Ted Audio Collective.
HBR presents. Hi everyone, you're listening to After Hours.
I'm Young Mi. I'm Mi here.
I'm Felix. I'm Rebecca.
And thanks everyone for joining us.
Let me start off by saying that we were not planning on taping today.
But the chaotic events in the nation's capital over the past couple of days compelled us to turn our tape recorders on.
Not because we claim to have any kind of special insight into what's happening.
We are not political historians.
But we are friends, and we have found that in times like this, sometimes it's useful to just talk to people you know and trust to help process what's going on.
So that's what this is.
This is just an attempt to help each other process the events of the last 24 hours.
Rowie unfortunately couldn't join us because he couldn't move his calendar around.
But I'm grateful the three of you could.
So what I'd like to do is simply go around and ask if you have any thoughts or reflections you'd like to share about what we've witnessed over the past couple of days.
And by the way, we are taping this on Thursday afternoon.
So you're going to have to forgive us if circumstances change significantly between the time we're recording this and the time you're listening to this.
So Meir, you want to get us started?
Sure. And as you said, it is really wonderful to process this with you because it is a seismic set of events.
And processing this with friends and with our listeners is a really valuable thing, I think, for all of us.
I mean, my overwhelming reaction is about these very contrary feelings I have about fragility and strength, which is to feel that things that I've taken to be set were more fragile than I thought.
And at that same time to feel that there's an enormous amount of strength that will come to play in the next couple of weeks, which is a way of saying, I questioned things yesterday that I never questioned before.
And that was a sense of fragility in my life and in what this country meant.
And at the same time, I felt with the processing of the Electoral College results, an enormous amount of strength about the Republic and what we can ultimately do.
So I think the way I've tried to come to understand this is like a fever.
It is a fever that is convulsing the body politic and that fever will break and the body politic will be okay.
But it is a fever that has convulsed our country and is convulsing the world in many ways.
But I went to sleep last night and I woke up this morning feeling very cognizant of that fragility of our experiment, but also I felt more strength about what this country can be.
In a way, I had very similar feelings.
When you first see the mob entering the capital, it's just you think this cannot possibly be true.
If it was some other country, you got used to seeing some of these images, but this is not America.
And yet, in a very real sense, it is America.
And then, as I continue to think about it very much like Yumi here, I thought, in a way, it just shows the really deep difficulties we're in as a country and as a society.
But in a way, it's also a reflection of the existing strength, and I had the strength a little earlier than Yumi here.
I think much of the behavior in Congress itself is a reflection of the strength of the institutions, right?
The senators who objected to the results, they know exactly that the allegations are false.
And they know exactly that, under current institutional rules, their objections mean nothing, and that invites them to be reckless.
The analogy that I had, it was interesting that you mentioned the fever, the analogy that I have is like safety belts.
We know that some drivers drive recklessly because they know they have really fabulous safety belts, and that's what it felt like a little bit.
Like even the president inciting the violence, it feels like in the end, I'm not sure how much he actually cares about the country, but in the end, I think members of Congress going along with him to just a shocking degree.
In a way, it is the reflection of this assumption that at the end, everything will be okay.
I had the chance to listen to many of the speeches in the Senate.
In many ways, it made my spirits rise.
The way people were talking about the institutions, their commitment to democracy, I mean, I know a lot of it's posturing, but some of it felt very genuine.
People seemed very shaken.
A number of people who said they were going to object changed their minds and backed off because of what happened.
And so that gave me the feeling of strength that Meher is talking about.
But at the same time, I thought, what does it say about this country that so many millions of people do think the election was stolen and do not think that democracy is doing anything for them?
I mean, the early polling suggests that 40, 50 % of Republicans say they think it was fine.
I mean, yes, they wanted the results overthrown.
And what is this democratic process?
And so I feel such compassion.
I mean, there are so many people hurting in so many ways.
In some fundamental sense, the democracy is not working for an important group of people in this country.
And that's, I think, so sobering to see that acted out.
I found it difficult to summon the kind of optimism that you guys are referring to.
I have to be honest with you.
I found it difficult to continue to try to tell myself that this is not America unless we're able to reconcile the fact that many Americans already believe we have taken their America away from them.
Rebecca, as you said, a majority of Republican voters believe the election was stolen.
A snap poll last night found that a plurality of Republicans approved the storming of the Capitol.
I mean, as we sit here today, millions of Americans are devastated that they did not succeed in overturning a free and fair election yesterday.
And for them, I think the fight is just beginning.
And they're being fueled not just by Trump, but by people like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley.
You know, I listen to the speeches as well.
And as Romney said in his speech, the best way to respect these Trump supporters is not to humor them.
But to tell them the truth.
You've lost the election.
The earth is not flat.
But that kind of truth telling is not happening.
And this is what troubles me.
I was thinking last night, institutions are not an inert thing.
And the truth is, if you read American history, our democracy has always been held together by this kind of beautiful combination of scotch tape and magical thinking.
And by that, I mean we have this skeletal structure comprised of these institutions of governance, like Congress and the Supreme Court, the executive branch.
That's our skeletal structure.
They put the rules and policies and laws in place.
Our democracy also has the muscle, the ability to execute against those laws and rules and policies.
And when other countries move toward democracy, the first thing they do is they try to build those two things.
They try to build the skeletal structure and then they try to build the muscle.
And yet despite those two things, there is still a fragility to what they have built.
And what has distinguished our country historically is that we have a third thing.
And that's the glue.
The connective tissue is our culture, our political culture, because you can't make rules about everything.
Culture is always most evident in the discretionary behavior of the people running those institutions.
You cannot make rules, laws, policies governing everything.
And that's where there has been, I think, a real breakdown in our political norms, in the respect with which we treat each other in our highest offices, the things a president can say, the things a senator, a congressperson can say.
So what does the presidency now become?
The presidency has now become what you can get away with, apparently.
That's what it's become.
And I'm not just talking about the corrupt pardons and the falsehoods.
I think it runs deeper than that.
And I think it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of collaboration, co -creation to rebuild that healthy political culture.
And I'm not sure the people occupying those rules are up for the task.
As long as millions of Americans continue to support Trump, there will be politicians.
There will be politicians that become that voice in our institutions of power.
Well, let me try to summon the optimism to counter you.
And I won't say that I feel it fully, but I'll try.
You know, which is I think the question in a way is, is this the end of the beginning of something or the beginning of the end of something?
Which is just a way of saying it's just the first chapter in a long protracted set of domestic disruption.
Or is this a fever that will break relatively quickly?
I don't know why I'm throwing medical metaphors out there, but I think one version of this is a virus and it's replicating in our body.
And it's just going to keep going and it's going to take us over.
Or it's a fever that will break.
And I think the reason to think about it as a fever that will break is because, and I think Felix, this goes to comments you made previously, not on this episode, but previous episodes about, well, let's take a moment to think.
There's a man who is president, who is hell bent on destroying all our institutions and he has the full executive branch powers to do it and he's failing and courts have held and the military has held and the legislative process has held.
And the media. The media has held and it is been convulsive and it has been violent now, but we have held and that is something which in 14 days will come to an end.
And we will have a president who I think is perfectly well suited to the task of reconciliation and we will begin the process of healing.
And by the way, Americans don't like losers and it'll become clear that he will be a loser in every respect and he will move to the fringe.
That is my best case, and it was hard to put it together, but that's my best case for you.
That's the feeling I'm trying to conjure and I'm feeling more of after yesterday rather than I always knew it was fragile and I didn't know how fragile it was, but there is also a lot to recommend for the strength of the Republic at this moment as well.
I think we're looking at the end of a 50 year cycle, 50 years of the systematic degradation of government, the idea that government wasn't important, you should drown it in the bathtub, systematic under investment in exactly the cultural capital you talked about, young me.
We don't teach civics in school, pretty much.
As business people, we haven't been teaching our students much about politics or their role in the political system that hasn't been really on the agenda at all.
We've just assumed the institutions would hold, and here they are holding sort of, but I'm afraid young me is right, and that ambitious people will see this as a route to power, and we need to actively, actively treat.
We need to really start to rebuild and really invest and really reach out.
And that's more than making a few speeches about reconciliation and I won the election.
It's, I think, a profound moment of change that we really need to support in every way we can.
The scenario that I sometimes think about is imagine a world in which President Trump loses the election, he makes all of these false claims, and there's not a single member in Congress who goes along.
Everybody says, look, we know our institution is not perfect.
We have to have recounts at some point every now and then when the results are really close, but we know it's obvious who won.
And I wish it was different, but that's a fact.
I think in that world, the fringe, I think the extreme fringe would still exist, but I think the power of the Trump movement will be much reduced.
And so what we need to think about, I think, is why is it that smart people in Congress see it in their best interest to continue to spread lies to even until yesterday.
I mean, I was shocked by how many representatives and senators still objected after the mob had stormed the Capitol.
I mean, that was sort of hard to top the shocking images of the mob entering, but in a way that was even worse than what the mob did.
It showed a complete inability to move on despite the beautiful speeches.
And so what we need to ask is what is it that gives this one person so much power and how do we curtail that power?
I agree with you. I mean, if you think about it, the boundaries of acceptable behavior are set by the people inside those institutions.
And so in my mind, how can there not be a reckoning in the Republican Party, for example?
How can they not expel some of these people?
If I'm Mitt Romney, do I really want to be part of the same party as Ted Cruz?
If I'm Ben Sasse, do I really want to be part of the same party as Josh Hawley?
I think redrawing the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable behavior, that is the only way you begin to create that fringe that you're talking about, Felix.
Otherwise, the fringe becomes absorbed into the mainstream and then the entire body politic becomes infected.
So now we're all adopting your language, mehir, disease.
But I completely agree, young meat, in many other political systems.
What would have happened a little while ago is that you would have a split in parties.
But under current American institutional rules, that's impossible.
You know, if you're Mitt Romney, you have everything.
You have brand recognition.
You have people trust you.
And yet, if you want to play a role in politics, it's impossible for you to leave the Republican Party, because you will not be a player.
So one of the things to think about is what are the kinds of institutional rules that make it so difficult to start something like...
Think back to Europe, what happened when environmental concerns became really top.
You had a proliferation of green parties that now sit in all of these parliaments, and every single policy has to go through this filter, how good is it for the environment?
And it's really changed the dialogue.
We don't have that.
If you're an individual senator, you either swim with the Republican Party or you sink, or you either swim with the Democratic Party or you sink.
Well, but there are moments in our history.
We have a reliance on a two -party system, but we've had parties break down and be born.
Notably, the transition from the Whigs to the Republicans.
And it was around an issue of deep national importance, which was slavery.
And that can happen again.
That can happen. I guess my instinct is, the question is, will that happen in a peaceful way or not?
And my instinct is, again, yesterday I felt enormously, I felt the fragility of our experiment.
I'm not trying to, in any sense, minimize what happened.
But I didn't walk away feeling like we were going to descend into the spiral of chaos that I think is the scepter that is hanging over all of us right now, the specter of chaos and disorder.
I don't see that outcome.
What I see is a very difficult set of political machinations that are going to include the reinventing the Republican Party.
That can happen in a peaceful way.
Let me try being optimistic.
Is this a moment when the business establishment ceases their identification with the Republican Party and starts saying, you know, this has gone a bit too far.
Is this a moment for CEOs to step up and try and redefine the Republican Party?
Could that happen? Should that happen?
I think that business leaders, by their very nature, they are loathe to weigh in on political events.
And they are so quick to declare themselves as not having a political point of view.
But yesterday was different.
Yesterday was not an attack on a particular party or a particular policy.
Yesterday was an attack on all of us.
It was an attack on our democratic system.
As you put it, this is not about politics.
This is about civics.
And I think given that, I think there is only really one legitimate point of view to have here.
And I think every corporate leader should be on that side.
I think that that feels pretty unambiguous to me.
Well, I think the idea of disorder is something that anybody can stand up against.
What Rebecca called for is an active role by CEOs in reconfiguring the Republican Party and political decision making.
And that I think is highly problematic because I think it's a political process that should be navigated by political actors who are representing constituencies that are democratically elected.
And I think, if anything, in a way, and I know, Rebecca, this is something that which I think we may just disagree about, which is, I think, in a way, this moment, I think, gives lie to what is problematic about the whole idea that corporations should be socially advancing an agenda.
Because ultimately, these are political matters which rely on political processes to navigate them through.
And I'm hopeful, if I suggested, that the first thing I'd like the CEOs to ask for is to reduce the influence of money in politics.
Because I agree, the close involvement of the business sector in the political process is super problematic.
But it's not as if it isn't happening.
There's hundreds of millions of dollars pumping into the system.
I think business can represent a kind of intermediate place.
Our society is so polarized that this is potentially an opportunity for business to step up and say, the democracy is central to us.
We have to strengthen it.
We have to make sure everyone can vote.
We have to make sure that the voting process is well taken care of.
And by the way, 70 percent of Americans think the political process is corrupt because it's flooded with money.
We should get the money out.
I think the idea that there's some way they can stand aside neutrally is mistaken.
And so they should try and play a good role.
But I hear your concerns and objections.
I really do. I really, really do.
So money in politics is one thing.
If we were to identify other root causes that led us to where we are today, what would you identify?
I don't think this conversation is complete unless we talk about race.
And the reason for that is what we saw on display with Confederate flags flying and being hoisted inside the Capitol and with a noose being hung up outside of the Capitol.
We had what was inevitably a situation which if those protesters had been of a different skin color, the outcome would have been considerably more violent.
We have to understand that this fever that I identified earlier, I think comes from deep, deep insecurities of a racial group that has been dispossessed and sees demographic transitions that are not to their liking.
And we need to now more than ever double down on the vision of America as a multiracial society because that is what in very large part yesterday was about.
And in part, for example, when the new administration comes in, we have to look at white supremacist terror groups as a major, major threat to this country.
And that is what that anger is born of.
And I don't think we talk about it enough.
I don't think we talk about race honestly enough.
And you can, you know, it's a it's a tack need to talk about slavery and race as America's original sin.
But it is coming back again.
It is. It is always there.
And we have to, I think, as Americans learn that and understand it and double down on a multiracial vision because absent that there is chaos.
The chaos of yesterday will be there if we do not double down on that multiracial vision because the demographic transition is clear.
It is clear. And we have to really start to talk about it.
And I know that's deeply uncomfortable.
As I'm saying, these things, it's deeply uncomfortable.
We have to start talking about it in a more honest way, I think.
It was even visible in the preparation.
Right. So this summer, the Washington Park here in New York, it felt like there were there was more police than protesters even on days when we when we drew really large crowds.
This was an open secret that people would try to move towards the Capitol.
Where was the police?
I mean, it was it was it felt genuine, I think, of the of senators and representatives to thank the police for the protection that they enjoyed.
But if you look at the kinds of preparations that go into demonstrations by the left or by Democrats or demonstrations in favor of Black Lives Matter, it just it was just like day and night.
Where where were the protective forces given that we had to anticipate that there would be violence?
I'm so glad you you raised this question, this question of race.
I think it's absolutely central.
The more I learn about American history, the more distressed I become.
There are some very deep things in the American past.
But I think at the current moment, there's an intersection with inequality and economic opportunity that is so central.
That is really aggravating the anger and the rage.
It's not just that people who look like me are coming to this country.
It's that they're doing better than I am.
It's that they are, you know, it can be perceived as lording it over me.
And so when we say we should double down on building a multiracial society, I completely agree with you.
But that doesn't just mean lots of diversity training.
That means, you know, fundamentally trying to make the society work for everyone and particularly those who are less fortunate.
Can I challenge this in one respect that I think is actually is important?
When you said earlier, young me yesterday was an attack on all of us among groups like us, I think that, you know, is completely undisputed.
No one blinks an eye.
And I think we're sometimes not as good as I wish to be at recognizing just how real these alternative realities feel to people.
Such a good point, Felix.
So I did a little experiment with myself.
I was puzzled why representatives from Arizona would object to their own election results.
And I thought, what is what is that all about?
Like your own state.
You know the process.
You know the people.
And now you object.
And so I looked at the Twitter feed and just information put out by one of the representatives who's really instrumental in spreading lies and spreading all of these rumors.
And it's easy. Would it be?
Would it be for me to pick one of his tweets and say, no, actually, you know, you do 12 minute of Internet research and you know that claim is not right.
I'm telling you, it's impossible.
The type of information that is put out there.
Oh, so there was a voting issue in this particular county with this particular machine.
We went to the courts.
The judge said, yes, you have to let us inspect the voting machine.
We went to the facility.
Actually, they gave us a tour of the facility, but we couldn't inspect the machine.
And so on. Like a level of detail that if you're consuming these kinds of things day in day out, it constructs a completely different world.
And I think you're I agree with me here.
Your point on race is very important.
That is one of the underlying reasons.
But even even as someone who's not mainly motivated by race to figure out which of these claims of merit, which of these claims are just lies is is super difficult.
So if you ask me, what makes me the least optimistic is, I think getting to a point where we are all interested and able to recognize the truth.
That's I don't know how it can be done completely.
I mean, I just want to say, Felix, that has got to be exactly right, which is the fracturing of reality is something that undergirds a society.
And when people start to believe in different facts, then that is a weak that's that's the definition of a weak society and a weak civilization, and they crumble.
And so we have to converge on a sense of what is true.
And until that happens, it is impossible.
Again, the question is, that goes to deep questions about how did this fracturing of reality happen?
And that has to do, as you know, well, the growth of alternative media, the different ways people receive their news, their information, underlying civics lessons to Rebecca's point, the way we educate people in this country.
That is a deep, deep issue that we will have to confront in the next two decades, which is how do we converge on a common sense of reality again?
And more importantly, how do we converge on a common identity as Americans, as opposed to Democrats or Republicans or whatever it might be?
I think both of those things are so important.
And your last point me hear about identity.
I think that is as important as the truth telling aspect of this.
And I guess my final question then for all of you is, where do we go from here in that regard?
And how do we begin to rebuild?
I was reflecting last night on the extent to which the story we tell about ourselves, our historical narrative is created really through iconography, through imagery.
If you think about Pearl Harbor or 9 -11 or Nixon's resignation, our collective memory of these events is anchored by the imagery associated with them.
And I think this is particularly true the further away you are.
So if you were in Manhattan during 9 -11, you may have very specific, very idiosyncratic memories.
But if you were watching from a distance, what you remember are some of the most iconic images of those towers burning.
You may have forgotten all of the contextual details, but you remember what those images represented.
And that's why I think this week is so important, because the iconography coming out of our nation's capital, of a mob of people invading the US Capitol building, is arguably the most stunning imagery to come out of America in the past decade.
And what that represents is going to stick in people's mind.
And so how did it begin?
It began with this electing a reality TV star to the presidency.
And it ends with this angry mob invading the US Capitol in an attempt to keep him in office, and with heavily armed FBI agents escorting lawmakers to the chamber.
I mean, this is where we are now.
And I said this the last time we spoke, this idea of America, the idea of who we are, the idea of American exceptionalism, the idea of America as a place that has democracy figured out, I think has been just so tarnished, so damaged.
And I am struggling to try to imagine how we begin to pull ourselves out of this.
I think it's going to take a lot more than eloquence from, you know, Joe Biden.
I think it's going to take much more than that.
And so where do you think we go from here?
I read some years ago about a movement that I believe happened after the Civil War when the country was so divided and so polarized and the South had lost.
And there was an explosion of, I think we would call them teach -ins now.
At every school, at every library, people would come together and hear a speaker and then talk with each other afterwards.
We're educators and, you know, I spent my life teaching, so maybe that's where I go, but I think we need to find ways to have conversations where we talk openly about what are your facts, what are my facts, what are your values, what are my values, town by town, village by village, firm by firm.
Because without that fundamental rebuilding, I think the problem that Felix points to will eat us alive.
I think, Rebecca, that's got to be right in some longer run sense, which is teaching and talking is the way we rebuild our community.
We rebuild the underlying fabric of our community.
I mean, my instinct is also, though, that this next presidency is just absolutely pivotal for how we come to understand who we are as a country and the way Biden governs will be a testament to...
We will either be remade in the next four years under Biden presidency in a much stronger way.
It'll become a crucible for strength or the divisions will just unwind more.
I think he's well positioned to think about policies that really speak to the middle.
And I know that's a...
people think that's wrong to talk to the middle, but I think we have to talk to the middle today more than ever if we want to reunite.
And not just his language, young me, because to your point, prose is not enough, but he has to, with his inaugural address, which will take place precisely at the location where this happened, he has to create the language for us to set ourselves up for a reunification.
And that speech and the first hundred days is pivotal in a way like FDR's first hundred days was pivotal, I think, not because it'll lead to his ambitious legislative agenda, but in the way that the tone gets at and the way that he's conceivably able to walk work across the aisle.
I think that will be really pivotal.
I'm not sure how optimistic I am that we can move on under the current rules.
And the reason is, you know, there are 50, 60 million Americans who wanted to see a second Trump presidency.
And just like it's unlikely that the four of us will give much credibility to statements by the president, for many of them, whatever Joe Biden is going to say is, you're not a legitimate president.
They truly believe that the election was rigged.
And so I was thinking mostly along the lines of how could we change the rules to make it more difficult to spread lies and to lower the temperature, if you will, of the of the political dialogue.
I had two quick ideas.
One is separate process and outcomes.
If after elections, we will not publish the results right away.
And if you think the process wasn't right, you have to object before you know the outcome.
Essentially today, it's costless to do because you're only challenging the states where you know you already lost.
If you're not sure whether you're challenging results that might actually have gone in your favor, that's the first step towards increasing the cost of spreading lies and allegations that have no foundation in the truth.
And then I think the second really big important issue is American elections are not close.
They're not presidential elections are not close by this by this crazy system that we have by which we count the votes.
We end up having close elections, but elections themselves are not if we if we move to a popular vote tomorrow, but all of the many, many of the past elections there with very few exceptions, the outcomes are very clear.
Even if you think that the process was less than perfect, you could easily accept the result.
And I think that's that's one of our best opportunities to move away from the dysfunction that we see today.
I do say this this past election in particular has made me much more sensitive to how esoteric, arcane and just plain strange, the way we vote is both the mechanical aspect of how we do, as well as the electoral college.
I mean, if you were to start with a blank sheet of paper, I don't know that you would in 2021.
I don't know if you would do it this way.
OK, we probably should wrap this up.
We typically end by offering some recommendations or picks or something.
And, you know, rather than doing that the way we typically do.
I'm wondering if there are any suggestions you guys have to offer relevant to what we're experiencing this week.
So my recommendation is for business people who would like to get more involved with democracy reform or even curious about democracy reform.
There's a wonderful NGO called Leadership Now that was founded by HBS alums that supports business people in getting engaged in politics in an appropriate way.
So, you know, really in a way that is geared to try and improve the workings of the process, to improve civics.
What can you do as a business person or as a business leader?
So if you're curious, that that's a website that's well worth a look.
Leadership Now. I just want to double down on that because I, Rebecca, I know them as well and they are fantastic.
They're doing really good work that I think is at the core of what we've been talking about.
And Rebecca, you yourself have published, I think, an article I think is relevant and aren't you putting something together now, in fact, for HBR for tomorrow?
So I put a piece out a few months ago on HBR called Why Business Needs to Save Democracy that our listeners might find helpful.
You know, after this conversation, I'm not sure what I'm going to publish in HBR.
I've been asked for a few words and we've covered so much ground that I'm like, oh my God, what can I say?
But in principle something will be coming out tomorrow, yes.
OK, fantastic. Felix?
So my recommendation is that we seek ways to participate in the other conversation, the conversation that you're not typically in.
And I think practically speaking, that's actually not so easy to do because we're geographically segregated from one another.
We're segregated by the type of jobs we have and the type of businesses we work in.
And so one thing that I have found very really eye opening is if you are more on the liberal side, get notifications from a publication like the National Review, for instance, an outlet with conservative views and a conservative slant.
If you find yourself smack in the middle of the Democratic Party, maybe you should subscribe to the tweets by AOC to see really what the progressive left in the Democratic Party is thinking.
Just make it a habit that every day after you do your regular news consumption, read two or three things that are out there that are different from what you're what you're currently thinking.
And I know it's helped me a lot.
Yesterday in a short snippet, I saw someone after they stormed the Capitol who who said on TV, they really felt like a patriot.
And at first glance, it's just like, what are you talking about?
You're not a patriot.
And yet I think there's there was some sincerity to that statement.
And that I think you can only understand by by at least passively participating in the conversation that happens on the other side.
You know, on that note, one recommendation I would make is a few months ago, I saw this documentary called Boy State on Apple TV Plus.
And if you haven't seen it, you should definitely check it out, particularly if you find yourself living in a more liberal bubble.
So what Boy State is is every year, thousands of high school boys, they gather in their home state to attend a camp that's essentially designed to put them through the political process of building a government from the ground up.
And in real life, Boy State alumni include everyone from Dick Cheney to Cory Booker to Bill Clinton to Tim Cook.
OK, this particular documentary focuses on Boy State, Texas, and in particular, for boys.
And it is just riveting and disturbing and also inspiring.
It's just this incredible window into a group of young people with political aspirations.
I would highly recommend it.
And here, what about you?
That sounds great. You know, I've been thinking just about how difficult the next two months are going to be in many ways for many people, which is we have not talked about it.
But of course, COVID is raging.
There are lockdowns in the UK all around.
And so I'm going to go a little bit lighter to try to lighten what hopefully will be well, I'm going to try to lighten what will I think be a kind of relatively dark month or two.
And this harkens back Felix to a recommendation you made a long time ago, which is there's a movie that was released late last year, which didn't get the attention it deserved, which is Felix, the movie version of the concert that you recommended, which is American Utopia.
And it features the person who I think is one of the greatest artists of last 30 years, David Byrne, filmed by what I think of as one of the greatest movie makers of the last 30 years, which is Spike Lee.
And it's a really joyous movie.
And at a time when it's hard to feel that kind of joy, I just found it incredibly uplifting.
It also features a song by a woman who I've recommended before Janelle Monae.
And I just think it's a fantastic movie and a beautiful movie.
And a little bit of a I guess a little bit of a salvation from our current troubles, maybe if you're looking for a little bit of escape, but with still with some meaning.
I think American Utopia, the movie version is just fantastic.
I saw that. I have to say.
And it's amazing. It is really one.
It's just really wonderful.
It's so fun. Yeah, it is fun.
Yeah, my tiny bit of joy over the past week has come from Peyton Pritchard.
Nobody's going to understand that reference, but there will be a few listeners out there that will think, ah, okay.
Thanks, everyone, for listening.
We'll be back next week at our regular scheduled time.
But in the meantime, everybody take care of themselves.
This is After Hours from the HBR podcast.
And we'll be right back.
