Latest / The Whitfield Report / TWR Monday | Deprogramming Democrats: A Conversation with Former DNC Insider Lisa Ekman

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TWR Monday | Deprogramming Democrats: A Conversation with Former DNC Insider Lisa Ekman · The Whitfield Report

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The right to offend is not some pesky little part of freedom of
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This is the Whitfield Report live with Sam Whitfield.
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But giving offence is good. In fact, it's essential.
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Hey there, folks. Happy November and welcome to
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today's Monday edition of the Whitfield Report.
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And joining me today is Lisa Ekman, a author and a former DNC
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insider, which I find very interesting.
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Elisa actually reached out to me to promote her new book,
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Deprogramming Democrats, and, well, I found the opportunity
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very intriguing. So I'm very excited and quite
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frankly, honored to talk to Lisa.
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So welcome to the show. Lisa, how are you doing?
1:51
I'm doing great, Sam. Thank you so much for having me.
1:54
It's a pleasure to be here and I'm really looking forward to
1:56
our conversation. My pleasure.
1:59
So I guess my first question starting out is what is your
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general background? How did you get started in
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politics? What was kind of interested in
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getting into politics? Sure.
2:13
So I actually was in Washington, DC for a little over 20 years
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working in a variety of different positions and, and for
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different federal agencies, the Senate and nonprofits and
2:28
government contractors. And I moved there in in 1999
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after I had finished my master's in social work degree.
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And I got nominated by the Dean of my social work program to a
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program called the Presidential Management Internship program.
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You know, I'd gone to social work school because I, I thought
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I wanted to work directly with clients.
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And I learned that I wasn't really able to balance my own
2:54
mental health if I was working directly with, with other people
2:58
who were facing significant challenges.
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So I wanted, I decided to get into policy and then got
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nominated for this program and moved to Washington, DC to work
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directly for an appointee in the Clinton administration at the
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very tail end of President Clinton's second term.
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And then ended up doing that. I had always, my family was very
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liberal. My parents were very liberal.
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I joked that they were hippies who did not do drugs because
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that's really what they were. Although some people would say
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that's oxymoron. You can't be a hippie who
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doesn't do drugs. But that was my parents.
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And, you know, they really raised me to be a very aware
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person of what was going on politically in the country.
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You know, they believed they were what I would call classical
3:45
liberals or JFK Democrats. They really believed in our
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Constitution. They were patriotic.
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And they instilled those values in me.
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And, you know, I went to Washington because I really
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wanted to make our country better.
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I focused on disability policy while I was in Washington, DC,
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trying to improve our government programs for people with
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disabilities. And I worked with and on their
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behalf throughout my 20 years in Washington.
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And so I also, while I was in Washington, went back to law
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school and got my law degree. And I consider myself a
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recovering attorney and I don't practice anymore.
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But you know, you can't really take the lawyer out of the
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person once you put the lawyer in there.
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So, but that's sort of how I got started.
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And, you know, I worked for a couple of different United
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States senators. I worked for Ted Kennedy, Tom
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Harkin of Iowa. I used to joke around that I
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bled blue and that, you know, Vote Blue no matter who.
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I was really a heart, a pretty hardcore Democrat.
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But during the time that I was in DC Sam, DC changed and the
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Democratic Party changed a lot from the time, especially when I
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was a kid. But throughout the the 21st
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century, the, the Democratic Party hardly resembles what it
5:04
was prior to that. And I'm sure we can talk a lot
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more about what that was and how it happened.
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But that's one of my background. You know, I was the president of
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the Georgetown Law Democrats when I was in law school, just
5:17
to give, you know, everyone a flavor.
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I was very much a pretty hardcore Democrat.
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And, you know, I I volunteered at Obama's national headquarters
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for his first campaign doing disability voter outreach.
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So yeah, it gives you a good sense of how involved it was.
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Yeah, and that's actually very interesting because, you know, I
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myself have a physical disability.
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I, I was born with cerebral palsy, but like I've always
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been, I wouldn't say, I mean, I would say I'm pretty
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conservative, but I would say I'm more like a conservative
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libertarian hybrid. And I think always surprises
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people, especially on the left when they find that, you know,
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someone with a disability is more conservative.
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I think one of the things I've noticed is the the left.
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When I started podcasting, which was way back in like 2008, there
6:22
were more liberals who wanted to have conversations and
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dialogues. But now it seems like there's a
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strain of the left that's kind of taken over that they just
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want to they don't want to have a dialogue unless you absolutely
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agree with them. And to an extent it's even
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pushed, you know, a fair amount of, I guess, classical liberals
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like yourself away and or further to the right, I guess.
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So I'm curious, when did you really feel like the when did
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you feel that the party started to change?
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Yeah. Do you?
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There's a couple of things that I, I could point to.
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And I think the first thing, it was a pretty slow process.
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It didn't happen overnight. It started, let's say, by
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political correctness. And that probably really started
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late 80s, but it wasn't that big of a deal back then, you know,
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So you could have conversations, but people started to tell you
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that if you use certain words or talked about things in certain
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ways that it wasn't very nice, you know?
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Right. If you did that, there was no
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cancel culture, there was no consequence other than stop
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being mean. But it it slowly picked up steam
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and slowly picked up steam. And I think really when it
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really started to shift was around 5:00.
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I think social media played a huge role in this because what
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it did is took everybody's political life public in a way
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that it never had been before. Prior to the Internet and social
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media, you might not even know if your neighbor was a Democrat
8:08
or a Republican. You know, did they dish to the
8:11
block party or were they nice people?
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But once everybody started posting everything about
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themselves, including their politics, it became more and
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more important. And then there became the
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ability to sort of police people in terms of, Oh my goodness, did
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you see what someone said on social media?
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What a bad person. And then we started seeing the
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rise of of cancel culture. And then I think that the
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combine that with the election of President Obama the first
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time, because I, I think that, you know, like I said, I worked
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for his campaign, his first campaign and I was kind of
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excited about him actually. But then I really do think that
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he did not work to unify us as a country.
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He, he worked to divide us. He made, he started.
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I started seeing people on the left really but begin to believe
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that they had a moral superiority to people who did
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not believe like them, and then the right to then cancel you if
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you didn't. And can I, can I ask this, did
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you, did you feel that way like back, did you feel that way in
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the first term? Or was this kind of something
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that you kind of looked at in hindsight?
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Because from my perspective, like even as a conservative,
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like teenager at the time in two in 2008, I I remember kind of
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feeling like, OK, well, I didn't, you know, I might not
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necessarily agree with Obama politically, but the fact that
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he is, you know, the first African American president, I
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really do hope that this can be, you know, I hope I'm wrong, you
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know, kind of about, you know, what Rush Limbaugh and a few of
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the others were saying. I really hope that he can unite.
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Seems like to me really in the second Obama term was really
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when the division started kind of rearus ugly head.
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And I've talked to some friends from high school who are African
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American were, you know, they were young black men who really
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loved Obama the first term around.
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And then just like last year, I reconnected with a friend who he
10:31
used to be a big Obama fan, but then when he when we got to
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voting age around 21, he voted for Trump.
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And I asked him why. And he said, well, because Obama
10:45
sold us on unity. And, and as a young black man,
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that was really inspiring. But it felt like he actually
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divided us further. And I, I felt that I found that
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very instant coming from, you know, a young black man at the
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time. Yeah, I would say that it's only
11:05
in hindsight, Sam, but I realized this, you know, I went
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along, you know, with with most everything that I was being
11:14
asked to go along with in what I call now the need for
11:18
ideological conformity on the left, meaning that they don't,
11:23
they don't even want to talk to you if you aren't going to what
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they already believed to be true.
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Yeah. I I went along with it for quite
11:32
a while and I think that there were a couple of things that
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started to sort of make me ask some questions.
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And the first one was, so luckily, none of my employers
11:46
directly ever made me do this because they don't know how I
11:49
would have reacted. But as I started to see
11:51
everybody being almost forced to put their pronouns in their
11:55
e-mail signatures, that sort of made me ask some questions.
12:00
And then, you know, I have always maybe differed a little
12:06
bit with the left on my views on immigration.
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But as I started to see them sort of completely almost
12:13
support open borders for anybody who wanted to come in, that was
12:18
kind of going a little bit too far for me as well.
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Yeah. But I think, you know, as I look
12:24
back, I was very indoctrinated and brainwashed myself into what
12:32
I call the progressive cult. And so I didn't see it at the
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time, but looking back on it, I, I can remember how things sort
12:43
of changed. You know, I'll say this now,
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there will be people who disagree with me about this,
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Sam, but especially by the he's in probably the late 80s.
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I feel like we were reaching a much better place when it comes
12:57
to race relations in this country.
12:59
It wasn't that we didn't see color, It's just that it really
13:03
didn't matter to us in many instances.
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Like I didn't care what color you were or what party you voted
13:09
for, what church you went to, but were you a good person?
13:12
Did you treat me well? Did we have George Feder's
13:14
company? And I really saw that change
13:18
during Obama. Yeah, I mean, I grew, I mean, I
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grew up in the in the 90s and into, you know, 2000s.
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That was kind of when I was, you know, a kid.
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And I remember like I had, you know, I had, I had, I had and
13:34
still have, you know, black friends, Hispanic friends.
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And it was never really something that we, you know,
13:42
talked about other than, you know, there was, there was
13:45
historical injustice in the past and obviously that need to be,
13:50
to be remedied. But it, it was more like people
13:55
just bonded over like common interests.
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And if you brought up things like, you know, what, we need to
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talk, we need to talk about race, you know, in today's con
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context was kind of like, well, why that's kind of awkward.
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It was just kind it was, it was kind of off putting for
14:13
everyone. And then around the time I got
14:15
to College in 20, you know, 15/20/16, then it became almost
14:22
like a, well, we need to talk, we need to talk at a race, you
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know, and all of these differences all the time.
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And if you don't want to talk at them, you're the racist, even if
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you're, you know, a well-being a liberal.
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And I, I found that to be very interesting as well-being in my,
14:42
you know, 20s at the time. Yeah, that that lines up
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perfectly with, you know what I remember Sam and, and kind of
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how it evolved. And I think that we one of the
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chapters in my book is about education and I call it, it's
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one of the tools of control. And we saw sort of, I would say
15:04
very far left radical professors taking over a lot of our higher
15:09
educational institutions and what what they believe in is
15:14
critical theory, which. Is.
15:18
Deconstruction, destruction of institutions.
15:23
You know, critical race theory flowed from that that tradition.
15:27
Over 90% of professors are Democrats and 95 of their
15:33
percent of their donations go to the Democratic Party.
15:39
That's going to vary by major, you know, by fields.
15:43
Some of your STEM and harder sciences are going to have lower
15:47
percentages of Democrats, but you're probably pushing 100% in
15:52
a lot of these sort of social justice or social social science
15:57
type fields of study. And so they really pushed, I
16:01
think that narrative that there are oppressors and there are the
16:06
oppressed and we have to rectify these historical wrongs despite
16:16
having perhaps one could argue pretty convincingly, I think
16:22
achieved legal equality in this country despite some
16:28
institutions still needing, you know, some some help around
16:32
racism. And I would not be the one, I
16:35
would not be anyone to say that there is no racism in this
16:38
country. There still is, however.
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Right. Not to the extent that you would
16:43
think if you were sitting in a college classroom.
16:46
So kind of regard regarding that, though, kind of my view,
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and this isn't really me speaking as a conservative, this
16:56
is just me, kind of this is just me kind of observing things.
17:00
I'm not, I'm not in college anymore, but I remember when I
17:03
was in college, I remember at one point I thought, you know,
17:09
all this talk racism is actually taking us back because we're so
17:15
we're actually hyper focusing on that.
17:19
You know, a white kid can't even like listen to rap or, you know,
17:23
hip hop anymore without, you know, becoming a big, you know,
17:28
discussion about, you know, cultural appropriation or, or
17:33
something. And that was, that was really
17:36
weird because it was, you know, if you ask someone, well, what
17:42
type of music would you like? Do you like?
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It would be, oh, I like this, that and the other thing.
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And that would be the start of a conversation.
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But then if I were to say something like in 2016 that I
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like, you know, hip hop or like jazz, oh, well, you're, you
18:00
know, you're a white person culturally appropriating, you
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know, something. And that, you know, that's a
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conversation that most people are not prepared to have if
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you're just making casual conversation.
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Yeah. And I think, you know, one of
18:18
the things that sort of has happened is that, well, there's
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two things I think that have happened. 1 is that there has
18:27
been a concerted effort to remove intent from mattering
18:31
when it comes to issues around any kind of sort of
18:36
discrimination, racism, homophobia, transphobia, all
18:41
those things meaning. So if you look at the concept of
18:45
microaggressions, for example, yeah, it completely like this is
18:51
an example I give in the book because they talk about this a
18:54
lot in the book. And I believe that education is,
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you know, our education system is where this has happened a lot
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is that you could ask the most innocent question.
19:04
And if the person you ask it to takes it the wrong way, then
19:08
it's considered a microaggression.
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I use this example. You show up at school, you're
19:12
brand new and you ask someone, hey, where are you from?
19:16
And really all you mean is, are you East Coast, West Coast?
19:18
Did you grow up in the South? What's your, what's your
19:21
background? But it could be taken to me
19:23
like, are you even from this country?
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You know, but that isn't your intent.
19:28
And when you remove intent from that equation, you are
19:34
destroying objective reality. You're you're destroying the
19:37
idea that there is a reality that exists that we could agree
19:42
to. And then the people who get to
19:44
define what words you can use get to define and control you.
19:48
And so I think that that's a part of it.
19:52
Yeah. And it encourages people of
19:55
color or people of whatever quote UN quote historically
19:58
oppressed or vulnerable group to look for racism everywhere or.
20:04
Homophobia everywhere or whatever discrimination in
20:08
question is in question as opposed to and to look for our
20:11
differences rather than looking for the things that we have in
20:14
common. Yeah, so.
20:17
To kind of move into the kind, the heart of the conversation, I
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guess. At what point did you really
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shift over? I don't even want to say at what
20:28
point did did you become conservative?
20:30
Because I don't want to, you know, really assume that that's
20:34
what you've done fully back what, what, what was kind of
20:37
what was kind of the, the turning point specifically that
20:40
you became disaffected with the with the left.
20:44
Was there any event in particular that, you know, kind
20:48
of causes transformation? And also, do you feel like
20:52
you've changed or do you feel like you've stayed the same and
20:56
the party has changed radically or?
21:01
All right. Yeah, Let me take the second one
21:03
first and then I'll go back to the event.
21:07
But I believe that the party has changed significantly.
21:10
I believe it's pushed, been pushed way farther to the left
21:14
than it used to be. And I believe that it used to be
21:17
inclusive to ideas and it is no longer that it used to be.
21:24
We could agree to disagree about some things, but in general, we
21:28
support certain primarily social things and potentially ideas
21:34
about, you know, government potentially being able to solve
21:38
some of our problems. But we may disagree about
21:41
exactly how to get there or what that means.
21:43
And I don't think the party is that anymore.
21:46
Like many people, like high profile people who have left the
21:50
Democratic Party recently, I would say that I didn't leave
21:55
the party, it left me. And then just to clarify, I
21:59
don't consider myself a Republican.
22:02
I don't consider myself a Democrat.
22:04
I'm an independent. I'm going to vote for whatever
22:08
candidate I think can win who will respect our Constitution
22:12
and enact policies in that are consistent with those
22:17
principles. You know, because at its base,
22:20
we can either be a constitutional Republic founded
22:24
on individual liberty, or we can be a communal democracy that is
22:30
not founded on that. And I'm going to vote for the
22:32
person who's going to keep us a constitutional Republic based on
22:36
individual liberty. So your first question is, was
22:39
there a specific thing that woke me up?
22:41
And I, I say woke me up because I was programmed and asleep to
22:46
reality. Sure.
22:48
And, and, and yes, there was, it was really, it was really during
22:52
COVID, but I, I have to tell a little brief story about
22:55
something that happened before that made me, put me in a
22:59
position to see through the COVID lies that we were told.
23:05
I, I sadly lost both of my parents a few years before
23:10
COVID. My father died in 2014 and my
23:12
mom in 2016. And so I had a lot of
23:17
interaction with what I would call our our sick care system in
23:21
this country as opposed to our healthcare system.
23:24
And you know, my dad had a surgery for a back issue and
23:29
then had some catastrophic complications.
23:31
He became functionally quadriplegic and in adrenal
23:35
failure, and my mom became his primary caregiver and she
23:40
already had multiple sclerosis at the time that this happened.
23:44
And my dad lived for five years after that happened.
23:47
It was really hard. He needed help with every
23:50
activity, but he wanted to be alive and he fought really hard
23:53
and he had some great quality of life during those five years
23:56
while she was caring for him, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4
24:00
of a really aggressive cancer and was given the, you know, get
24:04
your affairs and order speech. You may only have a few years or
24:07
a few months to live. And so she came to me and she
24:10
said, Lisa, I, I want to live. I'm going to do traditional
24:14
treatment. But if there's anything else I
24:15
can do that will help improve my odds, I want to do it.
24:20
And so, you know, as, as, as someone who did disability
24:23
policy, I did a lot of research around healthcare and health.
24:30
I worked on healthcare policy to try to improve access and
24:34
services and supports for people with disabilities and I worked
24:37
with all these agencies. So I said, sure mom, I'll do the
24:40
research. So I started doing the research
24:42
and I found a couple of books and, and other studies that
24:46
really gave us some light and, and hope.
24:50
And so, you know, we got my mom to a naturopath.
24:53
We changed her entire diet. We changed everything she put in
24:56
and on her body, everything she cleaned her home with.
24:59
And we also changed, we worked at addressing how she dealt with
25:02
stress because stress is really damaging to your immune system
25:06
and what you need it is a really strong immune system when you're
25:09
battling cancer. So we did that and we did guided
25:12
meditation, focus breathing, all sorts of things.
25:15
And so she, she did all these things and she had surgery to
25:20
remove the tumors in the primary site.
25:23
And we also, she started a round of chemo, which was 6
25:27
treatments. And by the time she had her
25:29
third treatment, she was completely cancer free.
25:32
None of the she, her cancer marker was in the normal range.
25:36
She had nothing on her scans And her doctor was, was
25:41
flabbergasted. Couldn't believe it.
25:43
It's a miracle. Never seen this happen with this
25:46
cancer. You're a, you know, you're a
25:49
warrior. Great job.
25:51
At the same time he he told her to eat whatever she wanted and
25:54
kind of poo pooed all of these things that we believe helped
25:58
get her that result. It certainly wasn't this toxic
26:01
chemo that usually he had told her to expect several rounds of
26:07
6 treatments before it might go away.
26:11
So my mom had two years completely cancer free and then
26:16
they found a tiny little growth in where her original tumor site
26:20
was and suggested immediately to start chemotherapy again.
26:24
My mom had one chemotherapy treatment and it fried her
26:27
kidneys and she passed away about a month later due to
26:30
kidney failure from the chemotherapy.
26:34
Yeah. So that was really hard.
26:36
You know, we were really grateful for the two years that
26:38
she got. I should say that she did have
26:41
some indications that the first round of chemo because she did
26:46
finish all six treatments, even though there was no evidence of
26:49
cancer after three had affected her kidney function.
26:51
So she was already knew her kidney function was affected,
26:56
but her doctor believed that this cancer was so aggressive
27:00
that he couldn't not treat it with this really toxic platinum
27:04
based chemotherapy. That was the hardest thing that
27:07
ever happened to me was to lose both my parents that way, Sam.
27:10
But what it also did was start really raising a lot of
27:13
questions to me about our healthcare system about, you
27:16
know, I mean, the studies that I found, the data that is out
27:21
there is pretty clear that things like what you eat will
27:27
affect your ability to be cancer.
27:29
One of the things that is really clear is that sugar feeds
27:33
cancer. We eat a ton of sugar in this
27:36
country and almost quite literally eat a ton by the time
27:40
you you're, you know, in your lifetime.
27:43
And so, but yet these are not things that any doctor that you
27:47
might any regular, there are some doctors, but most doctors
27:52
won't talk to you about your diet when you're getting cancer
27:55
treatment. And a lot of the things that I
27:57
learned during this research really didn't square up with
28:00
what our regulatory agencies tell us about health.
28:05
And so it raised some cracks in my mind about, you know, the
28:09
agencies I worked with, whether the USDA food pyramid made any
28:13
sense, you know, and who are these agencies really working
28:17
for? Are they really protecting our
28:19
health, or are they representing the corporate interests of the
28:24
people who sell products? Yeah, I'll tell you.
28:27
And I don't want to get too much off into this topic unless
28:31
you're comfortable with it. But but the thing that is really
28:35
that was really kind of weird for me was this whole thing
28:39
with, you know, the transgender ideology and not Even so much
28:44
like with adults and what now I, I'm kind of more libertarian on
28:53
that. Like, if, you know, if you want
28:55
to be, you know, if you're a consenting adult and you want to
28:59
be transgender or, you know, whatever and you know what
29:03
you're getting into more, more power to you.
29:08
But the thing that has baffled me is how many of these, you
29:13
know, proponents on the left are not only OK with, you know,
29:19
giving hormones to children, but are actually actively incur
29:25
encouraging it. And that, you know, there's this
29:27
whole thing of, you know, gender dysphoria and whatnot, which
29:31
from what I've read, because I read a lot of, you know,
29:34
alternative health things too, it all, you know, it all seems
29:38
to be tied together with like, you know, hormone and
29:41
imbalances. And rather than seeking, you
29:43
know, natural treatments, seems like, you know, some of these
29:48
people want to just do the most radical thing.
29:53
Some of them, some of them may be well-intentioned, but it
29:56
seems like a lot of them don't have good intentions because it
30:00
just feeds into their ideological narrative.
30:03
What's kind of your take on that, if I might ask?
30:07
Sure. So I, I spend a, a, a good deal
30:11
of time in the book talking about gender ideology and
30:17
there's a lot of things sort of to unpack in your question.
30:20
The first thing that I will say is that one of the things that
30:25
if you are a revolutionary communist, a socialist, you want
30:30
to destroy the system. What there are two things
30:34
primarily that you want to do. You want to destroy the family
30:37
and you want to destroy any connection to religion.
30:42
And part of destroying the family is destroying gender
30:45
roles. And you saw that, you see that
30:47
with feminism. And that's a whole other topic
30:50
we can maybe not go into today, but we can if you want to.
30:53
But you destroy the very idea of gender itself.
30:57
And again, it gets back to what I talked about before, a little
31:01
bit of destroying objective reality.
31:04
There is no reality. There is no such thing as woman
31:07
anymore. There is no such thing as man
31:09
anymore. And it becomes easier to control
31:11
people. So my point in bringing that up
31:14
is that this didn't come out of nowhere.
31:16
It's been a concerted effort to actually make us so confused
31:21
about some of these things that we have a, a sitting Supreme
31:26
Court Justice who in her confirmation hearing, when asked
31:29
the question, what is a woman said, I'm not a biologist.
31:33
You know, that's how far this has gone.
31:36
So, and it's on purpose. But I agree with you.
31:42
You know, to me, there are two things going on with young
31:47
people. I'm with you.
31:48
If you are an adult, stress however you want, take whatever
31:53
pills you want, have whatever cosmetic surgery you want.
31:58
I'm not. I'm not going to try to stop you
32:02
from doing that. I I will not participate in your
32:05
delusion of that. You can change sexes and the
32:09
Constitution guarantees my right not to do that, I believe under
32:14
the 1st Amendment. I also don't think I ought to be
32:16
paying for it. If you want to do it, go ahead
32:20
and do that. But with children, there are a
32:22
couple of things going on. The first one is that I agree
32:26
with you. We have all these endocrine and
32:29
hormone disruptors, and there are chemical things going on
32:32
with children that may be contributing to this.
32:37
But I do also believe very strongly in what many people
32:41
call the social contagion model of gender ideology.
32:45
And that is that, you know, if you if you take a small child
32:50
who's 5 or 6 years old and you tell them over and over again
32:53
that they're a dinosaur, they will believe you.
32:56
If you take a 5 or 6 year old child and tell them over and
33:00
over again that they can be any gender they want, they will
33:03
believe you. And I think that there is, I
33:06
think have a very severe mental health crisis going on in our
33:11
country, our culture and maybe in the world.
33:14
I can't speak to what's going on in other parts of the world, but
33:18
here and we have the ability to be extremely connected like you
33:24
and I are right now. But everyone is very
33:27
disconnected in real life compared to when I was younger.
33:32
So we have kids whose parents don't have time for them in many
33:37
cases. And that's an economic reality,
33:39
sadly, that many families face, especially if it's a single
33:43
parent household. And the vast majority of single
33:45
parent households are mom. So mom is working all the time.
33:49
Mom can't give you the attention that you need.
33:52
So you start looking for it online.
33:54
And one of the first things that you find is a community and
33:59
wants to be, you know, you to be a member and we'll just sing
34:03
your praises, provided that you believe you're in the wrong
34:07
body. So what happens is that and you
34:11
if you this is especially the case with young girls who
34:16
become, you know, try to transition to be men.
34:20
And there are quite a few detransitioners who have told
34:23
this exact story that they they felt alone, they felt isolated,
34:29
they felt that they didn't fit anywhere.
34:32
And then they went online and they found this transgender
34:36
community who welcomed them in, provided they said that they
34:41
were a part of it. Right.
34:45
And so the other thing that that this whole thing is attempts to
34:50
do is make school a safe place and your family not a safe
34:56
place. It's to divide you to really be
34:59
trusting of authority and untrusting of your family.
35:04
So, you know, the like schools in certain districts will
35:09
socially transition kids, change their names, their pronouns, how
35:14
they let them dress, however, without ever telling the
35:17
parents. And so this is also a very
35:22
clear, again, trying to destroy the family, separate you from
35:27
your, your, your family and to look to authority in the
35:34
government to be safe, which is part of the overarching
35:38
strategy. You know, I think there are a
35:40
couple of things going on with parents who, you know, go along
35:46
with this, Sam. And I think a big part of it is
35:49
that there is there are two things.
35:53
One is that all the experts tell you that if you don't transition
36:00
your child, they'll probably try to kill themselves, right?
36:03
Yeah. And there is on the left and
36:06
this is what the I call it sort of a cult like devotion or
36:10
almost religious faith. So they worship authority and
36:14
they idolize the expert. So if all the experts tell you
36:18
this is the best thing that you can do for your kid, and if you
36:21
don't do it, your kid might kill themselves, then you're going to
36:25
comply and go along with it. Even though it doesn't make any
36:29
sense. You know there there is no other
36:33
situate like up until very recently, the belief that you
36:38
were born in the wrong sex body was a defined mental illness in
36:43
the DSM, the DIA fiscal manual gender dysphoria.
36:49
There is no other mental illness that we would go along with the
36:52
delusions of someone suffering from that mental illness to the
36:56
point that we would allow them to mutilate their body
37:00
irreversibly and take drugs that often cannot.
37:05
The effects of cannot be reversed.
37:08
So. So the first thing is that they
37:10
they trust the experts. Even though the experts in the
37:13
case of of transgender and gender ideology are not actually
37:17
medical experts. That's a whole other story.
37:20
WPATH is an advocacy organization that has created
37:24
all of the standard of care and everything, and it is not
37:29
scientifically based. I looked into this when writing
37:32
the book, but the other part of it is that if you do not go
37:37
along with the gender ideology, you will be cancelled.
37:41
You have to do it. And most people on the left rely
37:46
on external validation for a sense of self.
37:51
So they can't really take a position that would put them at
37:57
odds with the rest of the people on the left.
38:00
And it's that need for ideological conformity that I
38:04
was talking about earlier that that I mean, creates a lot of
38:11
this. So there's another thing that
38:14
sort of has happened on the left.
38:16
By and large, people on the left are very compassionate, even
38:21
though it doesn't seem like it, you know when you have a
38:24
conversation with them now. And This is why that compassion
38:27
has been manipulated and it's been made selective.
38:32
So they only have compassion now for who's deserving of that
38:35
compassion. Meaning if you're historically
38:38
oppressed or you're vulnerable, I will be compassionate towards
38:41
you. And anyone who doesn't agree
38:44
with them about how those people should be treated is now that
38:49
that manipulated passion gets weaponized into anger.
38:53
So if you don't care about these poor trans children, then
38:58
you're, you know I will get angry at you and you deserve to
39:01
be cancelled. And I can call you all sorts of
39:03
names because you don't care about these poor, oppressed or
39:08
horrible kids. Right.
39:12
All of that I think combines together.
39:15
So the experts tell them have to affirm your child or they may
39:19
kill themselves, the expert, all the doctors.
39:22
And this is something that is very sad but happens so much in
39:25
our supposed healthcare system. When a child transitions, you
39:30
now have created a patient for life.
39:33
You will be on hormones for the rest of your life.
39:36
You will be needing procedures. And so it has become a multi
39:40
billion dollar industry. So doctors will know.
39:45
Yeah, OK, you, you have gender dysphoria.
39:48
It used to be that it was years of therapy.
39:51
It was years of everything before anyone would suggest
39:56
maybe the best course of action for you is to transition.
40:00
So yeah, go ahead. So that was kind of going to be
40:04
kind of my next question. And I guess kind of point is,
40:10
you know, from my own and independent research, you know,
40:14
on this topic, there does seem to be a lot of money, you know,
40:20
in this, which I don't want to make assumptions.
40:24
But you're kind of confirming what I've thought for a while,
40:26
which is that the reason why this whole thing is getting, you
40:30
know, accepted kind of by the left and even in the medical
40:35
field is, is because there is a lot of money.
40:38
And, you know, there is a lot of like organized, you know,
40:43
financing and pressure. You know, out of this whole, I
40:47
don't know if you want to call an industry, but that's kind of
40:51
what it seems to be. I think I think you're right.
40:55
You know, I and and then I'll we'll get back to my awakening
41:00
story, but this sort of reminded me.
41:02
I sure awake. I have two two things I say to
41:06
people. Question everything and follow
41:08
the money. Figure out who paid for it, who
41:12
got the money and who benefits. And in this case you are talking
41:15
about a multi billion dollar industry.
41:20
That doesn't mean individual doctors are doing this because
41:26
they make a lot of money at it. What it means is that the
41:29
establish the the medical establishment has created has
41:34
followed the standards of care which allow for that to happen.
41:40
You know, I think it's been a little eye opening to me.
41:44
When I really was looking at this, I realized that almost 20%
41:51
of our gross domestic product is healthcare.
41:55
Wow. Oh yeah.
41:57
It's I think it's 17.9%, so almost one in $5 that our
42:02
country generates. And I don't even think that
42:05
captures all of what I would call healthcare, but that's what
42:08
the statistics say. One out of five, almost one out
42:11
of $5.00. So what would happen if people
42:14
got healthy to our economy? What would happen if, you know,
42:18
to all of that industry? And a very large portion of that
42:23
spending is actually tax dollars spent, Medicare, Medicaid, and
42:30
now the Obamacare insurance subsidies.
42:33
So following the money leads you to some really interesting
42:39
places, but I I think in this instance the money does have a a
42:45
decent amount to do with why we find ourselves where we do with
42:50
that. Yeah.
42:51
Well, and, and can I just, can I just share a kind of as my, you
42:56
know, from my perspective, as you know, as an individual with
43:00
disabilities, it's very frustrating to me and to other
43:04
people I've talked to with disabilities that right, I have
43:09
cerebral palsy. This is a lifelong thing.
43:13
You know, it is, it is what it is.
43:15
I, I've done a lot of alternative treatments, which is
43:18
why I'm doing so well because my mom is a huge outside box
43:26
thinker. But there is a, there is a
43:28
percentage of, you know, people with legitimate disabilities who
43:33
do need, you know, assistance and who do need healthcare.
43:38
But it seems like especially within the last five to 10
43:42
years, there are things like, you know, transgender surveys
43:47
being covered, you know, through, you know, Medicaid and
43:53
whatnot. And with our client like, well,
43:56
hold on, I might even, I might not need, I might need a new
43:59
wheelchair, but you're telling me that I can't get approved for
44:03
that. But someone you know, who just
44:05
wants, you know, a cosmetic surgery, they're going to get
44:08
approved for something that cost like 5 times what a manual, you
44:13
know, wheelchair might cost or something like that.
44:15
It, it's bizarre. And, you know, I think a lot of
44:21
people with disabilities are kind of frustrated by that.
44:27
Which is perfectly understandable.
44:30
And you know, I obviously agree. There are no.
44:41
And we're back, folks. Sorry for the little technical
44:46
hiccup there. Yeah, Lisa, as you were saying,
44:50
you know, we were discussing there's, you know, there's lots
44:54
of money in this whole healthcare industry,
44:57
particularly around, you know, transgenderism and Medicare and
45:03
Medicaid, it seems. I think it's mostly Medicaid,
45:08
but yes, I think that there is. And then in private insurance as
45:13
well. So I think I think that that
45:16
plays a big part in it. There are entire clinics and
45:20
entire wings of, you know, institutions set up just for for
45:26
gender for I think it's important to note that like
45:30
there has never been a long term study on what puberty blockers
45:34
do to young people and there's never been any long term studies
45:38
about cross sex hormones either. What do they do physically
45:42
especially There are none about what they actually do
45:45
emotionally to people. When I was doing the research
45:49
for the book Deprogramming Democrats, there also is no they
45:53
never did any long term studies, especially around the mental
45:57
health and emotional impact of women taking birth control
46:01
pills. Right.
46:03
And you ask why are so many women my age or younger than my
46:08
age on SSRIs and depressed? Well, maybe they're hormonally
46:11
imbalanced from taking hormones their entire life.
46:14
But we we don't have that conversation so.
46:17
Well, there, there seem to be a lot of you know, just like I'm
46:20
30, so I'm like a late millennial slash, like early
46:25
Gen. ZI don't know quite how the
46:27
demographics, you know, I'm kind of right in the middle.
46:30
But what's interesting is when I was in college, I've never been
46:36
on SSRI's or any sort of medication, you know, for that
46:41
type of thing, which I'm, I don't mean that as a brag, but
46:44
you know, I'm just, I'm very happy about that.
46:47
And yet I remember there were a few times where I would go to my
46:51
primary care doctor for a, you know, a check up.
46:55
And there was one instance where, you know, I was in the
47:00
middle of midterms for college and I, you know, my doctor asked
47:06
me, you know, how are you feeling?
47:09
And I was like, well, I'm stressed out because of, you
47:13
know, midterms and exams and whatnot.
47:16
And he started to just write a script for something.
47:21
And I asked him, you know what, what are, what are you doing?
47:25
And he said, well, if you know, if you're stressed, this might
47:27
help. I said, well, I appreciate it,
47:30
but you know, I'm not, I'm not excessively stressed.
47:35
It's just that, you know, the nature of college can be
47:39
stressful and I, I just find that very interesting how now
47:43
like, you know, students and everyone are just prescribed
47:47
like Adderall and SSRI is just for getting, you know, through
47:51
daily stuff. And, you know, meanwhile, like,
47:55
you know, even with my, you know, disability, it seems like,
47:59
you know, I'm a lot more emotionally competent than some
48:02
people out there. And it just kind of boggles my
48:05
mind how many people are just on all these medications just to
48:10
get through the day today. Kind of scary.
48:14
I agree with you 100%. And I think, you know, I'm, I'm
48:18
very happy that Secretary Kennedy is looking into some of
48:22
this over medicalization and over prescription of our, of our
48:27
children. And I think, you know, there are
48:31
some things that I think are going on that make it hard that
48:35
that doctors are not going to really be able to address.
48:38
You know, I, I, I basically ever since what happened with my mom
48:43
happened and what happened with my dad happened, and especially
48:47
since COVID. But unless I'm in a traumatic
48:50
accident, I likely will not go see a doctor because the very
48:54
first thing they do is push pills at you.
48:56
And it's not about, well, you know, and it's not necessarily
49:01
their fault 100%. I think there's a lot of things
49:04
about the medical establishment that need to be addressed, but
49:09
most Americans would rather just, I don't want to hear about
49:13
all my lifestyle changes I could make, just give me a pill.
49:16
And so I feel better. Yeah, it's, it's, you know,
49:21
eating right, exercising, dealing with stress, doing all
49:24
of those things is a lot harder than taking a pill.
49:27
But the truth is that, you know, chances are you take one pill,
49:31
you're going to need another pill to deal with the side
49:33
effects of that pill. Very let most people who go on
49:36
medication don't ever, you know, they just keep getting more and
49:41
more. So I think, I think.
49:45
But what I wanted to to say about that is that I think that
49:49
we, as I was saying before, we're very connected in some
49:54
ways online. You know, I grew up entirely
49:57
without technology. I did not get an e-mail account
50:01
or a computer till I was in college.
50:04
Right. And I think that our technology
50:08
based interactions can be quite shallow for people in some ways
50:13
and that we don't have the same kind of sense of community that
50:18
we used to have. Right.
50:20
People have online communities, but people don't have, you know,
50:24
you know, they don't have their church that they go to as much
50:31
and the church organization or the civic organization or they
50:34
don't do 4H and all of these kind of things that go to the
50:37
bowling league or whatever it was that people used to do.
50:41
But I think that that lack of community and that lack of
50:46
connection creates a lot of mental health challenges,
50:49
especially for young people who are now these days, Sam, I
50:53
think, practically born with a tablet in their hands, you know?
50:57
Yeah, that that's one of the interesting things is like I was
51:01
born, you know, I was born in 95.
51:03
So I grew up with, you know, some technology.
51:06
But even I was just talking with a friend about this the other
51:09
day. Even us, you know, in our early
51:11
30s, like there was, there was, there was technology and there
51:16
was social media early on, but it wasn't as pervasive as it is
51:21
now because you still had to log on to a computer or something
51:28
to, you know, access your Facebook feed or something.
51:31
It was in your pocket all the time.
51:34
Like it is now. Even now, like I, I try to at
51:37
least, you know, once a week, just, you know, turn on like do
51:42
not disturb and just kind of just kind of turn off all the
51:46
notifications if I can. Because I think we're just
51:51
bombarded with so much information in general.
51:54
It's it's information overload. The 24 hour, the 24 hour news
51:59
cycle is just like it's, that's what it's little to become now.
52:03
It's non-stop. And I think from my perspective
52:06
that hasn't helped mental health either.
52:09
We're just being barred, bombarded with the worst
52:11
possible things ever, too. Agree with you and you know one
52:17
of I talk in the book about deprogramming yourself.
52:21
One of the things I highly recommend is put your technology
52:24
down and go outside, get some sun, touch the grass, reconnect
52:28
with nature and leave all of that aside because we we are in
52:33
a almost like a constant state of fight or flight, high
52:37
cortisol and there is a lot. There's now a good scientific
52:42
evidence that shows that with social media, your
52:45
notifications, TikTok and algorithms, it is a it is
52:52
dopamine hit every time your phone Dings.
52:56
It is like the same thing that happens in your brain that
53:01
happens with drugs. And we have very addicted young
53:06
people especially. But I think it I mean I will
53:09
admit that I have a screen addiction myself.
53:13
Yeah, me too. So I do my best to put it down,
53:17
but I, I do think that it contributes to, it's like we're
53:21
more connected than ever, but we're more isolated than ever at
53:24
the same time, so. Yeah.
53:27
Making sure you actually like see your friends in person every
53:32
once in a while and go, you know, break bread with them, eat
53:35
a meal or or whatever so that you're actually put the phone
53:40
down. You know, my partner and I,
53:43
Jamie and I, you know, we live on a farm.
53:45
So when we go into town, sometimes we'll just leave our
53:48
phones at home. We're just like, we don't need
53:50
it. We're together.
53:51
Nothing is going to happen that's so earth shattering that
53:55
we need to know, you know, I, I wonder how many people could
54:01
actually do that and feel and not feel anxious about not
54:05
having their phone in their pocket.
54:07
And that says a lot, you know, about what it's doing to us
54:11
energetically and emotionally, these phones.
54:15
Well, one thing I one thing I tend to do is like I, I go aside
54:19
and I, I keep my phone on me just because of of the music.
54:22
But like I'll turn on do not disturb and just listen to, you
54:26
know, music for like an hour or something, or an, or an audio or
54:32
an audio book or something. I think the notifications, at
54:35
least for me, you know, was a big thing when Charlie Kirk
54:39
passed. Like I had to turn off like all
54:42
the notifications is because like I have friends who worked
54:46
for, you know, him. And so I was just getting
54:49
bombarded non-stop with all, you know, that when that broke, it
54:54
was just crazy. Yeah, I can.
54:58
I can see that. But I, yeah, I think it, this is
55:01
something that we as a society haven't really, I don't even
55:06
think tried to address or even talk about much.
55:10
It's just technology happened and we just accepted it and
55:14
didn't think about what is the actual impact that this is
55:18
having on people and what do what, if anything, do we need
55:22
to, you know, address it. And I think COVID pushed people
55:26
really far into their technology when the lockdowns happened.
55:30
You don't really have any better choice, right?
55:32
So, and I think we went way farther into that addiction
55:38
rabbit hole with technology than we were before COVID.
55:42
So I. Apologize that it's kind of
55:45
taken so long to get here, but that's kind of a good segue.
55:51
You know, mentioned in your initial e-mail to me and another
55:54
post that COVID was kind of your, you know, final, I guess,
56:01
wake up moment that, you know, you had already started to see
56:06
some cracks. But what was it about COVID that
56:09
flipped the switch for you? So it was really two things.
56:12
When code first came, I, you know, I bought it.
56:15
I was scared like everybody was supposed to be, and I bought
56:21
masks, which I ended up not really wearing, but I had them.
56:24
And there were really two things that happened. 1 is that a lot
56:28
of the advice they were giving didn't match up with what I had
56:32
learned when I did all that research for my mom.
56:34
This is why I told that story earlier about my mom and her
56:39
cancer. Is that so first of all, if you
56:42
remember back, so I have become disillusioned with DCA and
56:46
decided to retire. And I had scheduled my retire
56:50
from Mint for March 31st of 2020.
56:53
And if you remember that we were just at the end of sort of two
56:56
weeks to flatten the curve when that happened.
56:58
And if you remember at the very beginning of COVID, they, they
57:02
told you you couldn't really leave your house unless you were
57:05
an essential worker. During that two weeks, nobody
57:08
goes out. Police would pull you over, ask
57:11
you, at least in DC, where I lived, why are you out here?
57:15
You don't belong out here. And even if you had like a
57:19
backyard that no one else could come into, you weren't supposed
57:22
to go outside. Vitamin D is just about the best
57:26
thing you can do for yourself to keep yourself healthy, right?
57:29
Yeah. Sun is the best source of
57:31
vitamin D and they were telling you you couldn't go out and get
57:34
any sun. And so this was not making any
57:38
sense to me. And then, you know, the six foot
57:41
social distancing recommendation came out and I was like, you
57:45
know, from a common sense perspective, it kind of makes
57:48
sense that maybe if you're not close to someone, it's harder to
57:52
catch something, right? But I went to look for the
57:56
science and found out, guess what?
57:58
There wasn't none. And so I was, I was just kind of
58:00
going, what in the heck is going on here?
58:02
You know, we're shutting down the entire world with absolutely
58:06
no conversation about whether or not it makes sense to do that.
58:10
And at the same time, I started to see some of the natural
58:14
health practitioners that I started following after I did
58:19
the research for my mom get censored.
58:21
And that's really start woke me up because I'm a First Amendment
58:26
absolutist. I believe that the First
58:30
Amendment is what keeps us free to the extent that we are in
58:34
this country free, it keeps us there.
58:36
And if we lose those First Amendment rights, because it's
58:40
not just about freedom of speech, it's freedom of
58:45
assembly, freedom of association, freedom of
58:47
religion, all wrapped in that First Amendment.
58:50
And and they started to just completely eviscerate those
58:55
rights without even a public conversation of it.
58:58
And I couldn't find the data and the evidence to support it.
59:01
And I started seeing things like, well, why is Walmart open
59:04
but the the local mom and pop shop is closed.
59:08
How does that sense from a public health perspective?
59:12
It makes a lot of sense if you want to destroy all these
59:15
people's businesses, which 200,000 extra businesses got
59:20
closed down during the COVID lockdowns.
59:22
And it makes a lot of sense if you're just trying to keep
59:25
people afraid and make them sick.
59:27
Doesn't make any sense from a public health perspective.
59:30
And, you know, then there were just all sorts of things that
59:33
just really didn't add up. And then my partner, Jamie, who
59:38
was my boyfriend at the time, he and I, he didn't buy the COVID
59:42
narrative at 1st. And he and I were verbally
59:45
sparring about it, you know, going back and forth.
59:47
And at one point, I said to him, you know, Jamie, I just can't
59:51
believe it. I can't believe these agencies
59:53
that I worked with over all these 20 years and the people
59:57
that I worked with, I can't believe they would do this to
1:00:00
us, to the world without data and evidence.
1:00:04
And he looked me in the eyes and he said, Lisa.
1:00:07
If they'll poison our water, what won't they do?
1:00:11
And I already believe that they were poisoning our water with
1:00:15
fluoride. There's all sorts of things in
1:00:18
our water system, including fluoride that I I thought was
1:00:21
bad for us. You know, water's the most
1:00:23
essential thing we have. If we don't get it, we, we will
1:00:27
die pretty quickly. So my brain could not think its
1:00:31
way out of that. My brain could not figure out a
1:00:35
way that I could believe that they are poisoning our water,
1:00:38
but they wouldn't be doing something else to us that wasn't
1:00:42
in our best interest. So and then he said, if you
1:00:47
don't believe me, Lisa, prove me wrong.
1:00:51
I I may have yelled this at him. I might have said, fine, I will.
1:00:56
And then I started doing research.
1:00:58
I started doing research with an open mind.
1:01:00
I started doing research, looking at sources that before I
1:01:05
would have disregarded because they weren't experts, and also
1:01:08
most importantly, maybe doing research that wasn't just on
1:01:12
Google because of the algorithms.
1:01:15
They'll hide stuff from you. Oh yeah.
1:01:19
And I started going, as they say, down rabbit hole after
1:01:22
rabbit hole and my entire reality disappeared.
1:01:25
Everything I believed was not true.
1:01:27
And I really woke up. So that was my wake up moment,
1:01:31
you know, and that was when I really started to see how
1:01:35
brainwashed people on the left were, how and how idolizing the
1:01:39
expert, you know, not being able to actually question what
1:01:44
experts tell us is one of the ways that that people were
1:01:48
getting controlled on the left. And you can see that with
1:01:51
Anthony Fauci and COVID all over the place, right?
1:01:54
Yeah, when he said, when he said I am, I am the science in that
1:02:00
one hearing like that was, that was very egotistical.
1:02:04
Like, I I know a lot of scientists who I respect, they
1:02:09
would have never said anything, you know, like that Science is
1:02:13
an objective, you know, process, or at least it should be.
1:02:17
For. That sort of thing.
1:02:19
Agree with you 100%, Sam and I even have that quote in there in
1:02:23
my book. I am the science because it
1:02:26
proves a point. And I think one of the things
1:02:28
that my eyes were really open to is that what passes as science
1:02:33
in our country is nothing like what the scientific method
1:02:38
prescribes. It is not in any way science
1:02:41
anymore. And again, I would encourage
1:02:44
people if you're asking questions about any scientific
1:02:48
matter to follow the money. Like a true scientist should
1:02:53
have no vested interest in the outcome of his or her
1:02:56
experiment. They should have here's my
1:03:00
hypothesis. I'm going to test it.
1:03:04
If if the data and evidence and the tests support my hypothesis,
1:03:09
then I'll run the tests a few more times to make sure it
1:03:11
replicates. And then I will go, Eureka, I
1:03:14
have AI have a hypothesis and I would publish that.
1:03:18
But what happens most of the time is that someone who has a
1:03:22
great deal of money at stake pays for a study.
1:03:26
And if the study doesn't get the results they want, they bury it.
1:03:30
And then they do another study to try to get the results they
1:03:33
want. You know, big pharma pays for
1:03:35
almost all of the studies about big pharma and and so on.
1:03:42
You know, any time I hear a a statement like the science is
1:03:47
settled, that is not science. Science is never settled
1:03:51
science. Scientific method tells us what
1:03:53
hypothesis is most likely true based on the data and evidence
1:03:57
we have available at the time. Right.
1:04:01
I mean, we don't believe that the sun revolves around the
1:04:05
Earth anymore because that data, new data and evidence was found
1:04:10
that shows us. Nope, Actually, it's the
1:04:11
opposite, right? And so this got me to question a
1:04:18
lot of our science. And then when you find out, for
1:04:21
example, the FDA like half of their budget comes from drug
1:04:26
approval fees and then that a lot of scientists quote, UN
1:04:33
quote, scientists who work for the government get to take
1:04:35
royalties from certain things that patents, it starts raising
1:04:40
a lot of questions about the process.
1:04:43
Yeah. Well, and then you get you get
1:04:46
people like Joe Rogan who used to be, you know, more liberal.
1:04:51
You know, he was asking questions about COVID and he,
1:04:56
you know, he took ivermectin when he got COVID.
1:04:58
And, you know, that was previously like hailed as, I
1:05:03
wouldn't say a miracle cure. But, you know, Ivermectin has
1:05:08
been applied for various uses. And all of the sudden he, you
1:05:12
know, he and anyone else who use ivermectin was labeled as like
1:05:16
some sort of crazy kook and, you know, conspiracy theorist.
1:05:23
And my hypothesis is if people, if more people are taking
1:05:27
ivermectin for COVID like I like I did, there wouldn't be as much
1:05:31
money in the pharma, you know, for the pharmaceuticals or
1:05:37
whatever. So.
1:05:38
I mean, I, I definitely think that's part of it.
1:05:40
But the other thing that is, is true is that if ivermectin was
1:05:44
recognized as an effective treatment for COVID, they could
1:05:49
not have ever gotten the emergency use authorization for
1:05:54
the mRNA shots because part of a requirement in the law for that
1:06:01
emergency use of what they call a vaccine.
1:06:04
But I don't see it as a vaccine because it doesn't create, it
1:06:08
doesn't stop transmission or infection.
1:06:11
You can't have an emergency use authorization if there is an
1:06:15
effective treatment available. So that was part of it as well,
1:06:20
I believe in that particular instance.
1:06:22
So I think, yeah, science, I think a lot of people lost a lot
1:06:27
of faith in our medical agencies and institution, excuse me,
1:06:33
during COVID, and I didn't have a lot of faith in them because
1:06:38
of what happened with my mom. And it certainly got worse
1:06:41
during the COVID. Yeah.
1:06:44
Lockdowns. Yeah.
1:06:48
I mean, have, have you, have you encountered like other
1:06:51
individuals in your, you know, circle who were, you know,
1:06:56
former, formerly on the left and then had this awakening?
1:07:01
Because I mean, I have. And like, you know, I'm, I
1:07:05
wouldn't say I'm, you know, some people would say I'm a dye in
1:07:09
the wool, you know, conservative.
1:07:10
But like even a lot of my moral liberal fans, some of them who
1:07:14
were formerly on the left, they're starting to sound a lot
1:07:17
more like, you know, me or like a Rush Limbaugh type just for,
1:07:23
you know, questioning the liberal narratives about health,
1:07:27
you know, now. I there, I think there are a lot
1:07:31
of people, yeah, that have been waking up.
1:07:34
I think COVID woke a lot of people up.
1:07:37
I will say that the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk
1:07:41
and then the left's reaction to it also woke a lot more people
1:07:45
up as well, Sam. And so I think, you know,
1:07:48
there's a lot, there are a lot of people waking up.
1:07:52
And I think that that's a great thing.
1:07:55
I hope that it continues to worry that a lot of the people
1:08:01
who may still be asleep are going to be a lot harder to wake
1:08:04
up at this point. If I'll just say this and I do
1:08:07
need to wrap up soon unfortunately.
1:08:10
Yeah, yeah. But that if COVID and the lot,
1:08:15
the the straight out lies that we were told during COVID, 4
1:08:19
years of an administration where it's very hard for someone to
1:08:25
say that we had an actual president who was running our
1:08:29
country. And then what happened with
1:08:31
Charlie Kirk did not wake people up.
1:08:35
They may be very hard to wake up, you know, at this.
1:08:38
Point. Yeah, I mean, even even I was
1:08:42
kind of a little shocked that, like, people on the left were
1:08:47
outright cheering Charlie stuff like not even doing it
1:08:51
anonymously, like online like that.
1:08:54
You know, that kind of used to be the thing that you would get,
1:08:57
you know, trolls online. It would hide, you know, behind
1:09:00
accounts. But no, people, people are just
1:09:02
doing it out in the open. And that was shocking even for
1:09:06
me to, you know, see. And the other thing is like, I'm
1:09:10
only I'm only a year younger than Charlie is.
1:09:13
So, So yeah, that's that's Friday.
1:09:20
Yeah. And it, it was very, you know, I
1:09:22
guess in some ways I, I am not as surprised.
1:09:26
I wasn't as surprised about it just because things have gotten
1:09:30
so, so the people on the left think they're morally superior.
1:09:34
They literally like this, this thing, this hurts me.
1:09:38
Not, not like emotionally, but this scares me actually, that
1:09:43
people on the left believe that language, when other people use
1:09:48
it against vulnerable populations is actually
1:09:51
violence. OK, it's liberal violence.
1:09:54
And because Charlie had been so vilified and his position so
1:10:00
misconstrued in many ways through mainstream media and
1:10:04
social media clips of him saying things which he did say, but the
1:10:09
context makes it very different that he was committing violence
1:10:14
and putting vulnerable people at risk so that his death was
1:10:18
justified. And while it is, it was very sad
1:10:22
for me to see, you know, it was also in some ways, not
1:10:25
surprising given where where many on the left find
1:10:28
themselves. And I think what the left also
1:10:31
learned is that your speech, your, your right to say those
1:10:36
kind of things is protected by our First Amendment from our
1:10:39
government infringing on them, but you are not protected from
1:10:42
the consequences of what you say.
1:10:46
And. If your employer decides that
1:10:49
what you said paints their company in a bad light, they
1:10:52
have every right to fire you because of it.
1:10:55
Yeah, well, the other thing I the other thing I've noticed too
1:10:58
is, you know, you mentioned that the left loves all these, you
1:11:01
know, protected groups. But as soon as these protected
1:11:05
groups, you know, go off the, you know, disagree with the left
1:11:10
wing orthodoxy, then suddenly, you know, it doesn't matter that
1:11:15
I'm, I'm in a wheelchair or that my friend, you know, African
1:11:21
American or something. If if you disagree with us then
1:11:23
you're persona non non grata. So that's.
1:11:29
And that's because I think, you know, they mostly listen to the
1:11:34
experts repeat the talking points.
1:11:37
But if you push them at all on any of these positions, there's
1:11:40
not any depth underneath it. So they can't really have the
1:11:44
conversation with you because like I saw at these No Kings
1:11:48
rallies, a bunch of interviews and they'd be asked, well, why
1:11:52
do you why do you think Donald Trump has violated the
1:11:55
Constitution? Can you be very specific about
1:11:57
what he's violated? And none of them can.
1:12:00
And that's why they don't want to have the conversation because
1:12:03
they can repeat the talking points, but there's no there
1:12:07
underneath it, you know what I mean?
1:12:09
So that's also why I sadly think it may be hard to wake anybody
1:12:12
up at this point. But I, I don't think it's
1:12:15
hopeless, but I think it's going to be a lot harder for people to
1:12:18
wake up if they haven't over the past five or six years than no,
1:12:22
I mean, that's before. You know, my, my attitude is I,
1:12:26
I'm, I always try to look at life as the glass is, as the
1:12:33
glass is half full. That's always been my approach.
1:12:36
And so, yeah, things are really scary.
1:12:38
But I for 1:00 AM, you know, an optimist and a glass half full
1:12:44
type of guy, which is why I was really interested in having you
1:12:47
on because I think what you're trying to do with your book is
1:12:51
really encouraging. A. 100% And I remain optimistic
1:12:56
too, you know, Yeah, I think we're reaching a critical mass
1:13:02
of people who see beyond the red versus blue, black versus white,
1:13:08
women versus men, trans versus not, the divide and conquer
1:13:14
they've been pushing us towards and will reunite around the
1:13:19
things we have in common, which are a lot as humans, as well as
1:13:24
many of our belief in the great country that we live in.
1:13:29
And we'll rally together to reclaim the power of We the
1:13:34
People and stop our government from doing things in our name
1:13:39
that we don't agree with. I think that's very well said.
1:13:45
Well, at least I want to thank you for your time.
1:13:47
And also, where can people find your book and where can people
1:13:52
reach out to you if they're interested in having a
1:13:56
discussion with you? You can find my book on Amazon
1:14:00
and also Barnes and Noble and then you can get in touch with
1:14:04
me through my website deprogrammingdemocrats.com.
1:14:08
I am also deprogrammed them on. X Lisa, I really appreciate your
1:14:14
time today and I would love to have you back on at some point.
1:14:17
This is a very interesting, you know, thing that you're doing
1:14:20
and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you.
1:14:23
Thank you so much, Sam, and it would be my pleasure to come
1:14:26
back. I've really enjoyed the
1:14:27
conversation. Yeah, yeah, folks, thank you for
1:14:32
tuning in and I will see you on Wednesday night for the live
1:14:36
show, 10:00 PM Eastern here on YouTube and Rumble.
1:14:41
So thank you for turning in and God bless.
1:14:46
The right to offend is not some pesky little part of freedom of
1:14:51
speech that we have to put up with.
1:14:53
It is the heart and soul and lungs of freedom of speech.
1:14:57
It is the coursing lifeblood of human process.
1:15:00
It is the instigator of liberty and modernity and science and
1:15:04
understanding. What a laughing stock today's
1:15:08
student leaders are that they can so casually dismiss the
1:15:12
right to be offensive without realizing that their lovely,
1:15:16
enlightened lives are the gifts of individuals who gave offence.
1:15:22
Offensiveness. This is not just something we
1:15:24
have to begrudgingly accept. Offensiveness is the motor of
1:15:28
human progress. Thank you for watching the
1:15:32
Whitfield Report live on the Right to Offend Media Network.
1:15:36
Make sure to check out Sam's books on Amazon, Audible, and
1:15:40
Kindle. You can follow Sam on X at Sam W
1:15:45
under Score NGC and the Right to Offend Media Network at RTO
1:15:50
Media. Like, comment, subscribe and
1:15:54
share with your friends. And until next time, God bless
1:16:00
God save this great nation. God, freedom, legacy, in that
1:16:06
order.