenAI or ChatGPT. They're spending about 75 minutes with character AI. I believe you're going to see fewer and fewer young men out in the wild because I think they're going to be at home in different types of relationships with synthetic partners. I think it's going to happen everywhere. And I don't think people have fully recognized just how bad this is for people. It's like essentially saying, we're not going to teach you how to ride the bicycle of life, because the bicycle of life is learning how to balance and create forward motion and failure and fall and get up around this really difficult but rewarding thing called relationships.

27:47And we're just going to have a series of totally fragile, asocial, asexual people who have no ability to endure rejection, navigate the corporate workplace, navigate friendships, navigate romantic relationships, because they have spent all of their formative years as their brain is getting wired in relationships that are frictionless, that always tell them what they want to hear, that are always there, that always err to the upside. Even if it's I'm thinking about suicide and saying, well, here, let me show you how to tie a noose, or I'm here waiting for you, my love. These are actual quotes from character AIs to young men who are contemplating suicide.

28:31So there absolutely needs to be, there's some low hanging fruit around AI, but as evidenced by the fact we took the ban off of our most sophisticated chips to China, which could be used for combat simulations, weapons guidance systems, trying to track our submarines. I mean, it's just now all about money. America has really just become a platform, almost like a trading exchange for trying to make money. And then it's up to you to go find where you can buy rights. And you can, if you're in the top 1 % here, and I've said this a lot, you are protected by the law, but not bound by it. And if you're in the bottom 99%, you're bound by the law, but not protected by it.

29:12Because the 1%, it's really become a Hunger Games economy, where if you win, it's an unbelievable life, but everyone else kind of dies a slow death. but america is now essentially a full trading system and it's not about trying to protect the commonwealth or or make investments in the bottom 90 or much less the bottom maybe even the bottom 99 it's just all about money now full stop and meta's hired 87 lobbyists roughly one for every six members of congress uh they've ramped up open ai has ramped up its lobbying spend nearly 70 percent from last year. I've served on several public company boards.

29:49And whenever we have a conversation around ROI, I'm like, hands down, the greatest ROI in history has been spending money on lobbying. And I've seen this firsthand. I give money away to politicians. I just gave some money to a woman who's running for Senate. And immediately they reached out and said the representative would love to speak to you. And I'm like, no, people of my demographic have way too much fucking influence. Tell her to just keep on. Well, we're going to have her on. Fair enough. But my point is, people like me don't need any more access. No, but I do a little. You're my wallet.

30:22Okay, I get it. Whoever has contact, you are where you spend your time. And if you're spending time with a bunch of tech executives, full stop, you're going to be very pro-tech. The single mother of a kid who's become totally screen addicted and is having basically mild psychosis and is totally withdrawing from the world, she doesn't get to hang out with senators and representatives and the president. And so she has absolutely no representation. And because the way our system works is whoever raises the most money gets reelected such that they have no choice but to provide some sort of ROI or currency for your contribution.

30:58and the best thing they can do right up front is just to give you a little bit of FaceTime or hear your concerns. So this is, I mean, it all kind of flows back. Again, it's just, we have become so fascinated with innovation and money that it's basically supplanting our traditional values. It's just, even in mating, it's all about money now. It's become, and I don't see any solve other than a massive redistribution of income that puts more money in the pockets of people. Even there's all these grifters in the therapy space now in the online world, pretending that every problem can be solved if you just worked on yourself.

31:42The greatest source of therapy in history would be massive structural change in the United States that reduced the economic precarity of young people. Most young people who had a relationship and a good job and housing wouldn't need therapy. They might benefit from it, but they wouldn't need it. And instead, it's like, oh, you need to work on yourself and all problems will be solved at$200 an hour. Well, okay, good luck with that. And I'm not suggesting that there isn't a real need for therapy among people struggling with mental illness or people who have the money to do this. But into this void of economic precarity have shifted supplements, rage, the cult of therapy, progressives talking about social virtue solving all these fucking problems.

32:30No one thought it's fucking housing. It's socializing medicine. But no one wants to talk about that shit because they can't sell it on fucking TikTok because it's boring. I know I'm right with this. Jess. No, I get it. Help me here. No, I'm here for you, Scott. No, I think on the therapy front, I would just add to that that also therapy is not supposed to be a forever relationship, right? Like it's supposed to get you through something and then you're supposed to be better. Yeah, of course, housing, having a good job, having a relationship that sustains you. Those are all things that are going to make you feel better.

33:05So, you know, we should be helping people with access to that. Can I just read you something I got from Esther Perel? Yeah. Esther Perel, who I'm friends with. I wrote a piece on the cult of therapy. I don't think I'm speaking out of school. Anyways, well, a good friend of mine who's one of the most famous therapists in the world, the rise of therapy culture has turned a tool for meaningful change into a comfort industry that's making Americans sicker, weaker, and more divided. We live in an era where disagreement is treated like trauma and emotional reactions are weaponized for political gain.

33:41But if supplements are a pipeline to getting red-pilled, therapy culture is a sinkhole of misinformation, manufactured fragility, and needless suffering. Oh my God. I wish I had friends that texted me like that. Mine are just like, where are you at? Where are you? What are you doing? I wish I got those. I don't get those at all. I got texts from Charles Schumer saying, if I just gave him$5. Oh, I know. Crystal Ball. I've been unsubscribing. I'm looking at Crystal Ball. Do you realize I gave money to Crystal Ball like 15 years ago because she was running for Congress and I gave them my phone number and I am now on some DNC list.

34:22And I hear I get personal messages about 15 fucking times a day from Democratic leaders saying that they're in it to win it. And all I need to do is send five bucks right now. Will you help me out? No, Senator Schumer. I'm not. Anyways, I can't. Is there an app for getting rid of political texting? Yeah. Well, you can also hit you can like do stop. But yeah, that's a general. I hit stop on all of them. I know they find another way. And then also then you hear these stories like, you know, they sell their email list to other groups. Like I think Kamala sold her email list to the DNC for like seven million dollars or something.

34:57And and now we get all of that, though. I'm such a loser that basically every time Mark Kelly texts me, I kind of think maybe it's happening. Like maybe he wants to come on the pod, but he just wants more money, which is fine. And I think Mark Kelly should get a lot of money. Two things I want to say. One, I was like a little bit too much of a Debbie Downer about the innovation agenda stuff, at least the new Democrats. I do think, you know, they have like a lot of funding for STEM training, which is important. Even a child tax credit to provide support for families to make sure they can get that STEM training.

35:26They have a startup visa program, investments in science R &D. Like all of these things are important. They just don't feel like they're going to close the loop or help us quickly. and this feels like a five alarm fire. The second thing I wanted to say on the social media ban in Australia, so Rahm Emanuel is the only 2028 hopeful who has come out in support of it. I think that more people should. I don't know what happens, like if it ends up coming to fruition, but you should be talking that talk. Like every governor that has banned phones in schools has not only had amazing results, but they have a bunch of constituents that are really happy with them and who feel like they have heard them.

36:09There are concerns about access to phones if there is, God forbid, a school shooting, which, you know, that could happen on any given day of the week. But net-net kids are happier, more focused, better socially adjusted, feel better about themselves because they're not on their phones all the time. And I would be thrilled if my daughters did not have phones and certainly did not have social media until they were emotionally and mentally equipped to be able to use it responsibly, which 16, 17 years old, that seems like a fine time to me. I think it's my biggest mistake, and I've made a lot of mistakes as a parent.

36:44My biggest was letting one of my sons, it's interesting, one isn't really into it, but the other really, it hasn't become a huge issue, but it's an issue. I would say two-thirds of the anxiety in my household is a function of the phone and TikTok and Snap. And I really screwed up. You'd think it's like the cobbler's kids have no shoes. You would think if anyone would be cognizant of these dangers, it would be me. And I have totally failed around this. And here's the thing. My colleague at NYU, Adam Alter, did great research here. Unless it's a collective ban, I can't stand it when people say, well, it's really the parent's responsibility.

37:19That's your way of saying you don't have children. If you ban, if you as a parent remove Snap from your kid's phone or you don't let them go on social media, they are more depressed because they're isolated. From their friends. Unless it's a collective ban and everybody wants to get outside and find new ways to socialize and meet friends, you can't have one-offs. It's not about parenting. It needs to be a collective ban. And another shout out, I think the most consequential scholar of the last 10 years is my colleague Jonathan Haidt. And with Jonathan, the ban of social media for people under the age of 16, it's not only makes just oodles of fucking sense.

37:57And everyone, in my opinion, I can't imagine any argument against my favorite argument is that Mark Zuckerberg is worried about the free speech rights of a 14 year old. Yeah, he really I'm really worried about what my 14 year old thinks of mRNA vaccines. Jesus Christ. Could that be a more stupid? Well, that whistleblower report, I think, blew a pretty big hole in that that's the main concern going on at Facebook. Well, I just love Sheryl Sandberg's attempted comeback and repair tour and the comments around. The comments have basically said to her, sit down. Anyway, Jonathan's book, The Anxious Generation, has probably given more time with parents, more time with sports, more times with friends, more times playing, you know, hooky, leaving flaming bags of shit on doorsteps and ding dong ditch and all the wonderful things about growing up.

38:48up and prom and navigating different things in the real world. He has given more childhood back to the children of Australia than any academic has given anything to anyone in history. This is a huge win for not only the kids of Australia, but hopefully the kids in other democratic societies. There is no reason anyone under the age of 18 should be in a synthetic relationship. There is no reason anyone under the age of 16 should be on a social media platform. I would actually at some point, I would have loved to have seen a smartphone ban under the age of 18 and that the way you knew someone was under the age of 18 is they had an oyster phone.

39:27They can text enough to say, mom, come pick me up or whatever. Maybe they get their subway app on it. Fine. But if you look at really, I mean, we don't want to do the analysis because we love these companies. See above a dollar tree of dollar. Everything got shittier in the world with the smartphone. Literally everything. Division, polarization, racism, red pilling, extremists on both sides of the aisle. I mean, sure, Citizens United, all this stuff. I think if you do the real analysis here, when social went on mobile and the smartphone with no regulation, just generally speaking across the West, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, everything got fucking shittier.

40:08and there's no regulation whatsoever. There's more regulation in this mic I'm speaking into than into smartphone technology, search engines and social media platforms. So good on Australia for taking a real stand around age gating. Six percent of teens are clinically addicted to alcohol and drugs. Twenty four percent are addicted to social media. And yet we don't have any. You can't get you can't get a beer at a bar at the age of 20 in America. Yeah. But you can go on. You have the Icicle Cafeteria, Netflix, and porn sites following you around in your pocket at the age of 13. So I'm thrilled with this legislation.

40:49And I think kudos to Australia and kudos to Jonathan Haidt. All right. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

40:59Every startup, no matter how brilliant the tech or how committed the founders, will eventually face an unthinkable obstacle. Whether they choose to pivot or to double down is often the difference between success and failure. Like, did you know that autonomous drone delivery company Zipline originally produced a robotic toy? or that Bolt went from an Estonian transportation company to one of the largest rideshare and food delivery platforms in the world. That's what Crucible Moments is all about. Hosted by Sequoia Capital's Rolofbota, Crucible Moments, deep dives into the make or break moments that set the course for some of the most important tech companies of our time, with interviews from some of the key players that made these companies a success.

41:42This season, you'll hear stories from the founders of Bolt, ZipLine, Supercell, and many more. Subscribe to Crucible Moments today. You can listen at cruciblemoments.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

42:17that looks like. We're talking to developers about what they're building and how they're building it and whether AI actually does make sense everywhere or is just going to ruin everything in the process. That's the AI miniseries on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts. This series is presented by MongoDB.

42:402025 was a wild year for the tech industry. AI seemed like it took over everyone's brains It was the only thing anyone wanted to talk about. NVIDIA became the most valuable company in the world. We had some huge new video games. The Switch 2 launched. A lot of people got it. There was just a lot going on. And on The Verge Cast, we are talking about the best, the worst, the most important, the biggest heel turns, all the stuff that happened in 2025. And making maybe a few predictions about what's going to happen next year. All that and more on The Verge Cast, wherever you get podcasts. This series is presented by Jira by Atlassian.

43:44redistricting and Miami electing its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades. I guess the good news of your blue. The Department of Government Efficiency is gone. Beyonce finally won album of the year. Thank God. It kept me up at night. Taylor and Travis got engaged. If you want to prove that I didn't write this, there it is. We got the first American pope. Yeah. El Papa. I love Pope Leo. Who went to Villanova, by the way. My friend Justin from Millennium keeps reminding me like number of popes from all U.S. universities, zero number of popes from Villanova, one. After a bipartisan backlash, Kimmel made it back on the air.

44:21Yeah, sorry, folks. We'll be off in a few years. Structural change is coming. And Katy Perry went to space. That's a good thing. I feel like her relationship with Justin Trudeau is more interesting than her going to space. I met him at one of these Masters of the Universe. Were you very charmed? Jesus, he's good looking. Oh, yeah. Oh, he's Scott Galloway's type. I mean, let me get this. This guy's already been a world leader for 12 years. He looks like he should start a boy band. Yeah. Good skin. Oh, my God. He looks 28. And he's tall and dreamy. Mm-hmm. Really. Good hair. And he's really, he'll roll with us.

44:53He texted me. I think he's looking to get out. I think he's kind of. Well, now he's like American glitterati because he's Katie adjacent. I think he's still kind of singlish and ready to mingle-ish, so to speak. Oh. I thought that they were, I mean, he took her to Japan. Oh, did he? Yeah. Is that the new commitment ring, taking someone to Japan? No, no, no. Not just like, let's go to Tokyo and have sushi, like meeting with the prime minister. My girlfriend used to lend me, I used to lend her my letterman jacket and she lent me her car. That's how I knew I was in a committed relationship in college.

45:25Anyways, Katy Perry went to space. That's the good news. Bad news is she came back. Anyways, and somehow. She's been through a lot. Poor Katy. She's fine. I'm sure she's very nice. I hope her and Justin are happy. Anyways, and somehow I did not write this. And somehow I ended up on the White Lotus. Let's be honest. I saved this season of White Lotus. People consistently come up to me and say. People loved it. I got a lot of texts like, Scott's on White Lotus. I'm like. I got a bunch of texts saying, the lawyer sounds like you. No one thought it was me. They're all like, yeah. Oh, really? God, the lawyer sounds like you.

45:58But yeah, I saved. Are you going to be on season four? I saw that they might have Christine Baranski on, which was very exciting. I'm going to hate this. Who is that? The actress? Yeah, who is she? I don't watch anything that doesn't have to do with World War II. The only actor I'm interested in is Hitler with a co-supporting role of Mussolini. Who is that? Christine Baranski. I mean, if I sent you a picture, you would definitely cite her. She's been in, like, everything. But I was obsessed with The Good Wife and The Good Fight. Absolutely fabulous. Yeah. That's her. Yeah, she's hilarious. She's great.

46:30I didn't know. Yeah, I didn't know her. Well, I don't know if she's actually going to be in White Lotus 4. But it was rumored on the internet. Yeah, we're in serious negotiations to be in season four, which means they have not called me. They have not called me, Jess. They're waiting for the right moment. Yeah, that's right. That's their trying hard to get. I get it. I get it. I get it. Jess, what was your favorite moment of 2025? So there were two things that stuck out to me. And favorite moment is tough because that, like, implies, like, this was the best thing that ever happened. But, and bear with me here, because I think you're going to say like, uh, snooze, whatever.

47:05But I thought that the World Series was incredible. Wow. Yeah. I was not expecting that. Yeah, I get that. So Dodgers, Blue Jays. So that's like bringing us together, right? Like we've had problems with Canada, but we had this going on. It was very compelling, like incredible individual performances. Shoaia Tani is just amazing. Vlad Guerrero Jr. on the Blue Jays. But it was a moment where people who don't even pay attention to baseball were like, wow, that's really incredible baseball. Because I find baseball to be boring, but I was glued to the World Series. And I thought it was a nice revival for the sport.

47:47So that's, I guess, a weird pick for me. I don't want to do politics things. The second thing, which was not good for the people involved, but created a, I mean, a global conversation was the Coldplay Kiss Cam. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Are these super weird pics? I get it. But, you know, we were all talking about the same thing. The memes were hilarious. You know, very serious conversations about how you run a company. Also, Crisis PR. Remember the Gwyneth Paltrow video that came out, like, right after? Chris Martin, obviously, enjoying the whole thing. I don't know. Those were the two things that stuck out to me as, like, big 2025 moments.

48:22I like it. What have you got? I can't really. God, you know, I hate to say it. My son getting into college is like the best thing that happened to our household. Wait, I didn't know that it was Don. Yeah, yeah. He got into college. Okay. That was a nice moment for us. The college you wanted, I hope. Yes. Oh, good. Yeah. Great. Super exciting. So I've been trying to think, like, what happened? I don't know. I think, I mean, in a weird way, it's a proximity bias, but I don't know. The hero, the— The Bondi Beach hero? Yeah, yeah. Is it a good one? That seems very—I think that's so important on so many levels.

49:03Ahmed al-Amed. I just love the fact that someone would put their—I just think there's so many good people out there, and we need heroes. I love the fact that he cried for—I love the fact that he's Muslim. I think that's just so important on so many levels. I should also say, there's a full—Scott and I talked about the shootings at Brown and Bondi Beach in a rapid response video on our YouTube channel. So please don't think that we ignored it for listeners to this episode. And we talk a lot about this. Yeah, I mean, this guy was a food shop owner, a father of two. I think that was just— That's a good one.

49:37Maybe that's better than the kiss cam. And also, I loved Mackenzie Scott. I work with or I'm close with a mental health charity called the JET Foundation that is about teen suicide prevention. And Mackenzie Scott, 15 million bucks, doesn't want a ceremony, doesn't want a ribbon cutting, doesn't want even her name. They did. She allowed them to do a press release, just wired them 15 billion bucks. She's just there is something about feminine or women who are billionaires in their approach to philanthropy that is distinctly different than all these guys who virtue signal and say that they're signing a giving pledge and that after they're dead, they'll give away their money.

50:18Melinda French Gates and Mackenzie Bezos immediately, as soon as they no longer have to check in with their dude, they just start giving a shit ton of money away. Yeah, well, she's$7 billion this year. She's like$20 billion since 2020. I think she was, we did like a, I mean, I'm giving it away if you're going to watch it on The Five, but we did a naughty and nice list and we had to pick someone for each category and Mackenzie Scott was my nice. She blows my mind and she also, and Melinda French Gates, they seem so much freer and happier without their spouses, which I guess is not that their spouses died.

50:52I think that's called an ex-wife. Three quarters of divorce filings by women and widows are happier after their husband dies. True story. Right. Widowers less happy. You know, I think men have to raise their game if they want to. But there is something about, and generally speaking, you're allowed to be a sexist as long as you sanctify and demonize women and men respectively. And I'll do that here. Female billionaires definitely have a different approach to giving. It would be an interesting study. Red Pillars will show up and say, well, they didn't make it, so it's not really theirs. But there's definitely something going on here about the approach to giving from these female billionaires versus these male billionaires.

51:37I like that. I can't redo it. I've already put it into the ether. I do believe in the World Series. But Mackenzie Scott and Ahmed Al-Ahmed seem like better choices. Best moments of 2025. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and Scotland making the World Cup. That's huge. Is it? That's big for us. Although we're in just a vicious fucking category. We're in with Morocco and I think we're in with Morocco and Brazil, which does not bode well for us, Jess. But I'm really super excited about the FIFA Peace Prize. I think that— You could get it. It is for sale. I'm ineligible because I won the Taco Bell Prize for Literature.

52:17Is that Gordiches for life? Yeah. And by the way, I just want to say I'm hum-belled. Get it? I'm humbeled. Humbeled. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. It's cute. Was that in your notes or you came up with that yourself? I came up with that on my own. Had a certain real Scott Galloway ring to it. Yeah. No, it's good. All right. That's all I have, Jess. Do you have anything else? No. We've been talking for a while. We're good. We're good. All right. This is it, right? This is it. This is the end of 2025. I'll see you in 2026. Oh, my God. God, I'm getting so old, Jess. I'm getting so old. No. Let me just bum you out.

52:58My friends are dying, Jess. Oh, but there's dying young if they are dying. But they are dying. I have this picture of my closest fraternity friends. And let me be clear, I was not close of the eight core group from college. This was the person I was least close with. But this young, like incredibly nice, incredibly positive, incredibly handsome kid named Brad Luff, like one of those guys everyone just loved, passed from pancreatic cancer. And he, our other friend, Craig Marcus, it was so funny of the two guys, if you lined all of us up and said, who's going to die first? These guys would have been seven or eight, both like incredibly healthy guys.

53:38But yeah, Jess, my friends are dying. I'm at that age. It's very strange. I don't, I'm having a bit of a existential crisis. I think I'm going to start banging my secretary or go buy a Ferrari just to kind of, I don't know, compensate. What do you think? Does that, will that work? I would advise against. Advise against a Ferrari. Didn't you say your penis was too big to have a Ferrari? Yeah, no, I don't, you don't, you. I mean, I don't know. I had to bring the mood up from my friends are dying. From your dead friends. From my dying friends. Okay. I think that you should just continue to be a happy family man.

54:13And my my partner was giving me a hard time about adding no fucking value this weekend. And I just went, my friends are dying. Yeah. My so my dad is dead. And I this is now a contest. No, no, no, no. But it's my dad is dead. But Jess, other than that, how was he doing? No, well, actually, it was crazy. We were at a party, and Brian introduced me to someone that he had been talking to and said, like, oh, he's talking about your dad's wine and whatever. I said, you did mention that he was dead, right? Because I was worried that he had, like, told this guy that he could, like, text my dad for help.

54:50And he was like, no, yes, we know that he's dead. But anyway, so I talk about it a lot because it makes it easier. and my sister out in LA said that she saw a bumper sticker that spoke to us so much. It said, my dad is dead. Please let me merge. That's how I feel about it. I deploy it all the time. So let me merge. My dad is dead, but I'm sorry your friends are dead. Don't get a Ferrari, but have an amazing holiday. All right. So I think that's a good place to end it. But before we go, if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe. Oh, yeah. People hate us asking all the time, by the way.

55:23Well, all right. Just hit subscribe then. And be done with it. And we won't stop asking. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. We have our last episode of the year coming out this Friday. We'll be taking your questions and making some predictions as we head into 2026. You will not want to miss it. Speak to you then. Thanks, Jess. Yeah, see you later.

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