Derek Thompson

And so, you know, listeners know my kind of view between like his old posts or his personal behavior and his marriage and like what we're seeing from the president.

But like,

Whether it's platinum or whether it's some of the rhetoric around what Democrats should do if they get back in power in 2029.

Like, I see this impulse in myself, right?

Which is...

You know, going back to the old rules, like, you know, playing ball or taking the high road, that doesn't maybe seem right.

You know, and it seems like the right thing to do is fight fire with fire.

And maybe there should be times where, you know, it makes sense for the Democrats to be in league with somebody that has moral failings, you know, because that worked for the Republicans or whatever.

do some light authoritarianism on their own to send the signal to the other side that this isn't a one-way street, right?

Like that's the tougher conundrum for me a little bit of like how to break out of that cycle after we've been through this last decade, because in some ways that's rational, right?

Like at a CS Lewis level,

You know, I understand, you know, the moral weakness in it, but at a like practical living in the real world, you know, wanting to ensure that there's not one set of rules for one side and not one set of rules for the other side.

I can make sense to like use those rationalizations a little bit.

We're going to come back to this topic more, you know, if it seems like the Democrats might ever take power again, because I think maybe there's some more complex moral questions than Graham Plattner as one of 100 senators ahead of us.

But I want to get you on a couple other things.

I don't think any of y'all are going to be surprised to learn.

I'm bad at remembering passwords.

I'm bad at remembering the little three-digit code on the back of my credit card.

And I like to shop for things from time to time on the internet.

Those are a combination of traits that I have.