Do you think there should be a draft?
I do. I absolutely do. I’ve watched military families suffer in a way that is unconscionable considering the demands that we have placed on them over this ten-year period. When I say there should be a draft, I also think it should be noncompulsory military. There should be a draft where every young person has to do one year of something — military, public works — something so that we all feel invested in the same game, because that’s the part that we’ve lost.
One of my biggest criticisms with Obama is that he ran on rebuilding a corrosive system and just basically tried to put new wallpaper up. And yet he has done some impressive things. Would I have done the health-care system that way? No, but he did, and he got it passed, and millions more people have health care, and it’s hard to imagine that’s a bad thing. My biggest concern is how good we’ve gotten at campaigns and how bad we’ve gotten at government. The entire system is incentivized backwards.
You talked about career politicians losing human feeling. Has that happened to Obama?
No. He’s actually a pretty human guy. I think that’s what makes it so difficult for him. I mean, I can’t say it for sure, it’s absolutely a projection, but I think he hates these fucking people. I really do. I just get the sense that he believes that he’s surrounded by idiots.
On his own side?
In general. For a good portion of it, he’s right. Idiots and obstructionists, and it’s frustrating. Beyond that, though, I do think he’s not a super-active manager. That doesn’t seem to be his thing.
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