Where this was said
Los Angeles, Skid Row, and the Third World Comparison
At 23:59 · chapter starts 22:50
JD Vance recounts attending a Christmas party in downtown LA before he was Vice President, when his wife's law firm sent convoluted driving directions specifically to avoid Skid Row at night. He describes the shock of arriving at a luxury venue surrounded by armed guards and high walls, while squalor pressed against the outside — comparing it directly to the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. For him, it was the first moment he thought America had genuinely produced a third-world enclave. Rogan adds that Skid Row has continued to expand, now reaching 55 blocks — up from roughly 50 blocks just a year or two ago — as neither city nor state leadership has arrested the deterioration.
Los Angeles's Skid Row has expanded from approximately 50 blocks to 55 blocks in just the past year or two, illustrating the worsening homelessness crisis.
In the LA mayoral primary, Karen Bass led, Spencer Pratt was second, and Nithya Raman was a distant third — until the mail-in ballots came in and Raman leaped to second. Vance calls it 'super sus' and asks: what theory of the electorate explains why mail-in ballots were so disproportionately pro-Raman? There was also direct evidence of homeless people being given cigarettes and cash to use addresses for ballots.
