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In an uncertain world where AI technology is disconnecting us more and more each day, we are dreaming of a world where technology connects us. The premise of this podcast of simple: let's talk to people and imagine the most hopeful and idealistic futures for technologies that connect and do good in the world.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (00:01.964)
We are on the line today with Casey Michel. Casey, how are you doing?
Casey Michel (00:05.122)
Good Dylan, it is wonderful to chat with you.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (00:08.334)
Absolutely, and we obviously go way back. I'll have done this whole introduction at this point saying who you are and really all of your accomplishments taking our high school baseball team to probably what, one in 11 or something for the season.
Casey Michel (00:23.244)
You know, every victory is sweet when you haven't had one in a few years. baseball is a beautiful sport because it really gives you a sense of failure, how to move on beyond failure, how to understand and digest failure, and really playing for our high school. There was an extra dose or two of that. So I think it really fortified us along the way.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (00:43.266)
Which brings me to the first real question. We ask hard-hitting questions here, which is, where does Otani rank on your all-time?
Casey Michel (00:49.518)
So it's funny that you asked that. So Dylan, maybe you recall from our high school career many, many, many decades ago at this point, but I am actually a lifelong and long suffering Seattle Mariners fan. And look, I'm not going to take anything away from Otani. He is a once, not only in a generation, really a once in a century player. But look, you and I are speaking on the 10th of July right now. And I just, have to say that Otani does not currently have the most home runs.
in the major league. That honor belongs to a guy who is the catcher for the Seattle Mariners. A guy named Cal Raleigh who, Dylan, maybe you've seen his nickname floating around? His nickname is the Big Dumper and it's because he has a big butt. So yes, we're talking about very serious topics today. So if we're giving Otani a shout out, absolutely. I just also have to shout out Big Dumper Cal Raleigh for at least keeping things entertaining.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (01:35.902)
Yeah.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (01:45.922)
That's okay, that's good. I'm hoping that we don't get the hate mail from listeners on the Otani shade that is being thrown right now. That's gonna be the spin.
Casey Michel (01:54.894)
It's funny, I will in a couple weeks time go up, I'll be going up to Cooperstown, so I'm calling in from New York City right now, up to Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame, because the other greatest Japanese superstar of all time, Ichiro, is being inducted, and of course as a long time Mariner, I have to go pay my respects. So, it began with Ichiro, it's continuing with Otani, and it's a fun time to be a baseball fan, what can I say?
Dylan Thomas Doyle (02:20.686)
Writing that energy, let's start with first question we ask everyone. What is something particularly inspirational that you're seeing in the world right now or in your life?
Casey Michel (02:29.229)
Well, look, you and I were just talking off mic about a few different things. One of those being the fact that I have a toddler in my life now. And I have to tell you, Dylan, no matter what is happening in the world, no matter the cascade, the deluge of the news cycle, and I'm sure some of the things we'll be talking about today, certainly some of the things I work on in terms of international corruption and foreign influence, foreign interference, so on and so forth, having a child is one of the most, well, it's the most exhausting thing you'll ever do.
But it is certainly something that every single day reminds you that there is more to the world in the news cycle. There's more to the world than what is happening in the White House or in Silicon Valley or, you know, wherever it is. And of course, those are all plenty concerning developments in terms of specific topics and figures and networks. But looking into your child's eyes and having them ask you to throw pillows at them or chase after them or show them how to swing a baseball bat, which she's
been doing the last few days. mean, it is one of those things that without getting too, know, weepy over it is has just, it totally changes your perspective on life. And I can't not be optimistic when I look at her and what she's already achieved in such a short period of time. And what I know she will continue bringing to the world, not just me and my wife, but the rest of the world. yeah, leaning into the kind of heart on my sleeve right now, I would say my daughter is what gives me optimism these days.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (03:56.494)
That's beautiful. And maybe turning, there's no easy transition to American kleptocracy from that. It's like, there a cute quip that I can, I don't think so. For folks who have not heard of American kleptocracy, kleptocracy in general, could you just give us the 30 second 101 of that?
Casey Michel (04:14.014)
Yeah, so kleptocracy literally means the root of the word literally means the rule of thieves and Traditionally it has been used to describe specific regimes specific dictatorships authoritarians anti-democratic regimes around the world where leaders are dedicated to not the You know prosperity of their citizens or the thriving of their citizens or even national stability itself But to enriching themselves and their family members and their friends it is
being dedicated to the pillaging of the national treasury, health budget, education budget, defense budget, you name it, for their own benefit. That is what kleptocracy has traditionally been understood as and what the term is traditionally described. But what I write about, what I've written books about, what I do in my day job now, is examine how kleptocracy in the 21st century is now an international or transnational phenomenon. Because that money that these leaders loot in dictators and autocracies around the world,
no longer stays in those countries. It's no longer spent domestically. It has now moved into third party jurisdictions. It crosses borders, crosses hemispheres, crosses oceans, and all too often ends up in places like the United States of America where you and I first met one another all those years ago. And that when we're talking about kleptocracy in the 21st century, we have to understand it no longer is just a
a domestic phenomenon, but an international phenomenon that again, here in the United States of America, we are certainly not immune to. And as I've argued elsewhere, we are actually the biggest source of, or I should say destination for all that money coming in. And then the biggest source of all the laundering, the money laundering that goes with that to strip any identifying information about that, where that money came from in the first place. So that's really kleptocracy 101. Again, I do a lot of work on the United States of America, this kind of end of thing, because we have seen
year after year it has only grown and shows no signs of slowing anytime soon.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (06:11.617)
Before we dive into everything, and this is sort of also a catch up for the two of us, why did you get into this space? Like what is it about this topic? You could have done a lot in your journalistic career. Why kleptocracy?
Casey Michel (06:23.988)
So Dylan, you and I, to give folks a primer, right, we met in high school, played baseball together. I have extremely fond memories despite all the losses. I should say you and I also went on an ornithology trip at one point around then. It was not related to baseball, but that also helped planted an interest in birding. I don't know if folks can see me wearing a flamingo shirt as we speak, but that's beside the point.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (06:43.629)
For every interview I'm pretty sure you wear your binoculars, you got your Sibley guide in the background.
Casey Michel (06:48.432)
I have all of you simply the best there's there's I have a few of them but yes simply still stands the test of time anyways that's a separate podcast. I ended up going to college I went to university at Rice University down in beautiful Houston Texas and I was going to be a sports writer I was gonna be playing baseball with them those guys are all three times bigger than me but I was gonna actually write about sports.
and I became a sport management major, ended up running the school paper down at Rice, but by the time I graduated I realized that wasn't the direction I wanted to take my career. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with myself. And the long story short, as I ended up becoming a Peace Corps volunteer, I was an English teacher in the country of Kazakhstan, which is beautiful, full of wonderful people, highly recommend if you haven't visited already. But it was also my first time living and working under a regime that is traditionally understood as a kleptocracy. It's a decades long dictatorship and there's now
a follow-on dictatorship, now that the first dictator's no longer in power. That was dedicated almost entirely to enriching the man at the top of the pyramid, the man who was then the president, and his family, and his friends. And that was really something. To see that from kind of the inside out, and to realize that that regime, okay, it's an autocracy, okay, it's a dictatorship, but again, it's moving its money elsewhere. It's moving its money to places like Switzerland, it's moving its money to places like...
even the United Kingdom or places in the Caribbean, but it's also moving that money and that influence into the United States of America. that just generated an interest in how this operates, what this means for those on the ground, and what this means for those of us in the United States of America. Never in a thousand years did I think here you and I would be 14, 15, however many years later it's been from that, 20 years since high school.
that I would still be doing this, you and I would be talking about that, but this is just the way the world has gone, that these networks are continuing and flourishing. And it's had a very damaging effect, both in Kazakhstan and the Kazakhstan's of the world, but also here in the United States.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (08:47.659)
Yeah, well, so let's talk about that. was, serendipitous. Casey, as you said, we're talking on Thursday, July 10th, and you just had a new article come out in the Atlantic titled America Has Never Seen Corruption Like This. And where you started that was really interesting to me because when I'm thinking about corruption, when I'm thinking even about tech or AI and all the stories we tell about it, I'm like, well, what's different now? And you've brought up examples of
Perhaps what we might call kleptocracy, at least corruption that has happened in the presidency or in the US in the past. What is different now?
Casey Michel (09:26.238)
So, a few things to get out of the way. One, the issue of the reality of the threats emanating from American kleptocracy or corruption in the United States of America do not begin and do not end with figures like Donald Trump or the Trump administration or necessarily even recent Democratic figures that I have written about before have opened themselves up to foreign financing, especially added dictators.
This is a decades long trend in the making. What we are seeing right now is simply the culmination of trends that long predate the rise of figures like Trump. as you mentioned, Dylan, it's not as if this is the first time America has experienced corruption. There have been significant corruption scandals throughout American history. You can go back to the days, as I write about it, of days of Ulysses S. Grant, who was a wonderful president, certainly general in many capacities, but his administration was wracked with corruption scandals from family members and from members of his cabinet.
Maybe you and listeners are generally familiar with Teapot Dome, was, least until recently, of the great corruption scandal in American presidential history. That was the leasing of oil lands in Wyoming. You could even go to Watergate and look at, yes, there was the burglary, yes, there was the abuse of power, and yes, there was the attempted cover-up. But there are all these other corrupt networks and campaign finance violations from major corporations secretly bankrolling Richard Nixon. These are all fascinating stories in and of themselves and all parts of American
corruption or or or the history of american corruption but what we are seeing now that that the qualitative difference is that is no longer a question of purely domestic corruption domestic actors domestic networks domestic financing corrupting domestic political figures now things have cracked open now because of this broader world of uh... you know post cold war globalization on of the ease of capital transfers and capital flows
across borders you the opening up in general of the american economy and economies around the world the biggest difference the key difference right now is that these corruption networks are international in scope they may end up in the united states of america and they may have their final most devastating results in places like the united states of america but all too often that money does not begin in the united states of america these are foreign dictators for autocrats for oligarchs the proxies et cetera et cetera that's
Casey Michel (11:45.1)
you know if you've been talking to folks a hundred fifty or a hundred even fifty years ago after watergate i i i think they would just had no cup capacity to imagine what that would have meant because for two hundred something years corruption in america was an american affair and now it's an international affair which was in play out
Dylan Thomas Doyle (12:03.543)
So all that's very overwhelming to me as I think about it. And I'm wondering in the midst of that feeling that I imagine listeners might also be feeling, what is facilitating that? Obviously this is a technology podcast, but is it just like money flows, globalization and it's discontents that have now arisen or like what are the factors they are facilitating?
Casey Michel (12:05.649)
Yeah, me too. Yeah, I know.
Casey Michel (12:27.433)
It's a great question, Dylan. There's kind of two ways I could respond to that. One is structural and looking at the kind of incentive structures that lead politicians, their kind of, you know, inner circle of consultants, advisors, and donors. And then the kind of the broader, you know, world of PR specialists, consulting firms, white shoe law firms, you know, all of this, even things like shell company operators that were helping set up some of these networks.
I think that the biggest, to use a phrase, the biggest scandal within this is not what is illegal. The scandal really is that all of this, almost all of this, is perfectly legal. Setting up anonymous shell companies, using PR firms and consulting firms and law firms to whitewash your image and open new doors. You massive donations to think tanks, nonprofits, even some universities, to open further doors in the process. And of course,
You know, even things like, you know, we're talking about off mic a few moments ago, setting up now in the 2020s, these crypto schemes, crypto investments and crypto related networks. None of this is illegal. I mean, there are certain regulatory architecture surrounding it. There are certain disclosure requirements. There are certain transparency requirements. But if you want to make significant amounts of money, laundering the image, even laundering the money.
of some of the most reprehensible regimes around the world and doing right here in the United States, you can do that and you can do that perfectly legally. mean, you have to have no sense of shame about any of it. And there was a chapter of my most recent book quoting one of these foreign lobbyists who worked for dictators in Liberia. He worked for Saddam Hussein. mean, really the worst of the worst. His ethos, as he said, was shame is for sissies, which
is maybe not how I would phrase it, but that's how he approached the world. So that's kind of one element is that because so much of this is perfectly legal, why would you turn it down? I mean, look, you can have the moral compunction to turn it down, but you have to do so knowing your competitor down the street is going to say yes. And if they say no, then someone else at some point is going to say yes, which I think brings me to the next reality is that one is that the incentive structure is such that it behooves you to say yes.
Casey Michel (14:50.471)
even if you want to say no. maybe the broader reality is that in the United States of America, and without sounding like too much of a Marxist, in the United States of America in the 2020s, money is power. And those with the deepest pockets have access to the deepest wells of power and the clearest access to those in power and can affect policy that they need to or want to see changed either on their behalf or on behalf of the clients who are paying them. And increasingly, those are
foreign clients around the world in places like China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Hungary, Rwanda, again autocracy after autocracy, realizing knowing full well that the easiest way to shift policy in the United States is to again take advantage of perfectly legal mechanisms of pouring effectively unlimited amounts of money into American politics and being able to use that those streams of finance to affect the policy that you want to see. So
Yes, there's the kind of legal realities surrounding it, the incentive structure, but then even maybe beyond that, there's the reality, the broader kind of theoretical reality that those with the deepest pockets do, by and large, have access to the clearest access to the levers of power in the United States of America. So I've been talking so long that I kind of forgot the question, but those are my responses.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (16:08.54)
You answered it in this really complex system. I want to go back to the legal part because it something that's hard for, I'm not a legal scholar, right? I'm a tech-y, research-y person. I am wondering, has the legal system always had these cracks and we were just waiting for someone to take advantage of them? Or is it just archaic laws? Or is there something new that's happened within the legal system itself?
Casey Michel (16:29.587)
It's a great question. is generally, it generally it's the first element, although you again, you and I are talking about crypto or we were just talking about crypto a moment ago. And of course there was no crypto related. I mean, there still barely is any kind of crypto related regulatory framework. So in that sense, it's that's all completely, completely brand new. And I should say as well that as I wrote about in that article in the Atlantic today, what we're seeing out of the White House right now in terms of the ease of access.
and the effective pay to play schemes involving these international networks. That's also something we've never seen before. But it really is in many ways, Dylan, this is a, could spend the rest of this conversation kind of running through the history of some of this. is really, you you go back to the 1980s and the 1990s, kind of the end of the Cold War, beginning of post-Cold War period, and American policymakers, they're on their high horse with as much arrogance as they could possibly have thinking, okay.
This is the model that will survive for the rest of human history, free market capitalism, open access, globalized finance, the ease of capital flows back and forth. What could possibly go wrong? And of course, in the United States of America, that means also allowing anyone to set up any anonymous shell company they want, anyone use corporate formations to donate any amount of money that they could want to American politicians.
It's funny because a lot of these networks were originally developed, whether on the money laundering side or the reputation laundering side, and again, that's like the PR firms and the foreign lobbyists. A lot of these networks and policies were originally developed for Americans, for American clients, and especially wealthy American clients, but not always. And it was really in the 1990s or so when you saw the first realization begin spreading internationally, both
Among regimes Elsa but also Americans on the ground the shell company operators the lobbyists and so on realizing. wait a minute There's so much more money to be made abroad by working with regimes in Russia or Kazakhstan or Venezuela or whatever it is and then those regimes realizing wait, can actually bring our money into the United States and hire these lobbyists and hire these PR firms and donate to these politicians blah blah blah
Casey Michel (18:44.828)
And so it was both like a supply thing and a demand thing meeting in the 1990s and then just really taking off like a rocket ship in the 21st century. Yeah, that's generally what it's been. Although, of course, here we are in the mid 2020s and there are new elements.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (18:59.968)
So thinking about those new elements, I know in the Atlantic piece, but also in some of the previous work that I've seen you write, like this Qatari jet, right, is an example here. But it also, in thinking about the crypto, again, maybe leaning into the newness of the unregulated crypto world, are these all the same things? And if so, what is the thing, like what is the phenomenon here?
Casey Michel (19:21.962)
I mean, it's more or less the same thing. It is from the foreign patrons, foreign donors, foreign financiers perspective, foreign investors perspective. It is using their access to capital and in so many of these regimes, again, the Russians, the Azerbaijan, the Qatar, the Saudis of the world, access to incredibly deep pockets of wealth, generally from oil and gas revenues, though not always.
It's using some of that revenue to plow into the United States of America via whatever vehicle. The industry doesn't necessarily matter. What matters, the end result of what matters is influencing policy that you want to see influenced or affected in Washington. Generally at the federal level though, this also happens at the state level. So in many ways it's all these different tendrils all kind of working toward the same.
Previously, it had been hiring things like lobbyists like, you maybe you remember figures like Paul Manafort, who was Trump's 2016 campaign manager. There was a whole scandal in the late 2010s of folks realizing, my goodness, all these American PR firms are doing the bidding of these foreign autocrats. That seems extremely concerning. I mean, looking back on that whole period, seems just like child's play compared to what we see now, because now, again, as you know, as you just mentioned, Dylan,
$400 million jumbo jet being sent from a repressive theocratic dictatorship directly to the White House is I mean look I've been doing this for 10-12 years I am almost an old man at this point I never thought we would see this this day but it's also things like opening up new golf courses or resorts or luxury properties and of course it's also things like these brand new anonymous crypto investments these pay-to-play dinners
and the the I mean the fact that so much of this money is completely untraceable and Beyond that there's no regulatory framework requiring the disclosure of who this money is actually Coming from in the first place let alone what it's what impact it's having yeah I mean, it's it's really in a certain sense at its biggest sense. It's a tale as old as time but in terms of those are the deepest pockets trying to influence policy, but
Casey Michel (21:36.458)
yeah, this is this is a world where some of the specifics are things I could never have imagined
Dylan Thomas Doyle (21:44.449)
Yeah, the real estate part of this is something that's really interesting to me. This is total also tangent of, I think about the PGA, right? Like the golfing, moving over to the Middle East. I also think about like the WWE taking a bunch of money there. Maybe we don't have to go into all of that, but it's an interesting part of a similar phenomenon to me about where the money's going. Maybe if you wanna talk about either of those things, wrestling, go for it. But I am thinking about Trump 2.0 and.
what the differences are. Is this just a continuation of the arc that was initiated back in 2016 or is this again something new?
Casey Michel (22:20.169)
Yeah, I mean look, it's both. He is not the first president for himself or his family members to profit from his role as president. I've written previously about previous administrations, whether it was the Clintons, obviously Bill Clinton leaving office, opening the Clinton Foundation and opening up their doors to tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars from many of the same regimes, the Saudis, Qataris.
Kuwaitis, Algerians, Russian oligarchs, Kazakh oligarchs, so on and so forth. know, figures like Jimmy Carter's brother signing up as a lobbyist for Gaddafi in Libya. I mean, you see elements of this in previous administrations. And so you can say that Trump is a continuation of this. You could also say that so much of this is at a scale we have never seen that it is effectively brand new. And look, this is what the article that I wrote about
Today, the scale of what we have seen, and certainly some of the mechanisms, some of the newer ones, unlike anything we have ever seen in American history. I this is far and away the single greatest run of corrupt networks and corrupt access to the American presidency we have ever seen. And I have no doubt that in a century's time when future...
high school baseball players are catching up with one another they'll say yeah it's bad now but at least it's not as bad as it was in trump's second term um but you know i i i uh yeah i mean that's kind of a disappointing answer but but it it really is he's shining a light on corrupt networks and and policy loopholes that existed for years and years and he has a combination of so many trends and he has done it at such a scale that i mean it's obviously it's impossible to ignore
uh... but in such scope that yet you can also look at it and say this is absolutely unlike anything we've ever seen before
Dylan Thomas Doyle (24:17.801)
Yeah, it seems like it's not just of scale, also of speed. And one of the things that when I say that I'm overwhelmed about, and again, maybe this is just my therapy session with you, like help me with my overwhelm. But before we get to the what we can do about all of this more positive spin on this for you as someone who covers this, this thing, this phenomenon that's moving at such a speed and size with all of these different players, how do you make sense of this as a network which seems to carry
all the different stakeholders at once.
Casey Michel (24:48.457)
I at some point a month in two months in you know had to come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to be able to stay on top of everything right you just have to understand that it's such a deluge of information and developments and scandals that you're just you're going to be playing catch-up at least through his entire presidency and presumably far beyond as well I will I will say one of the
real advantages of working in a field like this, even compared to where things were 10 years ago, right now, even with all of the funding cuts and the threats against NGOs, let alone universities, there is really a network of people, both in the US as well as elsewhere, of researchers, academics, journalists, writers, analysts, so on and so forth.
people that are following this day in day out and they have their own kind of specific areas of focus whether it's American policy whether it's Hungarian financing whether it's meetings with Turkish officials, you know, whatever it is whatever their specialty is But there's this kind of nebulous international transnational network that has really developed over the last 10 12 years That even if you're not able to stay on top of everything that you want to you can presumably go find someone
who has more information into a specific network or a specific development. And look, they'll have meetings and conferences and panels and newsletters. And so there's this kind of sifting, funneling process that has developed over the last decade or so that has been an absolute lifesaver for so much of this. I mean, I don't have to feel like I'm just doing this on my own if I need information on whatever it is, right? I know that presumably there's someone I can go contact. And if I don't know that person,
someone else does and you can reach out to them and go from there. Again, you're still going to be missing things. And I love the fact that I have an opportunity to write books that are able to delve not only into the here and now, but also some of the history of these policies and the history of some of this phenomenon as well that I would like to think on Earth's new information too. So again, for those future high school baseball players catching up as they sort through the Trump archives.
Casey Michel (27:01.671)
I'm sure they will be finding new things as well. And I just hope they don't feel quite as overwhelmed as we do here in 2025.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (27:09.258)
I like to see this conversation as really us giving back to high school baseball players across the country. That's really the aim here. Go for it.
Casey Michel (27:17.161)
I was going to say, Dylan, I'm I forgot to say, you mentioned the WWE, you golf. I was talking about this literally last night with another friend of mine, how I was going to be a sports writer. didn't know what I was going to do. Okay, now I'm doing international money laundering for an influence. And then all of sudden, did you see it's not quite that it's come full circle yet, but it sure seems like it's coming full circle.
with with because it's also tennis it's also boxing it's it's now the NBA partnering with the Emiratis and the Rwandans it's f1 it's I mean thankfully baseball has not professional baseball has not crossed that Rubicon yet but I I'm not confident that it won't yeah
Dylan Thomas Doyle (27:56.918)
Yeah, not yet. Not yet, not yet. But that's the next book is when baseball does cross that. That's I imagine you heard it here first, folks. This is the announcement. So on on this, I do want to turn to a more, I guess, positive side of this if we can call it. But I want I imagine you get the question a lot of like, well, what do we do now? Like, what is next? What do we do? But I'm not going to ask that. I'm going to ask for you in however many years what
Casey Michel (28:03.086)
And then my heart will break.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (28:25.481)
What does this look like in a more ideal world? Like speculatively, what is your greatest wish for this area?
Casey Michel (28:32.076)
So there's the particulars, and then there's the big one. I'll take the particulars first. One of the beauties of the way that Donald Trump himself has navigated his presidency and undercut so many of the US's anti-corruption, anti-kleptocracy laws, because we had made progress in the last few years until the current administration. The way that he has preferred to
basically freeze enforcement of things like the shell company registry, dissolve these task forces and Department of Justice going after all this dirty money and America's anti-bribery legislation. The way that he's doing this is simply by executive order, by just saying, we're no longer enforcing this. It's not gonna happen, which he can certainly do and that's very devastating. But the silver lining for that is when another administration comes in and it doesn't have to be a democratic one, although,
the way things are, presumably a democratic one at this point, they will still have those laws on the books. And so all they'll have to do is say, okay, well that chapter was closed, that was weird, we're not going back, we're just gonna enforce the laws as they actually exist. That's one element of things. That is something to look forward to. The other element, and this is gonna play a role in the next book,
is that yes, even though so much of what we are seeing is unprecedented, the scope, the scale, the speed, all of it, America has gone through significant periods of extremely successful reform in the past. There's two primary eras of that. One is the so-called progressive era of the 1900s through the early 1910s, when you had a presidency like Teddy Roosevelt's come in at the very end of the Gilded Age.
and began using the levers of power to target corrupt networks, to call for the implementation of a brand new inheritance tax and income tax, and of course to break up some of the monopolies that were sucking up so much of the wealth of this country. That was one era. And then the other era was in the immediate aftermath of Watergate, when you saw the first real push for not only anti-bribery legislation in the United States of America, including anti-foreign bribery, but also campaign finance reform.
Casey Michel (30:51.72)
to prevents some of the massive corporate funds from sloshing around in american politics much of that has been rolled back much of that has been undercut and much of that has been kind of forgotten even throughout our understanding of american history what i'm hoping to do with this next book is to examine those errors for what works what was successful and what is needed for a third reformist era moving forward
that I hope to God you and I live long enough to see. And it's funny to be optimistic about something that hasn't happened yet or something that has no signs of happening certainly anytime. I have no reason to believe this will actually happen. Other than to say throughout American history there have been previous periods of significant corruption and democratic backsliding and all.
which we're obviously going through right now, and that has resulted in significant reform. Yeah, yeah. I hope I can see that. That would be very nice.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (32:01.053)
Yeah, that would be gorgeous. And it sounds like there's historical precedent of some kind for hope in democracy, generally speaking. For folks, I know we're moving towards wrapping up here. For folks, say, who are sitting on the sixth train right now in New York, I just imagine the audience is mostly just people sitting on the sixth train in New York. But for those people, maybe who are trying to separate fact from fiction, hype from reality, but then also who are just feeling like,
Casey Michel (32:06.086)
There is, yeah. Yeah.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (32:31.029)
Well, I don't have, I'm not a billionaire. Like, what is my role to play in all of this? Do you have any piece of advice or how you think about powerlessness maybe and reclaiming agency in this moment?
Casey Michel (32:44.336)
You know, I, that's a great question Dylan. I mean, yes, structurally contact your congressperson. Let them know what you're concerned about. Let them know what you want to see in terms of future policy. Even consider running for office yourself. And of course it doesn't have to happen at the federal level. It can happen at the state or the municipal level as well.
Spend time with people that you care about. Ideally, it's family. It doesn't have to be. But people that bring you joy, again, theoretically, you bring joy to their lives as well. Life doesn't have to be all politics. All the time, life goes on. And you can find great joy and great solace in many different walks of life. Go birding. Go look at birds. You want to talk about a solace, especially days like this. You can go bird watching anywhere. You live in a city. You live in a country. It doesn't matter. Birds are
God willing, always gonna be there. Fall migration season is gonna be starting here in about a month and a half or so. That's a lot of fun. Spring migration, March of April every year, that's a blast. That is amazing. Go bird watching. Yeah, yeah, and then don't forget to vote. Always vote.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (33:54.107)
Yeah, no, I think the bird watching is real. Colorado's looking great right now. We got some great birds on migratory paths. It's awesome. Casey? Yeah.
Casey Michel (34:00.683)
I have never done any real birding in Colorado, but it is on the list. There are some spectacular local species I would love to see out there.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (34:07.442)
Yeah, come by, we'll grab a beer and reminisce about what birds were outside of Portland, Oregon. The last question that I ask, which I always say I shamelessly stole from Ezra Klein, is there a piece of media, book, movie, music that either you're listening to right now or that you'd recommend?
Casey Michel (34:22.083)
the the look I I as much a fan of the Ezra Klein podcast as anyone so I'm perfectly happy to swipe anything and everything from from there you know the only other piece of advice is I put on my dad hat or old man hat or whatever it is the thing that is also bringing me solace that I try to recommend to our interns at the Human Rights Foundation is to read widely read omnivorously honestly I think this is something probably that you and I learned back in high school that was very much emphasized and so for as much as
I focus on shell companies and international finance for my day job. try to not read too many books about that. And I just finished an absolutely fan, probably the best nonfiction book I've read this year. It's called Revolution. I have the title here. Revolution Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by a writer named David von Raybrook. And it's about the broader history of Dutch colonization of Indonesia and the anti-colonial movement that emerged in Indonesia.
through and after the Second World War and how that sparked the broader anti-colonial movement of the 40s, 50s, 60s, and even through today. And I cannot recommend it enough. It has absolutely nothing to do with modern oligarchy in the United States or the corruption of American politics, even though that, if you want to connect a couple dots, sure, eventually it did. But that was just something I wanted to shamelessly.
plug right now that has nothing to do with what we were talking about today because I think it's okay to read things about things that have nothing to do with what you're doing in a day job.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (35:53.042)
I just finished a dissertation and I had to read fiction in order to keep myself sane and now I'm reading even more fiction and poetry and my god it's doing my soul good. Casey, yeah.
Casey Michel (36:02.107)
Dylan, no no no, before we go let me ask you, what's the best fiction you've read recently?
Dylan Thomas Doyle (36:05.812)
Best fiction I have read recently. I'm going to sidestep that and choose a book of poetry that I've been really enjoying and it's a classic one. It's Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. I'm holding it up to the camera for people who are not. It's short. I actually think this might be my high school copy. It has my little notes in it, but I just, I recently went back to it and Walt Whitman, especially in this democratic moment where we're trying to figure out what the hell we're doing, it's given me a lot of hope to look back.
Casey Michel (36:13.115)
Sure, sure.
Casey Michel (36:16.911)
Okay.
Casey Michel (36:24.647)
Ha ha.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (36:33.934)
I've also been listening to a lot of Hamilton again, which is always a fun thing to go back to. Musical theater.
Casey Michel (36:39.655)
My wife is positively obsessed with Hamilton even ten years later and we were listening to it just the other day and if I remember correctly Walt Whitman once upon a time a journalist here in beautiful Brooklyn, New York So yes, always happy to see folks doing well for themselves and yes recommending Whitman as well
Dylan Thomas Doyle (36:52.458)
That's right.
Dylan Thomas Doyle (36:58.946)
As we close, can I get one? Go Eagles from Casey Michelle.
Casey Michel (37:02.363)
Go Eagles! And for those who can't see, here's our letterman from a thousand years ago. Go Eagles!
Dylan Thomas Doyle (37:08.51)
Thousand years ago. Yeah, we're really dating ourselves. Go Eagles. Casey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Casey Michel (37:14.268)
Thanks, Dylan. This was great.