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Dems Win House - GOP Holds Senate · Booker Scott: Truth Be Told

0:01
Speaker 1: It's 6 Eastern, 3 o'clock Pacific. He's literally the former
0:05
Speaker 1: director of the FBI. He knows exactly what 8647 means.
0:10
Speaker 1: From coast to coast and around the world, from America
0:14
Speaker 1: Out Loud Talk Radio.
0:15
Speaker 2: But I'm sick and tired of the fact that our
0:17
Speaker 2: president has been targeted over and over again with rhetoric
0:21
Speaker 2: that clearly calls for the assassination of this man.
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Speaker 1: It's time for Truth Be Told with Booker Scott.
0:29
Speaker 3: We are finally down to the last week of this
0:32
Speaker 3: midterm election. We've been talking about it all year long,
0:36
Speaker 3: and I'm tired of talking about it. I'm ready to
0:38
Speaker 3: move on to what is beyond November 3rd for this
0:42
Speaker 3: great nation. I'm Booker Scott, and this is The Truth
0:45
Speaker 3: Be Told. Thank you for joining us tonight, and every
0:48
Speaker 3: night we have a guest coming up who is running
0:51
Speaker 3: in this midterm election. He'll be coming up in the
0:53
Speaker 3: second segment tonight. His name is Dr. Michael Goldstein, running
0:57
Speaker 3: in the state of Connecticut in Congressional District 4. But
1:01
Speaker 3: before we get to him, let's talk about this election
1:04
Speaker 3: coming up next Tuesday, one week away. I'm going to
1:08
Speaker 3: make my prediction here on this program tonight, my final prediction.
1:12
Speaker 3: I played around with it a little bit over the
1:14
Speaker 3: last several months and teased a little bit, but I
1:17
Speaker 3: think at this point, nothing is really moving in the
1:19
Speaker 3: polls anymore, and I know how we are about the polls.
1:23
Speaker 3: They always undervalue Republicans and they do that about four
1:26
Speaker 3: to six percent. So regardless of what the polls say,
1:29
Speaker 3: you have to go vote. And please keep that in
1:31
Speaker 3: mind as I go through this. Maybe use this as
1:34
Speaker 3: motivation for you to go vote. If you happen to
1:37
Speaker 3: be a conservative or Republican, every vote is going to
1:40
Speaker 3: matter and it's going to count. Just for some historical
1:44
Speaker 3: perspective here on midterm elections, if you go back to
1:47
Speaker 3: 2022 and that midterm, voter turnout was 49%. Now, that's
1:54
Speaker 3: voter turnout for everyone, including independents and Democrats. Anybody registered
1:59
Speaker 3: to vote, only 49% showed up to vote. About half,
2:03
Speaker 3: half of the country actually votes in midterm election. And
2:07
Speaker 3: in 2018, the number was even lower. It was 46%.
2:12
Speaker 3: So a little bit of voting can go a long
2:14
Speaker 3: way when it comes to a midterm election. Not many
2:17
Speaker 3: people show up. And you see Donald Trump right now
2:20
Speaker 3: who is going across this country trying to get people
2:24
Speaker 3: energized to go out and vote and support the Republican candidates.
2:28
Speaker 3: He knows that it's very important for the future of
2:30
Speaker 3: his presidency and for the future of this country. In reality,
2:35
Speaker 3: that's what it's all about. He is unfortunately going to
2:38
Speaker 3: places that you would think really don't need a lot
2:42
Speaker 3: of help. He's going to places like Texas, and it
2:44
Speaker 3: wasn't that long ago that we would consider Texas a
2:47
Speaker 3: deep red state. But there have been signs in recent
2:50
Speaker 3: elections that that is not really the case. And in
2:54
Speaker 3: that state, you obviously have a hotly contested Senate race
2:58
Speaker 3: between Tallarico and Paxton. We'll get into that just a
3:01
Speaker 3: little bit as well here in a minute. And by
3:04
Speaker 3: the way, we also have a story on 48 people,
3:07
Speaker 3: illegal immigrants, that were arrested for voting in federal elections.
3:11
Speaker 3: That happened Monday this week. Let's get to this prediction, though,
3:15
Speaker 3: because it's important. The House of Representatives right now, for
3:20
Speaker 3: the Republicans, they hold about a three-seat advantage. It's very narrow.
3:25
Speaker 3: They can't afford to lose a lot. And when you
3:27
Speaker 3: go back through history in midterm elections, you'll find that
3:31
Speaker 3: whoever is in power in the White House, they typically
3:34
Speaker 3: lose about 25 seats. I think most of us know
3:37
Speaker 3: that by now, that that is history in midterm elections.
3:40
Speaker 3: So why would this election be any different? You have
3:43
Speaker 3: to ask yourself that question. Why is it this time
3:46
Speaker 3: when So many Americans feel like it's not affordable, we
3:51
Speaker 3: don't have health care, there is corruption. All of these
3:55
Speaker 3: reasons not to vote for most people, they exist. So
4:00
Speaker 3: how does Donald Trump and the Republicans overcome that when
4:02
Speaker 3: history says they will lose about 25 seats? That history
4:06
Speaker 3: goes back all the way to the Civil War. So
4:09
Speaker 3: you can't really argue with that history. And as I
4:12
Speaker 3: have said on this program many times, I compare Donald
4:15
Speaker 3: Trump in this presidency to to Ronald Reagan in his
4:18
Speaker 3: first presidency. And that's because Jimmy Carter was the president
4:22
Speaker 3: when Donald, when Ronald Reagan replaced him. And he had
4:26
Speaker 3: very high inflation, incredibly high mortgage rates. He had a
4:30
Speaker 3: problem in Iran going on at that time. Jimmy Carter,
4:33
Speaker 3: I'm talking about Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan comes in and
4:37
Speaker 3: it takes a while for things to get churning. And
4:40
Speaker 3: America really wasn't happy with Ronald Reagan at the time.
4:43
Speaker 3: And He lost a bunch of seats in that 1982 midterm.
4:48
Speaker 3: Very similar now. You have Joe Biden, who had the
4:50
Speaker 3: highest gas prices, high inflation. He had an Iran situation
4:54
Speaker 3: going on with Gaza and Israel. And he also had Ukraine-Russia.
4:58
Speaker 3: So he had a mess around the world. You have
5:01
Speaker 3: the same thing now coming in with Donald Trump trying
5:03
Speaker 3: to clean up that mess. and try to make something
5:06
Speaker 3: of it, but his policies have not hit the kitchen
5:10
Speaker 3: table yet, and the kitchen table is where the voters live,
5:14
Speaker 3: and those will be the ones making the decision between
5:17
Speaker 3: now and Tuesday, November 3rd, and that date is coming
5:21
Speaker 3: up quickly. Real quick, let's go to the story from CBS.
5:25
Speaker 3: How are the American people feeling? And what do the
5:28
Speaker 3: polls show right now going into this election?
5:31
Speaker 2: That CBS News estimate still has the Democrats winning with
5:35
Speaker 2: a pretty big advantage in the House.
5:36
Speaker 4: They do, but what's notable is that this estimate hasn't
5:40
Speaker 4: moved in the last two weeks, which would suggest... Things
5:42
Speaker 4: are pretty stable. Again, they could get as low as
5:44
Speaker 4: 215 seats, as many as 237. There's still that narrow
5:48
Speaker 4: chance Republicans hold on, but otherwise looks like it's Democrats.
5:51
Speaker 4: And the big reason, of course, is because of the economy.
5:53
Speaker 3: Now, let's go into what he just said there on
5:56
Speaker 3: CBS is that the high watermark for Democrats would be
6:00
Speaker 3: 237 ish or so. And that would be a true
6:04
Speaker 3: blue wave. I don't see a blue wave coming here
6:07
Speaker 3: for the Democrats, regardless of what polls say and what
6:10
Speaker 3: the mainstream media is saying. I don't think that it
6:13
Speaker 3: is a blue wave coming. What is a blue wave,
6:16
Speaker 3: I guess, is a better question. Do we feel that
6:19
Speaker 3: losing 20 seats by the Republicans is a blue wave?
6:24
Speaker 3: And I would argue that it isn't. That's just history. Typically,
6:27
Speaker 3: you lose, like I said, 25 seats. 2021 is not
6:32
Speaker 3: a blue wave. That would be normal or even better
6:34
Speaker 3: than normal in reality.
6:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, let me ask you about that. What are the
6:37
Speaker 5: top issues for voters?
6:39
Speaker 4: Well, again, here it is. About 65% of voters tell
6:43
Speaker 4: us the U.S. economy is in bad shape. That right there,
6:45
Speaker 4: you would think, is the ballgame because when you.
6:49
Speaker 3: 65% of American voters feel the economy is in bad shape.
6:53
Speaker 3: And this is one thing that I would say Donald
6:56
Speaker 3: Trump probably made a mistake on. He continues to say
6:59
Speaker 3: that America is the hottest country in the world. The
7:02
Speaker 3: economy is booming. Who is it booming for? And I've
7:06
Speaker 3: asked that question on this program before. Who is it
7:10
Speaker 3: booming for exactly? Is it booming for people that buy
7:14
Speaker 3: stocks that have a lot of money? Are they the
7:18
Speaker 3: people that own the companies? And that's what the Democrats
7:21
Speaker 3: are saying. They are getting wealthy. Meanwhile, we aren't. But
7:25
Speaker 3: We don't have a long memory when it comes back
7:27
Speaker 3: to the 1982 election and Ronald Reagan, because it was
7:30
Speaker 3: the same situation then. Ronald Reagan set us on a
7:34
Speaker 3: path for a couple of decades. And I believe that's
7:37
Speaker 3: what Donald Trump is saying. We are right here. It's coming.
7:40
Speaker 3: It's close. I really thought it would have been here
7:43
Speaker 3: by the back half of 2026. But because of the
7:46
Speaker 3: Iran war and the gas prices that have come from that,
7:50
Speaker 3: we have not seen that. Instead, we've seen a little
7:53
Speaker 3: bit higher inflation, you know, somewhere around 3.4 percent compared
7:57
Speaker 3: to what was 1.8, 1.9 percent prior to the Iran conflict.
8:03
Speaker 3: And speaking of the Iran conflict, Donald Trump says after
8:07
Speaker 3: this election, he's going to end it, end it all.
8:10
Speaker 3: We'll have to wait and see what that looks like.
8:12
Speaker 3: I've asked for a couple of months if you could
8:14
Speaker 3: end it all after the election. Why not end it
8:17
Speaker 3: right now? And let's get the gas prices back down
8:20
Speaker 3: and make things more affordable for this election.
8:22
Speaker 4: Party in power and people feel that badly. and think
8:25
Speaker 4: 57% of them do, that things are worse off than
8:27
Speaker 4: they were, that would make it really difficult for them
8:30
Speaker 4: to hold on. But this is the issue now that
8:31
Speaker 4: has come out of nowhere, Nora, over the last several weeks.
8:34
Speaker 3: Corruption.
8:35
Speaker 4: How much is government corruption a factor in your vote?
8:38
Speaker 4: 83% now say it is. And this is an issue
8:41
Speaker 4: that began percolating really last spring among certain Senate candidates
8:45
Speaker 4: running in places like Texas and Georgia, but it has
8:47
Speaker 4: become a national concern amid all those other issues that
8:51
Speaker 4: have been raised about people in the Trump administration who
8:53
Speaker 4: may have been finding ways to enrich.
8:55
Speaker 3: And that has been a problem, especially if you pay
8:57
Speaker 3: attention to what the Democrats are saying. The Democrats are saying, well,
9:01
Speaker 3: there are people in the Trump administration in the Trump
9:04
Speaker 3: sphere of his life that are getting very wealthy. Even
9:07
Speaker 3: Donald Trump himself got $ 1. 2 billion in profits in crypto
9:12
Speaker 3: that he had to report. That rubs people the wrong way.
9:15
Speaker 3: When gas prices are up to $ 4. 00, $ 4. 50 a gallon,
9:19
Speaker 3: diesel prices are at a record high. That really isn't
9:23
Speaker 3: good for the voters to see that. And that's also
9:26
Speaker 3: going to be a reason that Democrats will use to
9:29
Speaker 3: investigate Donald Trump and his administration, which you can guarantee
9:33
Speaker 3: that's going to happen. I will say that Probably on
9:35
Speaker 3: the first day of inauguration of the new 120th Congress,
9:39
Speaker 3: you're going to see a couple of Democrats probably file
9:43
Speaker 3: articles of impeachment against Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth. That
9:47
Speaker 3: would be January 3rd, 2027. But we'll continue to watch
9:51
Speaker 3: and see how that goes. This election has to come first.
9:55
Speaker 3: The Republicans would have to lose power in the House.
9:58
Speaker 3: So let's talk about that. Here's where I put it
10:01
Speaker 3: right now. And I've been pretty steady here. It hasn't
10:03
Speaker 3: really moved much for me over the last couple of months.
10:07
Speaker 3: It has a little bit in that it's probably a
10:09
Speaker 3: couple more Democrat seats than it was for me two
10:11
Speaker 3: months ago. But I have the House now at 226
10:16
Speaker 3: to 209 in favor of the Democrats. That means Hakeem
10:22
Speaker 3: Jeffries will take over for the House of Representatives as
10:26
Speaker 3: the Speaker, and the Democrats will have the power. And
10:28
Speaker 3: that means that we're going to see investigations and impeachments
10:32
Speaker 3: for two years, and none of us really want to
10:35
Speaker 3: see that. Unfortunately, you know, the American people and what
10:39
Speaker 3: we need, what we want is going to be put
10:41
Speaker 3: to a back burner when the Democrats come in, because
10:44
Speaker 3: they're going to go after Donald Trump. They're going to
10:46
Speaker 3: go after his administration and they're going to try to
10:49
Speaker 3: stop everything he does. Donald Trump becomes a lame duck,
10:52
Speaker 3: but there's still business to do. And that business includes
10:56
Speaker 3: passing 12 appropriations for the 2027 budget, which was supposed
11:00
Speaker 3: to have been done by September 30th, where the government
11:03
Speaker 3: would shut down. And as always, the Congress, They did
11:06
Speaker 3: a continuing resolution, stopgap funding, to keep the government open
11:11
Speaker 3: until December 11th. And I brought this up back then,
11:15
Speaker 3: that this was a mistake, that the Republicans are leaving
11:18
Speaker 3: the leverage that they have on the table here for
11:20
Speaker 3: the Democrats, because what if they lose the midterm election
11:24
Speaker 3: on November 3rd? What would happen then with this stopgap
11:29
Speaker 3: funding that goes to December 11th? If the Republicans do
11:33
Speaker 3: not pass all 12 appropriations between November 3rd and December 11th,
11:39
Speaker 3: then all of the power will be to the Democrats
11:41
Speaker 3: because they're not going to go ahead and pass this
11:44
Speaker 3: continuing resolution. It takes 60 Senates to be able to
11:48
Speaker 3: do another continuing resolution. They're not going to do that.
11:52
Speaker 3: They're going to let three weeks pass. pass by with
11:55
Speaker 3: the government shut down, and then they will have control
11:57
Speaker 3: and power to do things with the appropriations for the
12:00
Speaker 3: 2027 budget, unfortunately. So far right now in the House
12:05
Speaker 3: of Representatives, they have passed three of those 12. The
12:09
Speaker 3: other nine have gone through committee. They are ready to
12:12
Speaker 3: go to the floor and vote, but guess what? The
12:15
Speaker 3: House of Representatives has been on vacation for five or
12:18
Speaker 3: six weeks as they try to, you know, keep power
12:21
Speaker 3: in the House. So they adjourned and they went out
12:24
Speaker 3: into their communities trying to get votes. As a result
12:28
Speaker 3: of that, they're up against it when they come back
12:30
Speaker 3: to work after this election. They have a short period
12:33
Speaker 3: of time, a very short runway to pass elections. those
12:37
Speaker 3: nine appropriations. And then they go to the Senate, the
12:39
Speaker 3: Senate would have to pass them, and then they go
12:42
Speaker 3: to the president's desk. When it goes to the Senate now,
12:45
Speaker 3: the Senate, they can pass these appropriations with a simple
12:50
Speaker 3: majority of 51, which the Republicans would have, depending on
12:53
Speaker 3: what happens in the election. That doesn't happen until January.
12:56
Speaker 3: So they have the time to do that. The problem is,
12:59
Speaker 3: to end the debate in the Senate, it takes cloture,
13:01
Speaker 3: which is 60 votes, which means the Democrats have some power.
13:05
Speaker 3: They could just wait it out. We can just wait
13:09
Speaker 3: this whole thing out, shut down the government, and they
13:11
Speaker 3: have the power. And then the spending will go right
13:14
Speaker 3: back to where it was, unfortunately. It's something to consider
13:18
Speaker 3: and something to watch as time moves forward on the
13:21
Speaker 3: clock and Christmas comes and then New Year's. It's all
13:25
Speaker 3: coming our way. Before that, we have this election on Tuesday.
13:29
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the Senate for a In the Senate,
13:34
Speaker 3: you have 53 Republicans right now, and let's call it
13:39
Speaker 3: 47 Democrats, even though there's 45. Two of them are independents.
13:43
Speaker 3: One of those, Bernie Sanders. The other, Angus King from Maine.
13:47
Speaker 3: And speaking of Maine, it looks like Susan Collins is
13:49
Speaker 3: probably going to win again. And I have always said that,
13:52
Speaker 3: regardless of what the polls show, she usually wins in Maine,
13:55
Speaker 3: regardless of that. Let's look at the Senate races that
13:59
Speaker 3: are still up for grabs, I believe. I think you
14:02
Speaker 3: have to look at Alaska, Dan Sullivan, Mary Peltola. I
14:05
Speaker 3: think you look at Texas, Talrico and Ken Paxton, Ohio,
14:10
Speaker 3: Husted and Sherrod Brown. Those are three big seeds that
14:15
Speaker 3: would all be flips. Another one is Iowa. You have
14:19
Speaker 3: Henson out there who recently denounced Vivek Ramaswamy's commercial about
14:25
Speaker 3: Acton's mother. So you have Henson in Iowa with Turek.
14:30
Speaker 3: And again, I believe Henson can probably pull that out.
14:34
Speaker 3: Those four races, Iowa, Alaska, Texas, and Ohio, are where
14:40
Speaker 3: the balance of the power will be in the Senate.
14:43
Speaker 3: 53 Republicans now. You're going to lose North Carolina with
14:46
Speaker 3: Roy Cooper. He will win that race. So now you're
14:50
Speaker 3: down to 52. You don't have much wiggle room there.
14:54
Speaker 3: You count those four as losses. then suddenly the Republicans
14:58
Speaker 3: have 48 and Chuck Schumer is your new majority leader
15:03
Speaker 3: in the Senate. 52-48, flip it the other way. So
15:06
Speaker 3: it could still go that way. I don't see it
15:08
Speaker 3: that way. I'm going to put the over-under, the number
15:13
Speaker 3: at 51, 51 on the Senate. That's where I think
15:17
Speaker 3: this ends up for the Republicans still in power, 51-49.
15:20
Speaker 3: That's my predictions. 226-209 in the House for the Democrats,
15:27
Speaker 3: 51-49 for the Republicans in the Senate. And you're going
15:31
Speaker 3: to have split government, but you're still going to have
15:33
Speaker 3: a lot of power with the House Democrats. They take
15:37
Speaker 3: over committees because of that. They will have the gavel.
15:40
Speaker 3: They control what comes to the floor with Hakeem Jeffries.
15:44
Speaker 3: It's going to be a mess. That's what we have
15:46
Speaker 3: to look forward to. And just a little bit about
15:49
Speaker 3: my history here on predicting these races. In 2022, when
15:53
Speaker 3: everybody said it was a red wave, I didn't say that. I,
15:57
Speaker 3: in fact, put the number on the number in the
15:59
Speaker 3: House of Representatives. In 2024, I said it would be
16:01
Speaker 3: 222 to 213. It ended up being 220 to 215.
16:02
Speaker 3: Pretty close. In the Senate, I put the number on 53.
16:05
Speaker 3: It was 53. So that's my prediction. That's what I
16:15
Speaker 3: believe is going to happen next Tuesday. I'm not going
16:17
Speaker 3: to predict it anymore. I'm done with it, and I'm
16:19
Speaker 3: done pretty well talking about this midterm election. I'm ready
16:22
Speaker 3: to move on from that. Before we do, I see
16:26
Speaker 3: something happening in the Department of Justice that I believe
16:29
Speaker 3: that we should pay attention to, and that is the
16:31
Speaker 3: arrests that are taking place of illegal immigrants. In September,
16:37
Speaker 3: they used USC, 18 USC, 611. They used it more
16:43
Speaker 3: times in September than they had in 35 years. And
16:47
Speaker 3: that makes it a felony for illegal immigrants to go vote.
16:50
Speaker 3: And that's what they did. They arrested 21. On Monday
16:53
Speaker 3: this week in the state of Pennsylvania, they arrested 48
16:56
Speaker 3: for the same thing. And I think these arrests are
16:59
Speaker 3: pretty important coming into this election. You didn't pass the
17:03
Speaker 3: SAVE Act, but a deterrent for illegal immigrants going to
17:07
Speaker 3: vote would be seeing people arrested for voting. And that's
17:10
Speaker 3: what the Department of Justice is doing, so that's good news.
17:13
Speaker 3: Something else the Department of Justice did, let's talk about
17:17
Speaker 3: to James Comey real quick before the commercial. James Comey
17:20
Speaker 3: was charged again for espionage. And this goes back to 2016,
17:26
Speaker 3: leaking information to the reporter that was a friend of
17:29
Speaker 3: his at Columbia University and the New York Times. This
17:33
Speaker 3: did not go through a grand jury. This came directly
17:36
Speaker 3: from the Department of Justice. So there is a distinction there.
17:41
Speaker 3: It's a little bit of difference. But yet there was
17:44
Speaker 3: some movement there on Comey. Adding another charge, the Department
17:48
Speaker 3: of Justice did that. Michael Goldstein, Dr. Michael Goldstein. We're
17:53
Speaker 3: going to talk to him next.
17:55
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Speaker 1: More Truth in Minutes on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
19:14
Speaker 3: And welcome back to The Truth Be Told here on
19:16
Speaker 3: America Out Loud Talk Radio. Thank you for joining us
19:18
Speaker 3: tonight and every night. Guess what's happening? Everybody knows it
19:21
Speaker 3: by now. November 3rd, the election is here, and we
19:24
Speaker 3: can finally put it behind us. What's going to happen?
19:27
Speaker 3: Nobody really knows. Everybody sees the polls, but the polls
19:30
Speaker 3: are always wrong. It really doesn't matter. So between now
19:33
Speaker 3: and November 3rd, you need to go out and you
19:35
Speaker 3: have to vote. And, you know, the early voting is
19:38
Speaker 3: going to be closing around Halloween, some places up until
19:41
Speaker 3: November 1st. So take advantage of early voting where you can.
19:46
Speaker 3: And where you can't, make sure you go out November 3rd.
19:49
Speaker 3: And one of the choices you have in the state
19:51
Speaker 3: of Connecticut for Congressional District 4 is going to be Dr.
19:55
Speaker 3: Michael Goldstein. We're going to bring him into the program now.
19:58
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about some things, like the first
20:01
Speaker 3: question I might ask him. Well, I'm not even going
20:03
Speaker 3: to might ask him. I'm just going to ask him,
20:05
Speaker 3: why in the world would you ever want to run
20:07
Speaker 3: to be in Congress? So many people are frustrated with
20:11
Speaker 3: Congress now. The House of Representatives has such a low
20:14
Speaker 3: approval rating. So why go join them? You want to
20:17
Speaker 3: fix it or can it be fixed?
20:19
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I don't know whether it can
20:20
Speaker 2: be fixed. I got started in this as a doctor
20:24
Speaker 2: and medical society president because we have a broken health
20:27
Speaker 2: care system. And we used to go to lobby legislators
20:32
Speaker 2: all the time. And it was like banging my head
20:35
Speaker 2: against the wall. And I didn't think I was getting anywhere.
20:38
Speaker 2: So I figured if I can't. fix a broken healthcare
20:41
Speaker 2: system from the outside, I figured I'd start in the inside.
20:45
Speaker 2: As I started getting involved in politics, I realized healthcare
20:49
Speaker 2: was just one of so many problems that we have.
20:52
Speaker 2: And the dysfunctionality in Congress is because we have the
20:56
Speaker 2: wrong people there. We have people that are professional politicians
20:59
Speaker 2: who look at it as a career. They want to
21:01
Speaker 2: be lifers. They want to move up the food chain
21:04
Speaker 2: of their parties. And they don't actually... do what they're
21:07
Speaker 2: supposed to, which is represent the people who elect them.
21:11
Speaker 3: You're listening to Dr. Michael Goldstein. He is an attorney,
21:14
Speaker 3: a lawyer, also a doctor. So we can get into
21:18
Speaker 3: those things. But it's interesting you bring up health care
21:20
Speaker 3: because about a year and a half ago, maybe just
21:23
Speaker 3: a year ago when the government was shut down, the
21:26
Speaker 3: big argument was all about health care and both sides
21:29
Speaker 3: were getting into it. And guess what? Nobody has talked
21:32
Speaker 3: about health care this entire year during an election cycle.
21:36
Speaker 3: And it's unfortunate. Why is it? Why do they make
21:39
Speaker 3: something so political, so hot, and then they really never
21:43
Speaker 3: have the staying power to actually solve a problem that
21:46
Speaker 3: the American people have? And health care is one of them.
21:49
Speaker 3: And I always divide it into two things. There is
21:52
Speaker 3: health insurance. There is health care. They're two different things.
21:55
Speaker 3: And sometimes I think politicians have a tendency to co-mingle
21:58
Speaker 3: those things. But why didn't they continue any type of
22:03
Speaker 3: You know, politicking around health care when they made such
22:06
Speaker 3: a big deal out of it a year ago.
22:08
Speaker 2: Well, OK, well, the first point is the Democrats, you know,
22:11
Speaker 2: initially tried to pawn off the idea that Obamacare was
22:14
Speaker 2: good and Obamacare is a total disaster. So and so
22:18
Speaker 2: they don't have a good product to sell. And unfortunately,
22:24
Speaker 2: there were so many other things that people got wrapped
22:26
Speaker 2: up in, whether it's the Iran war, which seems to
22:30
Speaker 2: be the absolute biggest thing for the Democrats. All they
22:34
Speaker 2: want to talk about is the Iran war. They don't
22:37
Speaker 2: want to talk about it and how much they hate
22:39
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Besides that, they really have nothing to say
22:42
Speaker 2: because they haven't really contributed anything positive.
22:45
Speaker 3: I agree with you. There's not much else to say.
22:48
Speaker 3: Politicians do not contribute anything positive. I put a post
22:52
Speaker 3: out last week, and it's along those lines. I mean,
22:56
Speaker 3: we've been watching this for a long time. And I
22:58
Speaker 3: don't know if you know the country music singer Toby Keith.
23:01
Speaker 3: He did a song in 2009 that I posted. And
23:05
Speaker 3: everything in that song is things that we are still
23:08
Speaker 3: arguing about today. And here we are 17 or 18
23:10
Speaker 3: years later. It's still the environment. It's still the gas prices.
23:15
Speaker 3: It's wokeness, DEI. It's all these things that we continue
23:19
Speaker 3: to argue about. And nobody has a solution for it.
23:23
Speaker 3: And I think it is almost to the point where
23:25
Speaker 3: that's the purpose. That's what they're trying to do. They
23:28
Speaker 3: are part of a political machine. And you kind of
23:31
Speaker 3: mentioned it earlier where they have made a profession out
23:34
Speaker 3: of being a politician. And whose turn is it this time?
23:37
Speaker 3: Is it the Republicans or the Democrats? They just take turns.
23:40
Speaker 3: They solve nothing. They fight about the same things. And
23:42
Speaker 3: here we are as the American people still complaining. And
23:47
Speaker 3: it doesn't help, does it?
23:49
Speaker 2: No, actually complaining does not help. Actually throwing them out
23:53
Speaker 2: and electing the better people is what helps. I mean,
23:58
Speaker 2: the sad reality is they don't solve the problems. And
24:03
Speaker 2: then you have this polarization. We have all these people,
24:06
Speaker 2: like the guy I'm running against, 95% of the time
24:08
Speaker 2: he votes with the Democrats. I mean, the Democrats, whatever
24:11
Speaker 2: legislation they want, they just, these people like, just like
24:14
Speaker 2: robots just come. I mean, they really probably don't even
24:17
Speaker 2: need Congress. They just need like two guys, one from
24:20
Speaker 2: each party. And I got so many votes. You've got
24:22
Speaker 2: so many votes. And I just push a button and
24:25
Speaker 2: that's it. I mean, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's
24:27
Speaker 2: not the way it should be. I mean, you know,
24:31
Speaker 2: it's impossible for 95% of the time. for a political
24:36
Speaker 2: party to really be doing everything right, or more importantly,
24:41
Speaker 2: to be acting in the best interest of the district
24:44
Speaker 2: that the person is supposed to represent.
24:46
Speaker 3: You know, you look at the state of Connecticut, and
24:49
Speaker 3: that's where you are, and you're running Congressional District 4.
24:52
Speaker 3: You're on the ballot November 3rd and right now for
24:55
Speaker 3: early voting. So please consider Dr. Goldstein for your congressional district,
25:01
Speaker 3: for if you're in Connecticut, if you know people there,
25:03
Speaker 3: call them, tell them to vote for him. He is
25:05
Speaker 3: a conservative. He is somebody that will actually do the
25:08
Speaker 3: job that we want our representatives to do, so please
25:12
Speaker 3: consider him. But Connecticut is a rich political state, and
25:17
Speaker 3: it's very much Democrat now. It's very liberal, but it
25:21
Speaker 3: hasn't always been that way. And one of the favorite
25:23
Speaker 3: stories of mine is in American history, happens to be
25:26
Speaker 3: the Connecticut Compromise or the Great Compromise. And in that compromise,
25:31
Speaker 3: the representatives from Connecticut, they are the ones that said, well,
25:35
Speaker 3: let's have both the Senate and the Congress. And even
25:39
Speaker 3: in that debate, which was, you know, very contentious, It
25:42
Speaker 3: was a five to four vote that the states went
25:46
Speaker 3: along with it because there were some states that only
25:49
Speaker 3: wanted a Senate with that type of representation. And there
25:52
Speaker 3: were some states that only wanted like the House of Representatives.
25:54
Speaker 3: It was going to be one or the other. And
25:56
Speaker 3: it was the Connecticut Compromise that said, OK, let's do both.
26:00
Speaker 3: And they agreed to do that. Massachusetts was an even split,
26:03
Speaker 3: didn't even count in that five four number. So you
26:06
Speaker 3: have a rich history there. It hasn't always been as
26:09
Speaker 3: it is, which is a Democrat and a liberal cesspool,
26:13
Speaker 3: but that's where you are now. How do you even
26:15
Speaker 3: try to win in that place that you call home?
26:20
Speaker 2: Some people say that it's a crazy idea to even try.
26:24
Speaker 2: But the point is, if you don't even try, then
26:28
Speaker 2: you can't complain. You can't say, well, gee, this is terrible.
26:31
Speaker 2: This system is awful. There's nothing I can do about it.
26:34
Speaker 2: And my answer is, try to do something, it's better
26:39
Speaker 2: than complaining, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work.
26:42
Speaker 2: And I mean, this bad government is the reason why
26:46
Speaker 2: Connecticut has all kinds of problems. Connecticut is actually a
26:50
Speaker 2: beautiful state. What's interesting is we actually have one of
26:54
Speaker 2: the healthiest populations in the country. We also have one
26:57
Speaker 2: of the best educated populations in the country. And yet
27:01
Speaker 2: we have an economy that's stagnating all because we have
27:04
Speaker 2: bad government and we have bad government because it's controlled
27:08
Speaker 2: by the Democrats. And, you know, it's like you've got
27:12
Speaker 2: Imagine a baseball team. You have great players and the
27:15
Speaker 2: worst coaches possible, and that's why you're losing, and you
27:19
Speaker 2: don't get rid of the coaches. And this is what
27:22
Speaker 2: needs to be done. And this is— the people in the
27:24
Speaker 2: state need to wake up and realize the problem is— are
27:28
Speaker 2: the people they're voting for. And that is— that' s the reality.
27:34
Speaker 2: The reality is for people to wake up and understand
27:39
Speaker 2: that there's a cause and effect to the problems that—
27:42
Speaker 2: Connecticut faces. Because Connecticut's economy is lousy, there's affordability issues. There's,
27:49
Speaker 2: you know, there's too many people on, you know, on
27:51
Speaker 2: public assistance. There's taxes are too high. I mean, and
27:56
Speaker 2: it's all, it points to the same place.
28:01
Speaker 3: What are the solutions when you, let's take one, let's
28:04
Speaker 3: take healthcare. As you mentioned, there's health insurance, there's healthcare,
28:07
Speaker 3: there's two different things. I would argue that we have
28:10
Speaker 3: universal healthcare in this country already. Nobody is really denied
28:14
Speaker 3: service if you go to the emergency room, and most
28:16
Speaker 3: people know that. And, you know, the emergency room is
28:19
Speaker 3: always paid. Somebody's paying for it. It's either Medicare, it's Medicaid,
28:23
Speaker 3: it's people with cash, or it's insurance. But the hospital
28:27
Speaker 3: is made whole in most cases on every one of
28:29
Speaker 3: those because it's a federal law that they have to
28:31
Speaker 3: take care of those that come through the emergency room.
28:33
Speaker 3: So what are the solutions when it comes to health care?
28:37
Speaker 3: What do you see as a physician?
28:39
Speaker 2: Well, the first part of it is where does the
28:41
Speaker 2: problem begin? And what people don't understand is the problem
28:46
Speaker 2: with healthcare is the government. The government has created an industry,
28:51
Speaker 2: the healthcare industry, which is so over-regulated that so much
28:56
Speaker 2: money is wasted on bureaucracy and distraction from treating patients.
29:02
Speaker 2: So the average doctor, for example, spends 20 hours a
29:05
Speaker 2: week filling out computed data entries to comply with government
29:10
Speaker 2: mandates rather than spending time treating patients. So when you
29:14
Speaker 2: go to a doctor and you see a doctor who's
29:16
Speaker 2: not paying attention to you and is entering data on
29:19
Speaker 2: a computer, you can blame the government. The second thing
29:23
Speaker 2: that the government has done has destroyed competition in healthcare.
29:28
Speaker 2: So the government has created these, using these antitrust laws
29:33
Speaker 2: from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and essentially it's
29:37
Speaker 2: put all the small practitioners out of business it's forced
29:40
Speaker 2: the hospitals to merge into bigger and bigger hospital systems
29:44
Speaker 2: it's it's allowed insurance companies to do single insurance companies
29:48
Speaker 2: to control health care markets and the patients have no
29:51
Speaker 2: power and and the doctors have no power. And the
29:55
Speaker 2: price keeps going up and up because of the bureaucracy
29:59
Speaker 2: and the loss of competition. It's the worst kind of
30:01
Speaker 2: a market that you could ever have. So the answer
30:05
Speaker 2: to your question is, the first part is, you need
30:07
Speaker 2: to start getting rid of all the regulations that don't
30:11
Speaker 2: make any sense. There's no cost-benefit analysis on regulations, and
30:15
Speaker 2: you have to cut the bureaucracy out of healthcare. The
30:18
Speaker 2: second part of it is, you've got to bring back
30:21
Speaker 2: competition to healthcare by essentially allowing other doctors to band
30:28
Speaker 2: together and form private practices. You need to empower the patients.
30:34
Speaker 2: Because right now, the way the system works is an
30:36
Speaker 2: insurance company has a huge amount of power. So Everybody
30:40
Speaker 2: has health insurance. Insurance companies decide who you see and
30:45
Speaker 2: how often you see them, and they make all kinds
30:47
Speaker 2: of decisions based on economics because the insurance company is
30:51
Speaker 2: in the business of collecting the largest premiums possible and
30:55
Speaker 2: paying the least amount of money possible so that the
30:58
Speaker 2: shareholders and the executives maximize the profits. So the first
31:02
Speaker 2: step you need to do is to empower the patients.
31:05
Speaker 2: You need to give power back to the patients. How
31:07
Speaker 2: do you do that?
31:08
Speaker 1: What does it look like?
31:09
Speaker 2: The simplest is an example is what's called community, it
31:13
Speaker 2: used to have what was called organizational health care plans,
31:16
Speaker 2: which was eliminated under Obamacare. Obamacare messed up health care
31:21
Speaker 2: more than any other thing that you can think of.
31:28
Speaker 2: It doubled the price of everything. Health care doubled under Obamacare.
31:34
Speaker 2: And the other thing that happened was.
31:38
Speaker 3: And I'll jump in here. Dr. Goldstein has been suffering
31:42
Speaker 3: probably more than a cold for a few days, maybe
31:44
Speaker 3: even possibly COVID. He's getting through this, doing a great
31:48
Speaker 3: job too, by the way, but I'll jump in there
31:50
Speaker 3: when you're coughing so that everybody.
31:52
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't want to bother you. They don't have
31:54
Speaker 2: to listen to me coughing. It's not exciting. So anyway,
31:57
Speaker 2: so it essentially has totally messed the system up. But anyway,
32:02
Speaker 2: but so... So an organizational health care, which was eliminated
32:06
Speaker 2: under Obamacare, means that you can get you can belong
32:08
Speaker 2: to a religious organization, a business organization, a fraternal organization.
32:13
Speaker 2: And let's say you suddenly put together 100,000 people in
32:16
Speaker 2: an organization and then they start going to insurance companies
32:19
Speaker 2: and they negotiate for a health care plan as opposed
32:23
Speaker 2: to individuals or the government negotiating for health care plan,
32:26
Speaker 2: which is the last thing you want as well. And
32:29
Speaker 2: now all of a sudden you can pay 10 or
32:32
Speaker 2: 20% less than you're paying before. But more importantly, your
32:36
Speaker 2: organization suddenly has power. And so if the insurance companies
32:41
Speaker 2: are hassling you and denying claims and stuff like that,
32:44
Speaker 2: the organization will say, hey, listen, if you're going to
32:46
Speaker 2: keep doing this to our members, we're just going to
32:48
Speaker 2: go to another company. So all of a sudden you
32:51
Speaker 2: start bringing power back to the patients, which who you
32:55
Speaker 2: need to empower. And it's even possible for the patients
32:59
Speaker 2: or through these organizations to form what's called, uh, mutual
33:02
Speaker 2: health insurance companies or where they actually own the insurance company.
33:06
Speaker 2: And that even gives them more power. So part of
33:08
Speaker 2: it is to empower patients. You also need to empower
33:11
Speaker 2: the doctors who, who essentially have become dependent on the
33:15
Speaker 2: insurance companies and have no cloud because of, you know,
33:18
Speaker 2: various collective bargaining laws to change that so that they
33:21
Speaker 2: can have clouds so they can actually stand up and
33:23
Speaker 2: fight for the patients. Uh, And so by changing who's
33:29
Speaker 2: running the show and giving the patients a strong say
33:33
Speaker 2: in running the system, and once again, these organizational plans
33:37
Speaker 2: can have influence on the hospitals. They can say, gee,
33:40
Speaker 2: we don't like the way your hospital system's treating our patients.
33:44
Speaker 2: We don't really want to send them there. We'll send
33:46
Speaker 2: them someplace else if you don't change what you're doing.
33:49
Speaker 2: Or we want to use more ambulatory surgery centers because
33:52
Speaker 2: they're cheaper than hospitals. And we want you to be
33:55
Speaker 2: accessible to see our patients. And you actually have to
34:01
Speaker 2: have somebody that's going to talk to them rather than
34:03
Speaker 2: some booking center to book appointments. It's like you want
34:07
Speaker 2: to see a doctor. It's like trying to book a
34:09
Speaker 2: flight to Kuala Lumpur or someplace else. And I think
34:15
Speaker 2: that's part of the issue. And by getting rid of
34:18
Speaker 2: the bureaucracy, once again, we're going to be spending almost
34:21
Speaker 2: pretty close to $ 6 trillion on healthcare. And you can
34:24
Speaker 2: cut at least a trillion dollars out of the bureaucracy,
34:26
Speaker 2: which is certainly making things a lot less expensive. And
34:30
Speaker 2: you just got to get off the backs of all
34:33
Speaker 2: these people. You got to also eliminate things like all
34:35
Speaker 2: these certificates of need so that you can build ambulatory
34:40
Speaker 2: surgery centers, which can do certain types of surgery for
34:42
Speaker 2: less than a hospital. And also give people choices. And
34:46
Speaker 2: it's about competition. It's about choice. It's about empowering the patients.
34:52
Speaker 2: It's about cutting out bureaucracy. That's how you change the system.
34:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with most of that, if not
34:59
Speaker 3: all of it. But when you're campaigning right now and
35:03
Speaker 3: you talk to people, you press flesh of other Connecticut
35:08
Speaker 3: family members and people at the kitchen table, what are
35:10
Speaker 3: they telling you? What is their number one, two, three issue?
35:15
Speaker 3: I imagine health care is in the top five or
35:17
Speaker 3: ten somewhere, but what are they telling you right now?
35:20
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the.
35:21
Speaker 2: Biggest thing is affordability, you know, like paying the bills.
35:27
Speaker 2: So health care is a significant one. Taxes are a
35:30
Speaker 2: significant one. We have an energy crisis issue in the
35:34
Speaker 2: state of Connecticut because we are dependent. We need more
35:40
Speaker 2: American natural gas, which we can't get. And the reason
35:45
Speaker 2: for that is there's a crazy federal law which allows
35:48
Speaker 2: the governor of the state of New York to block
35:51
Speaker 2: pipelines between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, which would bring us cheap
35:56
Speaker 2: natural gas. We have to import some of our natural
35:59
Speaker 2: gas from other countries. And so we're paying at least
36:03
Speaker 2: a billion dollars more a year in Connecticut just for
36:05
Speaker 2: natural gas because of the fact that we can't get
36:10
Speaker 2: it from Pennsylvania. So That's part of it. I mean,
36:13
Speaker 2: people complain about that. People complain about the lack of
36:17
Speaker 2: economic growth in Connecticut, the fact that, you know, the
36:21
Speaker 2: job market, there's not enough new jobs being created. So
36:25
Speaker 2: kids who grow up here can't necessarily find a job here,
36:28
Speaker 2: and then they have to go move someplace else. And
36:29
Speaker 2: a lot of them would like to live in Connecticut.
36:32
Speaker 2: And Connecticut is, you know, is a hostile environment to corporations.
36:36
Speaker 2: Too much regulation, too much taxes, too And they also
36:41
Speaker 2: complain about our roads. I mean, we have Interstate 95,
36:45
Speaker 2: which is— we have the most congested part of Interstate 95
36:48
Speaker 2: in the country, you know, which goes along the coastal
36:52
Speaker 2: corridor from the New York line in Greenwich up to Bridgeport.
36:58
Speaker 2: It can take two hours to drive a 25-mile trip
37:04
Speaker 2: on this road during rush hour. I actually live in Connecticut,
37:07
Speaker 2: but I work in New York, and I can drive
37:09
Speaker 2: to Manhattan in less time than I can drive to Fairfield.
37:15
Speaker 2: And Fairfield is about two-thirds the distance or three-quarters the distance.
37:24
Speaker 2: The roads are overcrowded. Our existing congressman is doing nothing
37:29
Speaker 2: to do anything about fixing the roads, even though the
37:32
Speaker 2: federal money would come in to pay for them.
37:36
Speaker 3: Let me ask you, can you get through that message
37:39
Speaker 3: to the people? You continue to vote these same people
37:42
Speaker 3: who have done this for years. Your governor is blocking
37:46
Speaker 3: your energy cost and making it cost more, and your
37:52
Speaker 3: roads are messed up, and you keep voting for these
37:55
Speaker 3: same people. How do you get that message through to people,
37:58
Speaker 3: that you keep voting these idiots into office?
38:01
Speaker 2: Well, we do keep doing that, and all the Democrats'
38:05
Speaker 2: message is, all they do is spend their whole time
38:09
Speaker 2: bashing Donald Trump and how terrible he is, and essentially
38:14
Speaker 2: they distract the voters into this nonsense, And they, you know,
38:20
Speaker 2: and so many of these people are just programmed to
38:22
Speaker 2: vote for Democrats. I mean, the Democratic Party of John
38:25
Speaker 2: Kennedy is gone and it's kind of been replaced with
38:28
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party of Zoran Mandami and Abdul Saeed and
38:36
Speaker 2: all this nonsense, you know. I mean, it's gone and
38:38
Speaker 2: yet these people are still voting.
38:39
Speaker 1: They haven't gotten the message.
38:48
Speaker 2: That the people, the party they voted for left them
38:52
Speaker 2: in the dust and there's like a new group running
38:55
Speaker 2: this party and they're socialists and they're only going to
38:58
Speaker 2: make things worse. And some of these people are almost
39:03
Speaker 2: brainwashed into believing that socialism is a good idea. And
39:07
Speaker 2: in my wildest dreams, I can't think of how anybody
39:12
Speaker 2: in their right mind would want socialism.
39:14
Speaker 3: I mean, it's amazing. Really, I'm 60 years old, and
39:19
Speaker 3: I would have never thought that this time would have
39:22
Speaker 3: come to America. But here we are. We're right here
39:26
Speaker 3: at a big election that's coming up November 3rd. And
39:30
Speaker 3: this election, it isn't really about health care. It's not
39:33
Speaker 3: about affordability. It's not about the things that we've talked about.
39:37
Speaker 3: I know those things are important to you as a person.
39:40
Speaker 3: But bigger picture, this election is about the direction that
39:45
Speaker 3: this country will go forward with. for our children and
39:48
Speaker 3: for our grandchildren, we can't afford to sit on the
39:51
Speaker 3: couch and not vote. We have to go out and
39:54
Speaker 3: vote and we have to vote for people like Dr.
39:56
Speaker 3: Michael Goldstein. We've been sharing some time here together. Doctor,
40:00
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you the last word here as
40:01
Speaker 3: we go into a commercial break. Um, anything else you
40:04
Speaker 3: want to cover here before we, we finish this, this
40:06
Speaker 3: time together?
40:07
Speaker 2: Um, well, I just want people to know my website
40:10
Speaker 2: is www.goldsteinforcongress.com. So please reach out and, uh, help the campaign.
40:20
Speaker 2: And the future of this country is in jeopardy. And
40:23
Speaker 2: if the Democrats take control of the Congress, this could
40:27
Speaker 2: be the beginning of the end of our democracy. That's
40:31
Speaker 2: how serious it is. That's how dangerous their ideas are.
40:36
Speaker 2: And people need to wake up. Do not stay home.
40:40
Speaker 2: Go out and vote. Normally, only 60 percent of you
40:43
Speaker 2: are going to vote in an election. Let's make it
40:45
Speaker 2: 100 percent. Vote. Your future is at stake.
40:49
Speaker 3: Someone asked me the other day, how do you even
40:52
Speaker 3: get a sense of what's going to happen next? It's hard.
40:55
Speaker 3: I don't know that we can, the way the news
40:57
Speaker 3: moves so fast. But you know what I told them?
41:00
Speaker 3: I said, I've been checking out PolyMarket a little bit.
41:04
Speaker 3: It's extremely insightful. You're basically watching how thousands of people
41:08
Speaker 3: are betting on outcomes. Political elections, big policy moves, even
41:14
Speaker 3: events you wouldn't expect. It's kind of like a live
41:17
Speaker 3: pulse on what the public actually believes. And you can
41:21
Speaker 3: see trends before they even happen and before they even
41:25
Speaker 3: make the mainstream news. For me, it's not about gambling.
41:30
Speaker 3: It's about understanding the probabilities and where the momentum is shifting.
41:35
Speaker 3: If you like or love the news like I do,
41:38
Speaker 3: maybe you're a news junkie, but you want to take
41:40
Speaker 3: a little deeper look at what people really think, go
41:43
Speaker 3: to Polymarket. It's a fascinating tool. Polymarket.com. You know, as
42:00
Speaker 3: we look around this country, there are a lot of
42:03
Speaker 3: scary things going on. And if I said we're living
42:06
Speaker 3: in a negative world, what would come to your mind?
42:10
Speaker 3: Probably a lot of things, and probably none of them
42:14
Speaker 3: are what we're about to get into. I'm going to
42:16
Speaker 3: bring into the conversation now the guy who wrote the book,
42:19
Speaker 3: Living in the Negative World. His name is Aaron Wren. Aaron,
42:23
Speaker 3: welcome to the conversation.
42:24
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
42:26
Speaker 3: I think one thing that you wrote in this book,
42:29
Speaker 3: we've entered a new and unprecedented era in America. And
42:33
Speaker 3: it's one you call the negative world. And if you
42:36
Speaker 3: would just dumb it down for everybody, what is this
42:40
Speaker 3: negative world?
42:41
Speaker 5: I'd be happy to do that. So the negative world
42:45
Speaker 5: specifically refers to the way that sort of society views Christianity.
42:52
Speaker 5: In my book, Life in the Negative World, I lay
42:54
Speaker 5: out a model looking at the last 60 to 70
42:58
Speaker 5: years of American history. Where we started out in the 1950s,
43:02
Speaker 5: where although we didn't have a state church, we did
43:05
Speaker 5: have a sort of softly institutionalized, generic Protestant Christianity as
43:10
Speaker 5: our de facto national religion. Half of all the people
43:13
Speaker 5: went to church. We were adding in God we trust
43:15
Speaker 5: to our money. We were adding under God to the
43:18
Speaker 5: Pledge of Allegiance. We had prayer in schools. We had
43:20
Speaker 5: Bible reading in schools. Then in the 60s, I date
43:23
Speaker 5: it to 1964. You can quibble with the dates, but
43:28
Speaker 5: roughly in that era, Christianity began to go into decline
43:31
Speaker 5: in America in terms of attendance, adherence, and people beginning
43:36
Speaker 5: to question Christian sort of moral norms and moral frameworks.
43:39
Speaker 5: And I divide this period of decline from 1964 to
43:43
Speaker 5: the present into three eras or worlds that I call the.
43:46
Speaker 2: Positive, neutral, and negative world.
43:48
Speaker 5: The positive world is 64 to 94. That is a
43:51
Speaker 5: period of decline for Christianity. I want to be clear
43:54
Speaker 5: about that. At the same time, society, especially at the
43:58
Speaker 5: elite kind of official level, still basically views Christianity positively.
44:03
Speaker 5: To be known as a good church-going man makes you
44:05
Speaker 5: seem like an upstanding member of society, and Christian moral
44:08
Speaker 5: norms are still the basic moral norms of society. In 1994,
44:12
Speaker 5: we hit a tipping point in what I call the
44:14
Speaker 5: neutral world, which lasted from 1994 to 2014, where Christianity
44:19
Speaker 5: is no longer seen positively, but it's not really viewed
44:21
Speaker 5: negatively yet either. It's essentially one more lifestyle choice among
44:26
Speaker 5: many in a pluralistic public square. And Christian moral norms
44:30
Speaker 5: sort of had a residual effect of that era. And
44:33
Speaker 5: then in 2014, we had a second tipping point. where
44:37
Speaker 5: for the first time in really the 400-year history of,
44:41
Speaker 5: you know, settlement in America, official elite culture now views
44:46
Speaker 5: Christianity negatively. We're in this negative world, right? So to
44:51
Speaker 5: be known as a Bible-believing Christian does not help you
44:54
Speaker 5: get a job at Goldman Sachs or Google. Quite the opposite,
44:57
Speaker 5: in fact. Christian moral norms are now expressly repudiated, And
45:02
Speaker 5: in fact, in some respects, certain segments of Christianity are
45:05
Speaker 5: now viewed as the leading threat to the new moral order.
45:09
Speaker 5: You see a lot of the hand-wringing about Christian nationalism
45:13
Speaker 5: being very much in this vein. And so this entry
45:18
Speaker 5: into a place where sort of Christianity, certainly with the
45:23
Speaker 5: evangelical world that I am most familiar with, sort of
45:26
Speaker 5: viewed itself as the moral majority and now has to
45:29
Speaker 5: face the fact that it's kind of on the outskirts.
45:30
Speaker 5: And this has been very dislocating.
45:32
Speaker 3: Well, you go back to 1964. Are you able to
45:35
Speaker 3: put your finger on anything that happened that changed the
45:39
Speaker 3: narrative to change that period from 1964 to 1994? What
45:45
Speaker 3: was it that happened in our country? Was there anything
45:47
Speaker 3: that you've been able to define?
45:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't subscribe to the where did it all
45:52
Speaker 5: go wrong theory. I don't try to necessarily— go back. And,
45:57
Speaker 5: you know, some people go back a long way. Some
45:59
Speaker 5: people say it was William of Ockham and nominalisms where
46:03
Speaker 5: it all went wrong. Charles Taylor, this Canadian philosopher, wrote
46:08
Speaker 5: a book called A Secular Age that told essentially a
46:11
Speaker 5: 500-year story of secularization. I mean, I would say, look,
46:15
Speaker 5: the trends were moving sort of away from Christianity in
46:19
Speaker 5: the West for a long time. I mean, even going
46:22
Speaker 5: back to the, you know, the you know, the founding fathers,
46:25
Speaker 5: a lot of those guys were not necessarily in private,
46:28
Speaker 5: you know, the most enthusiastic about Christianity. But the key is,
46:32
Speaker 5: you know, the elite never really was as interested in
46:35
Speaker 5: Christianity in many respects, but they felt the need to
46:38
Speaker 5: honor it publicly. And they said, well, we need to
46:40
Speaker 5: have this religion in the country to really have a
46:44
Speaker 5: coherent country. What happened precisely in the 60s? A lot
46:49
Speaker 5: of things happened. Obviously, we had the upheavals You know,
46:53
Speaker 5: of the late 1960s, the sexual revolutions there, the generation
46:57
Speaker 5: gap with that, the Vietnam War. We saw the sort
47:01
Speaker 5: of collapse of the old what they called WASP establishment,
47:04
Speaker 5: the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment that had sort of controlled
47:10
Speaker 5: the country in one form or another from a very
47:13
Speaker 5: long time. I mean, there's this guy who was president
47:17
Speaker 5: of Yale University during the Vietnam War, for example, was
47:20
Speaker 5: a guy named Kingman Brewster. And he was the 11th
47:23
Speaker 5: generation descendant of Elder William Brewster on the Mayflower. And
47:29
Speaker 5: so there were still, like, into the 1950s, maybe even
47:32
Speaker 5: the 1960s, members of the Adams family that played prominent roles.
47:37
Speaker 5: I think it was Charles Francis Adams IV that was
47:39
Speaker 5: the CEO of Raytheon, for example, for a very long time.
47:43
Speaker 5: And so, you know, that all collapsed, and You know,
47:49
Speaker 5: there's just a lot of things that started happening in
47:51
Speaker 5: the culture in the 1960s. And then I think the
47:54
Speaker 5: next major event that comes along that is really important
47:58
Speaker 5: is the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. You know,
48:01
Speaker 5: the reason we're adding under God and stuff to the pledge,
48:04
Speaker 5: in God we trust the money, it was part of
48:07
Speaker 5: the Cold War. It was part of our competition against
48:11
Speaker 5: this atheist communistic system. You know, Christianity was sort of
48:14
Speaker 5: bound up with the West War on Communism. Once communism
48:19
Speaker 5: went away, we thought, okay, Western culture is going to
48:24
Speaker 5: be triumphant in carrying forward, and people might have assumed
48:27
Speaker 5: Christianity would be part of that. But what it actually
48:30
Speaker 5: gave was essentially a little bit of a green light
48:33
Speaker 5: to start rewriting the relationship between Christianity and culture and
48:38
Speaker 5: sort of de-centering and pushing out Christianity a little bit.
48:42
Speaker 5: I actually debated whether I should– put the beginning of
48:45
Speaker 5: the neutral world in 1989 because of the Berlin Wall. So,
48:49
Speaker 5: you know, you can make some debates about some of
48:52
Speaker 5: these things. But there's certainly been a lot of, you know,
48:56
Speaker 5: a lot of shifts in the culture over that time
48:58
Speaker 5: that really did transform, you know, society that way. And again,
49:02
Speaker 5: it's not that the 1950s was some great high watermark
49:06
Speaker 5: of American morality.
49:07
Speaker 6: Right.
49:08
Speaker 5: Probably it wasn't.
49:10
Speaker 3: No, right after World War II, the guys coming back.
49:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was a lot of hypocrisy. People didn't necessarily believe,
49:17
Speaker 5: but there was still this idea that we had a
49:20
Speaker 5: sort of public religion in the United States, which was
49:22
Speaker 5: sort of a generic, again, kind of a generic Protestantism,
49:25
Speaker 5: generic Christianity. And now the people who are running the country,
49:30
Speaker 5: kind of the elites, have decided they don't need that anymore.
49:34
Speaker 5: We can dispense with that and You know, to the
49:37
Speaker 5: extent that we have a sort of moral order, that
49:41
Speaker 5: moral order is based on ideologies. And the problem with
49:46
Speaker 5: these ideologies is they change all the time. You know,
49:49
Speaker 5: thou shalt not steal is kind of a, you know,
49:53
Speaker 5: a timeless principle, if you will. There really was sort
49:56
Speaker 5: of a moral system that had prevailed for a long time.
49:59
Speaker 5: Of course, there's like emphases and changes here and there,
50:02
Speaker 5: but there is sort of an idea that like, okay, great,
50:04
Speaker 5: you can anchor back to the Ten Commandments or something. Well,
50:07
Speaker 5: now it's like whatever the flavor of the month is,
50:10
Speaker 5: everybody's got to like all of a sudden tack it
50:12
Speaker 5: into a new direction.
50:13
Speaker 3: You see that in cities in this country right now
50:16
Speaker 3: where they're not prosecuting and holding people accountable for going
50:19
Speaker 3: in and shoplifting. And now we see these shops moving out.
50:23
Speaker 3: So you can steal in America now.
50:26
Speaker 5: It's like you can walk into a CVS with a
50:30
Speaker 5: couple of huge trash bags, load them up and walk
50:32
Speaker 5: right out with impunity. But then again, there are people,
50:36
Speaker 5: for example, that said all lives matter on a company
50:38
Speaker 5: conference call and got fired. So you're more likely to
50:45
Speaker 5: get fired for an ideological transgression in some respects than
50:48
Speaker 5: you are for actually being immoral in some ways as
50:54
Speaker 5: we would have normally understood it.
50:56
Speaker 3: You're listening to Aaron Wren, and Aaron writes on Substack, AaronWren.com also.
51:01
Speaker 3: By the way, that last name is spelled R-E-N. So AaronWren.com. Aaron,
51:08
Speaker 3: you wrote something in your book. The negative world poses
51:11
Speaker 3: a profound challenge to American evangelicals and their churches. And
51:17
Speaker 3: it also helps to explain why there's been so much
51:22
Speaker 3: turmoil and conflict within the evangelical world. Can you talk
51:27
Speaker 3: about that?
51:28
Speaker 5: Sure. Well, again, you know, evangelicals are used to thinking
51:32
Speaker 5: of themselves as the cultural mainstream, as the moral majority.
51:37
Speaker 5: And so having to make this shift from being a
51:40
Speaker 5: moral majority to a moral minority is quite dislocating. And because,
51:46
Speaker 5: you know, sort of Protestants and Christians were the majority
51:49
Speaker 5: for so long, they essentially, you know, relied on sort
51:54
Speaker 5: of the the mainstream institutions of society to sort of
51:57
Speaker 5: reinforce their values. And those are the institutions they look to. Whereas,
52:02
Speaker 5: you know, minority groups, although they participate in and look
52:07
Speaker 5: to mainstream institutions, always had like their own unique institutions
52:12
Speaker 5: for their community to sustain community identity in life. And
52:16
Speaker 5: so the example I use is early 20th century Catholicism.
52:20
Speaker 5: where there was still a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment at
52:22
Speaker 5: that time, so they had to create their own Catholic schools.
52:25
Speaker 5: They had to create their own Catholic charitable groups. They
52:28
Speaker 5: had to create their own fraternal societies. They had to
52:30
Speaker 5: create their own Catholic universities. They had all these practices
52:34
Speaker 5: like abstaining from meat on Fridays or praying rosaries that
52:39
Speaker 5: really helped identify and sustain their community life in a
52:43
Speaker 5: Protestant nation. And so evangelicals struggle in part because they
52:49
Speaker 5: never had these to nearly the same extent. So that's
52:54
Speaker 5: part of the problem right there. It's a big psychological
52:56
Speaker 5: adjustment and then the lack of these institutions. And then
53:00
Speaker 5: the vast bulk of evangelical churches and institutions and ministries
53:05
Speaker 5: were built for cultural realities that no longer exist. And
53:10
Speaker 5: so they need to change. It's just like how technology
53:13
Speaker 5: comes along and revolutionizes everything. First, there's the smartphone, right?
53:17
Speaker 5: So if you don't have that, you know, if you
53:20
Speaker 5: can't adapt to the smartphone revolution, maybe you're an old
53:23
Speaker 5: landline telephone company, you're in trouble, right? Now AI, who
53:27
Speaker 5: knows what that's going to do? So, you know, if
53:29
Speaker 5: you have like a business or, you know, a church
53:31
Speaker 5: or anything built for an old reality, new realities, you know,
53:35
Speaker 5: force the need for change. And so I think that
53:38
Speaker 5: has really put a lot of pressure on the evangelical
53:42
Speaker 5: church and the various different groups that make it up.
53:45
Speaker 5: and I go through some of them in the book,
53:48
Speaker 5: talk about them a little bit, have sort of deformed,
53:51
Speaker 5: and they're now starting to essentially fight with each other
53:54
Speaker 5: maybe a little bit. And so I think it's just
53:58
Speaker 5: an uncertain time.
54:00
Speaker 1: There is only one truth. You've been listening to The
54:04
Speaker 1: Truth Be Told with Booker Scott on America Out Loud.