TURNOUT Episode 9: ‘Giving makes me feel like I’m living’

than three. It's basic math forest metaphors presented by Progressive Bundle and Protect Today, Progressive centulty in Trance Company and ifially gets discount of the little in a state of situations. Hey, it's Amy Brown from four Things with Amy Brown on the Nashville Podcast Network, a podcast where in each episode you're gonna get at least four things that will hopefully

contribute to your life in a positive way. Guests come on like celebrities or therapists or doctors or maybe even just my friends, and everyone shares stories that may inspire, motivate, or sometimes just give you a much needed laugh. We cover topics that range from therapy to gratitude. Listen to four Things with Amy Brown on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, I'm Robert sex Reese, host of The Doctor Sex re Show, and every episode I listened to people talk about their sex and intimacy issues, and yes, I despise every minute of it. And she she made mistakes too. She heal everyone at her wedding. But hell is real. We're all trapped here and there's nothing any of us can do

about it. So join me. Won't you listen to The Doctor Sex re Show every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Katie Curic, and this is turnout. As you have no doubt heard, the election welcomed historic turnout, But what does that turnout mean? And who actually turned out? Data journalists are starting to comb through the numbers. I'm Neil Rothchild. I'm the director of Audience for Axios and I also cover politics from the data lens, and I wrote an

article about how to explain what happened in the election. Typically, post election analysis like this is done mostly with exit polling, but of course was no typical year because so many people voted early this year well, exit polling is no longer such a reliable way to get at this and as we saw also with kind of the way polling performed as a predictor of this election, like polling is taking a big hit in reputation anyway, So forget exit

polls this year. To get a picture of who turned out, data journalists like Neil can look county by county and compare the tallied votes with available demographic information. All of the results were looking at our official election results, uh that are coming through each state, but you can divide them up by each county because each state reports their counties that feed into the state level total, which will

help to allocate electoral votes. So by looking at that state voting total and then diving into the demographic area, So this is a heavily Latino community, this is a suburban area, so you can start to get a sense of okay, so this suburb swung towards Biden by twelve points compared to that allows you to start to really like learn about what the key demographic trends were for the election. What did the voting results say in these

key counties, what did the votes say? And for those areas, what changed in compared to what areas moved further left, which areas moved for the right, Even if in both cases they went Trump or both went Biden, those differences of within twenty or thirty points, even for an area that went for Clinton and Biden, can be really telling for the key shifts that are undergird America's like political preferences. When comparing voting data from two thousand sixteen to Neil

identified for trends that help explain the results. So the first point is that suburbs have undergone a fundamental shift in favor of Democrats and away from Trump. It remains to be seen whether this is a lasting trend for Republicans or whether this is just a very Trump phenomenon that people in the suburbs a kind of turned off by his behavior and his rhetoric. The second point is that the blue areas have gotten even more blue, and

the red areas have really dug in for Trump. So we're not seeing a lot of cases where some urban areas have shifted towards Trump and some rural areas have shifted towards Biden. Each of those have really become even more entrenched in their politics. I really think it is

kind of a trust in in institutions. And for those in the cities and around the cities, a lot of them work for big employers and rely on kind of institutions like government and media and big business for both their livelihoods and kind of how they understand reliable information, while those in rural areas become less dependent on those companies and on those institutions and might be more kind of self sustaining and reject being told what to think

or how to think. And so for them, Trump more represents, you know, this idea that opposing what everyone else kind of just takes for truth and assumes to be the case. He really has galvanized that support across the country. Number three is that the white working class vote in the Midwest did not deliver for Biden, which is funny because that was his appeal in the Democratic primary. American middle

class brings dignity and tegrity every day to work. They deserve the dignity and tegutor reftlected in their leaders kind of why you would vote for him instead of Bernie or a Warren who might have more kind of educated and progressive appeal but might not be able to get those working class voters in the states that Clinton lost in,

which was Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And then the last point that helps to complicate things a bit is that Latino support for Trump grew in a number of key regions. Cuban support for Trump in Miami Dade County got a lot of the attention on election night, but it was not, you know, unique to just that area where there was

trends towards Trump. In the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, a number of those counties had like double digit, twenty plus point shifts towards Trump compared to what Clinton saw. Neil says, there are a few surprises about this election that are worth noting. Trump has gotten more minority support than Republican candidates for president in a couple of decades, So he ended up, you know, being able to tap into something that I don't think either party was really

expecting to be the case. And you know, there could be a few factors that worked into this, like maybe the Trump campaign on the ground operation was just able to knock on doors in these areas that the Biden campaign, you know, figured that could be done remotely. Maybe it's just a high turnout election, and some of that, you know, Latin America Catholic tradition, ended up resulting in support for the Christian religious right for Republicans. That is also something

that people didn't see coming. Trump's rhetoric made it seem like a gimme that Democrats would at the vast majority and make even bigger gains in support for voters of color, when that's actually the opposite of what we saw. As the parties do their own election postmortems, Neal points to a few key lessons. I think one area for soul searching for Democrats is how Hispanic support for Trump has grown.

And it's not just the Hispanic vote, but even the Black vote has turned towards Trump in a number of these not enough that it became like a hugely meaningful election trend, but even in cities like Philadelphia or Chicago if Hillary won it by eight five points over Trump in Biden, one handful of those by only eighty points this year. So of course it's nowhere close to being able to say Philadelphia or Chicago went red. But it's these small shifts that hint at where Trump might be

able to corral more support. So for Democrats, who have you know, grown to assume that they would always have kind of the support of the base of people of color in this country might make them, you know, reckon with, well, there's more to be done and more that we need to prove to show that we should earn these votes. Republicans might see out of this that they can't rely on forever having to depend on white working class voters

outside of cities, because that demographic is shrinking. It's poorer than the rest of the country in population, it's shrinking, incomes are getting smaller. So this coalition might have delivered for Trump in but it's not a long term strategy, and they need to do more to you know, grab that working class support and earn it in cities and suburbs. So it can't just be about kind of these rural areas. You really need to make inroads where the population centers

are as for the rest of us. The real takeaway is that proved we are more partisan than ever. We've become even more polarized and even more divided, particularly by our geography, where if you're in cities and around cities, you believe one thing and trust a certain set of facts and assumptions, whereas if you're outside of that and you live in rural areas, if you live in the country, you not only don't embrace it, but you outright reject it.

And that, you know, has shown to be a huge groundswell of support for Trump when we come back how to mend those divisions? An interview with author Mitch Album. My name is Hannah, I'm Dan, I'm Ben, and we are group Love. If you're dealing with stress or anxiety, or just need some help, cal Hope is here for all California and to free mental health resources to help

you navigate this uncertain time. Go to Calhope dot org to live chat with one of their incredible listeners, or call their warmline at one three three three one seven Hope. That's one eight three three three one seven h O p e hopeless here in California. Give us the over attention. We need everything you've got fast waiting on reparations would beat the podcast. Tune in every Thursday politics and wordplay.

We fight for the people because they got us in the worst way, from the Hill Cooper, the Bomb Bay to Kant, from the left en clave to what the neo Kanz every Thursday, cop the heading conversation and to break us off with some break because we're waiting the reparations. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on I Heart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Adoption of teens from foster care is a topic not enough people

know about, and we're here to change that. I'm April Denuit, the host of the new podcast Navigating a Option, presented by adopt Us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption stories told by the families that lived them, with commentary from experts. Visit adopt us Kids dot org, slash podcast, or subscribe to Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt Us Kids, brought to you by the U. S Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families,

and the ad Council. Mitch Album is a journalist and a best selling author. He wrote Tuesdays with Maury, perhaps his most famous book, along with many others. He's a really compassionate thinker and writer, so I thought it would be interesting to hear his perspective on how divided we are, the role of the media may be playing, and how we can move forward. First, and foremost, let's talk about the election. What a wild ride. Had you ever seen

anything like this, Mitch in your life experience before? Are no? I mean the closest thing was probably the last one, you know, which I thought, well, won't get any wilder than that. I think everything that's happening right now, Katie, is in the shadow of a very weird time. I think the whole summer that we went through. I think

all the dividedness that's happened in the country. You know, none of us, at least unless you're over a hundred years old, have faced the pandemic and what it does to your psyche, what it does to your frame of mind, what it does to your sense of community or lack of sense of community, how scared it makes you. And I think all of those things are behind all the craziness that's going on in so you know, the sports

term is a mulligan. You know, you get a mulligan on a golf course for a year for a first shot that just was errant. And we may need a mulligan for this year because it was errant in its own way. And I don't know about you, Mitch, I guess in nineteen I'm not sure how old you were. I US eleven, and I guess that's the closest thing to compare what we're going through now in terms of how divided and how passionate and how intense the division felt.

You know, the country being divided isn't new. I think the anger that comes with the division is fairly new. And I think that, uh, you know, they've always been Republicans and Democrats, have always been liberals and conservatives, but they haven't uh felt like the other one needs to be wiped out the way it's sort of feels like now. And I think that vitriol and that anger can be directly tied to social media and to media in general.

And they didn't have that. I remember I was alive, and I remember we didn't have cell phones or iPhones or social media accounts. We had, but we had baseball cards in our in the spokes of our bicycles. You know, that's how high tech we were. In an essay you wrote recently which I think got a lot of attention, Mitch, you said, hopes for a national reconciliation may be threatened by new battle lines. So what did you mean exactly by that? Well, I didn't. I think that was the

headline for it. But what I wrote was, it won't it won't really matter what we do on Tuesday if we don't change what we do on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. And sadly it turned out to be prophetic because Wednesday and Thursday and Friday were worse than Monday, you know, uh in this particular case, because everybody was still fighting over the results, and they still are as we're as we're recording this, um. So you know, my point was that vitriol and divisiveness they don't come to

a head on one day of every four years. They take a lot longer than that to build up, and they take a lot longer than that to bring down. And if anybody thought that there would be an election and then oh good, we'll all just get along with one another, they really weren't paying very much attention to how we became divided in the first place. It wasn't just over an election. It was over a lot more than that. So an election didn't election didn't create it,

An election wasn't likely to solve it. Um. But my hope in that piece that you cited was that you know, we tried to understand that we're a lot more like than different. Um. But I've been saying that for a long time and writing that for a long time. And Maury said it to me when I wrote Tuesdays with Mari. You know, it's probably the first time I heard it verbalize that way. And what did he say again, exactly, Mitch. He said, we're all more alike than different. That you know,

everybody thinks they're gonna die. Everybody knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. And he said, when you actually believe it, when you start to realize. He had to because he was dying from Luke Garret's disease and was really facing his own mortality. He said, once you realize you're actually going to die, you're human after all. You feel a kinship with everybody else in the world who's suffering. I remember once I watched him, we were we flipped

on the news. We almost never watched any television together, but we cloked on the news in Bosnia. There was something going on at the time, Bosnia, and they had some footage. It was very you know, violent, and and he started crying and I said, why, why are you crying. He said, well, it's just so terrible. What's happening to those people? I said, no, but you've never been there. You never been to Bosnia. You don't know anybody from Bosnia.

He said, Mitch, when you really realize you're dying, um, you can you feel the suffering of everybody else in the world who's suffering as well, and you realize you were all more like than different. I mean that was the context in which she told me that, and I never forgot that because you know, here he was watching something that we all watched, just passionately, and like, well, I'm glad it's not here. And then we moved on

what what was different about him? Well, it was because in his brain he had accepted the fact, you know, he really was a human being with all the ending that all human beings are going to face. And we don't really walk through life accepting that until suddenly we get hit with the doctor's diagnosis, or or we're in a hospital all of a sudden and where we get COVID uh and so um, that's the context that he said.

It's very very true. The problem, Katie is we have to wait until we have a death sentence you know, our terminal illness in order to recognize that we share humanity. But unfortunately usually takes something like that to shake us loops. Let's talk about the role of the media, because you were very critical of the media and your essay, and honestly, Mitch, I'm very confused about how I feel about this, So maybe you can help me be my therapist. But you

and I have been in the media for a long time. Yes, it's changed dramatically, but where do you think the media has gone you know, where did it go wrong in terms of its complicity in aiding and abetting the divisiveness. Well, I mean, you and I probably started in the journalism business around the same time. And I remember going to you know, I went to Columbia Journalism School. I got my masters there, and I remember the opening speech that the first day of school Osborne Elliott, who I think

at the time of the editor of Newsweek. Um, he made a speech and he talked about, well, what this business of journalism is all about? And it was all about having a fire in the belly to try to get to the truth of things and and all that and and you know, to tell the stories that needed to be told. None of it had to do with bringing down people, belittling people, taking a side. None of

that was ever spoken about. I mean, if anything was the other way around, it was you know, being visible, you know, bring the news and not you, not your views. You know, that's not the way what we what we call cable news today. Um. And I'm not taking sides on any of it. I mean you can find you know, pretty much all across the board, uh, different degrees of it.

But it's not really news in the sense that you and I when we started in the business commentary it's commentary, right, dis guy says, well, here's here's the factual thing that happened. Let me tell you my opinion about it. Here's the factual thing that happened. Here's what's wrong with it, here's the factual thing that happened. Here's why these people are

doing what these people are doing. And so how we got from where we were when you and I were starting this to now, you know, you could point to a lot of things. It's a long discussion, but somewhere along the line, news started making money. You know this very well, you know, and the news division started to be places where you could see a profit was before it was almost like something they did just for the

social good. You know, they made every television made its money on their on the Lastie programs, and they put the news up, you know, said okay, we have to do the news. But when the news started to become profit, uh, you know, people started taking different directions and it has grown. And you don't need me to rehash how Fox News

is going one direction, MSNBC another direction, CNN in another direction. Well, I think also, I'm just going to add as as the landscape became more fragmented, I think outlets became more niche. So if they wanted to get an audience that was loyal to whatever they were delivering, uh, it wasn't interesting enough or enraging enough, because Kara Swisher calls it engagement through enragement, that people would want to see stuff that was conflict free or that was just the facts, ma'am.

And so as a result, I think it was more profitable to get to to give people. I've said this a million times, but it's so fitting after me ation instead of information to get them riled up emotionally. And so I think that's one of the reasons we've seen this bifurcated media landscape bubble up and explode if you will, in the last four years, that's right. I mean, it

seems kind of crazy, and I'm I'm you know. I I try because I still rete for a newspaper, even though I'm not primarily do books and movies and charities and stuff like that, but I still write a newspaper column. Therefore, I'm obligated to stay informed. And I watch all three of the cable networks when I when I sit down and watch, I will always flip back and forth because I want to see not only the information, but I want to see how people are playing the information, what

is it? And it's gotten to the point where it's like reporting on different planets. You will see a totally different broadcast on one cable news network, then you will see on the other not the same stories, not the same footage. Forget about the commentary. The information isn't the same. So even what people are choosing to bring forward and choosing to suppress is different on every single channel. That

that shouldn't be. If you've got national news, chances are of the news of the day should be the same on each one. If you're really just talking about the news. Here's the important things that happened. It's not. I mean, you literally can watch at half hour of one program and not see anything closely related to the other. So I think that's where it begins. Then there's a problem with the I think the geography of the country, and I mentioned that, um in the piece that you referenced.

I live here in Detroit, in Michigan, I have for many years, um for over three decades now, so I consider this my home. But I was raised in the East and I you know, I grew up in Philadelphia, went to college in Boston. I lived in New York and Florida, so I know East Coast, and I worked for some publications on the East Coast is well. I have a lot of friends who are still air back in the Big Cities and on the Los Angeles coast

as well. And I think somewhere along the line we really got separated in our viewpoint of what this country is and what the values are by where we live and the media that we are subject to in those areas. So I can tell you living out here in the Midwest, I have many conversations with my friends in the East, and they just don't get it, you know, they just don't. They think they think people out here are nuts, you know, or how could they or how could they this? Or

how can they? And now those are my friends. The people who are in the media. Some have started to take that to another level where it's like they're too stupid to know what's good for them, and so we need to tell them what's good for them. That should never be a journalist position. I don't care what publication you work for. You should never look down on people who redo or follow you or somehow say, well, their

whole list. I'm just going to tell them what they need and somewhere and that works for both sides, both sides, and somewhere along the line we got into that business of you know, we're smarter than the people who are consuming our news, and that I think was it was

that day. I guess I buy everything you're saying, Mitch and agree with you wholeheartedly, except I feel like it's very hard to have this conversation when you have a president like Donald J. Trump, And let's talk about that, because when you have someone who is not truthful, who behaves in a way that's let's just put it out there. Morally repugnant, right, making fun of handicapped people grabbing women

by the you know what's um? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But how do you point out when someone is, you know, the the leader of the free world old and is trading in mistruth and misinformation? Go? Well, I mean, you know, as I told you before we started this, I'm not a political writer. I'm not you know what I and I don't. But I think that's what I struggle with,

and that's what I wrestle with. Yeah, well, I'm not well versed enough or knowledgeable enough to evaluate the presidency or how you cover the president, because it's not what I do. But you're you're you're well informed, Mitch. You you watched the news. Yeah, but but but I don't. I'm not in the position of having to say, well, how do you how do you deal with the question

that you asked me? You know, how do you deal with a person who lies or a person who does the repugnant things as you refer to them, whatever, How do you cover them? Fortunately, that's not my job and I don't have to do it. But what I can say to that is. I think there's a difference between how you cover a president and how you cover of people who may have voted for the president. And that to me, when I wrote that piece, that was that was the point that I was sort of making. I

think all presidents are fair game for criticism. When Joe Biden takes over and becomes a president after the honeymoon period that always goes on with a new president, he will be apttly criticized, I'm sure, no matter whether he does the greatest job in the world or not. That's what we do in America. We criticize the president. The Americans criticized the president, you know. They criticized Barack Obama, they criticized George Bush. It's not going to change, but

when and that goes with the job. And I think every president would tell you that goes. Yeah. You don't find any president who loves the press. No, No, I've never seen one that I can't wait to have a press conference, you know. Uh so. But I think what happened here, particularly as as we approach the election, is that the criticism spilled over into the people who voted for Donald Trump. I think that that began with the Hillary Clinton may that regrettable comment about you know, basket

of deplorable. I can tell you that living here in Michigan, many people uh here in the state of Michigan took that person. And if you remember, the state of Michigan ended up going for Donald Trump barely in two thousand and sixteen, after everybody just presumed that Hillary Clinton would would win it. You can't say those kinds of things. And I'm not picking on Hillary Clinton. That was one sentence said by one person, but I'm using that as

a as a as an example. If you have that sort of ad in your writing and your reporting, in your commentary, you are going to alienate a good portion of the country. And that that I can speak to, because I don't believe you get to put down half of the country, whichever half it may be, simply because you have a position as a journalist. Your role as a journalist is to understand both halves of the country

and understand how they come together as a whole. And you may personally think they're not as smart as you or or and and by the way, this does not just go east to midwest. This goes midwest to east, or midwest and west to There are plenty of people who write who feel that, you know, they call liberals with a with a quotation mark and far left and all the rest of the they look down on them as you know, trying to take down the country coastal,

even coastal elites as a pejorative. Yes, coastal elites is as much of pejorative as a basket of deplorables. It's all bad. You don't divide the country up like that. And I think that's the new element that has happened in our journalism. We were already heading in this direction of you know, left and right, but now the audience, the audience has been attacked, Uh, the voters have been attacked, and there's this there's a sense of like you can talk about Trump voters as if they're all the same,

and you know, I know many Trump voters. I live in the Midwest, and I can tell you they're not all the same, you know. And I can certainly tell you they're not all racist or homophobic. I can tell you that the people that I've met who voted for Trump, many of them don't like him, you know, uh. And they don't like him as a person. They don't like the things that you pointed out about him, um, but for whatever reason, they felt that they couldn't vote for

the other party, you know. And and you shouldn't assume that everybody who votes for somebody has the characteristics of the person they voted for. I don't think everybody who voted for Joe Biden or Kamala Harris is the factor Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. A lot of people just voted because they wanted a change. They don't want Donald Trump in there anymore. So this is this is where I have been critical, and you know, in one piece.

I mean, it's not like what I do for a living, but you know, I just felt that we owe it to our humanity and well it to our citizenship and sense of citizenship, not to demean the people who vote for a politician, but to try to understand them and understand the things that are behind. Politicians are fair game, Presidents are fair game. But regular voters and citizens should be created with respect by the media, and I think sometimes we fall down them. A few more thoughts from

Mitch Album and Maury right after this. As a charge nurse, you can be a confident in dynamic leader who supports the nursing team and guides their patient care. Grand Canyon Universities are in two B s. An online degree program equips you with strategies that prepare you to manage the ever changing realities of healthcare while maintaining focus on family support and patient outcomes. What do you think making a difference in healthcare looks like? GCU offers over two d

fifty high quality online programs like this one. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University because it g c U. Donty do you I call the Union Hall as its amount of life and death? I thank these people of planning to kill Dr King. On April four, Dr Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis. A petty criminal named James Earl Ray was arrested. He pled guilty to the crime and spent the rest of his life in prison. Case closed right, James L. Ray was upon

for the official story. The authorities would pray at all we found a gun the James L. Ray bought in Birmingham that killed Dr King, Except it wasn't the gun that killed Dr. King. One of the problems that came out when I got the Ray case was that some of the evidence, as far as I was concerned, did not match the circumstances. This is the MLK Tapes. The first episodes are available now. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Make sure to check out Drink Champs, your number one music podcast. On the Black Effect Podcast Network, hosts n O r E and d J E f N sat down with artists and icon Ya, which Vulture called one of most significant interviews. I literally had to go like Danos and I don't want to have to be the villain. But when I went and did the Donda thing, he returned and anybody had to sit back and watch the

real leader. Check out Drink Champs conversation with Yea and many more legendary artists each and every Friday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What do you think is the way out of this this very difficult time in our history? You know, I interviewed David Brooks and he talked about our tribal mentality, which isn't a news flash, but I

thought he he phrased it in an interesting way. He talked about the fact that our political party has become our ethnicity and it is so wrapped up in our identity. You know, politics used to be something you kind of did on the side, right, that would come up during important elections, but it wasn't so defining as it is today. So how do you break those chains and how do you kind of step out of this is who I am, and if you say anything that's different, it's almost a

primal threat to my survival. Yeah, well, first of all, I have a couple of answers to that. First of all, I don't think we're as defined by our politics as the people who write about politics think we are defined by our politics. This is part of the problem. Everything is seen through the prism of where the people who are commenting on it tend to work. I mean, the same people who are pondering this issue are the people who are covering this issue and writing about this issue.

Whereas I can tell you that when the election is over, Okay, this one stretching out because of the controversy over the account of the votes, but whenever it comes to an end, and a few people around here outside my window here in Michigan, they're not spending every minute talking about politics or what political party they're associated with, or what tribe they're associated with. These are things that the media makes

up and and and determines. So right off the bat, you know, one of the great things for me, Katie, by leaving the East Coast and coming in the West was learning that the world doesn't begin an end like that famous New York cartoon. Oh first that second Avenue, First Avenue, California. You know, Uh, there's us whole middle where people just go about their lives and they really aren't. They aren't debating about to just see the just read that piece in the Times this morning. It's not a

sentence out here and and it's not. It doesn't it's not what motivates people. So one the first step is to recognize that out everybody to find themselves by the politics. I think people do define themselves in America today by something, and I think we're very identity oriented. And the for me, the cure for that, which is the second part of my answer to your question of three parts um, is to put yourself in a situation where this isn't an obsession.

So I'm very blessed. I think you know that I I operate an orphanage in Haiti, and I've been there for the last eleven years, and I go every single month of my life, and I'm there, you know, up to a week, sometimes two weeks of every month. There is no worry about which political party you're in in Haiti. It's where am I going to eat and where i'm I'm how am I gonna get food? And how am I gonna get clean water? And how and how am I going to take care of this child that I

don't have any money for it? That's it. And when you deal go to places and you don't have to go as far as Haiti, you can do it right here in America. There are many many places in America where you go where you say, okay, are our concerns right now? Much more basic food, education, safety. You quickly realize the argument over who's gonna who's gonna be the new Defense secretary really doesn't change your your daily existence.

And number three, you gotta you gotta take these these devices and and and just say I'm gonna give myself a limit, and then that's it. Don't dive. You know, people somehow think that they're getting perspective by diving deeper into social media, when actually they're narrowing their perspective as they dive deeper into social media because they're just staying on that and they're just adding another person to follow on Twitter, you know, trying to get more people on Facebook.

That is not broadening your perspective. Even though you're you feel you're growing because look how many followers I got to, Look how many people I follow. You're not growing, You're shrinking. You're shrinking because your perspective is shrinking and you're not going outside that little device to see the world and to see real people. And so the only way it's going to change is if people really start taking to

this like they did to smoking. You know, we we actually finally turned the corner on smoking after decades or people said, well, I can't it's addicting, I can't do anything about it. But eventually enough people died, and enough and enough facts came out and people said, you know what, maybe I should stop smoking. You know, maybe my kids

shouldn't start smoking. And and maybe there'll be a moment with social media where we'll kind of realize the damage it's doing to us and actually start to pull back from it. When that happens, then maybe you see the temperature turned down a little bit on this national divide. I go back to my visits with Marie again. I would you know again, that's twenty five years ago now

died twenty five years ago. Last week that was the anniversary of his death, And so it's twenty five years ago that I was sitting beside him as he was dying and asking a lot of these similar questions in my own, you know, little youthful version of myself. Uh. And you know, one of the things he said about anger was that and you know at the time, I

remember asking him about anger too. There were angry shock jocks and angry you know, I think Rush Limbaugh was kind of getting started and getting big, and there's a lot of anger going on, and the and the the O. J. Simpson trial was going you know, that case was going on, and right in nine five. It happened while I was there. So there's plenty of divisiveness in the country back then. You know, we didn't invent it in two thousand and And I asked him about you know, all this anger

and that Mitch that reflects unsatisfied lives. You know, lives that that are are that that don't have in them, the the essences to feel like you have contentment, and he mentioned you know, the love, community, family, feeling needed. All of those things were answered to this anger when all you have is your little world of you know, this one said this one, and this one said this one, and this this one. You know in sports writing, which

you know, I that's how I began. Um, there was this thing that they used to do in New York all the time. Uh. They would go to a manager and they would ask him about you know, like what do you what do you think of the other manager? And you know, they keep pressing until they got some comment, and then they run over to the other manager and they'd say, he just said this about you. What do you think about that? You know? And and he said that, well,

I said, and it's literally like stirring. It's like alchemy. It's like creating anger out of nothing, you know, because there wasn't any feud, but you started a feud and now there's a few, you know, so to create that anger. If that's what's happening in our political world too, it's just like every little thing, well, what do you did you see what he said about this. That's what twitter is.

You take this comment, comment on the comments, someone comments on your comment, on the comment, and they comment on that comment. They get angry, they get out. But when you realize you don't need that to breathe, you don't need that to get up in the morning, you don't

need that in your life. Um, if if people can just get back to that, uh and start to emphasize those things that Morey said and other people said before him about what's really critical in life, you know, and and a sense of community, as Mr Brooks may have said, and Maury said said to me, and he was a big one who taught it to me, you know, a sense of being involved in your community, sense of being needed,

a sense of helping people who need help. If you want to get out of your own sense of misery or anger, just go find somebody who has it worse. And it's not hard to do. And that's what I meant when I said, you go to Haiti every month. It's the second poorest country in the world. You can be you can get there an hour and a half from Miami. I mean, it's not like you're flying to the African continent. You know, it's right here, and you land there and you see, you know, people people literally

dying because forget about COVID. They don't even know they have COVID. They can't, you know, Uh Chica who I wrote the last book about our little girl who we adopted from Haiti. Her mother died giving birth to her baby brother because there was no doctor president and she had to do it herself and she started to bleed and something happening. If she was in a hospital, she never would have died. We never would have gotten, would

have adopted. All those things never would have happened. So you realize how lives are changing on just on just geography and and faith and where people happen to be. And you the minute I get there, there's always something that needs to be done, and always somebody that needs some help, and always some kids we need to take care of, and others something and you know, it goes

like that and the time flies. And I always say to my wife, I said, we we sleep down there on his old mattress that's maybe this thick on a bedframe that is made out of you know, wobbly would in a hundred degree heat. And I always sleep better there than I do anywhere else, including my beautiful home that I have here in America that I'm blessed to have. And I've asked her, so, why do you think that is?

You know? And she says, because you have a sent to purpose here, you know, and you you sleep because you know at the end of the day that you did something that was important and needed. And I think a lot of times we go to bed in America just feeling like we just argued a lot but didn't necessarily make anybody else's life any different. And I'm blessed to have found this outlet because it helps keep me. I believe it helps keep me on a much more

even feel. Well, what advice would you give? I mean, it's so inspiring, and what would you say to people who say, yeah, I I want to find a deeper purpose. I want to help someone who's less fortunate, but they might not know how to start or where to go or what they're calling would be. You know, mine became cancer because I lost my husband, as you know, Mitch,

about twenty two years ago in January. And um, so you know, what would you say to people in terms of finding something that that that that's bigger than themselves. It's right around the corner. You do not have to go very far in this country or anywhere else to find it. You certainly don't have to get on a plane and fly to Hay you to do it. There are there are if you're young, there are nursing homes. This is all after COVID. We of course, this discussion

is post COVID. But one of the fastest things you could do is there are nursing homes or places for the elderly that would just love to have someone come and visit and sit and talk. Play piano if you know how to play piano, read a story, if you're a good reader. I mean, the simplest little thing. There you go there around every corner of where everybody lives.

You know, there are so many young people who need mentors and who would just thrill at the idea of having someone take them to lunch, or take them to a movie once a week, or go play ball with them or whatever I mean. And they're not hard to find. It's it's really as someone you know, I you know, I oberate a lot of charities here in Detroit. I meet people all the time who tell me exactly what you just said. I like to get involved. I said, here's my number or here's the email. Just we'll get

you involved. And there's a thousand things that you can choose from. It's not that hard to give of yourself in this country. In fact, God bless this country for being so charitable. There are other places in the world that people hold up as great countries, and they are great countries, are beautiful and all the rest of it, but they don't have this charitable sense that we do in America. This idea that giving a charity, getting involved, volunteering,

all the rest of that stuff. It's it's it's uh. I don't want to say it's uniquely American. It's very American. And and there are so many organizations, so many charities set up to who want your help. Uh, you know, and I feel like saying that We'll tell everybody who talk to has that problem that they can call me. But I'm afraid you have a big audience. I might never get up, but you know, they can call it. Certainly check in with their local agencies. There's many many

places need volunteers. That's true. Well, in closing, Mitch, since it's the twenty five anniversary of of Maury's death, maybe we should end on on how he changed your life and how he made your life better and richer, and what you can share from Maury that may do the same for people listening to this. So one time I watched a bunch of people come and visit Maury um on the day that I was there, and they all

followed this same pattern. They had seen him on TV with Ted Copple and all that, and they weren't really great friends, but they hadn't known him a little bit. They wanted to come talk to them and and but they were kind of nervous about how to talk to a dying person. So they had like a strategy. They had photos and stuff, and they were all set to cheer him up, you know. And I would watch one at a time. They would go into Maury's office, the door would close, spent an hour to come out an

hour later in tears. But they would be crying about their love life, their divorced, their work. There's something all about them. And they said, well, I don't know what happened. I went in and tried to cheer him up, but after about five minutes he started talking to me and started asking me questions about my life. And so I started talking and started asking me more questions. I started really talking. Next thing I know, I was crying. Whatever. I wanted to try to cheer him up, but he

ended up cheering me up. So I watched this Happened Katie so many times, and finally I went into him. I said, I don't get it. You're the one who's dying from Blue Garry's disease. You know you've hit the motherload of sympathy here. Why don't you just say, let's not talk about your problem, Let's talk about my problem. And he looked at me as if I had stepped off of a spaceship, and he said, Mitch, why would I ever take from people like that? Taking just makes

me feel like I'm dying. Giving makes me feel like I'm living. And I've never forgotten that sentence. It's profound, it's short, it rhymes, so it's easy to remember. Giving makes me feel like I'm living. But it's so true. And I have found when I was seeing him. When I first went to go see him, I was all about my career, my ambition, my success. I don't think I was a jerk necessarily, but I certainly wasn't concerned about other people. I was concerned about how fast can

I get ahead? Um the years that have passed since, particularly since Tuesdays and more of the book came out and people started talking to me about that and knowing me more for that than anything else that I did, Um have been so much more satisfying and and so much more about, you know, and my involvement now. I mean, my life is sixty charitable stuff and and I couldn't be busier. But I'm so much more um satisfied then when I was just trying to shovel coal into my

own furnace, you know. And and so I would say that that whole notion of giving is living has really proven to be true, you know. And uh Um, I thank him for that because it's, uh it's guided my life, you know, to the point. You know, it's what ended up bringing me to Haiti and ended up you know, I have fifty two children I raised there now and and I never had any of that without that change in perspective. And it's never too late to change that perspective,

you know. I mean, my wife and I became parents when we were in our late fifties to this little girl from Haiti who had a brain tumor. But we brought up thinking we'll get her operated on and we'll bring her right back to Haiti and she'll be fine. And she never went home, you know, And she ended up living with us for two years while we travel

around the world trying to find a cure. And even though ultimately, you know, we were not successful, and she died when she was seven, but those two years that we had changed our lives, you know, forever, forever, and we didn't lose a child. We were given one, you know, and it was an amazing blessing. And it never would have happened if if I hadn't been following Morey's suggestion of you know, giving is what makes you feel alive,

and she certainly did us, so I think. And I'm not unique in any way, and I'm not special in any way. All these things anybody can do, anybody can have happened, just you want to change your perspective. That's all thanks again to Mitch Album. His most recent book is called Finding Chica, a Little Girl, an Earthquake and the Making of a Family, and a big thank you

to Neil Rothschild and his Turnout analysis at Axios. Be sure to follow me on social media and go to Katie Currek dot com to subscribe to my morning newsletter called wake Up Call. You'll get a little bit of Katie every morning in your inbox and what could be better than that. Turnout is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Katie Curic and Courtney Littz. Supervising producers Lauren Hansen. Associate producers

Derek Clements, Eliza Costas and Emily Pento. Editing by Derrick Clements and Lauren Hansen, Mixing by Derrick Clements. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser and special thanks to my right hand woman Adriana Fasio. Meanwhile, yes, I'm Katie Curic. Thanks so much for listening everyone. We'll see you next time. Back Oh jama Anna Stralinia in California. The Gangster Chronicles podcast is a weekly conversation that revolves around the underworld and

criminals and entertainers to victims, crime and law enforcement. We cover all facets of the game. Gainst the Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify from modilicit activities. We just discussed the ramifications and repercussions of these activities, because, after all, if she played gainst games, you are ultimately rewarded with gangster prizes. Our Heart Radios number one for podcasts, but don't take our award for it. Find Against the Chronicles podcast and

my Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Bobby Bones from the Bobby Cast. We are Nashville's most listen to music podcast. In depth interviews with your favorite country artists plus the biggest songwriters and producers in Nashville, all from the comfort of my own home so it gets a little more laid back. They're sharing stories behind the biggest songs and country music, and personal stories that you will not hear anywhere else. Do If you love

country music, I think you will love this podcast. Listen to The Bobby Cast on I Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.