Every week Grant Reeher, Political Science Professor and Senior Research Associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University, leads a conversation with a notable guest. Guests include people from central New York — writers, politicians, activists, public officials, and business professionals whose work affects the public life of the community — as well as nationally prominent figures visiting the region to talk about their work.
David Knapp and Maurice Brown on the Campbell Conversations
Nov 15, 2025
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. One of the biggest surprises in the recent elections was the change in party control of the Onondaga County Legislature, which Democrats won all six seats that they contested, shifting the balance of power from 12 to 5 in favor of Republicans, to 10 to 7 in favor of Democrats. Joining me today to parse out why that happened and what it might mean are two members of the legislature who won their elections. Maurice, or Mo Brown, a Democrat, represents the 15th district, which is made up of a ring within the city of Syracuse on the east, south and west sides, kind of like a horseshoe around the inner part of the city there. David Knapp, a Republican, represents the 12th district, which includes the towns of Pompey, Fabius, Tully, Lafayette, and parts of DeWitt and Manlius. And as full disclosure, I should also mention that Legislator Brown was a student way back when, in one of my classes at Syracuse University, and I've also worked with Legislator Knapp in a veterans-oriented program at the university. Legislator Brown, let me start with you. Did you expect your party to pick up this many seats in the legislature? Were you surprised?
Maurice Brown: A little surprised, but there were, you know, telling signs that this could happen. And we kind of prepared for the possibility that it might happen. I put it at 10% to someone before. When you looked around the country, there were similar swings. The most notable example locally, when, Congresswoman Stefanik was thinking about running or she was going to get an appointment with the Trump administration, she turned it down. And the rumor was because they were expecting that seat to be vulnerable. If the North Country seat is vulnerable, then everything else, you know, logically is in play. And that kind of held true, you know, we saw swings as big as I think 14 points in district four, but, and I think the average was like a nine point swing. So yeah, the community wanted something different.
GR: And Legislator Knapp, same question to you. Did you see this coming?
David Knapp: Well, you know, like Mo, you know, there were some concerning things for me. You know, I think there might have been a little complacency out there, number one, and number two, you know, certainly when early voting kicked off and we saw the enthusiasm of the Democrats coming out to vote and, you know, the makeup of the early vote, I was, you know, I was definitely concerned a little bit. You know, there was a few seats that I knew were going to be really, really difficult. But there was a few that I thought we were okay in, that it'd be closer than usual, but they probably pull it through, that didn't. And so from that standpoint, yeah, I was surprised that, in a couple of seats, I'm not surprised in a few others.
GR: I want to come back to something you mentioned and ask Legislator Brown about it in a second. But let me ask you this question first, Legislator Knapp.
DK: Yeah.
GR: You had the luxury of not having an opponent, as I recall.
DK: Yup.
GR: But you also still went door to door and talked to people, too, as I believe. So, did you get any kind of inkling from the ground that something was different this year from doorstep conversations?
DK: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think people were, you know, not as much looking at local issues as national issues, you know, in talking to them. And, you know, so there definitely was a concern, you know, with the government shut down, you know, being the way it was and, you know, and just, you know, the polarization of things at the national level that, you know, inevitably are going to, you know, siphon down to the local level. That was a concern. You know, I talked to, just yesterday, I talked to a friend of mine who's a Democrat. And, you know, good guy, known him forever. So I was talking to him about it, and he just said, you know, overall, I've been pretty satisfied with the governance of Onondaga County. And, you know, in years past, I would, you know, maybe, crossover and vote for a Republican and stuff. But he said this year, with everything going on, I just found myself, you know, staying on the Democrat line and not even thinking about, you know, something else. And so, you know, I think that was absolutely a big piece of it.
GR: Well, Legislator Brown, Legislator Knapp mentioned the enthusiasm from the early voting on the part of the Democrats. And I'm going to put my political scientist hat on here for a second. Usually when you see something like this, particularly something that is up and down the ballot, it's often turnout, it's more about turnout than persuasion. Was your sense that it was, part of the phenomenon was just more Democrats making the point of going out and voting in a local election, and then maybe capitalizing on that ambivalence that on the Republican side, that legislator Knapp mentioned?
MB: I think it was a combination of all the things. I want to say turnout was 29% last week, which I'm told isn't particularly high, but they are correct. Like Dem turnout was slightly higher, but there was also Republican turnout being slightly lower. Like it was a combination of things. I think we as the Democratic caucus that we're running, we did a good job of highlighting the similarities between the national and the local. And I think the, you know, the Republican Party didn't do a good enough job of standing up to Trump. We acknowledge that, you know, Trump is a problem. Trump is making it hard for Republicans to run, and he's making it hard for Americans to live. I have a bias, and I won't run from that. But at the same time, the community wants people who are going to stand up to him. And when the Republicans didn't do it, and we did, I think it just created such a playing field that favored us heavily and we kind of never yielded it.
GR: Well, let me build on something that you've said there, and I'll ask this question to Legislator Knapp, but it has to do with why now in the sense of Onondaga County. Because we do know that President Trump has not been especially popular here for a while. And, Legislator Knapp, do you think if we're trying to answer the question, why did this happen in this election, as opposed to say, you know, two years ago or two years before that, is it, do you think it's the phenomenon that Legislator Brown's pointing out that there was a sense that Republicans aren't doing enough to provide some kind of boundary or guardrail on this president?
DK: Yeah, you know, potentially. But, you know, there's a few local, you know, hot button issues too that probably didn't help us as far as, you know, there's been a lot of talk about the inquiry and for example, whether that's, you know, a good investment or not, you know, so that certainly, you know, didn't necessarily help our cause. But, you know, we still got to do a little bit of a postmortem on why Republicans didn't get out. You know, just as an example, town of Manlius had 600 Republicans less than 2023 come out and vote. And why, you know? It's not like they came out and voted against us, they just stayed home. And so, you know, and in a town like Manlius, that's, you know, very close. You can't, yeah, you're not going to win with 600 people staying home. And so, you know, that's something we need to work on. It's going to be really interesting this next year with at least Stefanik running for governor. I'm really curious to see how she runs as far as, you know, she's been pretty close with the Trump administration in the past. Curious to see how she does this.
GR: Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine in a blue state, she's going to have to separate a little bit, but we'll have to see. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Onondaga County legislators David Knapp and Maurice Brown. So, Legislator Brown, I'm curious, what difference is this going to make in the county's affairs and policies going forward? Legislator Knapp just mentioned the aquarium, for example. But what kinds of things do you see might be different than they would have been had the Republicans kept the majority?
MB: So, a lot of our candidates, myself included, we ran on transparency. One of the biggest things that we heard from voters at the doors was it just felt like decisions were happening around them. It feels like Micron is happening around them, it feels like the aquarium is happening around them, and they didn't really feel a part of that conversation. You know, this community, I think 81 is the biggest example, but we will discuss a topic. We will talk about the pros and cons of a big proposal for a long time. And it didn't happen with those projects, and it stood out to people. People want to be a part of government, people want a government that includes them. So it's something we plan on prioritizing as far as, you know, town halls, public forums, just ways for people to get more engaged with the government. I think that's a good start, and it's something we're, you know, looking forward to delivering on.
GR: Yeah. You mentioned several things I wanted to ask the two of you about. And so, Legislator Knapp, I’ll come back. You mentioned the aquarium, it has become something of a lightning rod of criticism for the McMahon administration and more generally, the legislature. Do you think there might be some blockage to it now, at this point?
DK: Well, you know, a lot of it has to do with what the legislature could do or can't do and where we are in the project. You know, I haven't talked to the county executive about it since the election. So, you know, I don't know what more contracts are in place, you know, a lot of the money's already been spent. I mean, the opening is, you know, nine months away. So, you know, it might be something where, you know, in that particular instance, you know, where the ship has sailed, so to speak. But, yeah, that's, you know, that's part of the discussion.
GR: And Legislator Brown, I definitely want to get your perspective on this. A big issue, at least it's been going on as long as I've been in Syracuse, which is now going on 35 years, is the relationship between the city and the surrounding towns and villages. And now we'll have a Democratic mayor and a Democratic majority in the legislature. Do you think that the city will have kind of a relatively stronger hand, or there'll be more active support for it at the county level than there was before?
MB: So I have a bias, I do represent a district located entirely within the city of Syracuse. So I would say, yeah, I would like for the city to be a bigger part of that conversation. Not necessarily that the city will have a disproportionate one. I just feel it's been balanced historically. So it's more balancing of that about, you know, 48% of the city residents pay 100% of the tax base. You know, we know these numbers. But a lot of the things that are located within the city, like the hospital, like the universities, these are the biggest, you know, job providers in the area. So like, the city is paying for those, but a lot of those, you know, employees, a lot of those jobs are going to Dewitt, are going to Salina or going to Cicero. So yeah, figuring out how to balance that, I think is going to be a lot easier said than done. But I do hope it's something we can, you know, prioritize. But because like I said, I do think historically it's been imbalanced, in favor of the suburbs at the expense of the city.
GR: And Legislator Knapp, so, you represent a mostly rural area geographically, and then you've got some suburbs then, too. And even those suburbs are kind of, some of them are a bit outer suburbs. Does this possibility of what I've suggested, does it concern you at all as a representative?
DK: No, actually no, not at all. Because I, you know, I always believe that the county can succeed if the city isn't succeeding. And, so over the years, you know, I actually in my original district had a one election district in outer Comstock, which was, that was an interesting district. But you know, so with like, with the Agriculture Council which I lead, for example, we've done a lot of work with urban agriculture to encourage, you know, we helped get the Brady Farm started which is a six acre farm on the south side of Syracuse, largest urban farm in the country. And, you know, working with the Martin Luther King School, you know, doing raised beds and things like that to, you know, talk about where your food comes from, growing your own food. And you know I voted years ago to help the city pave some streets when they were in tough shape, some of the streets around the county complex downtown and things like that, Adams Street and a few others. So, you know, I don't mind that at all. And obviously the lead issue is, you know, has no boundaries. It's in the city, in the towns, you know, a lot of old houses. My house was built in 1835, you know, there's lead paint all over the place. And so, I don't, you know, I don't see a problem. And I, you know, obviously a balance is what's needed. And, yeah, I've always said the city pays taxes too. So, yeah, no, I'm not afraid of that of that at all.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Onondaga County legislators Maurice Brown and David Knapp, and we've been discussing the recent county election results and what they might suggest going forward. Well, we've mentioned this a couple times, and my view, it's the elephant in the room for the county and the city… Micron. It's the biggest issue and opportunity for this region and at least a generation, perhaps more than that. But there have been concerns that have been raised about this project's impact, about how inclusively distributed the benefits from it will be, whether the city will start to become gentrified, who's going to take on the responsibility for the necessary growth and housing? As well as environmental and infrastructure concerns. This place is going to use a lot of energy, a lot of water. So, it's been my impression, and either one of you can correct me on this, but it's been my impression that most of those concerns have been the loudest on the Democratic side when they've been raised. And so, Legislator Knapp, I wanted to ask you this question first. Do you have concerns now that the county legislature has flipped and there is a Democrat in, going to be leading the city as mayor, do you have concerns that the progress on Micron might be impacted by this change in any way?
DK: No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, the Micron project gives us the, you know, the opportunity to, you know, not only grow the community but enrich the community. And, you know, I'm a believer in the old, you know, rising tide lifts all ships. You know, we have the opportunity to do that, but we have to be, you know, mindful that, you know, there's not one community that's bearing the brunt of it or one that's getting, you know, more of the benefit than others. You know, it's not just, you know, the city of Syracuse to be concerned about. I'm concerned about, you know, farmland protection and are we going to be, you know, paving over a lot of really, really rich farmland up there for housing developments or other things that, you know, might not be long term in our best interest. And so there's a lot of things to look at here, you know, I think the opportunity, you know, goes above local politics, obviously. You know, Senator Schumer has been very involved, you know, Governor Hochul as well. And so, you know, they're going to, you know, have a, you know, they're going to be talking to us about it too, if the pendulum swings, you know, too far one way or the other.
GR: And Legislator Brown, curious to get your take on this. So do you anticipate that some of these voices of concern, and maybe voices of dissent, may get more of a hearing now than they've had before?
MB: Yeah, I am. I do think more voices will be heard and there will be more outreach than in the past, but I more think it's just the misinformation. So, I'm very informed on the project because I sit in this position, but like the average citizen isn't. So, the average citizen has questions that I just don't have because I'm able to do that much homework. I want to bring the average citizen into it, because I think once they learn, you know, about the project, they'll be into it too, I call it the, you know, the Micron promise. It’s something that's not been offered to our children before, but we're going to be able to say, if you graduate from Corcoran High School, if you graduate from Henninger in three years, you can be making 80 grand plus in your community, like to give back to your own community. We've never been able to offer that to our young people, and I think that's wholly worth pursuing because that's life changing, it's generational changing. But at the same time, if that promise costs us, you know, a great lake, if it cost us a Finger Lake because of the environmental damage, then we have to, you know, pump the brakes and evaluate how we're doing this. But having done my homework, there are, you know, reasons for pause, but no reason for stop. I think we just need to do a better job of explaining to people what's going on, how the process is happening. And because we haven't done that, there's so much skepticism, there's so much criticism of it. But I think once we do that and more people learn about it, I think more people will get on board and get excited about it like I am.
DK: I think this delay that was just announced the last week, you know, I know a lot of people were disappointed by that. Quite frankly, I'm not. It gives us a little more time to catch our breath and, you know, we were going at a really serious clip there for a while, and so it's good to, yeah, maybe slow down a little bit and give us an opportunity to, yeah, make sure everybody's getting all the information they need. Yeah, I don't mind that a bit.
GR: And let me just be clear on that, ask either of you. Do either of you have any concerns about Micron's commitment to this changing at all because of that, no?
MB: No sir, no sir.
DK: No, I don't think so. I think long term we're good.
GR: Okay. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guests are Onondaga County legislators David Knapp and Maurice Brown. Legislator Brown, I wanted to ask you this question, and it's a bit more sensitive. But it's a question about politics and race. And so just thinking about this election, we're going to have the first African-American mayor in Syracuse that we've ever had. Syracuse was one of two of the big five cities that didn't have an African-American mayor. The Democratic leader of the legislature, the minority leader is a woman of color. You have announced, it's part of the official record, that you're interested in becoming the chair of the legislature.
MB: Yes sir.
GR: You would be the first African-American chair of the legislature, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong on that.
MB: You are correct.
GR: Is this kind of, do you think we're at sort of an inflection moment, a threshold moment for where Syracuse is with race and politics? I don't know how you want to think about that question, but I'm curious just to see, you know, whatever your thoughts are.
MB: I mean, I think to ignore it would be irresponsible, like, full stop. It is historic. The election of Sharon Owens is literally once in a lifetime. That representation matters. To be able to see yourself in your mayor is huge, and there are people who are going to be able to see themselves in the mayor that never could before, full stop. But I don't want it to take away from that, you know, Sharon Owens has been doing great work in this community for decades. Like, she is duly qualified of her own accord. And, you know, I'd say the same about myself. I'd say the same about Lita Hernandez. Should one of us become chair, you know, we, I am a man of color, I am a black man, I will always be, there's no way around that. Lita Hernandez is, you know, Afro-Latina, she can't run from that. But I like to think that I'm qualified outside of that. You know, I served in the military, I, you know, degrees from OCC and SU. I'm connected to this community. I am qualified of my own accord. But to ignore, you know, that historic moment would be irresponsible. But I don't think it'll be as historic when we look back 10, 15 years from now, because I think it'll be a lot more common than it is at this very moment.
GR: Well, you were in my class. That should just end any discussion about that. (laughter)
MB: Exactly. I'm perfectly qualified, training of Grant Reeher.
GR: That's what we like to hear.
DK: Top of the resume right there, absolutely.
GR: So, we’ve got about 3 or 4 minutes left, and I kind of want to take some time with this last topic here. And Legislator Knapp, I'll come to you with this first. Now that the legislature is in Democratic hands, or will be in January, does it have any effect on the races for county executive or the races for Congress or, you know, or maybe just think about the transition that we just went through. The fact that there was this pretty big swing, we've only ever had Republican county executives. How do you think this is going to matter down the road?
DK: You know, it certainly makes, you know, gives people on the Democrat side an opportunity to, you know, be out there more, be in the media more, you know, and, and be heard. So, you know, as far as building a bench, so to speak, as we, you know, as we say, you know, on the political side, you know, it absolutely gives them the ability to, you know, to get more people in the mix and get their voice out that much more. So it could absolutely have an impact on the next county executive race in a couple of years or other races for higher office, absolutely.
GR: Do you think that this thing has put a chill down the spine of Ryan McMahon?
DK: You know, again, I haven't really had a long conversation with him. But, you know, I think, you know, if I was him, I'd certainly be, you know, reassessing some things about, you know, how we're doing things in communication and things like that. I still think he has an absolutely tremendous resume to run on and, you know, a lot of accomplishments. So, you know, from that standpoint, you know, he's in a nice spot. But no, you've got to keep evolving in this business or, you know, you can very, very, very quickly all of a sudden find yourself, you know, a dinosaur, so to speak.
GR: And Legislator Brown, I was curious to get your perspective on this, too. Does this change the way that you see these big elections coming up?
MB: I think that, you know, I come from sports. It's like a track game. I think that we can't fall into that trap. Folks didn't elect us because they want us to, you know, run for higher office. You know, some of my colleagues are thinking about the executive's race or what seats can we pick up next year? But we have a chance to help people. We've not been able to do that, especially as Democrats. But we have a chance to, you know, have our voice be the loudest in county government it's ever been and we can influence policy. We can use the levers of government to help people. And I think that should be our first priority. Do we forget about the upcoming elections? Of course not. But I think that they go hand in hand. And if you're worried about winning the election and not worried about actually helping people, you can't catch both. Whereas if you try and help people, it will spill over into elections.
GR: That makes sense. Well, we're just about at the end of our time. But, you know, I was thinking about this. We're talking two days after Veterans Day, and I'm talking to two veterans. Remind me, Legislator Brown of your service branch.
MB: Yep. So I was a military police officer in the United States Army.
GR: Okay, you have that in common with Legislator Knapp, then?
DK: Absolutely.
GR: Because I know that he is an Army veteran and actually a West Point graduate. So, on behalf of the program and myself and anybody listening, let me just as a close wish both of you a happy Veterans Day, two days late. But thank you both for your service. Both as in the military, but also in the county legislature, it's a very important public service that doesn't always get the attention it deserves. So, thanks to both of you, really appreciate you taking the time for being on the program.
DK: Thank you.
MB: Thanks for your support, it’s appreciated.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media Conversations and the Public Interest.
Nick Paro and Pam Hunter on the Campbell Conversations
Nov 08, 2025
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Well, we had another election, and the results have set the political classes completely chattering. Here with me to parse out some of the real meanings from the results are New York State Assemblymember Pam Hunter, a Democrat, and Town of Salina Supervisor Nick Paro, a Republican. Democrats seem to have had a good night across the country, up and down the ballot. And I want to note that one of the Republican casualties of that night was Supervisor Paro, whom I had invited on the program prior to Election Day, but nonetheless graciously and gamely agreed to still come on and help us to understand what happened. So, Supervisor Paro, thanks so much for that, and Assemblymember Hunter, thanks as always. Welcome back on the program to both of you.
Pam Hunter: Thank you.
Nick Paro: Thank you so much.
GR: All right, well, Supervisor Paro, aside from your own race, obviously, what was the most important takeaway, do you think, from the elections on Tuesday?
NP: Yeah, you know, you saw a revolt, I'd call it a revolt, against the Republican Party. I think unfortunately, politics nowadays have become more about a label and less about the individuals. We've seen this shift occur probably over the last ten, fifteen years. It may have started even earlier than that, but it's definitely been energized. What your party affiliation I think is matters most to voters, and right now voters are very upset with the Republican Party, and they're upset with the person who leads the Republican Party, and that's Donald Trump. A lot of Republicans voted for him because they liked what he was saying on the campaign trail, and now we're seeing things that he's doing that are beyond what he had promised. They're more extreme than what we had signed up for, and we're seeing the results of that. I do like the caution, though. I don't think the results for the Republicans are as devastating as some people would take it. I think in Onondaga County, where I'm from and the results of my election, I do think we're seeing something that's much more of a shift than we are seeing elsewhere. But if you look, my example would be Nassau County. Nassau County voted Republican, right? You still were able to keep the countywide seats there, they were Republican. In Auburn, right around the corner from us, they just elected a Republican city councilor. And down in Binghamton, Binghamton kept their Republican mayor. So, you see these in other areas, but in Onondaga County, Central New York, you saw a large shift. Democrats won around the entire ballot. And then if you look at Virginia, New Jersey, those results were similar to 2017. So they were expected, they weren't as extreme as we imagined. But in Central New York, we're looking at a major shift.
GR: Well, what would you attribute that to? Because your original diagnosis was kind of a, you know, a rejection of or a reaction against Donald Trump. But what was different about the reaction here? Why?
NP: So, one of the cool things about our country, about our state is you have different people that live in different areas, they have different motivations. Central New York has this very specific characteristic. The people that live here have a different personality. They have different things that are important to them. And I think some of the things that are important to them are the complete opposite of what's important to Donald Trump and the Republican Party at the national level. You talk about that raid, the ICE raid that took place in Cato, that's not something that people signed up for. Just two days before the election, you talk about those two folks that were that are being held in an ICE facility in Batavia, they were employees at a local hospital. It's not something people in central New York signed up for. Those are things that mattered. And I also, I think the government shutdown, in Central New York we have people that that's affected deeply and those are things that they're rejecting.
GR: Okay, fair enough. Assemblymember Hunter, what do you think your most important takeaway from the elections?
PH: I do agree very much that, voters across the country send a clear message that they're just tired of broken Republican promises. And similar to what Supervisor Paro had said, it's not what people signed up for. I think that closing a border is different than scooping up people in your neighborhood who are hard working, who were, had legal papers to be working. That is something very different than the notion that criminals were going to be the ones scooped up. But also, you know, I think here locally too, especially as you look at the county legislature, there's been a lot going on in the county that people, I think, just are just tired. You know, when you're hearing SNAP benefits are going to be taken away, and yes, this is a federal issue, you need to make sure that those people who are providing social net services, which is the county, you want them to make sure that they're standing up and saying, hey, hey, hey, not on our watch, we're going to make sure we take care of our citizenry. That was not, you know, what was communicated. When you're hearing money for an aquarium, you're hearing, you know, money, huge tax breaks for Micron that could take away from school districts and the monies that they need, all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, these are some of the things that we aren't getting to vote on that that's impacting our lives? But also tariffs, you know, people can't afford anything. Right now, people are going to be going through their health insurance premium increases, all of this is happening right now. A shutdown, tariffs, premium increases, SNAP benefits decrease. And we saw across the country, but more specifically in Onondaga County that this is not what voters want. This is not what people sign up for and they want something different. And it's up to the people who are elected, to make sure that they can keep promises and keep what they said, that they are going to do, that they do those things, they take care of affordability, that they're being transparent as they said that they wanted to be. And I think that will be something that we have to look for in the days coming up.
GR: Well, you mentioned the Onondaga County Legislature, and I did want to ask both of you about that, because I guess my big takeaway was, me and a lot of other people that do commentary on this kind of thing, we're looking in the wrong place in a lot of ways. I mean, we kept talking about Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, Prop 50, and of course those are all important things. And Supervisor Paro, you made some really good points about those other races, the New Jersey and the Virginia one, I think is important to remember, placing them in a historical context. But, I think it was down ballot where the real, to me, the real surprising stuff was. I mean, did anybody see the flipping of the legislature coming, at the county level? And beyond that, all of the races that were contested by Democrats were won by Democrats. I mean, the new ones, those six seats. So, I mean, Supervisor Paro, I mean, do you agree with Assemblymember Hunter's diagnosis? It had a lot to do with SNAP benefits and other things, or was it's more of a, just a deep reaction to the president again?
NP: Yeah. All due respect, Assemblywoman Hunter, I’m going to disagree with you. And I understand a lot of the talking points that you touched on, I think are important, especially from your side of the aisle, to try to take credit for some of the victory. But unfortunately, if that's the case, then you wouldn't have seen a sweep in the New York State Supreme Court seventh district over in Cayuga County, Monroe County. You wouldn't have seen three of the four Supreme Court justices here in the fifth district, all Democrats, they win. Those races have nothing to do with SNAP benefits, those races have nothing to do with an aquarium. Those are five other counties, in fact, that were involved in the fifth Supreme Court district. They won strictly because their label was Democrat and the other people's labels were Republican. Mind you, one Republican won, Judge McCluskey, he was an incumbent. He was obviously one of the lowest vote getters to win in the fifth Supreme Court district. But when you are able to see, when you see losses like this that are from different political offices and from different sections of our community, and like you said, Grant, all the contested races went Democrat, there's something much larger than, I think, specific issues. We're talking now, like I said, just a revolt. This was a sending a message that we don't like a monolith of a party, which is the Republican Party in this case. We have an emotional response to them and what's occurring. Now, the factors that you put in, those all may accumulate to it, but they don't transcend Supreme Court justice races. Those become more, well, you're just a Republican, we don't like what the Republican Party's doing, so we're voting against all Republicans. You know, and what happened in Onondaga County legislature, again, it was a revolt against the Republican Party. They were making a statement to Republicans. We don't like what you're doing. I think you're going to see a little bit of a correction to that. Some people did a vote, but also in Onondaga County, there's been a shift for a while. This has been building up. I think your side of the aisle has known that this is building and you guys have been taking advantage of that for the last few years. This was the watershed moment where you guys have finally broke through. Onondaga County has been shifted this way for some time, and we were expecting this to come. I think everybody expected it next year, but this was coming, we knew it was coming. It just happened a little bit earlier, and it's the way it is. I think the Republican Party has a lot of work to do to rebrand themselves, and I don't think they're going to be able to do it in the short term. I think this is going to be a long-term project by the Republican Party.
PH: I think that's true, that the shift has changed for sure. And while we are celebrating this overabundance of Dems winning on Tuesday night, this has been a long, concerted effort. This is not just something that just started this year. You know, we've been picking up races here and there. You know, obviously we have three of the four countywide races that are Dems right now. But looking at towns like a Salina, looking at Marcellus, looking at picking up seats in Onondaga, whether it's a specific to SNAP, ICE, aquarium, etc., I think that the, it is loud and clear that folks are just not buying in to the message that is the broken Republican Party that they are not wanting to support. And if they can pick an issue, whether it's SNAP or ICE or whatnot, I think clearly people were just going right down row A regardless of what race it was for and more Dems vote than Republicans and this is what happens. But if you look in towns like Clay, huge overwhelming upset, you're expecting Dems to win in the city, you're expecting Dems to win a majority dem districts. You're not expecting Dems to sweep in a Salina or in the Clay, where the enrollment doesn't necessarily reflect that. Even though there is a Democratic majority in Salina, what happened in Salina didn't reflect the demographics. So, the same thing in Cicero with the Supervisor, and we're going to wait to see what happens. And I think that is just either, a couple of things, Republicans stayed home, and also the sentiment of what is happening is just not where we need to be. But again, people vote and then it is the responsibility of those elected to deliver on what they say they're going to. And it can't be over-promising under-delivering because people are struggling right now. And that is real. And that affordability, you know, mantra where you just keep saying it's in your pocketbook, in your pocketbook that really resonates with people as they can't afford food. I was just, anecdotally, was in Utica yesterday and they do a Feed Our Vet every single Wednesday for veterans. I go and, you know, partake and see my fellow veterans. They had more people in line yesterday that I have ever seen. And I asked the gentleman in charge like, what's going on? It's never usually like this. And he said, it's all new people because their benefits were taken away. So this is what's going on, and I think the federal shutdown hasn't helped.
GR: Well, it sounds like in the main, the two of you are in agreement. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with State Assembly member Pam Hunter and Town of Salina Supervisor Nick Paro, and we've been discussing the recent election results and what they might suggest going forward. So, Assemblymember Hunter, you served was Zohran Mamdani in the Assembly, he's a party colleague of yours. What was he like to work with? Is he a workhorse, or is he a show horse?
PH: I did, and I do. He's obviously still in the assembly until the end of this year. I think it’s very interesting because he obviously is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist. He, and there are few others in our conference who, their mantra has been they sing from the same songbook. They say every single talking point exactly the same, and so they move as they bloc, they move as the democratic socialists in our party. And so, if you're talking about an activist, I think that in many ways, the DSA members, they have their talking points that they get from their leadership from the DSA, and they don't vary, you know, deviate from that at all. And so, in some ways, I don't know if I was able to see the individual Zohran that is apart from the DSA because they were all always together in their thought process and their communication. And that's how it works, right? It's not really very dissimilar than Tea Party. You're all saying the same thing, you keep saying the same things over and over.
GR: Is what you're saying then that in the Assembly, Mamdani was sort of an ideologue.
PH: Very much an ideologue. I think, you know, very much the DSA platform. They were very committed to that and that is not something that they detracted from. That's not something they shied away from, they weren't embarrassed to say that. I mean, literally, that was their identification. There is something different between being an advocate legislator and there is something different than somebody who is an executive, you have to deliver now. It is not pointing the finger at someone else that they're to blame. You are responsible for successes and failures, and I think this is going to be the tipping point to see how that works, because, you know, some of the ideology that the DSA espouses is not necessarily moderately accepted. And I think this is going to be a huge, I'm not taking away that the grassroots, the amount of people who helped and volunteered, and they pivoted from public safety that was the very first, you know, thing that they were going to work on as his platform, polling said affordability, and they ran with that. And it worked because people, their pocketbook, it matters. How do you deliver that? Zohran the mayor is going to have to figure that out.
GR: Supervisor Paro, sticking with this for a moment, Assemblymember Hunter made it very clear just how far to the left this guy is and has been. But one of the things that struck me was he seemed to even go beyond that in his victory speech relative to his campaign speeches, and just a couple things. I mean, he starts right out of the gate quoting Eugene Debs, you know, this pretty hard driving socialist from about 100 years ago and then tells Donald Trump, ‘turn the volume up’, which I was literally scratching my head when he said that. So, what's your sense from your perspective of this guy?
NP: Yeah. I mean, look, I'm a little, shocked is probably not the word. But he's taking 50.4% of the vote and calling it a mandate. I've never seen somebody who got such a thin margin for over 50% of the vote and run so far towards his corner of the political field, it's a little astonishing. I think he should have a little bit of a reality check that, you know, we're looking at, what is it, 49.6 (percent) of the people in New York City did not vote for him. They were very skeptical of what he's offering in his positions, and he needs to figure out how to govern, to represent 100% of New York City. But this is what we all knew was going to happen. The guy is a democratic socialist. I think that the democratic socialist brand is truly a red herring. I don't I don't really find that to be, that's a modern ideology, but it's really a socialist ideology from the early 1900’s. You even said it, Eugene Debs, he quoted Eugene Debs. Eugene Debs ran as a socialist, there was no democratic in front of it. I think this is a wing of the party that Assemblywoman Hunter and them are going to have to deal with. This is going to be a struggle. We have it on our side. Both parties have these wings of the, that we have to work with or work through somehow. This is something the Democrats are going to have to deal with. He didn't vote for himself on the Democrat line, he voted for himself on the working families line, he in fact voted straight working families line. That's just another example of the fact that he doesn't truly identify as a Democrat. He identifies himself as a socialist and he thinks the Working Families Party is a socialist party, even though they have a name that seems to be a lot more moderate than it is. So, I'm not surprised. I'm truly, I'm actually interested to see, I don't live in New York City, so it gives me a little bit more of a, I can relax my shoulders a little bit and observe to see what happens. I am nervous, though. The policies he's talking about we've seen elsewhere in the world. I mean, the city run grocery stores, we know what happened in Venezuela with that. We've seen this stuff before, it never seems to work. I'm shocked that people might, he's the same age as me, he's 34 years old. I'm just shocked at the lack of understanding of what some of his policies have done elsewhere in the world. Why would they be successful today? And what makes him so special that he can make some of these policies work? I'm unsure.
PH: I don’t think it's just that, though. I think it's the talking to people like where they are. If you see, like, the young people in New York City and you know, you're talking about what resonates with you, they're like, they literally were saying they didn't care about other people. They cared about their pocketbook, and he said that he was going to help us freeze the rent and have affordable. And that's in the pocketbook of people.
NP: That's a scary sentiment that these people, that these folks, you know, they're missing history. They're missing an educational component of, well, how do you help people's pocketbooks? We have a great example in America, what makes life easier, what makes life better, what makes life more affordable and it's capitalist ideology, it's capitalist policies. You know, who said it…
PH: We’re not going to be able to get to that if you can't pay for bread and food. I think the foundational things that folks need, you need to start from there before you can get to that.
GR: Yeah, I can see and I think you folks are making sort of overlapping points rather than directly oppositional lines. But I, Assemblymember Hunter, I get what you're saying about that appeal and why it resonated and who it resonated with. Let me though, stick with you, and it's something that I've heard the last couple days from the Democrats who are the most celebratory of the election, but I'm suspicious about it. And it's the idea that these returns showed that this broad coalition of different kinds of Democrats can stay together. So, you know, they'll say, look, look at Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. She's a much more centrist Democrat, she won. Mamdani won in New York, much more to the left. The problem that I see with only seeing this as a good thing, for me, is that this difference within the Democratic Party, and Supervisor Paro already spoke to it, you know, it's a fundamental feature going on with both parties, but it's also been around for a long time. And so this particular rift within the Democratic Party is at least 40 years old. And when we get to 2028, the party's going to have to choose one. They can have one as a vice president, I suppose, but they're going to have to choose one at the top of the ticket. So is there some kind of coming together that you see for Democrats, Assemblymember, other than just the deep dislike and reaction against Trump that we've already been talking about?
PH: I think a lot of it has to do a couple of different things. If you're talking about Pam, you know, the legislator, you know, elected person is different than Pam the constituent Democrat who, you know, sometimes is not happy with the Democratic Party, right? I'm not happy with, you know, some of the actions that they do and some of the inaction, quite frankly. But I think a lot of it has to do with, you are really only given the option of A or B, okay, maybe A with a working family line or a B with a conservative line, but you're really, you're not given, A are you voting moderate, are you voting left? Are you voting progressive? You're either voting A or B, and then it's for us to figure out after A has been elected, how do we do this together? And I think that you will see that in some of the towns that went, you know, blue you'll see that on the county ledge, how are they able to work together? Because every one of those county legislators are not left, they're not socialists. And that's okay, that's the way this melting pot works. But it has to work in order to be able to move a community forward and not be self-serving for a political platform.
GR: So, quick follow up then I want to get Supervisor Paro to weigh in on a different topic unless he wants to comment on this one. Let's just say Tuesday is kind of our classroom, okay? Democrats now are thinking about 2028. What is the lesson that they draw from that regarding who their nominee should be? Because I don't see a clear one.
PH: I think that's something that needs to be worked out. I don't have an answer for that. I don't, you know, have an answer for that today. I mean, Gavin Newsom is like beating his chest and like, you're the guy in 2028. I'm trying to get people food for Thanksgiving. I mean, literally, I think that is a political strategy that is kind of outside of my sphere as of today. But I think those conversations, it has to happen with the Democratic Committee, it has to happen with the Assembly Conference committee, the Senate, and it needs to happen at county level. I think really, you know, the county apparatus is just a legal entity to get Dems or Republicans on the ballot. Really, I think people think it's the Democratic Party, it isn't. It's a committee whose legal responsibility is to get these folks on the ballot. It's the committee members and the universe that kind of works together to make this happen. And there’s not, if we're looking for one savior, that person is not going to come.
GR: Okay, fair enough. Supervisor Paro, I know your party's going to have to sort this out too in 2028, and it'll have similar interesting conversations. But let me ask you this if I could. The California voters voted overwhelmingly 2 to 1 to gerrymander their districts in the name of small ‘d’ democracy. (laughter) Sort that one out in our heads. But my concern about this, and I wanted to know how you see this is, what's the next shoe to fall and where is this all going to end? Do you have any sense about this? I mean, Texas is doing its thing. Some other states have said they're going to do it, now California is definitely going to do it, they've got the backing of the voters to do it. Where does, where do we end up on all this?
NP: Well, look, I'm going to fire a shot here and say this, New York State did it first, right?
GR: Oh, yeah, true, true.
NP: This actually started, you know, back in ‘24. You guys gerrymandered three, you sued the special master and gerrymandered three congressional districts. And now you had three more, Democrat congressmen. Texas decided to respond, California responds. You know, I'm nervous about the filibuster in the Senate, to tell you the truth. That could be the next shoe that drops. The stakes are only going to get higher and I think we just got to recognize that's going to happen. We're on the climb right now. And this is something, as young as I am, this is something that I know and I learned this from some mentors of mine. Politics is cyclical, and this isn't going to be the way it's going to be forever. But right now, I think we're still on the climb and I only think this is going to get worse before it gets better. But we're going to hit a point where I think we will have a reset. We're going to have things go back to a little bit of a calmer, more sensible way to handle things. And, you know, truthfully, I could imagine that'll be in 2030. I truly think that we're in the midst of this climate now and there's not going to be a short-term solution, but I think, 2030 or so, we're going to see a shift, a different type of politics, something that we can recognize a little bit. That's some hopeful thinking…
GR: Yeah.
NP: ..but I think that's where we're going. Just expect it to get worse before it gets better, I think.
GR: All right, yeah. Well, let me let me ask you.
PH: (unintelligible)
GR: Oh, I'm sorry, let me follow up with Nick and then, Assemblymember, I'll give you the last word, but these are just super quick things. Filibuster, just tell me the percentage of your estimate that it's going to end anytime soon, just a one word hit.
NP: The government shut down?
GR: No, filibuster, the filibuster.
NP: 75% it'll end, so that way they can open the government.
GR: Oh my goodness, okay. And last question for you, Assemblymember Hunter. We're out of time, but give me your percentage estimate that, either chamber is going to flip in 2026 and at the at the national level.
PH: I think it's pretty high. That's usually what happens midterms after a presidential election. So, I'm not a gambler, but I have to say it's going to be the percentage necessary to get over so that 50% plus one will be enough to be able to take back the house. I don't know if both of them, but I definitely think one of the houses will definitely, the margins are too slim right now anyway, and if the trajectory keeps happening, I don't foresee that not happening.
GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Nick Paro and Pam Hunter. Again, Supervisor Paro, Assemblymember Hunter, thanks again for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it.
PH: Thank you.
NP: Absolutely.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Ken Belson on the Campbell Conversations
Nov 01, 2025
Ken Belson
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. We're in the thick of football season, and we always try to have at least one program on the sport every year. My guest today is Ken Belson, the longtime New York Times reporter. He's covered both the playing and the business side of the NFL, and he has a new book out. It's titled, "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut." Mr. Belson, welcome to the program.
Ken Belson: Thanks for having me on, appreciate it.
GR: Thanks for making the time, we appreciate it. So, we'll get into exactly who did what for the NFL. But first, I just want you to give our listeners an overall sense of this. What have been the biggest changes in the NFL since the, say, the late 1980s that have turned it into this cultural and economic juggernaut that's in the title of your book?
KB: Yeah, I think the biggest is media. The NFL, like all the leagues, had pretty cozy relationships with the networks over the years. And if you think back to the late 80s, even into the early 90s, there was basically three types of packages. There was the AFC package, NFC package, and Monday Night Football. And there were only three bidders, ABC, NBC and CBS. That was kind of it. There was a little bit of cable, ESPN had started to get in, but it was more or less a cozy relationship. And the networks did well, and the league sort of did well, but the growth wasn't really there. It took a fellow named Jerry Jones, a born and bred entrepreneur, to look at that and say, why aren't we running an auction? Which is sort of standard business practice. So he invited, or brought into the fold, a fellow named Rupert Murdoch. And Rupert was desperate to grow his network. If you remember, back in those days, it was Bart Simpson and In Living Color, that was Fox TV at that point. So, by bringing that fourth bidder to the table, the media rights exploded. Rupert outbid CBS, CBS regretted it, came back at double the price four years later. So, that was both a big moment for the NFL, it Was kind of an inflection point, but also for all sports. The NBA saw this, Major League Baseball saw this. So across the sports landscape, you had bidding wars for property rights. And that, of course, changed the economics of network television as well.
GR: And so, you know, you pull out Jerry Jones, you've just said something about why you would choose him, but you've also got Robert Kraft. Why do these two owners, why are they so much more important than all the other owners?
KB: Well, they joined the league at this critical point. Back in the 80s, fans of a certain age will remember there were work stoppages. There was a strike, a brief strike in 1987, there were scab players, it was a bad time for the league. They weren't growing well, there was fear of losing games. A fellow named Paul Tagliabue was, longtime general counsel of the league was, or outside counsel to the league, was elected commissioner. And he saw that this was not a stable business model. And so he really worked hard with Dan Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, as the kind of peacemaker amongst the owners and Gene Upshaw to set a foundation for the league. And that included free agency, of course, and the salary cap to offset it, but really revenue sharing. The league and the union finally became, I guess, what we would call partners. And they weren't adversaries in the same way they had been for generations, really. So that that also put a floor under the league. And Jerry and Robert came in at this time, they both had paid record amounts for their teams, they both went heavily in debt to do that and they were hungry to pay back their loans. It's that simple. They had to fix their franchises. The Cowboys were losing $1 million a month. The Patriots were always the last in the league in revenue. So they had some homework to do there. But they also, and this is really where they stand out amongst other owners, they got very involved in league business very quickly. All owners do to some degree, but those two really embraced it. I gave the example of Jerry, you know, bringing Rupert Murdoch to the table. Robert, very quickly. now, he owned part owner of a CBS affiliate in Boston before he owned the team, so he knew the guys at CBS. And guess what? He brought them back to the table for the AFC package at twice the price. So both of them realized, we got to grow the whole pie, we'll share in that, of course, but the league itself will benefit from that.
GR: One of the things that I was surprised to recall when I was reading through your book and you just mentioned this, was the fact that the price of the Cowboys when Jones bought it was a record price.
KB: Yeah.
GR: And when I look at the figure and I think, oh man, did he get that cheap, I mean, from today's perspective, he did. But I had sort of created the memory that he bought it cheap at the time. But no, it was considered a real gamble at the time.
KB: Yeah, it was a gamble 115 for the team and then he had to buy the stadium and absorb some debt. I think it came to $140 or 50 million. But you got to remember, this was when the SNL crisis was going on in Dallas, in Texas. The oil market had fallen. So the local economy was doing terribly. The team wasn't good, and they weren't selling suites and tickets. So the team was kind of on its back, and yet he still paid a record amount for it. But yeah, nine figures, wow, now it's easily ten, and someday will be 11 figures for a team. So, yeah, it seems cheap now, but the, you know, the cost of money back then was what it was.
GR: Interesting. So I don't know Kraft and his story as well as I know Jerry Jones. But to me, they seem like just two very different kinds of owners and personalities. Aside from, again, you know, making the purchases of the teams at the times when you note. And the other thing I thought they had in common right off the bat is they both had controversial hires as head coaches, you know, Jimmy Johnson for the Cowboys, Bill Belichick for the Patriots. But, you know, you have you have Kraft, who is this Jewish kid, he went to Columbia on academic scholarship, Harvard Business School. And then, as you say, Jones, you know, the entrepreneur, the oil tycoon, he went to Arkansas on an athletic scholarship. How, as you were researching these people, you've talked to them, you know them, how do you assess kind of their core similarities and differences?
KB: Yeah, I actually found they had more in common than I thought. I very much saw what you saw. Boston, South, you know, they're roughly the same age, but very different background, I thought, very different backgrounds. It's really very different styles. They both had dads who were very influential in their lives. Both of their fathers were small businessmen, both left college and went right into business as entrepreneurs. Jerry had the audacity at 23 years old to try and buy the San Diego Chargers and went to Jimmy Hoffa’s pension fund to get a line of credit. It didn't work out, obviously. Robert bought a tennis franchise fairly early on. Both are really, true fans of those teams. I mean, people like to say the owners are just about the money, but they both really love the sport and both love their teams. Robert was a season ticket holder at the woe begotten Schaefer Stadium from the 70s with his kids. So I think that's genuine. And the other thing is they're very, they think big, and not every owner does that. There were a lot of owners, particularly back then, who were very comfortable, you know, getting their checks and their dividends and so forth. A lot of owners back then had inherited their teams. So it wasn't the same entrepreneurial spirit. And those two guys, because they had businesses outside the league when they joined, were really kind of the new breed, I guess, back then.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Ken Belson, the author of "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut." So, you mentioned that both of them had gone into debt to buy these teams. I had also the sense that though Jones from like a family financial perspective, was all in, I mean, it was all or nothing for him. Whereas Kraft, I thought, had more money kind of available. I mean, he wasn't like, didn't sink everything he had into the team. I was just thinking, particularly for Jones, do you think that all-or-nothing investment influenced and fueled some of, not only his approach to the team, but also the league in the way that you've already been describing in terms of television contracts and thinking about those things?
KB: Yeah, there's a hunger to Jerry, or maybe a desperation. I mean, look, he made a lot of money in the oil and gas business, that's an all-or-nothing kind of business. You take your shots. He also understood, and I mentioned how they both love football, they both understood the power of the NFL brand in a kind of visceral way. There's a great quote in the book from Robert about Jerry. Jerry is one of these sort of irrepressible salespeople whose constantly got balls in the air, juggling, thinking of ideas out loud, pushing other people in the direction he hopes they'll go in. Robert said, Jerry could charm a dog off a meat truck. And it really kind of encapsulated the energy around him and the bone that’s always in his, whatever the bone of the moment is, he hangs on to it. Robert's a very different character. It's not that he's uninterested in making money or closing a deal; he's more a diplomat. And the ideas don't necessarily bubble from Robert, but when the ideas are out there, he finds a way to create, I guess, for lack of a better phrase, a win-win. And he's willing to leave some money on the table because he sees this as a long-term play. And that's particularly true in the TV contract world. CBS, let's be honest, even after their merger now, they can't compete with Amazon or Netflix. Those two companies could buy out all of the rights if they really wanted to or could. So, Robert understands, hey, we got to help all of our partners in this endeavor.
GR: Interesting. And so I want to join some of these financial things with the actual things that go on on the football field and the success of the teams, in terms of their playing. And I've got this pet theory, actually, about the financial success of the Cowboys over the years and then the impact it's had on the team's success or lack thereof on the field. They, both of them, have had great football successes on the field, and they've also had obviously great financial successes in terms of where they sit, Cowboys being the most valuable sports franchise in the world last time I checked. And so I'm just wondering, do you think that creates a challenge for these two teams currently under what is now the old ownership, in terms of that collective hunger and the dedication to winning on the field? I sense kind of an underlying complacency for all of Jerry Jones's hunger an underlying complacency for the team in terms of football performance. Because, you know, if you're a player on the Cowboys and you have a successful career, even moderately, you're set for life regardless of whether the team makes the playoffs or not. So, I just wonder if you, any impression you had about that.
KB: Jerry has said, and I have no reason to doubt him, that he would give up a certain body part to win another Super Bowl. Robert, you know, despite the six Super Bowl Lombardi trophies and the ten appearances in his tenure, I think it's ten, he's still, I mean, you know, all these guys are also thinking of their legacy, and I want one more before I go and all that. Of course, you can't orchestrate life like that. But no, I don't think the business gets in the way in general. However, Jerry is the only owner that's also the GM. And, although I'm sure he's not sitting around watching tape and analyzing spreadsheets and all the metrics that we have now, everything goes through him. And I think that lack of a division of labor can be a problem or has been a problem to a certain degree. Number one, it creates a dynamic where the general manager, whoever is the general manager, or the coaches are always kind of looking over their shoulder to a certain degree or even more than normal. Robert Kraft, when he got in, he really did meddle in some of the personnel decisions. It was a different time. The salary cap had just come in, it was just a different dynamic. But he said and has said many times, like, the smartest thing he ever did was hire Belichick because he felt like Belichick understood how to manage the salary cap. And, you know, Robert shouldn't be tipping the scales having Drew Bledsoe over for dinner, hearing his woes about Bill Parcells. You know, that just muddies the water. There has to be a clear division of labor. Bill Belichick actually never had the title of GM, but he certainly managed the salary cap and it's paid dividends. So, Jerry, for whatever reason, the hubris, you know, overconfidence has never let that go and I don't think that's really helped.
GR: I agree. That's another one of my pet theories is that joining is just not a good recipe. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Ken Belson. The New York Times reporter is the author of a new book on professional football. It's titled, "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut." Well, we haven't talked about Roger Goodell yet. How does he figure into your story of the growth of the NFL? What were his key contributions?
KB: Yeah. Well, Roger is a lifer, 40, almost 45 years at the NFL. Born in Jamestown, New York. His dad represented the Western New York and, you know, really the son of a politician, grew up half in Washington and a half in Westchester County. You know, a football jock, I guess, by most accounts. But he wrote to his dad right after graduation and said, I want to be commissioner of the NFL, that has to be one of the top ten job searches in all time.
GR: (laughter)
KB: And he did it. But one of the things I, you know, and Roger, to his credit, I guess, I don’t know if credit is the right word, but he was a go-getter. And Paul Tagliabue recognized that Pete Rozelle before him, this kid was hungry. And he kept getting more and more significant assignments, including going to cities and negotiating stadium deals on behalf of teams extricating the Browns from Cleveland to, or sort of cleaning up the mess from that, and the international efforts that the NFL had back then, so he was a fix-it guy. A lot of owners owed him favors because he was the guy who, you know, strong-armed the city or the county to get money for a stadium. The owners didn't have to get their hands dirty. And so when it came time to appoint a commissioner, he was the logical choice. He knew how the league ran; he was familiar with all the ownership groups. He had dated some of the daughters of some of the owners. You know, he was a very much a known quantity with a very unique resume. What he's done different, Paul Tagliabue put this foundation under the league, the, you know, the sponsorships, the TV money, the revenue sharing. That was all great; that is the foundation. Roger took it to a new level. He has turned the NFL really into a media company, more of a high growth stock. Just to give you one data point, under Paul's leadership of 17 years, the league's revenue basically doubled under Roger. Still going, 19 years at this point, it's tripled. That's a growth stock. And the owners want that. I mean, the owners came in, we were joking earlier about Jerry Jones paying over $100 million. The owners have big bills to pay back, and they are buying teams for multi-billions of dollars predicated on a certain growth rate. And Roger is delivering that.
GR: Well, you know, compared with Jones and Kraft, who are 83 and 84, Goodell is still a relatively young 66. I'm wondering about the future here. Who assumes the mantle of the NFL when these few owners leave the scene? Which they're going to do, you know, before too long. Is it going to be Goodell? Are there any other younger dynamic owners out there who comes to the fore?
KB: Well, let's joke about Jerry for a moment, but I write in the chapter on Jerry Jones, if you take the tour of AT&T Stadium, the $65 owner's tour, you get to see a hologram of Jerry talking about things. So, he may live on digitally.
GR: (laughter)
KB: The only owner in the league who would create a hologram of himself. But anyway, and by the way, I should joke, I mean, it's in the book, but I went on this tour, and I asked AI Jerry, you know, what do you think of Roger Goodell? And he responded that he thought Roger Staubach was a great quarterback. So, I don't know whether the AI was confused or didn't have Goodell in its brain, but anyway.
GR: (laughter)
KB: So look, both of those teams have their kids involved, Stephen Jones, Charlotte Jones, Jonathan Kraft, they're in good hands. They've been along with their fathers the whole way. Those teams will remain, you know, financially successful. I can't speak for the field. They're very different people. I would say Steven is more like his dad. Jonathan is more analytical, kind of hard driving in a way that Robert has a kind of softer edge, at least publicly. But, you know, there's a bench of very good owners. Clark Hunt in Kansas City is considered a very shrewd financial manager. Fans may not agree, but Jimmy Haslam is becoming quite influential on the financial side in league circles. David Tepper in…
GR: Name the teams that all these people are associated with, not all our listeners will know that.
KB: Forgive me, sure. Jimmy Haslam owns the Cleveland Browns, David Tepper bought the Carolina Panthers, he's a hedge fund mogul. Josh Harris led a group to buy the Washington Commanders, helped push through the entry of private equity money into the league. And then Greg Penner, who's part of the Walmart family, that bought the Denver Broncos. So there's quite a few shrewd owners. And then you have the sort of old guard, the Rooney family in Pittsburgh with the Steelers and the Maras here in New York with the Giants. So, you know, it's not a long bench, but it's a deep bench. And then there's Roger, you know, he has continued to sign contract extensions and the owners are in no rush to replace him. And everybody's guess is he'll work through the next labor agreement and television deals, which will probably end by this decade. So, if anybody wants to keep booing him at the draft, you’ve got 3 or 4 more opportunities.
GR: (laughter) That's good to know. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is the New York Times reporter Ken Belson. We have a lot of Buffalo Bills fans in our listening area. Where do the Bills fit in terms of the owners and the things that the team has done?
KB: Well, look, Western New York is, and Buffalo has been one of the smallest markets. I guess Green Bay would be the only other, maybe Jacksonville. So, you know, it hasn't carried its weight financially in league circles. Everything now is big numbers. But Terry Pegula got this stadium built and that'll increase the value of the team, and, you know, all boats rise at that point. Terry hasn't been a terribly active owner, certainly nothing like Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft. You know, he's kind of a, I don’t want to call him a get-along owner, but, he, you know, he says his piece, but he's not trying to win the room, if you will. But he did keep the team in Western New York. I know there were a lot of fears about the team going to Toronto at one point. And, you know, a lot of owners, when they want public money and they got 900 million from Erie County and the state, you know, they threaten to leave. They dangle, I don't know, name the city, Portland, Oregon or something like that. They dangle that out there as, hmm I'm thinking about Portland, Oregon. You might even fly out to Portland and have a conversation with the mayor. They never did that. Terry's from western Pennsylvania. I don't think Roger Goodell himself, not that he could singlehandedly do this, I don't think he wants the Bills to leave. I think he has a soft spot for Western New York. So to his credit, he didn't play that game. Now, on the other hand, like every other owner, he's looking for money from fans in personal seat licenses and so forth. There is a section toward the end of the book where you hear from Bill's fans really struggling with what to do. You know, on sort of middle-class incomes, trying to figure out how to pay for it all. And, I would say I've been to almost every NFL market over the years to see games and meet people and so forth. The Bills have, along with probably Green Bay although Green Bay is different, the Bills have probably the most rabid fan base. I mean, you know, when you talk about the city's identity wrapped up in the team, that's Buffalo. And so, to the league’s credit, they didn't abandon the city. On the other hand, there's a price to pay for it in the modern economics of the NFL.
GR: What are the next frontiers for the NFL in terms of growing in terms of media audience, developing other synergies? You know, Jones is always big on sort of creating new entities and finding synergies. Where do you see the big ones coming in the next few years?
KB: The NFL is already a media company, but you'll just see, you probably if you've heard of or seen the Netflix documentary on Jerry Jones, and I think it's eight parts. That grew out of an alliance with Skydance, big Hollywood studio. And so, yeah, this is very much what they're doing. They're trying to fill in the calendar with NFL content. I hate that word, but that's what it is. You know, the football season itself is only, what, five months long, something like that. So they want it to remain front of mind. It used to be the Super Bowl was over and you just switched to spring training, not anymore. Football continues to be ever-present. So you're going to see more media ventures. You saw the ESPN purchase of NFL Network; that's going to lead to more media opportunities. And I think you were already seeing the Black Friday game coming up. Amazon paid 150 million for that game a couple of years ago. They're now going to show it globally. Netflix, two Christmas games. So we're going to see more and more of these sort of opportunistic expansions of the media landscape for the NFL. The other thing, I think, probably more broadly, and I know people ask a lot about international. The NFL has been very deliberate; it's been 17, 18 years since they first started playing regular-season games. We're going to see more of that. Some of this is really necessity. I mean, the NFL is kind of saturated here in America. I mean, 90 of the 100 top shows in television are typically football games. So I don't know how much more they're going to grow the pie in terms of number of fans or percentage of fans. They can certainly charge more for a product, but they're looking overseas because they need new fans. And I think that's going to be a new frontier. And then finally, I would say gambling, although, as we know with the NBA scandals, there may be some trimming of things like prop bets and whatever. But the simple fact is, the NFL doesn't actually collect from the handle, doesn't take a percentage of bets. It makes money on selling the data. The game day data that fuels all those bets. And so they, you know, FanDuel or DraftKings or any of the casino sportsbooks, they pay the NFL for that data feed. And that's really where they're making the bulk of their money, plus the signage and sponsorships.
GR: Interesting. We've only got about a minute left. So this is going to be the lightning part of the round. But I have two questions I want to put to you if I can in this time. So you have to be really quick on this. These are concerns about the future. One is concern about football and younger players. There's been a lot about this medically last 20 years; it's not good for the brain, it's not good for the body. Do you see that as a major problem for the NFL going forward?
KB: I think if a player died on the field, and we had a pretty darn close call a couple of years ago, that could influence public behavior. I think we're already seeing fewer younger people. I mean, the population is not growing as much and more parents, and I've done numerous stories on this, more parents are putting their kids in baseball and soccer, and other sports. So that is a constant worry.
GR: And then the second one is the one you just mentioned, really quick now, soccer. It does seem to me that professional soccer is getting more and more attention. I notice it with my students, they're following these teams I've never even heard of sometimes. So, does football need to be worried about soccer? Does soccer need to be worried about football? What's the future there?
KB: No. American football is truly an American sport. It's tribal, it's made for television, it is dominant. I mean, soccer is chewing away at some of the mine share, but football and the NFL particularly, will remain dominant.
GR: Well, that's good to hear. That was Ken Belson. And his new book is titled, "Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut." Ken, thanks again for taking the time to talk with me. It was really fascinating.
KB: Yeah. Thanks, Grant, I appreciate it.
GRL You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Ryan Griffiths on the Campbell Conversations
Oct 25, 2025
Ryan Griffiths
Sometimes in the heat of expressing political frustrations, we'll hear people advocate for some kind of political secession. How seriously do we need to be thinking or worrying about that possible outcome? Grant Reeher speaks with Ryan Griffiths, a political scientist at Syracuse University, about his book on the subject, "The Disunited States: Threats of Secession in Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work."
Program Transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. Sometimes in the heat of expressing political frustrations, well, here people advocate for some kind of political secession. I've heard such things from Californians, for example. How seriously do we need to be thinking or worrying about that possible outcome? My guest today has written a new book on the topic. Syracuse University political scientist Ryan Griffiths is the author of “The Disunited States: Threats of Secession and Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work.” Professor Griffiths, welcome to the program.
Ryan Griffiths: Thanks, Grant. Good to be here.
GR: Well, it's good to have you here. We appreciate you making the time. I want to start with just basic terms, just so that we're all on the same page. Give us just a very brief definition of what you mean by secession.
RG: Sure. Secession, and the way that I use it, is where a part of a country tries to break away and become its own independent sovereign state. So the two examples in American history, of course, the Civil War, where the Confederacy attempted to do that and failed. And of course, the American Revolution, where the 13 colonies attempted to do it and were successful in becoming a new independent state.
GR: Right. Okay. Thanks. So I got to say, I found this book fascinating. And it's both fun to read, disturbing to read. Insightful. But I want to start with a basic skepticism I have about part of it of a particular kind. And I'll begin that by quoting actually, from your book, you say near the beginning: "To sum all of this up, there is no way to efficiently and peacefully disentangle and divide red America and blue America without it cascading into violence and chaos. It can't be done, and it is folly to think that it can. Much of this book is dedicated to showing why this is... This is the case." So we're going to get into that.
But my skepticism is this kind of building on that. It would seem that at first maybe I wonder how real of an issue is this? I mean, it might be kind of a parlor game that's played by disgruntled liberal academics or frustrated conservatives. But you mentioned the Civil War. Seems to me you could say the Civil War ended this discussion with 600,000 exclamation points in the form of US dead. Why is this a topic that needs your book?
RG: Right, that's a good question. It's a good place to start with. So there's a few ways I can answer this. First, let me just say that it's not a doom-and-gloom book. And as a scholar, I'm not a doom-and-gloom guy. Like, I don't think that this is the most likely outcome for America. I don't think it's right around the corner.
That said, it is an increasing sentiment. All right. I've been tracking this for over 15 years, and 15 years ago, it was a pretty minor thing. But now these movements are gaining traction. They're not as big as some movements around the world, but they are gaining. And one of the things about secessionism is that it can move rapidly.
A good example of this is Catalonia in the northeast of Spain. And, you know, they had a secessionist crisis a few years back. But as recently as 2006, only about 15% of Catalans were pro-independence. And then over a period of eight years, that tripled to 45%. So that kind of secessionist energy can move very quickly and it can respond to triggers. So the book is meant to get ahead of that type of thing and talk about the dangers and the perils of thinking that this is a solution to America's problems.
GR: Okay. Interesting. So, you write in your book about a couple of the different arguments for secession and some of the justifications for it. And one of the things that you write about is this notion of people having a right to secede, you know, if there's a sufficient level of consensus and a sufficient difference between one part of the country and the rest of the country, that there is this right. Just briefly tell us what is that right, supposedly? What's it based on? And then I have some follow-ups about complicating it.
RG: Sure. So there are three. I spent a lot of time at the start of the book walking through the arguments I hear from secessionists in America, whether it's regional groups in Texas or California or Red state America, things like that. The three arguments, in brief, are what I call irreconcilable differences, which we'll get to. And then one about a legal or normative right to secede, which is what your question is after.
And then another one about economic units and the benefits of small units. But the second one, there is an argument that it's not just in America. Right? It's sometimes called a primary right. Basically that a group of people, self-defined, have a right to choose what state they're in. So, if Syracuse, which is where you and I live, the Syracuse area, if the people by an overwhelming majority, by 85%, say, "Hey, look, we should become the independent state of Syracuse," then there's a normative argument out there made by political theorists that they should have that right to do it.
All right. And that is an argument that is picked up by any secessionist movement I've studied for good reason. Why would they, you know, ignore it? It's also one that isn't exclusively American. It's used all over the place. And then next to it, of course, is this constitutional argument that you often hear. And that's more specifically American.
GR: Interesting. And very briefly, what's the constitutional argument?
RG: All right. The constitutional argument is fascinating. I have to say, too, the book is written for a general audience. I deliberately tried to write it for a broad audience. Some of the chapters get a little more academic, and the one about a constitutional right is the most academic, but it's also maybe the most fascinating. I love that chapter.
So the consensus in American constitutional law right now is that there is no right to secede based on a 1869 Supreme Court decision, just a couple years out from the Civil War, that ruled that secession was unconstitutional unless the government agreed to it. Now that decision gets into all kinds of Supreme Court politics. Completely fascinating, which is probably too much for us to talk about here.
But that's the argument. Now, so the status quo argument is that there is no constitutional right, but plenty of people push back on that. If we brought on the leader of the Texas Nationalists or Cal-exit or whatever, they would have all kinds of reasons to say why that was incorrectly decided. Okay.
GR: Okay. Yeah. So you... one of the political thinkers that went through my mind when you were talking about this notion of a normative right would be John Locke. And, you know, the contract theory of government. But on talking about this right, I'm also thinking about Jeremy Bentham, who said, you know, "rights are nonsense and natural rights are nonsense walking on stilts." So, you know, if you... Okay, you have this right. But ultimately, that right is going to have to be enforced. Wouldn't it ultimately come down to force? And we're back to the Civil War again. I mean, this is just, you know, it's great that you might think you have a right, but.
RG: Right. So the argument about having a right of a people to secede through some sort of democratic process. And I've written about this in earlier work. You know, I am sympathetic to it. You just need to have rules in place for it. All right. I don't think that... Imagine if you and I did form this sovereign state of Syracuse, or we wanted to have a referendum.
GR: As long as long as long as we can take Micron with us. Okay.
RG: Go ahead. And Green Lakes, I really want Green Lakes. I love walking out there. You know, we shouldn't be able to call for a referendum every Tuesday. Right. And we shouldn't be able to say as long as just north of 50% are on board, we win. Right. That creates chaos. It's too much turbulence. So I think you need a very high bar for what success would be for that kind of thing.
That said, to your question, and I think this gets at, you know, the Jeremy Bentham comment, ultimately, secession... probably secession is that it's not governed by domestic law. Right. There is no... you know, if you and I rob a bank today, the law will determine our fate. There is no law that governs how this works.
All right. It's all... it's usually worked out when it is worked out by politics. Political people, you know, figures or movements or sometimes armed groups. They work it out. And so the problem with secession is it transcends law. And it becomes a very thorny, very difficult political issue.
GR: Yeah. I think in your book, you say it's the "Wild West" as one of your phrases. Yeah. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Ryan Griffiths. He's a Syracuse University political scientist and the author of a new book titled “The Disunited States: Threats of Secession and Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work.”
You mentioned earlier in our conversation when you were talking about the three things and the economic benefits of smallness. I wanted to drill in on that attractiveness of smallness because it seems to me, indeed, it goes back several decades now, but there has been this kind of new discovery of kind of a romantic attachment to being small.
I mean, I'm thinking like there was a book several decades ago called “The Vermont Papers,” which was about the value of small government and community-based government. It goes back to the ancient Greeks, the idea that democracy had to be small. And then you have like, you know, these idyllic notions we have of countries like Norway or, you know, small, organic farming is another one that you hear a lot about. Why, why is smallness a problem in modern nations? I mean, what's the what is the limits of that attraction?
RG: All right. So, the argument for the benefits of smallness this is the third argument that is utilized by a lot of these groups. So it's used by many groups internationally as well. Is that smaller political units tend to be more homogenous. Their political preferences are more homogeneous. And if they're political preferences are more homogeneous, then the government can design policies that will be more accommodating.
That will be preferable to a broader set of populations. So people will point to Singapore, for instance, and say, that's pretty small, pretty successful. Not really a democracy. In any event. Yeah. People will point to states like that. All right. There's a pretty rich literature in economics that gets at this. Now there's of course benefits to having a big state, large internal economy.
Right. Regional insurance if there's catastrophe, big, you know, militaries. So, you know, in economics, this is called the "size of states" literature. There's benefits to having a big state and benefits to having a small state. So it is used in some of the people who've advocated for secession in America. We'll talk about that. They'll say if Texas was independent or if Red state America was independent, then, however that is delineated...
They could have policies that suit them best. I'm a bit skeptical of this just because, you know, we already have a federal system which is partly designed to accommodate the interest between region and center right, and there are many benefits to the United States having a large country. Right. And I should say, too, that this argument is only really relevant when you've got a lot of polarization and people pushing for secession.
Right. In a time of harmony, the argument about the benefits of smallness doesn't really become that salient an issue. So it's one that people talk about, and I spent some time working through it, but it's probably the one I'm most skeptical about.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Ryan Griffiths. He's a political science professor at Syracuse University and the author of a new book on political secession titled “The Disunited States: Threats of Secession and Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work.” This next question kind of taps into one of the three things you mentioned at the beginning: the irreconcilable differences.
But I'm thinking of these discussions about secession or related to it that I've personally heard, like at dinner parties, for example. And, you know, the most common one for me, given the circles I travel in, in academia, is, you know, mostly on the liberal side, these folks will start to dream out loud. And it seems to me like they're not talking so much about secession, but what I would call "ejection."
And so I hear things like, "Oh, wouldn't it be great if we could just get rid of the deep South, for example, or parts of the Midwest?" And, you know, they laugh, but they're not joking, if you know what I mean. So, how... you know, are there, first of all, are there precedents for ejection, in the world that you've ever seen or held? How does that fit into this notion of irreconcilable differences?
RG: Yeah, yeah. Great question. Ejection, as you're putting it, is quite rare. The one case I can think about is actually Singapore. It had been part of the Malaysian union shortly after independence, and then it was kicked out. You know, apparently, the leader of Singapore at the time was quite upset about it. I mean, ejection and secession are...
It's just like two sides of the same coin, right? Basically, trying to break a country up into smaller units. And, you know, because there are tensions between them. I mean, I guess that, you know, that opens a space to talk about that. The key argument that is motivating the secessionist—and this is whether they are liberal or conservative or moderate, there are plenty of libertarians. The New Hampshire secessionists are kind of libertarian.
GR: Right.
RG: A core argument they bring up, I call it the argument of irreconcilable differences. And that's partly because the groups regularly make an analogy with marital divorce. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene periodically tweets, "We need a national divorce" because the two sides can no longer get together or can no longer get along. Right.
She did this in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. And so that argument, it appeals to people because most people are familiar with divorce, and they understand that sometimes a couple is just... the love is gone. They don't get along. And they would be able to lead happy, productive lives if they separate.
So why can't we do that with America? And it makes sense to people, right, reasons by analogy. And so a lot of the book is dedicated to trying to show why that analogy doesn't work in the way that people want it to work. Right. And I spent a lot of time doing interviews with folks, and they were gracious to talk to me about their feelings on this.
One of the problems is that in a marital divorce, it's, of course, governed by domestic law. Right. So if my wife and I get divorced, I cannot just run off with the, you know, the kids, the cat, and the car. She can call the cops. All right. There is no 911 number in secession. There's no law that determines how it's worked out.
That's one thing. Also, unlike most marriages, are two people. And, you know, a national divorce in America? That's 340 million people, right? And they are intermixed. So the whole idea of a red state, blue state thing imagines that they are somehow clearly grouped in, delineated like one is on one side of a river and the other side.
And that's just not the case. You and I live in the suburbs of Syracuse. They're quite purple. You know, the political lines run through the neighborhoods, even through households. All right. So, trying to disentangle that means you need to create some sort of partition system to disentangle America. And one of the chapters I work on tries to show just the... it was a great chapter to write.
I spent time trying to think about the maps that we would use. And so I imagine, let's say there was a constitutional convention that got together to try to figure out how to break America apart into what I call for fun, a "red land" and a "blue land." If they started with a map of states based on the last election, then you would have a reasonably coherent map.
Although again, Blue Land would be kind of a West Coast and a northeast thing, and Hawaii, etc. but still, within those places... in California alone, right? There are millions of Republicans, millions of people who would feel that they're in the wrong state. Sure. So you could drill down. And then I used a map of congressional districts. Right. Which is a bit more accurate.
But now you've got, you know, I forget the exact number. What's 400 something? And then you get this archipelago of red and blue, you get an impossible jigsaw of a country. But of course, people are more often sorted in the country they want. And then I drill down one level further to counties.
That's 5,000 political units. And then you get this impossible map, right? But in that map, of course, more people are sorted into the country they want to be in, although not all, because you can't possibly sort everybody, you know, everybody into the right country. And so one of the things I want to point out is I call this the scale problem.
There is no way to draw a perfect map. The more coherent the map, the larger the number of people that are sorted into the wrong country. Whereas if you get a map where a larger percentage are actually in the country they want to be, then you get an impossible map where, you know, it just doesn't make any sense.
And the problem with trying to do this in the first place is that—and I have a chapter dedicated to walking through the types of hyper-polarization and conflict and land grabs, all of the conflict that can result—that, you know, that's going to get in the way of any sort of peaceful or responsible attempt at trying to divide the country.
GR: Just two quick comments on that. One is if we work with the divorce metaphor, I think most people who have been through one will resonate with this. There's also financial Armageddon involved. And so I don't know if that's going to convince very many people if that's the analogy. The other thing is this reminds me, too, of the discussions of federalism and the value of federalism again, because, you know, all things being equal, you put more people in places where they want to be.
But you're right. You can never... you're never going to fix this unless we become almost individual countries. I wanted to kind of circle back to my skepticism a bit, and ask you this question because you did, as you just mentioned, you did a lot of interviews with people, and you've looked at these movements, you've taken them very seriously.
How serious do you think people are being about this? And let me give you an analogy. There's a lot of discussion now among our colleagues, and others, about democracy being on the ropes, you know, that it's under existential threat. But I do not see among these people any changes in their behavior. I mean, they're not rearranging their finances.
They're not making plans to move to another country. They don't seem to be like, you know, they're not creating bunkers in their houses, you know, in their basements. So they're talking about it, but they really don't seem to be doing anything differently with their lives. So that tells me that maybe, maybe this is hyperbolic to some degree. Maybe not. But I'm wondering if the same thing about this. I mean, I don't see people like getting ready for this divorce. Maybe you have.
RG: Yeah. Look, I think it varies. I think the people I interviewed were, by and large, quite serious about it. Some of them are writing books about it. They're... becoming their jobs, their careers. And some of the folks I talked to, expressed, you know, security concerns and things like that. That said, I attended a meeting in February, it was called the Summit of Independence Movements, put on by people out in Cal, the Cal-exit movement.
They had independence movements from all over the world zooming in. And also I think it was something like 12 different states in America had an independence movement represented. One of them was from my home state of Florida. I was astonished. I didn't know Florida had an independence movement. I think some of these are a bit more, you know, you can call it, a weekend kind of thing.
I think, I think that is the case. But some of them are quite serious. And, you know, I guess one of the key points in the book is that I'm trying to get ahead of the issue in trying to disabuse people of the belief that secession is a solution, and because the sentiment can increase, it's then very, you know... if you've got... there was an Axios poll a few years ago that found that 20% of Americans thought a national divorce was a good idea.
Now, you and I know that polls are sensitive to how they're framed. And things like that. Nevertheless, you know, there's a foundation of interest in it. And that is vulnerable to triggers. You had a political assassination. You had a failed election. Right. You could imagine. Or just you get a political leader who jumps on board and becomes the champion for a cause that can really galvanize support.
Right. And then you could take somebody who's maybe only interested in this on the weekends to somebody who's all in. And, you know, in my experience with interviewing or doing fieldwork with secessionists around the world is that, you know, there's like a Kool-Aid people can drink where they really get into the movement, the sense of hope.
It can be at close range. These things can be very stirring. And yeah, that could develop in the States with the right kind of momentum, the right kind of catalyst. So the whole point of the book is it's not to argue that polarization is non-existent or to be unsympathetic to these currents, but to say that secession is not the solution that people may wish it to be.
GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is Syracuse University political science professor Ryan Griffiths. I had a few questions I wanted to make sure that I got to here before we end. But a quick one here before I get into them. You talked about polling.
It... the polling does indicate, though, that although we are quite divided in terms of "I don't like Republicans, I don't like Democrats," or, you know, once you put a line between the two parties, at the same time, if you ask me questions about what I think policy should be, we're not as divided as the party differences would indicate. And so that might be a mitigating factor in all this. I don't know if you look at that or not, but.
RG: I do in the... so at the conclusion... the conclusion is called "Why We Should Stay Together." Right. To end in a kind of hopeful way. And one of the points I make is that, you know, I think... and some of the data you're pointing to show that we're less divided than we think. There's a term out... "affective polarization."
That, you know, you get Republicans and Democrats to talk about their core values, and they end up being kind of the same. But then they say the other side doesn't have those values, even though the other side in a poll said that they have them. Right. So I think there's a lot that holds us together. And I think there's a lot of benefits to America staying together.
I think it, you know, it is a good country in the world. It's done a lot of great things. You know, it's imperfect, of course, but so I think that that gets neglected or overlooked in the argument for a national divorce, that there really is all these great things that kind of hold us together. But polarization sometimes hides it, right?
I mean, I should say, too. The book is written... it's a nonpartisan book, right? It's not. I didn't write it for Red America or Blue America. I wrote it for all America. And I'm trying to make the argument to the entire nation about why this is not a good solution, and why we actually have a lot of reasons to hold together.
GR: Yeah, no, that comes through. So we got about two minutes or so left. I want to squeeze in two questions. The first is, as you've demonstrated already, you have studied and written about secessionist movements around the world. You've looked at the history of this. Are there any cases or classes of cases where they are successful?
RG: Yes. So secession tends to work in very specific circumstances where you've got a defined nation. It's concentrated in a particular region. There's some sort of boundary or border that separates them from the rest.
GR: Makes sense. Yeah.
RG: And they've got some sort of special administrative status that kind of makes them seem different from the rest of the country, so that the country, the government feels that it can permit that secession without worrying about some sort of cascade effect. Right. And in books I've read and I've studied this, I've, you know, mapped them out.
None of those conditions hold in the idea of a red and blue America. Right. It's actually much closer to the partition that existed in India and Pakistan or in Cyprus. So it's a very dangerous set of circumstances.
GR: Right. Right. Okay. And then the last thing about a minute left, one obvious current-day potential application of this would be the Middle East. And have you given any thought or are there views about thinking of secession as a lens to see a way to create more peace? I don't know if that question makes sense, but.
RG: Oh yeah, that's tough. I mean, it kind of depends on the different countries or the different regions you're talking about. Of course I did. I did do a lot of work in Iraqi Kurdistan for a while. And that hasn't worked out for them. But if you're talking more specifically about Palestine.
GR: That's one that comes to mind. But I was thinking of other areas too. But yeah. What are your thoughts there? Quickly.
RG: Secession is difficult. It's hard to work out. I mean, I support a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. I think that's the least bad solution. That's a kind of a form of secession, although the specifics are a bit different there. But look, secession is hard to pull off. And where it works out peacefully, it only does so in very specific circumstances.
GR: All right. We'll leave it there. We're sticking with America, we’re both in on this. All right. That was Ryan Griffiths again. His new book is titled “The Disunited States: Threats of Secession and Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work.” It really is a fascinating read. Ryan, thanks again for taking the time to talk with me.
RG: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Sharon Owens on the Campbell Conversations
Oct 18, 2025
Sharon Owens(Ellen Abbott / WRVO)
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. This November, Syracuse will elect a new mayor. Joining me today is the Democratic candidate for the position, Sharon Owens. In addition to serving as the city's deputy mayor in the Ben Walsh administration, Ms. Owens is also the board president of Blueprint 15, which is helping to lead the effort to develop the East Adams Street area, following the tearing down of Interstate 81 in the city. I'd like you to note that you can find interviews with two out of the other three candidates for mayor on the Campbell Conversations webpage. But, Deputy Mayor Owens, welcome back to the program, it's your turn today, thank you for joining me.
Sharon Owens: Thank you, it's always a pleasure to be on with you.
GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. So let me just start by saying that, you know, we had a previous interview last May, it was before the Democratic primary and our listeners can find that interview on the Campbell Conversations webpage, too. But I asked you a lot of the standard candidate questions then, such as how your leadership style might differ from Ben Walsh's, your vision for the city, and so on. And in this interview, I wanted to go beyond that, since I think we covered that pretty well. So this is kind of like part two in a way. So, I do want to start though with my first question, I want to start with that primary because, we talked before it happened and the result of it was a bit of a surprise, I think, to a lot of local political observers. You were the front runner, I think, I said that publicly. You were the front runner, but it was looking to be a, you know, competitive primary. You had two other candidates who had won elective office in the city, they've run for other offices before. But in the end, it was, well, it was a blowout pretty much for you. What do you attribute that to?
SO: It was absolutely a good night. If you don't think you're going to win, then why are you running? So, I believe that I was going to win. But to win by, I think it was 40 points, was really satisfying for just not me, my team. We worked hard during that primary. While I think generally we all were respective of each other, it was a hard fought primary, you know, and I believe it was the message, Grant. My opponents really came after me, came after the Walsh administration and it's interesting, it's for, seven years it's been the Walsh administration and now it’s the Walsh-Owens administration during the political year.
GR: (laughter)
SO: But, I think that, and I know I heard from people that it was the messaging. The messaging never went at anyone else. The messaging was the messaging needed for people to hear about why I believe I’m the right candidate to be the next mayor, what my vision is for Syracuse. And all those things we talked about before, safety, housing, economic opportunity. And I kept the message, the message. I didn't spend time talking about other people and taking shots at other people. And quite frankly, in this political climate, I think people are sick of hearing that. And so, regardless of what's happening in the general and the same kind of retrenching of that model from the opponents I'm running against now, I'm going to stay focused on what was successful for me before, and that is talking about Syracuse and the vision for Syracuse and the opportunity that lays before Syracuse. And I think that was the game changer for the primary.
GR: Okay, yeah. I was going to ask you about whether maybe this said something about the public's frustration with where we are right now that you already addressed that. And I agree with you, I think that that probably was an ingredient in it. Well, I want to combine kind of two things we talked about in our previous conversation in May and reframe it in terms of one kind of question. And so I'll start by saying the city's facing, and we talked about this before, the city's facing two big important inflection points. The redevelopment of the area in the footprint of the elevated portion of the highway in the city of I-81. That's a big one, and then the arrival of Micron and that, you know, the whole playout of that over the next few years and, maybe Micron probably better described as a potential new birth rather than inflection, I mean, it's really big. But one of the big concerns and challenges for both of these projects is how inclusive will they be? How much of the city will be brought along in the successes there? For example, what will happen to those who are currently living in public housing under the highway that are going to be displaced, at least for a period of time? How many of the city's poorer residents will benefit either directly or indirectly, from the huge investments that Micron is making and going to make? And so the question I wanted to get to, that's a long introduction there, I apologize, but do you think it's important for someone with your background, and I'll just state of plainly, you know, your ethnicity to be leading the city during those big transitions? Do you think that is something that is going to be helpful, both symbolic and in other ways, to try to realize these opportunities for everybody in the city?
SO: What we're talking about, Grant, is nothing new just because I'm running for mayor. From the moment I graduated from Syracuse University and stepped foot as a resident of Syracuse, my calling, my mission has been assisting people who are less fortunate than me, who didn't have the opportunity to go to a top tier university, and get a degree and go down a career path, and who's been fortunate to be in safe, affordable, clean housing. And so this conversation is the driving force of my DNA, my just who I am, and ensuring. And it's been, unlike my opponents, it has been, I am not just speculating about this. I've been on the ground working to, particularly let's talk about the workforce opportunity, I've said before, when we talk about poverty, unless we are setting a path for getting people to work, we're just talking about changing the trajectory of poverty until we're changing the household incomes of individuals. So for the I-81 project, everything that Pathways to Apprentice for Syracuse Build started on a whiteboard with a marker in my hand that created a now nationally known workforce initiative that is getting people to work and putting money in their homes. I had a young man say, you know, for the first time in his life, and he's in his early 30’s, he was able to take his family on vacation. That's what the job is about, that's what a job is about. Not just punching in, but changing the quality of life, and that includes the housing. Adding to, not the 81 project, but one more thing to add to those folks in that footprint that is just continue to be inundated with information that affects their day to day lives, is the changes in HUD in real time that we're seeing because the, you know, the Housing Authority is a HUD funded initiative and all the changes from the Trump administration that we see coming through, really targeting so-called illegal citizens in our community. So we have layers upon layers of changes happening in that community. We’re finally at a place where we are headed towards a closing that we can start getting demolition done over there to start, you know, one of my opponents said that, you know, they didn't see the need to redevelop that property. And clearly, you must not have been in it. That property is unworthy of the folks who live there. It is old. It is the original housing that was developed in this country. And so, this is 2025, they deserve a 2025 era housing there. What is critical for us to ensure that that happens without displacing people who want to live in their neighborhood and have lived there for generations. And so, I've been on the forefront of that. I get criticized, it hasn't moved fast enough. No, it hasn't moved fast enough, as far as I'm concerned. But it is moving and it is hard, painstaking work.
GR: Yeah, I appreciate that. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with City of Syracuse Democratic mayoral candidate Sharon Owens. Well, I wanted to stick with that though, and just ask you this. You've kind of addressed it in a way, but if someone comes into this and looks at this from the outside and says, okay, somebody tells them, here are the two things that are about to happen to this city. They might say as first reaction, this has got gentrification written all over it.
SO: Sure.
GR: What do you say to someone that sort of looks at that?
SO:I would say the same, I would say this, I was working in the community when, if you remember Kennedy Square over there where the biotech center is, I was working in the community at the time that that happened. I remember, and Grant by no means was that quality housing. It was lousy housing for people, but it was home for people. And then the transaction happened with SUNY Upstate and those, I remember being on the ground in the community working for not for profit. It was a Thanksgiving during the holiday when those folks were given notices that they had to move. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen and experienced. And I have to say, I have to give credit for the housing authority because they implement Section 8 vouchers in our community, one of two agencies. And they were able to get those individuals Section 8 houses to be able to relocate, but relocate during a major holiday? We cannot let that happen. So, there has to be, the difference between that and this is that this is HUD funded housing, there are HUD regulations that weren't even there when the highway was built, when all that dislocation happened. It is also critical why I was a voice that spoke, if you can remember, Grant, when the news had kind of broken that SUNY Upstate was looking at part of the Housing Authority property, right behind it. And it was duringone of my standard meetings when I noticed that was going on and I said, what is that? And when it was explained to me, I said, that cannot happen, that absolutely cannot happen. That is the fear that the people in that community have is that the university and the Hill is going to continue to encroach. It is another reason why the city must, and we're continuing to push this issue with the New York State DOT, the city must get control of the land under the viaduct now, once it comes down. It is owned by New York State. We need to be in possession of that, because then we go through a local public process of zoning it appropriately for the needs of our community to ensure that the use of that is just not for those who have the most money or the most influence. And so that is going to be another critical process for this next mayor is negotiations with DOT. Which, by the way, Grant, I have on a regular basis now, for every part of this quickly moving project that's going on. The next mayor, you know, we talked about Micron, and I'll hopefully be able to answer just a little bit about that. But for 81, this mayor has to keep this city moving and open. And if you, we always think that, oh, construction projects take years and it'll be delay upon delay. Oh, no. If you are driving in Syracuse, each phase of this contract is moving like gangbusters. And now the big part of it is everything going on behind City Hall now at that 690 intersection. And then we’ll be moving the preparation on Almond Street and then the viaduct coming down if everything's on track in 2027. That's not a long time from now. And so what's going on now is the environmental protections that need to happen before that preparation goes on. Social activists making sure those calls and those meetings are happening right now. And there's been amazing collaborative efforts between DOT, Upstate hospitals, doctors and social activists to make sure that environmental quality of life continues for people in that footprint.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Sharon Owens, the Democratic city of Syracuse deputy mayor is running for mayor in this November's election. So I wanted to get into a couple of the things that your two, well, you have three opponents, but two of the opponents that I spoke with mentioned to me about the city. Like in the primary, the these criticisms that have been leveled are pretty serious against the Walsh administration. Tom Babilon said that there were inefficiencies throughout the city administration, and that's part of the reason why the spending and the budget have increased during the last eight years and he listed a few examples. He talked about trash pick-up, talked about the codes department, talked about the initiative to reduce gun violence. And I wanted to just put the question to you this way, are there currently significant inefficiencies in the city administration?
SO: No, there are not significant inefficiencies in the city's administration. Any operational organization has areas where it needs to improve and areas where it is doing what it needs to do to serve the people of Syracuse. I would never say that it is perfect, not even close to perfect, there's always room for improvement. But, for how they describe the city and the way the city is run, you know, we should be in bankruptcy and receivership and no functioning activity at all. I just don't know how people who want to be the mayor of the city think it's just so bad. And so, some of the things you mentioned, that trash can program was a game changer for the cleanliness of this city. The sidewalk program that was implemented was a game changer for accessibility for the city. Our ability to provide services on a day to day basis, it was during this administration that our fleet was just abysmal for DPW and we, you know, got out there and purchased what needed to happen to be able to serve our people, both for picking up for fall refuge and also for snow plowing and included the public in naming these new vehicles. Our fire department needed new equipment, we stepped up to the plate to do that. This lighting infrastructure that we have now, LED lighting that we have now, and what we're doing now with the EPA to do private side lead replacement. There has been multiple things that have happened in this administration. And again, yes, the code enforcement, oh my goodness, we are online now, getting applications and processing online. Mr. Babilon in particular, if he had his druthers, there would be no permitting process. Permits are issued for protection of people that are going into businesses and structures that are being renovated. It is a public protection and mechanism. And so, we have, the numbers are there over the last year, approaching $1 billion in economic growth because of our ability to get things through. There are other things that we're going to do, we’ve outsourced permitting to streamline it. So we have been, and I have been, because these entities have been under my watch and my background in ensuring that individuals in this community and businesses in the community can thrive, have been my responsibility. Unprecedented housing initiatives going on in the city under my watch. So I'm not speculating about what, has happened or what can happen. I live it every day. I put my shoes on and go into City Hall every day to get the job done.
GR: So let me ask you a question about Micron that builds a little bit on this, because it has to do with spending in the budget. And this is probably, you know, a problem that a lot of mayors would like to have. But if I'm looking at Micron coming in, I might be tempted to say something like the following, that there's going to be a lot more people in and around Syracuse who are making high salaries, they're going to be spending their money. The property values of the most desirable parts of the city are going to keep going up. They already are, I'm seeing it in the university neighborhood, for example. The prices are really launching up. And so if I'm a mayor looking at this, I might think I'm going to have more money in my budget even if I don't lift a finger, it's just going to come in. So, my question I guess, is don't you think that might be a temptation to start a lot of new programs, spend a lot? I mean, you're going to have a lot, you mentioned the activist groups just a second ago and talking about I-81. You're going to have a lot of pressure from those groups saying, this is the moment to do some of the things I've been wanting to do. How are you going to navigate that? I mean, it's a good problem to have, but how are you going to navigate it?
SO: I hope and pray that is a problem I inherit. Right now, I'm looking at a 25 or $30 million deficit. One of the things that I plan to do is to reach across the aisle, Rita Paniagua will be the next president of the Common Council. What I want to avoid is another council administration battle that we had with the budget this time. The oversight, fiscal oversight and execution of the city's budget is the responsibility of us jointly, the administrative wing and the legislative wing. I want to jointly put together a commission to really look at how we can look at our costs without sacrificing the services that the taxpaying people deserve in Syracuse, but also looking at how we can generate revenue. The growth of our region and the growth of our city is one way to do that. But we have to do it without pricing out our residents in this community. Affordable housing, the federal government is a big part of those subsidies that make that housing affordable. That is going to change, Grant, you know, the funding coming from the Trump administration. But how can we reduce the cost of affordable housing reconstruction? Manufactured housing, the Land Bank has a project it's working on now that reduce the costs of building houses that can be affordable to keep people in Syracuse who are going to stay in Syracuse in new homes to increase our tax base, but also addressing the rental issue, 60% of our city residents rent. So ensuring the quality of housing for rentals are there as well. And so, we have to be responsible. I mean, we were responsible with ARPA funds. We used it for a project that we normally would not have the funding to use for. It was one of the ways we started the sidewalk program. So we have to be responsible, but we have to work collaborative because, you know, my mother has always taught me, save the money, but the money is there for a rainy day. It feels like it's raining, but let's make sure that when it's different from sprinkling to a good rainstorm to a hurricane. And so, we have to adjust accordingly to our fiscal status.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is Syracuse mayoral candidate Sharon Owens. So, I’ve got about five minutes left or so, I want to try to squeeze in at least, two, maybe three questions if I can. The first one is, both Tim Rudd and Tom Babilon claim that the administration hasn't been as transparent as it could have been with the city council and otherwise, and I think also the newspaper has suggested some things similar to that. So rather than ask you whether it's true or not, I just wanted to ask you this, do you have plans for making what the administration does more transparent to the public and the council? You mentioned you want to work with the council, but are you going to try to make it more transparent?
SO: Well, first of all, I must answer that, it's not true. We have $123 million of ARPA money. If we weren't going to be transparent, we wouldn't have created a public dashboard so the public can see exactly how we were planning the spending, actually did spend that money. This administration was the administration that actually put in the infrastructure to make the council meetings accessible by video in live streams, it was us that did that. So when we talk about transparency, and it all, you know, really comes down to that, modernization, payroll modernization project. We, I, have said that could things have been done differently, the management of it? Absolutely. Grant, when I came to the city in 2018 from Southwest Community Center, when I was at the Southwest Community Center, there was an automated way by which I would scan and be able to get paid. I come to the city and we're doing that on paper timesheets. We're a 300 plus million dollar organization, and so this process has been hard, but we are making progress and I don't regret doing it at all. I am a transparent individual, I have been my entire life.
GR: Okay, thank you. So, just a couple of minutes left now, and two questions here. The first one, Mr. Babilon also made on air a no new taxes pledge for his four years. I'm going to ask you, are you running on a similar pledge? How would you handle that question?
SO: That would be, we just talked about transparency. That would be disingenuous to say that over the course of four years, you can make that commitment right now, that there would be no new taxes. I do not want to tax the people of Syracuse, but I'm not going to make that pledge predicting four years from now.
GR: Okay. Fair enough.
SO: Irresponsible.
GR: It didn't help George H.W. Bush.
SO: (laughter)
GR: And so last question, and you got about a minute and a half, two minutes to answer it. I wanted to give you kind of a big picture question and a chance to sort of take everything from your campaign and your vision and put it all under one thing. Imagine that I am a 30-something person okay? (laughter) You have to have to put on your rose-colored glasses there, and I'm relocating to Syracuse because I'm going to work for Micron, okay? I want you to convince me and about a minute to live in the city, as opposed to the suburbs.
SO: I am so happy that you are coming to this community. You have picked a amazing place to live, an amazing place to grow yourself personally and to raise your family. Syracuse has a long history of individuals in this community that have helped it grow over the course of its existence, and you are about to be a part of its history and a pinnacle time, a game changing time, where we have technology that we are going to be implementing here in Syracuse that rivals any other place in the world. And here you are right now. You can take advantage of our amazing city, our amazing parks, our affordable living, and just the best people you're going to find on the face of the Earth here in Syracuse, so welcome aboard.
GR: Okay, all right, I'm in, all right. So, we'll leave it there. That was Sharon Owens, she's a candidate for Syracuse mayor. Again, I want to remind everybody that my conversations with the other candidates are available on the Campbell Conversations webpage. And my previous conversation with Deputy Mayor Owens when she was running in the primary is also available there. We covered in that conversation some general things about vision for the city and other important issues. But Deputy Mayor Owens, again, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. Best of luck with the rest of the campaign trail, I know it's hard work.
SO: Thank you. Great to be here and I'll see you on the other side.
GR: Okay. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Jennifer Pahlka on the Campbell Conversations
Oct 11, 2025
Jennifer Pahlka
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Last week we heard from Nina Jankowicz about disinformation and the information war. My guest today also writes about the intersection of technology and government. Jennifer Pahlka was the deputy chief technology officer in the Obama administration and is the founder of Code for America. She's also the author of, “Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better.” Ms. Pahlka will be on Syracuse University campus to give a public talk on October 29th titled, “Governing in the Age of AI: Lessons from Recoding America.” Ms. Pahlka, welcome to the program.
Jennifer Pahlka: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you.
GR: This is a book about government underperforming, even failing in some ways, and also about governing and the digital age. Obviously, there have been deep complaints about government failures well before the digital age. And so my first question is, is government failing in substantially new ways now?
JP: I think it's failing in ways that the people really feel more, and that has sort of come to ahead in terms of a crisis. You saw leading up to the election last year, over the summer, there was a poll that said that 70% of people feel the system needs either major reform or to be blown up altogether. And I think that does speak to just, you know, a real frustration with the public. And you can see it in ways, everything from, you know, I had an experience in my hometown in Oakland, California, where I had a home invasion, and I called the 911 center and they didn't pick up for quite a long time. In fact, they dropped the call three times.
GR: Wow.
JP: And then they said, Oakland Police Department will be there as soon as they possibly can and it took them two whole days to show up.
GR: Oh my goodness.
JP: And so that's kind of thing where you expect, right, that when you, at the very minimum, you expect that when you call 911, someone will answer the phone and if there's someone in your home that the police will show up. And that's not something that people feel that they can count on these days. And all the way to that very personal experience at the local level, to the experience that I think people had during the Obama administration, where at a very, at a national level we set some big priorities like, you know, moving to green energy infrastructure or, you know, building more roads and highways or, you know, reshoring chips to manufacturing, or connecting homes to more broadband. And then we spent a lot of money and made a lot of announcements, people didn't see those things actually happening. So you start to get this sense that government can set a goal but not actually achieve that goal, and that can really erode trust and faith in government.
GR: Well, it seems to me that many liberals will argue that government appears to fail because it's under-supported and underfunded. And then conservatives will often argue that government fails because in some fundamental way it cannot do or do well what we want it to do, what we hope it will do. What are the root causes of government's current failures or major shortcomings in your view?
JP: Yeah, I think it's time that we sort of looked past the partisan swipes at why. And, in fact, I think there's increasing bipartisan support for the acknowledgment that fundamentally, we moved into an internet age and we left the operating model of government back in an industrial era. I shouldn't say that we haven't updated it to some degree, but it's kind of like we slapped a website on the front end of it, but the guts of it really still are how things operated as we sort of came out of World War Two and moved into an industrial era. It's a very, you know, in the framework of software development, we call this like waterfall development. It's very stepwise, it doesn't have feedback loops in it that, that, you know, you see in the society around us and the things that work well. So, you know, at its fundamental diagnosis, I would say it's time not only that we addressed this operating model of government that's been left behind, but also realize that while we sort of failed to update it for the internet era, we are now entering an AI era. And so we can't really fight the last day’s battles, which I'm prone to do, right? I fought those battles and so they’re still sort of bothering me, but I need to let go of them and say it's time to ours to figure out how to drag government into the AI era, not, you know, not the era where we, we sort of missed the ball for a while. I could talk a little bit about what that operating model looks like, but I think that's the fundamental problem. It's not just that the policies aren't getting what, you know, they intend, but that those policies sit, they rely on this operating model to be successful.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with governance and internet expert Jennifer Pahlka. She's the author of “Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better.” So, I want to pick up on just that last set of points you were making. And obviously, it sounds to me then that what we need is a real, a core rethink, first of all, and a core restructuring. What would be some of the most important elements of what we ought to be doing then that we're not doing, in your view?
JP: I spent the last 15 years trying to work on the digital side of government. And what I realized is that if you want to move government forward, you have to pick up all of the elements of the operating model. And the way I break those down is the following: If you want government that can achieve its policy goals, you have to have the right people, which implicates civil service reform, they have to be focused on the right work, which implicates procedural reform, right? Today, they're sort of drowning in paperwork and procedure that doesn't necessarily accrue to the outcomes people expect. Third, you need purpose fit systems for them to work with, and that is the world that I've been in. But, trying to get the right digital systems for government, we have the wrong processes and procedures that result in systems that aren't really fit to purpose. And then fourth, and maybe this is the most foundational, we need to be able to operate in test and learn frameworks. Again, not just this idea that we create a plan and then we operate to that plan, even as we can see that it is not getting the outcome that we intended, or not getting it fast enough, or getting a perverse outcome because, you know, we haven't thought this through. When we continue to follow that plan, even as it's not working, because we're locked into this particular framework. But there's a whole bunch of ways the government needs to relearn how it operates that does learn as it goes and has these very much tighter feedback loops where we're able to adjust along the way to get to where we need to go.
GR: That all makes perfect sense. And the last point, which you said may be the most foundational, the first thing that popped in my head when you said that was how difficult that would be to pull off in the media age that we live in, because things get scrutinized so quickly and so critically that the idea that, I mean, it sounds great, you know, we're going to test and learn and we're going to adjust and we're going to do these things quickly. But if something doesn't work right, the media is all over it, as this is a government failure, this didn't work the way it was intended. I'm thinking of the rollout of Obamacare, which you're very familiar with. I'm thinking of some of the things having to do with COVID, both during the Trump administration and the Biden administration. So how do you create the space where people will tolerate, I guess, or the media will tolerate that kind of smarter approach?
JP: It's a really good point, and I think we need to bring both the public and the media along on this shift to a new operating model and I’ll give you a really good example. Speaking of very public debacles, we more recently had the FAFSA, it’s the federal student aid form. And Congress ordered a modernization of that form, essentially with the Better FAFSA Act, I want to say, back in 2020. But unfortunately, the way we, quote unquote, “modernized” today, it really doesn't work. And so the, you know, what was supposed to be a better new system really failed students. Many of them couldn't get through it and there were millions affected, especially, unfortunately, those who most need the support of the federal government to go to college. The Department of Education did bring in a fantastic team to get it back on track. Some folks from the College Board volunteered their time, and then they sent some people over from the United States Digital Service. And they brought a new way of working that really is consistent with this operating model that we need government to move to. We call it the product model. There's a lot of nerdy stuff that goes into that that your listeners don't want to hear about. But it is what we were talking about, it's being able to adapt as you go. It's having the right internal technical leadership to do it right, some flexibility and really being centered on what users really need. Well, they got the FAFSA very much back on track. If you look at it now, it has very high satisfaction rates, very low error rates. But the Government Accountability Office still wrote them up, with a very, you know, critical report. And the reason the report is critical is that they are holding the Department of Education accountable to the old way of doing things. They didn't realize that the successes have come from this shift to this new product model, way of working that's been incredibly successful. And the good news, the other good news, though, is that what typically happens in government when you get a bad GAO report, is everybody sort of gets defensive and everyone gets told to return to the old ways of working because you don't want to get criticized. But in this case, the Department of Ed wrote a letter back saying, here is what you should hold us accountable to. These ways of working are better, they're getting better outcomes, and please, the next time you, you know, assess our success or failure, assess us according to these kinds of criteria, because that is what is actually helping kids apply for financial aid.
GR: That's a good example, I'm sure it's something that a lot of our listeners have lived, so it will resonate. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Jennifer Pahlka, the governance and internet expert has served in the Obama administration and is also the author of “Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better.” And we've been discussing her book and some of her more recent findings and research as well. So I'm going to get a little wonky myself. You were saying you didn't want to get too wonky before, but as I was reading through your book, I got the clear impression that one of your arguments that we haven't really talked about as much, although indirectly, is that the details of policy delivery and implementation have been undervalued and understudied, but that they're terribly important. Do I have that right as take away from your writing?
JP: Yes, I think that's correct. I think that, you know, I came to government from the tech industry where the people who actually, you know, do the work, they create the website, they, you know, deal with the customers are kind of at the top of a social hierarchy, right, if you think about it. Those companies are all run by founders who, you know, did the first version of their product. And in government, it's the exact opposite. The people who actually make the interfaces to the public are very, very low on a very, very tall totem pole. And I think that creates real problems because we give respect and status to those who think the big policy thoughts, we don't connect them to the people who are actually going to make that stuff real. And they're so far apart in the sort of social hierarchy, then that's part of how we get really bad interfaces to government.
GR: Yeah, exactly. And the other thing that I thought of was my own field of political science, and that it seems like there's a similarity there too, where it's exactly as you just said, that, you know, there's a value priority put on sort of, for lack of a better word, higher altitude sort of theoretical discussions, less emphasis on the actual nuts and bolts of delivering things. And there's kind of a dearth of interest and attention in the academic field as well. Is that your sense?
JP: Absolutely. There's so much that I would like the academic world to study that really gets very little attention because it's not about the, you know, the nuts and bolts of government, but in fact, that is where we're failing people. It's not just that we want there to be a closer connection between policymakers and the folks that are doing, you know, the actual work in government. But as I said earlier, these test and learn frameworks it means that we need a feedback loop. People who make policy and law today really need to understand what implementers do in order to get better at what they're doing. When I spend time on the Hill with congressional staffers, they will secretly or quietly admit that they know that the law and policy that they write is not really implementable. They know that it doesn't get the outcomes that they intend or very often doesn't, and that what they need to learn is sort of more of the full cycle, so that as the people in the agencies that are implementing these laws are learning what, you know, what users want or, you know, what actually happens when you go to implement these things, that they can bring those learnings back up the chain, and we just don't have those feedback loops in place right now. But it's not just about a better communication, it is really about the learning, being, you know, multi-directional, and our policy and lawmakers having the humility to learn from the actual execution.
GR: What you just described for that feedback loop sounds like the right thing to do. But we are currently, you and I are speaking in a moment where the federal government and civil servants, I think it's fair to say, are under an assault, where at least they feel like they're under an assault. And how do we create the political space or the trust space for there to be that kind of sharing of information and mutual respect from the lawmaker and the policy designer to the implementer and back again in order that we get this more right?
JP: Well, our founders created a system of federalism, and I think that's a big advantage right now, because when things are not possible in DC, they are possible in the States, and we can experiment with them. I think actually there is more room for maneuvering and learning and talking about new things right now than we're going to, you know, admit publicly because their headlines are quite dramatic, but there is still stuff going in Congress where, where people want to figure out what is next. But leaving that aside, you've got, you know, 50 states or 53 if you count the territories and something like 30,000 local jurisdictions that can experiment with these new ways of working and show what it looks like, and then we can adopt those back into the federal level when, knock on wood, we have a more functional Congress in the future.
GR: Well, one of the things I've noticed as a political observer is that the partisan divide and some of the dysfunctionality of hyper-partisanship has now kind of infiltrated to the state and even the local levels. I'm wondering if that is going to compromise that kind of dynamic that you're hoping for from the, you know, 50 laboratories of democracy. I forget which Supreme Court justice used that phrase, it might have been Oliver Wendell Holmes. But anyway, you know, I'm wondering whether the window for that is closing.
JP: Well, I think that it's a tough political environment, for sure. And to the degree that culture war stuff can really distract from the very serious business of governing. Yes, we do have a problem, but, you know, they also, to quote another sort of tried and true government line, there's no Democratic or Republican way to pick up the garbage, right?
GR: Right.
JP: I mean, these things still matter in communities even when there is political strife. And that is a lot of what we're talking about here. People need to live together, they need to, you know, have roads and schools and garbage pickup. All these things actually really do rest on that operating model of government and are the places where we don't disagree that much. And I think in some ways, by raising the visibility and salience and, and relevance of this core operating model, we actually give people something to talk about where there's just a lot more common ground and a lot more sense of, this is just common sense. This is just, you know, this is part of how we're all going to live together in this community and how things work well. So I think in some ways it's really an antidote to the divisive headlines.
GR: Yeah, that's a good point. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the governance and internet expert Jennifer Pahlka. I wanted to ask you something that is also in your book that I think would be of particular resonance with people who are living in this part of upstate New York, especially the Rochester area. You write of something that you call the ‘Kodak curse’. What is the Kodak curse, first of all?
JP: The Kodak curse derives from, I guess, it was back in the 80s, when these companies, starting with Kodak, decided to outsource all of their IT. And, we've done that in government, right? We've said, look, this isn't something government does, well, let's just buy this from vendors. Well, in a sense, there are many things that can be outsourced well. But when you get to the point where all of the digital competence and understanding of the digital world is outside your company or outside the institution of government, you really can make some pretty bad strategic blunders. And Kodak did this when they, you know, they had a lead on everyone else, they were the first people to have a digital camera. But they lost that lead. And, you know, it really hurt the company because it, you know, sure, you want someone to fix your printer or get you on the internet, I can see why people want to outsource that. But if nobody understands the value of digital expertise in your company, you're going to miss a lot of strategic decisions that would really, you know, put your company forward. Our government has very much treated everything digital as just something you buy. In reality, digital is something you do, right? None of the companies that run on technology today outsource it entirely. You don't outsource your product. If you think about something like unemployment insurance, yes, people in government think of the politics of unemployment insurance and the policies as the product. And in fact, what people experience is the website is the product And you really have to have control of that and know that it works and know that it's good and that it's going to meet people's expectations. You know, at the end of the day, you're going to be a legitimate government that people trust and want to have work.
GR: This applies so much to the university as well. I'm thinking of the experiences we've had with our website, and I'm also thinking of the experiences with online teaching and buying the packages from elsewhere, where they don't actually fit. I wanted to give you some space here at the end, to end on a positive note and to ask, are there, you mentioned before the different laboratories of democracy and this is one of the benefits that we can see. Some of these things that you're proposing might start to be done at the state level or the local level. Are there particular states in the United States, or are there other countries that have caught your eye as leading the way on this issue that the United States national government, federal government could be looking at, to get some important lessons from?
JP: You know, there are bright spots everywhere. There's no place that is such, you know, a perfect model for the United States, because every place is different. So at the state level, you know, I'm inspired by Governor Shapiro's leadership around the I-95 rebuild, for instance, where he just said, we have to do this quickly and pulled out all the stops. And I think people really saw a way government can really deliver when it has to. And I think all leaders should take a page from his book on that front. Overseas, I've always been, gotten a lot of inspiration from my colleagues in the UK who started the Government Digital Service before the United States Digital Service came into being. In fact, we modeled the USDS on the GDS and they continue to do great work. And I think they're much more of a peer nation, whereas a country like Estonia, which is very often cited as the leader and truly is incredible in its sort of digital forward in its ability to serve its citizens with incredible ease and convenience and confidence, right? They just don't have the policy legacy, the sort of accumulation of decades of policy debt that we have, which makes it a lot easier for them. But I still think we should aspire to their kind of work. They, for instance, are going to be, I think, quite forward-leaning on the adoption of AI. And it will just be harder for us, for a number of reasons that we really need to grapple with. Because if you think about this AI world, I mean, think about how fast vectors for fraud and abuse in programs are going to evolve in a world where lots of people have access to AI. If government doesn't avail itself of those tools, we're at an enormous disadvantage. Think about how fast we need regulation to respond. I don't just mean regulation of AI, I mean any kind of regulation. When we move into a world where people can do things very quickly with AI, government will need to respond just as quickly. And we're going to have to start clearing out some of the clutter that keeps us from being able to move into that world. All the time recognizing that AI has, you know, a bunch of challenges that we need to be very careful with it, that we should not be adopting any technology without lots of systems in place for, you know, constantly testing it to make sure it's doing what we intend it to do and not causing real harm to people. But we have to speed that process up enormously. And I think we can look to places like Estonia for inspiration while recognizing that they are, you know, they don't have some of the challenges that we have in terms of really 250 years of always adding to our laws, policies and regulations and never subtracting. This is a real problem that we need to deal with. The good news is that AI also can help us deal with that problem of policy accumulation and cruft. LOM’s are fantastic at this, and I'm really excited to see a lot of people use those tools to do this sort of regulatory and policy simplification that is really long overdue.
GR: Well, I'm happy to leave it there because, you know, this has been such a challenging environment in recent years and you're finding rays of light. And so, you've left me more optimistic than when I started the conversation, so I appreciate that.
JP: I’m glad for that. I’ll just say, since you mentioned the federal workforce and the disruptions. I mean, if we may leave on a note that is sobering but also positive, you know, I spent a long time sort of, frustrated with governments sclerosis and it's and its slow pace. Things are now moving rather quickly, and you know the phrase, you can't make an omelet if you don't break some eggs? I think the present side of this particular moment is that the eggs have been broken, so it's really up to us to now just go make that new omelet.
GR: What we make with it, that's a good analogy, yeah. Jennifer Pahlka is giving a public talk on the Syracuse University campus on October 29th. It's titled, “Governing in the Age of AI: Lessons from Recoding America,” and more information on that talk can be found at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs website. Ms. Pahlka, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I learned a lot.
JP: Thank you, it was a joy.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Nina Jankowicz on the Campbell Conversations
Oct 04, 2025
Nina Jankowicz
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Nina Jankowicz. Ms. Jankowicz is an expert on disinformation and democratization, and she headed up the Disinformation Advisory Board during the Biden administration. She's also the author of two recent books, “How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict” and “How to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment and How to Fight Back”. Ms. Jankowicz will be on the Syracuse University campus to give a free public talk on October 27th. It's titled, “War on Reality: How Autocrats Are Silencing Truth Tellers Around the World”. Ms. Jankowicz, welcome to the program. Thanks for making the time to talk with me, really appreciate it.
Nina Jankowicz: Glad to be here.
GR: So let's start with the first of the books I mentioned, “How to Lose the Information War”. I'm going to start with what probably seems like an overly basic question, but what is the information war? Briefly.
NJ: Yeah, not overly basic and an important question. So when I wrote this book, I originally conceived of the idea when I was living in Ukraine where information war is very real and so is the kinetic war, right? And for me, I thought at that point in time, which was 2016-2017, the United States was not taking seriously the information war. We thought, oh, surely our systems are resilient enough, our democratic infrastructure is resilient enough that we can deal with this, right? That, you know, people will be able to suss out fact from fiction. And here we are, you know, eight years later, nine years later, and I think the problem has only gotten worse. We have adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, and many more using the Russian playbook now online to influence Americans, to influence our political discourse, to influence decision makers. And now we've also got political decision makers in the United States using disinformation as well. So I think it's important to characterize it as a war, because it can have very real costs, and we tend to discount what goes on online as just, oh, words that people say on the internet. But really, it does have impact in the offline world, in real life, as the kids like to say, IRL.
GR: (laughter) Okay, well, so, a question about that. I mean, you mentioned these other countries and some of the things that they've been doing in recent years. I would assume, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I would assume that the United States does similar things and has done similar things to other countries. What at least can you say about that?
NJ: Well, this is a question that I get a lot from people who think that U.S. imperialism is a bad thing, as do I. And, you know, there's certainly been, particularly in the 70's and 80's, instances of covert U.S. operations that have been attempting to influence publics all over the world, places like Venezuela, Cuba, certainly in Asia and in Russia as well. The difference is that in the modern era, since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have stuck to overt influence operations, right? They are labeled very proudly with 'paid for by the U.S. government', 'paid for by the U.S. taxpayer'. And I'm thinking of institutions like Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, you know, programming that went through the National Endowment for Democracy or the National Democratic Institute, these sorts of programs, right? You would not be able to do that programming if you didn't have a big U.S.A. or State Department stamp on that. And what we're talking about when we talk about what Russia has done since 2016 and in fact, before, is covert operations. They are operations where Russian individuals are masquerading as American citizens, talking to us, influencing us, advertising us and attempting to change our political outcomes. I think the overt realm is defensible, the covert realm is not. And I hope that any American would be upset to learn about some of the hi-jinx that Russia and others have gotten away with in their covert operations, masquerading as American citizens and attempting to influence us from the inside.
GR: Well, interesting the way you ended that response, because I did want to ask, what I would assume also that we do covert operations, too. I mean, the point of this interview, by the way, is not to get into all of this, but I would assume that the United States has got to be doing that. I mean, in some ways, I almost hope they are.
NJ: Yeah, so it's interesting. I think certainly there is the realm of military psy-ops, psychological operations and that's in a whole different kettle of fish, right? We're not really discussing that, I don't have as much experience with that. There have been a couple of instances of U.S. information or disinformation campaigns, including one during the pandemic where the US military was targeting audiences in, I'm forgetting which Southeast Asian country at the moment, but were targeting them and encouraging them not to take the Sinovac Chinese COVID vaccine there, which I think was just absolutely malicious. I would have condemned that, I have condemned that publicly, and probably caused some people to get ill and maybe even die. Like, I think that's morally reprehensible. One of the things that I had hoped to do in my time in government was learn more about the ways that we were doing that and hopefully influence it so that it was curving more toward the, you know, the moral arc that I would hope the United States would follow. But the Russian government of course is doing this, in a way that I think, you know, is only aided by the technology that we have at our disposal today, the way that you can target the most vulnerable audiences with, you know, a single credit card payment, very easily. I think they really seized on that and the United States is not doing that same sort of targeting, to change political fortunes. It might be trying to plump up its own image, but it's not as pernicious. And we're certainly not spending the amount of money that the Russians are on this, unfortunately.
GR: Okay. So it's a difference in kind and a difference in intensity it sounds like. So I'm just curious, you don't have to spend a lot of time on this question, but I am curious. When you were serving in the Biden administration, what did you spend, sas there was there one thing that you spent more of your time worrying about than anything else? Because you listed all the different threats at the beginning, but was there something that got you up at 3 in the morning, like, oh, those people or, you know, that kind of thing?
NJ: Well, I will preface this without going into a long aside that, you know, my time in the administration was quite short. I was there for three months because my position and the work that I was hired to do, ironically came under attack by disinformation itself. And so a lot of my time, even prior to those attacks began, was spent thinking about the way that the administration could communicate most proactively and transparently about its intentions for the Disinformation Board. Unfortunately, my warnings to my supervisors at DHS were not heeded, and that's why we ended up in the pickle that we were in with my family being threatened. And to this day, you know, more than three years later, I still receive threats and am the subject of conspiracy theories because of that short time in the board. So I thought a lot about basically the responsibility of government to communicate to its citizens, again, proactively, transparently, respectfully, and instead, I think, you know, I will criticize the Biden administration. It wasn't just this effort, but many others where, that administration operated as if the internet wasn't a thing they had to worry about. And it very much is now, you know, we went from, one influencer with, you know, over a million followers targeting me to being on Fox News every hour on the hour the next day. And it got very ugly very quickly. And, you know, I had hoped they would think about that, but unfortunately they discounted the disinformation experts' opinion. Aside from that, I started right as the full scale invasion of Ukraine had started, in March 2022. And so we were looking a lot at the ways that Russia might be influencing American publics, particularly as we were headed toward a midterm election and the end of the year, how they might be targeting cyber infrastructure or even other critical infrastructure like financial infrastructure in order to try to influence the American public to support the Russian's cause in the war. None of that really ended up happening because, you know, I just criticized the Biden administration, I'll give them kudos, the coalition that they built and the way that they were able to declassify intelligence to show the American people what was going on in Ukraine and what Russia was up to, I think was very, very compelling for at least the first 18 months of the war. And I'm glad that none of those, you know, nightmare scenarios came to pass.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz, the author of, “How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict”. A little bit later in our conversation, I want to come back to something you mentioned there about your own personal experience, but let me stick with this for a second. Who's the bigger threat down the road do you think, in this area, is it Russia or is it China?
NJ: It's a hard question because Russia is certainly committed. We have sanctioned them, we've kicked them out of the global clubs. You know, they until recently were pariahs because of, in part, because of the disinformation campaigns and influence campaigns they had run. But we've never really seen the full force of Beijing's influence campaigns trained on the United States before. Your listeners may be aware that Beijing has its Tencent Army, which is essentially a massive troll army called the Tencent Army because they're paid ten cents, I think, per post or something like that. But, you know, they've never trained that army on the United States. They use it in particular for domestic propaganda. And they're wildly successful within China itself, including by creating kind of controlled opposition postings that make it look like there is dissent in Chinese society to keep people kind of quelled. But we've never seen that really trained on the U.S. in a way that I think has been effective. We've seen a couple campaigns around the Uighur genocide and things like that. But, I don't think if China really tried hard, I'd be pretty scared because of the resources, the sheer number of people and frankly, the ability that they've shown to control the conversation at home. The one thing that they don't really have going for them, which I think is actually solved by the advent of accessible artificial intelligence, is typically these posts that China has used against the United States have been easy to spot because they're in poor English or they're just like rote copy-pasted. With AI, you can easily generate perfectly grammatical, idiomatically correct English posts, and you can generate lots of different variations of them. it won't be that same rote copy paste. So I think we're we're in for a rude awakening. And unfortunately, over the last nine months or so, the U.S. government has entirely stood down its counter foreign propaganda apparatus throughout the government. So, I'm a little worried about that, Grant. I'm not gonna lie.
GR: Well, I've got the student papers to prove your point about how you can use AI to (laughter) write it well and write it differently each time. But on that point, the very last point you said, I was going to ask you, what's the most important thing America should be doing at present, which it is not doing? And it sounds like the most important thing is get back on this and not ignore it, is that what's going on right now?
NJ: Well, certainly the U.S. government under the Trump administration has unfortunately shut down things like the Global Engagement Center, which was the State Department's nerve center for Countering foreign propaganda. They shut down the Foreign Malign Influence Center within the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Foreign Influence Task Force at the FBI. So, like all of these different nodes of our response to foreign influence have now been terminated because of the politicization of this topic. And I think that that is quite disturbing, because it's democracy that suffers when we allow our adversaries to influence our political systems. It's not a political issue one way or the other. Disinformation, Russia, China might be angling for President Trump today, but that could turn on a dime, depending on what President Trump does in negotiating a peace in Ukraine or, you know, trade negotiations he might strike with China, right? Like these things are like the winds. And I think it's very silly to have put down our defenses entirely. But I also make the point in my book that one of the things we've never invested in, at the level that I would have liked to have seen, and something that has worked for a number of the countries that I profile in my book, is information literacy. And I'm sure you see this with your students as I do mine, you know, students at Syracuse are wonderful and smart and, you know, they also are influenced by the media that they consume. We're in an environment where, unfortunately, the media that we consume is put toward us entirely passively. We're consuming it passively, we're not seeking it out, it's all algorithmically, you know, served to us. And so I think people need just a little bit of heuristics for how to navigate this increasingly complex, polluted information environment and we haven't invested in that as a country. Some states are doing it, but, we haven't done it at a national level. And that wouldn't be saying, you know, this outlet is good, this outlet is bad. Again, it would be just giving people those skills of how to understand the information that's being presented to them on all of these apps and services that we use today.
GR: Just a quick follow up on that. So when you said a little bit earlier the politicization of these efforts, I want to make sure I understood to you, what you're getting out there, because I can think of two ways in which that might make sense. Are you saying that there is a pushback on saying, hey, look, we've got to counter this Russian disinformation because the impression is it's Democrats that are emphasizing Russia right now, is that it?
NJ: Yes. That's been primarily the narrative that Republicans have used to shut down these efforts. There's also been a long campaign that ties in with some of the stuff I experienced against disinformation researchers, government employees, tech employees. That the narrative, and I will just preface this by saying it is not borne out by any of the evidence or data, is that, you know, researchers colluded with government to pressure the tech platforms to censor conservative content online, and that's just not true, right? So it's the two prongs there, the Russia, Russia, Russia thing and then this censorship lie, which has unfortunately left us almost defenseless in the face of continued foreign assaults on our information space.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Nina Jankowicz. The disinformation expert has served in the Biden administration and she's also the author of, “How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict”, and, “How to Be a Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment and How to Fight Back” and we've been discussing her two books. So I want to get into your second book about how to be a woman online here in a second, but I have a question I wanted to ask first. Strange question, and I don't mean it to sound like a hostile one, given that you served in the Biden administration, you've already been critical of it in some way. But it does seem to me pretty clear that we, we meaning the American people, were exposed to a premeditated disinformation campaign during the Biden administration about Joe Biden himself.
NJ: (laughter)
GR: And the leaders of the party, for example, all told us nothing to worry about, Bill Clinton said this, Barack Obama said this. Some good journalists have since explained to us that this was otherwise and people knew. So what should we make of this?
NJ: Yeah. You know, Grant, I think that really comports with my experience of the Biden administration, unfortunately and the hope that, you know, they were able to bury bad news, bad press, or twist the narrative in some way. I don't necessarily think it was disinformation, I think it was electioneering, right? I don't think it was with a malign intent, which is the distinctive factor around disinformation, but I don't think it was excusable. And I'm reading Kamala Harris's book right now, and she's quite harsh with them as well, but I think she'd bears some responsibility for not coming out and saying it and not trying to influence a little bit more. But yeah, I would agree with you. And I think, unfortunately, you know, we're left with the consequences today.
GR: Yeah, I think, just a quick comment, I think the bind for Harris is she's either got to say that she was so far out of the loop that she didn't know and that indicates something or that she was in the loop and she did know and didn't say anything, and that's at issue too. Well, let's move to your other book, “How to Be a Woman Online”. First of all, again, I don't mean this to be a hostile question, but men get a lot of abuse online too. Is the problem fundamentally different for women?
NJ: Yes it is and the data show this. There were a couple of studies that were done early in 2020 looking at the way that male politicians were abused online, and the tone and tenor of the abuse that women in politics received and women receive more gendered abuse, it's more toxic and it's more often violent than the abuse that men receive. It also is more numerous. The only male politician whose abuse in 2020 exceeded that of any female politician, I think, was Mitch McConnell and at the time, of course, he was Senate Majority leader, and then again, the tone and tenor issues still apply. I will also say from my personal experience, the abuse that we receive as women often, very much brings into account sexuality in a way that I don't think we see with men. It it also brings into our families into the conversation. So, when I was receiving a lot of abuse, when I was pregnant, my unborn child was frequently threatened as well. And you don't want to get between a mom and her baby, right?
GR: (laughter)
NJ: So it's it becomes very visceral, very quickly.
GR: Yeah, interesting. So what are the biggest pitfalls online for women who are taking on more of a public role? What are the, are there some things that you have to watch out for more than others?
NJ: You know, I think it is something that so many people just assume is part of the cost of being in public life and I want to say it doesn't have to be that way. The reason I wrote, “How to Be a Woman Online”, which is basically a handbook for how to deal with the abuse that is so common for so many of us, is because I want people to be equipped and to be able to hold their digital ground. And this book is helpful for men too, by the way, I think particularly in this day and age of kind of mass digital surveillance, but...
GR: I thought it was, yeah.
NJ: Thank you, thank you. I mean, I think we received trolling, but there's also a lot of invasions into our personal privacy, our, you know, home addresses, phone numbers, things like that being leaked. Individuals have tried to hack me before, but little did they know, I have been a target of the Russian government for the more than ten years, so I'm pretty, I've got pretty good security on my end.
GR: Is that all you got, is that what you're saying? (laughter)
NJ: Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I think there's a number of things to be worried about, but also in the age of, of geolocation and kind of, hobby open source investigators and kind of the same era where we're all sharing parts of our lives online, you know, a single photograph can give away your location, it can give away your pattern and life and make it more easy to stalk you and threaten and harass you in real life, right? So I just try to bring these things up because, unfortunately, again, the response is, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen and I don't think it needs to be that way. I don't think we'll see a response from the platforms very quickly, you know, putting in a good faith effort to protect women and minorities. But, you know, we can protect ourselves in the interim.
GR: So what would be, to boil it down, your most important piece of advice for women, the most, maybe the most important thing they should do or the most important thing they shouldn't do when managing their online presence? Is it like to be really careful and sort of rethink the things that you're going to be putting out there, or is it something else?
NJ: Well, I wouldn't want people to censor themselves, right? And when you have dealt with, you know, extensive online abuse, as I have, it does get to be that way that you rethink everything and you think things through too much almost, it can be kind of stifling. But the point that I make in the book is that most of these tips that I give, you know, getting a private information service that removes your information from the internet, using middleware like this tool Block Party to block trolls without having to be exposed to the stuff that they're sending you. These things are kind of set it and forget it, and they make your experience a lot more pleasant. So I think it's just to be in control, to think about these things ahead of time so that you don't find yourselves in a moment where things are bad. You are the subject of an online hate campaign or worse, and you're scrambling to get it all set up. And in fact, that is, I was lucky in that when I had the worst abuse that I dealt with in my life, a private, kind of security consultant that I had hired to help me make sure that my family was safe, told me that if I hadn't been me, you know, things would have been much worse, right? So doing that set it and forget it is really important. But the other kind of single most important tip I would give is just don't, I wouldn't say don't feed the trolls, don't be afraid to block people, right? You don't need to give people your time, your energy. Taylor Swift recently put it like, your energy is currency and it's very expensive, you don't need to spend it on everyone. And that is something I am trying to, as a good millennial Taylor Swift listener, I'm really trying to embody lately. You don't owe people a response if they're not engaging in good faith.
GR: I bet her energy is probably extremely expensive right now. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz. We have about five minutes left or so, and I have basically two more questions for you, but one of them, I think you'll want to take some time with, the first one. It's a personal question, you've alluded to it already several times, but is part of the motivation for this book, “How to Be a Woman Online” autobiographical? You've kind of hinted that it is. And then the bigger question is, tell us a bit about how you have had to deal with the threats and the challenges that you discuss in the book.
NJ: Yeah. So the book came into being after I had dealt with some online abuse as most women in public life do. And after I had done a big piece of research around the 2020 election that looked at the ways that women political candidates were abused online. And I thought, this is so endemic to our society and it doesn't seem like the platforms, as I mentioned before, are going to do anything about it. But I don't want to see women shrinking from expressing themselves in our democratic discourse. And so many of the focus groups and things that I had done, particularly with young women, showed me that that was the case. One young woman told me, I don't want a lifestyle that public anymore, like it was really heartbreaking to me. Ironically, just a couple of days before the Disinformation Governance Board at DHS was announced and my appointment to it was announced, was when my book came out, the second book, “How to Be a Woman Online”. And so the book came out, and then I was hit with this wave of online abuse, which has now lasted for for three and a half years. And essentially it was based on a conspiracy theory about the board that I was going to be censoring people. I'm a granddaughter of somebody who was put in a Soviet gulag. The thought of me censoring people is just so anathema to every fiber of my being. And frankly, it just goes against all of my public scholarship over time. It was shocking to see it take such root, but it was it was not just something that was happening online. It was happening on the airwaves of the most powerful cable stations in the world, like Fox. And that translated into threats against me and my family very quickly. I was in the third trimester of my pregnancy, my son was just a few weeks away from being born. As I mentioned before, he was threatened, we were doxed, which means that our home address was leaked. We received mail at our house. I was advised to leave my house by that consultant that I mentioned before, and I just, I couldn't figure out how to make that happen as, you know, a 36 week pregnant woman with a dog, a cat, and a bunch of stuff. And like, I wanted to be near my doctor and my hospital. I had to go to my prenatal appointments in a disguise, basically. I like, wore a hat and a COVID mask, it was still during COVID, and sunglasses because my face was on TV so much that I didn't know who I would meet on the street would wish me harm. And I've been recognized on the street before as well. And you know, this stuff just changes how you move around in the world. And when so much of your work is online, not even your work, but, you know, dealing, trying to be in touch with family and friends around the world, around the country, when you're dealing with online abuse and you're receiving that level of vitriol so much, it really cuts you off, it isolates you, which is the point, right? The point is to make you withdraw and say, well, this isn't worth it, this level of engagement isn't worth it. And that is something I've really tried to stand against. And, you know, I'm glad that the book is out there so that I can, equip other women to fight back and to hold their digital ground.
GR: We only have a couple seconds left, literally. But give us just a taste of what you'll be discussing in your talk at Syracuse.
NJ: In part, I'm going to be discussing my experience but my experience is not the only one of, you know, autocrats that are targeting truth tellers. It's happened around the world and in order to control the society and the outcomes in society, you need to control the narrative. And that's why journalists, civil society activists, researchers are being targeted right now.
GR: All right. We'll have to leave it there. That was Nina Jankowicz. Again, she's giving a free public talk on the Syracuse University campus on October 27th. It's titled, “War on Reality: How Autocrats Are Silencing Truth Tellers Around the World”. More information on the talk can be found at the Maxwell School of Citizenship Public Affairs website. Ms. Jankowicz, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I learned a lot, and I'm sorry that you went through what you did, but it sounds like you've come out stronger.
NJ: Thank you so much, Grant. A pleasure to be with you.
GR: Thank you. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Tim Rudd on the Campbell Conversations
Sep 27, 2025
Tim Rudd
A Note to Our Listeners:
I mention this in the introduction to the interview with Tim Rudd, but you may notice that missing from the group of interviews with the Syracuse mayoral candidates is Alfonso Davis, who, like Rudd, is running on an independent line. In all regional races where there are multiple candidates, I make an assessment of the candidates’ basic viability. This is not a fine-tuned effort to gauge a candidate’s likelihood of winning, but rather an assessment of whether there is an active campaign of basic viability. That determination is based on party backing, funding, both secured and likely, polling when available, past performance when available, and the background and experience of the candidate, among other factors. Because our political system in the U.S. is overwhelmingly based on the two-party system, candidates from the two major parties are automatically included.
The context for needing to do all this is the fact that the Campbell Conversations is a once-a-week program, of only 30 minutes duration. If we had more airtime, we could be more inclusive regardless.
In this instance, regarding Mr. Rudd and Mr. Davis, I made the determination to give them time, but to put them together into a single half-hour program. I invited both of them to appear on the program, and while Mr. Rudd accepted the invitation, Mr. Davis refused, stating that he didn’t want to have his time shared with Mr. Rudd. When that happens, it is the policy of this program, consistent with that of most other programs, to go forward with the candidate who accepted the invitation. That is what I did with Mr. Rudd, and that is why Mr. Davis is missing from the interviews. -Grant Reeher
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Today we're bringing you the second of our series of interviews with the mayoral candidates for the city of Syracuse. My guest is Tim Rudd, the former Syracuse City budget director and city councilor-at-large, who's running as an independent on a line named Transparency and Accountability. I'd like our listeners to note that we made an effort to invite Alfonso Davis, the other independent candidate, to join this conversation, but he declined to be interviewed in a joint fashion. I do plan to conduct an interview with the Democratic nominee, Sharon Owens, in the coming months. But today, it's Mr. Rudd's turn, welcome to the program.
Tim Rudd: Thank you for having me.
GR: Well, thanks for making the time, we do appreciate it. So let me just start with kind of what may have been the start of your campaign. You've been in the media, you were in the media with some pretty deep criticisms of the Walsh administration. Just, if you could, I know you could speak the entire time about this, but in a nutshell, what are your main criticisms of the way the Walsh administration has used the past eight years?
TR: Well, I think there's, the Walsh administration prioritizes their narrative over telling the truth, over acknowledging things that are problems and trying to improve them. And I think there's a steep cost for that. And I think we see it in many ways.
GR: So give me some of the most important ways in which they've not told the truth.
TR: Well, I mean, I think it's, we're getting to the point where enough time has passed where it's starting to be interesting to look at my announcement and all this. Like just the other day, the Walsh administration went before the city council, I was the budget director, but I also got elected citywide to the city council eight years ago, so I was the finance chair on the council for the first three years of the Walsh administration before I became his budget director, and just this week, the council brought an item for $900,000 to buy and get a new consultant and a new software company for an IT project for payroll modernization, which, ironically, was initially funded through a grant that I helped write the request to the Financial Review Board as the finance chair on the council. And one of the options was to have a new timekeeping system because we use paper time sheets. And that project, over many years, that got delayed at first because of COVID and just slow state funding and then it had a consultant, they spent $2.5 million of New York State money and got nothing for it. They had a launch, a product launch that failed. This is a few years back. And then instead of acknowledging the problems with the implementation, the problems with the product, the problems with which they went about it, they really, like, doubled down, said nothing wrong here, misrepresented a bunch of things to the council, in my opinion, in order to secure additional money. They eventually spent like $8 million on this project. This is really what led to my separation with the Walsh administration, primarily because in November of last year, a whistleblower showed up with a 200 page document that I read, and it corroborated a lot of what I had already thought about the project and made me understand it in many new ways. And that snowballed into me resigning, declaring for mayor, and then the Walsh administration, in my opinion, needing to discredit me and doing so in a racial way that I also feel was inaccurate. But the irony of them going to the council after $900,000 for a new product with a new consultant, to my eyes it shows that their 8 million literally bought nothing, right? Which is basically what I was saying, which was a very controversial statement at that time and nobody wanted me to say. And time passes and truth kind of becomes more evident, but it's still a complex story. And I think that applies to a lot of things in Syracuse. So I just think there is a desire to say all is well with, like the way in which crime is reported, crime is down, right? They celebrate crime being down. They don't discuss the people who call 911, who don't get the response they need for what they perceive to be a very serious thing. They don't talk about the criminality that exists in the corner stores that caused drug stores to, like, ride out leases and leave. Such that like intersections of the city and private business corridors are totally vacant, right? Because there's no crime? No. It's because there's been normalized criminality where the stores just get pilfered all the time and don't want to deal with trying to stop it. So in my perception, there is a problem where they have a narrative that tells a story of rising above all kinds of stuff, but they don't actually engage with the reality on Syracuse. And in many ways, I feel like I'm connected to the reality in a way different than Walsh in particular, mainly because I grew up in Syracuse my whole life. My dad still lives in the house I grew up in. That's where I launched my campaign, was on my dad's steps with my wife. Ironically, they will crop my wife out of the pictures when they want to insinuate that I'm somehow racist, which my wife laughs at and I cringe. And then I went to Syracuse University through the Syracuse Challenge. I went to the Maxwell School eventually. I lived in New York City for seven years, where I really got to see an urban space and imagine how Syracuse could be different. I even bought my house on the south side while I was living in New York and renovated it on weekends. It's in a qualified census tract, so my neighborhood has more than 20% poverty, and it shows. Eight years ago I took like reporters on walks on my block and there were vacant houses, drug houses, all kinds of stuff. And it was really at that time when I left my job in New York, officially to run, to be on the city council, I cashed out my 401K and I brought the two family in front of mine, and I fixed it up. That was like my side gig while I was on the council the first six months, was fixing up the house in front of mine. And over the last eight years I've bought five other houses on my block and fixed them up. So, I think I know I have this unique set of experiences where I'm from here born, raised, educated, understand the value of the large nonprofits like Syracuse University. Had outside, professional experience in the New York City mayor's office doing public finance stuff. Then I worked for a national nonprofit, where I did cost benefit analysis of anti-poverty programs. I really wrote quite extensively in syracuse.com, probably more extensively than the mayor himself or any other public official over the last ten years. I've run for different things, I've lost, I've won, I've lost. We'll see. But I'm definitely a scrappy Syracuseon who believes that our community and who's worked to have, like, success professionally and I'm still committed to this. Everything I own is on my block. Like, I'd take, like, side yards that were, the vacant houses and make them to beautiful family garden, right? Like the people on my block know what I do, that's hard to necessarily communicate to 143,000 people all at once. And, in many ways, I've witnessed Ben Walsh and kind of his approach. So, I think that may have, I initially declared that I was going to be a RINO, so I didn't have an independent line. I actually think in many ways Ben and I learned to get along for a period of time, but we were never really like, friends to say. We were always pretty like, I would push for things, and I was rough and willing to be that guy who disagreed. And, that went the way it did. But I think he soured me on the independent approach because I was like, rise above politics, I've been this loyal, in theory, loyal Democrat, right? Like, I do the work, I carry the petitions, I help the slate. When my candidate loses, I eventually endorse the other person when they win the primary. And in other ways, I feel like the party has moved left, too far left for me. So like I do believe in home ownership, I definitely believe in free speech and all these other things. And in some ways, the Republican Party had things like Make America Healthy. That resonates with me. Like, I wake up every day to go to the gym with my wife at 4 a.m., to be there at 5 a.m., but like, and stop the wars. Like the whole time I was at Maxwell, I thought the wars were very bad and a bad thing and all of a sudden the Republicans were saying that. So I really thought there was this opportunity to, and they didn't have a candidate. So I kind of thought, I was being sincere, saying I was going to be a RINO and I was transparent about that, like, hey, I want to be a Republican in name only. Unfortunately, I think because of my political history as a Democrat, I didn't realize that RINO to me sounded like a good thing, right?
GR: (laughter)
TR: So in my experience, RINO meant like moderate or like person willing to compromise, person willing to work. But it turns out it's like a slur within the current Republican Party.
GR: Yeah, they don't see it that way.
TR: I ended up alienating myself to them, even though I really was trying to be sincere in my, like, hey, I think we have mutual agreement here. And I also think it's not really, given the numbers, the 18% enrollment for the Republican Party in the city of Syracuse, I didn't think it was feasible for any Republican to win. So I thought being a RINO was like a reasonable compromise. But I didn't do it in a way that signaled compromise to any of them. So that, ironically caused me to be literally, like, thrown out of the Republican Party. Well, at least my father and my wife got thrown out for being RINOs and I chose to re-enroll at that time as a Democrat because I was being threatened with all kinds of legal lawsuits. And I just thought, this is not the right path. So in a way, I got forced into an independent ballot line, right?
GR: I see. Let me ask you though, a question about something you mentioned earlier. Which is that, you being tagged as a racist because, you know, and I'm sure you knew I was going to ask you this question at some point, so I might as well do it now. But some of the criticisms that you were making of the Walsh administration in the past, at least as they were related in media outlets such as the Post-Standard, you know, veered into what appeared to be bizarre or or even offensive, invoking plantation's slaves to make your point. And, you know, you mentioned you resigned. I mean, there was controversy, were you fired? Did you resign? They say they fired you over those comments. So, if you can briefly, what should voters make of all that? I mean, what is the bottom line here of the reality of all that?
TR: Well, I mean, the reality is that I went through what was a very stressful period with a fraud, what I perceived as a fraud at City Hall. And I still believe it to be a fraud.
GR: And that was the example related earlier.
TR: The whistleblower, all of that, right? So there was a period of November and December last year where I figured all this out, and it really, the process where I eventually like leak the whistleblower report to the city council and the city auditor, ruins my relationship with both the mayor and the deputy mayor, who is now the favorite to become the next mayor. So I was like, well, I'm done. I'm going to run for mayor because I don't want to work, I don't really I don't have a place here and I think I could do a better job. So at that time, I meet with a mentor and I record a conversation. And I recorded it because I didn't have the emotional capacity to have that conversation with thousands of people. And it's a 2.5 hour conversation, and I go through the whole of the fraud and like, the first half is like talking about this, like learning of the fraud. And I use all types of language, like I call all kinds of swearwords, all kinds of stuff. The mayor, I clearly don't like the mayor. I'm loyal to the people I'm loyal to. And then toward the end, when I'm talking about political strategy, the person who I'm talking to asked me a question about like, different demographics, like, I don't know, maybe the black vote or something. And when I was on the council, I was probably closest aligned to Khalid Bey, right?
GR: Okay. He's been on the program before and I know him, yes.
TR: Khalid and I vibed on many levels. Like I would often read all this stuff about math being the guiding, like, the explanation of the universe. And we would just talk about like that kind of stuff. And we got along. And Khalid is an author, so I've read all of Khalid's books. And one of Khalid's books is called, “The African American Dilemma” and in it he talks about Willie Lynch. And after the mayor got reelected, I mean, I supported, I didn't support Mayor Walsh at that time. I worked for Ben Walsh, and I told him I couldn't support him. I decided I will stay out of it, but I can't help you because Khalid is like my big brother, right?
GR: Got it.
TR: And, as a reward, not a reward, but I think in a way, when I was asking for numerous like additional responsibilities as the budget and procurement director, the deputy mayor and the mayor said, hey, we want to give you minority affairs. So they literally move minority affairs into the budget suite. And I do all this stuff to do it legally, which hardly anyone does in the Walsh administration. Like I changed the city charter, I moved it under the budget department, I renamed it Equity, Compliance and Social Impact. And then through that, I kind of had to deal with some staff that weren't great, which I think was part of the reason they were willing to give it to me because they thought I was a manager who would actually be able to handle the situation. Like they literally entrusted me with minority affairs, right?
GR: Wait a minute, let me stop there because we got to take a break. But then I want to get to the other side of that story, on the other side. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and we'll continue the conversation after a short break. Welcome back to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Tim Rudd. He's running for mayor of Syracuse on an independent line in this November's election. So go ahead and pick up on this story now, because I'd asked you about these comments that you had made that became quite controversial and generated a lot of media attention. So take me from where you were to that point.
TR: Long story long, I feel like I was one of the few white managers in the city who was comfortable talking about race. Like in many ways, I was always in those conversations in college. I was in that in the places I worked, I would be on the diversity council. Literally last summer I drove to Boston for racial equity in municipal finance with Sharon Owens in my car. Like, I think if anything, I became too trusting of being comfortable talking about it. And I talked about an element of this Willie Lynch concept at the end of the recording. So you'd have to listen to two hours of absolute like, if your takeaway from this two hour plus conversation is Rudd is racist, then like, I can't, I don't know what to tell you. There were many other things and at that point I decided, like when I was still, I had announced the resignation, I had announced the candidacy for mayor and then I shared the tape, I shared the majority of the tape. Like you, there are space constraints so I couldn't share 2.5 hours because nobody would listen to it, so I shared like the first 70 minutes. And then it was that that I think it was just too much of a disobedience to be tolerated. So even though I had resigned and all this other stuff, then I think they really needed to discredit me. So they decide to have me discredited through a racial lens where the headline on the syracuse.com article that really did all the damage, it said, “Rudd compares to slave breaker”, (editor's note: actual headline reads, "Rudd compares Syracuse mayoral opponent to a slave breaker: ‘I can say it with a dog whistle’" -ML) and many people don't even have a subscription and read it. And like social media spreads lies eight times faster than any other medium in history, so like, it goes crazy. But I never even used the word slave breaker. So like if you had phrased it in 19 other ways or any other point from that conversation, I don't think it would have had the same effect. But they chose to use the word slave breaker. That's Jeremy Boyer's word, or whoever wrote the headline, not mine. And from there, it just takes a life of its own. And they were probably pretty successful in discrediting me, even though I think people who had really been paying attention realized that I was poking a bear, and I basically got attacked by a bear.
GR: And just to make something clear here, from what I heard you say, the other thing is, you were using, at least as far as you understood it, a metaphor that you had gotten from Khalid Bey's book. So, you know, you were drawing on that.
TR: Oh, definitely. Like, does the Walsh administration use race as a factor in their management assignments, decisions and their general approach? And then should they or not? I don't know, those are questions that other people could ask or answer or pontificate on, but I spoke about it through a historical lens, which is really how I have learned to engage the world is you read about it, you're thoughtful about it, you're open and honest about it, and you realize that we've all passed through this collective history, and we share it to some extent, even if we're unaware of it. And you got to be open to talk about it, to not perpetuate it. And that's how I've lived. So the irony is being portrayed as a racist, and I've been on, like, I've seen enough to know that once charged with such an allegation, there's nothing I can say, do, to prove that I'm not a racist. So I have largely stuck to my, I have not apologized because I do not feel that there was any ill intent. Like, I kind of think of racism as like hatred toward a group or like really like judgment toward a group or an expression of superiority over a group. And if you listen to that tape, I'm literally expressing an affinity with the group, like a shared identity in many ways. Like, it may sound strange to people for a big white guy to identify with, quote unquote, like the slave in the master slave relationship, but in some ways I do, like that's the hero of the story in the narrative, even though they're intertwined. So like, I think it's a complex understanding that social media and so much of the narrative and much of the population isn't ready to talk about, and that's been very hard. And one of the reasons why I was like, excited to try to speak with you because you at least have a longer form and like, set up to talk. It's a very hard thing to talk about in any thirty second segment.
GR: No kidding. So let me jump to another topic, and this is one probably you already expected. So you know, your campaign lacks an organized party to help with all the components of what we normally would consider a successful campaign. My understanding is you're almost unfunded and, you know, it's kind of one man band or a one family band. So, you know, it's unlikely that you're going to win. You already said that Sharon Owens is the favorite. Sometimes campaigns that are in this category, that I just put you in, are in it to try to move the public dial or raise awareness about a particular issue and change something very specific in particular. Does that describe your campaign in a way, and if so, what is that issue? Is it the transparency and accountability in government for the next administration?
TR: Well, I think yes, I would agree with that sentiment. Like at this point, I'm fighting for principle, right? And in many ways I feel like I'm fighting to restore my name, but in the way I've been a thoughtful advocate for all things Syracuse and how we can be different over the last ten years and really the whole of my life. So I'm trying to make it that way as well. And I do think that we have cowardly leadership, in particular with Ben Walsh, and that he is not honest. I don't think he's honest with himself or his staff or anyone else. So he kind of believes the delusion. And I think we have to be honest and until we're honest, we're not going to have any kind of progress. And even if that has to do with crime or if that has to do with the trash carts, and it doesn't mean like the trash, just as an example, I think there's a need for the leadership to, you can deal to praise or celebrate an achievement while still acknowledging it may be imperfect and you need to work to improve it. So, like the trash carts I view as an improvement but they created new externalities, unintended things. So I think people stack trash on the sides, front and rear of their house, especially in qualified census tracts that have more than 20% poverty, more than they used to because they can't fit it, and they don't have the wherewithal to follow the rules to get rid of it. And it's kind of cumbersome because you only set one up. Anyways, so like, I think if we were honest about that, then we could build a solution that would get rid of the trash and we wouldn't have this problem. And I think that environment creates all type of disorderly-ness. So like in my life and in my approach to a landlord and even at work, I think details matter a lot. So, and you have to be honest about all the details. So, and you have to address them in order to get the solutions. And if you're lying about whether they work, whether there's trash on the side of the house or not, then you're not going to get rid of it.
GR: So let me ask you this then, it sounds like, and again, tell me if I've got this right or wrong, but it sounds like to me then the core nugget of the point of your campaign is not so much about policies that are wrong, but rather about the way that policies have been discussed, the way they've been evaluated, the way they have been publicly held accountable or not held accountable.
TR: Or not discussed, yeah.
GR: Yeah, and sort of the way that government is working rather than this administration has the wrong aim here or the wrong...
TR: The government rolls out a narrative, I think this is true of the Walsh administration and of probably many other layers of our current structure in government, then they want everybody to stick to the narrative. Don't think critically, don't push back. Even if you're an ally and you're on board, you're not allowed to publicly dissent. You got to be on board all the time, any dissent is total dissent. And I think that's a very unhealthy environment and it doesn't allow for you to be thoughtful and get the type of response you need. And like I would say, Syracuse does have a moment, right? The highway coming down took a lot of people pushing to get it, it's the right decision, it's a huge opportunity. The university and downtown are not properly connected. I think this administration has built a strategy that really, the energy of the highway coming down is focused around the housing authority. And I think that's not a good strategy because it requires so many public dollars that it doesn't, it's not going to be very successful. Because, one, the dollars aren't there with the current federal partners, and two, it's not using the limited dollars we have to activate private investment where it might actually go. So, like, I really do think if we maintained the housing authority and invested in that housing stock and the people who live there and make it a better place to live, which I think is a good place for affordable housing, right, because it's right next to the universities, it's right next to the downtown. There's lots of economic opportunity there, it's a good place for permanent affordable housing. So we don't need to be dedicating massive, destroy, rebuild and all that it takes to support that, right? We could be using those same monies to get denser developments along East Genesee Street, where they are happening already, to ignite it faster and to have plans with like, and even getting to the point where you could have new art at the center of Syracuse at Almond and East Genesee Street to really like connect the university to downtown, make it feel like one urban core. I think that could spark a desire for living in the inner ring neighborhoods which have the most divestment. All of that is like a nexus of money creation, right? Like money gets injected into the economy through housing and in real estate investment and through the universities, through higher ed, through students taking out loans there. So it's really this opportunity to get more money in the community. And that's the way we're going to reduce poverty. We have a poverty problem, we need more people getting higher incomes and this is a way to do it.
GR: Okay. So we've only got a couple of minutes left and I want to squeeze two questions in related to what you've just been talking about, or at least one is. So the first question is and again, just about a minute on each one. So regarding Micron, which we haven't talked about yet, obviously that's going to add to the level of opportunity that you just described, potentially. Do you have one big concern about the Micron development and what would it be? But you have to be brief.
TR: I think that the idea that Micron is a sincere opportunity, like as an employment center for the average citizen in Syracuse is not true. And I think that's almost like a, illusion that's damaging. We would be better to focus on home ownership and like, just general, security, right? Like the schools, if security, we have a poverty problem, which then creates instability, violence, a whole bunch of problems, we need to deal with the security, that's like a higher level human need. And then when we do that, people can begin to be prepared to start making better decisions about their health, about their, like, academic and professional trajectories. And there's lots of people with a regular job who could afford to own a home. And that's really the permanent, afford, like the best housing affordability in the long term is the 30 year fixed rate mortgage. I think that is clear in most of the country, and we don't have enough of that in Syracuse. And that could be true for affordable home ownership as well. And the housing authority can do a role, they would be well served to facilitate people to become more, better tenants who are eventually capable of owning a home.
GR: Okay, I get the point you're making about priorities. Finally, thirty seconds, hate to do it to you, but, if you can, thirty seconds just encapsulate, what is your view about the recent uptick in ICE raids and the aggressiveness of some of those raids? If they were to come to Syracuse, where are you going to be on that?
TR: Well, largely, I think we're seeing that ICE is run by the federal government. I'm pro following the rules until it creates the demand for a solution. I think Mayor Walsh is pro if the rules are not great, ignore the rules. I think that's arbitrary and capricious and it's a disservice. I would say enforce the rules until there's a political will to get an adjustment in the rules to like, make them reasonable. That's the way I approach like things less controversial, like the sidewalk program. There wasn't will for municipal sidewalk program. So I went around and condemned a whole bunch of sidewalks because that's how it used to work.
GR: We won't have time to get into that.
TR: And that creates the will. Sometimes you to follow the rules in order to change the rules.
GR: I see, yeah. Okay, thank you. That was Tim Rudd and again, please keep your eye out for a future conversation with the Democratic Party candidate, Sharon Owens. You can also find my previous conversation with Republican nominee Tom Babilon on the Campbell Conversations web page. Mr. Rudd, Tim, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I appreciate it.
TR: Thank you, appreciate it.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Tom Babilon on the Campbell Conversations
Sep 20, 2025
Tom Babilon
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. This November, Syracuse will elect a new mayor. Joining me today is the Republican candidate for the position, Tom Babilon. Mr. Babilon is a senior attorney at Hiscock Legal Aid, and he also has experience as Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city, where he worked with housing, neighborhood and business development, and labor and employment. I want to note that I also plan to have the other three mayoral candidates on the program in the coming weeks. So, Mr. Babilon, welcome to the program, you’re first, and thank you for doing that, and thank you for making the time to talk with me.
Tom Babilon: Well, thanks for having me on, Grant, I appreciate it.
GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. And so let me just start right in with the core question. You know, you have painted Sharon Owens, the Democratic nominee as kind of a continuation of the Walsh administration, so I wanted to ask you about the Walsh (administration). What are your main criticisms of the Ben Walsh administration?
TB: Well, I've got several. I don't know if we've got time for all of them. Primarily my biggest concern with Walsh has been his disregard for balancing the budget. It seems like every year he's increased the budget. I think the city operations budget increased over $100 million alone under his watch. And, you know, because of that, we've had three tax increases that were implemented in, you know, six 1% tax increases. You know, we've got a new sidewalks tax, water rates have increased. So really, you know, there hasn't been very much transparency. You know, he's been caught numerous times not telling the truth or his administration has to the Common Council. So that things like that and then also, you know, I think, he's really decimated our police force and not been very good with public safety, which is another concern of mine.
GR: Okay, we'll get into all those then. Let's start with the budget, which is obviously a big part of what the mayor is going to have to manage. You said, and you've got on your website I think too, that you're going to look through the entire budget for efficiencies and try to eliminate the waste and, you know, fraud that you can find in there. Historically that doesn't generate big savings when people try to do that. So if you really want to rein in the spending, tell me a little bit about what areas you'd be looking to cut into, because I think that's the only way that that is going to happen.
TB: There's a lot of things just for working at the city that a lot of people don't know, that actually happen. Like, for instance, the DPW workers, the trash workers go home at noon, regardless of how long they've worked, as long as they've completed their routes, things like that. You know, we’re supposed to reduce the number of men on the truck, I believe when we got the new carts and that never happened. So there's certainly things like that that can be looked at. Maybe doing more than one route. There's also issues in the Codes Department, you know, we've got like eight guys that are doing rental registry inspections and, you know, not very many guys doing other things, things like that we can look at. But also there's a lot of spending that, just doesn't, like the, you know, the mayor's office to reduce gun violence. I think that was a $1.5 million expense that really hasn't produced any kind of results. There's all kinds of things like that that get spent. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I was sitting in my office and I would get a call from someone telling me not to collect money that's owed to the city or just to not file judgments You know, and other people, you know, t it depends on who you know, which is is another thing that I really don't like about city politics and I want to change. There's really a lot more money than you would expect with waste and fraud and part of that is, you know, the kinds of things we do with that money, not just money that's wasted on a program, there's a lot of programs that don't present any kind of results at all.
GR: Well, what would be your top priorities? It sounds like, you know, the police force would be one, but where is it most important to you to maintain the effort that the city's making or even increase it?
TB: Well, with regards to the police, I mean, the problem we have with the police is, you know, we've got 200 less officers than we did when I moved here in 2003. We've lost over 100 since 2017, 80 of them I think in 2021 alone, 30 people resigned. So we need to bring up the ranks back up to around 550 people is the first thing we need to do, because simply, the police don't answer calls. I mean, you can talk, I mean, I don't know where you live, Grant,I don't live in the greatest neighborhood. I've had to call 911, I can't tell you how many times in the last 20 years, and I can't tell you how many times, you know, they don't even show up, or they'll call you, we’ll show up when we can, or they don't show up at all. I mean, I had someone tell me about a home invasion where they didn't show up until several hours later a few weeks ago. It's just we're so understaffed, it's the biggest problem. You can't really blame police for it because we're just so understaffed. And part of that is because of things that happened under this administration, including residency requirement for police officers, because that limits the pool of, you know, of new officers that are going to work for us. And, you know, basically, there hasn't been a lot of support from the mayor's office historically under this last administration. You know, from calling the police department an institution of, you know, having institutional racism to, you know, basically, you know, defunding them to a certain extent, telling them not to answer certain calls, telling them not to enforce certain things, cutting ShotSpotter, which is a very important tool for them, I believe they cut license plate readers at one point. There's all kinds of things that they haven't really had the support from the mayor's office that I think they deserve. You know, and the other thing is, you know, we've got other departments, like particularly the mayor's office, I think that spends a lot of money that really is unwarranted.
GR: Well, are you running on, any pledges or promises regarding taxes, especially new taxes? Are you sort of making a public stand on that?
TB: Yes. I think, you know, I would love to reduce the tax burden of the citizens of Syracuse. I don't know if that's going to be possible right off the bat. Certainly I would pledge to no new tax increases because I think that, we've had more taxes in this last seven years than I think any mayor in recent history, you know, and he wanted to taxes more. I mean, the Common Council has now cut him off twice on tax, I mean, he wanted to tax another 2% tax increase this year. And I believe in 2019 he wanted a 4% tax increase and they cut him down to 2%. So I mean, he just says this, you know, he wants to spend a lot of money, but you need money to spend money and he's taking that from the people that live here, and it's caused a lot of people to leave the city. I think the tax and the crime has really caused us to lose a lot of people from living here.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the city of Syracuse Republican mayoral candidate Tom Babilon. So there's two big things I want to ask you about, and I'm going to ask all candidates about this. Whoever the next mayor is, they're going to have to manage two really difficult things that provide opportunities, but also challenges. And the first one is the taking down of I-81 and the redevelopment of the East Adams Street area, which kind of is close to where you live. So the taking down is already happening. But what are your biggest priorities and also concerns about where this project goes from here?
TB: Well, I mean, it’s certainly going to be a mess when they're doing the construction. And, you know, we've got to have, you know, make sure that the DPW controls the traffic properly, that's going to be the immediate concern. But my biggest concern about the project is, you know, what are we going to do with the land when the highway comes down, which is, you know, some of my, other people that are running for mayor have, you know, come forth with their ideas. I think that we need to use that land for its highest and best use. I really think it's going to be very valuable property, probably some of the most valuable property in the city of Syracuse. And I think that it needs to be used for, you know, uses that are going to create income, create for the city, revenue for the city, taxes for the city, sales tax for the city, property taxes for the city, things that are going to make people stop in the city and spend money. You know, some of the other plans have called for public housing there, which I think is the worst possible use. You know, it's going to create a tax exempt property, most likely, and it's also it's not really going to be a suitable place for housing I don't think. It's going to be some of the most heavy traffic in the city, because I've been to these projects in other cities and people, historically, a lot of people do not take the route that they're supposed to take. They'll take the straight route through the city, they'll drive through Almond Street and continue on I-81 south on the other side of the city. So it's going to be a very, very high traffic area and I think the last thing we need to do there is add in a component of residential housing.
GR: Well, the people that are going to be displaced, there are, a lot of them are in public housing and those public housing areas have kind of run their course of useful life. So what happens to those folks then if we don't put public housing back in that East Adams neighborhood?
TB: Well, there is, I mean there is public housing proposed, where McKinney Manor is now, they’re putting in proposals to renovate that. I don't know if it's going to replace all the housing that's, you know, all the people have been displaced. I know in the interim that the Syracuse Housing Authority is having a problem placing those displaced residents. I don't know what the final numbers are going to be. And I'm fine with, you know, housing on that area where we already have residential housing. I think the plan is to increase density, where the, McKinney manor is. So I'm fine with that plan. My problem is, on both sides of Almond Street, where there’s going to be the this vacant lots now on one side and there's a highway on the other where there's soon to be vacant lots, I think that needs to be developed, commercially, you know, that's my position.
GR: Okay. And then the other big thing, of course, is Micron coming in, that's not in the city, but it's going to certainly affect the city, the mega microchip facility and Clay. What are your biggest priorities for how that affects the city, and again, concerns as well?
TB: Initially I think it's, what I've read, I think it’s going to take several years before their even operational. So it's going to be the construction of the plant that's probably going to happen under my first term, at least start. And of course, you know, making sure that city residents are available, make sure they get part of that construction work, that's certainly a concern. You know, I don't really have a lot of concerns about the project in particular because, frankly, it's outside my jurisdiction or any mayor's jurisdiction. You know, we've got to make sure we have the people that are available for the jobs and maybe encourage people that are going to be working there or working on the construction to live in the city. You know, one of my main things I want to do is I want to make the city of Syracuse a place where people want to live, not where they want to leave. And it's too often right now you talk to people and they say, I can't wait to get out of here, why am I still living here, why do you live there? And I want people to say, no, I want to live in Syracuse, I want to live in the city.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Tom Babilon. The Republican attorney is running for mayor of the city of Syracuse in this November's election. So I wanted to talk to you a bit about something that's been in the news a lot lately, and you were also in the Syracuse Post-Standard talking about this. And it has to do with the enforcement of immigration law by ICE and the relationship between the federal government and local governments, regarding that. You said in the paper, if I understood you correctly, that you would not enter into any kind of formal agreement with the federal government to help with immigration law enforcement, because, first of all, it violates state law, which forbids those kinds of agreements, and then, more importantly, you said, because the Syracuse Police Department doesn't have the extra bandwidth to deal with that rather than more pressing problems. I think you've already spoken to the concerns you have about the police department. So am I relating your position about right on that?
TB: That's, you're absolutely right on my position on that.
GR: Okay. So I have some hypotheticals here though if I could press you on this. So what would you do as mayor though, if ICE made a particularly heavy thrust in Syracuse? I mean, we saw this set of arrests up in Cato, you know, with those workers. What if we had in the city of Syracuse a much heavier ICE presence, how would you deal with that?
TB: What can the mayor do, really? I mean, you saw the Oswego mayor come out and say, oh, I don't agree with this, I'm a Republican, please don't do it. It's not going to stop ICE from going and doing whatever operation that they want to do. I don't really think that the mayor can do anything. If there's some kind of egregious raid that I feel that I need to speak out on, of course I'll make a statement. But in reality, I'm not going to stop Donald Trump from doing anything that Donald Trump wants to do.
GR: Okay. And then what would you do if there were significant street protests that erupted? If something like you say, particularly egregious happened, you know, and those folks started to try to interfere with the work of ICE, we've seen that in other cities. So what happens then?
TB: Well, I mean, I think I’ve talked a little bit about public safety before. Public safety is always a priority of mine. And, you know, if there's some huge protests, then I think we need to have a police presence just to make sure that they don't get out of control. I mean, we all lived through the George Floyd protests, and we saw what happened in many cities where, you know, businesses were looted or there there were set on fire, and you know, some police really didn't have things under control. So I think that we definitely need to have a police presence to make sure that everything is fine, that people are not going to have their businesses looted, the people are not going to have their homes or businesses set on fire, you know, or anything, any kind of property crime or, you know, could be even a violent crime, you don't know what's going to happen at these things. So I think that, certainly we need to have a police presence to monitor to make sure that everything's okay. But, you know, people have a right to protest, if people want to come out and protest and they abide by all the rules that are in place, I welcome that. I'm a very big person on free speech, and I think everyone should have their opinion and have their opinion heard. And if you disagree with that, you can have your opinion heard. That's how America works.
GR: Okay. And that topic, and you already, I think, spoke to this in one way, but it invites another set of questions that has to do with the fact that, you know, you're running under the Republican Party banner. So one obvious question that I would want to ask you is how you view the Trump administration so far. You mentioned that you know, there’s nothing a mayor can do to stop Donald Trump, what Donald Trump wants to do. But how would you assess what this administration has done so far?
TB: Well, I mean, I agree with some of the things that Donald Trump does, other things I don't agree with him. You know, it's a mix, almost like any other president. You know, I think that if you're going to put me on the spot, I think we're in better hands then we were last year. The other thing that happens with Donald Trump is he proves me wrong. I think that he's wrong on something and then, you know, six months later, I'm like, wow, okay. This whole thing, like tariffs for instance. Everyone thought it was going to be a nightmare, I was not in favor of tariffs, I thought was a terrible idea. And here we are several months later and we don't have the crazy inflation everyone thought was going to happen. And apparently our revenues have gone up, and we're talking about paying down the deficit with those money. So, I mean, I can't, there's certainly things I disagree with Donald Trump on. I'm not, you know, I always was a, I'm a kind of person that was always for more open immigration. I was never a, you know, a close the border type kind of guy. But I think his, you know, when you look at his immigration actions, what's going on now, it's kind of sorta in response to what happened last four years when we basically had an open door policy. We said everyone come in, we will house you we’ll feed you. You know, we put a huge strain on our public safety nets to such a point where even like the mayor of New York City was complaining about it, you know, the most liberal place, probably on the planet. So I think, you know, what he's doing as far as a mass deportations is in direct response to, you know, what happened to the Biden administration and I think probably both of them went a little too far.
GR: Do you think that you, being a Republican, might give you some kind of ability to distance the city or distance yourself from him without incurring kind of the wrath of Trump? I mean, he seems to be very antagonistic toward Democratic mayors, that's for sure.
TB: Well, I'm not going to fight with him. You know, I think I've said this a few by events before. One of the things, the city is very dependent on federal funding. You know, we just we lost $30 million on the 81 project. We're supposed to possibly lose several million dollars a year in HUD funding. I'm not the kind of guy that's going to say, oh, Donald Trump's horrible, Donald Trump is evil, because that just kind of brings on his wrath exactly as you say. I'm not going to upset the president. If he does something horrible, I'll let him, I'll say something about it. But I'm not the kind of person that thinks everything that he does is horrible, which unfortunately, is the position of a lot of people these days. You know, you talk to them and they can't do anything, you say something that everyone should agree on. Hey, Donald Trump, you know, negotiated a peace deal in the Congo. Oh, he's terrible, you know, I mean, there's people that that have that position, and I'm certainly not one of them. I think that I could facilitate a better, you know, relationship with the president than maybe Sharon Owens can and I think that's going to result in higher federal funding for us.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the Syracuse mayoral candidate, Tom Babilon. So this to me, the next question I wanted to ask you seems to be something that has really, I've been here for 35 years, and it seems like it has been haunting the city the entire time. It has to do with the responsibility of the surrounding towns and villages for the city's success and welfare and I wanted to know how you see that. Do you think that the towns and villages do have some responsibility for the city, because people who live in those places often work in the city? And then are they meeting that, or do you have thoughts about how that relationship might change?
TB: Well, I think that we have, you know, responsibilities towards each other. I know it's not a one sided deal, you know, it's definitely not a one sided deal. And this is something we talk about often is, when I talk about public safety is, if there's a problem in the city of Syracuse there’s a problem in Solvay, there’s a problem in East Syracuse. We are all, all are interconnected. I don't necessarily think that the city, you know, that the people, in the towns and villages have an obligation to make sure that the city succeeds. But I think that we all have a mutual obligation to make sure that, you know, when we're working together or we need to work together to make sure that we have, you know, better cooperation, especially with public safety, with public works, you know, I mean, there's all kinds of things we could work with the county, with them on. And I think that, you know, the county, I'm sorry I'm off a little bit, but I think, you know, the county has a responsibility to the city, the city has responsibility to the towns of villages. We all have to work together in the next four years.
GR: Okay, now, one of the things you mentioned right at the beginning was one of your priorities would be increased transparency. And I wanted to give you a few minutes to lay out what you see as the problem there, and then what plans that you would put into place to make the city’s government more transparent.
TB: The the biggest problem I see, and this is from working with the three different mayors and working in the core counsel's office, is that, the city, the Common Council doesn't have their own attorney, they don't have their own representation. And that makes it very uneven. Such to the point where, you know, the mayor can literally tell things to the Common Council that are untrue. And it has happened lots of times in the past, and there's nobody to come back and say, well, that's not accurate, you know, and the Common Council relies on this. I mean, there's numbers of times when the mayor has has lied to the Common Council.
GR: Well give me a couple examples of the worst ones, okay?
TB: Well, they told the Common Council that the Payroll Modernization project had been bid out when it was a no bid contract, and they were asking for the contract to be renewed. So, I mean, that was a huge, you know, the council flat out asked administration is this bid bid out? They said yes, it was bid out previously. Okay, we just want to re-award the contract that was bid out. That was never bid out. You know, those kinds of things happen all the time. And there's instances where, you know, for instance, if you look at City Hall commons, City Hall Commons has been vacant for two years now. It was sold by the Walsh administration, supposedly they got the contract to sale and they moved all their people over to rental, and they're renting it in a commercial building now. So, you know, the anticipation was that this property was going to sell and it was going to be redeveloped and it would be put back on the tax rolls. Now here we are two years later and it still hasn't been sold. I mean, there's, and the reason because of that is, is because what happens is the Corp Council, they come, the mayor says I want to do this, and the Corp Council says, ask the Common Council for authority for the mayor to do something, whatever that may be, authority to sell City Hall Commons. And the Common Council says, sure, you have authority to do that. Now, what should happen is, the contract should be negotiated between the mayor's office and the buyer, and that contract should be presented to the Common Council for approval. And then that way, they would know exactly what kind of deal they're getting into. This has never been done. And I will, first of all, I'm not going to lie to the Common Council. I'm probably the most honest person you ever going to meet. I hate lying, it's terrible, so that's that's number one. Number two, I want the council to know what they're approving. I'm not going to try and hide anything from them. So, and I think that we need a tracker from how our money's actually spent because when you see the budget and you see like, okay, $1.5 million for that, $2 million for that, you don't know how it's actually spent and there's no good tool that says this is how we spent the money. So I think that we also need to know how the money is spent, and I think that needs to be public.
GR: So, we've got about three minutes or a little more left. I wanted to now get into a little more about you as a person. In some ways, it seems, if I just look at you on paper, you kind of go against type. I mean, you're a Republican running as a Republican, but here you are, you're devoting your legal expertise and your legal work to helping those who need help and to those who can't afford it. So that's not, you're not being sort of a lawyer in a market based system, so to speak, you know? So, what explains that? What is it about Tom Babilon that makes him want to do that?
TB: I've dedicated my entire legal career to public service. I really enjoy helping people. You know, some people, enjoy making money, you know, I kind of said, I'm not going to do that. I, when I can help somebody that needs my help, that makes me feel good. And that's kind of why I got into the mayor's race in the first place, because I would see the kind of things that would happen at City Hall that would make me crazy. I used to do criminal defense work before I worked at City Hall, and no matter what kind of case I had, and I didn't have the worst cases, but no matter what kind of case I had, I never felt bad about representing my client. Some of the things that City Hall made me do when I was there made my stomach turn. They made me not feel right. And that's not the kind of thing I thought that city government should be doing to its citizens. So that’s part of the reason why I decided to run as mayor. And that's that's kind of how I've run my whole life is, you know, I do something that I like, which is helping people, so I get a reward that I actually like my job. I get to go to work every day and happy about that. And, you know, I’ll worry about the money thing when I retire, you know?
GR: (laughter)
TB: I don't need a big mansion on the beach. I'm just happy hanging out with my family, so I'm not too concerned about that.
GR: Okay. Tell me something about the city. What's your favorite place to go in the city when you want to kind of recharge your batteries? Where's your sort of power spot in the city?
TB: My favorite spot to go probably is the creek walk between the inner harbor and the lake. And, I can't tell you how many times my fiancé and I have made that walk or bike ride. Just, you know, it's great when you get down to the lake and you can spot eagles or giant carp swimming in there or, you know, and just the whole walk is nice. And we like to kayak too so we've kayaked that before.
GR: Okay. And then what about, buildings in Syracuse, what are your favorite buildings in Syracuse?
TB: Oh, you know, there's so many beautiful buildings in Syracuse. You know, we were lucky to keep all these historic buildings. City Hall is a great, great example, (it) looks like a castle. You know, I thought I was working in a castle for ten years every day I walked there. And then I worked at the City Hall Commons for a while, you know, it's like a flat iron building, and my office was right in the point of the flat iron so I had like a 180 degree view of the city. It was amazing. There's so many buildings that are beautiful downtown Syracuse.
GR: One last quick question, we just have a couple seconds left. Is there any particular book or anything else you can point to that inspired you to want to do the kind of public service work that you've done?
TB: You know, I can't point to a book. I can only point to some of the, you know, some of the instructors I had when I went to undergrad law school that were very, you know, service oriented, that made me feel like this is something I wanted to do. Originally. I wanted to do criminal defense, I wanted to work at the public defender's office. I did work at public defender's office in Florida for a small period of time. That's what I initially thought I wanted to do. And then, I started working for the city. And then I just ended up, you know, doing family court appeals for people who can't afford lawyers. So, I mean, it's just really I've always enjoyed helping people, and I think it's myself and probably service oriented professors that I had in school.
GR: Okay, we'll have to leave it there. That was Tom Babilon, he's a candidate for Syracuse mayor this November. Again, keep your eye out for future conversations with the three other candidates. Mr. Babilon, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I enjoyed it.
TB: You're welcome. Thanks for having me on, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Richard Sexton on the Campbell Conversations
Sep 06, 2025
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Are we on a path towards significant unmet hunger, problems in food supply and conflicts regarding food? My guest today is Richard Sexton. He's a professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis, and he's recently published a new book, it's titled, "Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World". Professor Sexton, welcome to the program.
Richard Sexton: Thank you, Grant. Thank you for having me.
GR: We really appreciate you making the time. So I want to start, as I often do with books, with just sort of laying out some of the basics of the context before we get into the arguments that you make about some of these issues that the title brings up. And I want to just get a brief and basic sense of sort of where things currently stand regarding food and hunger. So first, let me ask you a very, very basic question. How do we figure out or how do we know when a person or a group or an entire people, even a country, is suffering from a hunger problem? Is there some commonly used marker for that? RS: Well, that's actually a great question and the United Nations is the official body that measures that. And you know, they just released their most recent estimates for 2024 and so they, according to the U.N., there's about 700 million people that face hunger and malnutrition routinely and then in excess of 2 billion that are what the U.N. calls food insecure. And, you know, I honestly don't know all the means that they use to estimate that. I'm thinking they're piecing together, you know, various pieces of information, there's no single survey or anything like that. And so I think they're, you know, doing their best to compile data and come up with that. But, yeah, it's probably subject to some kind of error. But the, you know, there's quite a bit of consistency in the numbers across the years. It went up higher during COVID and really stayed disturbingly higher, came down a little bit this past year, but it's those are the numbers we're seeing routinely.
GR: And that's a big, those are big numbers. I mean, that's a decent sized chunk of the world's population.
RS: Yeah, no, there's, you know, about 8.2 billion of us. So, you know, 700 million is what, about 8% of the world that's facing hunger and yeah, malnutrition, stunting, those are routine outcomes in, you know, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. And so, yeah, by no means have we solved the problem as a global society of adequately feeding our population.
GR: You mentioned sub-Saharan Africa. Are there general areas of the world that are more heavily hit by this than others? I mean, I would assume it's the poorer countries.
RS: Yeah, no, absolutely it is the poorer countries. And yeah, the biggest concentration is certainly in sub-Saharan Africa. There's some parts of Southeast Asia where there's a significant hunger problem and, you know, less so obviously in this country and, you know, Europe and so forth. And so the, you know, the real heart of the problem is in sub-Saharan Africa.
GR: And you mentioned less so in the United States. Is this a problem inside the United States, though, nonetheless?
RS: Oh, sure, but an isolated basis. But you know what the United States has that most other countries don't have, is we have very significant feeding programs. So we have, you know, the SNAP or the food stamp program, WIC, Women's, Infants and Children's program, and then the school lunch program. So, you know, we're very unique in countries across the world that we put in place these programs to take care of hunger and malnutrition. Do they work perfectly? No, they don't. And then, you know, there was quite a bit of controversy with the most recent congressional session about cutting back some of these things. And so it's a difficult question but yeah, we've uniquely addressed that problem in this country with those programs, you know, dedicated to putting food in the hands of the right people. Most other places in the world do not have that.
GR: And I hope this question isn't too abstract. And I'm going to unpack this, obviously, as we go on our conversation, but are the are the food problems in the world primarily in food production and food supply or are they more like social distribution and economic fairness issues? In other words, we have the food, it's just not getting to those people for whatever reason.
RS: Yeah, I think that's certainly a big part of the problem. And so, for example, tariffs are a bad thing in terms of distributing food to where it needs to be consumed. And so, yeah, it's a big income problem, right? There needs to be more food going to sub-Saharan Africa, but those are very poor countries. And so, you know, it's not an attractive export destination for a lot of companies that that specialize in those types of things. And so, yeah, it's at least partly a distribution problem that we're not getting to the food to where people need it the most. But then, you know, a very premise of the book, Grant, is that it's probably going to become a more significant problem over time unless we mend our ways in terms of the actual food production itself.
GR: Yeah. And I wanted to get into that with you. Before I do that, though, there was something in your book that really struck me. You've got a couple of sections on it, and I wanted to ask it directly early on. How much of the problem right now comes from wasting food and who are the biggest waste culprits?
RS: Yeah, great, great question and based on the official statistics, which is largely coming from the U.N., about 31% or close to a third of the potential food supply is lost or wasted. And those are terms that the U.N. distinguishes. So they say food loss is everything that occurs from harvest to retail, and then food waste is everything that occurs at retail or in the households. And so that's a big number. And the interesting thing is it's kind of similar across both rich and poor countries. We might think to ourselves that, well, in the poor countries, they'll certainly waste less food, but then they have less means of preserving food. For example, refrigeration is rare in some parts of the world, so food is wasted because it's spoiled. Probably in the rich countries we're wasting it because it's just, you know, simpler and easier to buy a little bit too much than a little bit too little and so, yes, we can reduce that. And the UN, the U.S., the European Union, they all say we're going to cut it in half. I don't think for a second that that's going to happen, but certainly we can improve on that. I mean, one way, the low hanging fruit for that, as far as I'm concerned, is freshness, dates on packages, right? So that we need to, you know, have better understanding of what those dates mean and so that we're not throwing things out just because you know, there's a date on it. Maybe it's a sell by date and not a use by date, but we see a date and it's expired and we toss it, right? So we can do better on that. But I do not think that wasting or losing less food is a real answer to the food production challenges that lie at lie ahead of us. But of course, as it becomes more expensive, there'll be less waste and less loss. But, you know, I think it's a pipe dream to say we're going to cut it in half, which is the goal of, you know, a lot of the main governmental bodies in the world right now.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Richard Sexton, the author of a new book titled, "Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World". Yeah, so let's get into that part of the book. First of all, you mentioned something earlier, you said it's going to get worse, these problems are going to get worse. So it's going to get worse if we don't do something different. Why? That may seem like an obvious question, but what are the biggest reasons why it's going to get worse?
RS: Well, one big reason why is climate change itself, right? I mean, the climate has warmed in recent decades, but it hasn't warmed that much. And so based upon all of the forecasts, all the models, the greatest warming is yet to come. And there are a myriad, hundreds of studies across wide ranges of crops, all parts of the world that say that a warming climate is going to be detrimental to food production. I mean, I've got a basic statistic in the book that basically compiles all of this scientific information and then adds in the warmth that our National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA is projecting without mitigation, which is 2.8 degrees Celsius or roughly five degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century and I come up with a 14% yield loss. Some of that can be mitigated by adaptation, but not all of it. And so, you know, that's a challenge we haven't faced in in previous centuries. I mean, another great challenge is pest resistance to traditional treatments, and that's happening right now as we speak. And the dramatic thing that's happening, Grant, is that the next generation to replace things like glyphosate or Roundup, as we more commonly know it, it's not in the pipeline. And so when plants achieve resistance to glyphosate, people are going back and using the previous generation of those pesticides which are harmful in and of themselves. Those are the pesticides that we used when I was a youth on the farm all these many, many years ago. So that's just another example of a challenge. And I'll mention one more, it's very, very important because, through the centuries, what saved us from hunger and malnutrition that a lot of people like Malthus and so forth were predicting has been technological advancements. And I'm blessed to have a faculty colleague here at UC Davis, who's the world's leader on research on productivity advancements in agriculture. And what their work showed is that through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, the productivity growth was about 2% a year, which means essentially we can get 2% more output for a given amount of inputs, land and labor and fertilizer and so forth. But then it basically has been cut in half in the most recent decades, and there's no real evidence that the tide is turning. And that's a dramatic effect, right? Because we can't count on technological advancements to save us as they have in the past, right? A 1% rate of growth isn't sufficient to keep up with the growth rate in demand. And so that's a big, big factor that a lot of people don't understand and know. But then, yeah, so kind of the blithe response to concerns raised by people like myself, oh, yeah, the technology will advance and we'll be fine. That's not true anymore.
GR: Yeah, we'll figure our way out of it.
RS: Yeah.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Richard Sexton. He's a professor at the University of California, Davis and the author of a new book on food and food supply. It's titled, "Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World". So, a lot of what your book is about is debunking, like, myths that are popular and are held by policymakers or sometimes deliberately put forward by others and then also spread by the media. What are some of the biggest myths out there right now about food production and supply?
RS: Yeah, a lot of the myths pertain to, you know, different ways of producing food beyond the conventional means that people think are better for the environment and maybe somehow result in better foods being produced and so forth. And all of these, the thing all of these methods have in common and certainly the list includes organic, non-GMOs, production by of local food, small farms and so forth, is that they're all associated with significantly lower yields, right? And so those are examples of, you know, inefficient ways of producing food that nonetheless, as a society we've embraced and in many cases subsidized. And, you know, the consequence, of course, is less food produced off a given land base in agriculture. And then the really unfortunate thing that results when we're either taking land out of agricultural production completely, which is something we do with what we call the Conservation Reserve Program or moving land into less productive means of producing food, is that we cause the land base in agriculture to expand, and that's what they call indirect land use change and we've come to understand that much, much better in the recent decades. And so if the U.S. produces less food, if the Europeans produce less food, people are going to try to produce more elsewhere. And that results in deforestation of the Amazon, of the forests in Indonesia and Malaysia, in sub-Saharan Africa. And there's no dispute that's about the worst thing we can do for the environment. These virgin forests are great sources of carbon sinks, they remove carbon from the atmosphere. You burn them down and clear cut them, you fill up the soil, all its carbon is released. It's, you know, it's horrible for carbon emissions, biodiversity and so on and so forth. But we're causing that. We're undeniably causing that with our policies in the Western countries, the US, Europe, all of our strategies to produce less food. So, you know, frankly, Grant, I don't get it in the sense that the Europeans want to take 10% of their ag-lands out by 2030. The U.S. has 7% of its ag-lands in conservation reserve and we're proud of it. Well, what do we think is going to happen? If we take land out, it's going in somewhere else in the world where it'll probably be less productive and more environmentally damaging. And that's really, you know, the elephant in the room for all of these policies that we're enacting in the name of the environment. If they cause us to produce less food on a given land base, they are going to cause this indirect land use change and they're going to cause deforestation in some of the most environmentally sensitive places in the world.
GR: Yeah, that's a fascinating connection you're drawing. But let me just back up a minute and say organic food, return to small farms, you're skewering some pretty sacred cows there that you know, among a constituency that is not necessarily entirely on the left, but a lot of it is on the left and that's the group that usually voices concerns for things like the rainforest and international concerns about, you know, less wealthy parts of the world. So there's quite a contradiction built in there.
RS: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's and it's quite ironic indeed, yes. Because we might associate those groups of people with the support for these types of food production systems. But then, yes, those people would, you know, tend to be advocates for the poor and so forth. But yeah, there's no basis to deny the fact that if you put into place production methods that are less efficient or if you simply take the land out of production completely, A: you're raising food prices and those that are harmed the most by that are, of course, the poor in some parts of the world to this day, upwards of half or more of people's incomes go for food. And so when we make it more expensive, we really hurt the poorest among us unequivocally. And then yeah, the response to less food availability and higher prices is to, you know, anywhere in the world =to try to produce more food and then it's now it's resulting in deforestation then we cause, you know, great environmental harms. And so again, the ironic thing is a lot of these policies are enacted in the name of the environment, but probably ultimately end up hurting the environment.
GR: Interesting. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is UC Davis Professor Richard Sexton. Okay, so what are the policies and programs that you would recommend that we should pursue and start pursuing now?
RS: Yeah, well, the nice thing is my policy prescription is one sentence, and so it's not very complicated. And that one sentence is, we need to produce food in the places of the world where it's most efficient to do so and using the most efficient means of production. And then, the thing is, of course, that will maximize the amount of food that we're able to produce, but it will also be the best thing for the environment and that's the thing that gets missed, right? Because then we will stop the deforestation, we'll, efficient production, you know, by its very definition means the least resource use, right? And so it's not only that we're stopping the deforestation, but, you know, as we economize on inputs, the fertilizers, the pesticides and all of those types of things, those yield environmental benefits as well. So that’s the answer. That's the simple answer because it addresses both the food production problem and the environmental problem.
GR: Right. So on the ground, what does that mean? Does that mean the United States produces more food, Europe produces more food? Do we do more things in Asia? What would it look like?
RS: Well, it would look like the US stopping, you know, subsidizing people, taking land out of production. The Europeans have the goal for 2030 to take 10% of their ag-lands out of production. So, you know, for most crops, the most efficient producer in the world is the US. The Europeans are pretty good themselves for most crops. So for example, they're more efficient at producing wheat than the US, but corn and soybeans, that's our big strength. But yeah, the most efficient places, you know, that list, I mean, Brazil now has become a very powerful producer of soybeans and corn and so forth. But yeah, we want the most efficient producers to be doing it. That's going to stop the deforestation, that's going to make food most plentiful. And so any of these policies that we're enacting in this country, I mean, we subsidize organic production in this country in various ways, but every time we convert an acre from its conventional form into its organic variant, depending upon the crop and the location, we're going to give up between 30% and 45% of the available yield. So every, say, three or four acres we convert from conventional to organic, we got to put one more acre into production, you know, in order to maintain food production. So the, you know, the idea of land use change applies to things like organic, it applies to things like non-GMO. In this country we're quite receptive and open to GM foods, but they're largely banned in Europe, they're banned in parts of Africa, they're banned in Russia. And so that's been a significant impediment to food production as well because those GM variants are associated with significantly higher yields.
GR: So I'm a political scientist, I want to come back and hit you again with this politics question as I was listening to what you were just saying. There are going to be people, political figures, media people in particular, who are going to hear that and they're going to say, ah, this guy is basically just making an argument for big agriculture. And, you know, he's against organic food, he’s against the small farms, and they're going to just switch it off right away. Do you have a response or a counter argument to try to penetrate that?
RS: Yeah, I mean, coming from psychology or behavioral economics, that's called the disconfirmatory bias, right? We don't we don't want to hear about things that challenge our or beliefs. And so, yeah, I agree that this book challenges a lot of these traditional beliefs, but there's really no denying it, right? I mean, the book itself is meant to be, you know, accessible to a broad audience, it's not laden with a lot of jargon and so forth. But the footnotes are there, you don't have to read the footnotes if you don't want to, but the footnotes document what I'm saying in terms of a vast scientific literature, are there. But Grant, you're right that we don't turn on a dime. And so one thing we haven't talked about is biofuels in this country. But it is a fact that based on productivity potential, we're probably using about 25% of our ag-lands to produce fuel, not food, corn ethanol and soybean oil for diesel fuel. If you back up to the beginning of the century, we were doing almost none of that, right? And so, are we going to phase out biofuels? No way, right? That's ,you know, you're the political scientist and that's built in to the economies of big parts of the Midwestern U.S., where there's powerful senators and congresspeople and they're not satisfied with the status quo. We're all burning E-10, 10% ethanol in our cars but they want E-15, they want E-20, they want corn ethanol to qualify as a sustainable aviation fuel. So it's not less, it's more and we need to draw the line someplace because, yeah, since we enacted that policy in 2005, that's when we passed the Renewable Fuel Standard, there's been lots of research that demonstrates once you factor in these land use changes, the environmental impacts of biofuels are more harmful than fossil fuels. And so yeah, we're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least put the brakes on expanding it.
GR: Yeah, that's a good observation and it's probably not unrelated to the fact that Iowa is the first primary. I even think there was a West Wing episode on that. We've just got about a couple of minutes left and I want to squeeze in one, maybe two more questions, we'll see, but, well, I'll leave it with these two things. So that's from the production standpoint, that's sort of big level policy. What about myself as a consumer? Is there anything I should be doing differently to help you, or to help all of us with this big problem you've identified? Do I give up beef, for example? I mean, give me some pointers here.
RS: Well, I mean, we haven't talked about it, and it would probably take more than a couple of minutes we have left. But, yeah, I mean, meat consumption is an inefficient way of converting land resources into production for foods, right? So that if we did eat less meat, it would take some of the pressure off of the food, the food production systems. But the problem is going to be that as we move forward, as some of the poorer places in the world become wealthier, they're going to want to diversify their diets and that includes eating more meats and dairy products. And so, yeah, for a lot of people, the answer is, oh, yeah, we just need to eat less meats. And yeah, that's not a bad answer, but it's not going to happen, right? People are going to want to eat more, not less. And then, you know, another thing I say in the preface to the book is that if you read with an open mind, if you don't let your biases really take hold, you can save a lot of money in your food budget because things that you're paying maybe double what you'd need to pay for, probably aren't doing what you think they're doing. And so if you, you know, if you read the book with an open mind, you might say, hey, I can spend a lot less on food than I'm spending right now.
GR: Well, you've convinced me on a lot of things. I think the one thing I'm going to hang on to is my beef from my small farm because I like the way that tastes and it seems to taste different now. Maybe we could have those other cows eat the same feed, but you've got me part of the way, not all the way, yeah.
RS: Well, I'll consider that a victory, right? And so, yeah, and I know we're running out of time, and so it's not so much the small farms in in this country because they're not that small, but in a lot of parts of the world, they're just a couple of hectares or two, three acres. And those farms condemn people to a life of poverty, and they're not very good ways of producing food. And so that's the bigger problem, not the smaller farms in this country because they're not that small.
GR: Okay, we'll have to leave it there. Richard Sexton's new book is titled, "Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World”. As you've just seen from our conversation or heard, it's a very provocative book and make some very interesting arguments. Richard, thanks again for making the time to talk with me, very illuminating.
RS: My pleasure, thank you, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Christopher White on the Campbell Conversations
Aug 30, 2025
Christopher White( catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu)
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is a scholar of Catholic thought. Christopher White is associate director of Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. Prior to that he was an award winning reporter for the National Catholic Reporter. He's with me today because he's written a new book. It's a new book on the new pope, it's titled, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". Christopher, welcome to the program, congratulations on this book.
Christopher White: Thank you, Grant. It's good to be with you.
GR: I appreciate you making the time, so. Well, I want to start actually not with Pope Leo, but with the person who preceded him and that's Pope Francis, obviously. You've spent a lot of time following him, watching him, reporting on him. But if you could answer this question briefly, what do you think Pope Francis’ legacy is, at least at an early reading?
CW: Yeah, I think Pope Francis will be remembered as a pope who really saw it as his mission to open the Catholic Church up to the modern world. And he did so in large part by shifting some of the church's major priorities. You had two popes back to back John Paul and Benedict, whose focus (was) primarily on issues of sexual morality, family ethics. And Francis pivoted away from those issues. He didn't disagree with them, but he really focused primarily on issues concerning the poor, the marginalized, the environment and reshifting some of the Catholic Church's global priorities. And in doing so, bringing it I think into a perhaps a more engaged conversation with the world around it.
GR: Okay, thanks. And so let's talk about this process that chose Cardinal Robert Prevost as the new pope last May. As you note in your book, most people with any real impression of the process probably have their knowledge from the movie, “Conclave”. But my first question is, comparing it to that I guess at least, was there that much intrigue and behind the scenes maneuvering, even in a process that is itself behind the scenes?
CW: Yeah. I mean, conclaves always get a tremendous amount of attention because they are, in fact, the most secretive election process on earth. And so there's just a lot of palace intrigue. This year, it felt particularly, the stakes were heightened by the fact that this Hollywood film had come out a few months prior and everyone seemed to have seen the film and had something to say about the process and wanted to follow it closely. The film, I have to say, got a lot right about the actual process. They got the rubrics of the conclave correct. I think it was overhyped in terms of the backroom politicking that's involved. But what it did get right is the fact that it is both the spiritual process where the electors are engaged in prayer and discernment, but yet it is also a deeply political process. And there are serious conversations taking place. And, you know, money isn't being traded or anything of that sort, but there is a sense of you're assessing candidates. And that's where the film absolutely got correct.
GR: So what were the major fault lines or were there major fault lines that emerged in the process that chose Pope Leo?
CW: Well, in a sense, every conclave is a referendum on the pope who came before. And so what the cardinals were doing in the roughly two weeks between the time of Pope Francis's death and the time they enter the Sistine Chapel they were having, you know, honest conversations behind closed doors about what the last pope did well and what is needed in the new pope. And what I argue in the book is that this conclave was really a referendum on Francis's reform efforts to shift the Catholic Church's priorities away, as I mentioned earlier, to a more outward focus and also his overall efforts to make the church more welcoming, more participatory, so less concerned with just the role of the priest or bishops. But where all the Catholics can have a say in the life of their church. And that excited a lot of people under the 12 years of Francis's pontificate, but it certainly alarmed others. And that's what the 133 men who went into the Sistine Chapel were effectively asked to do is say, do we want to continue on this path that he initiated, or is it time for a course correction?
GR: Okay, and I want to talk to you a little bit later about whether you anticipate that there will be some kind of course correction. But let me ask you this different question. You already mentioned that there are politics necessarily in this process. One thing that we have seen in recent decades when it comes to the selection process for Supreme Court justices is a desire among presidents to try to nominate relatively younger candidates if possible. And the reason for that is they want to extend the time of their influence on the court and therefore public policy. And that trend well predates President Trump. I mean, Justice Clarence Thomas is a great example of this, for instance. Were there any similar desires among the conclave regarding that? Let's find a pope who's going to live a long time, in kind of a, relatively speaking, younger pope. I mean, you've got people in there well past 80 that are voting.
CW: Yeah, it's one of those things where there's, no one says this out loud, but there's effectively a sweet spot they're looking for. They want someone young enough to do the job that can keep up with the demands of the office, which in the modern era has included a lot of travel. Popes tend to become jet setters after they take office. They're managing a huge bureaucracy, a 1.4 billion member institution. But as you know, it's a lifetime appointment. I mean, when Pope Benedict resigned in 2013, he was the first pope to voluntarily do so in 600 years. So for the most part you're looking to name someone who's going to be in there till they die. And so, most popes though, most cardinals who vote for popes are reluctant to give that assignment, that job to someone that's going to be in the position for too long because it's hard to have a regime change when you know someone's going to be there for life. And you know Pope John Paul II, who was pope for almost 30 years. And for many people they say perhaps that was a bit too long. So you're trying to look at someone who can, where is that sweet spot? And in the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost, who is 69 years old, they certainly aired younger. So you're looking at probably, you know, if he remains healthy at least a 20 year papacy. So they certainly didn't allow his youth to be held against him.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Georgetown University religion scholar Christopher White. He's the author of, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". So with the relationship between popes and politics more generally is a complicated one, but it's inherent because of the things you've already said. You know, it’s 1.4 billion members, you have this high profile. Were there any concerns in the conclave about choosing an American as pope, given that many parts of the world right now have a problematic impression of America? And it's only that whole concern, I imagine, would have only been underlined by the fact that President Trump entered into the process of this decision making through his social media messaging. So were there concerns that you would detect about choosing an American?
CW: Yeah, I'd say for a long time the conventional wisdom has been that no American is going to be elected pope, you know, and that was for a few reasons. One, there was a sense that among the College of Cardinals, which is a diverse body of over 70 countries of, you know, men from over 70 countries, that America already has enough power in the world as it is. You know, it's a superpower, and they don't need the papacy and the presidency that's just too much, that would be a bridge too far. And I think there's a concern and has been a longstanding concern that in an institution like the Catholic Church that is vastly diverse, where it's growing most successfully is in the global south, that a pope from the United States would, in a sense diminish that the diversity of the global church. And that is why, you know, Cardinal Robert Prevost was in a sense the only American that would have been taken seriously because of his resume. He's a man who spent, he was born and raised in Chicago, but most of his adult life he's lived outside of the United States. The Italian papers referred to him as the ‘least American of the Americans’.
GR: (laughter)
CW: And so I think, you know, it goes to show you, there was some suspicion about an American, but because of his particular resumé, many cardinals chose to overlook that or geography wasn't really the major factor.
GR: And you've met Pope Leo when he was a cardinal, you write about that in your book. What are your impressions of him just as a person?
CW: Yeah, he's an interesting figure, I'd say. The very first time I met him, it was soon after he arrived in Rome to head up this very important office that Pope Francis had asked him to lead. I went in for a meeting with him, and I was just struck by this man who was kind but very, very determined and very serious about the work ahead of him. He asked very detailed questions and he just struck me as someone who walks into any room, any meeting, having done all of his homework and using that particular meeting to do more of it. I went in as a reporter with a list of particular questions and issues that I wanted to discuss. And I was struck how quickly he turned the conversation around and put me in the hot seat to ask me questions. And that really holds true, you know, with many people that I've interviewed that worked alongside him both in Rome and elsewhere, that he's a man of government, a man of governance. He's a real sort of manager. And in that sense, he's quite different from Pope Francis, who was an extrovert and the governance was secondary.
GR: Ah, I see, yeah, that's interesting. So, going back to our earlier conversation and your comments about perhaps a course correction or concerns or referendum on the previous pope, what does Leo's choice signify regarding those fault lines that you discussed?
CW: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that the Cardinals in electing Robert Prevost now, Pope Leo, chose to continue on the same path of reform as Pope Francis. Pope Leo is someone who shares Pope Francis’s same pastoral priorities and instincts. He was deeply shaped by his experience of Latin, you know, serving 20 years in Latin America. And I think his sort of vision of church is one similar to Francis where, you know, he sees the church's role as walking alongside the least of these, the most marginalized in society. So I think it's fair to say that he was fully supportive of Francis’s vision of opening the church up to the world around it, becoming a more dialogical institution. But where the major differences is in personality and approach to management. And I think that's why many of the people who were fully supportive of Pope Francis's vision said, okay, we have this pope that in a sense, opened everything up for us and he started all these new processes, but now we need someone who has the real skill set of a manager to come in and institutionalize these reforms for an unwieldy, complicated, I would say often, you know, archaic, antiquated institution. And let's now elect someone with a different skill set. And that's why they chose Robert Prevost, because they thought he blended those two worlds of the same sort of outlook on church life and the world around as Francis, but with a particular skill set geared toward management.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Christopher White. He's associate director of Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, and he's the author of a new book on the new pope. It's titled, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". So I wanted to ask you, Chris, you know, each pope comes in, they choose a name, they rename themselves. And so what's the significance of Pope Leo's choice of Leo as a name given perhaps maybe previous Pope Leo's?
CW: Yeah. So he's Leo the 14th and taking Leo is a nod most recently to Leo the 13th, who was the pope, who really had quite a significant reign at the height of the industrial revolution. And he wrote this, you know, what the Catholics call an encyclical. It's a fancy, you know, clunky word for a letter that really said, you know, this was at the height of the revolution saying the church has to stand with workers to be on the side of the workers, in the face of, you know, real dehumanization. And it was, it cemented in a sense, this new era of thought in church life, not as sort of modern Catholic social teaching, saying that the church stands with particularly the marginalized, the poor. And it's more complicated than that but that's the bird's eye view of it all. And Leo the 14th said he's taking that name because in this age, we are seeing a new revolution with technology, particularly artificial intelligence. And the Catholic Church is neither anti A.I. or pro A.I., but the Catholic Church's main concern is that the human person be at the center of conversations about technological development. And I think he sees a particular duty in this as we're seeing just, you know, massive technological change to sort of have a moral voice.
GR: Yeah, that's interesting. And probably something is going to tap a nerve as we go on and continue on with this change. You know, I wanted to ask you this question based on some recent experiences I've had. I was traveling in Eastern Europe, and I like to go to Catholic churches. I'm not Catholic, but I find them very interesting and beautiful. And one of the things that I was reminded of is the pride that people feel when a pope is chosen from their country or even just from their region of the world. I mean, I saw portraits of Pope John Paul II in Hungary and Slovakia for instance. Pope Francis obviously very important to Argentineans and South America more generally, he'll be remembered for a very long time. And as I just said, you know, I'm not Catholic, but I wanted to share with you, I don't get quite the same sense that here in the United States, something similar is going on regarding this new pope. There was a lot of excitement about it at first, but I just don't feel the same kind of, I don't know, what it is like almost like a soccer kind of thing that you that I got in Europe. Am I missing something? And if I'm not missing something, why is there a difference in the United States?
CW: I say yes and no. So on one hand, the Pope Leo story is an afterthought for most Americans, I think, because of Donald Trump, who sucks up all of the oxygen in the room, whether you're for or against the president, he is the biggest news story and he is leaves little room for anything else. So I think you're right that we don't detect the same sort of fervor or enthusiasm. That being said, in July, I spent some time out in Chicago launching the book. And there in his hometown, the excitement was quite palpable. You go down the street and gift shops, you know, that sell Chicago merch are now selling Pope Leo gear. You know, I did a number of events where, you know, just people, they're almost giddy at the prospect of his hometown, his homecoming. He's a White Sox fan, so just this week, they had a moment where they inaugurated this chair at the stadium where he once sat and they had a big sort of, you know, hometown celebration in June where I think that 20-30,000 people came out. So in his hometown, you do get the sense of that in the way that you might in Poland, where there's still sort of such energy and almost a cult around Pope John Paul II. Not the same degree here in Chicago, but it's more detectable there than I'd say in New York or Washington.
GR: Yeah, okay, interesting. So he's early in, but what changes have you noted so far, the biggest ones? And what changes do you anticipate from this new pope? Is it going to be this sort of institutional backfilling of Francis? What else might we expect?
CW: Yeah, I think it's fair to say we just passed the hundred day mark. And, you know, the hundred day mark is not anything that's a useful sort of category when it comes to the papacy, because, as we said, popes are elected for life. You know, if presidents are eager to, you know, show that they're capable of getting things done in the first hundred days, popes have for the most part, a fairly different approach to this and Leo certainly is following suit. He's keeping his cards very close to his chest. I monitor his schedule every morning to see who he's meeting with. And he's meeting with everyone from heads of state to heads of Vatican offices, people that would be seen as, you know, natural allies of him and Pope Francis and also those that perhaps were antagonistic to Francis. So he's showing early on that he wants to listen to everyone, but he hasn't made any consequential decisions. We don't know who his team is yet. He's effectively, you know, a president names a cabinet, his cabinet are effectively the holdovers from Pope Francis. He's reconfirmed everyone to their posts for the time being. And so in the coming months, we'll see him start forming his own team. One of the first big jobs he has to name is he has to decide who's going to replace him at the office that is responsible for identifying and vetting potential Catholic bishops around the world. It's a very powerful job. That will be the first real indicator of what he wants in a leader. And we'll see what he chooses, the profile of that person. So, so far, all we're really left to read are his public speeches. He speaks every Wednesday and then Sunday at the Vatican and then he gives addresses throughout the week. And I'd say the persistent theme so far has been peace. He's spoken more about Ukraine and Gaza than anything else. And that seems to be his front burner issue at the moment.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is Georgetown University's Christopher White. So you just made a comparison a few minutes ago to the presidency in talking about the pope. And one thing that strikes me as a political scientist in that similarity is that the person immediately becomes an institution, right? You've been talking about this person, Robert Prevost, but now he's got a different name. That actually speaks to what I'm talking about, you physically rename yourself. Former presidents often speak of their very first security briefing as the moment when this fact hits them: I am not just a person, I'm an institution. There's a wonderful video of President Obama when he travels for the first time on Air Force One. And you can see this just, you know, this just coming together in his head. I was just wondering if you have any reflections on that as it relates to the papacy, because I would think in some ways the hit of, now I'm this thing, is probably even bigger for a pope.
CW: Yeah. I'd say there are two moments that I'll point to. The first we've already seen, it's the moment when the pope appears on the balcony. That happens typically after about an hour after their election. So they don't have a lot of time to prepare. I mean, you know, this conclave was 24 hours and I think it's fair to say from my own reporting in the book that Robert Prevost probably went to bed on the evening of May 7th with the good sense that he might wake up and be elected pope the next day. His chances on that very first ballot were quite strong. Even so, you know, from the time you're elected to the time you're introduced to the public, it's really 60 minutes, 70 minutes. He gave a short speech, it was about 500 words that he quickly wrote himself but there's no chance to talk to advisers. And so you get a sense of the man and his priorities in that first public appearance. He said the word peace nine times. You could just tell that's kind of what was keeping him up at night and that's his chance to introduce himself to the world. We certainly saw that with Francis in 2013 as well. You know, those initial speeches are moments where you make a first impression. But then I would say related to your anecdote of Obama, papal travel, it's just a chance where you see a pope being forced to have these often unscripted moments. You see them with people at every turn and hopefully he will have his first international trip later this year. It looks like it'll be at the end of November to Turkey and possibly Lebanon. And those are the first moments where he will have a press conference, typically on the way back to Rome. Where, you know, he's put in the hot seat and that's when you get another sense of the man and his priorities and how comfortable he is sort of being unscripted and what he's willing to say. So I'm just saying, you know, for now, stay tuned.
GR: Well, one of the things that that struck me as you were talking and the difference between presidents and popes is they haven't had a year or more of a campaign and a team, it's just this guy. And so it's not like he's, yeah, it's interesting that he doesn't have advisers and he's got 60 minutes to come up with what he wants to say. Yeah, that's quite something.
CW: Including, you know, he's asked, you know, do you accept the election? And then the second question is by which name would you like to be called?
GR: Oh, wow.
CW: And so, you know, even a name which has tremendous weight to it, it’s not a tremendous amount of time to give that consideration.
GR: And then you say, let me think about it, I'll get back to you? (laughter)
CW: (laughter)
GR: That's not going to work in that instance. Okay, so we've got about 2 minutes left. I wanted to put one, perhaps two questions to you, depending on how long you spend on the first one. This first one, you may not be comfortable answering, but I really want to ask it. Were you personally pleased with the choice or were you in a sense rooting for somebody else?
CW: I think I was one of the few journalists that was making the case that Robert Prevost was a real contender. And I have to say I took a lot of flak for that from a number of colleagues, those that thought that I was, in a sense, playing up the idea of an American pope for an American audience. And what I had detected in the ten days or so leading up to the election is that people just didn't see him as an American and geography wasn't going to be a strike against him. And if you remove that from the equation, he ticked all the boxes. And so in that sense, I felt vindicated. I think he has tremendous assets and gifts, and I think he has the potential to be a great leader. So in that sense, yes, I was pleased. As an American, I'm delighted as well. I think at a moment in which we see increased isolationism and sort of resistance to sort of the multilateralism that sort of defined the post-World War II era, to have an American as pope who believes in those things, I think is a very necessary counterweight at the moment.
GR: That's a really interesting observation, I hadn't thought of that at all so I think that's a good place to leave the conversation. That was Christopher White and again, his new book is titled, "Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy". I'd say it's very informative and it's also a very good read. Chris, thanks again for making time to talk to me. I really enjoyed this, really learned a lot.
CW: A real pleasure. Thank you, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Chris Berdik on the Campbell Conversations
Aug 16, 2025
Chris Berdik(Mark Lavonier)
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today has written a book that's very near and dear to my heart. It is a screed against noise. Chris Berdik is a reporter and a writer who has a new book out, it's titled, “Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World and How We Can Take It Back.” Chris, welcome to the program and thank you very much for writing this book.
Chris Berdik: Well, thank you. Grant, thanks for having me on.
GR: We really appreciate it. So I have to say right off the bat, in recent weeks, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm looking for it, paying more attention, but I've heard or I've read a few stories about the problems with noise. So I was wondering, is the concern about this a new emerging issue? Is it something that the media and the public is now looking at more, or am I just looking at it more, you know, looking for it?
CB: Yeah. I mean, some of it may be that you're keeping your eye out for it now. You know, noise has been around us, you know, for as long as we've been around. And it's been a thing that we complain about for nearly that long. You know, but the thing that's been happening and why I feel like, you know, I felt like this was a book to write now is, you know, we are in a growing planet with more and more people producing more and more noise, living closer together, more roads, cutting through our rural areas. And while there is more planes overhead, there's just a math equation going on here. And then the other part is that, you know, as we've been doing this, we've been sort of sonically shortsighted about how we plan our cities, how we build our buildings and create our spaces. We haven't thought about the sonic implications of all of this. So, you know, it's not a new problem. I do think it's a growing problem.
GR: Sonically short sighted, I love that phrase, I'm going to remember that. Thinking back, was there a historical turning point or inflection point in the problem with noise, you know, where you can go back and say, okay, now it starts to become a problem?
CB: Yeah, I would say that's a complicated question, actually, because, you know, we don't have a global decibel meter or anything like that to sort of say, okay, this is when, you know, we went up ten decibels worldwide. You know, there are plenty of places that are probably quieter now than they were a hundred years ago. You know, I'm from Pittsburgh, and we used to have steel mills up and down the rivers there, and they've all disappeared, you know, but what we e do have, you know, like I said, we have a diminishment of quiet areas, a diminishment of places where we are not set upon by noise. And we also have, I think, now some sort of digital noise to go with our audible noise. I think this is something that is important to keep in mind that this is not just a metaphor when we talk about, you know, the online cacophony that we're dealing with now. Our brains have to sort through all of that, all of those signals and it is an exhausting thing. I think they kind of accumulate.
GR: Yeah, that's an interesting point. I hadn't really thought about that aspect of it. I mean, I have sometimes kind of feel like I have many traumatic reactions when my cell phone goes off because it just kind of just startle(s) me. Well, let's, you know, let's get into some of the problems that that you deeply dive into in your book. First of all, what are the problems with noisy environments for people? You know, what does it do to us?
CB: Yeah. You know, there are a few things that it does to us. And I'll sort of start as I do, you know, with the inner ear. And this is where decibels, which is how we commonly understand noise which I think is kind of overly narrow, but this is where decibels really matter a whole lot. At this point, noise is just brute force acoustic intensity that can damage your inner ears, whether you like the sound or don't like the sound. If there are enough decibels, what starts to happen is that the connections, the nerve endings between your inner ear anatomy and your brain, they basically explode. They're filled with too much glutamate, which is kind of the signal, the neurotransmitter that is, you know, taking what is a vibration coming through the air and turning it into a signal to your brain. It's too much of that, those nerve endings can't handle it. And then what do you start to do is you lose the fine grained pieces of being able to hear, to be able to distinguish your friend's voice from another voice, to be able to hear a noise. You know, when people say that they can hear you but they can't understand you, this is what starts to happen. And then after that, you start to really lose your hearing and you start to need hearing assistance. So the World Health Organization estimates that about 2.5 billion people on the planet will have hearing loss through noise and aging by 2050. So that's the hearing part. But then at a lower decibel level, you start to have disturbances of sleep and chronic stress building up from noise exposure. You don't even need to wake up for your hearing to pay attention to noise in your sleeping environment, because hearing is a defensive mechanism, a defensive sensory system, your eyes are closed, but you're hearing is still awake. And you know, at around 45 decibels worth of say, transportation noise, you start to lose the restorative piece of sleep so when you're sleeping your heart rate goes down, your blood pressure drops. But those perk up again when noise comes into play and over time in a chronic way, that builds up has impacts on increasing cardiovascular disease risk, increasing hypertension, a range of issues that go well beyond hearing.
GR: It's interesting now that you say that, and I'm thinking back again on my own experiences, but there was a time when I was working temporarily but regularly in a city environment which was different for me in my life. And I would always be about two weeks in, you know, it would just sort of hit me like a wall of stress. And I think it might have been having to do with the noise. It's very, very interesting to think about that. So there's levels of problem here for humans. It's psychological, it's the health that comes from some of those things. And then it's actually your ear and your hearing itself. So it gets you on all these different dimensions.
CB: Yeah. It really infiltrates, you know, it starts in your ear, then starts to, you know, cause a whole lot of distraction issues, which we haven't really discussed, but that's a big one. Distraction and being cut off from people create stress. And then, of course, the sleep deprivations that contribute to a number of health problems.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with the reporter and writer Chris Berdik and we're discussing his new book, it's titled, “Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World and How We Can Take It Back”. So in your research on this, did you find that some kinds of noises are worse than other kinds of noises? I mean, I understand what you're saying about decibel level and the destructive effects it has, but I guess I'm thinking more psychological, you know, any kind of any kind of patterns there?
CB: There are a couple of patterns. You know, I would dig into these noises, as some people have, talking about their acoustic properties like, are they tonal noises? Now, what tonal noises means is that there's a single frequency band that has the most energy to it. So if you think about a high frequency whine or buzz or a low frequency rumble, research has shown that those types of noises, you know, are very disturbing to most people, that they, you know, can't ignore them, that, you know, especially the low frequency tonal sounds can penetrate walls and travel far distances and you feel them in your chest, you know, that kind of a thing. And, you know, that is a big piece of it. You know, the, how long do these sounds go on for and what is the timing of them if they are at night versus during the day? You know, context is a huge deal. We love to listen to bird songs when we're walking in the woods and it's all part of the experience there with the leaves under your feet and the greenery that you can see and the smell of the fresh air. But some people that have tried to use biosphere like nature inspired sounds in indoor spaces like workspaces have found that birdsong, people can't stand it. They get distracted by it. You know, they don't want to have to hear birds chirping when they're facing a deadline and they're sweating an important project so, you know, it's not just the sound, it's the sound in a particular context that matters a lot.
GR: Yeah, that's interesting. And I don't want to turn this into a half hour of a therapy session for me about noise with you. But, this feeds directly into this as I'm thinking about it, one of my pet peeves in life is noises that I can't control, which kind of relates to your birdsong in the workplace kind of thing. I mean, if it were up to me, I'm speaking, you know, tongue in cheek here, but I'd make wind chimes, I think, a felony. And playing music at a beach or a campground or while you're hiking along a trail, I think I might make that a capital offense. But I'm thinking about this, there's an aspect to this I want to ask you about. I'm fortunate to live where it's pretty quiet, relatively speaking, except in some of my neighbors, you know, break out their power tools for working on the yard. And then I also spend a lot of time in another place that's super quiet, but that's a luxury that a lot of people don't have. Is there a social justice element to this problem with noise do you think?
CB: There is. You know, the research is new on this. They have looked at it in the aggregate, which is looked at census track data, you know, demographics, and compare that to noise exposure based on transportation noise. There's been a big national study of transportation noise exposure. A lot of it is model based on, you know, how many airplanes are going over what the flight routes are, where the highways are, etc. And the research on that level shows that when you are in a wealthier and whiter census tract, you have less exposure to that noise. On a more kind of granular level at the city scale, people have done a lot of research into communities that were previously redlined, which was the practice in the 30’s and 40’s to assign risk for investment into certain areas. And it was, you know, often based basically on, you know, the ethnicity and the racial background of the people living there. And those studies, city after city, have found that in formerly redlined communities, they have more noise pollution in addition to other pollution.
GR: Yeah, I would think it might even extend to how the buildings are built. You know, someone has the money to live in a much more expensive apartment complex. I'm guessing the walls are thicker, the soundproofing is better.
CB: Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's the other part of it. You know, there's an issue of exposure and then there's this vulnerability side. So, you know, if you are in a more affluent neighborhood or just have the means, you will have better windows and walls and soundproofing, you'll have more green space around you to block the sound and also to give you a kind of an acoustic respite.
GR: Yeah, yeah. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Chris Berdik. He's a reporter and writer and the author of, “Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World and How We Can Take It Back” and we've been discussing the book and the issues that it raises. So before the break, we were talking about humans, the impact on humans, but there's also a lot of impact on animals that are important. And tell us a little bit about some of the ways that noise has a negative effect on animals.
CB: Sure. So there is some research into how very loud sound can cause a certain amount of hearing damage to animals, but that is somewhat limited. The sort of larger issue is how noise that humans bring into the environment, in particular, say, shipping noise in the oceans, that sort of constant noise shrinks their sensory worlds. That is something that, you know, we don't think about because we're not under the water very long, typically, as long as our breath lasts, I guess. But down there, especially when you're in the depths where the light doesn't penetrate the sounds of those places are very important to aquatic species that need to hear one another to communicate, to find their way when they're navigating, migrating, I should say, to find food, to avoid predators. Animals have to listen. We up here, if we're bothered by noise, we put on our noise canceling headphones where we get in the car and drive somewhere quieter, but animals don't have that luxury. And so the big problem a lot of people, the conservationists have talked about is, they term it sensory smog. So this is both from our noise and our artificial light, just making the world that these animals navigate smaller. And that's a big problem.
GR: Yeah, sensory smog, okay, I'm going to add that to sonically short sighted, this is great. I had read somewhere too that that kind of background noise like you were talking about with shipping in the ocean, but also above ground, really interferes with animals’ abilities to mate because they use sound, and the one thing I think I remember reading about this was frogs, you know, that they use sound in order to mate, the calls that they put out. But for animals, that are living close to traffic, you know, they just can't find each other anymore.
CB: Yeah. I mean, they will, the research has shown that the birds near roads will try to sing louder and similar with the whales, when the shipping goes by, they'll try to call out louder and stay above the background din. But there's a limit. The whales can only shout so much, the birds, likewise. And some species, will just go quiet because they're waiting it out. Like, you know, we might when an airplane flies over too close when we’re in the middle of our conversation, we just stop.
GR: And what about plant life and the planet more generally? Because you've got this argument that it's, you know, it's affecting everything. I mean, I don't want to be again too cheeky, but in the 70’s and the 80’s there was this big concern about you have to talk to your plants, you know, but don't yell at your plants, you talk to your plants. So tell us what you found in that realm.
CB: Sure. I know that there is research directly into how sound directly impacts plants. My research really looked at how sound it affects plants in an ecosystem sort of way in as much as, you know, nothing changes in isolation when we're in nature. There was a study in New Mexico at these natural gas wells where some of them had noisy air compressors to kind of keep the pressure in the gas lines, and some of them didn’t. And the researchers had noticed that at the noisy wells, these two birds, there was a jay bird and another bird, I can't remember the species of it, but these two birds were steering clear of these particular noisy wells. And then they thought, well, these two birds are really important for spreading the seeds of the plants in this area, these trees. So then they put out about a hundred or so plots they demarcated around the noisy wells and the quieter wells and they watched them for 12 years. And over those 12 years, they found that at the noisy wells, you know, there was something like 80% or 90% fewer tree seedlings because the birds had stayed away, they hadn’t spread the seeds. So these things ripple out in ecosystems.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Chris Berdik, and we've been talking about his new book. It's titled, “Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World and How We Can Take It Back”. So we can't turn back the clock on everything, we kind of have the world we have now. We can't shut all of these things down, we can't shut shipping down. So I guess I wanted to ask you to talk a bit in the last part of our conversation here about what we can do to manage it and to make it better. How can we be more, you know, to go back to, sonically sophisticated? And let's take this at the individual level first, and then we'll take it out to, you know, in terms of planning and building and the social level. But first of all, how as we as individuals can do a better job of not making ourselves crazy?
CB: Yeah, well, I always say that the first thing we could do, and this is very easy, is to take better care of our ears. Before I started researching this book, I didn't protect my ears whatsoever, using power tools, going out to loud concerts and things like that. Now, I am much more careful following the advice of all the audiologists I’ve been talking to, all the hearing researchers. You know, you start with the little foamy ear protection you can buy them by the bag at CVS. But there's also even a little bit of a step up there. Musicians earplugs, these cost about $30 a pair, but what they do is they block about ten decibels worth of sound at every frequency level so you can hear the music, let's say you're going to show, just as clearly as you would without them, but just a little they take the edge off of it. So I use those a lot and I think you know, the research shows that outside of work environments where hearing protection is sort of required in the loudest environments, Americans use hearing protection about 8% of the time when going out to do loud things. This is a study I think a 2018, a nationwide survey. And so, you know, there's a lot of room for improvement there. And I think we're seeing some of it with a lot of the new devices that are focused on hearing, you know, like the AirPods, Apple AirPods Pro 2. These things kind of have some hearing protection built into them. But yes, we could do a lot better job there. That's the first part.
GR: What about just, I just think also making it important to be in quiet spaces. I mean, is that, is just something like an awareness of that important here too?
CB: Yeah, I think so. I think taking the time to be in those quiet spaces. And, you know, I had to chuckle when you were talking about the folks who now are hiking with the Bluetooth speakers. Because it seems to me to be sort of beside the point where when you're out there, you should take the time to enjoy that quiet. Have a moment to give your ears and your brain that peace of restoration.
GR: So let's bring it out. What can we do more societal and more in terms of how we construct our world to make this better?
CB: We can do a lot more to be sound aware when we are designing our products and our spaces. One great example is with restaurants. These became much noisier in the last 20 years or so because restauranteurs decided they wanted to prioritize kind of a modern industrial look. They took away all of the upholstery and drapes and they put the kitchens in the middle of the dining areas and jacked up the music. And you know, the result was that, you know, people can't talk to one another when they're having a meal. And this has been noticed more and more in reviews and people have elevated it in the Zagat surveys, you know, noise is the number one complaint, it's not bad food or high prices. So what can we do about it? Well, you know, there are now tools that allow people to simulate these spaces before they're built, before they're all put together and dealing with the noise is a bigger problem. To actually, you know, put in the parameters. You have certain materials, a certain number of people and you're going to have your music at this level. What's that going to sound like? And you simulate it and if it's a problem, if people can't have a conversation then you can add sound absorption bit by bit. So you still have the buzz of a kind of a nice, lively atmosphere but it's not the kind of thing that's going to, you know, make you have to sit there in silence while you eat. And so these kinds of tools can be used for restaurants for office spaces, you know, all these places where noise is a problem. It's just part of thinking proactively is kind of how I put it.
GR: Yeah. That's fascinating about the restaurants and the construction of them, the interior, because I have noticed in my life and I thought maybe I was, you know, losing my hearing, but I don't think I am yet, I'm sure it's not what it was when I was young but it's become impossible in many restaurants if there's a table of ten to have a conversation with someone who's not directly in front of you, you just give up. You pretend you hear them when they're talking and you just, you know, go ahead with what you're doing. Well, let me ask you this, are there any countries that are kind of ahead of the curve on this and are doing more than other countries or maybe thinking about the United States? Are there any states that are doing innovative things or is this just something that's in its infancy, this kind of sound awareness?
CB: Well, it is in its infancy. And I would say that in Europe, they have started to focus a lot more, they've already been focused on noise, you know, in a comprehensive way that, you know, they are, they require cities of a certain size throughout the European Union to create these five year noise reports that kind of track where the noise hotspots are in their cities, typically based on transportation noise sources. And they also, if they're a big enough city, ask these places to designate quiet areas, places that have, you know, much lower decibels and to protect those places from noise encroachment. So that is, you know, been a great source of awareness. The question is, what do these cities actually do beyond putting these noise maps together on paper? You know, and when it comes to quiet areas, what is the purpose of a quiet area if all you have is a handful of them in the sort of deepest parts of the largest park on the outskirts of your city? Maybe there's more that you could find that, you know, places that are not just based on decibels but are based on, you know, the greenery of the place there or that people have reported that they find it relaxing in different ways. And there's been some effort to kind of make them more accessible. So there's you know, some places have started to recognize that soundscapes are important and not just decibel levels. The question is, what are the tools that can be used to improve and assess these soundscapes? Those are all very much in their infancy. Those things, you know, the decibel is easy, it's just one number. A soundscape is much more complicated.
GR: Yeah, well, it is complicated. And it is something that I think we're going to need to keep thinking about. That was Chris Berdik and again, his new book is titled, “Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World and How We Can Take It Back”, very important book on a very important topic. Chris, thanks again for making the time to talk with me, I learned a lot and again, thank you for writing a book like this.
CB: Grant, I appreciate it. Thanks so much.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Nancy Rosenblum on the Campbell Conversations
Aug 09, 2025
Nancy Rosenblum(Robert Adam Mayer www.robertadammayer.com)
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today appears to be something of a political soothsayer. Nancy Rosenblum is a Professor of Ethics in Government and Politics at Harvard University, and the coauthor with Russell Muirhead of a book called, “Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos”. Professor Rosenblum, welcome to the program and congratulations on this obviously timely new book.
Nancy Rosenblum: Thank you, Grant. I'm happy to be here.
GR: Well, we're glad you made the time. So let's just start with some basic term definitions. What exactly is ‘ungoverning’ and where does its recent form get its start in our political history?
NR: Well, I think that is, it really is unique to Trump's first term. That is, there are many ways of governing democracy well and many ways of failing to govern democracy well, uncompromising this and, you know, people who are clients not representing their people and so on, we can all think of failings of government. But ‘ungoverning’ is literally the attempt to destroy the capacity for governing. It's vandalizing the machinery of government, and it's unprecedented. And it's so unfamiliar, that we gave it this name and it's literal. ‘Ungoverning’ is not evocative, it's a term designed to say that you can have elected representatives who are out to destroy the capacity to govern.
GR: I love that phrase, vandalizing the machinery, I’ll have to remember that. You know, I kind of thought, you surprised me there, because I kind of thought you were going to say Ronald Reagan, because some people have looked at that administration and said, you know, although Reagan wasn't as aggressive as he might have sounded as a candidate there, I know there are people in the civil service that still will talk about that time as one of the, sounds a little bit like ‘ungoverning’ the way you've defined it.
NR: Yes, we do talk about the prehistory of assaults on the depth and width of what government does. I mean, conservatism has always tried to constrain the business of government. And Reagan, you know, didn't develop that famous sentence that said, you know, somebody knocks on your door and says, I'm from the government, I’m here to help. And so he and other Republican presidents along the way have tried to go backwards, right? To undo certain kinds of regulations, to undo certain kinds of policies and ways of doing things. But they still remained essentially conservative, right? They were not Trumpist-like attempts to destroy the administrative state and to stay so vividly and to have a populist army behind them to do it. Don't forget, you know, Trump, is not a normal Democratic candidate, he is the representative of a radical social movement that he helped to create and that supports what he does. So in all of those ways, previous Republicans and conservatives, no matter how much they wanted to take apart this or that from Roosevelt's administration, didn't begin to make the kind of dent that we're seeing today.
GR: Well, President Trump has been compared to a lot of other leaders around the world, particularly some of them in Europe. So one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, is this a distinctly United States phenomenon or do you see ‘ungoverning’ elsewhere where you could identify it?
NR: Yes and no. And that's a hard question to do in just a few sentences. But I'll say this, there are in other places successful populist presidents or heads of state, right, that rode populist anger into a position of some sort of autocracy where they basically started to take away the elements of democracy, right, and some are still trying and some have succeeded very well. None of them have wanted to destroy the state. Because all of them had some sort of understanding that apparently Trump and his people do not, that you have to be able to govern if you want to be a successful autocrat. You have to be giving your people enough things, right, that there's stability in the society that you're not overthrown. And also because you want to rule, right? You can't rule by fiat in the modern state. So Trump is unusual in his declaration and his carrying out of the declaration to deconstruct the administrative state and to want to have personal rule without the apparatus of a government.
GR: Okay, I'm getting the distinction you're making there. And so, is the main, this may seem like a dumb question but I'm going to put it out there, is the main problem for this then the politics of chaos? How would you identify what the deepest problems are with someone who wants to do this?
NR: Well, I think one problem is that you have the politics of chaos. And let me say upfront why that's so difficult for people, which is that we all have in our lives run by security of expectations. And when all of our security of expectation about our economic well-being, about our health, about the security of our nation from other strong nations, about our work, about whether somebody is going to take away our citizenship, when all of these expectations are violated, or we fear that they're being violated, what happens is you lose your sense of political agency, and that's the end of democracy, when people lose their sense of agency. But I think the first part of what you said, you asked, is it chaos or is it, what was the second choice?
GR: I was throwing it up for you. I mean, you know, is there something else there?
NR: Yes, there is. And I think that what is responsible for this insecurity of expectation and what is clearly chaos is the desire for personal rule. Disrespect for the requirements of any office, whether it's Congress or the administrative state, the secretary of state or the presidency, is a desire for personal rule. That's really a very unusual thing and certainly unusual in the United States, where presidents, no matter how radical they might have been, or a conservative they might have been, understood that they occupied an office and that this office had a certain constitutional status, right? And that they had to (a) very great extent, operate within the limits of this thing called an office. And Trump has no interest in the office and no respect for it. As everybody said, what he wants is personal command, personal rule. And the interesting story here is how he managed to get it and why it's getting worse.
GR: Yeah, we'll come back to that. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Harvard University government and politics professor Nancy Rosenblum, and we're discussing her new book titled, “Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos”. You've kind of already answered this, so I guess I'll frame it maybe as a potential general pushback on what you're saying. I'm wondering, is this phenomenon really, ungoverning in a general sense, or would it be better thought of as, for lack of a better term, selective ungoverning, meaning the undermining of certain government functions that are previously supported and maybe bolstering some others like, you know, immigration enforcement? So it's a really, it's more about what government is doing or not doing, and not just government doing things generally.
NR: Well, by our definition and understanding and I think it's sort of generally accepted now, it's ungoverning. It's not that this president who wants to personally rule doesn't do things, he does things right? He raises tariffs, he goes to meetings with world powers, he drops bombs on people, he tries a major effort to militarize deportation and immigration, he does do things. We say that is not governing because it's not through any of the apparatus or within any of the rules or constraints that make a government. What we have is a ruler. What we have in discussion of, the ancients would say, what we have is a tyrant. And the evidence of what I'm saying is if we look at what he has done to the people and the institutions that do the business of governing and always have, that is the Department of Defense or the attorney general of the United States or the Social Security office or any area of policy is dedicated, is made by Congress in a general way, and then enacted by the agencies of our government. And all of that depends upon that apparatus of the Congress making a law and the independent, and the agencies deciding how you actually implement this law with open hearings and so on. All of this has been eliminated.
GR: Now, obviously, Donald Trump is going to be the big culprit in your story and has been in our conversation so far. Are there other culprits here who are culpable and how we've got to this spot?
NR: Well, you know, that's a difficult question to answer. You could say the people who voted for him. It's unclear, especially now in his second term, how many of his, except for very core MAGA followers, imagined that he would be doing what he's doing now, by taking away Medicaid or deporting their neighbors without finding, you know, without any rule of law and without determining that they're criminal, which had been his promise and so on. So we don't know whether, what kind of support he has for what and the polling is very variable. And so do you blame voters when their representatives act in ways that they did not expect them to act? So that's one question. But clearly, there has been leaving the electorate aside, an enormous amount of support for Trump from various quarters. The most important being a long and developed history of wanting to undo the Roosevelt administrative state on the part of conservatives. The Heritage Foundation and the person who now runs the Office of Management and Budget that put out this Project 2025 and so on. And these people wanted to deconstruct the administrative state. They wanted to do it, some of them from money, right? Because if you can raise the money by eliminating programs, you can give them tax breaks. Some of it because they wanted different kinds of technology and so on involved. Some of them because they wanted Christian nationalism. But you had various very powerful social and economic forces out there that thought they stood to gain from the Trump administration. And some of them are now nervous that they're not going to gain and some of them clearly feel that they are. But I say this to say that this this idea of deconstructing the administrative state, shrinking government, giving the president what's called the power of a unitary executive has been advanced for probably 20 some odd years by important factions of conservatism, but shouldn't be called conservatism, but what was called conservatism in this country.
GR: Yeah, I remember during George W. Bush's administration, we heard a lot about the unitary state. You didn't mention members of Congress, and that surprised me in sort of identifying who might be culpable in this. I mean, they're not standing up for the institution.
NR: I could name two other major sources and they were elected by Trumpist populists. They have at this very slim majority, they are completely obeisant. They go along even if they disagree and we know that because they'll say so. Because they're afraid, because they're afraid for their positions, that if they deviate from Trump, he will have the power with voters to get them dis-elected, unelected. So clearly, the Republican Party, as it stands now, which is no longer a conservative party, it is a party in thrall to Trump, is part of this. Now, what's interesting, if I can just say one more word about the Congress, is that he has really emasculated Congress. Many of the measures that he's taken have been refusing, impounding, refusing to spend money that Congress authorized, destroying whole departments like the Department of Education, the Congress made, right? Making appointments, all kinds of interim appointments so that he doesn't have to go through the business of congressional approval. Congressional approval for people no one in the world would have approved, like Hegseth as Secretary of Defense or Robert K. Junior as Secretary of Health and Welfare. I mean, so Congress is culpable, the republican Congress is culpable. And then the Supreme Court did something in 2020 that has been very important. They gave Trump and presumably other presidents immunity for prosecution from any act that they did, any official act that they did as president. And Trump now has this immunity. He can do anything he wants as President. And I can show you some instances of how he's done this, but maybe you want to move to something else.
GR: Well, we'll come back to some of those things in the second half of the program. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Nancy Rosenblum. She's a Harvard University government and politics professor and the coauthor of a new book titled, “Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos”. I wanted to come back to what we were talking about before the break there in terms of who you see as most to blame in this regard. And I guess the way I want to frame this question is, are Democrats blame free? Do they have any culpability in where we are today?
NR: Well, they certainly didn't win the election to that extent. That's the requirement for getting Trump in power. I don't think that there are any Democrats who approve of or want what's going on now. So can you say that that a party that was crippled by the fact that their president had to, you know, leave office under the gun very shortly before election, that probably made a terrible miscalculation in the candidate that they ended up with, that was actually delivered to them. But when we say blame, we usually mean something about intentional or moral blame. I don't think the Democrats intentionally lost or have any moral culpability for what we may think of as extremely destructive, anti-democratic, anti-liberal actions on the part of this regime. What the Democrats do now is going to be, you know, hard to watch, and I would doubt whether it will be very successful for quite a while.
GR: Well, yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, because it struck me as I was thinking about the arguments in your book, if they take on what you're talking about directly, they're almost going to have to put themselves forward as, or at least be vulnerable to the characterization I'm about to make, as the party of government, the party of the state. And I don't know whether that's a label they want to put on themselves at the moment, given the current political climate. I mean, how do they get out of that box? They tried being the party of democracy in 2024, and that didn't seem to resonate with enough people. So if they become the party of government and the party of the state, I don't know if that's going to do it much better.
NR: Well, I think that's right. So I think the problem for the Democrats will be how to identify those areas in which people want government and that they want government, not the way it's always been before Trump, they want government that's reformed and more responsive and doesn't try to do too much and does a lot of deregulation that, you know, they would have to do to identify what kind of governing, who wants, where. And that's why I think that this next, the elections coming up, this one in the next and so on are going to have to be mainly talking to people in the states. And that the presidential candidate, you know, has got to depend on their success to win. But I would not be surprised if the Democrats are brought back to office, because, you're right, they're identified with a government that people rejected for different reasons. Some because they were too liberal, some because they weren't really terribly conservative or Christian. I mean, there are all kinds of reasons. And even if Trump, they're abused of their infatuation with Trump, it's not clear that they will vote for the Democrats. So this is, I'm not an election person, but I think this is a hard row and I won't be surprised if the Democrats don't. Of course, it will also depend on what happens to Trump if indeed he has an election and there are many political scientists who think that he may very well obstruct another election. If he dies in the meantime, he's an elderly man, will the Republican, will Vance be able to compete with an attractive Democratic candidate? There's no way to answer your question, but it will be a rough road. And your initial skepticism is well put.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the Harvard professor, Nancy Rosenblum. So, you know, you track the origins of this in Trump's first term, we're seven months into a second term that has just seen a whole flurry of different kinds of activity and you've been describing different aspects of it. Is this just something that's been turned up two or three notches, or are we seeing something in recent months that's different and new? What's changed?
NR: Well, I think his capacity to really deconstruct the administrative state and evolve things has changed dramatically for political reasons and then for others. So some of these things I've mentioned, I think there have been three developments that make this a whole different landscape than it was four years ago and one has to do with the appointments he's made. And, you know, we always say that what he wants is loyalty, what he wants is loyalty, people who are submissive. Well, yes, he wants that, but he wants something much more. He has picked people for his administration who incarnate ungoverning, that is, who hate the institutions that they've been assigned to lead. RFK Jr., as I say, is the best example of that. You really want someone there who is an anti-vaccine person or anti-science to put federal money away from the sciences and health? Or an attorney general who's hostile to the Constitution? Or somebody in charge of national security and intelligence, who doesn't want intelligence, who looks at things ideologically? So Trump is announcing by his appointments and the Congress, by going along with his appointments, that he is out to destroy these things. He appointed someone to head the Department of Education, whose philosophy was get rid of the Department of Education, I mean, so that's one thing. The appointments that we've watched have told us an important story, that this is about wreckage, not about governing. I think there's a second and probably a third real change. And that there's been a real change in the law since he was first there. I mean, I mentioned before that the Supreme Court granted presidential immunity of a kind of blanket kind if a president is fulfilling his official duties as president. And many, many people from these associations like Heritage and so on, have spent the last four years looking at the law and figuring out how he could get around things. I'm going to give you one example, all right, the president is in charge of foreign policy. That’s where the imperial presidency has always lodged its authority. So Trump has translated a lot of things that are domestic into foreign policy things, right? That's clearest with his deportation business, he's no longer just saying that he's getting rid of criminals and immigrants and then going at the border. He's saying that this is a foreign invasion. When he goes after demonstrators in Los Angeles, he says this is an alien, the Alien and Sedition Act applies. So one of the clever things he's done and so far done successfully is to say, well, they say I can do anything I want as president and this is what presidents do. So I think the legal doctrines combined with the courts have allowed him to sweep things away. And he has said, he says and I have in article to power, that means I can do anything I want as president. He thinks that and he's proceeding on that path. They've also, by the way, developed legal strategies for bringing these cases to court, even where they think they don't have good advocacy, you know, position, constitutional or legislative positions, but they have figured out, and we know that Trump himself is an expert at this, figured out how to how to appeal and appeal and appeal and these cases go on forever. And by the time the case and the Department of Education gets resolved, finally, there will be no Department of Education. And when you’re deconstructing, you can't go backwards. But what's done is done. And I think that's the saddest thing of all.
GR: Well, one of the things that also struck me that might fit your characterization there regarding foreign policy is tariffs, too, and the way that they're done. We only have about a minute and a half left. I wanted to make sure I got this last question in because it relates to something you said right at the end there. After these things are unraveled, you know, it's harder to, it's hard to build Humpty Dumpty back together again. Setting aside the partisan politics, if we could, just how does the administrative state recover? I mean, what needs to happen? It would take I guess, a president and a Congress that are really engaged in building things if all you're saying is correct. So how do you see that happening? Is that is that a generational effort?
NR: Well, I think you're right, I think that you're right. You know, I've talked to a lot of people who have been either fired from administrative agencies of one kind or another or are still working there, but working under fear. And it's unclear how you would reconstitute the tens of thousands of people who have left and are going to leave government, people who know how things work, how to make things work, right? How to obey the law in making things work. And you're losing these people in a massive way. If he has his way, it's going to be hundreds of thousands of federal workers. And some of them are relatives or relatives of mine. And it's so, how do you get them back? Is a younger generation actually want to go in government? I mean, I think but even if they do, even if you can reconstitute a population, you know, a population of federal workers who are knowledgeable and who understand the processes it's going to be hard to repair.
GR: Well, we'll have to leave it on that depressing note. That was Nancy Rosenbloom. And again, her new book is titled, “Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos”. She wrote it with her coauthor and colleague, Russell Muirhead. Professor Rosenblum, thanks again for making time to talk with me. Very interesting topic, thank you.
NR: Thanks for asking such great questions.
GR: I appreciate that. You're listening to Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Alan Dershowitz on the Campbell Conversations
Aug 02, 2025
Alan Dershowitz(<a href="https://alan-dershowitz.com/">alan-dershowitz.com</a>)
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I’m Grant Reeher. My guest today is the lawyer, law professor and writer Alan Dershowitz. He’s with me to discuss his new book, decades in the making, titled, “The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harm while Preserving Essential Liberty”. Professor Dershowitz, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book. It's your 56th, I believe?
Alan Dershowitz: It is, thank you so much. I've already written my 57th, so I'm on the way to hopefully to 60, that's my goal.
GR: All right, you're within shouting distance. So this is what I would call a big book, even though it's concise. And I wanted to start our conversation by quoting something from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's forward to the book, just to set the context so that our listeners will have a good understanding of what you're doing here. He says the book provides new ways of looking at an old problem, which is this: how without sacrificing too much or too many of the values that society seeks to protect, for example, individual liberty, can society prevent the occurrence of events, behaviors, activities that will harm components say members of the society? And indeed, this sounds to me like the problem that James Madison is wrestling with and his famous Federalist Paper Number Ten. So it's a question of giving government enough but not too much power and of giving it the right kinds of power in the right moments. So you begin your book with a discussion of prediction and prevention, and I wanted you to tell us about those concepts and how they structure your argument.
AD: Sure. Governments are always trying to anticipate the future. This goes back to the beginning of time. The Bible talks about how you anticipate violence by young children and prevent it. So we've always done that. The problem is we haven't had a jurisprudence or a framework for analyzing whether we're doing it correctly. It's the essence of human lawmaking that we will always make mistakes. In this case, we will make some mistakes by predicting things that will not happen or by failing to predict things that will happen, both are bad. Failing to predict what Nazi Germany did in the 1930’s cost 50 million lives. Over-predicting what Japanese-Americans might do in the 1940’s resulted in 110,000 Japanese-Americans being falsely confined in camps for things they would never have done. So we constantly make mistakes and the question is, do we error on the side of protecting liberty, do we are on the side of safety? These are hard questions and we have to address them.
GR: And it reminded me a bit of what I see often in the medical field about tests and screenings where you have false positives, false negatives and you're weighing those two things. Are you for all on that at all?
AD: Exactly right. Take, you know, for example, colon tests, you know, you can take your colon test and some doctors recommend them telling you there are a lot of false positives that you might be told you have colon cancer and then the second exam will show you don't. But if you fail to do it, then maybe you'll have colon cancer and you won't know about it. And so there are always the tradeoffs and the balances. I fight with my grandson all the time, my grandson is a cardiologist fellow at a major university, and he thinks I'm over medicalized and I think I'm under medicalized. So, you know, at age 86, I want to make sure it all goes right. But he is in favor of fewer tests and I'm in favor of more tests. He doesn't think, for example, old guys like me should have a PSI test of the kind that, PSA that President Biden didn't have and failed to pick up his cancer. I say, yeah, tell me false, I'm happy to live with that. And so, you know, these are reasonable disagreements. Now that involves cancer, but what about if it involves nuclear attacks? What if it involves terrorism? What if it involves keeping people in jail, denying them bail for something they didn't do? These are all very, very, very difficult questions.
GR: Yeah. And just those examples that you gave me, it reflects the variety of things that we might want to prevent that you take up in your book and is really quite striking. It runs the gamut from presidential assassinations to global environmental catastrophe. So what I wanted to do for a good chunk of our conversation here together was to take a few of these and have you tell us how your framework leads you to conclusions on them.
AD: Sure.
GR: And so I wanted to start actually with the presidential assassinations and you discuss attempts on the life of Andrew Jackson, you take that all the way through to Donald Trump. So how do we think about the balance there? What's the right place to strike?
AD: Well, here we have a situation where a presidential assassination is cataclysmic. It can change the world. Look, Lincoln's assassination changed the history of our country. We've had more attempted assassinations that almost any other Western democracy, starting with Andrew Jackson. And, you know, that was a failed attempt. Franklin Roosevelt, 100 years later was a failed attempt. Harry Truman was a failed attempt. They tried to kill Gerald Ford. But there have been too many successful attempts, you know, Garfield and obviously Kennedy and Kennedy's brother and the thankfully unsuccessful attempts on President Ford. How much power would you give the Secret Service? Certainly, they messed up a year ago when they failed to anticipate somebody going on the roof in firing range of Donald Trump. That was an easy one to the stop, but many others are far more difficult and would involve intrusions into the lives of people. We have are called red flag laws which take away guns from people, guns that are protected by the Second Amendment based on predictions that maybe they will misuse those guns. So these are decisions we make all the time and what we lack is the jurisprudential framework analyzing the cost of one kind of error versus the cost of another kind of error. And in my book, “The Preventive State”, I try very hard to suggest for the first time really in history, literally for the first time in history, a book that presents a jurisprudential framework for what we've been doing for thousands of years, making predictive decisions, locking people up, killing them, doing things that deprive people of freedom based on uncertain predictions.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and we're speaking with law professor and writer Alan Dershowitz, and we're discussing his new book. It's titled, “The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms while Preserving Essential Liberties”. So you talk about creating this jurisprudence framework and I wanted to push you a little bit on that and tease out what, so, I understand that this is you know, we're looking at estimating risks of bad things and then estimating the risks of bad things that might happen from trying to prevent those bad things, but how do we go about measuring this stuff? I mean, it seems to me that the devil is going to be in the details here. How do we measure the cost?
AD: Well, the question about crimes that have already been committed, we don't always get the right people. And so we have to ask ourselves, what if we make a mistake? What kind of mistakes do we prefer? And we've come up with this aphorism, better ten guilty go free than one innocent to be wrongly confined because we know life is probabilities. It's interesting, I had an interesting insight the other day. My wife and I were, believe it or not, in Monte Carlo. And so what do you do if you're in Monte Carlo, you gamble. And you know, I ended up losing $30 at the table. I found myself being a card counter. How was I card counter? When I saw them hand out a lot of, you know, a lot of face cards with pictures on them kings, jacks and the queens, I would say, oh my God, you know, there are fewer left in the deck let me bet this way. Life is card counting. We're constantly making decisions based on what we see happening around us. It's called, you know, Bayesian Analysis in mathematics. And so we're always making these probabilistic decisions. We're never completely certain about almost anything and we're always going to be making mistakes. And law is the science of how we assess our mistakes and where we balance mistakes of one kind versus mistakes of another kind. But we tend not to think of it in terms of probabilistic considerations and that's what I try to do. I used to teach a class at Harvard College and law school class on mathematics in the law probabilities in the law. And, you know, we introduced all kinds of mathematical formulas and conceptions into things like probable cause, proof beyond a reasonable doubt and other obviously probabilistic determinations.
GR: I wanted to ask you a question about a couple of the things that you write about where recent examples have been in the news. And one that struck me was that your discussion of harmful police interventions and you include police shootings in that. And it reminded me of the shooting of Breonna Taylor, the 26 year old African-American woman who was killed by police in Louisville. It was recently in the news due to the sentencing of one of the officers involved in the shooting. And so how do you go about weighing some kind of balance like that?
AD: Well, it's very hard. You know, it's the middle of the night, it's dark, people are shooting at you, you value your own life more than the life of somebody who might be a criminal. And you(‘re) going to err on the side of protecting yourself and your colleagues over protecting the lives of somebody who might be firing at you. And so the law has to make a decision as to how to treat it if it goes wrong. There's a leading Supreme Court decision on that, which was right in that decision. A young man robbed or burgled a house and he was running away and he was climbing a fence and he would have escaped had he climbed the fence, but he didn't have a gun and the police shot him in the back and killed him. And the Supreme Court said, no, that was in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It's better to allow some people to escape than to kill somebody who was not going to harm anybody else, even though he had committed a previous crime. So the court has struggled with that on an ad hoc basis without coming up with a complete jurisprudence for it. And, you know, we're at a stage in our development where maybe we're not ready for a complete, thorough final jurisprudence. But in my book, “The Preventive State”, I at least lay out what I think is the beginning of a jurisprudence and let's continue to have debates over time.
GR: Yeah, it reminds me, the way you just described that, it also reminds me of the breaking off of police chases and cars, yeah. When do you stop that and under what conditions…
AD: Yeah, and do you do more harm than good when you try to chase down a car and you're going 110 miles an hour and the risks to civilians and citizens. Look, the book, “The Preventive State” deals with the widest range of actions that governments take, ranging from, you know, inoculating people against communicable diseases to doing what the United States did in Iran a couple of weeks ago, a preventive bombing of nuclear sites. That's why this is the most important book I've written of my, you know, 58 books. But interestingly enough, the New York Times refuses to review it. They have never reviewed a single one of my book since I defended Donald Trump. They reviewed almost all of my books before that. But once I defended Donald Trump on constitutional grounds, I have been censored and canceled by the New York Times and by other institutions, which is why I'm so pleased to be able to be on your show and get directly to readers who can then buy the book directly from Amazon instead of having to go through the filter of the New York Times, which censors and decides which books it wants people to read. I'm on Chilmark in Massachusetts now on Martha's Vineyard and the Martha's Vineyard book Fair starts next week. They won't have my book because I defended Donald Trump before I defended Donald Trump, every one of my books, I was the most popular speaker at the book fair, but now they won't allow me to speak about my book. That's why I have to go directly to sources and directly to readers out there to urge them to read the book and not allow institutions that are against Donald Trump, by the way, I'm not a political supporter of Donald Trump, I'm a constitutional supporter, but I have to be able to get directly to the readers. So thank you for having me.
GR: Well, the book really is about other things than this. And so I'm kind of surprised to hear your stories about getting shut out of those. You’re listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with the lawyer, law professor and writer Alan Dershowitz. We've been discussing his new book, it's titled, “The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms while Preserving Essential Liberties”. So you mentioned before the break about getting shut out of certain venues here on this book. And that kind of leads directly into something I wanted to ask you about, which concerns the institution where you where you taught for so many years, Harvard. And so you also examine problems of offensive or dangerous speech. And again, that's been in the news recently as Harvard has argued its case against the Trump administration for cutting off its federal research funding. And it seems to me, I'm thinking about that through the lens of your book, you've got two different free speech claims that are running up against each other in that instance. I mean you’ve got, in a sense, you've got the concerns of Jewish students who are at Harvard, but then you've got Harvard's concern about telling the faculty what they're going to teach or are going to act or what they're going to do with their DEI program. So any insights there about how we go about balancing that and thinking about that one?
AD: Sure. The key is to have a single standard, not to have a different standard for Jewish students and for black students and gay students. If you can say things negatively about gays and blacks, then you can say it about Jews. But if you can't say negative things about certain groups, but you can say about others, that's a clear violation of the spirit of the first amendment. Look, Harvard has not done a particularly good job, particularly some of the schools, the divinity school, the public health school, the Carr program on human rights have all become very, very biased. The divinity school, worst of all, it not only tolerates hate speech against Jews, it actually teaches it. The dean of the divinity school at graduation compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and they gave the valedictorian speech to a man who was arrested and prosecuted for attacking Jewish students physically. So you know, there are limits to what universities should do. But for me, the greatest limit is the single standard. You have to have one standard for everybody, you can’t have double standards that invidiously discriminate against certain groups. But DEI and intersectionality, which are taught at places like Harvard say you should have a double standard. Intersectionality says there are two groups in the world, the oppressed and the oppressors and the oppressed have no rights, the oppressed have all the rights, the oppressed ones have no rights. So they justify a double standard, but universities can't do that. And we learned that lesson in the 50’s when the federal government did intrude against University of Mississippi, University of Alabama that were teaching white supremacy and segregation and academic freedom didn't prevent the university from saying no, that violates civil rights laws. And what's being done at some universities today violates civil rights laws. So an appropriate balance has to be struck.
GR: So I wanted to have you kind of zoom out from these specific examples and tell me whether there is, in your view, some kind of, I don't know, rules of thumb or some kind of hunches that we can follow when we're trying to actually weigh these things. Because, again, the devil is in the details in a lot of these. And so, do you have any sort of places where you start, you just gave me one what the single standard sort of that's a way to guide our thinking there. Are there are other ones that you’ve put forward?
AD: Yeah. The other is always err on the side of freedom against safety. You have to give weight to safety, but as Benjamin Franklin said, those who would give up essential freedoms for a little bit of safety deserve neither. And so we always err on the side of, we should always err on the side of freedom, we generally err on the side of safety. And then the other thing is we have to articulate everything, nothing should be done in secret. Transparency is the key to everything. Let me give you an example, in the book I talk about, would you ever use torture to prevent a mass terrorist attack, say, attack on New York City with a nuclear bomb that would kill 100,000 people? Would you ever use torture? And the answer, of course, is they would, but they would do it secretly. They would never expose it. And so in my book, I talk about maybe having to get a torture warrant, having to go to the chief justice and having to get approval of all three branches of Congress before you do it. I'm against torture, but it would be used if it could prevent mass casualty attacks. We already did use it following 9/11. 9/11 was a failure of prevention. And as a result of the failure of prevention, we overreacted and gave government too much power. The same thing was true, Pearl Harbor was a failure of prevention. And after that we overreacted and put 110,000 Americans of Japanese origin into camps. So one of the virtues of prevention is it stops us from overreacting if we fail to prevent.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the lawyer, Alan Dershowitz. So when I was looking at your writing and the chapter on global catastrophe or global warming, one of the things that struck me in thinking about how difficult that would be is that, and I think it, you know, affects all these categories is, oftentimes the very terms of the debate are subject to debate. We don't even agree on whether something is a problem and for whom it is a problem of what qualifies to think of it in certain ways. And so what do we do there when we can't even really, you know, you and I might weigh things differently, but we may not even be able to agree on what we're talking about in the first place. How do you get a shared language in your jurisprudence that way?
AD: Oh, you're absolutely right. There are people who don't believe in global warming, there are people who think that these are just natural phenomenon that have occurred over the last millennia. So it's hard to get a conversation like that. All I want to do, and in my chapter I say we have to, again, balance, you know, the extremists on both sides are wrong. We can't do everything in the world to prevent global warming if it causes massive unemployment in this country and if it raises prices to an extent that we can't afford. So we have to strike appropriate balances. And you’re right, it's very hard to do if we can't even agree if there is global warming, and so that's probably the most difficult chapter. There are other areas where we definitely can agree on the harms. The question is how much are we prepared to sacrifice in order to stop those harms? And there's a big difference between a single crime and a mass terrorist attack or between inoculation and preventing the spread of COVID. There, there was great disagreement also about the science. And all it was necessary to do is have a transparent debate and reasonable people could disagree. I'm not in favor of compelled vaccinations except in the most extreme cases. And in my book, I quote George Washington's letter to his troops in which he said, we might not lose the war to Great Britain, but we might lose it to smallpox if we don't get inoculated. But that's not a paradigm because presidents can't tell us what to do. They are commanders in chief of the army, they're not commanders in chief of the citizens.
GR: Well, I did want to ask you a question, you mentioned earlier about the fallout that you've had from some of your, you know, legal dealings regarding the president. I wanted to ask you about President Trump more generally. You know, many people see him as currently as a threat to democracy. They're quite worried about it, particularly this second administration, the one that we're in the middle of. What do you make of this concern? Are we in a constitutional crisis?
AD: We're not, we're in a constitutional conflict. President Trump has pushed the envelope further than any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Now, I'm not old enough to remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration, but Republicans thought we were in a constitutional crisis then. He was expanding the power of the federal government dramatically, expanding the power of (the) executive branch of the government with administrative agencies and working with very brilliant lawyers to try to constrain Congress and constrain the courts. He wanted to pack the courts. People thought that was a constitutional crisis. We survived that, we'll survive this. We have the flexibility in our Constitution to resolve these issues. Now, this president, unlike two prior presidents, this president has never said that he would disregard the definitive ruling of the Supreme Court. Andrew Jackson did, and so did Abraham Lincoln and maybe Thomas Jefferson, there's a dispute about that. But we're not in a crisis, we're in a conflict. And so far, the framers of the Constitution get the best of it and gave us the mechanisms to be able to avoid turning the conflict into a crisis.
GR: You know, I want to squeeze in one last question. We've just got a couple of minutes left, but I wanted to say very briefly to that, I just got done teaching this summer course with high school students that are getting college credit. And I asked them that question, are we in a constitutional crisis? And the whole class said yes. The only no votes were myself and my graduate assistant teacher (laughter). So I don't know if there's a generational thing there about that, but I just, I think the guardrails are still holding up, but it is a source of concern.
AD: I think there is a generational dispute. People who are old enough to remember that we've been through this before. Segregation, Brown versus Board of Education, people thought of that as a constitutional crisis. Our Constitution is the longest enduring constitution in the history of humankind. And I think it will endure even longer and we’ll make sure that this conflict does not turn into a crisis, at least that's my great hope.
GR: So in about a minute left, I have to ask you this question, because you end on a very, with a very intriguing sort of post chapter where you write about the ancient rabbinic approach to prevention. And I wanted to hear what we can learn from that.
AD: Well, you know, the rabbis almost always ask the right questions and very frequently came up with the wrong answers because they had different values. But back during the rabbinic times and even in the Bible, we thought about prevention. The Bible talks about how you treat a recalcitrant child who may turn out to be a criminal. And the answer was terrible, stone him to death. No, no, don't stone him to death, teach him. So the Bible, the rabbis, the priests have always come up with brilliant questions, and we ought to take those questions very seriously. But with experience, we have learned that we have better answers. It's always a work in progress. And my book, “The Preventive State” is designed not to end conversation, but to start conversation and hopefully conversation through the generations. If there's one book for which I will be remembered, you know, over the next hundred years, I've written, you know, close to 60 of them, this is that book because it asks the most important questions.
GR: Well, I'm glad I had a chance to talk to you about it. That was Alan Dershowitz, and again, his new book is titled, “The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms while Preserving Essential Liberties”. It's an important book, a deep book, but it's also an interesting read. Professor Dershowitz, thanks again for making time to talk with me, I really enjoyed this.
AD: I enjoyed it, too. Thank you so much for having me on.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations and the public interest.
John Mannion on the Campbell Conversations
Jul 26, 2025
State Sen. John Mannion (D-Geddes) is planning to run for New York's 22nd Congressional District. (Ciara Feltham / Mannion for NY)
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I’m Grant Reeher. We're just over six months into John Mannion’s first term in Congress, so it's a good time to check in with him. A lot has happened in Washington since that time. He represents New York's 22nd congressional district, which contains all of Onondaga and Madison counties and portions of Oneida, Cortland and Cayuga counties, including the cities of Syracuse, Utica and Auburn. Congressman Mannion, welcome back to the program. How are you holding up?
John Mannion: I'm holding up, absolutely. You know, I signed up for this, I couldn't be prouder to represent the place that I love and the place that I've called home for a very long time. So it is, I would say, my classroom experience and my state legislative experience and having good people around me have all been essential to, you know, us getting off the ground. And, you know, my line is that being in the classroom for almost 30 years, I know how to work with juvenile behavior.
GR: (laughter)
JM: And participate in it apparently also.
GR: Yeah, I’ve got to ask you about that. But first, as someone who grew up in Washington, D.C. area, before the advent of universal air conditioning, I have to ask you, how are you adjusting to a D.C. summer?
JM: Well, listen, I loved winter because I would walk around with just my suit coat on and I would get a lot of attention. People would be like, oh, that's the guy from Syracuse, right there. So I've lost a little bit of that attention and now I'm just resigned to the fact that my blood's a little bit thicker than most of the folks that I serve with. And when I walk from one place to another in between buildings, I'm probably going to have some sweat on me by the end. So I remember to bring a handkerchief or some Kleenex and towel myself off, but it is, I will take an upstate New York level of heat and humidity any day of the week now, I can tell you that.
GR: (laughter) Well, we've had a bit here, too. So let me ask you, you just alluded to this when you first started speaking, you appear to have found your voice or I guess maybe your yell in recent weeks on the floor of the House of Representatives and also at an anti-Trump rally that was up here in the district. It does seem a departure from your style as a state senator. So I'm just curious, where is the change coming from?
JM: Well, we're in a different space in this country right now, you know, so, you know, as far as the audio being caught on C-SPAN, you know, I mean, that was not my intent at all. But what we're watching are a series of unprecedented acts and the following and checking off the boxes of Project 2025, which is all extremely concerning, I think, to the vast majority of people in the 22nd District. Now, Trump is going to have his true believers, and certainly many of those will believe that these are part of the targeted attacks against him. But when we talk about, you know, the release of January 6th insurrectionists, the blanket pardoning or the defiance of court orders, also the demonizing of the judges, many of whom were appointed and approved by a Republican president, Republican legislature. So all of these things are unprecedented. And I served in Albany in the majority, and I just didn't cede my power to the governor and allow for executive actions to rue the day. So I did a lot of back door and front facing negotiations because there were certain things that absolutely did not work for New York 22. Now, that's the state level, this is the federal level. People are terrified and they continue to be. And the feedback that I have received over and over again has been very positive in my pushback. Did you stand up for the Constitution and stand up for the institution of the House of Representatives, like, you know, when it comes to appropriated dollars? Initially, what the president did was throw out these executive orders that are beyond his powers to be able to do so, to stop appropriated dollars. Now, what I would give the legislature credit here, even though I disagreed and voted no, is they did put through a rescissions package where they did follow, you know, in a narrow way they can do that. That's what that's what should be done and that's what our democracy has done in limited instances. So I reference Albany because they didn't just stand there and go along I wasn't just a team player to be a team player. And I expect that of my Republican colleagues. I expect them to do the right thing, stand up for the institution and stand up for the co-equal branches of government.
GR: Have you had a chance to actually meet face to face with President Trump yet?
JM: I have not. I've been in the same room with him of a couple of times, but I have not met face to face with him.
GR: Okay, all right. This is still very early days, you know, as I said, we're just past six months, and you are in the minority party, but have you been able to push forward and get any traction on legislation so far? Any progress there?
JM: So, per our previous question, you know, I'm doing two things. I'm doing my, you know, standard operating procedure here of co-sponsorship of bills, submitting bills through committee. And then I'm also doing what I said I was doing, which is when things are unprecedented and unlawful, un-American, violate our norms, I'm calling those out. So we have, you know, I voted against the bill, the reconciliation bill for a number of reasons, increasing the debt, you know, passing tax cuts to the wealthiest, cutting SNAP and cutting Medicaid, which is going to have a massive impact and we can talk about that. But I've submitted multiple pieces of legislation or co-sponsored them. One of the most recent ones that I'll be submitting is a local journalism grant. We actually passed something similar in the state to make sure that our smaller local journalistic institutions can survive. It's just essential to make sure that there's reporting and truth on really, you know, issues that are that are local and beyond. I did it in the, I co-sponsored something that ended up in that bill was the reason I mentioned it, which was an enhanced tax credit for semiconductor chip manufacturers. I am not the lead sponsor on that, I was a co-sponsor on it. But it is going to help to make sure that we do onshore semiconductor chip manufacturing in this country and that we do it, you know, as we know here in Clay, New York. So, I’ve got another piece of legislation that is similar to John Katko legislation that didn't ever get over the line related to employment of our veterans, the name of it is Onward to Opportunity Act. It's along the lines of the Great Veterans Program at Syracuse University to enhance, you know, career development, post military service as our veterans, our heroes, enter civilian life, so I keep doing those things. As I mentioned, one piece of that legislation ended up in the larger bill. And that's a good thing for central New York. And that's what I'm committed to is to be a good representation of the district.
GR: You’re listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Congressman John Mannion. The freshman representative is in New York's 22nd congressional district. So you mentioned John Katko there just a second ago. So, is one of the approaches you're taking in the legislative efforts is to try to get Republican people on these bills as well as Democrats?
JM: Absolutely. It's going to be you know, existing in the minority conference here, that's absolutely going to be essential. And I just referenced that veterans bill, that's exactly what we're doing. We're going, moving, you know, building alliances with Republican colleagues, particularly those who served in the military, some of whom that we have connections to, either because they're members of the freshman class or they represent a similar district. So that's what you've got to do. And I know, living here my whole life is that's what the people of this district expect. I did not expect the level of unprecedented actions coming out of the executive office. So therefore, I've had to push back a little bit more. But I got in this to make sure that I was a good reflection of the district, like I said, but also to get us to a point where we are working together more frequently and we, and in a district like mine, I've got a history of doing so, and I believe a future of doing so with my Republican representatives that represent the vast majority of the municipalities. So, listen, I've got to build those alliances, and I do feel a duty to push back and call out the truth and speak the truth as we know that there's a lot out there that is untruthful and being perpetuated. And unfortunately, what I've seen here is we're actually building policy, not me, but others building policy based on some of those pieces of misinformation and disinformation.
GR: So I wanted to ask you a question about fundraising. Obviously, as a state senator, you had to do a lot of fundraising, but it's a whole different level here in Congress. Have the differences and the scale regarding that given you a bit of sticker shock or phone fatigue dialing for contributions so far?
JM: So it is certainly an unfortunate part of this, it's beyond unfortunate. Part of the dysfunction of this is that you have to raise money to get into office, stay in office. It's the one data point that, no offense, the media frequently focuses on at this point. And it's not the media's fault, it's the system's fault and we have to fix it. And I do believe that, you know, the Citizens United case has now put us in a better spot. I hope that when I do get back into the majority in the next term or future term that we can do something aggressive around campaign finance because it's absolutely essential. The dark money that comes in is, we just saw it in this presidential election, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars coming in. And then what happens after, the really the billionaire class comes in to a race like that aggressively is that we end up passing legislation or executive orders that benefit them at a time where, you know, people are really struggling in this country. I will say Albany versus DC, you know, some of my colleagues advised me not to do this just because of the calendar. You know, it's nice to be, to do your legislative work from January to June and then really be able to go around your district, meet people, hear their concerns, deliver on some promises. DC it's all year long, but I'm used to the travel and, you know, my wife and my team are fantastic in supporting me. There's not as much legislation that goes through, there's not as much as in Albany. And I do think in some ways that's preferred because you can focus on it. The other difference which may not fascinate people is the committee work, at least historically and hopefully in the future and to a degree still now, is really where a lot of positive things happen. It is true committee work and holding hearings and markups they call them down here to amend that legislation. So there is a thorough process of getting a bill to the floor. And that is one difference, lower volume, but more intensive in the actual work in the development of that legislation.
GR: That's interesting. That corresponds with what I have observed in the state legislature in Albany, that the committees are not as important as working units as they could be. So it's interesting to hear that, hear you corroborate that. Let me ask you this, too. This is a kind of a more personal question, but have you had any kind of positive chill-running-down-your-spine moments so far being in Congress? I mean, it's pretty heady stuff. Any time when it particularly hit you, like, wow, I'm really here?
JM: Yeah, I will reference one thing early on, which was, I had spoken to a lot of these folks on the phone, of course, and some I had met in person but between Election Day and swearing in day, I went into the Democratic Caucus meeting. It's a morning meeting and, you know, the newly elected, the Congress members elect her there. But 200 Democratic members of Congress are there. And you know who keeps coming out with a cup of coffee out the door into the main room? You know, here comes the Hakim Jefferies, here comes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, here comes Nancy Pelosi. And that was a moment where you're like, you know, I'm here, I'm here, and that was significant. And then, you know, there was some other moments that, again, were unexpected, the passing of President Carter and being able to attend his funeral and hearing particularly what some of his family members said about him, which was just a great experience. And then, you know, I'll finish off by saying we got to take a White House tour before we get sworn in and who's there but Flavor Flav.
GR: (laughter)
JM: So, you know, not on my bingo card.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Congressman John Mannion, he represents New York's 22nd district. So I wanted to ask you about this new development for the Democrats, the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City. It seems to have really set the Democratic Party in a frenzy and also created some division within it. What's your take on his campaign? Are there things for the Democratic Party to learn from it?
JM: So a few things here. As I think many of us would agree, New York City is a world away, but certainly in our state. And I worked in Albany with people who would, you know, defined themselves by certain titles like a Democratic Socialist. So I worked with people with that title. I think what we saw from candidate Mamdani is that he delivered messages that resonated with people and he did the work. And the message that resonated was an economic message. People are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. They don't see their wages increasing at the same level that costs are going up. So he delivered a message and, you know, if he becomes mayor, some of those promises are going to be a challenge to deliver. But for me, you know, listen, I understand New York 22, I got elected in New York 22, I know some of my predecessors who did, and I know not just, I know the core values and beliefs and priorities of the people here, I believe that I do. If you drop me in Asoria, Queens, I don't think I'm going to probably be the perfect fit. So, you know, this is what democracy does. And this was a Democratic primary, we'll see what happens in the general election. But I think there's great consensus that the message that delivered was effective and also authentic and genuine. And that's the reason why the support was there. If if wasn't authentic and genuine, we wouldn't be talking about it. So you know, again, are there shared values there? Absolutely. Do I want to make sure people have accessibility to health care and they're not in food deserts and there's transportation available so that they can get to their work and their doctor's appointments and their kids’ schools? Absolutely. And I'm fighting for the people who have barriers in place where they can't access those things.
GR: Yeah. I think your observation that it was very economically focused is right on point. You mentioned this earlier, I wanted to come back to it. It does seem likely, at least to me as a political scientist, that Democrats will be able to retake the House of Representatives in the midterms. Both past history and what I'm seeing and some of the current reactions to many of the Trump administration's moves suggests this to me. I wanted to get your sense of the probability of that outcome. You spoke about it as if it would happen. And what do you think, though, more importantly, what would it mean for the final two years of Trump's term?
JM: Well, those are great questions. First of all, you know, I think what we've seen, even on an issue that this presidency was above water on immigration is, you know, the lack of due process, the detainment camps, people actually having a connection to individuals who have been treated unfairly, mass gang of federal agents, all these things are not popular. And that's just in one area that people, you know, found compelling from the Trump candidacy and have asked, for many, is stronger immigration policy. That's just immigration, but when we talk about the economic policy, our standing in the world, the tariff dynamics and the lack of predictability the treatment of President Zelenskyy in the White House, you know, listen, I said there are true believers that will probably never break from the president, but independent voters, younger voters, they are not buying this. People do not, you know, can't get behind some of these actions and policies and the defiance of court orders. What does that mean if we take back the House? I am expecting to and that will certainly, you know, if we take back the house, we'll see what happens in the Senate. That is a heavier lift. But I think what's necessary is a check on the executive office. And we are right now expecting, I certainly was expecting more of a check from my Republican colleagues where it was a bridge too far. We haven't seen that. You know, you don't see hearings frequently, House hearings where individuals are being called to testify. You know, one thing I've neglected to mention was the creation of a meme coin and a crypto coin, you know, cryptocurrency that is benefiting, stable coin that is benefiting the president's family. You know, there's no hearings, there's no pushback, there's no acknowledgment even that this is corrupt or illegal. So we've got to provide that check. And, you know, time flies and we're already almost through July here. Before you know it, it will be November of 2026 and then January of 2027. And people are asking for that oversight and that you know, that transparency and House Democrats are here to provide it. And we were hoping and believing we could work with our colleagues on the other side to stand up for the institution of the House but we're not seeing that happening to the level that it needs to. So we're going to provide that check when the time comes.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is Congressman John Mannion. So, I had two questions related to what you just got into there in the last couple of minutes. The first one kind of quick, the second one, I think we’ll take a little more time on, but one possibility, it seems to me that if the Democrats take the majority in the House is, obviously things in Congress regarding legislative production are going to stalemate. You know, you'll have a likely divided Congress plus the Republican president, he's not going to sign anything that House Democrats are going to put forward, likely. And so one possibility is the president will just keep turning to executive orders and really just push out even more on those because that's the option that would be available. So any quick thoughts on that?
JM: Well, the first thing I will say is, it is unfortunate. And beyond that, that that's where we all are, that the majority party can't work with the minority party and I have seen that here, you know? You have Secretary Vought talking about ending the appropriations process, which is a very bipartisan action. We just saw some of that statements as we went through this rescissions legislation process. So I do agree that when we get to that point, it is going to be a challenge. This is where it is essential, in a bipartisan way, that not just because there might be a Democrat president in the future that could go rattle off a bunch of executive orders that could go unchecked, but this is how our democracy is functioning effectively, is that there are those checks. And that, you know, what we've seen by and large with these executive orders, not entirely, not unanimously, but attorney generals in the ACLU and labor unions have filed lawsuits and effectively stopped or paused many of these executive orders because it's been found to be beyond the bounds of the president. That's going to continue. Is the legislature involved in that? They are to a degree. I've signed on to multiple amicus briefs that have gone before the courts. And, you know, we have a rapid response team here in the Democratic conference that works on those things in partnership with some of those groups. So we can't leave it entirely up to the courts, but we also have to be respectful of the courts. When this administration wins a court case, I may disagree with it, but that is what makes us unique from many of the other countries of the world, is that we follow the rule of law, we stand up for the rule of law. Even if we disagree, we follow the process of an appeals process, if that is an appropriate pathway. But other ways, as President Obama said, when I listen to him at Hamilton College, you know, we've all agreed that these three branches of government are going to be a check on each other and we're going to respect all of those. So if those executive orders happen, if they are unlawful or unconstitutional, I expect the courts to do their job and I expect Congress to do our job in holding hearings and passing legislation to make sure that we keep the executive in check, regardless of party.
GR: I want to just push that out a little bit. I asked you previously on one of our earlier conversations whether you'd vote for articles of impeachment if the Democrats took the House and you said you would if those came up. If the Democrats retake the House, do you think that they'll be putting forward articles of impeachment?
JM: I'm going to take a couple steps back here. First of all, impeachment is not a not a popular process. Even in the second impeachment post, the insurrection, the second impeachment trial of President Trump found to be very unpopular with people in New York 22 and around the country. So this is serious business, the impeachment of president. And one of my colleagues did submit articles of impeachment, put them on the floor, they were voted to be tabled. And I voted yes on tabling and as you can imagine, I got some talking to about that from some of my constituents. What I have seen are actions that are clearly impeachable, acts like the creation of the stable coin and the meme coin and the president providing elevated levels of access when those are purchased or used as currency. That's unprecedented. That alone is troubling. So I'm going to take another step back, which is to remind that this president has been investigated in his previous term and indicted and impeached and gone to trial in the Senate unsuccessfully, twice, which means what is going to have to happen if there is a Democratic House, there's going to have to be investigations, there's going to have to be hearings, there's going to have to be a building of evidence. And only then will there be the potential to proceed. And I will do my job and listen to that testimony and listen to that debate and read the investigations and go from there. But at face value, I just mentioned one instance of the creation of this cryptocurrency by the Trump family that happened to be launched on Inauguration Day, of all things. It's that kind of actions that are beyond concerning. I believe they're unlawful and impeachable.
GR: Okay, just about 30 seconds left. I want to just to quickly give you a final chance. Looking forward to the next year and a half, can you just give me the topics of the areas you're going to be pushing on, what you're going to be trying to do?
JM: Sure. You know you don't want to always be responding. But listen, I was a public educator. I'm afraid that what could be coming next is another rescissions package to strip dollars away from what is still the Department of Education. I'm afraid that these title one and title nine grants that are essential to some of our most impoverished schools are coming. I'm going to push back against that and always fight for public education. And of course, we got a lot of other things to worry about as well. But thank you for having me on, Grant. I appreciate it. And I will always focus on the great equalizer: education.
GR: Well, I appreciate that. We'll have to leave it there, that was Congressman John Mannion. And again, Congressman Mannion, thanks for taking the time to talk with me, I know you're very busy.
JM: Thank you, Grant. Have a great day.
GR: You, too. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Mary Jumbelic on the Campbell Conversations
Jul 19, 2025
Mary Jumbelic(Marc Safran)
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. If you're a fan of true crime, you're in for a treat. My guest today is Dr. Mary Jumbelic. She's a forensic pathologist and the former chief medical examiner of Onondaga County. She's just published a new book, it's titled, “Speak Her Name: Stories from A Life from True Crime”. Dr. Jumbelic, welcome back to the program and congratulations on this new book.
Mary Jumbelic: Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
GR: Well, we're really glad you made the time. So let me just start, the structure of the book, it's a blend of, I guess what I would call sort of vignettes, sometimes extended vignettes of a personal memoir type. And then you have your, the theme of those is your experiences related to being a girl, a woman, a female doctor. And then you mix that in with different cases involving women victims that you've been involved in working on the cases for. So I was just wondering how you arrived at that structure, at that style, it's very interesting.
MJ: Well, my first book had a similar structure in that it blended personal and professional stories about my life and the life of my patients. And I guess I kept to that script, if you will, even though the lens of the second book is different than the first. The lens on the second book is related to being a woman and violence against women.
GR: Right, right. Now, you just did something very interesting there in your answer, you used the word patients. We need to make it clear that these patients are not alive. So in just one or two sentences, what is forensic pathology?
MJ: Well, forensic pathology is what medical examiners do. And so it's the study of death, what causes people to die, how they die, accidents, suicides, the investigation of sudden and suspicious death. And then relaying that information to doctors, the public, the law, whoever needs it, really.
GR: And I was surprised to learn in reading your book that there are only about 500 certified forensic pathologists.
MJ: Yes.
GR: That just seems really few to me thinking about all the people that are killed and die in various ways. Why is that the case, how come only 500?
MJ: Well, that's a really hard question to answer probably for, you know, brains larger than mine or analysis greater than I can give. But a pathologist in general is not a super popular specialty like primary care, surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics. People think it's not a social, you know, profession, but it really is. We are the doctors’ doctor, the pathologist. And then forensics is a special branch of that, so an even smaller group. And again, I think what we're dealing with is a sensitive issue, death and trauma and violence. And so not everyone wants to go into that. They want to be in the healing profession, so that's true as well. And death investigation in this country is not all medical examiners. It's coroners, and then they might hire a regular pathologist to do the autopsy and come to a determination. So forensic pathology is a special branch.
GR: Well, in your career, and this is obviously one of the themes of your book in different ways, but in your career you operated in a very male dominated environment, and that would be law enforcement and criminal justice that are related to being a medical examiner and the things that you worked with. Did you develop any, I don't know what to call them, tricks or hacks for dealing with that kind of environment?
MJ: Well, I think that I grew tougher, as anyone who might in a challenged situation where you're facing it again and again, you develop a thicker skin, you learn ways around the system. You learn to push ahead and not ask for permission beforehand and then say sorry afterwards. You learn who your supporters are and your mentors and you lean on them to gather that extra person who has your back. So all of those things.
GR: And one of the other things that I didn't realize when I was reading your book is that this explosion of all of these true crime, you know, the interest in true crime and true crime drama and a lot of the series that are dramatic series that are on TV, how many of those kind of got their start with the O.J. Simpson trial and how that was kind of the spark for all of that. I'm going back to the question I asked you just a little bit before but, do you know whether that has caused an uptick in the interest for people becoming forensic pathologists? You know that they see that and are like, hey, that's, I'd like to do that.
MJ: Well, it absolutely has had an uptick in interest in forensic sciences and so at the university level, even at the high school level and the university level, people going to get their criminal justice degrees, that sort of thing. Forensic pathology, not as much. You still have to become a doctor to get there and that's a bit of a barrier for some people. It's a long road to go to become a medical examiner. And so I do think it has glamorized my profession more, and I've enjoyed the popularity of it just from people appreciating what I do and what I did. So I'm grateful for that aspect.
GR: I remember you mentioned the barrier, I remember when I was in college myself and my classmates who were planning on going to med school, it was always, what was that class? Organic chemistry that kind of sorted them out. If they could make it through that, they could kind of go (laughter).
MJ: Right, right, everyone says that that's the breaking point for undergraduates is the organic chemistry. Which is ironic because I'm not really sure organic chemistry is necessary in most fields of medicine, but...
GR: That's the one. Well, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the forensic pathologist and writer Dr. Mary Jumbelic, and we're discussing her new book. It's titled, “Speak Her Name: Stories from a Life and True Crime”. So before we get to the Robert Neulander case, which is, you know, a big case that you worked on, and we'll talk about that a little bit later, which of the cases other than that one that you relate in your book, stays the most in your head and why?
MJ: Well, all of the women in my book, in some form or fashion were ghosts in my mind. And I started the book focusing on Leslie Neulander, but so many other women were in line saying, but what about me and what about me? And so therefore, I gave them space to grow and to exist on the page. I think one of the ones that stays with me is Carol Ryan, and I think for many reasons that local people will understand. But the length of time it's taken and no one has been charged or found responsible for one of the most heinous acts of violence that I have seen in my long career, and so she stays with me.
GR: And remind us, as I recall, her body was discovered in Jamesville, is that right?
MJ: Yes, she was the subject of a podcast called ‘Firecracker’ that was done maybe a year and a half ago and so it was discussed at length. But I met Carol while she was alive at the hospital. She was unconscious. she did not speak to me, but I was called in to give my opinion on what was the source of her injury and trauma and, you know, with the head of Trauma there. And so then I again examined her later when she died. So it stays in my mind very, very deeply for that reason.
GR: Well, you know, you mentioned this earlier, your book, I thought this was a nice little technique that, you know, it starts with the Neulander case and then you kind of leave it and then you come back to it at the end, and that got me going. And so your book leads up to this Neulander case. The Neulander case is arguably the highest profile murder case that we've seen in the Syracuse area, probably in all of central New York for several decades at least. Neulander was a very prominent and popular OBGYN physician in the area, and the couple very highly respected, well-liked. Just remind us, if you could, of the basic facts as they were understood before you first looked at the case. What were the basic facts as they were understood?
MJ: Well, Leslie had purportedly fallen in the shower and died. And this was on the morning of Rosh Hashanah, one of the holiest days in the Jewish year. And that was what was known for several months to the community. It was sudden death, sudden collapse, and over time, and after I got involved, I uncovered that it was a homicide. And it wasn't just my opinion, other experts were brought in, like, can we review this and see, you know, what happened here? And they concurred, yes, it's a homicide. And because of the gap in time and the lag, I think it took time to accumulate everything, all the evidence, so it could be handled in a proper fashion. So he didn't go to trial until maybe a little over two years after the actual death of his wife. And he was found guilty, but then there was a complication with a juror misconduct. And so he went to prison, but then he was granted a new trial, as is appropriate in that circumstance. But then COVID happened, and then so a decade goes by after her death when finally the second trial occurs and again, he's found guilty and is in prison.
GR: Well, I don't want to delve too much into gossip, but I think it's important here that my understanding is that his career and his marriage both had taken difficult turns before this event and that that was known and that that was one of the things that got a lot of people suspicious. Am I right about that?
MJ: I think the community and those close to Leslie were concerned. There certainly were people that were close to her that weren't concerned, but there were others that were concerned and, you know, there were financial difficulties. There were, she was going to move out and get an apartment and all of this came out much later, you know, in bits and pieces and was verified. But at the time I reviewed the case, I didn't know any of that, it was not even on my radar, frankly. It only was in retrospect that there's all this behind the scene, you know, murmuring of what was going on.
GR: Well, we'll dove deeper into this in a minute. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Dr. Mary Jumbelic. She's a forensic pathologist, the former chief medical examiner of Onondaga County and the author of a new book. It's titled, “Speak Her Name: Stories from My Life and True Crime”. So as you intimated before the break, you personally knew this couple. And then also you were retired as a medical examiner by the time this murder took place. So how did you come to get involved in it?
MJ: Well, in a quick synopsis, Grant, it was a rather lengthy process, but a friend of Leslie's was concerned that Leslie had been murdered by her husband and she wound up talking to me and asking me what I thought. And I said, well, you should go to the police, I'm not official, I'm not anything, I can't interpret what you're telling me, just go to the police and talk to them. And the long and short of it is she did and the end result was she called me back and said, they're bringing him in for questioning again and thank you for telling me to do that. And then he called that night, the house, and I knew he was leaving for Israel. And I got concerned that here was someone that was about to leave the country and I knew there was something going on in the background with an investigation or the police wouldn't be bringing him in for questioning. So I called, you know, Bill Fitzpatrick of the district attorney's office to talk with him.
GR: And you also mentioned, I think, in the book that Israel doesn't have extradition arrangements with the United States, that would have been a good place to go if you were worried about something like that. So, I mean, you must have had this, and you do write about this, this swirl of emotions in being involved in this, especially early on. I mean, the case sounds like it divided the synagogue that both of you went to. Can you describe your feelings when you first started considering the evidence, before we get into the evidence itself, just how are you feeling about all this?
MJ: I think it was complicated. I think that, you know, people ask me questions all the time. My uncle died and I think this, and my sister, this happened to her nephew, and, you know, people like to ask me and use my expertise to try to sort things out. And I like to try to answer questions and help if I can. But not usually on an official, you know, basis of any sort. And so when I was asked to look over the case, I thought, you know, maybe with my knowledge base and my expertise, I can sort out, like, whatever question exists about it, and I'll be able to just answer it easily and why are people worried about it? You know, I'll be able to just put everybody's mind at rest. That was my mindset as I went into it. And so I was a bit unprepared when I looked at the images on my computer of the scene and of her trauma and the autopsy to the level of violence that was there. And so that was probably the moment for me when I had to decide if I would go forward or not. That I would just say, no, I can't do this, or I would go forward. And I guess my nature is to see the trouble and see the challenge and then steal myself for it and move in a forward direction. So that's what I did. And I felt like my whole career had been speaking for my patients, speaking for women. And so I did it for my friend too.
GR: You mentioned the level of violence. And I have seen the district attorney's presentation of this case, he's got like a slideshow presentation. And that's one of the things that just the, in what you talk about in the book here in greater detail, but the, the apparent violence of the injury was quite arresting. I mean, it really suggests an extreme rage. And I guess my question to you is, you knew this guy a little bit. Did that fit the Robert Neulander that you knew?
MJ: I mean, I know that there are the people we meet on the surface and then there's whatever going on behind the surface of people. People are complicated and they're nuanced and they're not black and white and you know, I have seen enough people sitting in a chair being, you know, being accused of homicide and I'm in the witness stand and you look at the person, you know, they could not possibly have done this. You know, your mind tells you that. So I don't really hold to that. I think anyone is capable of, you know, extreme emotion in in a particular circumstance, you know? And I would say I was closer to Leslie than Bob. I didn't have any ill feelings toward him at all. You know, but he was more a shadow to me to Leslie's, you know, vivacity and energy. So I didn't know him the way other people in the community have come forward and described him.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Dr. Mary Jumbelic. So, thinking about what evidence that you were considering, what you were looking at, what were the questions and the inconsistencies that most leaped out to you?
MJ: To try to say it succinctly, the number of injuries, the location of injuries on the head, on all sides, on the neck on the arms, on the hands. So it was the patterning of the injury and also the head wounds and the devastating skull fractures and trauma there. Secondarily, the scene itself didn't make a lot of sense with the blood spatter and the location of the body and whether there was CPR and the shower being 60 feet away from the bedroom. So there were these secondary scene considerations that didn't fit the original story.
GR: And you witnessed the trial. In your view, was there one thing or a few things that more than anything else, did Neuander in both as a suspect and then as a defendant?
MJ: I felt like the playing of the 911 tape that the daughter called in was, I don't know if it was pivotal, but it was quite emotional and quite impactful. And it does seem to have not gone in the direction that I think the defense had hoped.
GR: Yeah. When I saw that presentation, that tape was played and it really, it kind of just puts a chill right down your spine, really. One of the things actually that I guess leads to this question is, it's puzzled me the way that the children stayed supportive of Dr. Neulander throughout the process. I remember a picture in the newspaper about them walking to the trial arm in arm, three of them. Do you know if they are still supportive of him? And I guess if they are, why do you think they have stuck by him in the face of what seems to me to be pretty damning evidence?
MJ: Well, you know, I can't really be inside their minds, but I would, I think they still support him. They certainly did after the second trial still, and that was only three years ago. But I think the gap of time from the death to the trial was quite long. And to my knowledge, they didn't have access to looking at the photos of their dead mother and the, you know, scene and all of that. So the information they had was probably filtered through the attorney and whatever their father was telling them. And so I think by the time the trial came up and they're actually hearing it in the courtroom and there's exhibits being put up and, you know, seen, I think there is a disconnect at that point. It's just a complete cognitive dissonance that happened. And I don't think there's any going back from that. You know, it's very, it’s sad.
GR: Yeah. Well, I mean, but social scientists would probably put this in the category of what they would call confirmation bias. You know, the way you take in information that conflicts with what you have kind of already sunk your mind into.
MJ: Right.
GR: This question here I'm about to ask you, it's very sensitive, but I just feel the need to ask because you say in your book that he is going to be eligible for release at a certain date. He seems like a pretty healthy guy. Do you worry, given your role, that if he is somehow released, maybe that because of old age, they'll release him, you or your family will be in danger? Will that be, you know, do you think about that?
MJ: No. I mean, I've had other cases where I've played some pivotal role or at least had maybe a lot of public acknowledgment of my role. And I'd be naive to say it's never a potential threat but I don't worry about that. I mean, I just did my job to speak for Leslie. I wasn't the jury, I wasn't the judge, I wasn't the prosecutor. I just spoke for what happened to Leslie and I just hold on to that.
GR: Now that makes sense, you know, that makes sense. Well, we've got about 3 minutes left or so, and I want to give you that time to kind of change the tone a bit. This has not been the most uplifting conversation that we've had. And so the final question I think would allow you to do that if you wanted to, is that, is there an overarching message here in this book, particularly for women? Is there an overarching message here that you want to convey?
MJ: Well, I think that my book is more than just a detailing of sort of heinous crimes that have occurred against women. I do want the reader to witness, to see what happens, but to take from that some lessons and learn and educate about the situations and to remember the women that have gone before. One of the ending stories in my book is one of the most hopeful ones, which is someone who actually changed her life based on Leslie's situation.
GR: Say a little bit about that.
MJ: And I think, you know, that is part of the goal here is to, let's not shy away from looking at the reality of what happens to women and let's do something about it.
GR: Yeah, I think, you know, as I was reading through the different stories and, you know, you tell a couple stories about yourself.
MJ: Yeah.
GR: Particularly one when you were a little kid that, you know, like that was like a very, very close call. I don't know if you want to relate that here, but, you know, they kind of all add up to look, all right, you know, pay attention, keep your eyes open.
MJ: Well, it's like, we are vulnerable as women, just on a sheer strength, you know, physical strength, access, okay? But we are smart and we can learn and we can be aware and we can help other women. And part of my goal in my career was to find justice for women. Sometimes I was successful, as in Leslie's case, other times not. But that doesn't deter us, we go forward.
GR: Well, that's a good place to leave it. That was Mary Jumbelic, and again, her new book is titled, “Speak Her Name: Stories from My Life and True Crime”. And I can attest from reading it that it's a real page turner, it's intense. But I say nonetheless, I think it's a great summer read. So, Dr. Jumbelic, Mary, again, thanks for making the time to talk with me, I really appreciate it.
MJ: Thank you. I'm honored, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi on the Campbell Conversations
Jul 12, 2025
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The Trump administration has declared war on DEI programs, and it has had reverberating effects throughout higher education, government and industry. My guest today has written a new provocative book on the topic of diversity efforts, and it's titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". Oneya Fennell Okuwobi is a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Okuwobi, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi: Thank you. And thanks so much for having me.
GR: Well, we really appreciate that you made the time. So let me just start with a very basic question. I presume, unless you work at the speed of light, that you did the research and writing for this book before the Trump administration's current war on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, especially on higher education. So I guess what I want to know first, is how and why did you get the idea to write this book when you did?
OFO: Oh, that's a fantastic question. Yes, I've been working on this book for many years, as authors do. And honestly, this book came out of some of my experiences. I talk in the book about how even though I'm studying diversity in churches, in universities and in corporations, I have experiences in all of those realms. And so this book really began when I was talking to pastors of color, working at churches who were newly diverse. And those churches were attempting to bring in staffs that more accurately reflected the populations that they were hoping to attract as congregants. But these pastors were having curious issues in terms of feeling like they were being brought in to display a black or brown face, but not really being listened to. Some were experiencing health issues or issues with their family because of the hostile environments that they were encountering. And hearing their stories, I started to discover there's something really wrong with, not the idea that these churches want to be racially diverse, but the ways that they were going about it, especially in reference to their employees. And it made me wonder, is the same thing pervasive? Is it happening in other venues? Which is why I added the venues of corporations and universities to get a more holistic picture.
GR: Okay, very interesting. And specifically, how did you go about researching it? You just said, you know, where you were looking. Was this was this based on talking to a particular sets of people? How did you go about getting your information?
OFO: Yeah, so this was an interview study, I talked to 60 employees across 53 different workplaces. Again, examining basically the equivalent of entry level managers within the church as universities and corporations. So in the university setting, that would be the assistant professor level and churches that would be anybody who wasn't, had clergy. So getting an equivalent understanding of what it is like to be an entry level management employee of color in these venues.
GR: And so let's get right to the core of at least the first part of your book, which is diagnosing the problem. I mean, what are the main things that you think that the diversity efforts as you looked at them, have been getting wrong? What are they not doing right?
OFO: Yes, so the issue has been, most diversity efforts have focused on benefiting the workplaces. And in order for those benefits to accrue to the workplaces, employees of color have been paying a cost in order for workplaces to get the benefits of being able to say that they are diverse. And there are three main costs that I outline in that first section of the book. The first is heavy work burdens. So anybody listening has probably had that experience of seeing a diversity photo where you basically got one of everyone in the photo. But then imagine you are working at a hospital and you are the one black doctor at that hospital. That means every time there is a photo, a video, something else, you are being dragged in to be able to represent diversity. And that was one of the real stories of somebody that I talked to. So those heavy work burdens can be being brought into photos, being brought to meetings, being placed on committees, any additional work that is required for the workplace to be able to benefit from saying that it's diverse. So that's the first. The second cost of diversity that I talked about comes in two flavors. The idea is threatened legitimacy, and there's threatened organizational legitimacy, which basically means you're questioning the rightness of your employer's actions. We often talk about diversity as window dressing, but somebody has to dress those windows and the people dressing those windows can see the difference between what's being portrayed on the outside and what's happening on the inside and that creates feelings of guilt and conflict in them. The second flavor of this threatened legitimacy is threatened personal legitimacy, where employees of color who are being brought into workplaces proclaiming themselves as diverse, are being questioned about their own qualifications. Being called with that barbed insult, ‘diversity hire’. Because the real reasons why diversity is important are not being talked about. And then finally, there's something I call subjugated identity, where employers of color are being forced to put their identity into such a way that their workplace can market it as part of their diversity package. Think of this as being identifiably non-white enough so that the workplace can benefit from seeming diverse, but not so non-white that you make your white colleagues uncomfortable. And the employees I talked to dealt with these costs day in and day out for years and years.
GR: Well, I've got a couple of questions for you that come right out of that I have to say, just on what you've said. You know, I work in an academic environment like you do and one of the things I've noticed over the years, and my university at least up until a few months ago, I don't know what language it's using now, but we have used the language of diversity hires and diversity hiring initiatives. But when I see colleagues come in who are, particularly African-American, most specifically, but also just non-white more generally, they get a very heavy student advising load from the students. You know, and so, because our student body is much more diverse than our faculty. And so I can see the dynamic that you're talking about, that's very interesting. You're listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the sociology professor Oneya Fennell Okuwobi and we're discussing her new book, it's titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". So I want to stick with, maybe I'll stick with higher education, but I'm curious if this is something you encountered in the other areas that you looked at as well. And I'm going to quote a former colleague here, not a white male, by the way, but this person used to refer to DEI as, and this is their words, the ‘DEI industrial complex’. And it does seem at least that in higher education, when we look at the level above the faculty in particular, we look at administration, it does seem like it did spawn almost like a new category of administration and infrastructure in the administration. I don't know if that's an element that you look at or how this is going to affect things in any way.
OFO: It's not a pervasive element that I look at. But one of the things that I did find is that the faculty members I talked to, in fact, the employees more generally that I talked to who had a diversity office or diversity officer above them, saw often that those offices didn't necessarily focus on what the employees needed, that that open line of communication wasn't there. And so even though these offices and these officers existed and were important, their impact wasn't necessarily felt by the employees and they felt like more open lines of communication could be important. At the same time, the employees recognize the constraints that those officers and offices were working under, that they were not necessarily empowered to make the changes that would have to be made in order for the employees to be having an equitable work experience.
GR: I see. So the bottom line then, it sounds like what you're saying is the people who end up paying, to use the title of your book, “Who Pays for Diversity?”, is the employees, the diverse employees.
OFO: That's exactly right.
GR: Okay. So one of the issues that also has struck me, at least from my experience in higher education and I wanted to get your thoughts about this, is that, and again, it depends on sort of what element of diversity the initiative or the new hire is supposed to speak to, but especially ones that I think have come from outside the United States more than others fit this, is that those folks can often be from quite elite backgrounds, if we're just looking at economics. You know, that they're not, that we associate these efforts I think oftentimes with, you know, speaking to historical disadvantage and current disadvantage and current discrimination. Is that any kind of common pattern that you saw in what you were looking at? That there could be, kind of if you looked at it through one lens, there's diversity in one way, but then if you look at it through a more pure economic lens, it becomes a lot murkier. I don’t know if that question is making sense.
OFO: It is, and let me know if I'm answering it. But even as I look at race and racism, which is the focus of this book, even folks from elite backgrounds can experience racial discrimination and can experience the shadow and the costs that get put on them because of diversity. So even having an elite economic background does not exempt you from that. And so it's important to understand that these costs continue and have been pervasive because of the ways diversity has been structured. It's also true that the majority of folks that I talk to in my book were born in the U.S., even though I do talk to some employees that were 1.5 generation. And we see that there's a lot of advantage and recognition of racism that happens by the second generation, even if somebody is from an international background.
GR: This may be more of a feature, I guess, perhaps in academia. Well, tell me more about the way that that works, though. I'm curious to hear more about, you know, someone who is elite in some ways, but then is being treated as less than in other ways. Is there is there a particular way that that dynamic feels or works?
OFO: Yes. And I don't want to go too far into this because it's not necessarily the main idea here. But basically, when somebody, what I argue in the book basically is that the ways that diversity is framed is creating a level of disadvantage. So let's say that you are from another country, but you were brought in to a workplace that focuses on diversity. You may still encounter these heavy work burdens of having more students to advise than your counterparts, of being brought into specific photos or specific dinners or specific meetings in order to paint that picture. You may still encounter people who say that you don't belong here, despite your qualifications, you may still feel like you cannot be your entire self at work. So those things can still happen to you regardless of socio-economic status in which you grew up.
GR: Yeah, and now that I think about it as I'm thinking about our conversation in the moment, I think we're sort of headed toward a heated agreement here because your whole point is that these hires are brought in to help somebody else.
OFO: Yes.
GR: And to help the institution. And so therefore, they can experience these differences even. Okay, all right, I'm with you now.
OFO: When you talk about paying for diversity, the costs are pretty steep. When I looked at the experiences, again of these employees I spoke to, fully nine out of ten of the pastors and the professors I talked to were experiencing emotional and physical signs of stress. And that can be anywhere from having symptoms that mimic strokes to having anxiety attacks, insomnia, headaches. And they attributed these things to what I call the costs of diversity. For corporate employees it was a little bit better, more like three out of four. But still, that's a steep cost for these employees to pay in order to make their workplaces appear diverse.
GR: Yeah, it sure is. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Oneya Fennell Okuwobi. She's a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati and the author of a new book titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It" and we've been discussing the book. So as you said before, at the beginning of our conversation, you looked at universities, churches, corporations. First of all, does one of those sectors do better than the other, and is one worse? Or are there patterns, shared patterns of the ones that do better than others?
OFO: Yes, absolutely. So when I looked at the employees that were reporting the fewest adverse effects, surprisingly in some ways it was the corporate employees. But it's not necessarily for a great reason. The reason being is that corporate employees don't often see their work as a calling in the same way maybe a professor or a pastor might. And so they didn't necessarily expect to be respected as people. And so they maybe had some defenses up against what they were experiencing. For pastors, this idea of calling really loomed large. In addition to the fact that when you are working in a ministry profession, your entire family is involved. So not only do you work at a church, but probably your family attends the church, probably your social networks are connected. And so if you are being commodified for your presence, that commodification extends throughout all the aspects of your life rather than 9 to 5. For professors, I think the reason why the costs of diversity were higher is similar because assistant professors are often across the country away from their family, and their social networks are having to build new social networks. And that can be difficult when you are being commodified for the purpose of displaying diversity.
GR: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So I don't know if this is pushing you too far, but you're talking about commodification and the institution kind of thinking of these folks almost as a selling point or a product. Am I going too far to say it kind of smacks in some strange way of slavery in a way? I mean, one can see a line of connection, at least in an abstract level here.
OFO: I don't think it's going too far. Of course, we don't want to minimize in any way the horrors of slavery, but the idea that there is a profit, a capital that exists in certain bodies that can be used by others, and in this case, predominantly white people and white institutions is a direct line from thinking about chattel slavery till today. I'd also love to extend that in a way to say that, you know, even though this is a special case of commodification, in some ways all workers are subject to commodification. And so I want this to be a spotlight on a particular sort of costs that workers pay for benefits to their workplaces that is not fairly compensated. But I hope it as a starting point to look at other ways in which that happens to all workers. So I would both narrow it and make it more historical and wide net and bring that idea into the future.
GR: That's an important point. So, okay, so how do we make this better? What recommendations do you have for institutions that are saying, look, we want to have some kind of DEI effort, maybe we'll call it something different now, but, you know, we'll get to that in a minute. But how can it be done better?
OFO: Yes. So what I talk about in the last chapter of my book is making these things more employee focused. Honestly, a lot of the diversity efforts have said if we focus on diversity, if we play the numbers game and get enough representation, eventually we'll get to racial equity. And I argue that the only real way to get to racial equity is to focus on racial equity. So instead of saying, let's get up the numbers of, you know, black professors at the university, let’s instead listen to the black professors at the university and see what is it that they need to have an equitable experience to their white counterparts. Part of that is support with students, which could in part be solved by numbers, but it could also be solved by perhaps giving additional credit for service work when it comes to tenure files, which is something perfectly in universities’ control. It might come down to looking at rates of receiving grants and understanding the racial disparities in receiving grants and making sure that faculty of color have what they need to be able to execute their work. It might look like if you're going to have to drag folks into pictures or videos, A, don't, but to the extent that you do, make sure that they get other time in order to continue to pursue their work so their time for research is not eaten up. So looking at those very real disparities and then doing things to correct them.
GR: Well, what you just said makes sense, but it leads directly into the next couple of questions. That I wanted to ask you. And the first one is, okay, so how do you do what you just said without incurring backlash along the lines of, well, this is just more affirmative action extended throughout the entire evaluation process. I mean, we've got a current presidential administration that's declared pretty much open warfare on this whole notion. It sounds almost like you're saying we need to really almost double down on it in some ways. How do you deal with that?
OFO: I am saying we need to double down on that in some ways. I also recognize that it's not legally possible in all places, but it is legally possible in some places. And I believe a key to limiting the level of backlash is to change the sort of messaging we've done around diversity. With diversity, the messaging has been, there's a benefit to all people by having people from diverse backgrounds, different viewpoints come together and talk about things. And if that's the real benefit, then it's no wonder that there's a backlash against that now, because you might decide, I don't want that benefit, I actually don't want any folks who disagree with my viewpoint around, I don't need that. But the real reason why these programs were put in place in the first place was to correct past and continuing discrimination and disparities. And so getting back to the messaging of let's educate all of the employees about the past and continuing disparities and our specific workplaces role in those disparities and how the things that we're doing corrects for those things. And by the way, I do believe that as we are assessing what employees of color need, we should be assessing what all employees need because there are lots of good ways to put in place corrections that don't just help employers of color, that help everyone, again, have a more equitable experience at work.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is a sociology professor, Oneya Fennell Okuwobi. So what do you, I'm going to put you on the spot here if you don't mind, but, so what do you make of the Trump administration's efforts to battle DEI and all of these really high profile conflicts that we've seen, particularly in higher education, but we've also seen very large corporations make significant changes in what they're doing in response to perceptions of concerns about the Trump administration, I mean, there's a lot going on here in this field, what do you make of it?
OFO: Well, quite frankly, nothing positive do I make of it. It is an effort, not just at eliminating DEI, but at rolling back civil rights altogether. But I do want to recognize the ways that this effort has been enabled by the ways that we have not continued to speak about continuing racism that exists in our society. The idea that, for example, hiring discrimination has not gotten any better since 1989. If the majority of people knew that, perhaps they wouldn't care. But we at least need to give them a chance to know what is going on and not cover it up. And so that people have a chance to look at these policies, look at this rhetoric and reject it wholesale.
GR: Well, we've got about two or three minutes left and I wanted to ask you a question that I'm sure I'll have a follow up or two on, but I want to make sure that we get a chance to talk about it. And it's more personal, I hope I can ask this, but you know, you are a faculty member of color and you've got this book out, and there it is in the flesh, in paper that somebody could hold up if they wanted to say, oh, here's another, you know. How, I mean, you've sort of put yourself out there right now and how are you experiencing that? Do you have any concerns, do you have any worries that, you know, the University of Cincinnati is going to be, oh, no, we've got this person that's got this book out right when it's under attack, you know, that kind of thing?
OFO: Yeah. You know, it is true. I have put myself out there. I will say my university has been nothing but supportive of me and my scholarship and I hope that will continue. But I think it is a message to all of us in academia, all folks who are involved in activism, if we don't stand up for what is right now, who will? And so that might involve and entail some personal risk. But if I take personal risk to make sure that employees of color can hear the message that you're not alone and we see the cost that you are paying and you are not responsible to pay them any longer, I have to, now that I know what I know take that risk because that message needs to get out.
GR: And lastly, and just about a minute left so I have to really ask you to give a very concise answer here, but there's been a lot of difficult conversations between faculty and students in the last few years. I imagine you've had some, too. What do you say to your students who are concerned about these kinds of things and looking at, I mean, this is really all they've known politically, I mean, they're that young, this is all they've known.
OFO: I have a lot of hope for our students. I have conversations in the classroom every year, honestly, that make me hopeful for what we will see. And I think that there are enough sources of information and understanding out there that students are gravitating towards that will allow them to make, hopefully, more informed decisions in the future that will lead us away from the path that we're on now.
GR: Okay, well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Oneya Fennell Okuwobi and again, her new book is titled, “Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". If you become frustrated or exhausted by the current debates over DEI and are looking for a new framework and a new way to see this, this would be an interesting read for you. And if you are looking for this book, on Amazon, I want to just say that professor Okuwobi’s last name is spelled o k u w o b i. Professor Okuwobi, again, thanks for making the time to talk with me. I really learned a lot from this conversation.
OFO: Glad to do it.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
David Lay Williams on the Campbell Conversations
Jul 11, 2025
David Lay Williams(Mark Lavonier)
David Lay Williams, professor of political science at DePaul University, talks about his book, "The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx."
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Economic inequality has been a perennial issue in political campaigns and we are said to be living right now in another Gilded Age of extreme inequality. My guest today is David Lay Williams. He's a professor of political science at DePaul University and the author of a new book titled, “The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shapes Political Thought from Plato to Marx.” Professor Williams, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.
David Lay Williams: Thanks so much for inviting me. Grant, I'm looking forward to our conversation.
GR: Well, me too. So let me just start with something really basic. It's right there in the title “The Greatest of All Plagues.” It's kind of a provocative phrase there. Where does that come from? What's its significance?
DLW: So it's actually a phrase from the first figure I treat in my book, Plato, who would be familiar, I'm sure, to many. Plato was probably, you know, the first systematic thinker on politics in Western political tradition. But he's also the first one to seriously engage the question of inequality. And he introduces this phrase in his last dialogue, called The Laws. And he has a character speaking, a character he calls the Athenian stranger who says that whenever you have a wealth divided, extremely to the rich on one hand and the poor on the other, and not very much in the middle, it leads to serious problems, including strife, civil strife and even civil war, which he calls the greatest of all plagues. So technically, he says it's still as civil strife and civil war that's the greatest of all plagues. But what brings that about is economic inequality.
GR: And that sort of reminds me a little bit of what I remember from Aristotle, too, about the, you know, this idea of sort of a basic balance, and it can't get too far out of balance. Was there a way that the ancient thinkers as a whole tended to think about inequality? I mean, obviously, the societies they lived in were very heavily layered and different ways. But is there sort of an ancient way of thinking about this or were they all over the place?
DLW: A bit all over the place. Right. They're certainly very serious critics of inequality in the ancient world. Plato being one. Aristotle's certainly talks about inequality as being very problematic for managing a polis. But there are others who seem more comfortable with it that there's a figure known as old oligarch to ancient scholars who unsurprisingly likes being an oligarch and talks about how all political power needs to be concentrated in the hands of the rich few. So but but I will say that it's not unusual to find opposition to inequality, not just in ancient Greece, but you can certainly find it in Rome, and you can certainly find it, as I discuss in chapter two of my book in Rome and Palestine, or, you know, what some people now call Israel. Right. So there was I, we can sort of say there was widespread opposition to our concern about inequality in the ancient world.
GR: Hmm. And one of your central arguments is that the problem of inequality, the issue of inequality, drives much of the thought of political philosophy over the centuries. It's one of the main through lines. And I just wonder if you could elaborate a little bit on that idea, that notion.
DLW: Through lines, I'm sorry, in the ancient world or through lines?
GR: Throughout.
DLW: Yes. Yes, sure. Yeah.
GR: Throughout Western political thought.
DLW: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So there's several threads that I kind of pull through, I used to connect, like many of the thinkers in the book, right. One of those through lines is the role of what the Greeks call pleonexia. And that's, it's an ancient Greek word, which means greed, but kind of greed on steroids, as it were. It's a greed incapable of being satiated. Plato called…
GR: Gee, cause we never see that now.
DLW: No! So Plato, in his dialogue, The Gorgias, compares pleonectic souls with a leaky jug. He says, you know, you can they can spend all day pouring more water into a leaky jug, and will never be satisfied with the amount of water that you give it. In fact, the more water you give it, the more it wants. And he says many souls are like this. The souls that he characterized characterizes as as disease or pathological. And there are typically three things that pleonectic souls want, and this includes power, adulation, and especially money. And that's, of course, the connection to inequality. And it's why societies tend unless, you know, checked by policy, societies tend to revert to inequality because they're just going to be people out there who will never be satisfied with the amount of money that they have and will do practically anything to get it. So that starts in the ancient world. But interestingly, that really weaves its way through the tradition. Right. Certainly, we find lots of condemnations of greed. And specifically, you know, they the Greek New Testament uses the word pleonexia to condemn greed. But it's also found in the Old Testament. The book of Ecclesiastes is full of condemnations of pleonexia. Right. But this goes all the way through. It's in Thomas Hobbes. It's in John Stuart Mill. And even in Karl Marx. Yeah. So that's one thread that works its way through. Another thread, and maybe I'll stop it at two, for now, to leave time for questions, right. But another thread is kind of the damage that concentrated wealth inflicts upon the faculty, our human capacity for empathy. Right. And this really starts in the Bible. This is in the New Testament account, in the book of, in the Gospel of Luke and the story of Lazarus. Not the one risen from the dead. There's actually two Lazaruses in the Bible. It's the Lazarus, the beggar who asks a rich man for money, just asking for crumbs, actually, from his table. The rich man refuses. And then Jesus intervenes at that point to say, well, let me tell you how this ends up. Lazarus goes to heaven. The rich guy goes to hell because he had no capacity for empathy, for feeling for the poor and much less doing anything about it. And this inability to feel for the plight of the poor on the part of the rich is, again, a theme that we see throughout Western civilization, most notably, and maybe surprisingly for some, in the figure of Adam Smith, often cited as a godfather of capitalism. Adam Smith on page two of “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” his second most famous book, after “Wealth of Nations,” provides an evocative account of a begging man who was ignored, that nobody feels any sympathy for. So those are two examples of themes that connected to inequality that really worked their way from the ancient world to the modern.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the political science professor David Lay Williams, and we're discussing his new book, “The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato to Marx.” So, you know, you've got a you've got a big handful of but it's still just a handful of philosophers here that you treat in your book. You obviously have to make some difficult choices to narrow it down. I'm just curious how did you pick the people that you did, you don’t have to go through each one. I'm going to ask you a couple of specific questions about individuals, but just what were your methods like or how did you go about deciding this person versus another person?
DLW: Yeah. Well, you know, I should begin with some honesty, right? I mean, I certainly included some people because I just really love reading and thinking about them, right.
GR: That's OK.
DLW: I've written a couple of books on Rousseau. You know, I certainly wanted to make room for him. And I do really love reading Plato. But beyond that, right, the more, you know, maybe justifiable explanation is that I really wanted to draw on very well known canonical figures to kind of make a point to say, look, if if people care about the Western canon and we hear this from from a lot of people on the political right these days, for that matter. Right. You know, why aren't we reading more of the Western canon? You know, why are we reading all the DEI stuff? Right. Well, you know, I want to take these people seriously because I you know, although maybe not a person of the right, I share their passion for these texts. Right. And I want to say to them, well, you know, if we take these texts seriously, you know, they say some pretty interesting things about inequality. Right. And if we're going to, you know, and certainly we're all engaged in the question of inequality today. Right. It's coming up this week with the budget. And, you know, if we're going to look to figures like Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and, you know, Plato and the Bible. Right. Among other sources. Right. I think, you know, these canonical texts have a lot to say about this issue and can be the source of some, you know, stimulating and perhaps important discussions.
GR: Mm hmm. And it was you've already mentioned this a bit earlier in our conversation, but I found it very intriguing, maybe a little surprising. I don't know. But when I first opened the book and I saw that the New Testament was one of your chapters right there, along with Plato and Marx and Rousseau.
DLW: Yeah.
GR: And it makes sense, you know, when you think about the Gospels and you've talked a little bit about the view of inequality that the New Testament offers, maybe this is a time to work in your third through line that you didn't that you left out before. But, you know, there's this theme of greed. There's this interesting theme of empathy being damaged or destroyed. Is there an overarching lesson about inequality that you think the New Testament is teaching us?
DLW: Sure. Right. And the New Testament is really unique, obviously, in this book. Right. You know, Jesus is not typically taught as a political thinker in political science departments at universities, whether that's Syracuse or DePaul or Harvard or wherever. Right. I and I didn't even intend to write one on the New Testament. That wasn't my intention. My problem was that I had a big gap between Plato and Thomas Hobbes and I and I started reading some Christian thinkers a little bit later than the Bible, of course. And the more I read them, the more I thought, well, I should really go back and look at the Bible. And I realized that that's what I had to write about, because the Bible has so much to say about this. And, you know, interesting things, you know, that come from the Bible. Right. I'll focus on two important laws. These are in the Hebrew Bible. Actually, they're in the books of Moses, the you know, the Pentateuch. Right. And it's that they're very important laws, according to Moses. Right. And they're laws that Jesus draws our attention to again, in the Gospels. And these two laws are the laws of sabbatical and jubilee and the law of sabbatical and again, an ancient Hebrew law that says all debts should be forgiven once every seven years. Right. Among other things. Right. A jubilee is the seventh of every sabbatical years. Right. So once every fortnight or 50 years. Right. It's kind of gotten rounded up to 50. And in a jubilee year, you do you forgive all the debts and these other things as well. But you also have to return all property that's that's changed hands over the last five decades back to the original equitable distribution. Right. And when Jesus is setting up his ministry, he's preaching, he announces very specifically, it is the year, it is the year of the Lord, which is a Jubilee year. Right. And when you think about the context in which Jesus is, you know, ministering to the poor. Right. This is a very powerful and appealing message. Right. You know, “Hey, you know, we would like our land back. We would like our debts forgiven.” And there was a significant debt crisis in Roman Palestine at that time. And this message was extremely appealing.
GR: Hmm. Also, cueing a student loan forgiveness.
DLW: Yes. And people have made that connection.
GR: You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with David Lay Williams. He's a political science professor at DePaul University and the author of a new book titled “The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato to Marx.” And we've been discussing his book. So I, I've read in my past all the writers that you treat, including the Gospels, spent, you know, two months slogging through Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital.” I've done my duty there, too. But I find Rousseau the most intriguing of the political philosophers that you cover. So I'm going to take a personal indulgence here. Tell us a little bit about his views on inequality.
DLW: Sure. Rousseau is obviously a really important thinker when it comes to inequality. I famously he wrote a book called the “Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.” And he's certainly the first modern thinker to think about inequality in a very systematic way, gives an account of where it comes from and why it's problematic in that discourse. And then and in other writings beyond his discourse, inequality talks about what he thinks could be done about it, has some a variety of interesting proposals. But I think what's really distinctive among the many things that Rousseau says about inequality is it is in the context of his enlightenment culture, of emerging meritocracy. I think this is where Rousseau really speaks to us. Right? Again, meritocracy is a word in the contemporary discourse about politics right there. Politicians are saying you know, universities need to be more meritocratic. Corporations should hire on a meritocratic basis. Right. But Rizzo's kind of he's and he's Rousseau was well aware of this emerging culture of meritocracy, because that's what's happening in the Enlightenment. And there are lots of good things, of course, about encouraging, you know, people to cultivate and develop their talent and use that for the public good. But Rousseau also thought there were problems with that. Right. So and it's maybe useful to think about, you know, kind of a capitalist economy versus a feudal economy. Right. And nobody wants to go back to feudalism. But Rousseau says, imagine, Rousseau invites us to think, you know, about, you know, the moral psychology of people under feudalism. Right? If you're poor in a futile economy, you're you don't have to, like, spend time thinking about why you're poor. You know why you're poor. It's because your parents were poor. And it's no reflection on you, you know, or your talents or your efforts or any of that. And the same thing if you're rich, right? If you're rich, it's not like you deserved it. You know that. You just you know that you're rich because you inherited your money. Right. And you're you're estate. Right. You know, in the case of the nobles. Right. But you move to a market economy, and there's a very significant psychological shift. Right. Because now if you're poor, it's because you're not smart like the rich people, or you didn't try hard. Right. Like the rich people. Right. In, you know, more colloquial terms, it's because you're lazy and stupid. Right. And if you're rich, by contrast, it means, boy, are you smart. Boy, are you a hard worker, and you deserve all the money you can get. Right. And the richer you are, that just means that you're all the better a person. Right. And Rousseau thinks, honestly, that this is this is dangerous, maybe even perverse, because he wants people to focus on their moral character. Right. Not focusing about how great they are. Right. Or focusing, by contrast, on how terrible they are for the reason that they're poor, which has nothing to do with their character as far as Rousseau is concerned. In fact, probably is a point in their favor. So Rousseau points out just how pathological he thinks this is, and he really wants us to kind of get our get our values back in order in an unequal world, which he thinks could be best achieved by reducing that inequality. Right. Because, you know, that's how we can reduce, you know, kind of the demoralizing effect on the poor and this kind of entitled effect among the rich.
GR: Now, very very prescient psychologically. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher. And my guest is the political science professor David Lay Williams. So, thinking about Rousseau, but I want to ask a more general point. But thinking about Rousseau, there's obviously a lot of contradictions and hypocrisies between a lot of Rousseau’s writings and Rousseau’s actual life. I've read a couple of biographies of him, and I think that makes him more interesting, actually. But in writing this book, did you come to any general conclusions about the relationship between the life experiences of these thinkers and then what they have to say? Any sense of influence?
DLW: Yeah. You know, I it's interesting to reflect on that. I certainly one thing I do in the book is I try to put each thinker in a historical context. Right. To explain why they might have been interested in inequality. Right. But I think your question is even more specific than that. What about the specific life experiences and maybe the background of each thinker? Right. And you mentioned even the possibility of hypocrisies. Right. And on this account, we might look to the first figure in the book, again, Plato, who has all kinds of problems with rich people and says, you know, it's impossible to be both rich and virtuous at the same time. Plato, it turns out, was rich (overlapping laughter). He was very rich. And, you know, it's interesting to reflect on that. Right. Was Plato saying I'm a bad person? Was Plato saying I'm the exception? Right. He doesn't tell us. Right. I mean, I think what we you know, you people are free to, you know, draw from these facts however they want. I think maybe kind of the most you know, I think what I'm comfortable in drawing on from this is that Plato did spend a lot of time around a lot of other rich people. Right. And, you know, and many of them, of course, were relatives like his Uncle Critias was one of the tyrants of Athens imposed on Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, a brutal murderer. Right. So it's not unreasonable to think that. Well, maybe Plato's experience growing up around a lot of rich people actually informed his understanding of rich people. And maybe he had a better angle on that than some others who maybe didn't grow up under those circumstances.
GR: Hmm. So you've obviously thought deeply about all of these thinkers that are in your book. Is there one that you think has it most right when it comes to inequality? Can you pick one that way?
DLW: Right. That's a real tough question to answer. Right. And might be taking the cheap way out, because I think every one of them has some handle on an important truth in the way they approach this. So I'm not going to pick a single one. But what I can point to is that there's you know, there's certainly a pattern among some of the thinkers who say you kind of draw distinction. And this is true, I think, in Plato very expressly and Rousseau more implicitly, that for them, this kind of a radical opposition, a radical a path of radical reform and a path of moderate reform. Right. Right. They both say, look, ideally we should be, you know, a very equal and not completely equal. Nobody argues for perfect equality, not even Marx, for that matter. Should make that clear. And Plato says, ideally, the rich people should have no more than four times the wealth of the poorest, for example. But he says, look, you know, that's that's if you're creating a new society from scratch, I guess. And he's saying that in the context of establishing a colony in a territory that's never been occupied before, he said do it this way. But he says, look, if you're writing laws for, you know, a political entity that already exists and already has that's distributed a lot of property is like, no, you can't do that. Without killing a lot of people. Right. And maybe some people are open to that solution. Right. But Plato doesn't love that and says, look, you know, you still have to get more equal than you are and you need to work on it consistently. But he also says that ideally, what you want to do is try to get buy-in if at least some people find some people who are rich and feel guilty about it. Right. And have them do some of the hard work of persuading their friends and colleagues and business partners to realize, you know, it's not the worst thing to have their taxes raised and to build schools and, you know, and other public entities for people who are less fortunate than them. Right. And to kind of work toward a greater equality. Right. And I, you know, I, I like, you know, contemplating the idea that there are moderate paths forward. Right. Because, you know, the other path, you know, at the polar opposite end of the book is Marx. Right. And Marx, you know, fundamentally just kind of concludes that, you know, rich people aren’t going to give up their money without a fight. Right. And you just need to come prepared to fight. And, you know and, you know, I can't you know, I don't, maybe Marx is right. I don't know. There are scholars who certainly think that Marx is. I'd like to hope there's another path available. I'd like to hope that people are persuadable. Yeah.
GR: So we only have about a minute left, and I wanted to squeeze this last question in, and I think you kind of are already answering it, but I'll give you another few seconds to add on to it. And that is obviously, you have thought a lot about inequality as a social issue and a social problem very deeply. What would you do if you were one of Plato's philosopher kings, or to use a phrase that's out there, maybe dictator for a day, to address inequality through policy change? What policy changes would you recommend? In about a minute. I'm sorry. I'm sure that's a more complicated question.
DLW: Yeah. So I'll try to do this quickly with a reference I think I haven't mentioned before, but John Stuart Mill has a wonderful range of policy proposals for addressing this. Things like having more co-ops, like worker co-ops, you know, businesses owned by workers, will lead to a more equal distribution. Honestly, you know, estate or inheritance taxes, you know, on fortunes over X amount of money. Right. These things should be politically doable. Right. In a democracy. Right. The will is, you know, I think there for things like that, and we just need to find politicians with enough courage, I think, to seriously pursue them.
GR: Hmm. We'll have to leave it there. That was David Lay Williams and again, his new book is titled “The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato to Marx.” If you've heard of some of those guys and you want to learn a bit more about what they have to say, or if you have concerns about economic inequality and want some deeper grounding, this book is a great choice for you. I want to emphasize that it is not an arcane work of political philosophy. It's extremely readable and it's an enjoyable read. David, thanks again for making the time to talk. Great book. Thanks a lot.
DLW: My pleasure.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
John Sanbonmatsu on the Campbell Conversations
Jun 28, 2025
John Sanbonmatsu
Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I’m Grant Reeher. Last week I spoke with a writer who had a new book out on the foods of upstate New York. Today, we stay with food, but we move very far from that in many respects. My guest is John Sanbonmatsu. He's a philosophy professor of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and the author of a new book titled, “The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves”. Professor Sanbonmatsu, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.
John Sanbonmatsu: Thanks so much, I'm delighted to be here.
GR: Well, we're glad you could make the time. So, as our listeners are about to discover, this book is very provocative, I think it's fair to say and it has an intriguing title. So, “The Omnivore's Deception…”, break that down for me, what is the omnivore's deception?
JS: Sure. Well, my book is really about our exploitation of animals and the food economy. And the three modes of deception, really, that I talk about in the book are, well, first, the fact that the meat, eggs, dairy and fish industries hide from consumers, the incredible mass violence that undergirds this system to get food on our plate. The second mode of deception really is the, a kind of whole discourse that's been developed in the last 20 years for so-called humane meat. The enlightened omnivore, kind of dating back to Michael Pollan's book, “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, which we might talk about. And that is simply a myth, you can't have these animal products without causing enormous suffering to animals, no matter how small scale the agriculture is. And then the third mode of deception is simply self-deception. We engage in what the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called bad faith, which is to say we deceive ourselves and we want to believe we can have our meat and our conscience, too. And I make clear, I hope to my reader, that we can't.
GR: Well, you anticipated one of the questions I wanted to ask you when you talked about smaller scale, sort of, you know, local sourcing kind of things. Well, I'll ask you that right away, I mean, what is the problem with paying attention to the scale, if you’re an eater paying attention to the scale and the method of raising animals? You know, you focus on locally sourced, smaller, non-industrial scale animal growing operations, where's the problem there?
JS: Yeah. You know, it's thanks largely to animal advocates that the public is aware of what we call factory farming or intensive industrialized animal agriculture. And the animals in that system, which by the way, that's 99% of where our products come from, food animal products, 99%. And it's horrible, it's horrific the way animals are treated in that system. But what people don't realize is that the critique of our violence against the animals for use in food dates back 3000 years. They'd been ethical vegetarians during that whole period. You know, Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist wrote, he was an ethical vegetarian, he wrote an incredible critique about a slaughterhouse. So, really, my book is examining the underlying relations of domination and violence in all forms of animal agriculture, including smaller scale, which is, by the way, not scalable. You can't feed 10 billion human beings, you know, with pasture raised animals, we’d need several additional earths. But my focus, so I do talk about the environmental problems at lengths in my book, but really the focus is on the ethical question of what gives us the right to subject defenseless, sensitive beings to violence.
GR: Well, and you also talk about, I believe, some of the health implications for humans and the way that our diets are currently constructed. Just give us a quick overview, and others have written about this, obviously, what are the health problems with how we currently eat animals?
JS: Yeah, well, it's interesting. When I talk about these issues in class, because I teach ethics at the college level, you know, students, naturally, they think, well, we can't live without animal products, we can't live without the protein from animals and so forth. And what's ironic about that is that practically every scientific study, and I'm talking about studies in The Lancet and JAMA and you know, top medical journals, show that in a plant based diet is actually superior in like every category compared to an animal based one. I mean, in terms of lower rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, even longevity, vegans live longer than so-called omnivores. And so there's just these sort of scientific facts. But leaving that aside there, I mean, there's just a whole slew of problems for us health-wise and epidemiologically. For example, 75% of all emerging diseases are zoonotic in origin. That means that the diseases that are afflicting our species and that have in the past have come from other animals. Most of those diseases historically have come from exploited animals, smallpox, cholera, Spanish flu, even AIDS. These all developed out of human food exploitation, exploitation of animals for food. So it's, and now of course we have the H5N1 virus, avian flu and the WHO, well, 20 years ago, excuse me, warned that if that thing becomes transmissible between and among humans, it could kill 150 million of us. So that's just an example of why it's even in our own interests, and again that's not the basis of my book but I do talk about this, it's in our interest to stop this too.
GR: And what about the impact on the environment? That's another concern that drives a lot of people to vegetarianism. You'll meet a lot of vegetarians that say, I am this way because I'm concerned about the environment. I have a colleague, I think, who's primarily driven by that.
JS: Yeah. You know, the first sentence of my book in my introduction, I talk about that, that, you know, occasionally you'll hear people say, well, I've cut back on meat or I tried vegetarianism once for the environment. And I'll tell you, I don't like that (laughter), I don't like that at all. As I explain, because it's like the person who says that they, in my experience, they often say, well, I don't do it for the animals, you know. It's like, well, if you care about the animals, you must be some kind of nutcase, right? The fact that we're killing, conservatively, 80 billion land animals every year, mostly birds and mammals, and up to 2.7 trillion marine animals every single year, each animal of which, you know, is an individual with thoughts and experiences, emotions and so forth. The idea that we should want to spare them a violent death at our hands, that just drives people crazy, right? So the environmental issue is crucial because what people don't understand is that this confluence, as I discuss it in the book, between capitalist development on the one hand and human supremacism or speciesism on the other, the confluence of these systems in the food economy is the greatest ecologically destructive force on the earth, right? So people are familiar with global warming. Well, global warming is not the biggest environmental problem on the Earth today. That would be mass species extinction, right? So, we're experiencing the greatest mass species extinction event in 65 million years. Global warming is part of that problem, but it isn't the only thing driving it. So we're talking about the death of all the animals on the earth. Birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, even invertebrates, like insects, scientists refer to it as the insect apocalypse. You know, honeybees are being devastated. Crustaceans, horseshoe crabs, who are on the earth hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs are being wiped out. This is the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws, which I saw when it came out as a boy.
GR: So did I.
JS: Yeah. And I'll tell you, when I asked my students how many humans are killed by sharks every year, they always get that right, which is about ten to 20 globally. And when I asked them how many sharks are being killed by humans, they say, well, I don't know, 2000, 500? It's actually 100 million every single year. And all of that violence is put out of sight and out of mind. But it's literally tearing up the web of life on our planet. So, yeah, I could go on and on about it, but it's, it's something that people have got to start paying attention to because we're dooming our own species because of this system.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the philosophy professor, John Sanbonmatsu. And we're discussing his new book, it's called, “The Omnivores Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves” and it argues for the total abolition of the animal economy. So let's get to what I think is probably the heart of your argument and where your passion most lies and that is the moral concerns. And you've already spoken to them in several different ways, but the moral concerns about raising an animal to kill and eat it. How would you crystallize that that argument that you want to make?
JS: Well, you know, there's, any system of power or dominance has to be continually reinforced. It's not like it's one and done. You know, you don't just set up a system for, whether it's human slavery or, you know, racism, a kind of racial hierarchy or gender hierarchy. You don't just set that up and then it just goes on, on its own, it has to be continually reinforced. So all of us are raised from birth to, with the idea that there are these classes of animals who simply don't matter and it doesn't matter morally how many of them we kill. It just, they're irrelevant, you know what I mean? Which is why, as I said, we can kill billions and indeed trillions of animals every year without it even disturbing anybody. But here's the thing, most people listening to your show probably have lived with a cat or dog. I mean, that's statistically the case. And if you live with a cat or dog, you know that they are unique individuals. They have personalities and temperaments and emotions. They have different relationships with different people. You know, they have different quirks, they have a kind of biography and you can see them go through the stages of life that we do, the playful kitten and then the kind of, you know, the limping elder cat who you know, tolerates the juvenile you've just introduced into the house and so on. So we know that our cats and dogs are individuals whose lives matter and who deserve our respect and are worthy of our love. Well, let me tell you, everyone should be disturbed by the fact that chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, oxen all these animals that we think of as stupid, irrational, dirty, they are no different than our cats and dogs at all. I mean, scientifically, ecologically there's just a ton of research on this. Scientific American has published articles on chicken intelligence, there's empathy in pigs and so forth. So if you think that every time you sit down to a meal, you are eating the body of some, you know, richly endowed creature like a cat or dog with sentience, with subjectivity, then you might begin to understand why this is a moral issue of the first order.
GR: And at the risk of sorting out my animals, anthropomorphically, I can readily see the appeal of the argument that you're making for cattle, sheep, pigs and chicken. But what about something like fish? I have a friend who's very tuned in to the kind of concerns you're talking about. He describes himself as a pescatarian. So what's the problem with fish?
JS: Yeah, it's funny. You know, I remember like, many years ago, I'd go to someone's wedding or something, and the caterer would put chicken in front of me after having heard I'm an ethical vegetarian and think, well, if you eat chicken, though, right? So the idea that chickens are animals would not compute. And similarly, I've met a number of people over the years who call themselves vegetarians but they eat fish. It's very bizarre because the signs that we're finding with fish, it's just fascinating. Fish do better at some forms of cognitive reasoning than primates, including the great apes, including humans. They have memories, they have emotions. Now, the thing is, as mammals, we're just not equipped well to perceive the feelings or thoughts of fish, right? Because they don't have the facial muscles that we have. So we think of them as silent, gaping, animate objects, I guess, right? I mean, I went fishing as a kid and you bring the, oh, and now the fish is flapping on the dock. It doesn't occur to us, well, that fish is now suffocating to death and is experiencing the same trauma and stress hormones that we would as mammals if we were drowning. But that is the case. And this is just, now certainly there's still a lot we don't understand about fish cognition. And the fishing industry is always funding studies to prove that fish don't feel pain and so forth. But I mean, it's just a silly argument because evolutionarily, how can you have a sophisticated organism that's going to survive, like the Greenland shark lives up to 400 years, I mean, there are fish that live a really long time, who can't experience pain? So, yeah, so I think we've got to stop writing off entire classes of beings as worthless because they aren't worthless.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I’m talking with John Sanbonmatsu. He's a philosophy professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and the author of a new book titled, “The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves” and we've been discussing his book. Well, you lay it out in the first half of the program, I think very well, your main arguments for why we need to eliminate the animal economy. Who are some of the main sort of voices out there that you are trying to correct or take issue with?
JS: Well, you know, I go after a number of different folks in a certain sense, but centrally I'm concerned to refute arguments developed by the very popular food writer Michael Pollan. In his book, for example, “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, that book had an enormous cultural influence over the way Americans view our relations with animals, particularly in food. It's still, just took a look the other day, it's like 20 years later, it's still in the top ten bestsellers on food policy, it's part of the state mandated curriculum in middle and high schools in different states around the country. I couldn’t possibly exaggerate the influence that book. And, you know, without taking too much time, Pollan's arguments ended up creating kind of intellectual scaffolding for this myth of the enlightened omnivore, you know, locavorism and so forth. All this idea that we can raise animals, quote, humanely, kill them with compassion and so forth. And so I show the problems with those arguments as well as similar arguments by Temple Grandin, another very popular apologist for the animal system, Barbara Kingsolver, the acclaimed writer. And if you examine their arguments, they're not only wrong, but they are intellectually dishonest and sadistic. There's this undertow of violence and sadism against animals in those works.
GR: So let me throw out some potential challenges or problems with this that I thought of and see what you have to say about them. And the first one is very Syracuse oriented, I don't expect you to be an expert on Syracuse, but we have in Syracuse a real overpopulation problem with deer. And it creates a whole lot of problems, creates problems on the roads, it creates problems in people's properties and the ticks and so on. If we stopped all hunting, for example, that would probably make those problems just worse. So how would we deal with an overpopulation of deer and Syracuse if John Sanbonmatsu was running the program?
JS: Yeah, well, first, I just want to note that the one species that is causing the greatest damage on this planet is actually us and no one talks about culling us. No one talks about culling real estate developers and capitalists and all the folks who are…
GR: Fair enough, fair enough.
JS: I mean, if you look at the ecosystem of Syracuse and you compare human impacts on the environment in terms of consumption of goods from China and blah, blah, blah, with what the deer are doing, it's, you know, no contest. So it's very interesting to me that communities, the first thing they do is reach for the gun. Like, okay, this, first of all, this is a problem for whom? It's for motorists? Well, don't forget the highways and the roadways were put through the living habitats, the living spaces and homes of all of thousands of different species and then they are supposed to get out of the way. So that's number one, there's structural violence against animals built in and the starting point is always, let's assume that all these animals lives are disposable, interchangeable, what do we do with this problem? That's number one. Now, in terms of the Syracuse issue, it's true. I don't know the specifics, but I've looked into this in other cases, there are alternatives, okay? First of all, one reason that deer and other populations are increasing is because humans have, through hunting, just killed all the predators, right? So there is no ecological balance to be restored. Secondly, there are nonviolent alternatives. There's birth control, there's relocation. And I'm not saying that those are easy alternatives either but in my having examined the planning process at the local level in some communities, there's a big hunting lobby and these folks want to kill the animals. And so they bring in experts from, you know, the NRA or hunting lobbies in order to promote their agenda. And the problem is that state wildlife officials are hunters. And, you know, it's run by these agencies are actually not ideologically neutral. They're run by the same constituency. So I think that if we start, in my book, I say, look, why don't we have a different mode of address with the other beings we share the planet with? Let's approach them nonviolently for a change. You know, we've tried this other approach which is to treat their lives as so much disposable garbage. Why don't we instead view them with respect and go from there? And so that's what I would say is like, what if we have a paradigm shift and we say, okay, those deer are as important to us as our own cats and dogs or even, you know, other humans and how can we live with them in harmony, you know, without violence? That's what I would say.
GR: Yeah. I just, not to sound snarky, but I'm thinking of when you mentioned predators, you know, if I were a deer, if that makes sense, I'm not sure I'd rather be killed by a pack of coyotes taking me down or a hunter killing me quickly, but I get your point. It's a different way to think about this. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the philosophy professor John Sanbonmatsu. So I want to get to some how do we get there type of questions, because I've had many guests on this program who make arguments that are, you know, hard to imagine becoming completely successful politically, policy-wise. And as a political scientist, you know, I am sympathetic to much of what you are saying, but I also really can't see what you are arguing here getting much traction in contemporary America or the world. Do you have a political strategy attached to this argument that you could briefly put forward? Or is that is that sort of outside of your lane?
JS: You know, it's a fair question and a really important one. The short answer is, I don't have a concrete you know, I don't have a blueprint for social change. In my first book, “The Postmodern Prince” I talked about some of the obstacles to thinking about strategy and long term change on the political left. And there are a lot of reasons why it's hard to imagine an alternative to this system that we're living in. But, you know, as a philosopher and thinker, I'm really trying to first of all, you know, before we can get to the question of strategy, in a sense, we have to understand what the problem is, A, B, we have to understand and agree that this is a problem like morally. And so if we want to survive on this planet, let me put it this way, if we want to survive on this planet and if we want to be able to look ourselves in the mirror and not see a kind of monster there, then we have to rethink our relations with the other natural beings, you know, of the Earth. Certainly I'm promoting veganism but I'm not, I don't, but, you know, I've been a vegan for over 30 years and things and animals are being killed in greater and greater numbers. Per capita, meat consumption is up. There's been a whole kind of political reaction against animal advocacy, just as there's been political reaction against women's rights and civil rights. So the thing is, and you know this, that historically slavery existed, persisted for thousands of years in human culture. It was accepted almost everywhere. No one thought that that system would ever be ended. And then, of course, there was racial slavery, you know, European racial slavery that began, you know, five centuries ago. No one thought that would ever end and it has ended. And maybe now not to get into, you know, there still existing slavery, but at least not legally. Women into the 1970’s, that was the first time it became illegal, thanks to feminist efforts, illegal for men to rape their wives in the home, conjugal right was simply part of standard English law for a thousand years or more. So change is possible and I think that there's a way in which by, when we say, oh well it's impossible for everyone to give up the animal economy, it becomes a self-confirming prophecy, clearly. And so I wrote this book to try to intervene against that self-serving fatalism, that, which again I call self-deception where we say, oh, well, there's no real, we can't do anything about it, it's too big a problem. But the problems we face are really kind of out of hand, right? I mean, global warming and species extinction, not to mention fascism rising everywhere around the world and the liberal capitalist democracy waning. You know what I'm saying? So these, that's a cop out, though, to say, well, these are very big problems and what can we do?
GR: Well, we've got about 2 minutes left or so and I want to try to squeeze two questions in. So this will be kind of your lightning round, if you will, a couple of quick answers to these and they're both tough questions, so I apologize for that. But you already mentioned something about the political moment we're in that there's a lot of backlash against different things right now. And I'm wondering about whether given the layers of backlash that we're seeing, that what you are saying right now is going to be heard by a lot of people as kind of an instance of political correctness on steroids, is there a way that you've thought about diffusing that in terms of how people are going to hear this? Quickly, if you could.
JS: Yeah, I mean, people think that the question of animals and meat is at best a trivial one, right? Or at worst, it's political correctness on steroids. But this is, it's always been the case historically that any challenge to an established system of power and authority, you know, the people who are questioning it, whether it's slavery or women's subordination to men, are viewed as zealots and crazy people and so forth. And what I argue in my book is that this is the most important issue of our time, if you look at it. And I think that if people give my book a chance, they will, by the end of it, they'll agree with me. So, yeah, just ask people to keep an open mind and read the book.
GR: Okay, and my last question, just a few seconds left, I want to be very honest with you, I want to tell you something you probably already knew about me. I'm not going to do what you're telling me to do (laughter). I'm not going to become a vegan. I recognize the arguments for it, but it's probably not going to happen. But if I were to do just one thing short of that, what would it be? Would it be to avoid highly tortured processed animals of a certain kind of meat? What would be the one thing you'd want me to do?
JS: One thing I'd ask you to do is to recognize that what you're doing is wrong. The argument in the book is that you can't get humane meat or better sourced or, that's the whole point of the book. And if you can live with yourself knowing that what you're doing is causing horrific suffering and violence to helpless beings who deserve better, that, you know, that's a personal choice that you or I or whoever make. Not you, but, you know I'm saying, if we choose that.
GR: I get you.
JS: But that is the situation, it is all or nothing.
GR: Okay, well, I will tell you this, you have got me thinking about something I wasn't thinking about before. So that was John Sanbonmatsu and again, his new book is titled, “The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves”. And it may not change your habits, but it will challenge them and it will certainly maybe change some of your assumptions. John, a very provocative book, to say the least and I can agree that (this is a) very important argument that you're making.
JS: Thanks for having me.
GR: You bet. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
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