There was a book that came out a few years ago, and they made it in a movie called Catch Me If You Can.

And it was about a serial con artist who pretended to be a surgeon, airline pilot, and all sorts of things.

But all the things that he pretended to be had one thing in common. They wore uniforms.

And those uniforms projected a sense of authority that has been earned in your mind over

your whole lifetime, right?

So it's not the doctor's coat because it's white that causes you to obey the person.

It's because it reminds you of every other doctor's coat you've seen in your life,

maybe going back to your childhood, your pediatrician, and all the people on TV. And that thing

is able to conduct this, you know, to over leverage the situation with all this accumulated

symbolic force against you just having to make a momentary choice.

So it's really a power differential.

It's why a priest can run into a room and suddenly tell everybody what to do.

And they'll listen to him, not the guy who's dressed in, you know, a blue polo shirt.

Hey, folks, welcome to the Dark Horse podcast.

I have the pleasure and honor of sitting this afternoon with my good friend Walter Kern.

Walter Kern is many things and has a long and story career that many of you will be well

familiar with at the moment.

You tell me if I've got this wrong, Walter, but you are the editor-in-chief

of County Highway, America's only newspaper? Editor at large. Editor at large. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a kind of Kremlin and illogical distinction between that and editor-in-chief. It means that

I'm kind of out in the middle of the country, not at the headquarters.

So it's a partnership with a guy named David Samuels.

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