Pivot · Oct 25, 2022

Republicans v. Google, Musk’s Twitter Plans, and Guest Dahlia Lithwick

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 42:40. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 42:40 Organize around and think about and vote on in, like, state, you know, races probably for the rest of our lives. So I think she'd be the first to say, this isn't a trick. It's a it's it's a sort of vocation, and it's a lifetime labor. Scott Galloway · 42:54 I I think where we get it wrong is we think that people are gonna vote based on what offends them as opposed to what affects them. And I've just been shocked how low down the list choices or the threats to choice is playing in this election. I mean, we got all just sort of thought and to a certain extent hope that this was a bridge too far. We're gonna win. Just... You know, everyone's gonna freak out on this. Of the top issues currently driving voter choice for the midterm elections, abortion ranks fourth. So what I would ask you is given that we wanna be effective in addition to being right, what do you think the ask is for people who want want an America that values people and their rights and is just really freaked out by this misogyny, realizing that the the call of choice doesn't appear to be even in the top three issues right now. What do you think strategically we can do to get more like minded people in office? I I understanding it's voting, but what's the issue? What's the framing? How do we be effective here? Guest · 43:51 I think the framing goes back to that fourteenth amendment bucket of interests. Right? It's not just abortion, and we talk about it as just abortion at our peril. It is now birth control that's on the table. It's LGBTQ rights that's back on the table. It is, I truly believe, inter... Interracial marriage. In other words, the entire bucket of things that Clarence Thomas very helpfully in his concurrence in Dobbs said, oh, all these things are gone too if you do away with substantive due process and privacy. So I think we should be talking deeply about privacy and why privacy matters and what it means to have a country that is going to use both surveillance powers and the power of vigilantes, right, who can overhear a conversation at a diner and collect a bounty. So it is so much bigger than abortion, and I think it sweeps in. And we're seeing this. Women in jail for miscarriages, women in jail for putting pills in the mail or accepting pills in the mail, people in jail for transporting someone across state lines. All that is coming. And so I think we've been myopic in thinking that this is about abortion. I think that the way to broaden the conversation is to say, if you value the right to determine who you marry and how you raise your children and how their values are inculcated, that stuff is all on the table because that's what justice Alito says was an imaginary right made out of cotton candy and whipped cream. And so we have to really put meat on the bones of that. And if we failed to do that, and I think we briefly... Right? We had Kansas. We had Michigan. We had Alaska. I think we briefly put meat on the bones of that, and then we agreed to get dragged into a conversation about gas prices. That's on us because this is huge. Yeah. Kara Swisher · 45:36 But we didn't agree. We we just do. I mean, I think that's what it is. They don't think it's a bigger deal when it is. And, you know, that's that's the whole point is, one, they count on that. And two, they don't really like gay people. When all that stuff about gays came up, I'm like, they never liked that. They wanted... They waited to get rid of it. They're not dumb. They just wait quietly in the shadows until they have an opportunity, which is what they have now. Let me ask you. Of all the feminist legal heroes you write about, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gloria Allred, judge Jackson, what... Who's the most important, not in history, but right now, among the many, if you're looking forward? These are... You know, I I would assume judge Jackson would be one of the key people, but who else is critical right now? Guest · 46:17 The folks I'm looking at, it will not surprise you in the wake of the conversation we just had, are the black women legal scholars like Dorothy Roberts, like Dorothy Brown, Peggy Cooper Davis, like Michelle Goodwin, Anita Hill, who I talk about. There are a whole host of women, and I start the book with Polly Murray because she's one of them, who saw all this coming decades ago. And by the way, who wrote it and who meticulously chronicled where we were going. If you could criminalize women's bodies, if you could turn a woman's body into a crime scene, you could start to criminalize parenting. Right? Dorothy Roberts has written about this so many times. I didn't learn about this stuff at law school. I didn't learn about the founding ideas around the fourteenth amendment at law school. And so if I'm correct that we have ceded all those arguments to the other side and given up the idea that these are legal values we should be fighting for, then the people that I'm lifting up right now are the women who were, like, decades ago saying, oh, honey, it's coming, and it's gonna it's gonna be at the hands of revanchist theological white men largely who really do want to see us go back to, you know, the sort of witch burners of yore that justice Alito cites in his opinion. So I look at them because I think they drew a map, and we failed to see it. And I think it gets us out now. Kara Swisher · 47:39 For people who don't know, Paulie Murray was was a... Was the first African American to earn a JSD from Yale Law School. She founded the National Organization for Women. During her life, she certainly was well known, but it's something you write about in the book for people who don't know who she is. Amazing, amazing person. Scott Galloway · 47:54 Dahlia, what role can the private sector play if you had an ask of CEOs whose employee base is understandably concerned? Is there a role for the private sector? What's the ask of CEOs? Guest · 48:05 I mean, just remember a few years ago when Georgia passed what at the time was the most draconian abortion bill we'd ever seen. And what we saw initially was a whole bunch of private actors, including Hollywood, saying we won't film there. You may recall a whole lot of people at least making noises about pulling out. There was some question, I should say, tactically. I remember at the time, Stacey Abrams said, oh my god, don't boycott Georgia because you hurt the most vulnerable workers there. But I do think that the absolute radio silence around Dobbs and the kind of corporate willingness to say, oh, we tried that once in Georgia. Now we've got a much more draconian regime that is gonna affect half the states, and we're doing nothing is another way of kind of seeding ground. And so I think that it is effective at minimum to say we're gonna make sure all of our employees can get birth control pills. All of our employees can get access to abortion medication. And I've heard so very little, including from universities, by the way, in affected states who have not made public statements in support of student health. So I think that maybe this is a perfectly circular answer to your first question, but I think we gave up this fight before it started. I think there was a way in which there was nowhere to locate it, not just in the constitution, but in sort of the the language of democracy. And so we decided that abortion was kind of a niche issue. It's not a niche issue. It affects every single person who can bear a child and every single person who loves a person who can bear a child. And so, again, I would say widen the aperture and say if you have employees who are going to be jailed, for traveling interstate or jailed for a miscarriage that the state determines is hinky or forced to bleed out or go septic before an ER can intervene, and you're silent right now, then it is not at all clear to me when you're gonna speak up. Kara Swisher · 49:56 They're not. Dahlia, I think they're they're exhausted. Trump has exhausted them on many issues, not just this one. And they... You know, look what happened to Florida with Disney. They're they're exhausted in terms of where they can draw the line, so they'd rather not, I think. That's my impression from talking to them. Scott Galloway · 50:11 I was just gonna say, Di, I I think that's a really great insight, broadening the aperture and saying this isn't just about rights of choice, it's about interracial marriage. It's about pushing back on anything involving antisemitism. How on earth is Adidas still paying Kanye? They're broadening it. You know, at some point, this is all the same thing. And that is at some point, they're coming for you. And I think that's a really strategic and intelligent way to frame the issue. Guest · 50:39 Response to exhaustion, my answer is anytime either, you know, Adidas or the citizens of, you know, voting age give into exhaustion, Steve Bannon gets another pair of wings. Like Scott Galloway · 50:51 Mhmm. That's great. Guest · 50:53 I agree. I just think that the point here is to exhaust and confuse. And I just think, like, it is our choice to say we're gonna let the forces of nihilism take over because we're too tired. That's that's on us. Kara Swisher · 51:06 Well, I'm saying... Yeah. I agree, but they count on it. They absolutely... He says it. He says it. Flood the zone. Flood the zone. Keep flooding it until you're too exhausted to swim anymore. I think, ultimately. Anyway, it's a very important book, Lady Justice, Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, and you can also find Dahlia Lithwick on Slate's Amicus podcast. Thank you so much, Dahlia. Scott Galloway · 51:27 Thank you for fighting the good fight, Dahlia. Guest · 51:29 Oh, thanks for having me. Kara Swisher · 51:30 Alright, Scott. That was bracing. I was a gay person, a gay marriage. My wife Jewish. I like worry. I... This is the first time in my life when I felt worried. I'm not being like a kooky liberal to do so, but, oh, man, gay parenting. It's all in there when you read them, and it's very... They're very clear about what they want, which is the end to it. Scott Galloway · 51:50 I don't think it's alarmist to draw parallels with thirties Germany in The United States right now. Mhmm. The propaganda, the politicization of vulnerable groups. Yep. Early nineteen thirties Germany had a thriving gay community. Kara Swisher · 52:04 It did. Scott Galloway · 52:04 Oh, I'm aware. Was a global center of progressive thought. Yeah. And then the industrialization of the government and then an ability to rally the base by demonizing groups, whether it was gay people or gypsies or obviously Jews. And we're seeing it everywhere here. It's being normalized. It's... I don't think I don't think it's unfair to say no. It could happen here. Mhmm. And if you look at the progression, if you look at how much things have changed in the last twenty four months, and Dahlia's point that resignation and being bereft is not a strategy. Kara Swisher · 52:41 It's not. Scott Galloway · 52:41 You know, we have to push back on all of this in the harshest, crispest terms. Kara Swisher · 52:45 Well, that's why that's how they're doing the flooding in the zone. It's so confusing. It's so constantly... You're constantly treading water, and that's that's... They count on that. See Bannon's the, I hate to say it, the great thinker on this kind of horrible inhuman strategy. You you have to pay attention to him. I listen to War Room because I know what he's doing. I have a very keen sense of what he's doing. Anyway, we'll see. On that note, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions besides Kara moving to Canada. You have to listen to my interview today with Nouriel Rabini. He says get to Canada with a gun and a lot of water. That's his Scott Galloway · 53:23 Oh, you interviewed professor... You you interviewed Nurell. Kara Swisher · 53:25 Yes. Scott Galloway · 53:26 And how was it? Other than he thinks the world's coming to an end economically, how was it? Kara Swisher · 53:30 He's like, I don't like the name doctor Doom, and then literally, the doomiest thing I've ever published. Scott Galloway · 53:35 So what's your prediction? Doom. Kara Swisher · 53:36 Doom. Doom. Alright. We'll be back for predictions in a second. Yeah. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 55:17 Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction that isn't Doom. Scott Galloway · 55:20 Well, okay. Doom light. Kara Swisher · 55:22 Okay. No. Scott Galloway · 55:23 Between Snap and Pinterest, there's 10,000 employees there. Yep. With the the underperformance of their stock prices down between 7090%, and with the the guy who, regardless of what they say about him, everybody thinks it's just much smarter than everybody else, Laying off six of the 8,000 people at Twitter, of the 10,000 employees at Snap and Pinterest, within twelve months, I think 5,000 will be gone. And this is a Patagonia vest recession. If you are willing to work in a restaurant or you're a trades person or you're a mechanic, if you're in quote unquote, the main street economy, you're just fine. But the part of the economy that has been the gift that keeps on giving in terms of employment growth for the last thirteen years is about to get, you know, it's gonna it's gonna get whacked. So specifically bringing it down to two companies Kara Swisher · 56:12 Yeah. Scott Galloway · 56:12 You're gonna see Twitter like layoffs in the next twelve months of these terms. Kara Swisher · 56:19 Alright. Well, that's a do me thing, you and Nerial. Anyway, let me think of a happy one. Black Adam made a $140,000,000 at the box office. Okay. That's about it. That's all I got. Anyway, we wanna hear from you. Listen up. We'll be doing a parenting episode too. I'll tell you, I'm very motivated on this topic because of so many children, but we really have to be fighting for their future. Send us all your parenting questions. We we are going to try to impart. We're gonna have some experts. We're gonna ask some questions about parenting, talk about our mistakes, everything. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 By the way, I did a great Twitter Spaces with Jonathan Friedland about trust and what happens next in The UK and with Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti Defamation League about the rising right. The episode will run and on with Kara Swisher feed. Go follow that podcast so you don't miss it. Okay, Scott. That's the show. — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 57:14 Nice. Today's show is produced by Lara Nayman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin, Ernie Intertaut engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a wonderful week.