In the Field with Ronny Chieng

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 2 You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 3 If you're gonna talk about Arizona, you have to talk about old people because they are everywhere here.

Speaker 3 See?

Speaker 5 Which brings me to death.

Speaker 6 No, no, not yours.

Speaker 7 Obviously, you still have a long road ahead of you.

Speaker 8 And here in Arizona, people thinking about the afterlife are choosing something new. Whole body donation.

Speaker 11 More and more people are choosing to forego traditional burial and just donate their bodies to science.

Speaker 14 There is a 20% increase in the number of people donating their body right here in Arizona. That's about 47,000 people.

Speaker 4 To investigate, I hit up a popular spot for the old folks to see if body donation really was all the rage.

Speaker 7 What do you want to happen to your body after you die?

Speaker 13 I'd consider whole body donation.

Speaker 17 Have you considered whole body donation?

Speaker 13 Yes, I have it already set up.

Speaker 18 So you seem pretty old and close to death. What do you want to happen to you after you die?

Speaker 20 I'm going to be, I'm donating it to science.

Speaker 17 What made you think of doing that?

Speaker 21 I have no living relatives.

Speaker 20 Who's going to bury me?

Speaker 18 Do you have any friends?

Speaker 22 Yeah, they don't care about my body.

Speaker 8 Well, maybe they should care.

Speaker 15 Because when I turned on the news, I discovered this.

Speaker 13 Scandal involving a body donation business in Phoenix. The owner accused of selling bodies and body parts essentially running a chop shop for human body parts.

Speaker 11 A human chop shop?

Speaker 4 These were people, not cars you stripped down for pots.

Speaker 25 I turned to a team of lawyers trying to end this horror.

Speaker 18 So what the f ⁇ is happening in Arizona?

Speaker 26 People are

Speaker 26 getting people to donate their bodies and telling them that they're going to treat the bodies with dignity and respect.

Speaker 25 And they were sold off like you would sell off the parts of a cow.

Speaker 26 And then ultimately the FBI raided this organization here in Arizona.

Speaker 17 So what did the FBI find?

Speaker 13 There were coolers and freezers of disarticulated body parts, you know, a cooler of arms, a cooler of legs.

Speaker 26 They found heads.

Speaker 27 They found the torso of a large human male with the head of a small female sewn on the torso.

Speaker 10 All right, okay, we get it.

Speaker 9 Enough already.

Speaker 22 Jesus.

Speaker 9 Anyone here have a puppy I can pet for 10 seconds just to clear my head?

Speaker 26 And they found a giant bag of penises.

Speaker 6 They found a bag of dicks.

Speaker 26 Yes, it was referred to as a large bag of male genitalia.

Speaker 18 So it was a large bag of dicks?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 9 I'm scared to even ask, but what were they going to do with this large bag of dicks?

Speaker 26 Well, we really can only speculate. We know that some of it may have gone to the black market in Southeast Asia for something like penis wine.

Speaker 18 Okay, I'm from Southeast Asia. I've never heard of penis wine.

Speaker 17 What is it?

Speaker 26 I think it's wine that has a penis in it that's supposed to make people more virile.

Speaker 9 That is disgusting.

Speaker 26 I thought so.

Speaker 18 Is it red or white?

Speaker 26 I didn't even go close enough to it to even.

Speaker 9 What kind of flavor profile is this?

Speaker 9 Is it nutty?

Speaker 26 I didn't taste taste it.

Speaker 9 Is there notes of foreskin?

Speaker 13 Can we move on?

Speaker 12 This is a serious case.

Speaker 17 Oh, yeah, that's right, Holly.

Speaker 18 We're just going to mention penis wine and not talk about it.

Speaker 13 This case is about the harm that was done to people and families, not about penis wine.

Speaker 30 She's right.

Speaker 9 People thought they were donating their bodies for research to find cures for diseases, but instead it was real-life invasion of the body snatchers.

Speaker 25 How are they going to fix this?

Speaker 26 We need regulations. Licenses, for example.

Speaker 17 You don't need need a license to deal with dead bodies.

Speaker 26 Correct.

Speaker 9 You need a license to do nails. You need a license to fish.

Speaker 18 You need a license to drive a forklift.

Speaker 26 Pay your money, fill out a form, and you're a medical director. That has to change.

Speaker 27 This is horrific. This is not just an Arizona problem.
It's a nationwide problem. And if you think it's not happening in your backyard, you're mistaken.

Speaker 18 Okay, sorry.

Speaker 9 Can we just go back to the penis wine for a second? Do they stomp on dicks the way they stomp on grapes?

Speaker 17 Are they squeezing out the penis?

Speaker 9 Are they just fermenting it?

Speaker 26 I don't know.

Speaker 26 And I really not sure I want to know.

Speaker 8 No one should have their dead body violated or their genitals turn into a tasty beverage.

Speaker 23 If people are going to donate, they should at least know exactly what they're getting themselves into.

Speaker 8 They need to know the truth.

Speaker 9 Until Arizona puts regulations in place, all we can do is offer competing services.

Speaker 34 Introducing GiveRonnyYourBody.com.

Speaker 5 Just give me your body and we'll take care of the rest.

Speaker 35 With us, you'll know exactly what you're getting.

Speaker 36 We provide services such as...

Speaker 5 We turn into a human ventriloquist dummy. We use for weekend at Bernie sequels, literal body pillow, T-Fill at the Oscars.

Speaker 35 Those are just some of the many things we can do.

Speaker 4 Sound horrifying?

Speaker 36 You betcha.

Speaker 37 But it's also perfectly legal until Arizona changes its laws.

Speaker 35 GiveRonnyYourBody.com.

Speaker 5 Give me your body.

Speaker 38 I want your body.

Speaker 39 Ronnie Chang is unlicensed and has no experience in this field, which is not a problem in the state of Arizona. So avoid this service altogether and do your research or donate to medical centers.

Speaker 9 Here in America we use straws for everything.

Speaker 20 Drinking, snorting cocaine.

Speaker 2 Okay just those two things but still that's not nothing.

Speaker 10 Yet recently local governments across the nation have been challenging our God-given right to bear straws.

Speaker 40 Straws represent only 0.02% of the 9 million tons of plastic waste that is estimated.

Speaker 39 People would like to keep the plastic straw, just saying.

Speaker 15 Conservative Big Bird actually has a point here.

Speaker 10 So I headed to Washington, D.C., the latest city to ban straws, to meet Lillian, an environmental inspector.

Speaker 10 Her actual job is to go into local businesses and make sure they're not using plastic straws.

Speaker 41 That's right.

Speaker 4 She's a straw cop.

Speaker 39 So what do you hope to accomplish by banning something that's like 0.00000000000001% of our trash?

Speaker 1 You know, that's a good question. It's a perfect symbol for our

Speaker 1 overuse and dependence on single-use plastics, right?

Speaker 22 So am I supposed to do?

Speaker 42 If I don't use straws, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to do this?

Speaker 1 Yes, absolutely. That's what I would love.

Speaker 10 Lillian explained that over 40% of our plastic manufacturing is single-use, throwaway items that will take somewhere between 450 years and forever to disappear.

Speaker 8 But still, why are people suddenly so angry about straws?

Speaker 9 Why do you hate straws so much? What do straws ever do to you?

Speaker 1 I think that really started with the straw video, the plastic straw getting stuck up the sea turtle's nose. It has over 35 million views on YouTube.

Speaker 9 Wait, this is all because of a dumb viral video?

Speaker 42 Look, I've seen a lot of shit on YouTube.

Speaker 45 How bad could this be?

Speaker 36 Turns out really fing bad.

Speaker 1 And it's a freaking straw.

Speaker 41 Okay, okay, I'm done. No more straws.

Speaker 10 But the video did leave me with one burning question.

Speaker 47 If I

Speaker 45 stick a a straw up my nose, I could get 35 million views on YouTube.

Speaker 1 I can't guarantee that. You know, people might not connect with seeing a person, a full-grown adult, with a straw up their nose the same way I connect with a sea turtle.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't go further.

Speaker 43 No, no, that's stuck. No, I'm.

Speaker 42 Okay, so tell me what you do on a day-to-day basis.

Speaker 9 Turns out that turtle was not faking it.

Speaker 1 We actually go out and do some random inspections and we talk to business owners about the new rules and how to come into compliance.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 42 That sounds great.

Speaker 31 It was time for me to hit the streets and shadow Lillian on an actual straw raid.

Speaker 23 First step, case the joint.

Speaker 22 Clear, clear, clear, clear, clear, clear, clear. Alright, clear.

Speaker 1 So once we enter a business, usually we kind of take a look around, right? We want to see if we can see any straws.

Speaker 37 It's not racial profiling.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean we're looking at the straws.

Speaker 22 What races are more likely to use?

Speaker 24 Next, look for contraband.

Speaker 22 So these are what we use. Great.
Compostable.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's excellent. So these are absolutely in compliance.

Speaker 44 Turns out this guy was clean, at least for today.

Speaker 31 But I knew things were about to get real when we hit the motherload.

Speaker 33 A coffee shop with enough plastic nose candy to take down Nemo's whole goddamn wreath.

Speaker 1 And it looks like these are plastic, right? So you are currently out of compliance.

Speaker 48 That's right.

Speaker 32 You're busted.

Speaker 10 And now the straw cops are gonna make you pay.

Speaker 49 Right now we haven't switched yet, but we are in the process of swishing.

Speaker 29 Oh really? That's convenient.

Speaker 45 Just happened to be switching when we walk in, okay.

Speaker 22 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 So what I'm gonna do today is I'm just gonna give you a warning letter.

Speaker 18 Wait, what do you mean warning letter?

Speaker 16 So Lillian just walks around warning businesses that's it I'm taking the lead on this investigation

Speaker 4 straw straw straw straw we got straw over here you crazy gonna pull out straw in front of a straw cart

Speaker 4 is this your straw whose straw is this

Speaker 27 straw straw over here sorry false alarm it's fine it's paper

Speaker 12 Dispatch we are entering premises over

Speaker 45 I see that guy over there

Speaker 45 the black hoodie

Speaker 12 just gonna go ask him a few questions

Speaker 22 oh he's going he's going go go go go go straw police straw police drop the fing straw get on the ground mother

Speaker 1 but despite the successful raid Lillian wasn't happy yeah um that was absolutely useless in getting people to come into compliance well let's agree to disagree yeah it takes a lot of time and energy and those one-on-one conversations to really enact real change okay change people's minds through constructive conversations I can do that.

Speaker 4 Do you know how many f ⁇ ing turtles are dying in the ocean because they are straws at their nose? Why? Because mother

Speaker 51 can't seem to drink from cups without straws.

Speaker 22 Just put the cup to your mouth.

Speaker 51 Just put the cup to your mouth. That's it.
You don't need a middleman.

Speaker 11 Do you know how much damage this could do to a dolphin's anus?

Speaker 29 An oyster could eat this and suffocate to death.

Speaker 35 It's like you guys don't even care.

Speaker 25 Sir, we need to go before I call the police.

Speaker 51 Yo, you can't call the police. We are the police.

Speaker 51 We are the police.

Speaker 8 We are the police.

Speaker 36 Show her your badge. No, we're not.

Speaker 22 Show her your badge.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we're not.

Speaker 53 Show her your badge. Now, she has a badge.

Speaker 4 Show her her the badge.

Speaker 9 After a successful conversation, we voluntarily left the restaurant.

Speaker 29 I come back.

Speaker 11 I see any plastic straws in here.

Speaker 9 I'm burning this whole place to the ground.

Speaker 32 And hey, if a restaurant can ban me just for doing my job,

Speaker 15 how hard can it be to ban straws?

Speaker 9 Cryptocurrency.

Speaker 34 Is this some fake s ⁇ some nerds made up on the internet to steal our money?

Speaker 8 Or is it the future of finance? There is no way all these people buying cryptocurrency have any idea what the hell they're investing investing in.

Speaker 9 And it's not just Bitcoin.

Speaker 15 Ethereum, the number two cryptocurrency, has risen 5,000% since the start of this year.

Speaker 48 Why?

Speaker 54 If you imagine Bitcoin as being a gold coin, Ethereum is a coin that has a magic spell in it.

Speaker 15 What the hell does that mean?

Speaker 34 I spoke with one of the founders of Ethereum, Joe Lubind, to find out.

Speaker 4 First question, what is it?

Speaker 15 What is it?

Speaker 55 Ether, the cryptocurrency that lives on the decentralized Ethereum platform, it's actually a much more programmable cryptocurrency than Bitcoin.

Speaker 8 That doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 15 What is it?

Speaker 55 We created a platform for decentralized applications.

Speaker 45 Does everyone in cryptocurrency talk like you?

Speaker 42 Pretty much.

Speaker 18 Is it just everyone just going decentralized from dark world

Speaker 18 and drugs online?

Speaker 41 Exactly.

Speaker 8 Does cryptocurrency make you feel angry and confused?

Speaker 38 Well, it should.

Speaker 8 To make it easier to understand, we ripped off the big short and asked Margo Robbie to explain it in a bubble bath.

Speaker 9 But she said no. Cryptocurrencies are transparent and decentralized.

Speaker 57 When two strangers exchange money over the internet, it requires a middleman like PayPal or a bank who takes a percentage of the transaction. And that transaction is vulnerable to hacking.

Speaker 7 Cryptocurrencies are recorded in a public ledger called the blockchain.

Speaker 57 So it's impossible to cheat. They actually solve a lot of problems with exchanging money in a global digital world.

Speaker 3 Don't get the f out of you got nothing back.

Speaker 15 But still, is that worth a bajillion dollars?

Speaker 9 Why do so many suckers on the internet, sorry, I mean people believe fake money as value?

Speaker 55 Ether's real. It's based on faith in the Ethereum blockchain.
When you get enough people believing in cryptocurrency, then you can snowball into

Speaker 55 something that a society actually deems valuable. Like the US dollar.

Speaker 6 What do you mean the US dollar?

Speaker 55 The US dollar is based on faith in the system.

Speaker 9 So the only thing backing this money is belief in the competency of the US government.

Speaker 55 Unfortunately, that's true.

Speaker 22 Damn.

Speaker 8 So, not only is cryptocurrency fake, all money is fake.

Speaker 10 Wake up, Wall Street.

Speaker 18 You know, money isn't real, right?

Speaker 45 All this stuff is all fake.

Speaker 15 But Wall Street doesn't care if money is real, as long as they're making lots of it.

Speaker 8 They've been pumping millions into Bitcoin and Ethereum, driving the creation of thousands of new cryptocurrencies.

Speaker 9 But how low is the bar for entry?

Speaker 42 Let me get this straight.

Speaker 9 You took Bitcoin and you just changed the font to Comic Sans.

Speaker 58 And we put a dog on it.

Speaker 10 This was the guy to talk to.

Speaker 9 So tell me about the genesis of dog e-coin.

Speaker 58 Well firstly it's Dogecoin.

Speaker 58 But I created...

Speaker 6 Why is it Doge?

Speaker 58 It's actually based on a meme.

Speaker 9 What? It's not Dog E-Coin?

Speaker 29 E-Coin.

Speaker 20 Electronic coin. Dog E-Coin.

Speaker 58 Oh, that's pretty smart, actually.

Speaker 4 It's not. But guess what?

Speaker 24 This stupid meme currency is worth almost $400 million.

Speaker 9 So why does its creator have some problems with cryptocurrency?

Speaker 58 When you see price charts go up into the right exponentially, ultimately it can be a sign of a bubble.

Speaker 2 Yeah, bubbles are great. What are you talking about? I love bubbles.

Speaker 58 People are gonna lose a bunch of money.

Speaker 9 And sure, cryptocurrency might destroy the planet through climate change and supporting raw nuclear states, but this is America!

Speaker 36 So I decided to make my own cryptocurrency, but that has to be an incredibly complex...

Speaker 8 Done.

Speaker 6 That was easy.

Speaker 36 I did it! It literally takes 10 minutes to go on a website and make your own coin.

Speaker 11 Time to make it rain, Changcoin, and kickstart the financial revolution.

Speaker 3 Do you accept Chang coin? Chang? Chang coins like Bitcoin. It's disrupting global global financial systems

Speaker 3 using blockchain technology.

Speaker 40 No. No.
No, only cash.

Speaker 3 I'll send you money over the internet.

Speaker 22 Money?

Speaker 3 I'm going to demonstrate. So imagine if I send you this,

Speaker 3 right? Thank you.

Speaker 3 No, no, but digitally. No, no, no, no.
No, give me back my five.

Speaker 8 How are people not getting this?

Speaker 20 No, I'm paying you. I'm paying you in Chang.

Speaker 41 Get the f ⁇ out of my camp! Out of my camp!

Speaker 2 Remember this moment. Remember this moment when you had a chance to jump on Chancoin and you didn't.

Speaker 15 Alright? His loss.

Speaker 8 Invest in Chancoin. Just don't ask me how it works.

Speaker 6 Chicago.

Speaker 31 Big city. Windy city.
Opinionated city.

Speaker 10 Whether you're from Hyde Park, Lincoln Park, or Wicker Park, why is everything a park?

Speaker 9 Their food is as iconic as their corruption. Al's Italian beef sandwich.
Garrett's addicted popcorn mix. Potillo's Jumbo Hot Dogs.

Speaker 24 And of course, the legendary Chicago pizza I've heard so much about.

Speaker 22 What the

Speaker 60 is this?

Speaker 11 This is Chicago deep dish pizza.

Speaker 20 Yo, I said I wanted pizza, not some Italian guys dump on a plate.

Speaker 29 This looks like me eating pizza and then throwing it up into a bread bowl and then leaving it in the sun to dry.

Speaker 11 This is how Chicago does pizza.

Speaker 29 I refuse to believe you can't get a decent slice of pizza in this city, all right?

Speaker 50 This is the birthplace of Lincoln, Obama, Michael Jordan.

Speaker 46 None of those people were were born here.

Speaker 21 Brothers.

Speaker 22 Ugh.

Speaker 11 This is what people in Chicago call pizza.

Speaker 29 Where can I find a decent slice in this city instead of this stupid bull?

Speaker 8 I couldn't find a single place that sold real pizza.

Speaker 51 Just this deep dish dough dumpster.

Speaker 35 This isn't pizza.

Speaker 35 This isn't even human food.

Speaker 61 After hours of only deep dish, I finally found a place that served delicious normal pizza pie.

Speaker 38 The Cook County Jail.

Speaker 44 That's right, the best pizza in Chicago is in the biggest jail in America.

Speaker 25 This gourmet pizza is actually made by and sold to inmates as part of a training program called Recipe for Change.

Speaker 62 Recipe for Change has made it a point to put together a program where we have phenomenal pizza.

Speaker 9 Thomas Dott is the sheriff of Cook County Jail. He's been running the pizza program for four years.

Speaker 62 We have a lot of good pizza in Chicago. This is really good though.

Speaker 12 What do you mean there's good pizza in Chicago? Have you tried that deep dish Chicago pizza?

Speaker 62 Yeah, but the inmates didn't want that.

Speaker 28 So you're telling me even in jail people did not want deep dish pizza?

Speaker 62 They haven't been asking for it.

Speaker 9 Recipe for Change is one of several rehab programs at the Cook County Jail, along with drumming, painting, chess, gardening, and more.

Speaker 18 So what made you become a hero sheriff and not a Joe Ohio sheriff?

Speaker 62 You know, recidivism rates like 70%. It's expensive to incarcerate people.
It's not expensive to give them a skill.

Speaker 9 The man giving them that skill?

Speaker 25 Local restaurateur Chef Bruno Abate, who volunteers his time and expertise to teach inmates how to cook the best pizza in Chicago.

Speaker 60 Chef, what do you think about this deep dish pizza?

Speaker 60 It's garbage. People should not eat this.

Speaker 60 It's like a brick. Look at this.
Look. I mean, I don't know where you buy this.

Speaker 62 I don't want to know.

Speaker 60 But this is shame.

Speaker 8 After a straight hour of s ⁇ on deep dish pizza, Chef Bruno finally got around to telling me more about how his program is affecting inmates.

Speaker 60 The program recent people change is here to open your mind, to open your brain, give you hope, give you self-esteem, give you dignity. Give you pizza.

Speaker 19 Everyone in the Cook County Jail wants to be a part of this great program. I learned how to be a better leader.

Speaker 61 I learned how to work with a lot of other people. Basically, I've learned how to eat better.

Speaker 10 It was great to be with people in Chicago who understood what pizza is supposed to look and taste like.

Speaker 2 Guys, this pizza is genuinely awesome.

Speaker 21 You must have people laying up around the block to buy this.

Speaker 61 Actually, it's only for inmates.

Speaker 24 Guys, we're gonna rescue Chicago from that bull deep dish pizza.

Speaker 61 Okay, I know the pizza is great, but this is not how you deal with conflict.

Speaker 28 All right.

Speaker 6 I'll be right back.

Speaker 2 Hey, where you going with the pizza?

Speaker 56 Ronnie knew pizza this good wasn't meant to be caged.

Speaker 56 He also really loved prison escape movies.

Speaker 60 Ronnie, where are you?

Speaker 56 Look at the massacre.

Speaker 60 What looking at?

Speaker 56 Why are you looking for it? In October 2017, Ronnie Chang smuggled thin crust pizza out of Cook County jail.

Speaker 56 Oh, Ronnie loved pizza, but he also hated Chicago deep dish.

Speaker 56 He had to find a way to get thin crust pizza to the people of Chicago.

Speaker 56 All it takes to get pizza out is cheese, dough, and thyme.

Speaker 56 That and a big-ass poster.

Speaker 22 Ronnie Chang,

Speaker 43 who crawled through a river of marinara and came out smelling like basin.

Speaker 34 In the last presidential election, 44% of Americans did not vote. That puts you in 26th position among developed countries.

Speaker 2 That's pathetic.

Speaker 31 You should be ashamed of yourself.

Speaker 51 That's garbage.

Speaker 25 It's so garbage that in 2016, Trump got elected with only a quarter of eligible voters supporting him.

Speaker 15 That is a broken system.

Speaker 9 Some politics nerds are proposing a solution.

Speaker 12 Jury duty and taxes are mandatory, so why not voting?

Speaker 44 But America is the land of the free, where the whole point is to do anything you want.

Speaker 25 Even dress up as fat Ironman in Times Square on a Tuesday afternoon.

Speaker 52 So can you really force Americans to vote?

Speaker 11 Do you think in America voting should be compulsory?

Speaker 25 I think it should, but it's not gonna happen because people won't even wear masks.

Speaker 46 If we were told to do something,

Speaker 59 at this point, exactly, f ⁇ it, we wouldn't do it.

Speaker 34 Do you think America would ever accept mandatory voting definitely not why not

Speaker 1 because Americans are lazy in general America is the land of the free people come here because it's a free place and that includes the freedom to not participate

Speaker 16 yeah pretty much do you think mandatory voting can happen in America no

Speaker 46 I do not I do not I think that American values are

Speaker 46 like a toxic version of what freedom is.

Speaker 16 Isn't that what makes America great?

Speaker 46 It's not so great great at the moment.

Speaker 9 Maybe Americans think it's impossible, but mandatory voting does exist in 22 countries, including one that's even drunker, crazier, and whiter than the US.

Speaker 25 I'm talking about Australia, where they've had it since 1922.

Speaker 63 It was quite a small step for Australians to think, well, we want the majority of people to be selecting our government. And that gives it greater legitimacy.

Speaker 9 So basically in Australia, you force people to exercise their democratic rights.

Speaker 63 That's right. Yes, that's right.
I don't think people in Australia regard it as a particularly big deal. You've got to turn up on Election Day, which is a Saturday.

Speaker 63 You know, it might take you like 15 minutes and the Parents and Teachers Association will be there selling sausages. And that's where we get the term democracy sausage.

Speaker 9 Okay, for Americans, the term democracy sausage has had a bad taste since the Clinton administration.

Speaker 25 But for Australians, consuming charred and testing meat on bread has been a voting tradition since the 1940s.

Speaker 9 But what about the people who don't think a sausage sizzle is enough incentive to vote?

Speaker 34 What kind of punishment do you have to enforce to make it so that over 90% of people go and vote? What, jail time? Public spanking? You have to wear I didn't vote sticker?

Speaker 63 It's a $20 fine.

Speaker 6 That's it?

Speaker 6 That's a bargain.

Speaker 58 I think.

Speaker 63 Look, there's big advantages in our system because the political parties don't have to get the vote out. And that means they don't have to appeal to the base.

Speaker 63 So you don't get the same sort of extreme ideological

Speaker 63 appeals. And so it makes our democracy, I think, more moderate.

Speaker 45 Doesn't that make your election process very boring?

Speaker 63 Well, I don't.

Speaker 63 Does it make it boring? Look, I don't know that that's a problem. For me, what democracy means is that the majority of people participate.

Speaker 63 And I find the extent of voter suppression in the United States truly shocking. I don't understand how the Americans can call themselves a democracy at all.

Speaker 16 Damn, political science world star is going to love this. But how do everyday Australians see it?

Speaker 37 I took a 25-hour flight and spent two weeks in quarantine just so I could talk to them myself in sunny Brisbane, Australia.

Speaker 42 What do you feel about the fact that voting is compulsory in Australia?

Speaker 64 I feel very proud that it is and for people who don't want to vote, they should go and live somewhere else.

Speaker 59 Everybody has to to decide and

Speaker 59 it's mandatory to vote so if the result doesn't go your way you can't complain. If we lose oh we're sad but at least we've had a chance to vote and that's it brother.

Speaker 49 Done. You should just do it.
It takes five minutes. You just go in there, vote and get out.
No time, no evidence.

Speaker 57 Just shut the f ⁇ up and vote.

Speaker 34 Well what do you guys think about mandatory voting in Australia?

Speaker 22 I think it's pretty bullshit.

Speaker 55 Yeah, never a fan of it. We don't care what we vote for.

Speaker 50 We just go in there and tick a few boxes and then fingers crossed we get the right one.

Speaker 22 I don't

Speaker 42 Are you guys drunk right now?

Speaker 22 Yeah, we had a few beers and ports.

Speaker 22 A couple shots,

Speaker 22 yeah.

Speaker 53 Man, that is Australian.

Speaker 53 Why do you think voting isn't mandatory in America? Oh, maybe, I mean... Yeah, now I rethink it, actually.
Maybe there's a purpose for it.

Speaker 50 America, Australia, which one's doing better?

Speaker 53 I feel like I'm a witness to cavemen discovering fire right now.

Speaker 22 Yeah, that's fair enough, actually.

Speaker 9 Even drunk Australian bros can see the benefits of mandatory voting.

Speaker 25 But for America, the good news is that voter turnout in 2020 is on track to hit record levels.

Speaker 28 All we needed to get people to vote was to elect Donald Trump.

Speaker 9 And then guess what?

Speaker 28 People turn up.

Speaker 9 We don't need to force people to vote.

Speaker 63 Well, that's a pretty big price to pay. I'd rather pay a $20 fine than have to put up with President Trump for four years.

Speaker 47 Touche, Judith.

Speaker 52 But hopefully one day, Americans will also learn to enjoy the sweet, sweet taste of democracy sausage, as much as our drunk, vote-loving mates down under.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

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