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Start Me Up: David Pepper · Start Me Up with Kimberley A. Johnson

0:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Starvea podcast part of MSW Media and the sexy liberal podcast network.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Kimberly Johnson in DC.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Today my returning guest is David Pepper.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a lawyer, a writer, a political activist, former elected official and adjunct professor.
0:31
[SPEAKER_00]: He served as the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.
0:35
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the author of Laboratories of Autocracy and Saving Democracy.
0:39
[SPEAKER_00]: He and I have a lot to discuss, but before we get into it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Start Me Up podcast is independent, listen or fund it, and woman run.
0:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Visit patreon.com slash start me up to see the variety of tiers offered, including the option to get a bonus what's up episode just for patrons every Tuesday.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like my online journal where I get a little more personal and I talk about whatever's on my mind.
1:00
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also an ad free tier with a much shorter intro.
1:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Just visit patreon.com slash start me up.
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, please enjoy my conversation with David Pepper.
1:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the show, David.
1:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Great to be with you.
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we are meeting once again under unfortunate times.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just thought, oh my god.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty fucking bad.
1:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, between the East Wing and shutdowns and what's he want $230 million pay to him and who knows well and all the redistricting nonsense.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a crazy time.
1:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I mean, pretty much everything you just said except for the $230 million I have on my notes.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But first, first, first, first, I do want to talk about the no-kings march because they're saying that it's be like indivisible is saying it's between like it's over 7 million.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: around I've heard 8.7, I don't know, somewhere around 8 million.
1:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's pretty big.
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not.
1:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember what the percentage is that we need in order to reach whatever threshold that there will absolutely be change or whatever the experts say about how many people show up.
2:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But we saw a huge increase from the last March and people are really upset and I want to throw
2:15
[SPEAKER_00]: stepped up their game with how we fight these fascists with the frog and all the silly characters.
2:23
[SPEAKER_00]: There was some quote that I'm not, you know, I'm just going to basically do the quote.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not verbatim, but it was the John Lening quote that they, he says like, they know what to do with you when you're violent, but when you're silly and you're fun, they don't know what to do.
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think, and then I also saw, there's a woman I watch on YouTube park,
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Park Rose permaculture, her name is Angela and she had brought in a video that a man had suggested that in order for project 2025 to succeed, it hinges on us being violent and we're not doing that.
2:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just wanted to ask you, like, what's your takeaways from this March and what do you think, what kind of impact do you think it had on, you know, on whether it's legislatures, legislatures,
3:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, it's two things.
3:13
[SPEAKER_01]: One, I couldn't agree more with what you just said.
3:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I read a book and it's kind of scary to me that I even was reading this book.
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And you may have heard of it, it's called From Dictatorship to Democracy.
3:24
[SPEAKER_01]: By someone named Jean Sharpe, a friend and recommended it.
3:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, like the idea that I'm reading it because I'm trying to figure out how we don't become a dictatorship is scary.
3:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not reading it as an academic thing, but he made the point and you just what you just said or mine's may have it.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: he said the way that he studied ways that countries that were dictatorships got out of it and got to democracy and there's some very clear patterns.
3:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But his big push, one of them was,
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: If you get into violence, they have massive advantages.
3:58
[SPEAKER_01]: They will always win a game of violence.
4:00
[SPEAKER_01]: They are a dictatorship.
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: They have force.
4:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a losing strategy.
4:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It just, you are going against where they are strongest.
4:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I agreed on the Portland model.
4:12
[SPEAKER_01]: My aunt lives out in Portland at a supper stack alive with her the other day.
4:16
[SPEAKER_01]: There were a bunch of people in those costumes.
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There were four women playing bridge right outside that detention facility.
4:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I interviewed them and the woman said to me, well,
4:25
[SPEAKER_01]: we want to show that it certainly cannot be called a war-rathered city if for and they said it this way I would if for a ladies can play bridge like it's just so I really and so at the one I went to in Cincinnati it was the same thing I did selfies with a lot of the people in costume and I just think it's a really good lesson and it comes right out of that book I mean this guy studied this stuff and he said once you get in the violence like you are going to lose they would put it down and they
4:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where they have you sort of outguned and pardon the pun, but when you are creative and you have a plan that doesn't involve that, that's when you can win.
5:04
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I'd say though, and again, I think, and I have a whole chapter that is new book I wrote about the importance of protests in them getting ever larger, but I gave a speech at the Cincinnati one.
5:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think one of the most important things we can do, again, this is not to minimize the importance of the protest, but I said this to the crowd, what do we do between this and the next protest?
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: What does every say, that millions of people, that is the force that they can save our country?
5:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So in between these protests,
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: What are each of us going to do?
5:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it engaging with disengaged voters?
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it making sure we're running in places that we don't often run?
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it getting the vote out to stop bookbanners in two weeks in school board races?
5:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the power here is not just the protest.
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the people.
5:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's what they could each be doing in between the protests.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing I said to the group,
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: is I'm so I think even I may be talking to this before.
6:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so tired of us being the one surprised by what all they would trump does.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We're always surprised, we're always shocked, you know, right, they're going after their political enemies.
6:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, no shit, part of the French, they told us they're going to do that.
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stop being surprised.
6:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They wrote it down what they're going to do.
6:22
[SPEAKER_01]: History tells us what they're going to do.
6:24
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a secret.
6:26
[SPEAKER_01]: If we're surprised, it's because we're not paying attention.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Our attitude should be, let's surprise them.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's stop and pray.
6:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's shock them.
6:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I love about these protests is, and you can tell the week before the protests, they're the one scare.
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, it's terrorists.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they're saying it's a bunch of old people.
6:43
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't even know what to say about it.
6:45
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
6:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what tells me they're actually kind of surprised.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, yeah, it's millions and so let's surprise them
6:53
[SPEAKER_01]: with big protests and then let's surprise them by all the activity that we do that supports democracy between the protests, like crushing them in Virginia next into these.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So our attitude has to be what is our approach being, you know, those Portland people and costumes.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of surprising them.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They want us to be violent.
7:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they tell me, we're not violent.
7:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not violent, we're dressing up as dinosaurs and sharks.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Good, let's catch them off guard.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So I actually like, I think that should be our mindset.
7:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I liked about what's happening right now, amid all the terrible things is I think they're the little off guard by the size of the protest, the creativity of them.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that they can't call a bunch of people dressed up as sharks and the birds or whatever, the terrorist.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It just doesn't make sense to people if they say that.
7:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So that has to be our continued mindset going forward.
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and we got the news that, you know, the only violence that any of these protests was done by Maga and we're no arrests or anything like that.
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, okay, here's my fear.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that here's a legitimate fear that many of us have is if there is no legitimate violence that it will be made up by them, you know, that they're going to throw someone in, but and before you comment on that, um, we had that sheet.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: the alleged shooter with the Charlie Kirk.
8:12
[SPEAKER_00]: They initially tried to turn him into a liberal, a progressive whatever, because supposedly I think he had a trans, was in a relationship with a trans person.
8:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They've just dropped that now.
8:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this whole thing with Charlie Kirk shooting is very strange to me.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything about it is weird.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not even going conspiratorial.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just looking at how it's all played out and it's just weird.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But beyond that, they tried to make this alleged shooter into a Democrat and they couldn't.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And then now we just don't hear anything.
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my question about tying these two things together,
8:54
[SPEAKER_00]: How, like, I mean, how fearful are you that they're going to, you know, go into crowds, whether it's a peaceful process and like make it look like the liberals and the progressives are the ones doing by us.
9:07
[SPEAKER_00]: How afraid of you?
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let me just put it this way, because I was speaking one of these.
9:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I have a young kids.
9:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the first time I thought about, and maybe I'm not careful of it.
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the first time I thought, I'm worried, I wouldn't say I was worried a way that I wasn't going to go.
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But I thought we should all be thinking about our security and the reason I thought that was because for the entire week.
9:31
[SPEAKER_01]: they were all so consistent in what they were saying.
9:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
9:35
[SPEAKER_01]: These are dangerous people.
9:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
9:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's terrorists, it's communist.
9:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought one of two things.
9:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, I don't think they, I think they were, now in hindsight, I think they were just scared.
9:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would thought of one of two things.
9:46
[SPEAKER_01]: They are trying to trigger their people to do something.
9:50
[SPEAKER_01]: By repeatedly turning this into something it wasn't.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: or like someone made thinking, well, let's make these into what we are saying they are.
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do worry that, again, I'm glad it was very safe, except for a few people on the right disrupting.
10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But it would be naive to not look around the world and see that this is, that's a Putin tactic.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, false flag type things.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think it's another reason that we need to be
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: that seems weird don't participate because I do think one way they would clamp down on what have been wonderful first amendment, you know, to the extreme rallies, what's happening Portland.
10:38
[SPEAKER_01]: they would want to have some threshold cross that they could justify stopping them.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can never fall for that.
10:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did worry, as I watched them talk for in a whole week.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Mike Johnson, all these, they were all saying the same thing.
10:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so consistent.
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And it had such a sort of,
10:59
[SPEAKER_01]: tone of like what I felt was almost attempts to trigger people to do something they shouldn't do.
11:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just glad nothing transpired too bad.
11:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They were bad incidents, but I did worry, and I'm glad that didn't happen.
11:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, I do think it's something that we have to keep in the back of our mind because it isn't some made-up tactic.
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is how other
11:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll, you know, ill-intentioned leaders of other countries have created crises that then they crack down on, is that type of thing?
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We have created a problem.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have to think about that.
11:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I can't speak the Charlie Kirk thing, but I do think that it is odd.
11:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when all of a sudden all the information just appears.
11:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
11:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is also why, and I wrote about this when it was happening.
11:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It of course gets even worse when you throw them the layer that they've gotten rid of, and they've gotten rid of your standard FBI people, and they put cash per tell, they fire people, because it used to be, if the FBI said this happened,
12:06
[SPEAKER_01]: most Americans say, well, that must have been what had happened.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But once they're politicizing, cash patel himself.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Once they're getting rid of the long time Utah FBI leaders, and then replacing them, then all of a sudden the trust level we have that law enforcement is telling us what's really happened, like the trust goes down.
12:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it does allow for
12:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it in a road's trust, but also could allow for bad actors to do things in all of a sudden, we don't know which way is up.
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So if they don't want people to think suspicious things about horrible acts, they shouldn't politicize the investigation process, which they have done by messing with the FBI in the way they have.
12:46
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you think this, I'm gonna ask you about the shutdown to the same kind of question, but how do you think Republican legislators are feeling after seeing that?
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, they're clearly gonna be worried, but I mean, do you think that this is enough to push them into, I don't know, working with Democrats?
13:09
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why I love, I think for the most part, they think, oh, it's a bunch of liberals and cities.
13:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I give huge credit to the people who are an iron to know Ohio in a very rural area, or smaller towns or Jackson County, a friend of mine was there.
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason is so important that these are done not just in the big cities, is because this is true of testifying in the state house, too, the more you bring the the heat from where they live, so they can't in their mind dismiss it is, oh, that's the blue part of our country, the better my guess is
13:46
[SPEAKER_01]: There are two things that will take this and worry them more.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: One, it's that they actually have opponents and they often don't.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And two, when they start again, surprise them, when they see losses where they're like, oh my God, I never thought that person could lose.
14:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And my hope is hope, you know, I don't know what will happen.
14:06
[SPEAKER_01]: My hope is in two weeks for a genius a place.
14:09
[SPEAKER_01]: where like some of the special elections in the last six months, it had been surprising in how much a pretty red district was able to flip.
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: My hope is that the combination of...
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: size of crowds, the fact that they're not only in cities, the fact that people are running against people in places where often they're used to not even having competition, and then actual losses, because costs are too high, or people are turned off by x, y, or z, or soybean farms are drawing up.
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It losses and places aren't expected.
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's when you start to have them think, you know, the guy running for Senator Ohio, for example, John Houston to get share brown.
14:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when you hope they think, well, I can't sustain this position right now because people are losing in elections.
14:57
[SPEAKER_01]: They shouldn't be losing in because they're the same to save things.
14:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think once it translates to elections is when their self-interest really gets triggered.
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe they start changing behavior, but in a lot of parts of the country, that also means that we have to on our side be recruiting to run in places that often we don't run and that's the only way they'll begin to sort of fear fear their own futures and this about unless they fear repercussions in their own career for how they're behaving.
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: they won't change your behavior and that's why you have to run against them.
15:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why maybe legal repercussions if they ever face accountability for breaking the law.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But the lesson is like these people don't mind being told they violate the constitution.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They just don't care because you know what they would care about though is if they thought
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait a second, I haven't been lose my own office, that's something they almost never have felt because we're in a jury-mitted world and we have to organize what we do in a way that they finally feel some accountability in their own life, in their own career because they may lose or they're found liable for breaking the law, whatever.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You posted a video, I don't know, maybe it was with your relative.
16:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but you were talking about how Jerry Mandarin corrupts and undermines the common good.
16:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just wanted you to speak to that a little bit.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Because obviously, we see what's happening with Gavin Newsome and the Republicans trying to get more and more ours on the ticket and now they're doing it in California.
16:26
[SPEAKER_00]: What are your thoughts on that overall?
16:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And then talk about the Jerry Mandarin and Wyatt corrupts.
16:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so this is a woman who you should interview her sometime.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: She started about, she's not a relative, but I knew her from politics there.
16:38
[SPEAKER_01]: She lives in a very rural part of Ohio.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called Jackson County.
16:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And about three months ago, she started doing videos from her porch and she calls it Mamma's Front porch.
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: and she is just dropping truth bombs on everything from a rural higher perspective and it is gold okay and she's now she went from almost nothing nothing of Facebook to 60,000 flowers she is getting huge video watches hundreds of thousands of millions of years and she's cutting through
17:14
[SPEAKER_01]: with very common sense.
17:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's why I interviewed her.
17:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to be in that county in a few weeks, so to that in person.
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: She's interviewing me Amy McGrath next week.
17:23
[SPEAKER_01]: He can talk to you because Kentucky's not too far.
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm totally gonna interview her.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, she's, you're gonna see what I'm gonna see.
17:28
[SPEAKER_01]: She is absolutely brilliant.
17:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
17:32
[UNKNOWN]: Bye.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But people won't see that at first, you know, she's, you know, she's got a southern Ohio accent, but she is explaining things about politics and the law and policy in a very common sense way that often we struggle to do.
17:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and you can see in the response, it's one of my most viewed subjects ever, just a conversation.
17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I talked to her again the other day because we had such a good time talking.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: and about how much public schools are being undermined by these vouchers, especially in rural Ohio.
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And she just basically said, well, yeah, and this is what I've written about my books, that once you have no accountability back to the citizens,
18:13
[SPEAKER_01]: The only place you have accountability is with big donors.
18:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's true of Ohio, that's true of Washington.
18:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so basically, Jerry Manoring is a fast track to corruption.
18:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We're basically, and this is my broader point too.
18:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Stayed houses like Ohio, like Texas, so badly Jerry Manoring that essentially the people are checked out of the equation, essentially aren't public service, and we should stop thinking they are.
18:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the, it is the harnessing a public power for private gain and private interests.
18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of the private gain gets paid back to the politicians through contributions.
18:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one massive grift and the gerrymandering is the key because it means the, because what happens when you privatize the public good through the state houses, public outcomes fall.
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Health care gets worse.
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Schools get worse.
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: All gets worse.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Jerry Manoring is the key because the only way you can get away with delivering such terrible public outcomes everywhere is if you create a system where the public can't stop it.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what she and I were saying, which is that Jerry Manoring is sort of a writ large, just massive corruption of the entire public purpose of these institutions.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And they basically become
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, private serving institutions, the use, the abuse of public power to serve private ends and Jerry Manorings again, it's the key mechanism that allows it to continue because of course, if you were delivering the god-off or results we're seeing in fair districts, you'd all lose your next election.
19:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so yeah, that's that's the system.
19:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why in highly cherry-manored states they're destroying public schools even though the the public doesn't like it.
19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They pass laws like, you know, dobs or crazy abortion bands even though 40% of the state or last supports that.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: They they pass gun laws that are completely opposite of what the people want.
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all because private interests are getting what they want in the public can't do anything about it.
20:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's essentially what she was talking about.
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: where there's often no incompetent, no competence at all.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's even more clear that that's what they're living through.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you, I mean, I don't know anything about this, but how, like, what's happening now in regards to
20:31
[SPEAKER_00]: the different places in America where normally there's not a challenge or but there is not like, how much better are we getting at that?
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We are doing better and that's the good news.
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I first started writing about this, when you and I probably first did a few of these podcasts, I think people thought, who is this idiot from Ohio who thinks we should run in more places?
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: What's he talking about?
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a terrible idea.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What a waste.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, talk to Anderson Clayton, the North Carolina chair about it.
20:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Because she ran, North Carolina was a perfect example on 22, they left dozens of seats on contested.
21:05
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a young chair brand new.
21:08
[SPEAKER_01]: When she became chairs, she said, well, I'm from rural North Carolina.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to have 20 or 30 Republicans who don't even have a challenger explaining the people what they're doing to root our state.
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So she recruited an all but two districts.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And
21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Who had a great year in 24, even with Trump about North Carolina?
21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only did they win the statewide races, but they won a Supreme Court race by 700 votes.
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I guarantee you, if they had not had dozens of Democrats running in tough districts, knocking on doors of Democrats against the vote, they would not have won that race.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Similar story in Arizona, two years before, by the way, people ran in some tough districts.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: The Attorney General Chris Maysha here is on a one by three hundred votes.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're running everywhere, you're on message, you're bringing accountability to extremists, you're lifting turnout.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Anderson Clinic was a great model in this in two weeks.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to see it again in Virginia.
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a candidate in every single district.
22:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, good.
22:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the Republicans that have left 20 or 25 districts without an up- Oh, that's interesting.
22:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the Democrats who are running everywhere.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a website that is supporting, like 27 candidates running in the hardest districts.
22:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's raised, you know, six figures for those candidates, and I think my hope is, you know, and so if you're Abigail Spamberger,
22:31
[SPEAKER_01]: you know that in some of the most rural red parts of Virginia, you, you of course are campaigning there, but you have a red Democratic State Rep can't eat knocking on doors talking to Democratic voters who otherwise maybe didn't have anything to focus on.
22:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and my hope is that this all every single district strategy in Virginia that we see it pay off in a big way.
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: and that we see that not only Spamberger wins, but we build a trifecta up.
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We pick up statehouse seats.
23:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing about running in these rural districts is,
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: that the Republican caucus of the Virginia, I think it's called the House of delegates, they can't only spend now in a few districts when they know that every single one of their people has been challenged.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have to divvy out some money more.
23:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So my hope is that just like North Carolina, you know, last year, Virginia becomes an example that we all say for now on.
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: sure it's an uphill battle to run these tough districts, but it's a lot better than not running because there are a lot of benefits that come from it when it comes to messaging, turn out, accountability, pushing them to spend their money in different ways.
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have some momentum that we got some new leaders in Ken Martinists helping with this, too.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got some new leaders that are seeing that the Oldster Agile of Leading Half of America uncontested
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: it's been a disaster and that running in more places over time is a much better strategy than simply leaving, you know, half of Louisiana or half of Tennessee with a bunch of Republicans who've been their life like Mike Johnson have never really faced a real opponent.
24:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's making them much more extreme when that's the only thing they've ever experienced.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, so, okay, now we've got this whole government shutdown thing and, you know, what's interesting about this is Marjorie Taylor Green is standing up to her own party.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: She's very upset about the Epstein files.
24:23
[SPEAKER_00]: She specifically said that Republican men are weak.
24:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't remember the follow-up, but it was something like, and there were afraid of strong Republican women.
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I see a lot of Democrats out there.
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not going to defend her, and you don't have to, you don't have to become her best friend, but you can absolutely delight in the fact that she is standing up against her own party.
24:48
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't make her a Democrat.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't even necessarily make her an ally, but it does make her, um,
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: What she's doing is she's helping, whether she wants to or not, she's helping the Democrats.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's, you know, showing her.
25:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And the whole Epstein thing, that's such a big deal.
25:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're not, and pardon me, I don't remember that woman's name, who was elected in Mike Johnson, has refused to seat her.
25:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, this is pretty much about the Epstein files.
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there are other things happening that, you know, they're doing this.
25:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the Epstein files and correct me if you think I'm wrong about that.
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is like the big major thing.
25:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my whole point of this is if it truly is about the Epstein files and keeping them sealed.
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't, I think, I think a lot of it is.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's very little incentive for both of them.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, I completely agree with you.
25:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that when someone on their side is making our arguments,
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, if let's say they let's say at Spangerberger wins Virginia by 10 and that's a state that's going to be feeling the cost of the shutdown more than others.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that results the way I think it could, and Marjorie Taylor Greed has been saying these things, they're gonna be the ones you're gonna have to have sort of come to Jesus.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, whoa, maybe she's the one who's figured it out in more of the idiots who are defending like sky high, health costs, and a shutdown.
26:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They're literally basically the position of the current Senate, I keep bringing them up because we wanna beat them.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Senator Houston of Ohio.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: His position is, basically, yes, we're going to have a shutdown, so I don't have to relieve health costs.
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a horrible political position, and I think if it continues, and if the next election is sort of a referendum partly on this, I think the others will start to think, just like, you know, I came here, who's the, I'm looking over the river and Kentucky, where he says,
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: He's taking a principal stand on Epstein.
26:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
27:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think they are going to, even though they're, I'm sure getting bullied in their own party.
27:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's some point the others, because people in the end are self-interested.
27:08
[SPEAKER_01]: If they look around and think, wait a second.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massey seem to be doing better in our side.
27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: The, the, the mag aside in that Virginia race just got clobbered.
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that does start
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It does start to make them think, maybe we should vote to open up the Epstein files.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think so much of the, I think so much of the, of the unwillingness to, I think almost all the unwillingness to meet in Washington right now is this the abject fear.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not even fear the knowledge of what's in the empty files.
27:44
[SPEAKER_01]: They clearly some no And they do not want to have a session where where they have to begin that process And so no, I think they're scared and I just I'm trying to find out what we're talking I there was a appol was done by a bowling green Not long ago
28:04
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'll look it up over the course of a conversation.
28:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They asked about many things, but they did ask about the Epstein file in it, and it shows you just how toxic it is.
28:16
[SPEAKER_01]: There are very few things in this poll that have much crossover.
28:19
[SPEAKER_01]: This thing is like, absolutely.
28:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Republicans, Democrats, independents are all on the same page about that this is a cover-up.
28:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's very, very devastating.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, a lot of came up here as an example.
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been trying to be helpful to a woman running for governor here against Vivek Rob miswami.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Rob miswami, when he was running for president.
28:44
[SPEAKER_01]: literally talked about Epstein all the time.
28:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He even took credit.
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the first and most most vocal proponent of releasing the Epstein files.
28:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, his opponent and Ohio, her name is Amy.
28:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I act and called for him too much to go to make good on that and join her and calling for them now.
29:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been like 90 days, he won't say that.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll do it.
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in all these people are being put in this position that now that Trump's president they can't talk about it, they look like hypocrites, but now they're part of the group that we'll cover up for these crimes and any connections, and I'll find it a second.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: The polling on that behavior in Ohio,
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: is so underwater for them.
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just an example where sticking to the script the other other place where this is going to happen is they don't want to upset Trump.
29:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So they won't acknowledge it costs their up.
29:39
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't want to mention inflation.
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if they did Trump would called up and said, wait, costs aren't up.
29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a great president.
29:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you say they're up, you're undermining me.
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think a whole lot of Republicans are right now.
29:51
[SPEAKER_01]: in a corner where the things that would be the best things for them to say politically like release hip scene files and we're going to lower costs they can't say and I think in the next year that's going to be a real problem for them and the smart ones will figure it out and maybe start pulling away from the present a little bit but most of them I think are going to just keep standing on these very very sort of thin ice political ground.
30:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you see the tweet?
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a couple of, I don't know, it was a last week or something.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Eric's wall well did this whole thread and he said there was going to be a hundred of Republican defectors.
30:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But we haven't seen anything like that.
30:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know anything about that?
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm good friends with my congressman and I think he says that he thinks they also, this is my congressman's name is Greg Lansman.
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's someone who's pretty savvy about building relationships across party lines.
30:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did a sub-segalite within the other day, and he said something similar that I think there is a groundswell that's not happy with leadership that is probably worried about this health conversation.
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But the deadline that he suggested has passed, we'll see if they figure it out, but I think you do have a situation where I think the ones who kind of pay attention know that Trump might judge someone through anything that Trump doesn't want to be due.
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Mike Johnson by doing so is putting a number of the the rank and file Republicans in a very bad position, but I hate to say I'd like to spite what and I'm a fan of friend of Swallwells, too.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that I have never seen is I need to get enough of a backbone to do the right thing or to do the smart thing.
31:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They just can't separate.
31:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why it has been striking to see Marjorie Taylor Greene.
31:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like, wow, she really is going all in.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what he is seeing is actually there is a audience that appreciates even the Republican Party, someone standing up to this stuff.
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think my guess is Massey is getting a lot of grief.
31:54
[SPEAKER_01]: but my guess is he's also getting a lot of people saying thank you you're speaking up on things like Epstein good for you but the rest of them I think are so afraid of Trump punishing them that they're they're unwilling to do it we'll see if that changes but but I'm always pretty skeptical when we start relying on them to find a backbone.
32:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so we've got the Epstein file situation.
32:17
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got the government shutdown and I feel like, I don't know, with the Republican voters, now add to it the fact that he's demolished the East Wing illegally because normally, if you're going to do anything to a historical building, you have to have congressional approval and there are plus there are certain things that you can't do.
32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: To a historic building.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: There's rules and stuff that they clearly just ignored those rules So you've got these three things now.
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's not enough to just collapse the mag movement But you know there has ever with this whole Epstein thing.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's created some kind of a riff It's there is some division within maga.
32:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not completely destroyed, but I mean
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what's your take on the fact that all these things are happening, you know, the Republicans understand, even though there's going to be a group of maga who are going to blame the shutdown on Democrats because they've been told that by whatever layer, but most of these people know it's the Republicans that are doing it.
33:18
[SPEAKER_00]: the Republicans aren't releasing the Epstein files as they promised and the Republican president is demolishing the White House.
33:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you like, I mean, I know, like I said, I know it's still not enough to wake everyone up, but do you think this is that these three things in particular are going to have a really negative effect in the long run with the Republican voters?
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the one that does is that I just found the polling I talked about.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They asked Ohio voters.
33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Some say the FCK submels a cover by the Powerful of the leads.
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think it's cover up?
33:57
[SPEAKER_01]: 88% yes.
33:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
33:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Well percent no.
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
34:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's I'm looking at the loop.
34:04
[SPEAKER_01]: 83% of Republicans said it.
34:06
[SPEAKER_01]: 95% of Democrats.
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, 88% of independence.
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you go down to how is Trump handling it?
34:13
[SPEAKER_01]: 24% on the positive 76%
34:30
[SPEAKER_01]: with independence.
34:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So that of the issues that are not in your everyday issues, I hate to say it as much as it's sickens me.
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I took my kids on a White House two or a year and a half ago.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have never known that maybe what I was seeing and I haven't paid attention to anything they're tearing down.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the last time they'll ever see it.
34:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think some of this stuff we focus on breaks through.
34:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The Epstein one clearly isn't as bad for them, but I think the one that really does open
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: as the economy, costs, tariffs, health costs, that's the opening I think that we need to see and grab by being savvy about talking about it.
35:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I told a story and I wrote about on Subsex and I tweeted the other day, I was at a wedding in Kentucky, okay.
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Overlooking the river, a beautiful part of Kentucky.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ran into a logger who happened to be a relative of the groom.
35:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And he told me, I'm from Appalachia, Kentucky.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We are getting, he goes, it's logging country.
35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all we all do.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, we are all getting destroyed.
35:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We have no business.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We have no market.
35:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just piling up.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he said, the bourbon industry in Kentucky is dying.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Dying, Canadians are not buying bourbon ever again.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And once we lose these markets, they are not coming back.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is an example of the pain that Trump is inflicting on soybean farmers, logger's, you name it.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I tweeted this out, okay.
36:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I said this was really interesting to hear that.
36:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first response was, well, you know,
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Screw that guy, you know, for F-A-F-O, I hope he goes bankrupt, all this stuff, and I actually clarified, just to everyone knows, this guy was a total Democrat.
36:19
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a proud Democrat, but then I said, you know what, it doesn't even matter.
36:24
[SPEAKER_01]: No, because if we want to win in the future,
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's connecting what Trump's doing to the pain he's feeling.
36:31
[SPEAKER_01]: He sees it, and he's feeling the pain.
36:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we see someone with higher health costs or that or what this guy's dealing with, their entire industry's collapsing, that is not the time to say, I'm glad it's happening, you're going bankrupt.
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the time to say, we worried about this.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: We were warning about this, but you know what, we can fix it.
36:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how Andy Bashir's governor of Kentucky, because that's what he was just brought.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when I think the biggest, in addition to Epstein and some of these things, I think the sad opportunity will come when millions of people see their ACA premium skyrocket.
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They see their own businesses, their counties drying up.
37:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we are savvy enough, not to celebrate it.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, connect what they're feeling to the policies that are screwed them over.
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure they see that without rubbing their face.
37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And then say, guys, there's a better way.
37:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're gonna lead to that way.
37:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think those every day, if we tumble into recession,
37:29
[SPEAKER_01]: the costs continue to go up.
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: The Republican candidates like the event cannot talk about these things for fear of pissing off Donald Trump.
37:37
[SPEAKER_01]: If all that happens, all those issues I think add up to giving us a really big opportunity in 26.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: If we're smart enough to, you know, maybe 9 and 10 voters will still vote out of the day, whatever, 8 and 10.
37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you can grab two or three out of 10,
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have a high turnout, and they don't show up because they're seeing the economic depression and flipping it upon them by their own leadership.
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you sweep elections in Ohio, not just Virginia, but Ohio, but we've got to be smart enough to take that, the raw pain people are feeling, being empathetic enough to then channel into enough voters at switch or at least see that we have a better way.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how you all have some turn things around next year.
38:18
[SPEAKER_01]: In addition to the high profile stuff like Epstein.
38:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so here's the scary question I have for you.
38:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We keep hearing whether it's Steven Miller or Donald Trump or even just other Republicans talking about that they want to enact the insurrection act in order to stop elections.
38:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, people are afraid about this.
38:39
[SPEAKER_00]: What are your thoughts?
38:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I worry when they talk about it.
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Donald Trump is wanted to do the insurrection act for years.
38:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Pete Hackseth is there because I don't think he would say no.
38:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think this is a moment where those generals who clearly sat in silence, not impressed by Trump or Hexeth.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we would need to just hope that they do the right thing and do not.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: do not go along with with orders that I think are, you know, not legal.
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't like waiting around for the court system to save us because the Supreme Court has not shown an inclination to do that, but my hope is in that case, the illegality of truly getting troops into these states and cities would be called out very clearly.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the protests and everything else we're doing would have to be far bigger.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I do think that we just would have to keep ramping up even more.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you don't really have a choice.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, at the end of the day, what we do, I talk about elections a lot and winning elections in the end is a key way out.
39:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they're taking on things that make elections,
39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: truly rigged even more than they are or threatening other stuff like the biggest power we have is to show up in masses that they've never seen and you know you want every politician to see those crowds you want every judge to see those crowds you want everybody to see you know we've seen this in other countries like certain things happen and the scenes in a big forward city are
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: That big in what we the other day was big, but it's got to be even more shaker Yeah, like in the end the the best lever we have in by the way the other lever is How we spend our money yeah, yeah, and yeah, yeah, and a key moments, you know Disney felt the squeeze of the squeeze is an understatement for what they felt with Kimmel
40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and if we are all saying with our money, we are going to, you know, not support any entities that are suppressing democracy, we're almost, you know, the way the Tesla has gone through it just a meltdown.
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I think large crowds, energizing around elections, how we spend or don't spend our money.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there are certain levers that we can pull, that we can pull, ever bigger.
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more they do that, the more we're going to have to do our side.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I want the courts to save us on the ones like this, they're so extreme, but I'm not sitting around watching MSNBC coverage of court hearings at that moment.
41:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We just have to be out on mass making massive statements about with millions and millions of people.
41:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I like to remind people that, you know, this holiday season, we don't necessarily at this point want to stop the economy because we're all part of the economy and it will affect us.
41:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead of buying all of our presence at the big box stores, getting Amazon gift cards, I've been suggesting that, you know, and I think a lot of people are going to do this, that we can still
42:01
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, if you've got money to spend on the people that you love, you can do it with local, you can do online, like the Etsy kind of stuff, you know, you know, there are, you know, I was trying to think of like, what, what could you do if you wanted to get somebody a gift certificate while you could get them a gift certificate to a local, like if it's a woman a local hair or nail salon.
42:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's like that because it's stuff that we always use, but it's not giving money over to Jeff Bezos.
42:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not giving money over to all of those big corporations.
42:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still, and it could help the little guy out there who's really struggling.
42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of going, you know, you might pay a little bit more.
42:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But just, you know, I remember there was this episode of,
42:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Little house on the prairie, and I've posted about this, but one year the two girls Lara and Mary got oranges And they were so excited and it was because, you know, I mean, I don't know early 1900s And it was in the middle of winter obviously, so it wasn't like they had oranges all at the time So it was a huge treat for them
43:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like, you know, we are living in this consumer world, capitalist consumer world and we all like our big money gifts and our bling and it's like back in the olden days, we were happy to get an orange, you know, right?
43:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we need, you know, there are other things we could do like donating our time.
43:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
43:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, that's one of the things I wanted to talk to about because indivisible right now, and I keep talking about indivisible because I think it's such a great resource.
43:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It offers everybody tools, and how to fight fascism, but not just through voting and elections, it's ways to help
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: the vulnerable in your community.
43:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, like one of the things that I read was just people going to, you know, nursing homes and spending time.
43:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And even though that doesn't seem like, oh, I'm saving democracy by doing it, it's forming a sense of community.
44:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, what I wanted to ask you is, and you mentioned this earlier, like, what can we do in between those marches?
44:08
[SPEAKER_00]: What can we do a year ahead of time?
44:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's having to do with elections themselves or just ways,
44:15
[SPEAKER_00]: to protect our communities.
44:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you recommend?
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so this is a big part of what I said the other day, and it's half of my book Saving Democracy is about this topic.
44:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And in indivisible, you know, they started literally as a manual, what to do.
44:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really started, which I speak a lot of their events.
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: The way I would think about it, the way I describe it is everyone has a footprint of influenced in this world.
44:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And we use almost none of it for democracy.
44:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We give a little time sometimes to volunteer in the last couple weeks of a campaign.
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone, so many people, will give money to a candidate.
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the grand scheme of the country, almost no one does that, even that.
44:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But most of us, that's all we do.
45:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you realize that democracy itself is at stake, and you make it your core mission to save it.
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The truth is,
45:06
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much more you could do from your footprint to save democracy.
45:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll just give a few examples.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: The nursing home is a great, great one.
45:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm gonna give ones that may even feel more direct than just community building.
45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the biggest tactics in undermining democracy is purging
45:23
[SPEAKER_01]: irregular voters.
45:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And basically, the other one is that voters themselves, many of them have decided that voting doesn't matter to them.
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have an entire world about half the country that largely doesn't participate.
45:35
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no reason the world, by all of us, could not use our footprint to reengage these voters through registration engagement.
45:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't mean that in just a general sense.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, here's an example.
45:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you
45:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, when you're at the home of shelter, are they registering people show up because if they're not, maybe is a volunteer, after one day you're there and say, hey guys, you know, you can register everyone comes in the store.
46:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Like who else is going to do it?
46:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You're in the best position.
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You're the one helping them.
46:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Food bank.
46:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you give money to a food bank?
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a food bank.
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: engaging the people that serves who it helps to also be registered or health clinics, you know, if every single mayor in America and they're mostly Democrats, every single one is sitting in power in the very place where the Republicans and state houses are trying to stop voting and purge voters.
46:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is no reason why every mayor in America.
46:34
[SPEAKER_01]: is not using every rec center, every library, every public housing unit, as a place where people are reminded and given a path to register a vote.
46:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Or if you know a mayor of a city, ask them if they're doing that.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: If they're not, tell them you should be because this is where you the other side, whenever they're in power, they use their power to cross democracy.
46:56
[SPEAKER_01]: When we're in power,
46:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We should be thinking through creatively all the ways we can use it to lift democracy.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Or another example is, you know, the lowest hanging fruit and democratic politics.
47:07
[SPEAKER_01]: is the precinct level organizing we could all be doing every single month of every single year.
47:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're in a neighborhood that you don't really feel like anyone's doing that, well, take all my ship of your community and decide, I'll organize it.
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll find all the Democrats in the neighborhood.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: When it's someone new to moves in the neighborhood, I'll welcome them and say, hey, welcome, we vote in this community.
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You should vote too.
47:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's your registration form.
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's an apartment building in your neighborhood,
47:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Finds and often, these are the places that are overlooked by campaigns entirely or until very late, find some of that apartment building and recruit them to be the captain of that apartment building when it comes to democracy.
47:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they welcome new apartment building residents, hey, we're part, we're part of the pro-democracy team of this place, welcome here's how you register here, we got a meeting every month where we talk about what's going on, like there is so much we can all be doing.
48:00
[SPEAKER_01]: While the other side's scale and their attack on democracy is enormous, we are allowing most of what we could be doing to simply not happen, because we have never in our own mind thought through almost everything we do every day as volunteers, as workers, as gamers of money, at our workplace, all of that footprint could be used to the democracy and for the most part, we simply don't do it.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So their scale, they do it.
48:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The Koch brothers spent money in corporate
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: to crush democracy, we need to use all that we have to lift it.
48:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we do, there are more of us in them, we can scale up.
48:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I said to this crowd, the no kings like, challenge yourself to think through what do you do in life?
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do every day?
48:42
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your networks?
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And what of those nodes could be used to lift democracy?
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: If we all do that, that's when it really starts to turn around.
48:50
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so my last question to you is, what are you hopeful about right now?
48:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I am hopeful just like we want to almost every special action.
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I am hopeful that despite all the chaos and the reason to be down and there are many reasons.
49:08
[SPEAKER_01]: that we see in two weeks in Virginia, the consequences of what happens when we have a good candidate, it gets a mega candidate and when we run everywhere with passion and we support those candidates, and my hope is that that is the beginning of the midterm where we saved our democracy.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And if people see that it worked in Virginia,
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: If people see that running everywhere paid off, we took on extremists.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We win a trifected virgin decisively.
49:34
[SPEAKER_01]: My hope is that people see that and say, okay, well, let's do it in many more states next year.
49:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And 26 is the year where, again, I get real impatient whenever one just speculates on who's going to represent in 28.
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of good people thinking about it.
49:47
[SPEAKER_01]: 28 is too late to save democracy for the 26 midterm is when we save it.
49:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And that starts in two weeks with Virginia New Jersey.
49:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
49:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So we do that.
49:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they get scared.
50:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just build a gift.
50:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's give Virginia credit the party, grassroots activists, the candidates.
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They set it up for success.
50:08
[SPEAKER_01]: They create a model of running everywhere.
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they can do it in this environment, then we just roll into the early 26th and do the same thing in far more places.
50:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't go back to the business's usual of our mistakes.
50:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We're from a state that seems to be doing it well.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: and all states around the country, Democrats, pro-democracy evokes, whatever party, learn from it and build, and all of a sudden we have, I think, a potentially very, very good year.
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're thinking about running my free advice, there's never a better time to run for office.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: then in the midterm, the second midterm of an unpopular president.
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're thinking, I talked to Guy yesterday at Northwest Ohio, a very rural former Republican.
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: He's seen by running for Stainhouse.
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, there's no better time.
50:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Running is public, don't, you know, it may be hard district.
50:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You may or may not win, but running in this moment of democracy, the run itself is public service.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You are lifting, you are getting turnout, you're on message, you're holding someone accountable.
51:11
[SPEAKER_01]: 26 is about as good as you were ever going to have I think so think and and when you watch what happens of Virginia Let that fool you into running yourself if you if you've got the inclination.
51:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because that Republican candidate is Fucking batshit so I mean if she wins Yeah, it will be very surprised and you know, she's no different from Viva Garam as well.
51:30
[SPEAKER_01]: No, she's not she like that's who they're running They are not running the old style that was more moderate like our current governor and how they are running the far right
51:40
[SPEAKER_01]: and we are if we ran good candidates like Spangberger against their candidates in a lot of states I think we end up the winner and if we run everywhere and don't leave 30 or 40% of a state with no infrastructure at all we do far better at all levels.
51:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So learn for Virginia these matchups could be good and running everywhere gives us a better shot and then just like I said keep
52:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So before I let you go, please tell everyone where to find you.
52:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm pretty active on Substack.
52:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I think just look up David Pepper, the name of my Substack is Pepper Spectives.
52:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm on Twitter still, David Pepper, they seem to suppress a logo put out on Blue Sky.
52:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's mainly where I put my stuff out.
52:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and I do a lot of posts now on Substack as well.
52:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So all those places you can find me.
52:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you like some of the deep dive stuff, I've read a bunch of books that you can find as well.
52:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and I've included those in the Patreon description I've got laboratories of aocracy and saving democracy, which I highly, highly, highly, highly recommend everybody if you're gonna read one read saving democracy because he gives you all these pointers and it's just so fantastic.
52:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So, David, thanks once again for sharing your wisdom.
53:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I love talking to you, and I know we're gonna talk again.
53:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do it.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go, we're getting everybody to take care.
53:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care of your time.
53:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, bye.