Funding for To the Contrary, provided by: This week, on To the Contrary: First, how social isolation is impacting women's lives and how it affects men and women differently.

And the U.S. and China slap tariffs on each other.

But Mexico and Canada are spared for a month.

We explore what it means to see first and more.

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, social isolation.

Loneliness in America is so severe that it has been branded an epidemic and reached the attention of the U.S. surgeon general.

Men are often seen as carrying the brunt of the loneliness epidemic, with societal expectations leading to fewer close friendships and higher isolation rates.

Women also face challenges, with some taking on so-called man keeping that is, managing men's social and emotional needs.

Factors such as increased phone use, remote schooling, social media, even the rise of AI companions have all played roles.

Joining me on the panel this week are Republican strategist Ann Stone, Sam Bennet of the New York Amsterdam News, Stefanie Brown James, co-founder of the collective PAC, and Republican strategist Whitley Yates.

So, Sam Bennett, let's start with you.

How do men and women experience loneliness differently?

Well, let's face it.

You know, when cars came along and moved everybody to the suburbs, that was a radical change in how we socialize.

And we had televisions that privatized our leisure.

Then we had smartphones today.

And now I know about I spend half my day on zoom, with business meetings.

So, and social media, so I think we're at a phase now where we all have to be extremely intentional to get out there and interact with live human beings.

My adaptation to this is I make sure I walk the dog 2 to 3 times a day, the same route, and I say hi to all the same people who've gotten to know me and the dog.

The dog helps a lot.

And for women, I think we're used to carrying the burden of caring for others and men that's an unfamiliar role.

So I think they default to their wives, their partners, their friends, and honestly probably place an undue burden on the women in their lives.

But I think we've all got to be extremely intentional about this.

Very briefly at the end, we used to all get exercise because we all worked on farms.

Then we moved into cities, and we've had to learn how to be incredibly intentional about exercise.

So I think this is a lot of the same thing.

We've got to be intentional about this.

We know that from time immemorial, women were the ones who built community.

And so one of the reasons our verbal skills are generally superior, we're the ones that, again, created the social factors.

Men went off and hunted, sometimes alone, sometimes in small packs.

But they didn't even interact when they were hunting.

Because you couldn't talk or the prey would eat you.

But, social media in today's world is really what gives men the ability to not interact, just as it does for women.

And Sam's right.

You have to be intentional about it.

But I'm hoping that the current state of loneliness is actually going to lead to a rise of people coming back to things that build community, like church.

That's a big one.

And there is some indication that, some churches are starting to see, people return back and, and in our own church, actually the newest, people to join actually, are single men, which is interesting, but to see more social organizations gain prominence where men will feel comfortable coming and sharing in activities that they enjoy.

And, and certainly a rise in team sports.

I mean, that's where men do a lot of the socializing, for sure, interacting in team sports, when they got past that, they pretty much were on their own until they had a woman in their life that would help.

Yeah.

You know, I think, I mean, loneliness, it's not just a personal, challenger issue.

It's a political one.

You know, we know that when people feel disconnected, they disengaged and, like, was just mentioned, you know, we don't have many of the social fabrics intact that we used to have, from church to community clubs and organizations that people are physically going to that to interact together.

And so I actually think it's really important that we have our elected officials address this issue, through structural changes.

You know, we need more investment in, community and public spaces.

There's a lot of cities now that are talking about a 15 minute walkable city.

And that definitely can help attract people to come together.

But also we need mental health resources.

Loneliness, is something that can be, debilitating.

And to have especially men normalize the importance of therapy and talking to someone about how you feel.

I think it's also extremely important, to address what has really become, an epidemic in our society as a millennial, Gen Z or, the young people, we kind of live by different sets of rules, and we grew up in a day in an era where, why be content when you can create content?

Why live when you can go live?

You will go to these outings or you'll go to a concert and everyone is holding their phone.

So they're not actually experiencing the level of engagement that they used to.

They are capturing the content, to disseminate it, to create what they want people to see their lives like.

And so when we now live in a society where it's all about what it looks like, where we value, you know, the appearance of what things are versus the impact of how they are really in our life.

Then we're going to see people going online and living through their, as opposed to really just embracing community and living out loud.

How do you think, Whitley, that men and women experience Gen Z experience, loneliness differently?

For men in particular, there was a time where there was a safe place and a safe space for men to be men.

And I say that to say that, you know, now men have to be very careful about what they say, where they go, where their hands are in pictures, as well as how they even compliment people.

And this is not just for women, but also how they engage and interact with other men.

And so when you have to live your life on that type of a tightrope, and there is absolutely no room to offend people because you could get canceled as opposed to counseled, I think it makes it very hard to have those types of engagement.

And I think women naturally being the cornerstones of their families carry not only the weight of their entire family, their husband, their children, their churches, as well as their work.

And so they may a lot of times absorb some of the feeling of loneliness from their partners as well as their children.

It's interesting to me because, I often think about AI or just the internet generally zoom meetings like you mentioned, as having contributed to loneliness because you are just connected to your computer, but not to human beings, even if you are talking to them on zoom or something else, you're not there.

You're not in the room.

But there was also the Covid epidemic.

Which do you think was more of a, you know, contributed more to the loneliness epidemic?

I would suggest it's all of the above.

I think that we're in the in the middle of a huge shift social shift as a culture.

And it's global.

It's not just us in America, it's global.

Again, we all used to live on farms to Anns point.

The church was the center of our community, and that wasn't all that long ago.

We're talking about how long ago, Ann?

Maybe 100 years, you know.

Less.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is radical change.

And I think to to Stephanie's point, you know, whether it's, you know, governmentally assisted or not, we have to be incredibly intentional about this.

I'm a church woman and Ann, that's, you know, my bi in-person thing that I do.

But I'm telling you, the dog helps.

I can go anywhere with my cute dog, and I can get some action going with some people I don't know.

And it's also that interaction with strangers that's really important.

We chose where we live right now.

Why?

Because it's a wildly walkable community, and that idea that you can just leave your front door, you can walk to the grocery store, walk to the pharmacy, walk to get a cup of coffee, getting out of our cars, getting on our feet, walking and engaging with human beings, even the ones we don't know.

We're social species.

And this is how we have lived literally for 100,000 years over the past hundred years.

We have this radical change going on that we've got to figure out the secret sauce to fix.

I have to laugh.

And you kept talking about the dog.

I reminded the famous Harry Truman quote in Washington, if you want a friend, get a dog.

So I think so.

I think, maybe that's not a bad it's not bad advice.

Dogs really do they bring you into the neighborhood very quickly.

I would like to say that if social media was the match, then Covid was definitely the gasoline.

Yeah, but I also think that we are not talking about something that we should be talking about, which is that engaging with strangers and those of different political ideologies is very taboo and can not only cause trauma and stress, but acts of violence.

And so I think a lot of times people don't want to engage because not only do they not want to say the wrong things, but also they are afraid to have conversations and to basically build common ground with uncommon people.

And I think that we see that time and time again, the more polarizing I think that our politics gets, the less people want to engage and interact with each other.

But, you know, I grew up in Manhattan, in New York City, and even big cities can be lonely in the sense that I didn't meet people walking down the street or even, you know, walking through Central Park now, I did there was a gathering place for young teens back then.

Maybe there are places within cities that do expose people to more socialization.

How do we think this has affected people?

Men and women in the city, in the suburbs and in rural communities, which really have always been disconnected outside of the family?

You know, when you think about long distances, 100, 150 years ago before highways, how is that changing?

But rural areas, you figured it out.

I mean, they've continued much more of the community where they have fares and they have, different organizations, you know, especially in the farm areas that do bring people together fairly regularly.

So they're actually much more connected, and they have to get out and work the land and be out there with manual labor.

So again, they aren't as attached to their computers as we are.

But you're right about Manhattan.

Yeah.

Ive owned 2 or 3 apartments in Manhattan.

I know when I was there, I never knew my neighbors.

I never got to know people on the street.

You were afraid.

And part of that, the New York.

New Yorkers would be.

You really odd if you weren't talking to people.

But, that is something.

You're right.

That very much exists in cities that you think when everybody's so close together, they'd be friendlier.

And it's almost exactly the opposite.

In the introduction, I said that that women have now, become men's handlers when it comes to social and, and connection needs now is, hasn't that always been the case, especially after that.

I mean, the, the typical, the typical, you know, cliche is that, you know, men retire.

Women have been a lot of women have been out in the career world themselves.

A lot of them have been at home.

But that, you know, it's the men chasing the women around the desk before retirement.

And it's the women chasing, well, not chasing them, chasing the men out, after retirement because they're sick of having to take care of them all the time.

I would actually agree with that.

I don't necessarily see that as a big changing factor, like women being philanthropies and working and getting men to attend events and just making sure, that they are not only present for the household, but also present in the community is something that dates back, I think, in this country for quite some time.

But I do believe now that the idea that it is women's role has shifted.

I think who carries that weight has kind of changed.

And when we think about society breaking down some of these gender norms, America is really, I believe, at a crossroads when it comes to traditional values of what America meant versus the progressive idea of what it will mean.

And so I think what we see is the honestly shifting and bending of our societal norms, fighting against some of those that have been tied to our culture as America for so long.

A lot of that starts with our young people.

I mean, nowadays you have restrictions on, you know, what time they can be in certain buildings, and we have restrictions on how and when they can gather.

And we see that that playing out as they continue to get older, we have less and less availability for young people and also then adults together.

I think oftentimes men as an adult, how do you make a new friend?

Well, to Sam's part, a lot of this is intentionality.

Intentionally saying, I'm going to go out and try to meet people, I think is also an important step.

Take advantage of what we already have in our communities.

I just join my local rec.

Guess what?

I'm meeting the person next to me that's on the bike.

Well, I probably would have never talked to before, but we're in this same place together.

And also to Whitley's point, yes.

Getting comfortable with having sometimes uncomfortable conversations with people, but understanding that there's more that binds us together than separates us and respecting each other is, is also going to be increasingly important as we try to break down this isolation in our communities.

Okay.

From loneliness to the looming trade war, China has placed tariffs on U.S. made products following President Donald Trump's announcement of tariffs on Chinese imports.

Trump had also threatened steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada, but those have been paused for 30 days following negotiate sessions and threats of retaliatory tariffs from both countries.

Trump has also hinted at potential future tariffs on the European Union.

The tariffs on Chinese goods are expected to raise prices on cell phones, computers, furniture, clothing, car parts, among many other products.

So Ann Stone, tell me about the economic impacts.

A lot of economists pretty generally agree that tariffs are not good in terms of inflation and not good in terms of, you know, better relations with, other countries and not good when it comes to consumers who have to pay such so many higher prices for what is already expensive in this environment.

What do you think?

Well, most of those people are wrong.

And if you go back and study the history of America, they'll see tariffs, how we raise our income all the way up into the into the early 1900s.

But let's deal with what we have right now.

Do you have to understand Trump's use of tariffs more than anything?

It is a matter of negotiation.

It's a matter of pushing people to give us concessions or do things that they weren't doing that will be better for it.

In the case of Canada and Mexico, trade imbalances, when you have a trade imbalance that actually creates more national debt for us because it's our money going out of the country not coming back in.

So it doesn't benefit us with increased jobs, etc..

So the key is to try to get money back into the country.

And you saw both of them caved and are doing the things he asked for to, to not have tariffs.

And that's what he's going to use and can use this strategically.

But understand this, though.

She also said, for example, that Canada is the source of a lot of fentanyl, which is.

Totally not as much as not as much as Mexico.

But there is.

There is it's responsible for maybe 1% of the fence that comes into this country, whereas Mexico is responsible for the majority of it.

But there are a lot of bad actors coming into Canada.

And the other thing Chinese tariffs have been on since the first Trump administration.

Biden never took them off.

Brings a lot of money into the country.

We didn't notice any kind.

Yeah, but Trump upped it by ten.

I know that, but let me let me finish my point.

My point is that Biden didn't take them off because we're hitting a lot of income, and the prices on Chinese goods were going up.

Why?

Because China wants to stay competitive.

They absorbed the tariffs.

So is the importer puts the tariff on China's already reduced the cost to keep it.

They want to stay competitive.

So we're probably not even going to steal the 10%.

China can't afford to continue to do that.

Their economy is in bad shape.

Trump knows that.

And he knows 10% is like the opening shot.

There's going to be more.

And you notice now she wants to talk with him very quickly about economics.

Pardon.

Okay.

But Stephanie, how is this going to impact American families, American workers.

Are there going to be huge job losses?

Are there going to be, poor people who get thrown out of their homes because they can't pay the rent anymore?

I mean, let's be honest, Trump didn't run on, the American deficit.

I mean, he told Americans that, you know, he was going to make sure that we can afford eggs and afford the milk that you talked about.

And and in reality, these tariffs are basically a tax on working people in this country is going to make it much harder, especially for small business owners to be able to afford their goods and services.

They can't, be able to, to afford things in a way, many of the corporate billionaires that are in the president's ear are able to.

And so, yeah, this is going to have devastating consequences, especially on communities of color that are already suffering from.

Yes, prices being too high.

So I think this is just simply political posturing.

I can see what you're saying.

And with regards to what are we going to get in return?

But this is not what the president said he was going to work on on day one to lower costs for Americans and make it easier to live and thrive.

And so I think we're going to definitely suffer the consequences here.

Unique perspective on this.

I am a small business owner, and the past four years have been very debilitating for my business.

And that is because the way inflation has impacted the small businesses, specifically minority businesses like mine, has been very detrimental.

And so in looking at these moves, America did not become much of a superpower.

By basically playing patty cake with other nations, they became dominant by dominating.

And in order to do that, other countries need to know that America is not afraid to not only stand up for itself, but to push the boundaries when it comes to trade and making sure that we get a fair deal.

So you may have to choose the Coors Light over the Heineken if the tariffs on Canada hit, but that's only going to spur the economy within this country.

Get people to buy American products as well as supporting our own system, our own manufacturing.

And so while I do believe that he's using using tariffs as a token and a bartering chip to really get countries to come to the table for the American people, what we cannot, honestly just gloss over is the fact that America has suffered over the past four years and we need to be on the offensive as opposed to the past four years on the defensive.

Sam, are women and people of color are going to be hit hardest by these tariffs?

Absolutely.

The thing that that puzzles me really puzzles me because I, I respect Trump as my president.

I will do that.

I don't agree with him, but I'll respect him.

And I understand he comes from a business perspective and he's surrounded himself with those of business perspectives, I get it.

But historically, every single economist, every single shred of truth and proof and substantiation around tariffs is they are bad.

They have never been good.

They're always, well intentioned, but they're always disastrous.

Look at the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

It worsened the Great Depression.

It didn't help it.

And it created a global trade war that exacerbated and lengthened the depression.

The 40 McCumber tariff of 1922.

It helped trigger the Great Depression again, well intentioned.

I hear what you're saying and I hear what you're saying, but this is not the right way to do it.

It is disastrous from a economic and global economic perspective.

We don't live in isolation.

We are connected to all these other countries are back and forth of trade.

Our economy is nothing more than the behavior of its residents.

How often we trade back and forth and we buy things in purchase.

That's why our economy is the biggest in the world.

And so these fear based bad policies and this idea that the way that we get better lives for our citizens is by playing a bullying role in global economics is fallacious.

It's not true.

There's not a shred of evidence that backs it up.

And yes, it will impact women.

It will impact women of color, especially, why?

As Malcolm X said, there's nobody that gets hurt most in this American country, culture and economy than the Black American woman.

So I think it's going to be bad news bears, bad news bears.

One last question to everybody, starting with you, Whitley.

You won't find an economist who will tell you that tariffs will be good for inflation, that is, that they will bring down the cost of living.

And that's one of the main things that President Trump attacked former President Biden about on the campaign trail are his supporters going to turn on him if he increases prices?

As many of these tariffs may well end up doing, will end up doing?

I don't believe so.

And I think that everyone is creating the tariff boogeyman.

But when you look at the strategy that has been employed and the gains that it has made already into this current administration, you have to be able to see the strategy, the fact that Canada and Mexico have come to the table, the fact that Colombia is not only playing ball, but they're accepting others that are not even from their country.

So if we can stop the flow of fentanyl through this country, if we can secure our borders and not have tariffs while building the relationships with these nations, then all of this conversation about tariffs as a boogeyman is merely going to be inconsequential, because we will have saved lives, the cost of things will be down, and we will be more secure and sovereign as a nation.

And all the economists, Sam, you I can find you.

Economists will say tariffs are not the problem, but the ones that generally get the media play are the ones that will trash.

Let me offer as evidence.

First Trump term.

Lots of tariffs.

No increase in inflation.

Go figure.

No that's inaccurate.

Ann, it was reported by the New York Times.

There were there was 8% inflation every year of the Trump first presidency.

No.

No increase over inflation.

Well, and let's not forget that we also had, record job growth under the Biden-Harris administration.

We also had a record number of small businesses, that were opened.

We had a record, amount that was invested in small business owners.

I think it's unfortunately Whitley that you had challenges with your company when we have, Black women business owners who were able to get more, resources and support than they have been able to get, and decades.

And so, yeah, I think there will be some Trump supporters who, feel very much betrayed by President Trump because what he promised is not what he is going to deliver.

And at the end of the day, these tariffs will not, be the thing to help our communities thrive, but will be one to help us, continue to to go backwards under his administration.

With all due respect to you Ann and to you Whitley, I understand that there strategy involved here, I get it.

And getting everybody to table to talk is important.

But tariffs aren't the way to do it historically.

There's mounds of research to show it.

And they're bad for your everyday American.

All right that's it for this edition of To the Contrary.

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