Make Me Smart May 29, 2024 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Hello everyone, I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m Kai Ryssdal. Thanks for joining us today. It is Wednesday, May the 29th. We will do what we do on Wednesdays, which is the same as we do. Let’s see. Mondays and Tuesdays. And that’s it.

Kimberly Adams

Well, not on Tuesdays.

Kai Ryssdal

Oh, no, you’re right. So, we only really do this two days a week, right?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, Monday and Wednesday because Thursdays, we have the audio clips. Tuesdays, we have the deep dive.

Kai Ryssdal 

How long have you been doing this podcast, Kai? Anyway, we’re going to do some news and some smiles like we do two days a week. Here we go. Kimberly Adams, what do you got?

Kimberly Adams 

I was very fascinated by this new survey out from LendingTree, which was reported in TheHill.com about Americans plans about political donations this year, and fewer Americans plan to donate to political campaigns, according to a survey than did in 2020. So, “In early 2020, more than one in three Americans (36%) told LendingTree they planned to contribute to political campaign that year. Fast forward four years, and far fewer Americans (26%) intend to contribute. More than half of Americans don’t intend to, while another 19% are not sure. Meanwhile, the generation gap has grown with 43% of Gen Zers aged 18 to 27 and 33% of millennials 28 to 43 planning to donate, versus 17% of Gen Xers and 14% of baby boomers, which are 60 to 78.” So, first of all, this was interesting to me because it is yet another reminder that relatively few Americans donate to political campaigns. And as this LendingTree report points out, very few, most Americans have never donated to a campaign. 66% of Americans, according to the survey have never donated to political campaigns. And of those who do, they probably skew a bit wealthier. And they asked also, and this is particularly fascinating, why people will not contribute to political campaigns in 2024. You can guess what number one is I’m sure.

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t want to be wrong, so you do it.

Kimberly Adams 

Oh, okay. Number one, they can’t afford to. 50% of people say they can’t afford to contribute. Number 2, 38%, I’d rather spend my money elsewhere. That’s a lot of us. Number three, I think the candidates slash parties have enough money, my donation won’t make a difference.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s where I was going to go for number one, to be honest with you.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I mean, which makes sense because you see. And I certainly report on the huge volumes of money coming into campaigns, mostly from wealthy donors. I shouldn’t say mostly because I think a larger volume of donations come in, at least the money that we can track comes in from small dollar donors, like in the 10 to 15, $25 increments. Most of the traceable money comes in that way. But when you look at the outside political spending, it obviously gets very skewed towards very, very wealthy people. But you know, money matters in politics, and I think it matters a lot more when you’re talking about local campaigns and state level campaigns, city council, things like that. And, you know, I get people’s disenfranchisement with contributing money at the federal level, but it really does matter to support the candidates you like at the local level in particular.

Kai Ryssdal

Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

Kimberly Adams

Sorry, especially since at the local level, often candidates are up against national fundraising targeted on issues or candidates running against them. So, you know, we saw a lot of this with school boards all over the country, especially in the last couple of years, where local candidates very plugged into the community were up against candidates being supported with huge volumes of money, and I think you talked about this happening in your school district, by campaigns that are run by national organizations not even in the community.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, yeah. But you know, political money is speech, so that’s okay. Sorry, little note of cynicism there. Yeah, I definitely would have gone with, they’re too disaffected with politics or politicians have enough money as my top two reasons.

Kimberly Adams 

I was very curious. When I saw the headline, I was like, is this going to be about the economy? Is this going to be about the election? Like, the fact that people don’t like Biden and Trump, and Trump, you know, Biden match up again, and it’s a bit of both, but um, I think that, you know, especially when people are, you know, worried about the economy despite, you know, the economic indicators, and we’ve talked about this ad nauseam. But if you’re feeling the pinch of inflation, you’re not going to want to give to candidates that seem like they have a lot already.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yep, totally.

Kimberly Adams 

What’s your news?

Kai Ryssdal 

So, mine is in the category of just because Elon Musk doesn’t have enough influence already. A story in The Wall Street Journal that came out yesterday, updated today. Here’s the lead: “Donald Trump and Elon Musk have discussed a possible advisory role for the Tesla leader should the presumptive Republican nominee reclaim the White House, the latest sign that the once-frosty relationship between the two men has thawed.” Read this piece. We’ll put it on the show page, but it’s kind of wild. These guys hated each other two years ago, and now they have a marriage of political influence convenience on issues that now matter to both men. Border policy and the economy. It’s really interesting and a little bit troubling too.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. I mean, not to mention their joint favorite activity of trolling online.

Kai Ryssdal 

Just trolling. Just trolling. Just trolling, but it’s, you know, this piece goes far deeper than just trolling, and actual policy issues that Musk wants to weigh in on and how he’s going to do it in tandem with other powerful business leaders and billionaires. It’s not nothing. It’s not nothing this thing that’s going to happen.

Kimberly Adams 

Help me remember correctly. I feel like Obama when he came into office had a whole bunch of like, tech billionaires coming in as advisors or like, didn’t they do like a round table or something? Where you had a bunch of them come in when he was still elected?

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m sure. I mean, that’s not you know. I don’t think that’s new. I think what’s different about this and look, Trump did too. He had his business roundtable. He had a couple of them that fell apart as people started leaving. What’s different about this, I think, is the toxicity that Musk brings to most conversations about most things. And, you know, I’d read a book on what the hell happened to Elon Musk, but you know.

Kimberly Adams 

So, I’ve seen quite a bit of commentary that it’s not so much what happened to Elon Musk as much as the larger his public profile has become, the more we’ve seen about how he really is. And lots of people point out to you know, sort of his upbringing, you know, and where he came from, and the culture in which he was raised. As you know, none of this should be actually surprising.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. So, South Africa in the era of apartheid.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, exactly. That was the important bit. But yeah, and so it’s like, how surprised should we be that someone whose familial wealth was generated in that environment? Extreme wealth at the expense of others under that kind of regime, then comes to America and acts the way he does? So.

Kai Ryssdal

Yeah. Fair enough.

Kimberly Adams

All right. Now let’s get some smiles. Shout out to Ellen Rolfes, who does our newsletter and was the first to alert me that the pandas are returning to DC. In a very snazzy, well put together video of the White House in the Smithsonian Institution have announced that they’re going to be two more pandas coming back to the National Zoo in Washington DC to the great celebration of residents of DC and anyone who has ever visited the National Zoo. I understand it is sort of weird pandas politicking and our relationship with China is not that great at the moment, but pandas are very cute, and it made me happy, and it made me smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. They’re coming back. They are coming back. This one is not so much a Make Me Smile for me as it is a wait what? Story in The New York Times today that North Korea is loading trash, cigarette butts, plastic water bottles, use paper and shoes and what looks like compost into bags, attaching them to big balloons and floating them over the DMZ, the demilitarized zone, into South Korea and dropping garbage on South Korea.

Kimberly Adams 

That’s so funny. When I saw that headline, it was not garbage that they were saying.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, yes, that is true. At one point I think there was yeah, there’s a caption on the photograph that says a balloon believed to have been sent via North Korea carrying various objects including what appeared to be trash and human waste over a rice field in Cheorwon, South Korea. Cheorwon, sorry. Yeah, you know, the North Koreans. It’s just an interesting place, man.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, interesting if you don’t live there, I’m sure.

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry. Here’s the quote: “‘Mounds of wastepaper and filth will soon be scattered over the border areas and the interior of South Korea,’ Kim Kang Il, a vice defense minister of Minister of North Korea, said in a statement on Saturday.” Just wow. Wow. Look, there’s still technically a state of war going on over there. There’s no peace for it.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. That’s one way to do it. Okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

It is one way to do it. It is one way to do it. All right, we’re going to leave it there. We ended yesterday with mounds of hog poop, now we’re going to end with something else. All right, we’re done for today, back tomorrow on a Thursday. Until then, send your thoughts, questions, or comments, any audio you think we ought to talk about to makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail 508-U-B-SMART. Those letters: U-B-SMART.

Kimberly Adams 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Today’s program was engineered by Drew Jostad. Thalia Menchaca is our intern.

Kai Ryssdal 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. Voila.