Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / Former Democratic operative explains why she turned independent

Transcript

Former Democratic operative explains why she turned independent · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In a new book titled Nothing Left, Confessions of a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Democratic Operative, Evan Barker speaks out against the direction some
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: in her party have taken. Here's part of our conversation.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So the book has a then and then quality, then
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the first, then progressive Democratic fundraiser, then twenty twenty four
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Trump voter. I'm curious about the now, Evan, how do
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: you look at politics now?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: You know, at this point, I would identify my political
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: affiliation as just being an independent. There are some issues
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: that I probably still lean a little bit to the
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: left on, such as healthcare, but when it comes to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: immigration and a lot of social issues, I'm definitely more
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: to the right now. And I think that I actually
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: represent what many Americans feel in this country.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And in the book, you write about how motherhood affected
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: you a looking at some issues in a different way.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Walk my audience through that.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I saw inside the progressive movement a lot
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: of demonization towards men especially. It was very It was
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: almost like a daily occurrence at some point in time
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: to just hear like a bashing of men. And I
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: had my son, and I realized, like, I have this little, precious,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: innocent boy, and everyone loves him now, but what happens
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: when he grows up? And then there was also the
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: fact that I started paying attention more to the messages
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: that were in children's books and in children's faces, particularly
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: around gender identity, and my eyes really open to that
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: issue as well, and I think it made me a
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: little bit more conservative.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And what did you see happening in that messaging? And
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: if you have any recollection of something specific, I'd like
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you to share that. Well.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I remember going to a children's museum in the San
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Francisco Bay Area. So I grew up in Missouri and
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I moved to the Bay area a few years ago,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: and I went to a children's museum there and they
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: were doing like gay pride at the children's museum, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: there was a drag queen performer and just books that
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: were marketed to tiny kids like two and three years old,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: that were explaining different pronouns to them, and it just
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: it felt incredibly confusing, and it felt like it was
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: done intentionally, and I felt like, you know, it's wrong,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Like it's very confusing to children. So that was part
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of my evolution for sure.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And as I read the book, that experience viewed to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the eyes of a mother with a new born baby
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: boy linked with what you heard on zoom calls, what
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: you heard in conversations, the sort of dialogue that was
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: not only frequent but hardening within the progressive movement.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: If I have it right, it was constant. It was
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: like a daily bashing. You know, even men had to
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: participate in it, even though oftentimes they would confide to
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: me privately that they didn't really like the rhetoric, but
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: they would be forced to sort of perform and virtue
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: signal all these calls as a self protection mechanism to
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: be able to keep their jobs. And you know, I
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: would hear like females say, men should be bullied in
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: school more because it will lower their confidence and it'll
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: make them grow up and they'll be less confident and
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: they won't be so hard towards women and all like
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: just very ugly stuff. And it really, really my perspective
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: shifted so much when I became a mom.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: So when you think about progressivism in America right now
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and the conflicts are going on within the Democratic Party
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: between democratic socialis of America, how do you see it
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and what do you foresee coming of that? Based on
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: your experience as a fundraiser and someone deeply connected into
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: this world.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: It's not surprising to me at all that the DSA
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: wing of the party is rising so rapidly right now.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been working I started working in the
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: movement back in twenty eighteen, and back then people were
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: pretty disorganized. They weren't very professionalized, they didn't know how
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: to work with outside money. And now all of that
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: has changed. They have a decade of experience, they've recruited
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: their own donors. They're very professional. They're almost just as
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: professional as the establishment, to be honest. In many ways,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: I think are becoming the new establishment of the Democratic Party.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: But I think it's a disastrous path for Democrats. I
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: don't see them being able to compete in national elections
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: and being able to win over people like my family
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: in the Midwest if they're championing policies like abolishing ice
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: and deep on the police. And I just saw yesterday
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: that James Talerico is now running on reparations in Texas,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: which is another eighty twenty issue. And I think that
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: they're going down a bad path, and it's like they
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: did not learn the lessons from twenty twenty four.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: You can Listen to my full conversation with Evan Barker
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: on your favorite podcast platform.