• The War on Millennials: Airing Grievances & Offering Solutions Through the Eyes of America’s Next Generation of Leaders

00:00 – 00:31

Dr.Mary Imparato

Welcome to conversatio,  the Belmont Abbey podcast. This podcast aims to form and transform our community so that each of us can reflect God’s image. I’m Doctor Mary Imparato, chair of the politics department at Belmont Abbey College. I’ll be your host for today’s episode. Today I’m joined by Pete Seat, a former white House spokesperson for President George W Bush, as well as a nationally recognized political commentator, author and adjunct professor at the University of Arizona.

 

00:31 – 00:47

Dr.Mary Imparato

Here, we also have Youthan Love joining us today. He’s a senior at Belmont Abbey College and president of the Abbey Political Thought Society, which is hosting a talk by Pete tonight. We’re excited to talk about his book, The War Against Millennials, as well as his work for President George W Bush. But I’ll let Pete and Youthan introduce themselves.

 

00:48 – 01:12

Dr.Mary Imparato

Pete, you go first.

 

Pete Seat

Well, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. And, engaging in this conversation. I’ll just say you did a great job. Kind of summarizing, what I do and who I am, and I can get away with saying nationally recognized political commentator because someone actually did come up to me in the airport in DC a couple of weeks ago and they’re like, didn’t I see you on CNN?

 

01:12 – 01:35

Pete Seat

Yes. Finally, someone recognized me. My parents like that one, too. So I, born and raised in Indiana. I’m a Hoosier through and through. Went to college at the University of Arizona, as you mentioned. Blessed to now teach there remotely a course on the American presidency, which is a very rewarding and fulfilling responsibility.

 

01:35 – 02:01

Pete Seat

And back home, I work for a firm called Bose Public Affairs Group, where I do strategic communications consulting for a variety of clients. Part of that is media coaching, executive level media coaching. And I dabble in the world of political commentary, which is always exciting.

 

For sure. Especially these days, Youthan.

 

Youthan Love

Thank you. I want to thank Pete for taking the time to come and spend with us here at Belmont Abbey.

 

02:02 – 02:23

Youthan Love

As doctor Imparato mentioned, my name is Youthan Love and I am a senior here. So looking forward to having you this evening. It’s important that we take the opportunity to bring speakers in that can further educate students and give them knowledge firsthand what it’s like, you know, serving on a presidential administration and what to look forward to and expect within their political involvement and civic duty going into the 2024 election.

 

02:23 – 02:51

Youthan Love

It’s a very hot topic, and we’ve got some subjects within the election itself that are more influential to college students this year. 

 

Dr.Mary Imparato

Yeah, so I want to actually start with that topic, because in your book, The War On Millennials, you start thinking about, you know, politics for the younger generation and, sort of what they have to actually face because it I guess it seems like the millennial generation can be blamed for a lot of things, whether that’s being apathetic or lazy, or, you know, complaining about their first world problems or what have you.

 

02:51 – 03:11

Dr. Mary Imparato

But, I think you try to give them a fair shake and, you know, explain some of what that generation is facing. So could you kind of, you know, enumerate for us some of your key arguments that you make in that book.

 

Pete Seat

Sure, and at the outset, I’ll say, despite, what you may see, receding hairline, a little bit of gray.

 

03:11 – 03:33

Pete Seat

I’m a millennial, 41 years old, so I’m on the senior edge of the millennial generation. But that’s why this particular topic was so near and dear to me, and why I wrote and published this book ten years ago now. So you’re testing my memory a little bit and asking me about the book. I had to actually go back and read parts of it, and I was like, I wrote this.

 

03:33 – 04:08

Pete Seat

But the perception you are correct then and now is that millennials are lazy, narcissistic, self-absorbed technology zombies. The reality, I think, and in ways has been proven in these ten years and I think will be as we move forward is that millennials could very well be the next greatest generation. Some of that is because of what we’ve gone through and what we’ve experienced already.

 

04:08 – 04:33

Pete Seat

The levels of education that we have compared to previous generations, and some of that, I think, is because we’re going to have to be. The challenges that millennials will face and generations behind us require that we step up to the plate, just like the Greatest Generation stepped up in World War two. Now, I hope it’s not another war of any kind.

 

04:33 – 05:02

Pete Seat

But there is this, as I call the war on millennials that is about the fact that we will be prisoners of the past. We will be shackled by the inaction of today, by the decision makers who should be making decisions in our best interests. Because let’s be very blunt about it. They’re not going to be here to suffer the consequences or reap the benefits of those decisions.

 

05:02 – 05:24

Pete Seat

And yet they continue to get sucked into, to the immediacy of the moment. And we can talk about that a little bit later, which is just piling high, the obstacles that we are going to have to overcome. 

 

Dr.Mary Imparato

Yeah, I think I mean when you think about it okay, millennials get the bad rap as like complainers and snowflakes.

 

05:24 – 05:47

Dr.Mary Imparato

But legitimately there are some statistics that indicate that, you know, homeownership, first time homeownership is delayed later than that, you know family formation. There are very real economic consequences of the decisions made by previous generations that millennials face and are reaping, you know, the consequences of, never mind, you know, kind of stagnant wages and the inflation we have now, which is also presenting a challenge.

 

05:47 – 06:07

Dr.Mary Imparato

So that’s kind of the economic one, which I think is very apparent. But what other challenges, do you think this younger generation is facing? 

 

Pete Seat

Well, I’ll touch on the economic one for just a second in what I call act one of the book. And I think it’s scene one. I really focus in on baby boomers.

 

06:07 – 06:36

Pete Seat

Anyone who knows me knows it’s a short fuse when it comes to this topic of baby boomers, but homeownership is out of reach for young people because housing prices are increasing. There’s a plethora of reasons we can talk about supply chains. We can talk about property taxes, but some of it is also during Covid. Boomers were sitting on cash.

 

06:36 – 07:00

Pete Seat

They weren’t traveling. They weren’t going out to restaurants. They were bidding each other up in cash to buy homes. And that then causes the entire market to increase and makes it more difficult for younger Americans to purchase. You also have the fact that boomers are staying in their jobs longer. Okay. Some of that is a good reason.

 

07:01 – 07:24

Pete Seat

They’re healthier. We live longer. So people want to work longer. Again I’m 41. I’m already looking forward to retirement. But you know God bless em for it. But that makes it more difficult for young people to move up the ladder in the company in which they work or, you know, to start their own business. They’re really kind of stuck, not even in middle management in some cases.

 

07:24 – 07:53

Pete Seat

Whereas boomers were supervisors were vice presidents were running companies by the time they were in their early to mid 40s. So it’s a very, very, very different world. The other challenges that I touch on in the book, one is entitlement programs. We don’t think about those enough, particularly Social Security. It’s a long way off. As of now, 67 is when most people would start to receive Social Security benefits.

 

07:53 – 08:22

Pete Seat

But as it’s going right now, it won’t be there by the time millennials and Gen Z, are of retirement age. And then the last one is the world and International Relations. We are the United States of America. And with that comes a burden and a responsibility to lead. And that’s a burden that we took on ourselves. It wasn’t necessarily put on us.

 

08:22 – 08:49

Pete Seat

We took on that burden. And as relations, relations, decay and alliances fray around the world, that’s going to pose a lot of problems that we’re going to have to clean up. 

 

Dr. Mary Imparato

Yeah, so, I really appreciate you kind of outlining act one, as it were, of your book and, you know, painting this somewhat dismal picture of, you know, millennials versus baby boomers.

 

08:50 – 09:10

Dr. Mary Imparato

But as anyone knows, any political system requires a certain amount of cooperation and cohesion. And so, you do later on in the book, talk about, you know, bridging this generational divide in our political discourse. So I was wondering if you could elaborate on what that would look like and what steps millennials might take to build that bridge.

 

09:11 – 09:46

Pete Seat

Sure. I think the first thing we all need to do is chill out, is take a step back and start to have dialogue again. We all live such fast paced, screen addicted lives, not just millennials. Everyone does now. And it’s so fascinating to me and sadly comical when people finally get in a room together and are like, wow, this is really nice.

 

09:46 – 10:13

Pete Seat

This is really refreshing, you know, to actually talk to humans in the same room. Who would have thought we could do that? But what we can accomplish and the divides that we can bridge in those moments, you can’t. You can’t plan for that. You can’t script it. Some of the best things that have happened in this world are when people got together in a room, not because they were texting.

 

10:13 – 10:47

Pete Seat

And that’s number one. I think what we also need to do, and this is where millennials need to lead the charge is we have to change. We have to reimagine the incentive structure of politics. The incentive right now, the reward is to say the most outlandish thing, the most, inappropriate thing. You know, quite frankly, sometimes to just lie through your teeth and not acknowledge that you are just be proud of the fact that you are.

 

10:48 – 11:24

Pete Seat

And that’s how you get attention, whether it be clicks online or, viewership on television. We, I think, have the power to change that dynamic and to say no, the incentives should be action. The incentives should be progress, not how crazy you can be. And I,have said this as I, you know, promoted the book, along the way, which is I believe that millennials are attracted to ideas and driven by results.

 

11:24 – 11:56

Pete Seat

Now, some of that is the world we live in because we live in an on demand world. You want to eat? Grab your phone. DoorDash will be there in 15 minutes. We’re just kind of used to that. But politics can learn something from that. They can learn that if they want more millennials to be involved. It’s questionable whether they do or don’t, but if they do start getting some results done, start getting some things taken care of, and I think you’ll see more civic engagement from younger Americans.

 

11:56 – 12:17

Youthan Love

Yeah, I mean, to go off of what you just said, it’s like political commentary on Capitol Hill all the time. You know, whether it’s a 30 second blurb that you’re putting on Fox News or CNN, it’s all about clout and what they want for themselves. Not necessarily the best interest for the American people or those younger generations, whether it be millennials, Gen Z, it kind of solely focuses on the baby boomer age.

 

12:17 – 13:08

Youthan Love

And they’re, as you said, they’re self-centered, they care about themselves. And you really see that now. And you have to question, I say that as a 21 year old now. Whether they actually want younger people involved in politics, stepping up for what’s right, making policy, serving in leadership roles. Yeah, you know, I look at, I’m not going to name any names here, but let’s just say senior leadership on the ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, both white buildings, one a little rectangular one, has a dome, but they’re up there and seem to have this mentality that the world will cease to exist when their time expires, that there’s nothing after that.

 

13:08 – 13:35

Pete Seat

What else? What other rationale is there for remaining in office and in power for that long? And to pay lip service to the idea that, oh we want future generations to have it better than we did. Will we in some cases. Yeah. Absolutely. There are, you know, cultural advancements, technological advancements that have nothing to do with politics.

 

13:35 – 13:55

Pete Seat

But when you look at our debt, when you look at these international relationships, when you look at the fact that insolvency and Medicare and Social Security get closer and closer by the day, can you really make the argument that it’s better off than when they took over? And I don’t think you can. 

 

Youthan Love

I agree with you on that.

 

13:55 – 14:14

Dr.Mary Imparato

I think that you really made a great point about the incentive structure, because the other part is that, like in a democratic state, the time horizon is very short. We focus on the here and now because we have to win this current election. And so tackling a problem that’s going to blow up in our faces ten, 15 years down the line, there’s not really much incentive for that now for this current election.

 

14:14 – 14:35

Dr. Mary Imparato

Right. People have this kind of we don’t really care too much for the generation to come because there’s no really the electoral incentive. The people who are voting for us are people that we can help now. And the future generation say they’re not even voting yet. So, I mean, that’s just something that we can’t, we really can’t get around that, sort of unfortunate incentive, in our politics.

 

14:35 – 14:54

Pete Seat

Well, I’ll throw in real quick. So the former governor of my home state of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, he loved, to quote the former prime minister of Luxembourg, who said, quote, we know what we need to do. We just don’t know how to get reelected after we’ve done it. And I think that sums it up. That’s about it.

 

14:54 – 15:12

Youthan Love

Yeah, I mean, do you think that’s why some members of Congress in the Senate fear taking action in certain ways? Because they’re scared of losing? 

 

Pete Seat

Absolutely, well, let’s just talk about Social Security for a second. Yeah. It’s referred to as the third rail politics. Right. Because if you touch it you’re going to get theoretically electrocuted.

 

15:12 – 15:34

Pete Seat

And when we know whenever Social Security comes up in campaigns and elections you might remember was it Paul Ryan, you know, wanted to push grandma off a cliff and it was actually like, you know, this, you know, fake footage of him pushing a wheelchair off a cliff with a woman in it. And it’s obscene to think of it that way.

 

15:34 – 16:06

Pete Seat

We have a real problem with Social Security. And if we want it to remain solvent for future generations as intended, we need to take it seriously. And that’s going to require very difficult and perhaps painful decisions and consequences. But I don’t think as a nation we’re in a moment where we’re capable of that because everyone is, you know, sniping from one side of the aisle or the other.

 

16:06 – 16:33

Pete Seat

The misinformation and disinformation of not just that issue, but a lot of other issues. And, you know, any time someone and I would say both sides of the aisle, anytime they talk about that issue in particular, no one’s suggesting that we change it for people who are currently receiving or soon to receive Social Security. We’re talking about us, but they make it sound like it’s pushing grandma off a cliff.

 

16:34 – 17:05

Pete Seat

And who votes right? Seniors. Who doesn’t vote? 

 

Youthan Love

College students. Us.

 

Pete Seat

And let’s say you know college adjacent. I’m not a student anymore but that you know until we stand up and make our voice heard in the ways that we can, they’re going to continue to steer this ship. 

 

Dr. Mary Imparato

Yeah. I mean, there’s all kinds of studies about political apathy among younger generations and how, you know, pollsters say you can’t really rely on them to come out and vote.

 

17:05 – 17:21

Dr. Mary Imparato

it’s a hit or miss if they’re actually going to show up at the polls. You know, maybe this time around is a little bit different. But that I think has a big impact when you think about younger generations wanting to change. They have to do their civic duty, and get out there and actually, not be disengaged.

 

17:22 – 17:44

Dr. Mary Imparato

But at the same time it’s not like, well, these people have no virtue. They just don’t care about their state and they don’t vote. There’s also systematic issues at play that make them apathetic. And so, I want to say I think there’s a certain in teaching kind of intro government classes, just there’s a perception that politicians just pay lip service to issues that don’t really get things done.

 

17:45 – 18:09

Dr. Mary Imparato

And there’s gridlock in Washington, and they’re just out of touch. And there’s just a cynicism, that’s it’s all just about a power play. And so, yeah, that encourages students or young folks to kind of drop out of politics. So I guess I want to ask you kind of, in your experience in government, what is it that can be done when a policy hits a brick wall, you know what?

 

18:09 – 18:35

Dr. Mary Imparato

How do you handle that and kind of overcome the gridlock? And then, you know, make the government actually work for citizens, right? What kind of hope can you give to the politically apathetic about how the government actually functions?

 

Pete Seat

I don’t know if they want to know. No, actually I do. Believe it or not, I have an optimistic answer to this, but I will start by quoting Mitch Daniels this time actually quoting him.

 

18:35 – 19:04

Pete Seat

He said this all the time when he was governor. Big change requires big majorities. Now some of that was political campaigning. He was trying to get big majorities for his agenda. But some of that is reality, particularly now when you look at the United States Senate or the US House of Representatives, and how razor thin those margins are and what we expect to be a razor thin presidential election.

 

19:04 – 19:38

Pete Seat

It’s nearly impossible to build consensus when, no matter who wins, 50% of the country is going to be livid. The other 50% is going to be joyful. And how do you get the livid to work on at least something with joy? I don’t know, but the optimistic piece is to look to the States. We tend to focus so much of our time and attention on the federal government.

 

19:39 – 20:02

Pete Seat

At the end of the day, they don’t have that much to do with our day to day lives. We feel like they do because it’s under a magnifying lens at all times. You flip on the news. What do you hear about ,you’re hearing about Congress. You’re hearing about the presidential race. But in our states, many of which do have big majorities on one side or the other.

 

20:02 – 20:26

Pete Seat

Things are happening. Good things, depending on your ideological persuasion, are happening. So, for instance, in my home state of Indiana, my folks might not agree with every one of these things, but taxes have been cut to historic lows. We already have pretty low taxes in Indiana statewide, but they’re even lower than they were. We have school choice around the state.

 

20:27 – 21:00

Pete Seat

We are bringing jobs in from literally around the world. Our governor travels frequently. Our current governor travels frequently on economic development trips. And you can go on down the line to all the other accomplishments that have taken place under the Republican leadership over almost 20 years now. Now, again, the other side of the aisle, they may not view that as progress, but those things have only happened because there have been big majorities that can make those things happen.

 

21:00 – 21:23

Pete Seat

So I would just encourage those who are disillusioned by national politics to try and set that aside as much as possible and look at your local level, look at your county, look at your city, look at your town, look at your state. And you can probably affect a lot more change there than you can at the federal level.

 

21:23 – 21:44

Pete Seat

And it’ll probably make you feel a lot better about the process.

 

Youthan Love

I think it does too, because it’s something you see on a local level or state, like you said, and you see the benefits of it within your daily life, not necessarily what you’re seeing on Fox News or CNN every evening. And that’s a conversation I tend to have with college students quite often when I’m traveling around the state representing college Republicans or going to other events.

 

21:44 – 22:02

Youthan Love

How can we really be mad and complain when we’re not forcing ourselves out of our comfort zone to get involved and put effort into these, stand up to elected officials and tell them the changes we would like to see. I don’t really think we could justify complaining when we’re not involving ourselves in the public policy realm. 

 

Pete Seat

Well, there used to be a bumper sticker.

 

22:02 – 22:25

Pete Seat

I haven’t seen it in years. But it was, you know, don’t blame me I didn’t vote. I blame you more than the people who did vote because you probably complain more than anybody else. But you have the opportunity to make your voice heard. And I know there’s, you know, a perception of thought, oh you know, my vote doesn’t count.

 

22:25 – 22:55

Pete Seat

Whether that’s because you live in a heavily Republican area or heavily Democrat area or what have you. We have had races. I can think of two off the top of my head in Indiana that were decided by one vote, one, one single vote was the difference. There’s a county commissioner in a county, in the north kind of western part of Indiana right now, that won his primary by a single vote.

 

22:55 – 23:23

Youthan Love

That’s amazing.

 

One vote, it’s happened to a state rep, too, like so. You can’t look at me or any of us with a straight face and be like, my vote doesn’t count. If one other person had voted, that election could have gone the other direction in the future of your county could have gone the other direction. So we all have a lot going on in our lives, but we also have more ways to vote than ever.

 

23:23 – 23:45

Pete Seat

And there’s really not an excuse now. It’s either you care or you don’t care. Those are the two lanes and you got to pick.

 

Dr. Mary Imparato

Yeah I do think that there is more of a sense of like participation, and local level for sure. But because it does get so much attention on the national level and you playing role, you’ve had a role on that stage.

 

23:45 – 24:06

Dr. Mary Imparato

I was wondering if you could kind of share with us any sort of particular moments of like, policy triumphs, perhaps, or policy challenges and initiatives that, you know, you were proud that the administration got through. Maybe against all odds or something, but, do you have any sort of, you know, maybe success stories or, you know, cautionary tales from your time, at the federal level?

 

24:07 – 24:30

Pete Seat

I’ll talk about it a little more broadly. I am incredibly proud of what the George W Bush administration accomplished over two terms. I worked in the bulk of the second term. I started there in June of 2005 until the lights went out on January 20th of 2009. Fun story. You literally only get paid for four hours that day.

 

24:32 – 24:57

Pete Seat

Because you are unemployed. Yeah. You’re unemployed at noon. That’s it. And they mean business. That’s like the only time when the government is fiscally responsible. But it was. That’s very rare. So that’s why I want to highlight it for everyone. But we faced a number of challenges. Obviously, the Iraq war, Katrina, the economic crisis towards the end of his term.

 

24:57 – 25:27

Pete Seat

And was every decision? Every action. Perfect. No, it’s never going to be perfect. What I’ve said here today, it hasn’t all been perfect. You’ve been great. You were okay, but it wasn’t all perfect. And I think sometimes we hold our elected leaders to a standard that no human can ever achieve. And so we have to be honest about that, too.

 

25:27 – 25:54

Pete Seat

But especially in hindsight, I think that that administration did incredible, incredible things. You know, you just think about  9/11, which talked about Gen Z. Didn’t experience it. Right. Wasn’t there didn’t. Doesn’t know what it was like to live in fear. All across this country, even if you weren’t in New York and D.C. or Pennsylvania.

 

25:54 – 26:14

Pete Seat

I was in Tucson. I was a freshman in college when that happened. And we were all fearful of what may or may not be lurking around the corner. It was a frightful time but we got through it. We got through it as a country and we got through it because of a really strong leadership that understood what was needed in that moment.

 

26:14 – 26:45

Pete Seat

So I will just end this part to say what has been an absolute blessing since January 20th of 2009 is every three years. President Bush, Mrs. Bush, Vice President Cheney and Mrs. Cheney get all of us together, either in DC or Texas, for a reunion. And the most recent one we had was in May of last year, in 2023, in Texas at Southern Methodist University, which is where the Bush Library is located.

 

26:45 – 27:21

Pete Seat

And nearly a thousand alumni of the administration came. What does that tell you about how we feel about the service that we gave together, and to the president, to our country that we all want to travel to Texas or to DC, just to spend a weekend together. And sometimes, you know, I mean we just catch up for five, maybe ten minutes with people who we were spending 16 hours a day with all around the world.

 

27:21 – 27:44

Pete Seat

But it means so much to all of us that we make the time to do that. And when the next one comes in two years, we’ll do it all over again. 

 

Youthan Love

You know, it’s like a family. 

 

Pete Seat

Yeah, exactly. And I jokingly, I asked a friend who worked in the Clinton administration, I was like, do you guys do this the way we do?

 

27:44 – 27:51

Pete Seat

And he’s like, oh, yeah, we do. We just call them Hillary Clinton fundraisers.

 

27:51 – 28:18

Pete Seat

I had to, but, but I, you know, that camaraderie, I think that comes from knowing that you truly are serving a cause greater than yourself is something that lasts a lifetime.

 

Youthan Love

And I feel like when they keep the reunions going on and everyone working so closely together within the administration, like as you’ve described here, I think that makes you feel like you’re not just another number to the president’s staff.

 

28:18 – 28:41

Youthan Love

You’re actually working in sync with people for the betterment of the American people. 

 

Pete Seat

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I wish you could see President Bush at these events because he’ll usually do something on stage and I’ll make some remarks or whatever, and then he’ll come through and do a rope line. And he spends what has to be over an hour, if not more.

 

28:41 – 29:03

Pete Seat

If he was doing a rally when he was president. Right. I mean, he’d go through, shake hands, take some pictures. But he remembers everyone. He asks everyone what they’re up to, how their family’s doing. When he got to me. He was aware that I’d run for state treasurer and lost my campaign, and he brought that up. He’s like, hey, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, but make sure you don’t stop.

 

29:03 – 29:39

Pete Seat

We need good public servants. Maybe the guy who’s a 43rd president of United States and remembers everything about everyone. Yeah. And so that I would just say that, to me, is the greatest lesson of it all. Policy aside, is just the importance of relationships. And making sure you build and strengthen and maintain those. And I guess it does fit into this whole policy conversation because when you, when you don’t have relationships, when you can’t sit at a table together and have a conversation, it all falls apart.

 

29:39 – 30:03

Pete Seat

You’re not getting anything and you can’t get anything done right. 

 

Dr. Mary Imparato

You know, I’ve always heard that George W Bush is known for being so personable and just being a very caring human being. Just, you know, genuinely to his core has, you know, very compassionate. He comes off as a compassionate conservative, right. However, I think in the second term especially, he got, you know, the public perception that he was somewhat detached.

 

30:03 – 30:19

Dr. Mary Imparato

And there’s a famous image of him on Air Force One flying over Hurricane Katrina and that sort of defined the moment. And, I guess I want to ask you about that because of your role as a spokesperson. And one of the things you do for leaders is manage public perception, right, by putting the message out there so that they get to know who he really is.

 

30:19 – 30:37

Dr. Mary Imparato

And, you know, in the second term, that was difficult, I think. So I guess, you know, could you, you know, tell me a little bit about your role in government is making sure the public has a perception that enables you to get things done in a way, you know. Because when leaders lose, public confidence.

 

30:37 – 30:58

Dr. Mary Imparato

Right? They have no political capital. It’s hard to get anything done. So I think that was probably a bit of a challenge for you in the second Bush administration. So, you know, want to like, how do you kind of manage some of the misperceptions?

 

Pete Seat

It’s a challenge for any presidency, any political leader, candidate, politician, you name it.

 

30:58 – 31:35

Pete Seat

The keys to me are one authenticity and two consistency. If you’re authentic, people can tell, if you’re, let’s just say inauthentic. They can also tell. And consistency has always been critically important because we know going back when I do communications presentations I talk about this all the time in marketing. You had the rule of seven where people had to hear something seven times before they would consider purchasing it.

 

31:35 – 32:04

Pete Seat

Now that’s like back in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Now the latest data I’ve seen and this is several years old is now it’s up to 18 at home because we don’t retain information the way we used to. Yeah. I mean just think if I asked you what did you see on Facebook an hour ago, you’ll probably be like, or like when someone asks you, what’d you have for lunch?

 

32:04 – 32:38

Pete seat

Did I eat lunch? Like, we just don’t remember because it’s just boom, boom boom, scroll, scroll, scroll. And you’re not retaining. You’re not reflecting. You’re not considering the information. So it’s more than doubly, more difficult today to do it. You know that image you mentioned and the president said you regretted that moment? You can’t really explain the reality of it, which is it is a president of the United States.

 

32:38 – 33:08

Pete Seat

And if he landed in the affected areas at that moment, he would make everything worse just simply by landing there because of the security resources that would be diverted from what they should be doing, which is protecting lives and saving people. They would have to make sure that the president is safe and secure. And so it is, It is the responsible thing to stay away.

 

33:08 – 33:40

Pete Seat

But that image nonetheless became indelible. And I would say that’s, you know, exactly why leaders didn’t come here to North Carolina immediately or why they didn’t go to Georgia immediately. Because it’s just the reality of the presidency. And everywhere it goes, doesn’t matter where it is, whether it be Crawford, Texas, where we went along with President Bush or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where Joe Biden goes, there’s always a lot, a lot, a lot of people there to make sure that the president is safe and secure.

 

33:40 – 34:05

Pete Seat

So I think those are the two most important things. As I said, the authenticity and consistency, the challenge. And there’s many challenges of saying V makes it sound like there’s only one, but is how siloed we are. And the fact that Republicans get their information from one set of sources, Democrats get their information from another set of sources.

 

34:05 – 34:47

Pete Seat

I think we lack as a public, media literacy. In understanding what is reliable information versus what is not or as I said earlier, taking a step back, seeing an image and wondering to yourself, is that real. I mean, there was one that that maybe you both saw, that was going around on Facebook of, former President Trump supposedly wading through the waters of and I don’t recall if it was supposed to be here or where after one of the hurricanes and he was wearing, like, you know, overalls that kind of, you know, work overalls and jeans.

 

34:48 – 35:08

Pete Seat

And someone was with them and they were going through and people are sharing this like, that’s a leader, that’s a true leader. He’s out there saying like, okay, number one, I could tell you, number one, it’s not real. Because have you ever seen him wear jeans? That man’s in a suit. I mean, literally, I googled it. The last photo I could find was from, like 85 of him wearing jeans.

 

35:08 – 35:30

Pete Seat

But it was. It just ricocheted around the internet. It was completely AI generated 100%. If you know what to look for, you could tell him, but, like, he just his face didn’t look right and things were blurred. But that kind of stuff gets shared. And then when you say something to someone, well, that’s not an accurate image they come back with, well, it doesn’t matter.

 

35:30 – 35:50

Pete Seat

It’s how I feel. 

 

Youthan Love

It’s like an argument started nowadays.

 

Exactly. Exactly. And so it’s like, what do you do with that? 

 

Youthan Love

So we’re in an echo chamber. We are acknowledging, as we were talking about technology at the start of this. You know, we’re spending most of our days doing this. Yeah. And that’s what we tend to believe and go with if we don’t broaden our horizon.

 

35:50 – 36:09

Youthan Love

Looking at different research or data, different news sources, we just go with what’s in front of us. And that’s what our minds go to.

 

Pete Seat

And it’s confirmation bias too. Right. We find and we’re seeing this with the election right now. One side when the polls are good are blasting them out. You know. And they both do this to be clear, are blasting them out saying, look at this.

 

36:09 – 36:33

Pete Seat

Look at this. And then when the exact same polling organization has a poll a week later, that’s not good for them. It’s completely bunk. It’s garbage. Don’t ever look at their polls. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re horrible. Next week, the polls good. Best pollster in America. I mean, it’s just back and forth, back and forth. And, you know, it’s whiplash trying to follow these things.

 

36:33 – 36:52

Dr. Mary Imparato

Yeah. I you know, I try to tell my students, right. Like what certain sources are, what’s a reliable source and how do you discern that? I think it’s really if we’re going to bring this back a little bit to civic responsibility. It’s really important for educators, voters to educate themselves and citizens. And it’s a super great reminder right on the eve of this next presidential election.

 

36:52 – 37:17

Dr. Mary Imparato

I’m so grateful for you being here with us at Belmont Abbey and giving the talk or giving later on for us. And thank Youthan for your insights as well. So as we conclude, we’d like to thank our audience for joining us. Thank you, for making this episode a wonderful conversation. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe and tell your friends that conversatio is available on Spotify, Apple, and Google Podcasts.

 

37:17 – 37:21

Dr.Mary Imparato

Until next time, God bless.