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Smerconish
Is The American Dream Still Alive?; Skenazy: "Why You Should Spend Less Time With Your Kids". Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering The Mail In Appalachia. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired September 06, 2025 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:01:32]
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Wake up, Maggie. I think I've got something to say to you. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs with a back to school lesson about life, perception versus reality.
I say college, you think what? Four years away from home, the trend toward luxury dorm rooms, maybe some D1 football, Palestinian protesters. All true, but not the norm. As per the New York Times, there are more than 19 million college students in the United States. Most are well removed from academia's corridors of wealth and power, cavernous football stadiums, carefree nights hanging out in dorms.
The war between President Trump and Harvard University barely registers to them. Instead, many live close to home, often juggling work or taking care of children with their course load. Many are enrolled part time or in community colleges.
So why do we still call four years away in a residential setting traditional? For most Americans, that's never really been the case, especially where 41 million attended college but never graduated and only about 35 percent of Americans have completed a conventional four- year undergraduate degree. No doubt cost is a factor. The average college student is $19,000 in debt, and education has become the new default line in American politics.
Doug Sosnik, a political strategist who closely advised President Clinton as well as senators, governors and corporate leaders, noted that since the 1990s, Democrats have lost working class and rural voters while becoming increasingly reliant on college graduates. That's not a winning formula in a country where nearly 60 percent of eligible voters lack a four-year degree. In 2024, Republicans won 14 of the 15 least educated states, while Democrats carried 14 of the 15 most educated states. And it's not just voters, the same divide is now showing up among members of Congress. The Washington Post reported that Republicans in Congress now overwhelmingly come from non-elite schools, while almost half of Democrats graduated from an Ivy League or other elite institution.
That's a dramatic shift from 50 years ago when both parties had similar educational pedigrees tending toward the Ivies. When I was an undergraduate, I never doubted the attainability of the American dream, defined as if you work hard, you're going to get ahead. But today, according to a Wall Street Journal NORC survey, nearly 70 percent say they believe that no longer holds true or that it never did. And that's the highest level in nearly 15 years of surveys. Once again, perception and reality are different.
According to the Journal, when Stanford economist Neale Mahoney and two colleagues studied how economic metrics compared with economic sentiment, they found that the two moved largely in tandem from 2005 until the pandemic. And then the two diverged with sediment, turning large, more negative than predicted by traditional measures of the economy. That's a lot of pessimism, right? But hold on, this week, Jim VandeHei, the CEO of Axios, published an essay addressed to college students, and he wrote something that you've often heard from me, namely that we've been duped into thinking that Americans are nastier, meaner, more polarized than ever. And we've been misled into believing the country is more broken, more unfixable, more hostile than it actually is.
How did that happen? Well, politicians, the media, particularly social media, their feeds are all chasing the same thing, our attention. And what's the best way to get it? Amplify conflict and juice our emotions. The good news, VandeHei reminds us, is that there's still more that unites us than divides us.
Most people aren't consumed by partisan combat. They're not worrying about things like Sydney Sweeney's jeans or her jeans or whether Cracker Barrel should update its logo. His bottom line was this, America rocks. And here's the way he expressed it, "Yes, there are countless things we could do better and lots of things of legit concerns. But I beg young people to understand the enormous indisputable advantages of this country, especially compared to other nations.
We're the best performing economic and new idea generating machine on the globe. We're blessed with two oceans on our shoulders and friendly neighbors north and south. We're sitting on more energy than was ever dreamed possible and we have the freedom to move, live and work anywhere. We're leading AI and health advances and we're the envy of all for our startup culture and can-do spirit."
[09:05:20]
He's not alone, Tim Swarens, after 42 years as a journalist, including at USA Today, just signed off with a great farewell column. His parting words, I choose optimism. He said that over the decades he's been writing, the world has become a much better place upward and to the right of the trend lines of standard of living, lifespan, health care, civil rights, even crime. He anticipated the objections, you know, climate change, income inequality, Donald Trump and MAGA, the loony left, and socialism, AI. He didn't dismiss those challenges, but he argued that the prophets of doom have been consistently wrong for at least 60 years and will probably be wrong for the next 60 years from now until his grandchildren are his age.
And he had thoughts on the American dream, noting that just a few years ago we were told that millennials would forever trail their parents and grandparents in health, in wealth and in happiness. Instead, millennials are now financially better off than boomers were at the same age and they're on track to become the wealthiest generation in history, with their children likely to surpass them.
Like VandeHei, Swarens warned of the dangers of social media, which trains us to see only the worst in ourselves and in each other.
So here's where I land, college reveals the struggles, the divisions, the doubts that we now carry about the American dream. But listen closely and you'll also hear voices reminding us not to buy into the doom loop, that the, well, long term trend is still toward progress and that the dream, while challenged, is not gone. So as students collect their books and get on back to school, that's a lesson worth taking with them.
I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com, answer today's poll question, do you think the American dream, that if you work hard, you'll get ahead, still holds true, never held true or once held true, but does not anymore? I'll give you results at the end of the hour.
Joining me now, Stanford economist Neale Mahoney.
Neale, thank you for being here. With regard to the American dream, is our pessimism justified?
NEALE MAHONEY, STANDFORD ECONOMIST: A little bit yes, a little bit no, right? So if you dig into the numbers, Americans have real concerns about the economy. They're concerned about affordability today and they're also worried about the future. They're worried that tariffs are going to send inflation the wrong direction. They're worried that the job market is screeching to a halt.
They're worried about things like AI. But you know, we've had tough economic moments in the past. In fact, much tougher moments, and pessimism now is as low as it's ever been.
SMERCONISH: You looked at the data I referenced in my commentary that you looked at the data about attitudes and the tangible metrics, and you saw something happen at about the time of the pandemic that has not returned to where it was, could you explain that?
MAHONEY: Yes. So, you know, over time, there's usually a reliable relationship between the strength of the economy, the hard numbers that economists like me look at, and what people say in polls about how they're feeling. But you know, those two trend lines diverged at the start of the pandemic, and that divergence has continued. At first, I think inflation was a factor that was, you know, really leaving people glum about the economy. But you know, now it's a range of other factors.
And, you know, a whole bunch of it is unexplained. Leading explaining factor is social media like you said. You know, people go on Instagram and they're much more likely to see a post from the Ritz than the Motel 6. And I think it gives people a skewed picture of what it means to be successful, what it means to have a good life in our country.
SMERCONISH: Does our pessimism matter? And by that I mean, is there -- is there an impact that it has on our conduct, on our behavior, on our business activities?
MAHONEY: Yes, hugely so. Our optimism is our superpower as a country. It's the reason why our entrepreneurs take large, almost outlandish bets with their startups. It's the reason why our scientists engage in moonshot projects. And if we lose that, I'm worried that we lose the fuel that leads to so many breakthroughs that make this country great.
[09:10:02]
SMERCONISH: It also, I think, explains, as I reflect on what you're saying and some of the data that I read this week, it also explains the resonance of Make America Great Again, right? It taps into some of the ideas that you're offering, which is to say that for many, the perception is that American greatness is something that we had and has been lost.
MAHONEY: Yes. Like you said, you know, people's belief in the American dream has gone from 70 percent to 25 percent. You know, some of that is borne out in the data. A couple generations ago, 90 percent of kids earned more than their parents. Now it's down to 50 percent.
But like you mentioned, there's also a range of things which are better now in this country than they were sort of ever before.
SMERCONISH: OK, final question, how do we get our groove back? How do we make our perception better aligned with the data that you've referenced?
MAHONEY: Look, so nobody knows for sure, but if you look back at history, you know, there have been moments where there was malaise, there was pessimism and, you know, it's often been political leaders that shake us out of that slump. So if you think about JFK talking about how we were going to send somebody to the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard. Reagan talking about Morning in America, most recently, Obama talking about hope and change in this country. So maybe it's a political leader, maybe it's an event, maybe it's an entrepreneur or somebody else who inspires our country. I certainly hope that we get our optimism back again because it's what fuels so many great things in this country.
SMERCONISH: Neale Mahoney, thank you for your expertise. We appreciate it.
Tell me at home your thoughts. Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program. From the world of YouTube, as the late, great George Carlin noted -- oh-oh, am I about to hear the seven words -- it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it, says William Moseley.
I'll tell you something funny, William Moseley and everybody else, in anticipation of discussing this today and looking at the Wall Street Journal NORC survey, I rediscovered a column that I wrote in 1985. 1985 I had hair, OK, some hair.
Catherine (ph), do you have it? I actually submitted this to the Philadelphia Daily News, and they published it. And it was a very, you know, robust endorsement by me in '85, while I was in law school of the American Dream. Put it up on the screen if we have it. I tended to see things in black and white terms back then and essentially my view was one of, hey, you know, get off your butt, work hard, you're going to do great things in this country.
Is that still my -- is that still my opinion? Largely it is. At the time I didn't -- I didn't respect the role that luck plays. In other words, I know people who have worked hard and done very, very well and had some luck. I know some people have worked hard and haven't done so well and just didn't have the luck element to it.
Oh, there it is. Look at that. America offers opportunity to -- note the yellowed nature, the frayed nature of the print.
Anyway, back on the subject today, my point is I'd be answering this question differently today than I did back in the day. But most importantly, I want to know what you think. Here it is, go to smerconish.com, do you think the American dream that if you work hard you'll get ahead, still holds true, never held true or once held true, but does not anymore?
Up ahead, this five-year-old boy, have you heard about this? Clearly didn't need his parents to help him get a bite of Chick-fil-A snuck out of the house before dawn to get it. And his biggest concern wasn't even getting caught. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to get me in jail?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'm not going to put you in jail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: Are we going to jail? Also, do you remember this? I certainly do.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's 10:00 p.m., do you know where your children are?
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SMERCONISH: Can you imagine that service announcement ever airing today? How did Gen X, a generation who enjoyed extreme freedom become controlling "helicopter parents" themselves? A woman who's been called the world's worst mom gives the world's best advice on how to raise kids. Is it time we started backing off? Author of Free Range Kids Lenore Skenazy after the break.
[09:14:36] And don't forget to sign up for my newsletter at smerconish.com. It is free, it is worthy and you'll get the work of editorial cartoonists like Scott Stantis.
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SMERCONISH: You remember Lenore Skenazy? Years ago, she let her nine- year-old ride the subway alone. In New York City, no less. She wrote a column about it in 2008 and what was the response? She was called the world's worst mom.
In the age of helicopter parents, just leaving your kid alone for too long is a no, no, letting them ride the subway in New York City, for some that's a capital offense. But many were inspired by her words. And since then she's led a movement to make children more independent, which is the subject of her recent TED talk titled "Why you should spend less time with your kids." It may sound paradoxical to some, but Lenore Skenazy, I think, makes a good case. She's written a book on this entire subject. It's called "Free Range Kids" and she's co- founded Let Grow, which fights for childhood independence.
And now that TED Talk is available on YouTube, racking up views as we speak.
Lenore, great to have you back. Spend less time with your kids, you better explain that.
LENORE SKENAZY, AUTHOR, "FREE RANGE KIDS": OK, first of all, thanks for having me back, Michael. I know we've been over this topic for many years. And while I say spend less time with your kids, I'm not saying spend no time with your kids, but what we've forgotten and what that little snippet of the five-year-old going to Chick-fil-A proves is that what kids love is being able to say, I did something myself, I did it myself is a really key part of childhood. It's anti-anxiety drug in a way. And when we're always with our kids, helping them, doing things with them, explaining some of that is good but too much gets boring for the parent and a little stultifying for the kid because they want to see what they can do.
[09:20:36]
When they see what they can do, they rise to the occasion and we get to see it. It's great all around.
SMERCONISH: I can only imagine that if Lenore Skenazy is now saying, hey, parents, spend less time with your kids, again, you might be cast as the world's worst mom. You said something in the TED Talk that I thought was really interesting, your husband never gets identified as the world's worst dad, why is that the case?
SKENAZY: You know, we love to rag on moms. It's almost -- it's almost a national pastime. And I think the reason that the -- that Chick-fil- A little clip became so popular is because a kid got out and did something by himself, cops were called and no one arrested the mom. I mean, we're really at the point where any mom taking her eyes off her kids for any moment is considered evil, bad, wrong, immoral. And here was -- here were even the cops realizing that it's -- there's nothing wrong with that.
The kid did something on his own, we're not going to arrest the parents, it's normal.
SMERCONISH: OK. So let's run the clip because I do want to make a comment about it. Show it again, Catherine.
SKENAZY: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We arrived on scene. Hello.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as we walked in, we see a little kid sitting at the table eating his breakfast with one of the managers.
Hey, buddy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, look at that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We asked where he came from and he kept saying he walked to Chick-fil-A.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know where your house is, right, honey?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's right across the street, right over there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, cool.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have children. And you know, the first thing, you know, you get that knot in your stomach because, you know, somebody else who's a parent is missing their child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to show us where you live?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
We gathered him up.
Look at that. Say thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go, buddy. Here's a cup for you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I walked him to the back of my patrol car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to get me in jail?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'm not going to put you in jail.
And we started checking near.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SMERCONISH: OK. So I have to tell -- I have to tell, Lenore, and everybody else, my producers are saying in my ear, Lenore, you can dump out of this at any time you want. It goes on for another two minutes. And I'm sitting here saying, I'd like to sit and watch it for another two minutes because I'm so transfixed. My take on this is I hope -- I hope the parents knew that he was headed to Chick-fil-A.
I'm cool with them if they know he's going there. Obviously we don't want the five-year-old to just get up and go on his own. In your subway case, you were in on it, your son was in on it, your husband was in on it.
SKENAZY: Right. Right. So the reason this story has transfixed you and I think the nation is we've really forgotten how much kids are capable of doing. And to see a five-year-old who can actually get himself someplace, order food, talk to an adult, pay with actual money has almost become a fantasy in many parents' minds. And this is just a good reminder of how much kids are longing for independence and how much they can do when we let them.
I don't think the parents knew in this case that the kid had gotten out. And of course you don't want your kids to leave without telling you where they're going. But it is a reminder that kids are way more competent than our culture even lets us believe. And that's what I'm trying to prove here.
You know, the segment you had right before this was about optimism and how important it is to believe in things, including your country, including your kids, including your neighbor. And you really can't believe in something until you see it in action. And that is letting your kid be part of the neighborhood, run an errand, make you breakfast, bring you breakfast from Chick-fil-A, and then you realize, like, hey, things are pretty good. If you stay inside all the time and just keep getting, you know, obsessed with bad news, it is hard to realize anything good about yourself, your kids or your country.
SMERCONISH: This reminds me of your work on behalf of the childhood independence law. Kind of interesting that we even need such a law. What is the law? Because I can see this set of facts in a different state perhaps not Florida, somebody saying, oh, we ought to charge the parents. Please explain.
SKENAZY: Well, situations like that moved Let Grow, the nonprofit that grew out of free range kids to try to make sure that no parent can be arrested or investigated simply because their kid does something on their own, walks to school, climbs a tree, goes to the store. So Utah in 2018, became the first state to pass a reasonable childhood independence law that says that neglect is when you really put your kid in danger, serious, obvious danger, not anytime you take your eyes off them. And since then, another 10 states have passed this law, and it's always bipartisan, and it's often passed unanimously because nobody wants to have to second guess their parenting decisions when they're ready for their kid to go someplace or God forbid their kid gets out on their own, that's not evil, that's not bad parenting, that's just called being a parent and having a kid who is not Velcroed to you every second. [09:25:24]
And it's good for the parents to have some independent time, but it's great for the kids, right? We're so worried about them being so anxious and always being on their phones. Well, if they're outside playing or going to Chick-fil-A, they're not on their phones. They're part of the world. They feel better, we feel better.
SMERCONISH: Lenore, one of the reasons that I enjoy having you as a guest is that you make me nostalgic because you are always describing the way I was raised. But what I need to ask you, 60 seconds left. What the hell happened to those of us raised free range who became helicopter? Can you put on the screen David French's comment? You were referenced in David French's New York Times piece.
And he said this, "If our childhoods were that wonderful, why didn't Generation X replicate our own experiences for our children? Why did so many millions of free range kids grow up and become helicopter parents?" What's the answer to that?
SKENAZY: I think it's because this generation of parents was raised with the milk carton kids. And those were -- these were pictures on milk cartons of missing children. And it never had an asterisk that explained, I was taken in a custodial dispute between my divorced parents or I ran away because the stepdad was bad. And so we started thinking you grew up with the milk cartons in front of you as you ate your frosted Flakes, thinking that children were being snatched willy- nilly off the street.
And then I also have to blame 25 years of "Law and Order," you know, almost every second of every day, you can watch some horrible story, especially "SVU", you know, of a child being in harm's way thanks to a stranger. So we really became obsessed with stranger danger instead of seeing the children and the -- and the wonderful country we have in front of us. I know it's not perfect, but our parents could send us out even though there were cars, even though there was some crime. Crime went up, it peaked in the '90s, it's been coming down since. Doesn't feel like it.
But if you believe that your childhood was a good one because your parents trusted you with some independence, you can give that to your kids. And once you try it a little, it grows and grows because you see how much your kid can do. And that's literally what let grow is about. Let go and let grow, and it's that simple.
SMERCONISH: Thank you, Lenore Skenazy. And can I say to everybody else, her TED talk is terrific. You can find it on YouTube. Go watch it, I've done it, you'll love it.
From the world of social media, what do we have? This comes from X. Parents should stop trying to be their best friend and savior. We are raising a bunch of self-entitled, self-absorbed little blanks. Parent, teach -- you know what?
I got to tell you something Two Cent Tony, here's something interesting, it is largely our fault if you buy into Lenore's thoughts, and I do. She wrote a piece in the Atlantic, I hope we have this, and she surveyed kids. If we have it, Catherine, put up the bar graph that were talking about a moment ago. Like, what do you want, we asked the kids or Lenore asked it. There you go.
How would you rather spend time with friends? And can you see the plurality on the far left? Free play, they want to do what -- they want to be in the backyard. They want to run free in the neighborhood. They want to just have balls and bats left for them and get out of the way.
And yes, they have tolerance for taking away their screens. So it's largely our fault is the point. It's not their fault. It's easy to blame them. And like, oh my God, these kids today, all they want to do is look at their smartphones.
That's another good thing that she points out, which is be a good role model. You know, a smartphone is like a yawn. Watch this happen at restaurants. And again, I'm guilty as charged, I am not holier than thou. But how often do you like, look around at a restaurant and one person checks e-mail and then everybody feels compelled?
I don't even think it's a conscious thing. It's like instead of yawning, you look at your phone.
Coming up, your social media reaction to my commentary. And don't forget to answer today's poll question at smerconish.com, do you think the American dream, that if you work hard you'll get ahead, that it still holds true, that it never held true or once held true, but not anymore? And from marketing consultant to rural Appalachia mailman to make ends meet, what my next guest learned from delivering the U.S. mail. Make sure you're signing up for my newsletter at smerconish.com. It's free, it's worthy, you'll love it, and you get the work of legendary illustrators like Steve Breen.
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[09:34:23]
SMERCONISH: You can find me on all the usual social media platforms. Please follow me on X and subscribe to my YouTube channel. This is on the question of whether the American dream is still alive or dead.
Unfortunately, the system has steered too many people into meaningless college programs that do nothing but put them in debt. Trades are looked down on. Parents want that university mom sticker on their car.
Subvet, I don't -- I agree with that observation. I agree with that observation. We've been raised in this country to believe that you've not attained the American dream unless you have homeownership, which is always subject to a mortgage anyway, and that you went to college.
[09:35:01]
And those are not necessarily in people's best interest. I think we've been sold a bill of goods in saying, that's the standard that you've got to attain. But I think that the tide on your issue, the trades, has absolutely turned. I think that now all of a sudden, parents are saying, hey, you can earn a hell of a living if you're a skilled trades person.
And the recruitment that is taking place in high schools, I know this specifically because of a particular suburban Philadelphia high school where I've learned how it's happened, but you've got recruiters coming in and saying, we want to pay you 75,000 to be a welder, your first year out of high school, once you've completed our apprentice program.
So, I think that tide has turned. Here's more social media reaction. What do we got?
I had the best childhood, says Country Bumpkin. We were never home. We had better things to do. We had a dime in our pockets for emergencies. We came home when the street lights came on.
Country Bumpkin, that was -- I know. Now, all of a sudden, we sound like the old folks. And maybe we are the old folks. But that was the rule of thumb in my neighborhood. When those street lights come on, you come home.
And my father also had this phenomenal ability to whistle and be heard for three blocks. And when he whistled, that was the signal for my brother and me to get home. And frankly, that's when everything else shut down.
Did our parents have any idea what we were up to? They knew that we were in a couple of block radius, and that's pretty much all that they knew.
I'll tell you something else that I've been thinking about, just with Lenoir (ph) on the brain. There was a wooded area near where I grew up, and I grew up in a three-bedroom, one bathroom home, and the homes were 30 feet apart from one another. Beautiful neighborhood, still is, but typical middle-class suburbia.
And this wooded area of about a dozen acres still exists. In that wooded area, we would ride bikes. Somebody might smoke an occasional cigarette. It was never my thing. We had underground forts, and that's where we hid our Playboys. And there were always kids on bikes, bikes, bikes.
I still walk in those same woods. I never see any kids. I never see any kids, no bikes, no forts and no Playboys. And I'm sure because the parents, again, it's not the kid's fault. It's probably because the parents were like, oh, you're going into the woods. Bad things happen in the woods.
No bad things have ever happened in those woods, apart from the smoking of the cigarettes. More social media reaction, if I have time for it. Do I? Put it up on the screen, if so. Cool.
Absolutely not. Living in the post-World War II 50s, 60s and into the 70s was great. Life was very good. Today, we live in a dark place called the American nightmare, says Wayne, again, on the question of the American dream. Let me tell you what I've done. Just let me quickly say this. And then everybody at the end of the hour, we'll see how this turns out together. I have mimicked the "Wall Street Journal" and NORC poll. I've taken their wording because I was so fascinated with this.
Do you think the American dream that if you work hard, you'll get ahead, still holds true, never held true, or once held true but not anymore?
OK, there it is. Now, keep in mind that 69 percent, combined with never held true or once but no longer, 69 percent was the total, or said differently, seven of 10 in that scientific survey said the American dream is done. And I wanted to replicate the poll question today here on CNN to see what our audience believes in comparison. Are we more optimistic or are we more pessimistic about the American dream?
So, at the end of the hour, we'll see that calculation and we'll know. Still to come, your mailman, your mailman knows a heck of a lot about you. Our next guest lost his executive marketing job, decided to deliver mail in Appalachia. What he learned about himself and about the country.
Make sure when you're at Smerconish.com voting on the poll question, you sign up for the newsletter for which Jack Ohman sketched this.
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[09:43:22]
SMERCONISH: The two most famous mail carriers on television, I don't know, they've got to be Cliff Clavin on "Cheers," maybe Newman on "Seinfeld." Clavin is a blowhard. Newman is downright evil. Hello, Newman. Both are a bit incompetent. That was an image of the mailman inspired by those two characters for a long time.
But today's guest, Stephen Grant, found out how wrong that stereotype is. At 50, when COVID struck, he was suddenly out of his corporate gig. He'd been a marketing consultant and delivering mail would be a major pay cut. But with a family to support, he needed work. And more importantly, he needed health insurance immediately because he'd been recently diagnosed with prostate cancer.
So, once he became a mailman, he discovered it was a tough job. He used to mental work. This was physically strenuous, and he had a rural route in Appalachia. They take their motto seriously at the post office, neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
And once he was out on the road and completing those rounds, he found out there was a lot more than just rain and snow. There are some crazy citizens out there, sometimes armed and dangerous. Not to mention the mailman's nemesis, the angry dog.
But there were benefits not spelled out in his contract. Pride in getting something accomplished. Getting to know quirky people at work, learning about America at a very granular and ground level. And he had plenty of time by himself, giving him a chance to think about his life and the world in general.
Today he's back to white collar work, but he hasn't forgotten the very important lessons from delivering the mail. And he's here to discuss his well-reviewed brand-new book about those days. It's called "Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home."
[09:45:05]
Stephen, I have learned from you, the mailman or the mail woman knows an awful lot. Explain.
STEPHEN STARRING GRANT, AUTHOR OF "MAILMAN, MY WILD RIDE DELIVERING THE MAIL IN APPALACHIA": Yes. Well, I'll tell you from my very first day in the post office, I could hear the carrier on my home route, two cases over, say, he's got a big house up on Brush Mountain. I don't know what he's doing here.
They -- and, well, was -- is he a professor? Blacksburg is a college town, home of Virginia Tech, and, no, he worked -- he worked for Prudential for a while. I think he's some kind of economist. Because I got "The Economist" magazine and, you know -- and so immediately I was like, whoa, that's -- they know a lot about me.
Oh, he has two new cars. That was -- that was another piece of data that had gotten filed away. And, you know, your letter carrier knows when your birthdays are, who your relatives are, are you a heavy Amazon user or are you a light Amazon user. And sure, everything from Amazon comes in that anonymous brown box.
But other stuff, you know, from J. Crew or bath products or whatever, your prescription medication, if that comes in the mail, they see -- they see all of it. If you have a relative in prison, federal or state, we can see the return address on that letter when it comes into the mailbox.
SMERCONISH: Well, and you're -- you're also -- you're playing nice because there's a part of the book that discusses the, I think, Adam and Eve Superstore and those who are -- those who are routinely receiving. Hey, the book is partly like a sociologist understanding of how we survived the pandemic.
I'll begin the thought and you complete it. There was a lot of talk at the start of the pandemic that people were going to learn to knit or paint, learn to keep bees, or make sourdough. So much sourdough talk. But the mail doesn't lie.
OK. What did you learn about the pandemic? How did we survive?
GRANT: So, you know, there's these public performances that people were putting on to social media. And then I was seeing what was going into folks' mailboxes. Enormous, enormous boxes of weed from Colorado where it was legal at the time. I remember at one point, a box busted open on the loading dock, and I looked across at another carrier who were loading our trucks up, and I was like, is that marijuana I'm smelling?
And these vape capsules had busted open all over the -- all over the concrete there, you know, folks were trapped in their homes. The number of people during that year, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic when the lockdown was really being taken seriously, you know, I would -- I would see folks and it was -- I was almost proof of the outside world. Oh, gosh, I haven't talked to another living soul in person in four weeks, six weeks, two months.
And it struck me that the postal service delivers more than just the mail. We delivered a sense of dependability, regularity, normalcy to people, particularly during those times of the national emergency that was the pandemic. But --
SMERCONISH: Well, and you said -- you said, Stephen, that you learned to love your country by virtue of this job. Just take 60 seconds and tell me how.
GRANT: This is a good country full of good people that do good work, that are worried about their families. You know, the segment that you had on earlier today about this disconnect between what people perceive as happening out there versus what is actually happening in their homes, and the reality of what life is like in this country.
I saw people from all different socioeconomic levels, from different sides of the political spectrum. Everybody ate dinner together. People were taking care of their families. People wanted to work hard. People were concerned about their neighbors. And I saw that house after house after house, on the mountaintop, down in the valley, down in town. This is a good country.
And yet that isn't available in these algorithmic news feeds that we see. And part of the story I wanted to tell was like, your letter carrier sees it.
SMERCONISH: You told it well. The book's great. It's called "Mailman." Thank you for being here.
And to everybody at home, you still have time to vote on today's poll question. By the way, a lot of optimism in today's poll. It was not by design. It's just like everything has flowed in that direction. And I think it's a good thing. But will the poll result uphold that optimism? We're about to find out.
Do you think the American dream that if you work hard, you'll get ahead still holds true, never held true, or once held true but does not anymore? Go there and vote at Smerconish.com. Subscribe to the newsletter while you're there. You'll get exclusive editorial cartoon work from the likes of Rob Rogers.
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[09:54:07]
SMERCONISH: Hey, gang, I don't have a fancy graphic to show you the poll result today, but I do have it on my laptop right in front of me. So, let me tell you where it comes out, because there's something really interesting taking place here. Do you think the American dream that if you work hard, you'll get ahead still holds true, never held true, or once held true but does not anymore?
As of this moment in time, 38,568 have voted. And I told you I mimicked the "Wall Street Journal"-NORC survey, which is scientific, mine is not, from earlier in the week. Bottom line, in the journal survey, only 31 percent say they believe the American dream still holds true. And our number is 43.52 percent.
So, those who have -- well, I can't say those who have watched because I don't know if you've all voted. Presumably more have watched than voted. But those who've taken the time to vote today are far more optimistic about the American dream surviving.
[09:55:06]
It's still a minority, but it's more than the national survey, and I find that really interesting. So, continue to vote at Smerconish.com if you've not already done so on today's poll question. Social media reaction. What do we have so far? From the world of X.
Michael, I think we need to adjust our vision of what success means. Homeownership, new car, even stay at home parenting is much less attainable. But we can't make kids feel like a failure when you can't get there quickly.
Stephanie, I totally agree. We need to -- actually, this would be a great segment. What should be the metrics? What should be the metrics in terms of determining whether, you know, life is good? And I'd put it at the top of that list your physical and your mental well-being especially in a social media world.
Real quick, one more. I've only got 10 seconds. Let me see what it is. No time. All right.
If you missed it -- I'm a radio guy. I could have gotten it done. Just saying. If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen anywhere you can get your podcasts. Thank you for watching and see you next week.
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