It's kind of a bummer to be on the other side of this and be defending the status quo.

It sort of sucks.

I really hate defending the status quo, but I'm really convinced that each generation has to fight for democracy because it's not a natural state of being.

And we are creeping up quickly on ancient Greece as having the longest democracy in

2000 plus years. And ours is only, ours is like three Joe Biden's old, right? There's no assurance.

And like when my dad says, America's been through many hard things, my dad's much smarter and

more worse than history than I am, for real. But when he says America's been through much

harder things, I examine each one of those things and think of how close it was that

democracy tumbled. And the fact that, honestly, like three of my dad's lifetimes is all this country has been around.

And the odds of it, like, making one more lifetime is definitely not assured.

So it makes me conservative with a little C, and that is not a fun. I don't enjoy that.

Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dowm. My guest, Joel Stein, was a columnist

at Time Magazine for 20 years, known for his humorous,

irreverent, and often deadpan inquiries into American life and social politics.

He's also been a columnist at Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles Times.

Joel's latest book is, in defense of elitism, why I'm better than you and you're better than someone who didn't

buy this book. And despite the subtitle, it's actually a quite serious, though also quite

funny, journey through the parts of America that in the wake of the Trump election, Joel

realized he didn't understand at all. He talks with me about the people he met, what surprised

him the most, and explains the

distinction between what he calls the intellectual elite and the boat elite. He also refuses

to comply with the structure I try to impose on my interviews, so be forewarned. And with that,

...