Patrick Watts-The End of the American Empire

Show Transcript

Patrick Watts: End of the American 

Empire

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: British author Patrick Watts has published a new book called The End of the American Empire, in which he warns that unless some of the issues that beset our country today are resolved, the American empire will collapse. What lies ahead for our country unless changes are made? Watts writes that the wounds of the past cannot be healed through ignoring the fact they ever occurred, but neither through an endless cycle of guilt, apology, and revenge.

[00:00:34] In an increasingly divisive fraught political climate full of hyperbole, accusation, and online echo chambers, the American people need to remember who they are. And why they've ruled the world for almost a century. He says that with The Possible Return of Donald Trump to the Presidency, the lessons of this book must be learned now, so stay with us. Patrick's based in London and joins us from there today. With degrees in history and international relations, he's a non partisan observer eager to help Americans navigate what he believes is a crucial and perilous moment in our nation's history.

[00:01:20] Patrick's book addresses the current climate as the country gears up for the election. Arguing that the United States is best described as an empire, he lays out the historical, political, social, geopolitical reasons why the American empire might collapse sooner rather than later with huge domestic and global consequences.

[00:01:44] Patrick, that's a lot, but thanks for joining us today to discuss it. 

[00:01:50] Patrick Watts: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:52] Bob Gatty: The first question I have to ask you is this: you're British, why did you focus on the U. S. and how are you qualified to do 

[00:02:00] Patrick Watts: yeah, that's a question I anticipate fielding a lot. And I think qualified to do I'd say on a personal level, I'm a big You know I like America a lot.

[00:02:09] I've been to America many times. I see myself more as a kind of a concerned friend looking on from the outskirts and seeing essentially going down a path that I don't think is is all too productive. So that's my personal reason. I'm trying to lend a hand to try and raise some. Issues as I see them.

[00:02:26] I think on a professional level, obviously doing a degree in history is helpful. But when I did my master's degree in international relations and contemporary warfare, and then my dissertation specifically studying Donald Trump and the efforts that he made consciously and potentially subconsciously to alter kind of norms of global and domestic behavior of what is acceptable and what isn't.

[00:02:48] And since doing that, I feel like I've been plugged into the, to the U. S. And the, the issues that you guys are facing for a while, for about four or five years now. 

[00:02:58] Bob Gatty: So wait a minute, did you just say that you did your dissertation on Donald Trump? 

[00:03:04] Patrick Watts: I did. That was at the end of his presidency, and I actually, I remember writing In the dissertation that if we weren't awake to what was going on, and if we all just celebrated saying, Oh Trump's gone, that's that, then we'd be here again.

[00:03:17] And that's exactly what's going on. And I think even in the preface of the book, I say this is, I don't blame Donald Trump for everything. I think he's a symptom of the fact that the system itself is completely corrupted. And it's created conditions that allow somebody like Trump who has in my view, all of the worst kind of possible aspects of his character to be a president, but it allows, the conditions for him to rise.

[00:03:39] I think that's yeah, on both parties. 

[00:03:41] Bob Gatty: Absolutely. That's incredible. What do you believe is causing the decline in the American 

[00:03:48] Patrick Watts: empire?

[00:03:50] I think there is an undercurrent of kind of the toxic influence of money in every kind of system that it shouldn't be involved in. So if you look at democracy, the link between kind of finance and, campaign donations and things like that, it's pretty staggering.

[00:04:05] You're never going to have a situation where everything is completely objective and honest if your politicians are allowed to take, donations from everybody. I think we as part of a bit of a newsletter campaign, we were actually comparing the cost of different elections from 1960 all the way up to 2020.

[00:04:22] And then we were looking at how many nurses salaries you could actually pay for using the equivalent that's in my view, wasted on this constant electioneering. It's about, I think now it's 2020, it's about 170, 000 nurses salaries is wasted on that kind of election cycle, which is pretty staggering.

[00:04:38] And then if you actually think these, these kind of donors, these super PACs and all the rest of it, they're not giving money because they just, they lay like the candidate. They're giving money because they want influence when their chosen candidate enters power. Yeah. So I think That is, in terms of the democratic side of things, I think that's a big problem.

[00:04:56] I think if you look in more simple terms, I call it, it's unhinged capitalism, like the purest form of capitalism means that if any, if the only thing that really matters is shareholder return and profit, you're going to lead to this huge disconnect and this massive state of inequality, which is, I think inequality is at the base of everything that's wrong with the American empire at the moment.

[00:05:18] Cause it's ostensibly you're the richest country in the world. If you take away, tax dependencies and Luxembourg and places like that. You've got, people stealing a baby formula because they can't afford it. You've got, people, wandering into malnutrition. You've got people, as many people dying from, opioids, homicides, suicides, as well, 450, 000 a year.

[00:05:39] It's 10 times 9 11. There's so many issues, which I think are ignored because if you were to criticize America. then you are not patriotic. And I think being obviously not American, that lends me some, maybe a slight advantage because I know I'm not patriotic to Americans. I'm not American. So I feel like I can actually lend a bit more of an unbiased opinion.

[00:06:04] Bob Gatty: Yeah, you mentioned a lot of things, and one of them that resonated mostly with me is the talk about, really, greed. In my opinion, what's wrong with this country is that greed is the predominant factor that controls so much. 

[00:06:24] Patrick Watts: Absolutely. I think it's I think the problem as well is it's not just controls America, America has an outsized influence on the rest of the world and has done ever since the end of second world war when the British empire collapsed and America took over and that, that kind of greed driven model has, infiltrated every aspect of, the global system.

[00:06:42] And I think that's the problem. It's everybody has put everyone profit is put above everything else. And. You look at the, I think it's hypocrisy at the end of the day as well. Like people don't like hypocrisy. And if you look at kind of the bailouts in 2008, you look at the bailouts, for COVID and they were used to fund things like share buyback schemes.

[00:07:02] And on the one hand, I think Robert Wright talks a lot about it. He says, you've got, pure, raw, cruel capitalism for the poor and you've got socialism for the rich. Because, a bailout is not capitalism. I think this is the problem, it is, there's so much greed, and there is so much kind of money involved that it's yeah, it's in every aspect of the system.

[00:07:23] Bob Gatty: You talk about hypocrisy I don't want to blame everything on MAGA, on, on the MAGA people, but to me, they suck in, or they just buy into all the hypocrisy that, Is coming down from Donald Trump and his Republican backers. 

[00:07:47] Patrick Watts: Yeah, I think again, there's both parties are to blame. I think, personally, I don't like Donald Trump. Again, I think he's thin skinned, capricious, cruel. I feel like a lack of compassion is one of the main problems in America and the world. And I think he exemplifies that. So there's obviously hypocrisy within the Republican Party, it's hiding behind desks, on the 6th of January and then now saying it was just a tourist visit, things like that.

[00:08:13] Lindsey Graham came out immediately afterwards saying, enough, we've got to get rid of him. And then, now he's kissing the ring. But I think there's hypocrisy abound on both sides as well. You look at the main kind of election strategy of the Democrats, this cycle seems to be again, simply just not being Donald Trump.

[00:08:30] And that's not good enough. You have to give people something to, the reason Obama was in, elected and reelected was because it was he was advertising hope he was advertising something, you want it to vote for not just vote against. And I think the problem that the Democrats have is maybe ever since they picked kind of Kamala Harris as the VP, they've had this kind of this succession problem, and because they shouldn't be running Joe Biden because they know realistically, he's probably not gonna make it through the next term or there's, there should be better candidates, but they're giving voters this kind of forced choice. It's a case of if you don't like Donald Trump, which many of them don't, obviously, it's like you have to go with Biden then.

[00:09:10] And if I saw some talk about maybe, him even being replaced at delegation by superdelegates. If that happens. Then that's dreadful for hypocrisy because, quite rightly, the Democrats are calling out the threat to democracy that is Donald Trump, he tried to stay in power and all of, what we all know about.

[00:09:28] If you then do the same type of thing and, parachute in a chosen candidate, that's hypocrisy again. And I think, yeah, this is why Trump is anywhere near the presidency again, it's because People are sick of hypocrisy and they just, I don't think a lot of people want to vote for Donald Trump.

[00:09:43] Every time I meet people in America, they don't tell me how much they love Donald Trump. 

[00:09:47] Bob Gatty: Yeah, no, I know there's a, it's a real problem because there are a lot of people, including in the Democratic Party, who would very much like it if there was another candidate besides Joe Biden with his age and so on.

[00:10:06] But I think the guy's getting the bum rap too. I think he's done a a really good job on many issues, despite the headwinds that he has to face, and I don't know how, I'm the same age he is, he's 81 years old, so am I. I cannot for the life of me, fathom how he does what he does at his age.

[00:10:30] Patrick Watts: I agree with you 100%, and I think he gets a bum rap purely because he's running again. If you actually look at You know his numbers previously and what he actually has achieved if he said, halfway through I'm going to be a one term president and I'm going to pass it on. I think he would end up would have gone down in history as one of the better presidents, but because it feels because he's seeing it as this kind of crusade to keep Donald Trump out and that he's potentially the only person that can do it.

[00:10:57] I think that's what's leading to his unpopularity because I feel like he has got quite a lot done and he has tried to lean across the aisle. I think the problem is bipartisanship is, is dead at the moment. It's it's just simply seems impossible. Yeah. So I agree with you but yeah, if I was You know, when I'm when I'm his age, the last thing I'd want to be doing is is this running a country or doing what 

[00:11:18] he's doing.

[00:11:18] Bob Gatty: Oh my God. The guy's running all over the world, doing all this stuff. And at the same time, he's facing all this crap from everybody. He should be going home and playing with his grandkids. 

[00:11:32] Patrick Watts: Yeah, he should have his feet up. Yeah, geez. I don't know, do some surfing. Yeah, maybe running the most powerful country in the world.

[00:11:42] Bob Gatty: Yeah, you mentioned though the Kamala Harris. Are you saying that she's a problem? Is that what you're saying?

[00:11:51] Patrick Watts: I think if we go back to when, that decision was made, I think there was a large kind of argument for representation and the idea was, we should, there should be a, a black female who is chosen as VP, which again, I don't disagree with that as a premise.

[00:12:07] It's good to represent, they're just, that does not make you a good candidate. And I think that's what they're finding out now, Stacey Abrams potentially would have been better for that role if we're looking at it that way. There are females, there are black females. It's just to try and choose somebody specifically for that metric and nothing else has left them in a bit of a predicament because if she was much more popular, I can't see a situation where he would be running again. The problem is because she's not, I think that's why they're in the situation that they are.

[00:12:36] Bob Gatty: I think one of the problems Is that, I don't think he's given her a whole lot to do that would keep her in the forefront of the news. You don't hear much about her. 

[00:12:48] Patrick Watts: You never really do though, unless the VP's doing a dreadful job. I can't remember the quote, I was reading it the other day, but someone said it's not, one of the old presidents saying it wasn't worth a glass of piss or something like that.

[00:12:58] It's it's a pointless exercise. 

[00:13:01] Bob Gatty: Are you old enough to remember Dan Quayle? 

[00:13:04] Patrick Watts: I know the name, but I was not old enough to have remembered him at the time. 

[00:13:09] Bob Gatty: When Dan Quayle was vice president I had to go to the White House, Oh, to interview him for one of my magazines that I wrote for.

[00:13:17] And, he was known for being stupid. And I was walking across the parking lot behind the White House. And he came out to greet me along with his, a couple of staff people and this Secret Service station wagon came roaring around the corner and I grabbed him and pulled on his jacket and I said, Mr. 

[00:13:50] Bob Gatty: Vice President, you're going to get run over. And he goes, oh wow. Thanks, . Wow. It was just one of those moments that I won't forget 

[00:14:02] that one. 

[00:14:03] Patrick Watts: Did that fill you with confidence about the ability of the man ? Yeah. 

[00:14:08] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Anyway okay, so use the term American Empire. Why do you call it an empire? 

[00:14:14] Patrick Watts: I think because regardless of what people might wish to think, it clearly is.

[00:14:19] It is one. What it, pre British Empire, and maybe during some parts of the British Empire, the idea of empire itself was something that wasn't to be feared and nobody, nobody, it was something to be proud of. The sensibilities have changed, quite rightly. We've moved away from this idea of conquering and oppressing everybody, but It's throughout history that is what empire has been.

[00:14:41] So America is overtly not set out to do that and has not advertised itself as doing that. However, it has an outsized influence over every other nation in the world. Since the end of the, the Cold War, there hasn't essentially been another power that's had anywhere near parity with it militarily.

[00:15:01] The US spends 10 times more sorry, spends the same amount as 10, the next 10 countries combined on the military. The UK used to have a two power standard. That was the rule. The UK spent more than the next two. The US is 10. So these are elements of empire. When you then look at the control of the global money supply, you have the dollar as a reserve currency, you have the World Bank and the IMF, you have NATO and the UN lesser extent now, essentially functioning as a further military arm of that global American influence.

[00:15:29] So I think And that's actually if you don't even look at the commercial side of things, and the exportation of the American dream through Hollywood. It means it's in it, it's everywhere. And it's been an incredible PR kind of coup to present it as completely benign and, not looking to oppress while also, look at the actions in South and Central America in the eighties.

[00:15:51] You have also the camp, Cambodia, Vietnam, et cetera, Iraq, Afghanistan. These are the type of actions that an empire carries out. And also, if you look at even a more recent example, look at the drone program. Imagine Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan having the ability to assassinate anybody on the planet at any time.

[00:16:09] That's, that is empire, which whichever way we call it. And I think one of the most important things, which is why I tackle this really early on in the book is. It's important to address that, see it for what it is, so that you can look at the parallels from these other empires that have called themselves that, so that we can then say, okay if these are the issues, how do we fix them?

[00:16:28] And I don't think that I feel like America is an empire in its infancy. I don't think that this is necessarily leading to the end, but I think it needs to mature and it needs to move on to an empire led by compassion rather than what's happening now, which is completely not, certainly not compassion, it's selfishness, like you said, and greed.

[00:16:49] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Greed, racism, and so on. But why do you believe the American empire should be prolonged then? 

[00:16:59] Patrick Watts: That's a really good question. And that's one I actually struggled with quite a lot when I was writing it because there's, there's a section where I'm essentially listing quite a lot of the misdeeds that I feel like a lot of people might not necessarily know about, like some of the ones I've just mentioned.

[00:17:13] I'm thinking to myself, even as I'm writing that, hang on these don't sound like positive things. Why do I actually, want this to continue? And I guess the point is, if you look at the most viable alternative, to American kind of superiority or hegemony. It's not Western democracies. It's autocratic.

[00:17:33] It's the Chinese model. Now, nobody who's lived in a free society wants to live in a surveillance state like that. And I think, if you look at what America has going for it, it's, if you take the politicians aside, I'm gonna, okay, generalize there, but the majority of the politicians, as I see it, aside, the American people themselves, I think, you know, they, at their heart, they believe in these lofty rhetoric, these ideals of freedom and equality and things like that.

[00:18:00] I think, Unlike many other kind of nation states, that is still, that founding myth is still endures. So I think there is the potential there to lead the world into a more equitable, multipolar way moving forward, but only if massive changes are made. Because at the moment, this model this hyper capitalism, this greed, this selfishness, it's, it's the opposite of what it needs to be.

[00:18:28] Bob Gatty: So you think the American political model is destined to fail? I

[00:18:33] Patrick Watts: think there's parts of it that are in desperate need of repair. I think if you look at some of the archaic systems in there that are just simply not fit for purpose. Things like the electoral college as we all saw with Mike Pence being essentially tried to force by Donald Trump to change votes.

[00:18:48] All of this, it's this It's a system that needs to be revised. I think look at the filibuster to any, I actually had quite a lot of fun writing about that because to anybody who's not American looking in and watching the filibuster in action is absolutely ludicrous. If I just waste everybody's time, then that means that we just don't vote on something.

[00:19:09] And I think, I was reading, is it Strom Thrumgood who had the record for the longest, just 24 hours that he filibustered, essentially just talking bollocks to try and put off a vote on civil rights. How is that a model of good governance? It's and also if you compare it to the Chinese model, not in terms, the Chinese model is not one to be aimed at, at all.

[00:19:27] However, they are able to plan for decades. Whereas with the American model, you're planning for two year election cycles, and then there's so much money and influence that nothing is is coherent. Somebody comes in, Trump said it himself on the campaign trail, the beauty of executive orders is you just get rid of the executive orders of the chap, before you.

[00:19:48] So none of this is a coherent way of of ruling a country, and that's before we even talk about the Supreme Court. Which, has been stacked full of conservatives, that's been a 30 40 year play to move that to the right. And then, only recently they've had to try to build in some kind of way of actually maintaining some ethics, because you've got people like, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, it's there's so many problems in there.

[00:20:11] And most of the time, I think the public kind of ignore what happens within the Supreme Court because they've got millions of other things to do. But when it comes to Roe versus Wade, that is huge. And eventually people will turn around and say hang on, who is this working for? None of this is working for me.

[00:20:28] I didn't agree to any of this. Exactly. 

[00:20:31] Bob Gatty: Yeah. I've had In the last couple months, I've had, I don't know how many, probably three guests on my podcast who have predicted in one way or another another American civil war resulting from all the chaos that's currently taking place and the hate and the divisiveness.

[00:20:56] What do you think about that? I 

[00:20:58] Patrick Watts: think it's a tragedy that it's got to a situation where that is what many people are thinking and saying. I think they're a million miles from the truth. But I also think it's something that's thrown around and shouldn't be maybe used flippantly.

[00:21:12] Because nobody obviously in America today was around for the first civil war. But a civil war is a tragedy. And it is a, a modern American civil war would be very different to the previous one. There'd be more guerrilla actions and targeted assassinations and things like that. But it's still a dreadful scenario.

[00:21:30] I think everything that needs should be done to try and avoid that. And I think a part of what I'm trying to do with this book is just to, there's a lot of kind of harsh realities in there is to try and wake people up a little bit and say, you guys are all Americans. And you've moved away from that in my views in the last, maybe 15, 20 years going from being Americans to being Democrats and Republicans.

[00:21:50] There's a really good book actually, Matt Taibbi, called Hate Inc. And it was all about how, essentially the media realized that there were no credible enemies outside of you guys off the off the two thousands. So essentially just got everybody to hate each other. So supporting your political party became like supporting your football team or your, your NBA team.

[00:22:10] So I think that has been manufactured and engineered. So this kind of, this hatred, this, these divisions, which are far more, yeah, far more manufactured than they are in reality. I don't think if you, if I speak to most Republicans or most Democrats, they don't want to go and shoot at, shoot, the other side.

[00:22:28] But the way that things are progressing, it may well lead to that, which again would be a disaster. 

[00:22:35] Bob Gatty: What parallels have you observed with the end of the previous empires with the current situation in the U. S.? 

[00:22:43] Patrick Watts: So interestingly I'll ask you a question. So what do you think is the biggest threat to how do you think most empires and most people would tend to think?

[00:22:55] If I, China, for instance, what's the biggest threat to America? China. That's usually what people will think because it's a, it's an obvious, it's a military power is a, I can see what it, it's a confrontation. They're on the rise. No that's how we end. Most empires don't actually end.

[00:23:10] They're specifically because of a challenger, rising up, they actually end because they either overexpand, be it militarily or financially, it leads to economic collapse, or they, descend into kind of civil war and chaos. And the key kind of pain points that where most of those civil wars occur is all to do is what I deem succession legitimacy.

[00:23:32] So the idea back in the olden days, if you look at say yeah, look at the Mongols, when Genghis Khan died, he was such a powerful leader. Before he died, he, he cut up his empire into four with his four sons, had individual carnates that they were ruling. But without him at the helm, everything descended into chaos.

[00:23:49] And that time again, you see these times of succession, you need, succession to be legitimate. And the problem for the US is because both parties seem to be Denigrating, I'd say, democracy and not treating it with the respect it deserves . This idea that democracy wasn't as invincible as we might think, then when, obviously, Bernie Sanders was a Transcribed This is the best way of putting it so that he was not going to be chosen as the the candidate because Hillary was the anointed one.

[00:24:20] Again, then following that, obviously you had Hillary's loss to Trump, and I think that would have been a useful come to Jesus moment for the Democrats to have a real good look at themselves. Why did we lose? And instead of doing that, they just blamed Russia. And I'm not saying there's no smoke without fire, and there obviously was interference, but that wasn't the takeaway message.

[00:24:38] The takeaway message should have been, hang on, people don't like the fact that we put up a candidate. We've actually got rid of a perfect, a progressive candidate who's actually, for the people, and we just installed who we want. And then obviously that leads inexorably to, to Trump, calling out the big lie and fake, all of the lies that he created around, the election.

[00:24:56] Bob Gatty: Yeah you were talking about China. Do you believe China is the biggest threat to the United States? 

[00:25:03] Patrick Watts: Apart from the US itself. I said, it's the biggest external threat. But also if you look at China historically, China's always practiced strategic patience. Again, it depends how we define threat to the U. S. I don't think that China is about to attack the mainland U. S. anytime soon. If ever. Also, as we said, militarily, the U. S. is so much stronger than China. I don't think they intend to do that. I think they intend to flex their muscles around their own backyard, so to speak.

[00:25:33] And that's what we're seeing with building in the South China Sea and all the tensions obviously around Taiwan, which is going to be a potential huge flashpoint, I don't know, in the next couple of years, it seems. But yeah, I don't see them, directly attacking the US. I don't see, there's no need for that.

[00:25:47] I don't see what win there is there for them. Again, it brings us back a little bit to that question of empire. The days of. launching a war of conquest seem to be behind us. And I know you, you could mention Russia, Ukraine. I say Russia, Ukraine, and also potentially China, Taiwan, they would be more they're all, they're advertised as I don't know, denazification and whatever nonsense Putin's talking about over there.

[00:26:13] But it's righting the wrongs as they see it of historical boundaries. It's not Russia marching into Britain or Russia marching into America. So the idea that China would, sail their fleet over to the US and, start landing troops in New York or something, I think it's ludicrous. It's just not going to happen. 

[00:26:26] Bob Gatty: Yeah, okay we've talked a lot about a lot of stuff, but we haven't really talked a great deal about your book. Is there anything, are there any points you'd like to make to tell us what, about that? I 

[00:26:39] Patrick Watts: think the takeaway point would bring me back to what you asked at the beginning about, where, why I've written it and what makes me qualified to do I think the, I'm just trying to engender some positive changes and positive discussion. And I think one of the key themes that come comes to what hopefully will come away from it is that if anybody disagrees with the things that I'm writing, and obviously they will, and I hope they do. then they should remember that it's been written, from a place of love.

[00:27:06] And I want to just have some conversations rather than just, hurling abuse one way or another. I think that's completely irrelevant. And I think that towards the end of the book, we touch on this. I feel like the idea of human nature has been hijacked and needs to be, needs to evolve a little bit.

[00:27:22] I think it's reductionist. Everyone just says, Oh, it's just human nature. We're gonna, we're gonna always fight each other. It's just human nature, which I think is such a cop out. If you actually Owen Laszlo talks a bit about this, so does Michael Kahlberg. So the idea of human nature being this kind of dog eat dog, this zero sum mentality, I think it's completely it's completely backward thinking.

[00:27:42] It just leaves us no room to evolve as a species. It's like putting a marker in the sand and saying, oh, that's all we are. We're just we're just animals. We're never going to change. Actually, if you look at, there's a there's an experiment, which it might be apocryphal, I'm not really sure, David Attenborough gets misquoted as having said it, but to do with kind of red ants and black ants, you put them in a terrarium, they absolutely get along just fine until you shake it up and then suddenly they're at each other's throats.

[00:28:06] And I think that's the point here, is that we, globally, we could feed everyone, we could house everyone, we could all have everything that we need, but we choose not to, and we choose to allow ourselves to be detached from the suffering of other human beings because of, the other, they don't look like us, therefore we can, silo their suffering away.

[00:28:24] So I think that's what I'm trying to engender is a bit of conversation around, what do we actually want to look like in 200 years, provided we don't, kill ourselves first, which there's a very good book on that actually by Toby Ord called The Precipice, which I just finished reading, which yeah, very much more statistician than I am.

[00:28:41] But it looks at some pretty horrifying outcomes, but yeah, provided we can survive that. I think there's, yeah, it sounds, it might sound naive, but I think there is a much better world possible if we start to just think a bit bigger rather than this kind of selfish ignorance that we seem to be existing in right now.

[00:28:56] Bob Gatty: Is your book available now? 

[00:28:59] Patrick Watts: Yeah. So it's out now. It's on audiobook, Kindle and paperback. So it's okay. It's been a three year process, so very pleased to be able to yeah, maybe get some weekends back 

[00:29:09] Bob Gatty: so people can go to Amazon for it. Anywhere else. 

[00:29:13] Patrick Watts: So it'll be in bookshops as well but so yeah, pretty much everywhere.

[00:29:16] Bob Gatty: Okay. Okay. Now I know that in looking at your website excuse me, you're involved with a number of charities, right? 

[00:29:25] Patrick Watts: Yep, that's right. So we, 

[00:29:26] Bob Gatty: Tell me about the Access Project. What's that? 

[00:29:29] Patrick Watts: So the access projects, I've been helping them for a few years now. So they were created in the UK because obviously, as you probably know, the UK has some of the best universities in the world, Cambridge, and then the Russell group as well.

[00:29:43] But like everywhere, and like the U. S., we have, a lot of social inequality. The idea behind the Access Project was to give children a chance to, achieve more than they would be able to without assistance, to fulfill their potential and enter these universities. What we do at the Access Project is You know, offer tutoring and mentorship and kind of assistance with kind of applications, things like that, so you can get help the children from the most impoverished households in the country to actually fulfill their potential and, enter these universities.

[00:30:12] So I've been up until this year, I had to stop this year because obviously with the book and everything, it's a bit too much. But hope to restart in September as a history tutor for for some of these children, just to try and Yeah, try and increase a bit of social mobility, really. But yeah, they're doing some really good work.

[00:30:26] Bob Gatty: Excellent. Okay. How can people reach out to you if they want to do that to learn more? 

[00:30:31] Patrick Watts: So if they go to the website, which is patrickwattsbooks. com, there's a whole section on there entitled Compassionate Change, which I guess is the kind of initiative we're trying to drive. Then we're on all the usual socials as well.

[00:30:41] So like Instagram, Patrick Watts Books, the same on TikTok Twitter, P Watts Books. But yeah, we're yeah, we're always trying to engage with people as much as we can. 

[00:30:50] Bob Gatty: Okay. Excellent. Is there anything else you'd like to add, Patrick? 

[00:30:56] Patrick Watts: Not really. I think it's just this year could be quite stressful for many people, obviously, with the election coming up.

[00:31:02] And I think maybe just just take a breath and look around and realize that you guys are, supposedly all in it together, that there's no need to be at each other's throats. And I think a lot of that is, is manufactured and see through a little bit. 

[00:31:14] Bob Gatty: You know what, this guy may not be an American, he's British, but he sure as hell does know a lot about our country.

[00:31:22] And I think that the words that you've heard from him today are worth listening to. And I'm sure his book is worth taking a look at, which I'd like to do. So anyway, Patrick, thanks very much for joining us on our podcast. I do appreciate it very much. 

[00:31:39] Patrick Watts: My pleasure. Thank you very much for having 

[00:31:41] me.