A new demographic reality is coming

Make Me Smart September 6, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal

First I need a glass of water. Killing me. Charlton Thorp man, a man with no sense of nuance. Hi everybody, I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make the day make sense.

Kimberly Adams 

And I’m Kimberly Adams, thank you, everyone for joining us on this Wednesday, it is September the sixth.

Kai Ryssdal

All right, so we’re gonna do it. Well, we always do most days of the week on this podcast. We’ll do some news. We’ll do a little bit of smiles. And then we will get on our merry way. Let us begin Ms. Adams, you get to go first.

Kimberly Adams 

My news item is this big thing in the New York Times. Huge interactive by the New York Times editorial board, a bunch of stories together about how America is aging. And you and I have talked about this quite a bit about how woefully unprepared we are for the aging of our country and the economy is not ready for it, the healthcare system’s not ready for it. Younger people are not ready for it. Certainly the workforce is not ready, we don’t have the housing. And so The New York Times has a bunch of pieces, looking at different components of it. You know what it means for our infrastructure, like sidewalks and street crosswalks. And you know, even how the lighting and paint on highways and things like that, as more and more of the population are older, obviously, there’s a discussion of health care, there was a really interesting data point in the sort of opening piece of this, let me see if I can find it. Here we go. “By 2053, more than 40% of the federal budget will go towards programs for seniors, primarily Social Security and Medicare- but those programs are not designed or prepared to handle the new demographic reality.” 40%, before anything else before interest on the national debt before defense before, you know, education for the, you know, few children that we see we are having, and that is wild. And I wonder if that’s going to be what sort of pushes more public support for universal health care. Once those health care numbers start going up?

Kai Ryssdal

Hmm, sorry, I’m just I’m pondering the I wonder if that’s going to be the support, that’s going to be the thing that gives support for topic X, whatever that is, because as we all know, a number of months ago as the planet was burning, because it was everywhere. I said, I hope this is the year that focuses the mind on climate change. And I don’t know, I don’t know.

Kimberly Adams 

No, I don’t. That’s fair. I mean, I also have, you know, in the vein of being cynical about all of this,

Kai Ryssdal

Welcome aboard Kimberly Adams, welcome.

Kimberly Adams 

You’ve you’ve you’ve converted me to your religion.

Kai Ryssdal

Man, I’m sorry. Now. I feel like a jerk.

Kimberly Adams 

No, but I mean, as I was reading all of these things, it reminded me a lot of a sense, I got, you know, early in the pandemic, when there was a shift to remote work and everyone figuring out how to work remotely. And a lot of the things that they’re pointing out for aging boomers effectively, are things that the disability community has been asking for, for ages. And just like remote work was something that people in the disability community, were saying this could work, it could be something that we do to make work more accessible. You know, they’re talking about the importance of making sure that sidewalks are smooth, or that you know, more of the housing stock is built to be accessible and, you know, allows people to age in place. These are things that people in the disability community have been saying were necessary for decades. But now that sort of, there’s a bigger chunk of effectively, previously able-bodied people who are now feeling this for the first time suddenly becomes a bigger priority. And I wish that we were a bit more empathetic as a country, and then maybe we’d be fixing problems earlier. But that’s my little rant.

Kai Ryssdal

No amen. I am on board with it. We should all be more empathetic because it would it would fix a lot of things actually. Okay, mine’s, mine’s a little bit far afield. And it’s outside the general bailiwick of this of this podcast, but it is very pro-democracy. And so I will just go ahead and say it. So there has been a movement of sorts, a chatter in the in the sort of political pundit class about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the third clause of which says that if you’re engaged in a rebellion against the United States, you cannot hold an office under the care of the United States. It’s one of the Civil War amendments obviously pass in 1860, whatever the heck it was. And there are some people now some very reputable high powered both conservative and liberal legal scholars and minds, who are saying the 14th amendment will prevent Donald Trump from ever being president. It is self-executing, he just cannot be on the ballot because he engaged in rebellion against the United States. So two things number one, I recommend everybody’s attention, an interview that aired on Morning Edition this morning in which David Frum formerly a commentator on Marketplace, but now a senior editor at The Atlantic had a conversation with Daniel Estrin, who was sitting in for whichever one of the hosts of that program was in in, in which and I forget the woman’s name on the other side, and I apologize for that. In which David Frum made the point that this is sort of the land of magical thinking. If you keep Trump off the ballot by using the 14th Amendment, the percentage of the population which approaches 50, by the way that voted for Donald Trump in any election will say, this wasn’t legitimate. You didn’t let our guy on the ballot. That’s ridiculous on a technicality from a hundred and whatever it is years ago, now, that’s just not feasible. It also opens the door for future misuse of the third clause of the 14th Amendment by people who want to keep Democrats off whatever ballot they like, because we do them they’ll do to us is the thinking. So I mentioned that because Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State of the State of Georgia, who, as we all know, has been heavily involved in the whole January 6 thing and the phone call with the president of the recording, and I just need to find me 11,000 votes that whole thing. Raffensperger is out with an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today in which he says I cannot keep Donald Trump off the ballot, voters have to decide. And I agree with both of those guys, I think that as both of them say, voters have to have to cowboy up on this one. If you are for or against Donald Trump, then rally your people sign up to take them to the polls, do all you can to get out the vote because that is what fundamentally has to happen to make this be a legitimate election and have it have some legitimacy, even though it may not be recognized by all involved, shall we say? And anyway, that’s my schpeel.

Kimberly Adams 

With the understanding that it’s very unlikely we’re gonna get resolution to a lot of these cases pending against Donald Trump prior to the election. What if he gets convicted, though, then does the 14th Amendment apply?

Kai Ryssdal

Well, no, because because he hasn’t been convicted of rebellion or seditious conspiracy, right. He’s not accused of it.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, that’s true. He’s not charged with that anywhere. Right? Yeah. He’d have to be charged with seditious conspiracy and then be convicted of it. Yeah.

Kai Ryssdal

As far as I know, there are no more there are no more indictments coming along those lines. I think four is plenty.

Kimberly Adams 

We’ll see what happens in the discovery process. Who knows what else is gonna come out? The Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington? Yes, crew has filed a lawsuit in Colorado, to try to keep Trump off ballot based on the 14th amendment. So we’re gonna see a lot more of these popping up.

Kai Ryssdal

We are, we totally are. And look, there’s a chance this could wind up before the Supreme Court, you know? Yeah. And then yeah, that was what’s gonna happen.

Kimberly Adams 

And I thought it was interesting in that Wall Street Journal op-ed, though, that Raffensperger, lumped Stacey Abrams complaints about the validity of the elections with Donald Trump’s complaints about the validity of the elections, which I thought was a stretch.

Kai Ryssdal

Yeah, it’s a little bit of both sides of them for sure. Totally.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, let’s let’s do some smiles. I’ll go first, because the first one is related to my news item about aging in America. The super cool story in Outside Magazine, about the fastest I’m just gonna read the headline, “The fastest 60 year old woman on earth is only getting faster.” And this is about Sue McDonald, who is a, you know, an athlete who competes in the 60 to 64 women’s age group and has eight world record records in that group, seven ratified one is pending. I’m just going to read this paragraph. “Having recently snatched world records in the indoor 800 meters and indoor 1,500 meters, McDonald was unstoppable chasing outdoors records to 400 meter 800 meter, 1,500 meter, mile 300 meter at several Southern California track meets and the 2023 USATF Masters Outdoor Championships in July.” And I feel so out of shape right now. But it’s a great profile about sort of how she keeps herself in shape, her attitude about it and just, you know, I think it’s really great to see this new perspective on aging. A couple of like, sometime last week, I wanted to have as my smile, but I didn’t because I talked about Bhutan instead. The silver bachelor, what is it called, you know, “The Bachelor” TV show with the roses and everything. They have one now for this. For older people, it’s like this guy in his 70s, who’s a widower. And so there’s all these women who are competing on this show, who are older women. And there’s this beautiful piece in The Hollywood Reporter, profiling all these women with these glamour shots, and I love the representation of older women as sexy and beautiful. Not that, you know, we should be objectified or whatever. But anyway, all that aside, I thought it was great to see this being represented as desirable and beautiful in our youth obsessed and perfection obsessed society. And the in the same vein, I love that this is representing an athlete at her peak if you know and getting better at 60, which makes me really happy.

Kai Ryssdal

And it’s about strength and dedication and purpose and training and all of that, you know, good sort of, you know, character traits that have it’s awesome.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, there’s a photo of her doing a high jump and I’m just like, man, I couldn’t not even in high school, not even in college. All right, and I’ve got one more to like appeal to my little anime heart. Miyazaki has another film coming out his first film in a decade. Hayao Miyazaki, I believe is how they say his first name. But anyway, it’s his first film in a decade, and it’s probably going to be his last. It’s called “The Boy and the Heron” and the trailer is out. And it looks amazing. It’s coming out in December. I’m super excited about it. And I think it’s really cool. They decided not to really invest too much in the Hollywood launch, and they’re just kind of putting their efforts elsewhere in the world. But there’s a really great quote that he gave to the Japanese NHK I believe I gotta find this quote, again. Alright, yeah, Suzuki, this is not from Miyazaki. It’s from somebody, the collaborator, Toshio Suzuki, who says, “a poster and a title. That’s all we got. When we were children. I enjoyed trying to imagine what a movie was about. And I wanted to bring that feeling back,” because they didn’t release a lot of information in advance about the film in terms of who was going to be in it and what it was going to be about. They kept it very vague, and so I’m very excited to see it.

Kai Ryssdal

Pretty cool, something for anime fans everywhere. Okay, mine’s a quick follow up. And and you might have already seen this news don’t know. But it’s, it’s making me smile. Jorge Vilda, who’s the coach of the Spanish National Women’s Soccer Team has been fired. He is not the guy who sexually assaulted Jenni Hermoso. So that’s Luis Rubiales whose mother is still I think on a hunger strike and who still has his job, even though he’s been suspended. But the coach himself, who is the object of no small amount of controversy has been fired. So a step forward in Spain for women’s sports and smashing the patriarchy. Oh, it’s a good thing. Okay. It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. Yes. All right. So we go out on that. We’re back tomorrow, which is going to be Thursday. In the meanwhile, do us a favor would ya. We are coming up on our 1,000th episode, which I’m told will be Friday. First of all, it’s amazing that people count this stuff. But we want to know what your favorite episodes were, your favorite guests, your favorite moments perhaps have been? Let us know 508-U-B-SMART. 508-U-B-SMART or write to us and makemesmart@marketplace.org.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, and we do have a little bit of a special announcement. If you haven’t already signed up for our newsletter. You really want to do that this week, because we are giving all of our subscribers a surprise gift to celebrate our 1,000th episode, our 1000th. So you’ll get it to you’ll be lucky.

Kai Ryssdal

I’m a subscriber.

Kimberly Adams.

So you’ll get it too. And I’m working on a specialty commemorative yes commemorative cocktail for the event that will be included in the newsletter also. So you can sign up at marketplace.org/newsletters.

Kai Ryssdal

Make me smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Today’s program is engineered by Charlton Thorp. Our interns Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kimberly Adams 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcast. Francesca Levy is the Executive Director of Digital and sometimes on demand too.

Kai Ryssdal

Sometimes, every now and the. Every Thursday and Friday that’s it. Every other week. I don’t know.