Can Democracy Destroy Itself?

Did you know using your browser in incognito mode doesn't actually protect your privacy? Take back your privacy with IPVanish VPN. Just one tap and all your data, passwords, communications, browsing history, and more will be instantly protected. IP vanish makes you virtually invisible online. Use IP vanish on all your devices. Anytime you go online at home and especially on public Wi-Fi. Get IP Vanish now for 70% off a yearly plan with this exclusive offer at IPvanish.com slash audio. This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM 640, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the IHeart Radio app. A couple stories that we've been following. Iran said today that it is holding talks with Oman on temporarily reopening the Strait of Hormuz, of course, right through the Persian Gulf of Iran. Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a news conference, however, there are no direct talks going on between the United States and Iran. kind of contradicting President Trump, who's been saying that there has been some of these talks have been going on. Light winds, lower temperatures are in the forecast today. We hope for eastern Washington state, that is, Spokane area specifically. 60,000 people have been evacuated out of the way of wildfires. At least 600 homes, businesses, and other structures have been destroyed. We also know that some resources from Southern California had been sent up there. California Interagency Incident Management Teams 4 and 7 are headed to the Northwest to help out. Oh, that's lovely. That was a very pleasant. Who got mail? I don't know. I don't know. Check it out. No. I don't think it was. My computer's not hooked up to this. No, you're not even hooked up to this. My goodness. I'm excited for whoever's mail this is. Read it. It's kind of that old school sound, right? You've got mail. Was it me? It may have been. Did you get email? Did not get an email, but I was messing with my script over here, getting the very latest of KFID. I wonder if somebody got a Microsoft Teams meeting notification. What a lucky bastard. What a sexy turn of events. Oh, my gosh. It's better than drinking. Nothing gets Gary more upset than Microsoft Teams. I think it goes back to during COVID when everyone wasn't working here and everyone was on these teams meetings. We were coming into work every day. Actually seeing people. People would send us teams invites and Gary would hit the effing roof. He'd say, how about you come into work? I'm not going on at a teams meeting. And to this day when we have a teams meeting, it is. Well, I have to, like. I feel like every time we do it, I have to reinstall it. Because you hate delete the app every time your call is done. Monks are scheduled one for this week. For what? I'll invite you. I'll tell you privately. Don't. What is Michael Monks scheduling a team's meeting for? Who was it? Was it Chris. Maybe it was Chris Merrill who was sending us messages. And he's like, how come you guys never respond to my texts? I had to pull them aside. I got a text message. I would respond to it. He's like, yeah, I have to.

and sending him to your Microsoft Teams. Yeah. See, that's where he went wrong with you. Chris Merrill's got this project where he wants to make Gary love him. And I told him, you know, you can't be a golden retriever with Gary. It doesn't work. You've got to put time and elbow grease into this one. And that sounded awful, awful, awful. But. Chris Merrill, I think, started off on the wrong foot with you because he was only communicating to us through team's messages. Yeah. And that really put him behind the eight ball. Yeah. Anyway, let's see. Speaking of sexy, Steve Hilton is challenging Javier Be careful to man up and show up to a televised showdown. They want a debate. Steve Hilton has called Xavier Becerra's soft. Well, Xavier Becerra supports soft. Citing polling that shows more than a quarter of Californians votes are still up for grabs. I heard a poll out of Orange County, which is pretty purple these days. And it's a dead heat. It's within the margin of error in Orange County, whether they like Steve Hilton or Xavier Becerra. Really? I don't know anybody who likes Xavier Becerra. I know people who are going to vote for him, but I don't know if that means they like him. You bring up a really good point. It's just voting for the big D. And I mean the D next to his name, the Democratic Party. Democrats are just voting for him because he's a Democrat and they don't want a Republican. I mean, you could have made the argument that the election of Joe Biden was very similar. He wasn't the most exciting candidate, but he was the one who had the best chance it looked like to take out. Donald Trump. You know what I'd like to get into? And it may be too early. A club of some kind? We often. A gym maybe? What you want to get into? That was unnecessary. No, no, I mean that you. It was wildly unnecessary. And out of the blue. Just, you just, you just body shame Shannon. I did not. I did. On a Monday. On a Monday, no less. Not cool. Not cool at all, bro. But what I was going to say is Javier Milei, we talk about all the no-bid contracts, right? We've talked about it with politicians on both sides of the aisle, whether it's Trump, whether it's Gavin Newsom. He has a massive no-bid contract in his past, Xavier Becerra, and it involves what got him into trouble with the kids in the cages, where he gave a no-bid contract to a company to take care of all of these displaced children in the immigration racket. And it was bloated beyond your imagination per child of how much this contract was for. And...

That is something that we should maybe get into just because if you're going to be running for governor and all your Kevin Warsh are going to show, you might as well address them because that's going to be addressed. It should be addressed. The amount of fraud and waste that goes on. And people will say, oh, well, it's not just fraud and waste. No, it's not. But that's a nice thing to get rid of. I think we can all agree. Yeah. Why is that a bad thing to target that? Yeah. I mean, you should target your abs, but that's neither here nor there. Tushay. Elmer, you're not supposed to laugh at that. You're supposed to say, no, we don't pay evil, we pay evil with evil. That was a sick burn. All right, fine. Plank party during the break. Good thing. I'm done after this. Woo-hoo. Hurry up and get to me, please. All right. What are we going to do next? Did you want to do that, John Adams? What are we doing that? Whatever you want? You want to talk about Malibu or about the death of democracy? There may be a connection between the two. You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM 640. Did you know using your browser in incognito mode doesn't actually protect your privacy? Take back your privacy with IPVANISH VPN. Just one tap and all your data, passwords, communications, browsing history, and more will be instantly protected. IP vanish makes you virtually invisible online. Use IP vanish on all your devices. Anytime you go online at home and especially on public Wi-Fi. Get IP Vanish now for 70% off a yearly plan with this exclusive offer at IPvanish.com slash audio. Most of the time when I see clips of the clips that Matt posts on our social media at Gary and Shannon of our weekend. I have no memory of that conversation. There are very, it's a funny thing. I don't know if it's that we end up talking a lot anyway. I mean, just. based the nature of the job as we speak, how much of that just immediately is flushed out of our memory that we don't get it. Yeah. Because then you watch that and you're like, well, she's fun. Is that what happens in your head? Yes, that's right. That's nice. She seems nice. I think I need to be committed most of the time when I see those. We have a chance for you to win $1,000. Here's how you can pick it up. Now is your chance to win $1,000. Just enter this nationwide keyword on our website. Check, that's C-H-E-C-K. Enter it now at K-F-I-A-M-640.com slash cash. K-F-R. C-H-E-C-K, check is your keyword this hour, and an hour from now will give you another shot to win a thousand bucks. Article in the New York Post this week about the Palisades, about Malibu, and the fact that it's been more than a year and a half. half now, and only a handful of homes along PCH have begun rebuilding. Why is that? Why is it a ghost town? Well, here's a newsflash. It costs an S ton of money that God has no idea about collecting to build in Malibu. It's a very high cost of construction. The land costs a lot. There is a...

an S ton of money that you just have to be sitting on to get things going. And then that's not to even mention all the red tape that exists. Yeah, despite the pledges that came out from city, county, state officials that they were going to wipe away all of that red tape or as much as was feasible so that they could accelerate the rebuilding process. Not just to mention that, but you've got the Coastal Commission. Building along the coast is a nightmare. A simple remodel has to get the stamp of the city, the coastal commission, and other agencies. Matt Greenberg bought his piece of paradise, as he calls it, on the water in 2023. It was a fixer-upper that he was ready to turn into his dream home. And he says the process to get anything done in the city is just an absolute nightmare. Everything is slow, expensive, and takes a while. He was one of the first ones to sell. Well, he ended up, he was going to do a simple remodel. Again, he got the house in 23. He's going to do a simple remodel. They finally get the permits. on January 7th of 25, which obviously that fire started later in that day. But he said they were literally going to crack champagne and the whole thing because they were going to do this beautiful remodel in their dream house the morning of the fire and it burns down a few hours later. And he said, I didn't want to go through all of that again. It was a mess before the fire to get anything accomplished. And that's why he sold. He could not go through the permitting process again, the challenges of rebuilding. He said it was going to be ridiculous. A lot of people... have blamed the city for this. The city turns around and says the biggest challenge for homeowners is that they were underinsured to begin with. And what we've seen is the dramatically higher cost of reconstruction or construction in general, but in this case, reconstruction. One guy says he's building for about $7 million. They can't afford that. Nobody can afford that because most everybody here had the California Fair Plan, which is a maximum $3 million insurance policy. Gavin Newsom gets credit in the area for his quick response, streamlining the permitting process with the California Coastal Commission, waiving the California Environmental Quality Act requirements. But since then, they feel a little forgotten. Apparently, their calls are going unanswered now at the governor's office.

You've got one of the guys, like I said, he said there's probably 200 people neighbors who say, I don't know whether I want to rebuild. I'd like to rebuild. I don't know if it's possible. The city's going to be impossible. And he said there's 20 or 30 of us who are the idiots who are just charging full speed ahead trying to rebuild our homes because we want to live here. And he's hoping that he could potentially be proof, you know, that as these 20 or 30 homeowners do rebuild and start to actually put, you know, framing up that they would be enough of an inspiration to give other people hope that that can be done. Carl Randall says that the biggest challenge is to rebuild being underinsured and the dramatically higher cost of construction because the California Fair Plan is a maximum $3 million insurance, which is laughable in Malibu. He says he's building... That's half a house. Yeah, exactly. If that. Right. Not great. It's a nice thing not being rich sometimes. Problems you don't have to deal with. Silly beach people. Those silly Malibu only have three million to rebuild. No, I mean, it sucks. But I get it. It sucks. If you're rich or you're poor, you lose your home. You want to rebuild your home. But I don't know. It sucks a little less, doesn't it? When you have that kind of money. Concern. Yeah, I think I know where you go with that. Yes. Deciding between the $6 million remodel and the $7 million rebuild, those are nice problems to have. Yeah. Frustrating. Champagne problems. Gary and Shannon will continue. Now we're going to do the John Adams quote. That's right. Mark Warner is joined and is ready for his plank party. Thanks for teeing me up like that. That was off. Oh my God. You're so welcome. What's going on? You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI AM 640. Stories that came out of the weekend was that the state Democratic Party, California's Democratic Party, has endorsed the billionaire tax that's going to be on the ballot come November. At a weekend meeting, the proposal cleared the 60% threshold needed to overcome objections to actually win the endorsement. This is strange because the two highest-level Democrats in the state. the governor and, you know, the guy running to replace him, Xavier Becerra. Both of them have opposed the measure. Obviously, the Republican Party and their candidate Steve Hilton has also opposed this billionaire tax that's on the ballot. All right. So John Adams. John Adams wrote a letter to John Taylor, not the wide receiver, in 1814. Got it.

And John Adams wrote in his letter in 1814 to John Taylor that he had deep fear about unbridled human passions like greed and ambition that would destroy pure majority rule governments from within. John Taylor, by the way, was a politician from Virginia. And he warned of basically humans ruining everything. And Fox News wrote it up last week as a way to talk about the federal debt and how we're pretty much screwed. You know, they point to what happened in Greece and the fact that they had the European Union to bail them out, but that if our national debt, which is approaching $40 trillion and continues to grow by $2.3 trillion each year does not get resolved, then we too will fail in crumble and collapse. But I looked at that quote in relation to what we're seeing going on with the Democratic Socialists of America. We talk about it or it's talked about is kind of this cute fringe group. The progressive Democrats, the young people that are first kind of... came on national prominence on social media fighting for the Palestinians and then became like the socialist TikTok group. And now we're seeing that it's not this cute fringe group. In fact, they have quite the hold on the Democratic Party. They are quite the influential players. You've got, as you mentioned earlier, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which was kind of a novelty for a while. I guess if you were just a casual onlooker to what's going on in politics. Right. You've got the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. You've got the Michigan representative. All Democrats, but all socialists. Three Democratic nominees for the U.S. House of Representatives are legit Democratic socialists that have a chance. Two in New York, one in Colorado. A third of Democrats identify as democratic socialists. And that term involves democracy and it evolves socialism. And you can't do both, can you? But they like to be underneath that umbrella of democratic. They have quite the unusual list of things that they would like to see happen in U.S. government. I don't even know where to begin with some of this stuff because this is not just a change in the United. This isn't a changing of the tax code or even necessarily something along the lines of redistribution of private wealth or something. The platform from the Democratic Socialists of America calls for structural changes to the country. Number one. abolishing the U.S. Senate? Abolishing the Senate. Not saying we need to, you know, rebuild it from within and, you know, get some more of our people elected to the Senate. They're talking about removing the United States Senate.

This is an anachronistic institution. This is Megan Romer, one of the DSA co-chairs. It comes from the British House of Lords, was created to protect power and ensure the people didn't have too much of a say. Now, along with removing the U.S. Senate, they want to expand the House of Representatives. How much? I don't know. The reason we're talking about this is that they had their big conference over the weekend in Chicago, where they talked about CNN asking me to subscribe to read a news article. Because they want your money. They had their weekend in Chicago, the Democratic Socialists of America did, preparing their next steps for taking over the Democratic Party and taking down capitalism. Over the weekend, they had the DSA merch table, $30 T-shirts and $45 sweatshirts, by the way. Green New Deal slogans. selling the Communist Manifesto and a children's book called Prisons Must Fall. They call each other comrades at this conference, and they had a pamphlet they were distributing with the title, A Future Without Capitalism, where food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren't for-profit businesses. They are common goods and utilities. A world in which you don't have to worry about paying rent or loans. Doesn't that scare the S out of you? That big daddy government is just going to dole out monopoly money to everybody and say you only have this amount and we'll take care of everything and don't ask questions. Just go about your job where you don't try hard. Everyone makes the same. Everyone works the same work week. That sounds like a prison to me. Yeah. That doesn't sound like freedom at all. There are people who would say in response to that, devil's advocate over here, that you and I have been given a lot of, you and I have been given a lot of privilege. Yes. For different reasons, whatever. Our social score is pretty high. And if you didn't grow up the way we grew up or the place that we grew up or the family that we grew up with, then you do want somebody to come through and take care of those things for you because your life has been more of a struggle. But the argument would be you succeeding means that other people have to fail. And you're implementing that on a government scale. It's different than suggesting that. In capitalism, generally, you're going to have winners and losers just from sheer nature of some people are going to be successful and some people aren't. When it comes to socialism, the government is telling you who's going to be successful and who isn't, as opposed to the market telling you that. And I think that should.

should prompt fear in people's minds because then how do you have any shot at succeeding if the government's going to be the one that decides whether you're successful or not? One of the problems, one of the tenants would be the no prison situation, which I want to get into because I don't really understand. If you are making all of the things illegal that go along with capitalism in terms of not letting the government handle everything, then it breeds, and you've seen this in other places that have tried socialism. It breeds black markets for everything. Like if the government's selling you a piece of cheese, all right, or giving you a piece of cheese, and it's Gouda, and you hate Gouda cheese. you're going to be like, I wonder where I can get some cheddar. The government doesn't have it. Well, Bob down the street's got some, he's got a whole underground cheddar market. I'm like, oh, hell yeah, I'm going to get some cheddar. The problem is, is the government has told me it's illegal to buy Bob's cheddar. And that if I buy Bob's cheddar, then I am basically, and it's an act of treason. Sure. And I can be put away. And you become undesirable. What do they have? Do they have camps? That's a word I see batted about. That sounds great. That sounds great. We've done that before. The aspect of it that I think is lost on people as well is that if you start a country with one goal in mind, this Democratic Republic that we have. You are a representative republic, depending on which definition you want to use. You don't get to change that. You don't get to change that. You can go somewhere else where there's a communist government and live there. Well, that's what I mean. Yes, you could do that. Or like I said, they're discussing this whole thing about doing away with the entire United States Senate. Expanding the House of Representatives. You're talking about constitutional at its core changes to the way the country runs. Yeah, that's America. That's revolution at that point. When Trump won the first time or the second time, but I'm leaving the country, it was like, okay. Like that's a legitimate response reaction. You don't like the way things are going to be done. That's just the way things are done. Then leave. Great. But. To think that you're going to tear down the very things that make America, America, i.e. democracy, there are places where you can live like this, and you could go do that there. They would gladly welcome you. I don't know. I think that people need to be taking these people very seriously, especially as we go into the midterms and into 2028, my goodness. Their voice is loud for a reason. And they are getting the coverage that they are for a very specific reason. Well, they're popular, you know, on the podcast circuit.

On the, in socialism sounds great in vertical videos. Like 90 seconds of socialism. Hell yeah. I also like key lime pie, but I'm not going to eat key lime pie for my entire life. It's just unsustainable. A couple bites of it. And you're like, this is fun. This is new. But you're right. You can't just eat the key lime pie for a reason. I love key lime pie. I love our analogies. They're just so, they have always involved things like cheddar cheese and key lime pie. You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM 640. Did you know using your browser in incognito mode doesn't actually protect your privacy? Take back your privacy with IPVanish VPN. Just one tap and all your data, passwords, communications, browsing history, and more will be instantly protected. IP vanish makes you virtually invisible online. Use IP vanish on all your devices. Anytime you go online at home and especially on public Wi-Fi. Get IP Vanish now for 70% off a yearly plan with this exclusive offer at IPvanish.com slash... Audio. Hoodies. Definitely the new T-shirt, right? Hey, Gary and Shannon. My son has... probably no less than 20 hoodies. He is obsessed, collecting always, and then he wears the same one all the time. It's disgusting. Boys are sick. It's insane. They're gross. I love. Stay around the home clothes. I for as long as I have been alive and making decisions for myself. I have had more stay around the house clothes, i.e. sweats and hoodies and just like comfortable stuff than anything that I would consider something to be acceptable at work, which has changed. That bar has gotten very low. But like back in the day, like real clothes that you would go out in public in. I always had more t-shirts and sweatshirts and, you know, shorts, stuff like that. And now it's acceptable to wear all that stuff out everywhere all the time. At school, at work, on planes, everywhere you can wear around the house stuff. So why wouldn't you have more hoodies and things? The way it's described in the Washington Post, hoodies are the new t-shirts. Quote, a component of an everyday default outfit available in every color at every price level, acquired myriad ways with no limit to how many one person might own.

The thing that strikes me as different this time around is that the hoodies for girls, young girls, are massive. They are down to their knees the size of these hoodies. That's a... The oversized look is... Billy Eilish look. Yes. Is that right? Yes, yes, yes. Good call. Thank you. What an influencer. I'm on top of things. Not you, her. Oh, never mind. You're an observer of influencers. You're a lot of things. An influencer, I don't think is one of them. I actually, when I was reading through this, I was kind of. I mean, for stupid products, you're a good role model. You're a good influencer in how to treat people and how to live life. You're very good at that. And I enjoy being around you. But I wouldn't turn to you for like product. Get a little thick in here right now. I wouldn't turn to you for like product recommendations. It depends on what the product is. No, probably not. 12 inch miter saw? Exactly. See, I don't turn to you for that. Who do you turn to then? I don't need a saw. Oh, that's what you're saying. But you would trust me. If you came to me, you're like, hey, I'm thinking about getting a miter saw, like compound miter saw. What do you suggest? And I say, you know, you. Spend the money. I don't know. My husband's got like six saws. So I'd probably, he also has a saw thing. You guys both have a thing for saws. Probably have a, we'd probably have a lot in common when it came to 12 inch. Maybe I should share your saws. If I need one, yeah. I mean, I'm, instead of buying all the saws. I'm good. It's a fun word to say over and over. What was the first hoodie that I owned was what I was thinking? Because I don't feel like the style itself. I mean, there was one thing like the zip up hoodie. Had one of those in school. We got a text message from a friend of the show. Her name's Carla. Right. This is something that will ring true with a lot of people, yourself included. My daughter has a million hoodies and bought none of them. They all belong to different boys. Ah, you know what? Yes. That is also very true. The stolen hoodie. Yeah. Because it also goes to what you're talking about, it being a comfort clothing, a comfort item of clothing. And the boys' ones are obviously oversized. They're going to be bigger. Right. I think the very first hoodie that I had was a hoodie that was given to me by the high school swim team. Yeah. I mean the traditional like same it was like the basketball pocket but with the you know the hoods and it's a sweatshirt. Well the thing with it in my house too is my mother would never have bought me a hoodie because it's what do you need that for? Right. It's like a it's like a.

A leisure item or whatever. If you're cold, wear a sweater. Wear a sweater or a jacket or whatever. Like a hoodie was like a luxury item because it didn't, it wasn't a, it was clearly just a glamour, you know, elective item, right? So like the one, I remember like the first one I had was probably for the basketball team. But yeah, it was definitely one of those things where you. My mom would be like, what do you need that for? What, like, what purpose does that serve? You're not going to go to school in that. You're not going to go to your, you know, your grandmother's house in that. You're not going to do this. You're not going to get dressed up and go to dinner with the family in that. Yeah. It was definitely ath leisure then, but now that athleisure has become, like you said earlier, that every day. Could you imagine if we told our parents back, you know, when we were 14 or whatever, that we wanted at leisure? What? That would have bought me, Converse. Chuck Taylor. These are your athletic shoes. Maybe if it was your birthday. I don't even know about that. Right. This is KFI. You've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM 649 a.m. to noon every Monday through Friday and any time on demand on the IHeart Radio app. Did you know using your browser in incognito mode doesn't actually protect your privacy? Take back your privacy with IPVANISH VPN. Just one tap and all your data, passwords, communications, browsing history, and more will be instantly protected. IPVanish makes you virtually invisible online. Use IPVanish on all your devices. Anytime you go online at home and especially on public Wi-Fi. Get IPVanish now for 70% off a yearly plan with this exclusive offer at IPVANish.com slash... Audio.