David McCloskey

I'll try to explain it.

So here's the argument.

And there's an economist and political scientist named Timur Kiran, who's done a lot of work on revolutions.

And he has made the point that for the most part, they're impossible to predict.

And it gets to this idea of because of this gap between public and private views, you don't know when there's going to be a revolutionary movement.

And so the argument goes like this.

You, Gordon, you might have a private view.

Say that view is the Islamic Republic is totally corrupt.

Right.

We've wasted tons of money on a nuclear program and supporting Assad and sending weapons to Hezbollah.

And now gas prices are through the roof and I can't feed my family.

Right.

And so it's really an illegitimate government.

But there isn't anything I can do about it.

So that's a private view.

It's just, I hate this government, but I can't really do anything about it.

The public view might be, well, we've got some problems, sure, but the regime's fundamentally legitimate, right?

Because you don't want to be arrested.

You don't want to be hassled.

You don't want to have your job prospects destroyed, right?