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Welcome to I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today, a conversational, culture-savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of a world that has gone sideways. We’re here to unpack the issues that boggle our minds, all rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy, and a little humility.
Chris Bevolo (00:00.078)
Welcome to episode 15 of I'm Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today. This is our conversational, cultural savvy podcast for folks trying to make sense of this crazy mixed up cuckoo world that we're living in. Little Frank Sinatra for you, Des. I know you're a big fan. We're here to unpack the issue that boggles our minds, all rooted in a little history, a little culture, a little humor, a little group therapy, and a little humility. I am Chris Bevolo co-host.
of the show and founder of Bearing 287, organization fighting the good fight to make the world a better place for all and the sponsor of the show. I'm joined as always by my co-host, Des who's a social impact comm strategist by day and who spends her nights remixing history to make sense of the present. Welcome, Des.
Bring back Cuckoo.
let like, legit, legitimize cuckoo in the lexicon again.
Kukuk 2
Chris Bevolo (01:03.032)
Cuckoo? That crazy cuckoo kid?
Crazy cuckoo kid. Bring it back.
How do you spell cuckoo?
C-U-C-K-O-O, like one flow over the cuckoo's nest.
Yeah, you can't spell cuckoo without cuck.
Desiree Ep15 (01:17.698)
Wow. Wow.
I know I just dawned on me. That just dawned on me. I'm sorry. Okay, so if you are new to the show, welcome to part two of our three part series on the crumbling of American myths. Last week, we talked about the failing myth of the American dream work harder, pull yourself up by those impossible bootstraps and you will succeed -- not. next week.
Pause.
Chris Bevolo (01:46.57)
In the third installment, third and final installment, probably we may come back to this, we'll see. We're gonna talk about the false myth of America as a welcoming melting pot. But today we are focused on another myth, and that is American exceptionalism and our global brand, which has taken a beating. I think a beating is fair. But first a couple things. One, we have a bit of news. I mentioned at the top of the show that this show is sponsored by Bearing 287.
That's an organization that I founded in January to help nonprofits, NGOs, charities, and others that are fighting to make the world a better place. We have just launched a new platform for those organizations called the Paradox Platform, which is focused on mission-driven organizations that want to leverage AI, but who are rightfully concerned about AI's negative impact on the world.
We're launching a number of different resources right off the bat. There is a weekly subscript, subscript, sub stack newsletter that you can subscribe to. That's what I was confusing there. You can, we'll put a link to that in the show notes that'll provide points of view and how you navigate this often difficult dilemma that you're facing as a nonprofit, as well as other important news for the nonprofit sector related to AI.
We already have some articles up there, so you can go check that out at the Substack website. And also we have created a free assessment for those organizations that are trying to understand where they sit in terms of AI adoption. That's called the Paradox Assessment. You can find that at freeparadox.com. We will also provide a link to that. So lots more to come on that, but it's just an area that we see as being more
in need than maybe anything else right now. Like all organizations trying to adopt AI, it's just uniquely difficult, we think, for those mission-driven organizations. So, want to get out there. And then the other thing we want to talk about are the zines, the magazines. I've had an infatuation with magazines since I was a teenager. I used to read Sports Illustrated, which was considered back in the day.
Chris Bevolo (04:09.918)
like incredible writing, incredible writing. It's incredible writing, not just sports writing, but incredible writing. That's not the case today once it was bought out and weakened, but I still get magazine subscriptions. But I've noticed that they just end up sitting on my coffee table. So I still subscribe to Esquire. We subscribe to Vanity Fair. I subscribe to Businessweek and Consumer Reports, I think are my regulars.
And I get them and I love to hold them. And I love to flip through them and look at them. And I'm like, there's some great stories. And then I put them down and the stack grows and grows and grows. So it becomes insurmountable and I just have to throw them all away. And now I'm starting fresh, but the stack is growing. Do you have a stack of magazines, Des? Do you subscribe?
I do have like, I do have like a mini stack that's been bubbling up. I got, I have, I don't subscribe to anything and I too loved zines.
back in the day, also that was like the only option. Like mine was like spin magazine, a little bit of Rolling Stones and like growing up, you know, as a queer kid in the like late nineties, it was also like the place where you can go get like queer magazines as well. Like I would go to like Borders Books and stuff like that and little section. But anyways, what actually got me back into zines, I was visiting, I went and saw a friend in Baltimore last year.
And there's this really cool bookstore called, I think it's Atomic Books. And they had like a whole like insane magazine section. Like I felt like I was a teenager again. And I discovered this new magazine called Kinfolk, which is about like culture and music and arts and all this kind of stuff. have like, they do like quarterly, like thick tomes. But yeah, I think we have to like figure out.
Desiree Ep15 (06:06.648)
how to work them back into our daily lives. So maybe like in the morning or the evenings instead of like scrolling, maybe we actually pick up a magazine and like get all tactile.
I just try to do it. it's, I used to enjoy taking like a Sunday afternoon and plowing through all of my back issues. And I always felt such a sense of accomplishment and I always learned things and I always enjoyed it. I still read books all over the place. So I don't know what the obstacle is. But I just love having them. It's just weird. It's just weird.
And what's interesting is the magazines that like Businessweek used to literally be weekly and it used to be the news of the week. Well, you don't really need that anymore. So it's grown into a monthly that has much like it's all in-depth stories and they're just fascinating business stories. And I suppose you could subscribe to them online if you wanted to, but it's great getting them delivered to me and they're pretty and I don't know. I don't know how to get back on that.
No commitment. Cause it's like, it's part of that trend of like going back to analog and IRL. like, I have this fantasy of myself of like taking these magazines and like go into a bookshop or not a bookshop, but like a coffee shop.
that train. Should we make some kind of commitment to that or is that too much?
Desiree Ep15 (07:34.294)
and just like flipping through a magazine or on the plane. The last time I actually read it, it was on the plane. I'd gotten.
stores or whatever and I was like, this takes me back. It was lovely.
Well, yeah, like do you remember reading the magazine, the blade magazines, like the Delta, the Delta magazine.
I never did that. No. I never did that. That was like an era before I was like flying a
You never did that. that is the.
Chris Bevolo (08:05.486)
Well, those magazines were also amazing. anyway, that kind of, that's a little bit of a, um, Apertif, is that what it's called? It's a call when you finish with your dinner and you have a little something after it's an Apertif. That right? Am I saying that right? That's an Apertif from our, um, go tactile screw digital episode, a few episodes back. It's a little callback, a little magazine callback. All right. Should we get into this?
I'm pretty, yeah. Yeah.
Desiree Ep15 (08:37.09)
The exceptionalism of America. do it.
Are you ready? We are exceptional. are, we are the shining city on a hill, Des. And so what we want to explore is this idea that certainly Americans have had, but I think a lot of the world has shared, not for entire history, we'll get a little deeper into that. I you want to kind of go deep, go back a little bit, but really starting in the 20th century,
especially with World War II, though I know you're gonna explore a little before then, America has been seen as this beacon to the rest of the world, a beacon of freedom, a beacon of liberty, a beacon of democracy. It does call back to our last episode, give us your huddled masses yearning to be free where people come from all over the world to pursue the American dream, which is build something for yourself.
something that is inaccessible in much of the world, people would come and we would welcome those people. They are called immigrants. They built this country. Turns out it's a good thing. But I think it's fair to say that our brand has fallen. Do you think that's fair? So we're gonna explore that. We're gonna kind of follow the same path we did last week, which is what is this myth?
of American exceptionalism. What is this myth of the shining city on a hill? What's the reality behind that and why is it crumbling around us as we speak? Before you get into your deep history, Des, just some things, some quotes that we found from our research. Prominent Americans described the US as the empire of liberty, a shining city on a hill. The last best hope of earth? Good gravy.
Chris Bevolo (10:36.354)
the leader of the free world and the indispensable nation, right? So those are sometimes reflected by other people in the world, but boy, we have a really high opinion of ourselves. America's global role represented the greatest gift the world has received in many, many centuries, possibly of all recorded history. That's from Michael Hirsch. So there's a lot, there's a lot, and you can start with
You could conceivably start with World War II and that elevate us into the prominent, we weren't the only superpower. There was another one called the Soviet Union, but you start with that. You start with the Marshall plan, all the things that came after that, the UN, the World Bank, NATO, Peace Corps, USAID, Voice of America, just everything, our economy, our culture.
drove so much and led so much of the world, both in reality and perception. And there's a Norwegian historian who drew the comparison between us and the Soviet Union, both superpowers. But they said the United States was an empire by invitation, is interesting. They still called us an empire, which I think you want to speak to a little bit. Whereas the Soviets were an empire through violence and aggression.
meaning if they wanted you to join, you joined whether you liked it or not. And if you didn't like it, they invaded your country and took it over or ruled it through a puppet. Empire, we'll get into the, we'll get into the, a little bit more history, but do want to go back further than World War II, Des?
Well, yeah, I mean, you left out another one of the big three superpowers and that was the United Kingdom. You know, the great colonizer, which, you know, we wouldn't exist had it not been for that. So like, do - do not forget that. But when we talk about this idea of like the leader of the free world, I mean, today it just feels so like I flinched, right? I don't think I would have flinched 10 years ago when you said that. I'd be like, yeah, like, yes, we're the leader of Like, we're all that.
Desiree Ep15 (12:54.55)
and a bag of chips, guess. But yeah, I started thinking about like, okay, how did we even get this title? And like I said, we came out as essentially a colony, we were renters from Britain, they were the big world power, they were going around and like colonizing literally every continent that you could see. But then of course,
What occurred is during that first, the first world war, the US was actually backers. We were creditors. Like they were coming to us for loans on this war. That's essentially how like it started. before like world war two. So basically, know, war is like a great driver for money. But if you are in war yourselves, like some of these countries, you'd end up having to like get it bankrolled by somewhere else. And that's where, you know, United States came in.
and mostly private bankers and what have you. So along after that, then we're getting into being recognized as that essentially that hero, that person that came in because we needed to back up that investment that we made. So that's why we even got into World War I was because we couldn't default on that. So we had to go in there and fight, but we came out looking like the alleged hero, right?
So then Wall Street collapse in the name of the great depression and the fact that this made everyone else, gets sick essentially from our little sneeze of a, of a, of our falls to that let us know like, we are actually kind of pretty much in power here. Back in the thirties, we're back in war again. Europe is at it again. They're fighting. We're now essentially being a creditor for both sides, but primarily with the allies.
but then it's when we get the, Pearl Harbor, that's when we actually get called in. We're pulled in, we're coming in as like captain America. We're seen as this big, you know, fleet that's coming in. We're also, you know, heading over to what's going on in Germany and Poland and knocking off the Nazis and all that. And that's where like the mystique really, really starts to grow as far as this like brand. And it got me thinking, I didn't do any research on this, but that
Desiree Ep15 (15:19.66)
The idea of superheroes, is that purely American? Do you know of like a British or a Russian like superhero that named that title?
I mean, superhero in the common, like more recent sense of like a comic book hero. I don't know. I definitely know that there are heroes of lore in all cultures, right? You know, Greek has is full of them. Greek history is full of them. Roman history is full of them. I'm assuming Russia and other cultures have them. So I always thought like a Superman as an extension of Achilles or
Odysseus or whoever, right? So I don't know. I don't know if there are comic book level superheroes in the last couple of centuries that are not American or didn't, know, if it had an original. I'm not, I'm not adverse in that. Adverse, is that right?
Yeah, it was just some adverse averse, but no, just, got me. When I think about like the colors of all the superheroes, it's always that good old red, white and blue, which I know of course was the original colors of the British flag, but there's just this, like this idea of we just like that. Those are our colors, even though it came from our original like.
I don't know what the word is.
Desiree Ep15 (16:40.686)
colonizers. But anyways, World War II ends, we're coming out victorious, we're putting all of these things in place. That's where the World Bank and USAID and like you go through the decades and then we have been seen as this world power. And there's a lot of privileges that come from that, you know, with travel. I think I had gone to France and Spain, this was in, this was like January, February 2017. And this is where, this is my first time actually going out of the country.
And it made me uniquely aware of just kind of our position in the world, that we have this freedom to just kind of go as we please. We don't have to like, you know, get any kind of visas. just go our passport is like a passport to literally wherever, which that is now changing as you've noted. But I remember being asked, I'd met up with a local there. We went for coffee in Paris and she was just asking me about like, so what's up with this Trump guy? And that they were also were dealing with their own.
version of conservative, more conservative leaning there in their country and just kind of like trading notes. but you cut to today and like, we're just like the idea of Americans coming over, like we're almost like a laughing stock. We've become that it's like flipped. I granted, haven't been out of the country, this year in particular, or last two years in particular. but like, yeah, the tide has definitely changed.
But yeah, just kind of wanted to note, because I was just thinking to myself, like, how the heck do we even rise to that? And it had to do with banks and like financing everything and all of the stuff that we don't necessarily hear about in our history books.
Yes. And even some of that, what you just described as an American tinge to it, right? Like we love to consider ourselves the heroes of World War II. You know, like we came in, we saved Europe, we defeated the Nazis. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but Russia lost. I mean, not even close. Millions of Russians died.
Chris Bevolo (18:46.631)
And the number of Americans who died was in the low hundreds of thousands, if I'm not mistaken, right? We didn't have any, anything happen on our own soil of note other than Pearl Harbor. And so like we consider ourselves the big stick that came in and set things right when people in Europe are like, yeah, definitely you help, like this, this doesn't happen without England sticking through it and Russia sacrificing so many people. So we're going to talk about the,
American kind of perspective versus the reality and the world's perspective. But this is more about the world's perspective to your last point, Des because that's the thing that I think you're 100 % right. And we're going to talk about it at the end has been completely damaged. And I have talked to a few people who are pretty smart people who travel the world who say, if we want to measure in terms of time,
how much time it's gonna take us to repair the damage we've done to our global brand, assuming we do try to repair it, that timeframe is in decades. It's not like next year, it's not the next election, it's not a few years, it's going to take decades for us to repair if we ever get back to the height of our global brand. So we should also talk about
It hasn't just been the government that's been building this up. Lots of cultural touchstones. It's funny, because I came across the song, America by Neil Diamond, just randomly. Have you heard that song? Do you remember that song?
I don't know. can't think I've heard it, but I can't think of the lyrics to it or like the meaning behind it.
Chris Bevolo (20:37.218)
my gosh, it's just like glowing anthem to how amazing America is for the people that come from around the world. They're coming to America today. Like it is just makes you want to stand up and go, yeah. And you listen to the lyrics now you're like, no, we apparently don't want these people. Like it's, really sad to hear it, but it's a perfect encapsulation.
of that shining city on a hill in a song. Like what do you think of culturally when you think of how we build ourselves up and how our culture reinforces this American exceptionalism?
Yeah, just the way that we, we talk about, just, we just say it, we just spout it off without even really like critically thinking about it. feel like only recently are we like, are we literally that? this, actually ran across this, this is out of Poland. There's actually like a LARP group that they role play as contemporary Americans every like fourth of July. And it just looks like your typical like.
You know when you throw like a redneck themed party, quote unquote redneck, like that's what it looks like. It just looks like, you know, a bunch of people drinking beer, like wearing like red, white and blue. And it just like shows like, Oh, Oh, Oh God. Um, but yeah, it's in, it's on our rhetoric. It's in everything that we do. Like I mentioned the superhero, uh, it's in every facet. Like when we're thinking about movies and brand and like what I was, uh, this was a documentary that I watched a couple of years ago. They were talking about the way that like,
Hollywood depicts other countries, you know for the longest, you know, I thought like I just kind of assumed like you know Columbia Latin America Mexico or whatever or any Middle Eastern country They put the sepia tone on it and there's like this weird ominous music and everyone's like a drug cartel leader and it's like my god like they're painting this picture that isn't exact that isn't true and then like you actually go to these countries and you're like
Desiree Ep15 (22:46.786)
this place is gorgeous and dope and the people are incredible. And like in a way, like in some cases, like America looks ghetto with all of our little strip malls when it's like gorgeous history or like insane technology with the train system and everything like in Asian countries. Like it just really like, it's like, my God, this was all just like Potter and branding. like, anyways, like basically everyone is in on.
Perfect.
Desiree Ep15 (23:14.744)
the ruse, everyone's in on the scam of like telling this false narrative of like America's better than everyone else.
Yes. Yeah. So the, the research that I did, and I think this is, I think this is close to being accurate, accurate when you consider that this has been building for a quarter and a half. So one of my one and a quarter centuries, I guess is what I'm trying to say. it's been building for over a century, right? So I think the peak of this might've been Reagan's farewell speech.
And I'm just gonna read a citation from it both in terms of the strength of America's brand in reality and how people saw us and This is what Reagan said "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind It was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans wind-swept God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace;
a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. If there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here." So that's how he sees America. I don't know if he really saw it that way because as we learn about Reagan, I'm not sure he really wanted doors open to everybody. We had to put in the God blessed in there because there's all of that.
But it was the whole idea that we are just this amazing thing that sits up on a hill and everybody looks up there and tries to get up there. In 2024, the United States, so as recently as 2024, that's not very long ago, we ranked number three globally. Our favorability ratings during the Clinton and early Bush era going back were 60%. So of our allied nations,
Chris Bevolo (25:17.614)
60 % of the people saw us in a positive light. Wait till we get to the stats that are of this year and last year at the end of this. Remember that 60%, we'll try to bring it back to you. And just to show that this still is being pimped, right? Like we still hear this. I saw a piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, and it was an opinion piece about, I didn't even know this was the case, but apparently,
Congress set up a committee called America 250 to develop the celebration of our 250th birthday, which is this year, July 4th, we're 250, right? So we're gonna be hearing a lot about how awesome America is, but apparently Trump created a competing committee for some reason called Freedom 250. And the article is really about how Trump's is awesome.
and the congressional one is boring and staid. apparently it's making some big deal about how people are hand wringing about where they should contribute money. And of course it's making up this like, oh, people don't want to give money because they don't want to celebrate America and, you know, just have some fun with Trumps and don't worry about it. And at the end, the author says,
No matter where you stand, you should celebrate this country because we are the most powerful brand ever devised. So the idea among many people, I would say not the majority anymore. What do you think, Des? I would say the minority of people believe the American brand that we've been describing anymore, whereas maybe 20 years ago, the majority did believe in it.
in this country. Don't you think the majority of people are like, yeah, no, we're not all that.
Desiree Ep15 (27:17.49)
It's, it's conflicting because it's, it's hard to have that, that story that we've been told our entire lives that we have recited ourselves. then to like, cause you don't want to feel like a traitor, like in a way, like I feel like, but like that is the, that is the reality. But yeah, I definitely see where that would, that number would have dropped. I don't know how much, you know, folks would say it out loud, depending on like who you are, where you live, what, you know, group you subscribe to.
but you, you, you're kind of feeling it. You're like, look at the news every single day and you're like, this is a cartoon. This is a simulation. This is like some of the dumbest stuff I've ever seen. And it's like, that's what our people are doing. Like those who represent who are the leaders of our country, the leaders of the quote unquote free world that this is how they're showing up as like kind of like cartoon and characters and buffoonery. And like when you mentioned like the, freedom, the
Freedom 250, like that word freedom, like that is the brand. Everything is like branched off of that. Like kind of going back to the history of like the, like the empire and like the idea that phrase that the sun never sets in the empire. And that's because Britain had like, they owned like all the lands and oceans or like they went and put their flag up in them anyways. And we are doing the same exact thing. We'll get into this a little bit later, but like we have.
no.
Desiree Ep15 (28:44.032)
Well, we're seeing it now. We're going to all these different countries and like pulling out their leader and putting our own or who we think we want in there. And it's like, it's all a whole mess. But yeah, I could see where that has definitely dropped, but it's a matter of like, do you, how comfortable or how, I don't know. It just feels weird to even like verbalize it.
It does. you know, there's a left and right division in this country. And I think the left, everybody claims to love America, but the left loves America, but believes it could do much better. And so it's constantly trying to like progress progressive, right? And improve on all this stuff. The right believes America is great. And if you don't like it, get the hell out except for
They complain constantly about what's going on in America. They complain about the people they complain about the policies they complain about So much stuff. So sometimes you're like wait a second you love America, but you hate all this Like it do you really love America? So it is complicated across the political spectrum, which is interesting But let's talk about Why this myth just like the other myth of the American dream that we covered has been more mythology. I mean it's
It's myth. It's a myth. So of course it's more mythology and redundant statement, right? It's more perception than reality, both in terms of, especially in terms of how we see ourselves on the global stage. So for example, I'm just gonna throw out, I'm gonna go point by point and I'll throw it to you. There's a historian Godfrey Hodgson is his name, where he talks about a lot of things that we take great pride in.
you
Chris Bevolo (30:30.284)
voting rights, women's rights. I mean, this is historically speaking, I'm not talking about 2026. Women's rights, criminal justice, gay rights, healthcare. Europe led and is leading far more than we have led in those areas. Most of that stuff like slavery ended in Europe well before it ended in the United States. Women's right to vote, all of this kind of stuff.
started somewhere else and we were late to the party. That hit ring true for you?
Yeah. Yeah. And part of me thinks it's more about like, again, part of the propaganda machines. We don't educate ourselves on what other countries do period. Like we are the center of the universe. Like all, all history like goes back to American history. And so part of me is like,
Did we just not bother to like talk about this or learn or what have you? Is that really the reason why? Cause we, all we do is like talk about ourselves and how great we are. But to that point, like when I was doing kind of looking at that as well, it's like, saw we're actually in New Zealand. They were, they led a lot of some of the more like progressive legislation. like with, you know, women's suffrage, labor rights.
And like, of course, LGBTQ plus rights, like UK decriminalized homosexuality in 1967, two years before the Stonewall uprising. But you don't hear about that. All we ever hear about is, you know, the first brick that was thrown at Stonewall and how, you know, America freed all of the, you know, queer folks. But yeah, to your point in reality, like if we actually get outside of ourselves and our own main character energy, we would actually see that
Desiree Ep15 (32:22.602)
other countries have actually been leading and are huge, incredible contributors to this global world. But again, we don't want to hear that because again, we're the main character.
Yeah, and so those are that's kind of liberal ideals. Human rights like the list of hypocrisy is longer than my very long arms. If you go back to Reagan's quote, right, I pointed out that he said, you know, he sees the state of the hill, quote unquote, teaming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace, and that our doors are open to anyone. In reality, right, like, hey,
This country is built on the back of slavery and genocide of the Native Americans. A quote here from Foreign Policy, which is a publication I used to read for fun back in my boring days. Quote, ever since its founding, the United States has presented itself as a shining city on a hill, a nation in which liberty and fundamental freedom thrive. It's a mythology refuted by American history, right? And it points out, for example, that when we ratified human rights treaties with other countries,
Okay. Okay.
We demanded that those not apply in US courts, the Senate, because we didn't want to have to live up to those standards, right? Like it's just a long ass list of ways that we try to hold up these ideals and hold other people to the ideals. Voting rights is a perfect example, right? Like we're all about, you know, election integrity and voting rights, but we continue to try to squash.
Chris Bevolo (33:59.79)
the ability to vote in this country. A of countries have, you know, a day off. It's a national holiday to vote, to encourage everybody to get out and vote. Not in this country. We make it as difficult as humanly possible. We condemn torture. Right, Des? We condemn it. Except for Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. We criticize election interference, right? Every country should have the right to determine its own destiny, except for we've been involved in CIA back
who's across the world, like the list is so long. I think the best example of that right now is Iran. Apparently you're not supposed to say Iran, you say Iran, Iran. I think I'm saying it wrong. I'll get castigated on social media, Iran. So you keep hearing a certain segment of this population saying Iran has been at war with us for 47 years. And what they're alluding to is when,
Ron.
Chris Bevolo (34:57.614)
The Shah of Iran was overthrown by a religious sect in Iran and they took our hostages and they held them for 400 plus days. That was really gross. That's 47 years ago. Of course, there was never a declaration of war. It's not that simple. But what a lot of people don't realize is that we started all this shit. So Iran used to be a very progressive democracy.
And we at England, the United Kingdom to a greater degree, really relied on their oil. And in 1953, they elected a prime minister who was looking at nationalizing their oil industry because they were basically, we were just robbing them left and right with their oil. And he was like, hey, this is a natural resource. We should be getting more money for it. So the United States, the United Kingdom using the CIA,
overthrew that democratically elected prime minister, like literally supported a coup d'etat and installed the Shah of Iran. And the Shah of Iran turned out to be a corrupt MFer, was a horrible dude. We supported him throughout his reign for, geez, 35 years plus, until finally the people of Iran had enough and overthrew him in 1979.
So who, like if somebody had come and done that to us, overthrown an elected president and then plugged in their own dude who treated us like crap, and then we eventually overthrew that dude, would we have something to say to that country? We have some opinions about that country. Like we paint Iran as like the evil doer when we started this whole thing back in 1953. How many people do you think really know that?
Mm-hmm.
Desiree Ep15 (36:54.6)
Not enough. in fact, I mean, it starts even before then, you know, coming out of everything was always in the name of like, we got to fight communism. So a lot of this kind of started because of like what the Soviet Union what was going on and like putting a lot of these folks in play. But we've done this essentially, like especially in Latin America and South America. We did this in Iraq. You know, we put a young Saddam Hussein at the time, you know, in power.
because we thought he was the right guy. And then we also are always the supplier of weapons. Like we have a whole steel industry, whole like, what is it? DuPont and Bethlehem Steel and like all of these places that were like, oh yeah, great. Like let's build these things, ship them over to you. And then like the second, we're like, oh, we don't like what you're doing. Kind like what you were saying about Iran, same as Iraq.
Chile, all of these countries are essentially like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, these are our resources. You're coming over here trying to take them like, let's, I'm going to, I want to make sure that our resources are actually going to support our country. And the second that they do that, America's like, nah, girl, that's ours. What? Because they're just trying to like do the same, like, oh, we want to support our own country. We, we have something to say. We want to ask their leader, put someone else in. And then like 40 years later,
bomb that like, come on, like, what is this? But yeah, to your point, like, not enough of this is actually talked about in history, because the victor is always right, the history, we tell what we want to tell and leave out what we don't want to show as a part of our brand of what we're actually doing, which is that the CIA, my God, like learning about all of the different ways that they have just shown up and showed out and all of these other countries and how it it's always it always backfires.
And we're always like drumming up mess. Anyways, like this is a cyclical thing that we just continue to like perpetuate. And of course it's always when there is a Republican president in place.
Chris Bevolo (38:47.618)
Yeah
Chris Bevolo (38:59.464)
Mostly always like Kennedy got us into Vietnam. We can, I mean, not fully in, but he, he was all about that. He was all about Cuba. Kennedy was so Johnson's continued Vietnam, but of late, yes. Also side note asterisk about Saddam Hussein, who we did put in power to counterbalance Iran. We also drove Saddam and supported Saddam in the 10, 10 year Iran Iraq war, which
YouTube.
Chris Bevolo (39:29.058)
most people don't even know about, which costs millions of lives. So again, you're Iran and here you're fighting somebody who's supported by the United States, yet they've declared war on us for 47 years. It's just nonsense. We could keep on going. The economic hypocrisy, we champion free markets, yet we subsidize the shit out of a lot of our industries. We are now imposing tariffs willy-nilly, like crazy town.
We don't talk about that.
Chris Bevolo (39:57.998)
We have the highest income and quality among developed nations. We don't have universal health care, which is asinine. Of course, we know that that's because of racism, systemic racism, but that's a topic for another story. We're the richest nation, but we have 38 million people in poverty. I saw this great, I don't know if it was on Blue Sky, I wish I had it in front of me.
but it was a Truth Social post about how the Iranian regime is shitty to their people and doesn't know how to run their country. So we needed to go in there and run it for them. And this guy from Australia said like, excuse me, you run a country that dot dot dot. And then he just whipped through all of this stuff. Like America is a shit show. Like who are you to be pointing fingers at how other people run in their country?
You
Chris Bevolo (40:54.968)
There's no love for the Iranian regime that has been horrible to its own people. But like, we need to look in the mirror before we start like, start foreign wars, okay? So that's economic. We already touched on foreign intervention, my goodness. Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, twice, Afghanistan, Iran now, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, probably missing a ton. Those are military interventions, Granada, back in the day.
all kinds of political interventions. We already talked about backing Saddam. We Osama bin Laden. Like we funded Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan against the Soviets before he turned on us. Like we gave him all his power. And so it's just on and on and on and on. I don't know if you want to go through some of those, Des.
Originally.
Desiree Ep15 (41:46.764)
No, I mean, we pretty much covered it, but again, it's just about the, the, the story that's being told about these things in that like Hollywood is another example. Like every movie, like you look at some of the movies that came out with, I think it was like red dawn, hunt for red October, like all of these different things. And it's like, you're just trying to say that this is propaganda. Like everything is about like taking down the Soviet union.
or anytime that we're talking about Latin America, it's about the drug cartels. It's painting this picture of how they're the villain and we gotta come in as Captain Savoho to save these people, even though we do the same exact thing to our people. We've been killing our own people. mean, look at your home of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Yeah, it's wild. And the more that you really peel back the onion, the more you're just like, wow, wow, wow, wow.
And this talk about like, your own, like that came up during COVID, it's like, do your own research, do your own research. Read our history, dig in, ask questions. Don't just like take things at face value, especially now, because we're just saying stuff. Like none of this is real. Like so much of our propaganda and our like brand is about, we just said it just because we want, that's what we want to believe about ourselves, but it's not actually true.
I mean, I can hear now, like if this pod fell into the wrong hands, people would be like, you hate America, you hate America. just talk, you know, like there's a whole effort by the Trump administration to wipe a lot of this, even where exists off the truth of who we are, because they only want people to learn about the good parts of America. Well, that's just asinine. Like if we're ever going to be a better country, we've got to be realistic and real about who we've been.
because we don't know who we've been that we're just gonna continue to be that bullshit. So I don't consider this a hate on America pod. I just consider this a, we gotta tell the truth. And speaking of the truth, Des, I don't know if this is the best analogy, but it's the best I could come up with because we've talked about the myth of American exceptionalism. We've talked about the reality quickly. We could go way more depth into the reality of that.
Chris Bevolo (44:07.958)
And now we're today, what's happening today. I say, I put a headline in here and it said the United States has become the Sears of the global brands. I don't know if Sears is the best one. I was just trying to find a brand that had glory days and now it's just complete trash, which would match with Sears. Two quotes to kick this off. One is from this expert.
and now I've lost his first name. His last name is [Joseph] Nye, it's not Bill Nye the Science Guy, it's somebody else. It's the guy who coined soft power, we'll put a link to a reference. And the importance of the things that we do, one example being like USAID, where we spend millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars around the world to help other countries, because that gives us soft power in working with those countries to theoretically do the right thing.
And this is what he said, kind of his last gaffe statements about America before he passed. When you are attractive, you can economize on carrots and sticks. If allies see you as benign and trustworthy, they follow your lead. If they see you as an unreliable bully, they drag your feet. And then this other quote, which is attributed to Warren Buffett. And I don't know if he really said it, but the research I found said he said it.
and many people are familiar with this quote, it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. So you could change that to, takes a century to build a reputation and less than a decade to ruin it. So it's actually been more than a decade that this has started to go in the shitter, Des. The way I kind of organized my research was into three big body blows to the American global brand.
So the first one was the war in Iraq, which we have talked about. Not the first one in 1991, right? Was that Desert Storm where we invaded, Iraq invaded Kuwait and we had a whole coalition, like a hundred countries that joined us and went after Iraq. It wasn't that one, like we were the heroes again.
Desiree Ep15 (46:17.436)
Desert Storm.
Chris Bevolo (46:31.982)
That was the perception, we're leading the world to do the right thing. Of course it was for oil, it's okay, we're doing the right thing. It was the Iraq War, Operation Something Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, which followed 9-11. 9-11 might be the last great symbol of global love for the United States, because when 9-11 happened,
details.
Chris Bevolo (47:00.078)
Everybody showed up for us. Everybody showed up and just stood up and said how much the United States was revered and loved and this was terrible and they would help in any way they could and then we just completely blew all that equity from then on out, right? So the Iraq war was built on, go ahead.
Well.
And that, mean, that was coming out. You mentioned like in the, in the nineties, essentially when Clinton was president, that was when we had our peak level of like support and like Bush got in like right after, as soon as he was in office. This is what like goes down. So like we were coming off of this peak, you know, there's a little bit of like, you know, some stuff with the Clinton administration and you know, blue dress or something, but that aside, we were flying high. And then like, yes, this
And they saw an opening, uh, to like come in and like hit our own soil and like, forbid, no, like it's been since what the civil war that anything has actually happened on us soil. And so, yeah, I think that really contributed to it, the, to everything coming after Reagan and then Clinton and all that. then like, yeah, to your point with Bush Jr, Bush W that all started to spiral. Freedom fries though, freedom fries.
Yeah. Freedom fries. Well, that's when we turned against people who wouldn't support us there. The whole thing was a lie. The whole reason to go into Iraq was a lie. It was built on weapons of mass destruction. I mean, there's so many echoes of the Iran conflict we're facing now and that. It's literally like they picked up the playbook, dusted that shit off and said, okay.
Chris Bevolo (48:42.254)
We'll just claim they have nuclear weapons or they're building them. They're two weeks away. They continue to be two weeks away. Like if you go back, some, daily show is this funny montage of Netanyahu and American presidents saying Iran is two weeks away from nuclear weapons. It goes back like 15 years or something. $2 trillion spent for the Iraq war. Hundreds of thousands dead, mostly Iraqi civilians.
We ended up with torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. We lost so much standing for that nonsense. And Afghanistan as well, where we got really stuck in the quagmire there. And so that was the first real blow, right? Vietnam was a blow because we went in there, again, under the guise of like, got to stop communism.
And so that was a blow to our power and prestige, but we recovered from that. And the unfortunate part of the Iraq war in terms of the global brand is that we just kept it up, right? So 2008, which is, know, we're still probably dealing with, I can't remember, but I'm sure we're dealing with Iraq at that point still, the financial crisis, meltdown of the economic system starts in the United States because of our greed.
our lack of regulation, our supporting of corporations and the wealthy, all those things and spread like a contagion around the world. Like it was brutal. You had full ass countries go under financially like Ireland and Iceland and others. Home prices fell 20%, the DROW dropped 53%, I mean, more than half. One in four households lost 75 % of their net worth.
two trillion, another two trillion, erased from the global economy, basically the worst financial situation since the Great Depression. And we were to blame. Not only did we cause it, the way we handled it, which happened under Obama, to be fair, was complete protection of Wall Street. Complete, like, banks are bailed out, Wall Street people got their bonuses because they were the only ones who could get out of this mess.
Desiree Ep15 (50:56.128)
Yeah.
So we got to give them their bonuses. Homeowners were screwed. Pensioners were screwed. And the world said, wow, you guys suck. You guys caused this with your recklessness and your Clinton knocking down the Glass-Steagall Act. There's Democrats as well as Republicans in this mix. But we're going to end as with an individual. And you get three guesses.
If you can name who the person is that is the third body blow to the American global brand. Is it Ronald McDonald? Is it Tom Brady? Or is it Donald Trump? You only get one guess.
I'll put 700 on 80 for Brady. No, but of course it's, it's the DJT. It's the, it's the Jay, it's the Donald who got us into this. I will say to be fair in 2008, that was something Obama was having to clean up a mess. Like he had just gotten it like elected.
I realized that however, like he got us out of the mess and a good job, but he could have been hard. He did not want to upset the corporate Wall Street people. He really didn't. And he blew that part of it. He definitely was handed a mess by George W. Bush who
Chris Bevolo (52:34.092)
Remember the Olympics in China in 2008? When Beijing was putting on the opening ceremony, it looked like, God, we're all fucked. And they were interviewing, I don't remember who it was, George Bush, with that in the background. And they're like, well, how does it look when China's putting all this on and all the issues we're facing? And he's like, issues? He literally was like, what are you talking about? What issues? And we were like, sinking.
Well, and that wasn't, and that was also a time period. I remember I was with the school district at that time and there was a big push for like Mandarin teaching Mandarin in school because there was going to, cause there was like, know, China might be the next world power source where students are going to need to, people are going to need to know how to speak that language in order to conduct business. but I, I digress like maybe we were just like pre.
go through that periodically, we go through the who is the competitive threat in the 80s. It was Japan. Right? Like there's a great novel on a semi good movie called Rising Sun by Michael Crichton that was freaking. What's the word when you're xenophobic, like terribly racist, you know, the Japanese are the devil, like, because their economy was booming at the time, and then it became China. Yeah, now I guess it would be maybe
Desiree Ep15 (53:51.092)
tropes.
UAE, I don't know. I don't know who is our rival, but... Anywho, so yes, our friend DJT, first election, you got COVID, not his fault, but he didn't help much. We had the highest deaths globally of any country, 1.1 million. He politicized the shit out of that, made it so half the country didn't want to wear masks, which is just idiocy.
China, UAE, Russia.
Chris Bevolo (54:21.358)
walked away from the Paris climate accords, ran a nuclear deal. That's Chekhov's gun for the second term coming up. Cozied up to Russia all over, and remember North Korea and his love affair with, what's his name? But the worst part, Kim Jong-un, the worst part was when he lost and essentially led an insurrection on January 6th, where people around the world saw
Im Jang Un.
Chris Bevolo (54:51.822)
mobs attack our capital and try to disrupt the transfer of power. Not great, not great at all for a global brand. And then you know what America did? You know what we decided? We decided, you know what? We're gonna, we'd like that guy again. So despite his 34 felonies, despite all of the bullshit about the election, which was proven wrong, despite his January 6th involvement, we'd like that him again. And in the short little bit of time, here's a short list as,
of things that have dented our global brand. Tariffs. Stop all US aid, which has led to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths, according to Harvard around the world. Military action in Venezuela, Iran, threats of military action in Mexico, Panama, Canada, Greenland, even with NATO. War crimes. We are bombing boats in international waters. We disguise our aircraft as civilian aircraft. All that's
illegal internationally. Stuff we're doing in Iran, we blow up a bridge just to show them we can. Threatening to wipe out their civilization. It's all war crimes. Like the whole civilization will die tonight, let's not forget that. Continued support of Israel's action in Gaza and now Lebanon. The whole ICE crap. As you mentioned, we have 10 deaths.
of people in custody with ICE in 2026 alone, including the two citizens, Renee Good and Alex Preti, who were murdered on the streets of Minneapolis. I mean, good gravy.
It's a lot. And it's a lot.
Chris Bevolo (56:38.03)
It's a short list. It's a pretty comprehensive list, right? So it's fair to say that today the US from the worldview is seen as chaotic, unpredictable, not trustworthy, selfish, belligerent, threatening, violent, arrogant, authoritarian. Like those are all valid criticisms that you
The people threw at us before one way or the other, but wasn't the dominant perception. Let's look at some stats, Okay, so go ahead. You wanna add something before I throw out the final counting?
Yeah.
Desiree Ep15 (57:22.638)
Well, no, I mean, it's just the cracks of the facade are now like whole rivers that we're swimming in that essentially does open us up. makes us more vulnerable so that there is more of an opportunity. And just like history has shown with, you know, these other countries that were world power, you know, things happen and then they're no longer the world power. That's essentially like kind of the fear right now is that we're hit, we're...
like swimming in those waters and like, what does that even look like? Who are we? What does that mean? Now, as us, as just like everyday humans, we will be fine. Like literally people in the UK are fine, you know, as they used to be the power before they went bankrupt and that we will be fine, but it's still like the scheme of things is like, how do we navigate the world? But anyways, like that's my biggest thing is that like essentially it just,
it makes us more vulnerable and like, you know, what happens when someone is able to really like, you know, jump into like, manipulate that vulnerability who knows, but that's where it puts us. So stats.
Yeah, I don't know if I think fine is a strong word. I don't know if the people in England are fine. think a lot of them are not maybe because their empire died. A lot of it is because of Brexit, but they're struggling in many ways over there.
I just mean like they're not destroyed. Like the fear is that like, yeah, I mean, in the scheme of things, they're fine. Like every country is struggling with something, right? But like we, the biggest fear is that like, my God, like if this doesn't work out, this great American experiment doesn't work out. Like what happens to us? Would we go, did someone come over here and like puts us like under control? Are we in like shackles like across the country? Like, no, not necessarily. I don't know. Like hand mails till.
Chris Bevolo (58:48.044)
No, they're not destroyed. Yeah.
Desiree Ep15 (59:15.214)
tells a different story. But that's what I mean is that like people still are able to like live their lives. Like they're not under constant regime like that, but it's everything is so up in the air. Like you do kind of like find your mind going to that like worst case scenario in this, but you have to remember that when other countries like this have fallen from that big power that they, they survive. Maybe not thriving, but they're surviving.
They survived, like, if you look at empires, like the Soviet empire, like, woof, that is not a good situation. The Roman empire, I mean, most people don't realize that Italy didn't show up as a country in the way we see Italy today until the late 1800s. It's not like Italy's been around for centuries. Italy was just a collection of city states, essentially, after the fall of the Roman empire. The Greek empire, like, where's Greece today?
Is anybody looking to Greece to lead? So yes, like those countries exist to one degree or another in terms of their kind of standard of living and all of that, but they're not world powers anymore. Right. And that's a very different scenario than where the United States is. And if, know, again, we can turn this around, but as I said, some people that are very smart in my lives have said like, yeah, it's going to take us, it's going to take us a hell of a long time. Here's where we're at today. So,
Just one poll to start with, Politico wrote this, did a poll in February, so just a couple of months ago, and asked people around the world, including the United States, certain things about the United States. So exactly what we're talking about. Does the United States protect democracy? 49 % of Americans said yes. People in Britain, 34%. People in France, 21%.
people in Denmark 18 % Right, so 18 % of people in Denmark believe America protects democracy. I wonder why Turns out that they're responsible for Greenland and we've been threatening to take Greenland from them. Are we a force for stability? Only 36 % of those in America said yes, but only 18 % in the United Kingdom 15 % in France 14 % in Germany and 13 %
Chris Bevolo (01:01:36.302)
in Denmark. mean, good Lord. And are we, can we dependent, be dependent on in a crisis? We still think we're the shit. 57 % of us said, hell yeah, call us up. Uh, people in Britain said 38 % of them said yes. France, 27, Germany, 27 and Denmark, 25. So wow, that is crazy. Pew did a survey in 2025 of 24 nations.
62 % of those nations surveyed had no confidence in Trump's leadership. Favorability dropped in 15 countries before the Liberation Day tariffs. So Mexico's dropped 29 % to 32. So that's the favorability rating was 32%. At Sweden, we're at 28 % favorability, which was down 19%. Poland, we're at 22%.
and Canada were at 20%, which dropped 34%. All this, by the way, is before Iran, all of it. So if you go back up to the political poll in February and ask people now, are we a force for stability? Those numbers have gotta go even lower than the mid teens, because all we've done is drive instability with this. There's other stats, Des. I don't know if any of them jumped out to you.
The only one I'm going to mention is that for the first time in 20 years, according to Gallup, China, to your point, has surpassed the United States in terms of ease of dealing with and who people look to as a leader. 36 % of countries around the world see China as a leader over the United States at 31%. That is Sears.
Welcome to Sears. We're now closed.
Desiree Ep15 (01:03:33.408)
All around the country closed. There's a Hollywood, not Hollywood, Halloween shop, like setting up to take over your building. Yeah.
Yeah, let's get to what we can do about it. think like you talked a little bit about the implications, like, hey, the people in England are fine, right? They're fine to a degree, yes. I think that's true. But obviously as our brand falls, we've seen that China's and others will rise. We heard the Prime Minister of Canada talk about a new order where the middle countries, so like no longer should these middle level countries depend on following the path of a superpower, be it the United States or China.
So Canada, Western Europe, some Asian countries, some South American countries, they all wanna get together and bind together because they're tired of dealing with us and dealing with China, right? So we lose so much influence there, cultural influence, political influence. Our economy, the world economy is based really in the dollar. like our credit rating has been downgraded. Last year our credit rating was downgraded, which means
Mm-hmm.
Chris Bevolo (01:04:48.088)
We pay more interest in our debt. Some of that is tied to the confidence in the dollar. A lot of it's tied to our debt, but also our confidence in the dollar. Our alliances are eroding. So as we've seen in Iran, we treated them like shit. We treated our allies like shit. We didn't tell them what we were gonna do. We just went in and did it. And then when we got stuck, we're like, hey, you need to help us out. And they're like, yeah, go blow. And now, you know, Trump's all upset because the allies didn't come to his rescue. We didn't.
You didn't treat them as allies. You haven't treated them allies. So that's a real dangerous situation for us to be in. It's going to take a long, long time for us to recover from this. And we don't even realize the full ramifications of all this, but they're not good. They're not good.
They're not good. you know, when I was speaking to like what that looks like, I mean, this is, you know, modern society, you know, like very, very different from like, what feels like the Greek mythology in the Roman Empire and it's like a completely different world. But what is important about this time period is our globalization, our connectivity, or we are in, we're still, regardless of all of this stuff, we are still in community with one another.
And to your point, so as far as like, can we do? Cause like, yeah, we can't like, on individuals, can't like stop these wars or like our brand or what have you. But it's through those connections, you had mentioned soft power and essentially soft power is built and can be rebuilt, you know, through, you know, citizenship, through relationship. So when I mentioned earlier about our, you know, traveling to other countries, you know, essentially act like you got some sense because these countries, they,
Even the folks that were coming across these coffee shops, these restaurants, you know, the sites that we're going to see in these other countries, you know, they're not necessarily blaming us, but like the way that we show up is a indicator of that. And so there was, this was like a couple of weeks ago, there was a video that went viral of this woman who is, she did, I guess she did something that made the locals be like, who did you vote for? And she wouldn't answer the question.
Desiree Ep15 (01:07:04.332)
which made it obvious like who she voted for. And so like I said before about like, this is what we're up against. And it's essentially like, how are we showing up in these other countries? How are we talking about these other countries? You know, cause essentially if our government is like torturing our brand, it's the citizens that can still tend to it and how we're interacting with each other because we still are in like community. We're still in business with one another.
The next piece is then like, how are you actually taking in the news that you read? And especially like looking at foreign policy. So before we form any kind of opinion on what's going on, any kind of international conflict, go back, take a few minutes and find out what did we actually do to them to set this thing up? We haven't talked about this, but when you're looking at like what's going on with Gaza and Israel,
You know, so much of that goes back to these random kinds of decisions that Britain made and said like, yeah, here's your land, which I'm sorry. Did y'all consult with them at all? You just made a decision that has like sparked wars upon wars upon wars for centuries, millennia, what have you. So that's what I mean. It's like, just take a few minutes to be like, you know what? I don't know that I can just take this at face value. What was our role in this to understand like,
Oh yeah, kind of like what you said, like if a country had done to us what we've do to them, we're going to have something to say, we're going to have some feelings about it. We're going to have some actions about it. So just look at that and then push back on some of this mythology. You know, we're just taking these, these phrases and freedom and democracy. And we're just like taking them at blind without actually really looking at what does that mean? What does that actually look like? How has that actually shown up in our country? And just again, just take it.
Just take a beat. It'll be eye-opening. And as far as other organizations, know that USAID and a lot of them, know, number of other programs have been cut, like Peace Corps and AmeriCorps and all that kind of stuff, but there are still organizations like Doctors Without Borders. If you really want to be that global citizen, look for those organizations that are still doing this work that's important, that's needed, that may not have the backing of the government, you're out there. Join that, be a part of that.
Desiree Ep15 (01:09:25.834)
if that's something you really, and then just reckon with the gaps that we have here at home. You know, as much as we're going out and saying like, you are the country where you can't do that when we have like higher insane problems here, like pay attention to that and going back to what I meant about the like, we're like Britain is fine. It's like when these countries, have this fall.
you have to go back and reflect on yourself and fix what's going on in your country. Because so much of our focus as a United States has been outward, has been external, like, we gotta go over here to save them, we gotta go over there to release those folks and create democracy. But I think this opens up an opportunity for us to really reflect and maybe it's by region or state or county, but I think it's more of us looking back and fixing what is actually going on here, because we're not gonna be that power.
We may not be that power anymore, but for the love of our, and I love our country, which is why I say it's so hard to even like say some of these things out loud because like this is where I'm from. This is my soil and I do love this, there is a better way. And every, we're a young country and essentially every country has had some version of this and had to reflect. You look at Germany, they actually are paying attention to the history of what they've done.
Whereas historically we've just been like, we just moved on and act like we never did or take the history away. take, we put Trump's sign on something to really like dismiss what it was actually about. We don't let yourselves do that. Don't let your community do that. Understand what our actual history is, what we can learn from it, fix what needs to be fixed and keep it pushing. Even if we aren't, you know, who we used to be or who we thought we were.
We are still a strong, united folks. There is this melting pot of folks that we are doing this work. It's getting harder, and that's also cyclical. just, again, it's almost like this is a time to reflect and go inward and work on ourselves and our own individual communities to reflect the world that we actually want to live in.
Chris Bevolo (01:11:38.618)
That's great things to be able to take action on. Because yeah, all this can feel really overwhelming. And I think we get pretty hot and passionate about like pointing out the truth of things, which is cathartic in some ways, but also can be awfully depressing. know, the United States has done a lot of great things and deserves some of the brand that it's earned over time. But we definitely...
We need to know the reality of what's going on and what has gone on so we can be real about that. And, you know, it's probably arguable that we've done more good than harm in the world. Just the idea that we are a people that sprung out of a monarchy that theoretically has self-determination, that's a pretty important thing by itself. It has been messy. It has been, you know.
wrong in so many ways, but at the end of the day, that idea is something that we should all agree to. And so if we, if we can find a way back to that idea and really making that the prominent way we show up in the world, that will bring us back. It's going to take work, right? Like people are going to believe it at first. There's be like, you just, we could elect the best person ever. And they'll be like, well, what's to stop you from electing the worst person, the next worst person, right? so it's just,
It's gonna take hard work and diligence and patience and discipline, things that we're not great at in this country, but we can do it. We can do it.
Put your back into it America.
Chris Bevolo (01:13:18.51)
All right, I think we're good to wrap. Again, this has been great, Des. Thank you, as always. Also shout out to our new producer, Julia Bevolo, who joined us a couple of weeks ago, has been producing the show and distributing the show. Last name may be familiar to you, so figure that out as you will, but we're thrilled that she's working with us and helping us out so we can do a better job.
Thank all of you for joining us as always, whether you're listening or watching or however you take this in. Hopefully this has helped you cope in some ways with the world around us. Please feel free to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen or watch. Especially give us five stars on Apple podcasts because that raises our profile. And if our profile is raised, more people get to hear from us, which we love. Visit Bering287.com to learn more about
how we're helping NGOs and charities and nonprofits make the world a better place. Follow me on Substack to access other helpful content. And as always, I'm Chris Bevolo. On behalf of, I'm not even supposed to be here today. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time for part three, the myth of the American melting pot. Until then, bye.