How to Understand Politics - Episode 1 - Advanced English Lesson

To join any political conversation you need to know what you're talking about,

it's very very important, right?

Of course!

Of course!

I don't know if you've heard about Donald Trump at all,

he's our new president

but you might want to talk to somebody about Donald Trump,

you might want to have a conversation

and here are a bunch of peculiar words we have to talk about what's going on

Before we begin, I'm gonna make a deal with you

I'm not gonna make any Trump jokes

and I'm not gonna make any English food jokes

Deal?

Deal!

I just have to...

Perfect

One little change

One change

So the first word is "Filibuster"

Senator Rand Paul began a filibuster

The filibuster

Filibuster

Oh the filibuster!

We have to get rid of the filibuster rule!

I never thought I'd see the day when the whole country was talking about the filibuster!

What exactly is a filibuster?

Turn to camera one!

So what is a filibuster?

Filibuster is a word that describes a

process that happens during the debating of legislation.

In the United States Senate there are a hundred senators

let's say your side only has 48 votes,

the other side has 52 votes

theoretically you should lose right

yeah

because 52 is more than 48

however if you were to filibuster it means you

would debate the issue for so long that you wouldn't be able to get to any other

legislation and theoretically if you're really good at filibustering you'd be

able to filibuster it for so long that the other side even though they

have 52 will just throw their hands up in the air and say

"I quit I give up it's done we have to get to all of our other business"

that being said,

You can't always filibuster

If you have 60 votes, you are able to override a filibuster

It takes 50 votes to pass legislation, but it takes 60 to end debate

Okay so the general concept is

"Okay you've got almost half, maybe I can convince you to

vote the other way if I speak long enough"?

Yes, theoretically it is but it's

That's not what it does, it's a stall tactic

So I think I get it, but I think we need to show people...

an example

Alright, so what is some legislation that you have 55 votes on, Aly?

I want to introduce a new rule that means

bald men have "handsome-man status"

ooh! that's exciting, and there are a lot of bald men

in fact 55 percent of men are bald

and everybody agrees they're not handsome yet

so seemingly I should win!

Well yes, that being said

As a man with luscious, luscious, luscious locks,

I don't want bald to be handsome!

I think we can all agree it won't be handsome

So, we're all ready to vote, right?

It's time to vote? Are you ready to vote

I'm ready to vote

Are you ready to vote?

Wait... we have to have a little more debate

Okay fine

We are here today

To debate senator Aly Williams' "Bald is beautiful" bill

"Bald is beautiful"?

Is it? Is it not?

Do we need to legislate this?

Before we go any further I would like to

bring to attention this, this piece is titled "Green eggs and ham" by Dr. Seuss

Let me read this to make sure we are all aware of the issue at stake

I am Sam

Sam I am

I do not like them, Sam I am, I do not like green eggs and ham

I will eat them in a box

and I will eat them with a fox

I will eat them in a house

and I will eat them with a mouse

I will eat them here or there

I do so like green eggs and ham

Thank you Thank You, Sam I am

Well look at the time

I guess there's no more time for debate today

but maybe tomorrow we'll get to vote on the "Bald is Beautiful" bill!

Oh come on!

Thank you and I rest my case

Filibuster: Should or shouldn't have?

Ideal world? Filibuster yes!

Personally I'm pro-filibuster

I personally am a huge fan of

these systems in the United States Senate that cool democracy

that can kind of slow things down

I believe this was a phrase than the English might enjoy

When you drink tea, there's a saucer right? There's a saucer thing?

"The Senate is the saucer that cools the tea of democracy"

The idea is for the entire American system

American system the idea is that it runs slowly

that things can't happen fast

because when fast things happen bad things can happen too

The idea is if we are inherently slow,

our slowness will prevent any bad things from happening

I feel smarter already

I hear the terms "partisan" and "bi-partisan"

and your organisation is "non-partisan"

precisely

What's the difference? What is "partisan"?

So essentially in America, we have two major parties

The Democrats and the Republicans

"Bi-partisan" means it's something that brings both parties together

"Partisan" means benefiting one of the parties

So, I don't know, a policy that says

"Republicans get free pizza and Democrats have to be their footstools"

That would be a very partisan policy,

and then "non-partisan"

means you're not working with either of the parties

What is a partisan Democrat issue?

In 2017, a partisan Democratic issue might be fighting global warming

What would a partisan Republican issue be?

Making sure that to vote you need to bring a state-issued ID

and what would a bipartisan issue, which is something they both agree on

A bipartisan issue

might be the NSA or the National Security Agency

it seems like both parties are big fans of listening to our phones

I want to know what you're saying late at night

"This new McCarthyism!"

"This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings"

"Reminiscent of Senator Joe McCarthy's abusive tactics"

"Have you no decency, sir?"

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

I'm assuming it's something bad

Yes

McCarthyism refers to kind of an unwarranted witch-hunt

so it's named after former Senator

Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin

and what he was known for was making these crazy allegations

that communists had infiltrated the entire United States government

and this is him holding a piece of paper

that may or may not be evidence of 115 communists in the State Department

as it turned out

there were not 115 secret communists working in the State Department

Shockingly

Shockingly there were not.

Communists didn't infiltrate our government

So he goes after somebody in the military

The lawyer that was defending the person accused of communism

at one point got up and said

very famously on nationally televised TV

"Have you no decency, sir?"

To McCarthy, and it turns out he may or may not have had any decency

Have you no sense of decency, sir?

When people are saying that Trump is colluding with Russia would that be "McCarthyism"?

What would be more 'McCarthyism' is if a Democrat were to get up and say

"There are 38 Russian agents in the Trump administration

we need to get every Russian agent out of the Trump administration"

"The Supreme Court announcing they will take up a major case on political gerrymandering"

"Gerrymandering"

"The public needs to know that they have been fooled!"

What the hell is a gerrymander?

Why do we.. what? What?

So essentially "Gerrymandering" refers to the process of dividing of the districts

The people who are going to vote

The idea is that we all want representation in Congress

and our Congress people represent small local areas

So the state of Iowa has four different congressmen that go to Washington DC

in addition to two senators

These numbers represent individual congressional districts

Every two years district one gets together and decides

"Do we want to..." theoretically they could send whoever they want

but it's probably going to be between a Democrat and Republican

This is how theoretically it should be!

as you can see this, this makes sense

Iowa is a state where computers drop the district's literally

Literally they have a software a quote-unquote "nonpartisan software"

That decides, "Okay this is however many people fit here, this many people fit here"

and as you see,

They're not perfect squares they're not perfect rectangles

But it all kind of makes sense

So this would not be quote-unquote "gerrymandered"

are properly drawn districts

it's visually appealing

I'm excited

Do you want to see how a gerrymandered state might look like?

I would love to see it

You would love. Alright

So let's move over to our friends in Maryland

So obviously six over here and one over here are gonna be weird

shaped because the states weird shaped

however if you look very very closely

district 4 kind of is a hat on top of district 5 and then 1 has this weird

thing over here and 7 looks like it's eating 2 and 3

If Picaso were to district a state, create congressional districts,

this might be what we end up with

but why would you want to change the lines from a square so this squiggly mess?

So in the state of Maryland, Democrats control the state house

so when they draw up these districts they're gonna cut up the pie

in a way to make sure that as many of these districts are gonna lean to the

Democrats as possible

But then if your senator is Republican

They could redraw these lines

Exactly, so these lines are drawn every 10 years

after the census we have a census we count everybody

and then we redraw all the lines every 10 years

and it's not like one party does gerrymandering,

both parties do this

and in fact actually sometimes both parties partner together

to gerrymander to kind of screw other people over

so they do this to stay in power

you will cut these up

and you will have these

"perversions of democracy", so to speak

because look at these, these are gross

only a pervert could enjoy

Okay but this is allowed, right?

It's not like a secret thingy?

It's an American tradition

Theoretically our elected officials vote on their conscience

but in practice they do what we all do,

and they just do whatever the fuck they can to not lose their job

so really what would have to happen is...