#PUPPETREGIME: Behind the Puppets

LinkedIn’s Dan Roth recently asked me to explain why my new media company, GZERO Media, has decided to spend hundreds of manhours and thousands of dollars doing a geopolitical puppet show. I’ve built my career analyzing global politics for governments and businessfolk. But it’s hard not to notice that politics in general have gotten way too divisive lately, both in the US and around the world. #PUPPETREGIME is my response.

The reality is we live in a time when people are feeling increasingly isolated from their elected leaders, and increasingly isolated from one another. In an age where “liking” someone is the main way of following them and what they’re up to, following someone you don’t fundamentally agree with is a near-revolutionary act. It’s the reason why the pinned tweet on the top of my Twitter homepage is “If you're not following some people you dislike, you're doing it wrong. I'm happy to help.” As a political scientist living through the politics of 2018, I’ve come to the realization that the most important thing I can do is to get people to willingly leave their own ideological comfort zones. The easiest way to do that is 1) with humor, and 2) by getting young people involved. That sounds like a job... for puppets.

It helps that so many of today’s leading political figures are caricatures of themselves. Yes, I’m talking about Trump, but also Kim Jong-un. And Putin. And Assad. And Xi. And so on and so on. At a certain point, I had to start asking myself why nobody else was doing this.

There’s also nostalgia involved. I absolutely love puppets, the result of the Muppet Show being so brilliant when I was growing up. I don’t know what my childhood would have been like without Mahna Mahna, maybe my favorite Muppet skit ever. The chocolate moose skit with the Swedish Chef is also right up there, as are all those bits where Kermit is a reporter. “Hi ho, Kermit the Frog here…”

As it so happens, a dear friend of mine by the name of Brian Collins has been involved with the Jim Henson Company for decades. One day he told me had a puppet made in the likeness of a friend, and he offered to make one for me as well. I went nuts. I kept hounding him about it for years (note: Never make me a promise unless you intend to keep it. I’m insufferable). He even brought Kermit to eat with us one time at Gramercy Tavern. Leave it to Danny Meyer’s team to re-set Kermit’s silverware with each course. A couple years later, Brian finally delivered and I got my Puppet Ian. It had a lot more gray hair than I did at the time. Brian said I’d grow into it. Brian’s a little evil that way. 

You can’t imagine how amusing it is to have a puppet that looks like you. I often used Puppet Ian in the background of media interviews or social media posts and people loved it. They would stop by the Eurasia Group offices to take photos of Puppet Ian and ignore me completely. Then Trump won, and I knew it was go-time.

It’s lucky I don’t do focus groups and I don’t ask for permission when I get really passionate about something, because I’m sure plenty of people would have advised against launching something as offbeat as #PUPPETREGIME and throwing as much money and resources at it as I have. But it also has to do with personnel, and I have super engaged folks alongside me every step of the way.

GZERO Media was born from the minds of Eurasia Group, and if there’s any one part of Eurasia Group culture that dominates, it’s the substance. Our employees are super smart, and they come work for us first and foremost because they’re most committed to the analysis. They want to get it right, whether its client notes or puppet videos. That makes the puppets less of a stretch (once you get past the “we’re doing what??” phase of it all), because it’s trying to get real information out there. Our employees are as frustrated as anyone about the state of the media these days, about “fake news” and how much harder it becomes to understand the world. If the puppets can help (and we think they can!), that’s all to the good. 

Alex Kliment, the Creative Director of GZERO Media and the artistic force behind all aspects of #PUPPETREGIME, is ridiculously creative and brilliant—he was heading up the corporate research team here at Eurasia Group for a while, but was moonlighting as a film-maker in his off-hours (one of his productions was featured in the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival). It also helps that he does a spot-on Trump voice impression—we lucked out with that one. He was a natural fit to be my lead creative for GZERO Media. Alex Sanford, the CEO of GZERO Media, has been with me for nearly 15 years and was obviously going to run the shop. And there are all sorts of fantastic people around them to turn the crazy ideas we have into reality. #PUPPETREGIME also allows me to bring some of my own creative talents to bear—I play piano, I’ve written music/lyrics before, I’ve even done a little standup. #PUPPETREGIME gives me an outlet to use some of that—in addition to voicing the Ian puppet, I even wrote one of the skits.

This is no doubt one of the most fun things you can do as a political scientist. Don’t believe me? Check it out. I promise you won’t be disappointed.