Latest / Breaking The Meta / ICE Took His Neighbors. Now He's Running for Congress. | Justin Douglas PA-10

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ICE Took His Neighbors. Now He's Running for Congress. | Justin Douglas PA-10 · Breaking The Meta

• Breaking The Meta: I decided to run for Congress because ICE took my neighbors. And ⁓ ultimately in May of last year as a county commissioner, I was dealing with five individuals from our community who were taken from the Bhutanese Nepali community who had come through ethnic cleansing, been in refugee camps for two decades. Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Quinson. Today we are sitting down with Justin Douglas, who's running for the 10th District of Pennsylvania for the United States Congress. Hello, Justin, how are you doing? Hello, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on Breaking the Meta. This is a great opportunity. Absolutely. Glad to have you. ⁓ For people that don't know anything about Pennsylvania, could you just let us know to start what area of Pennsylvania is encompassed in the 10th District? Yeah. So the 10th district, ⁓ is all of dolphin County, most of Cumberland County and parts of York County. Now that doesn't mean anything to anybody not from here. So dolphin County has the Harrisburg city, which is the capital of Pennsylvania. ⁓ dolphin County also has Hershey, Pennsylvania. So if you're at a Hershey's chocolate bar or Reese cup, I've been there before. So you've maybe been here to the amusement park. ⁓ Cumberland County has things like mechanics bird, camp hill. Carlisle and then York County. It's the top half of the county and York City. And so yeah, that's our region and very proud of this area. It's working class people, agriculture. You we have a lot of medicine in our region as well. And I'm currently a county commissioner for Dauphin County. So I have an elected position currently as a commissioner for Dauphin County, which is about 300,000 residents. Gotcha. Yeah. For anyone that's watching or listening, if you ever want to go to a place that a city that actually smells like chocolate, go to Hershey, Pennsylvania. It actually smells like chocolate everywhere. It's crazy. Yeah. I'm there most days. It's a good place. Good place to be. It's a smell. You get used to it after a while, but yeah, I'm sure people that live there don't smell it very much anymore. Could you give us a little background just on who you are and then why you decided to run for Congress in the first place? Yeah. So, ⁓ I decided, we'll start here. decided to run for Congress because ICE took my neighbors and, ⁓ ultimately, ⁓ you know, I, in May of last year as a County commissioner, I was dealing with, ⁓ five individuals from our community who were taken from the Bhutanese Nepali community who had come through ethnic cleansing, then in refugee camps for two decades. And then America, along with multiple other countries decided to take these refugees in. And, you know, seeing the brutality of this administration around immigration, ⁓ in the way it was affecting my neighbors really mobilized me. And then I had some individuals asked if I would consider running because my ⁓ platform on immigration is very different than, ⁓ the candidate and the primary I'm running against. so, ⁓ that got me involved. ⁓ my background, ⁓ I was born in Palm Springs, California to a single mom. And, and she met my, I consider my dad now, my stepdad. when I was one year old and they had four more kids. We lived in a trailer park in Palm Springs, California. We did not have a glamorous life. I didn't know any better as a kid. It was great for me to ride around on my bicycle in the trailer park. we moved when I was nine years old to Indiana, where my dad was from. And I grew up on a farm in Indiana. And so I always say my parents did like the reverse Beverly hillbillies. Like we went from Palm Springs to a farm. In high school, I got very involved with my youth group and felt the call into ministry. So went to school for ministry and was in ministry for 20 years before deciding to run for county commissioner. I moved all over. So right after school, I was in Northern Virginia for a little bit. did community organizing in Boston for a little bit. All three of my kids were born in Wisconsin. I met my wife in high school, we're high school sweethearts. So she's traveled all around with me. All three of my kids were born in Wisconsin and now I've been here in Pennsylvania for about 11 years. And this is the longest I've been anywhere. in my life because I've moved around so much. So I love this area. And it really blends together a lot of the different places I used to live. Like I think of Boston, it's like urban, know, Harrisburg's the capital city and York City is very urban. And then you have like suburbs, like when I lived in Northern Virginia, it's almost all suburbs, you know what I mean? And then you have rural, I grew up on a farm. And so like all these different touch points of my life and where I've been and what I've done, I've been able to kind of relate to people in all the different regions of central Pennsylvania. And as I've expanded my focus now to Pennsylvania's 10th, because I was, you know, I am, and, you know, prior to this, you know, was exclusively dolphin County. ⁓ it's been good to see how much of that connection extends even, ⁓ into those places. Yeah. That's, that's, ⁓ that's pretty cool. ⁓ When you go around your district and talk to people, are the common pain points? What are the things that most of the people are talking to you about in District 10? Look, think the number one thing is the economy right now. I think people aren't feeling relief. think housing is more expensive than it's ever been. The Medicaid cuts have affected many people here locally. Pennsylvanians have experienced a lot of challenges. A lot of people have been either forced ⁓ out of the option to have health care. or they've had to choose plans that really don't service them. Only for like a catastrophic situation, does it service them. And so I think the pain points around workers wages, around housing, around grocery costs, so, know, just costs in general though, not just grocery costs, everything costs more. ⁓ It's a real challenge right now for Americans and certainly those in central Pennsylvania. And so, ⁓ yeah, that's been... That's been what I've heard, you know, mostly, but I would also say seeing a federal administration that, you know, hasn't really lived up to what their promises were and also have gone back on some of the things they'd promised. Obviously we're at war now and they, you know, they champion not going to war. They talked about getting the worst of the worst criminals off our streets through their immigration plans, but they've... They've unfortunately, even in our community, taken people with no criminal record and detained them and deported them. so, ⁓ you know, we're just, we're in a situation where I think a lot of the expectations of people, even if they potentially voted for this administration have not been met. And that's, ⁓ that's what I'm hearing when I'm out, ⁓ with people. Yeah. One of the other things that I think is a pretty common response from a lot of people, and, and this is really also a. not party specific in a problem that a lot of people have is this idea of accountability or the lack thereof when it comes to our representatives. Yeah. So what does accountability look like to you? What does accountability to, you know, to your constituents, the people of district 10 look like? Yeah. So I think, you know, the other thing we hear around accountability and that kind of theme I would say accountability and integrity are kind of like running together, you know, side by side. And that usually when people talk about accountability, they marry it with integrity. And when they talk about integrity, they marry it with accountability. so, you know, we talk about how the first thing I'll do when I get to Congress is co-sponsor legislation or co-sign on legislation that already exists to ban stock trading for members of Congress and their families, basically saying, Nope, no one should be profiting off their seat in Congress. You know, you have inside information, you know, put all your socks in a blind truss and you're not allowed to touch it because we know, ⁓ we've seen now automated trades that get made in conjunction with, ⁓ congressional trades. And we've seen that those outperform even some of the wisest people who know the market, which is like, how does that happen? Because there's information they have that the public doesn't and no one should utilize that information for their own personal profit. So we feel strongly about that and that's one layer I think of accountability and integrity that needs to be restored to Congress because look the American people need to be able to trust Congress and that's big part. Another thing we talk about when it comes to accountability is obviously we're seeing federal government overreach. I've been a hundred percent clear on, you know, calling ICE secret police because they are, they're, you know, law enforcement and they operate in secret. They don't reveal their faces. They sometimes are in unmarked cars and unmarked uniforms. And so, ⁓ that's, that's the proper definition. And, ⁓ you know, one of the things that protects them is section 1983 that was passed, I believe in the late 1800s, it was passed. It basically gave. Us as citizens recourse if our constitutional rights were violated to be able to go to our municipal police department and file a civil lawsuit against them and also to our state police department and file a civil lawsuit against them. But it never included the federal law enforcement. And so for example, the FBI is exempt. Border border patrol is exempt. ICE is exempt. Any DHS is exempt. All of these other law enforcement ⁓ entities are fully exempt. And so I've talked about the need for us to amend section 1983 with just a simple line to include federal law enforcement. And I think things like that are simple wins that most people should be able to agree to. have agreed to it. We've agreed to that standard for municipal police and for state police. We should agree to that standard for the federal government as well, because we've seen on multiple occasions the rights of individuals being violated. And unfortunately, it may be that there's no legal recourse for those kinds of things. And so Look, accountability and integrity are a big part of our campaign, bringing back some level of accountability and integrity. It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take time brick by brick to rebuild that. But I think passing bold legislation like what I just discussed, I think is a way to build back that trust. Yeah. There is obviously a level of division in our country. Now there's argument. As to how much division there really is, especially when it comes to many of the issues, I think we probably agree more than we realize. And we've been taught to disagree about a lot of things. But as you've been going around and talking to people, especially people that may be normally very conservative, may have voted for this administration, ⁓ how has the last year with the tariffs and the ACA subsidy cuts and the snap benefit changes and all these other things that have happened even the more recent, just two days ago with the invasion of Iran. How has that affected your interactions with people that potentially may not have even given you the time of day in 2024? Look, I think... There's, I kind of think there's multiple tiers of somebody who voted for this administration. I have a lot of friends that voted for this administration that emphasize, you know, the economy was better under, you know, ⁓ Trump number one than it was, you know, under Biden. And, and for them, that was a factor and that was the factor. All the other stuff for them was kind of like. Well, yeah, he's not a good guy. He's not somebody I would probably trust to like give my kids a ride to school, but he's somebody that, you know, I believe he, because of the, there's business background or whatever else is going to be good for the economy. And that's going to be good for me. ⁓ you know, most of those friends of mine that made that decision have seen the ramped up chaos over the course of a year. And then like, this guy is unhinged and this is not what I voted for. I think you have a tier though of, you know, people who this administration can do no wrong. And that tier is very easy to spot because they're not critical. I'm critical of the Democrats. Like I talk regularly about my criticism of the Democrats. Like I don't think they have it right. I think honestly, I probably speak just as much about their lack of leadership and lack of principles and and, and, know, inability to deliver for working class people. So, ⁓ I think we should all be able to be critical of our party, of our leaders. ⁓ I was probably the, the, politician that activated me the most to get involved was Obama. And, you know, one of the things that really activated me about his campaign was his desire to close Guantanamo Bay, which never happened. And, ⁓ you know, he expanded the drone program, which killed many innocent people. And so like, I'm able to say that about a president that I deeply respect and that I think did a lot of good things for our country. And I think, you know, when you come across somebody who can't find any, you know, lane of criticism, uh, you know, I, I move on pretty quick from those conversations, but I try to find common ground with anybody I can. And I think right now what I'm seeing is people want authentic, real people running for office. And I think they want principled leaders who have the receipts to prove that, you know, in 2019, I was a pastor here. In Hummelstown in Harrisburg, we had two campuses and our church was growing and thriving and the denomination that I was a part of got very worried about our outreach to the LGBT community. And ultimately in 2019, I lost my license for that and losing my license meant I went from having a job to not having a job. went from having a house that was attached to my job to needing to move myself and my wife, my three kids out within a month. Our church went from having a building, a bank account. and multiple computers and down to the guitar cables and it all had to go to the denomination because that's how the, the, the bylaws were written. And so we went from, you know, 97 % of that church went and launched a new church with me and we had to start from the ground up. had to drive Uber and coach crossed it. ⁓ so I was working three jobs just to make ends meet for my family. look, everybody knows I could have sat that out. I could have not stood on that. You know, I didn't have to, it was, it would be much more convenient for me to say, this is a worthwhile fight that I can't put my family on the line. I can't do this. can't, know, and I think we want leaders right now who are principled, who have a track record of, you know, standing up for people when it costs them something. And that's what I'm bringing to this race. And I think we could use more people like that in Congress. Right. Yeah. You. You talked about a lot of the chaos that this administration has caused ⁓ locally in this just in our country. But he has also caused a lot of chaos globally, ⁓ whether you're talking the tariffs or Venezuela or Greenland or the threats to NATO or leaving the WHO or we could probably go on and on and on for far too long about it. ⁓ because of things like that in one year, this administration, whether they will agree with it or not, has taken our place at the head of the table and destroyed it, in my opinion. Where do you see America's foreign policy going forward, knowing that even some of our closest allies, there's a supreme lack in trust in our ability to to to keep our word on things. I mean, they've they've he's destroyed trade deals with other countries and tariffed them and then made deals and then threatened to tariff again while the deal was was just in place. And I so I feel like there's just a supreme lack of trust by a lot of people that used to be our closest allies. Yeah, I mean, I think the American people do well to put themselves in the position of a leader from another country. know, think of Canada, for example, know, threatening Canada with tariffs is like the dumbest idea possible. They're a border ally. ⁓ mean, and, and it's in our best interest to maintain a good relationship with this, you know, with this country. Imagine being the leader of that country and having to determine how you're going to work with your neighbor who historically has been someone you could rely on. And now you have to wonder, are you going to be able to rely on them? So you have a lot of countries that are starting to increase their military stockpile. Why? Because these are, by the way, I'm speaking about countries that are allies of ours. that are increasing their military stockpile, why are they doing that? Well, they're doing that because they believe if they come under attack that America is not going to deliver. They're not going to stand with them, even if they have agreements to do so, because they don't feel this administration can be trusted. They can't get out of their own way. Does that make sense? So like, how are they going to show up in a way that's meaningful for us if we're under threat? So I think we do really well at the very onset of this conversation. Whatever your view on tariffs is, whatever your view on global conflict, whatever your view on America first is, we do really well to put ourselves in the position of our allies and the leaders that are there and ask, what are they asking for? And what they're asking for is a reasonable, trustworthy partner. They're not asking for a blank check. Now, some of them are, don't get me wrong, but overwhelmingly, they're just asking for a trustworthy, reasonable ally. ⁓ And when you say, you know, Trump has moved America's position from the head of the table, it's an empty chair now. And so now the question is like, who's going to fill that vacuum? Is it going to be China? Is it going to be Russia? Is it going to be, you know, another country? ⁓ Even if it's an ally of ours that fills that space, it certainly does not make us more powerful or more protected. And then when you start a war without congressional approval, which is required, you know, look, Go back to Bush in 2003. I'm millennial. So I remember that war very clearly. I was, you know, coming of age during that time. I'm 41. So when I look back at it, I was finishing high school at the time that that conflict started. Look, when that conflict started, it took two years of propaganda, two years of telling us there were weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't, there's an armada in the region that looks crazy, like the largest armada we've ever had in the Middle East ⁓ since back in 2003. And then ⁓ two weeks later, we're bombing our rain. that, that is not how this is supposed to work. The constitution clearly states that Congress declares war. And this president has ignored the constitution on many occasions, but on this occasion, ⁓ look, now we have American lives that have been lost. We see retaliation that's drawing in the entire region. ⁓ And we have to ask ourselves, are we on the precipice of World War III, or is there going to be an exit ramp in this escalation? what happens, though, is when you attack another country, part of the reason Congress was vested with this power is because they wanted to make it hard to go to war. Because they knew that once you go to war and you escalate to that level, there's going to be retaliation. And when there's retaliation, that draws you in further. so they're just, they're needed to be such a high standard to get here. ⁓ that has put us now in a position where, you know, the administration saying four to five weeks is all this is going to be. But look, we heard that in Iraq and we heard that in Afghanistan and it, took us 20 years. And then even when we came out, that was a botch, you know, leaving Afghanistan. We all remember that in the Biden administration, it did not go well. left. many people behind who helped us. And, you know, I'm just deeply concerned about how we even get out of this now. ⁓ Because ⁓ Congress and the strongly worded letter caucus that I call my caucus, really did not do a whole lot of work to stop this or to message well around the implications of it. yeah, I mean, look, it's America's in crisis right now, because when we do lose our seat at the head, at the head of the table, it does not make us safer and it certainly does not allow us to be ⁓ influencers. We tend to be on the menu instead of at the table when we do that. And I'm hopeful that I'm wrong, but it seems like everything over the last year has proven to be right, but it's not strengthening our position in the world. Yeah. There's also been reporting out there that this administration is looking at increasing our defense budget by another $500 billion for the 27 budget year. Regardless of whether or not we agree on how we should do everything, there is a spending problem, probably also an income problem in this country. There's both. Obviously, the big beautiful bill has made that dramatically worse, no matter what this administration says. ⁓ How do you see going forward with that problem of this desire to keep increasing, but not the desire to actually change any of the income that we have? Yeah, look, ⁓ I think very wealthy billionaires and millionaires need to pay their first share. And I think this administration is very friendly with lot of millionaires and billionaires and gave them massive tax cuts. And, you know, that's the idea back to rig and a trickle down economics that if we give these people massive tax cuts, it'll get trickled down to, uh, you know, the, their local communities through investment and other things. And that is just not how it works. Uh, rich people consolidate power. have, you know, a pile of money and they're always thinking about the next pile of money that they can get. Uh, and they're not thinking about how, uh, ultimately our economy and, uh, uh, you know, the, American You know, system, the way it's set up has actually allowed them to acquire that much money. And so they're invested back into that system is critical. Instead, they typically offshore money. They typically are able to, you know, pay money to ensure that they, ⁓ avoid every, you know, find every loophole and avoid every opportunity where they should be paying or litigate around every opportunity where they should be paying. And then on top of it, the real problem is they, ⁓ buy politicians. That's what they did. That's what Citizens United opened up and opened up the ability for very wealthy people to influence ⁓ who your politicians are and who your representatives are. when that happens, the tax code gets written in a way that's not favorable toward the working class, toward the poor, but instead toward the extremely wealthy. we've seen this president serve the wealthy interests, I think, more than any other president in our history. And then with that, when you go to... defense budget like you just spoke of, know, this president has a priority to ensure defense contractors and weapons manufacturers, you know, make a lot of money. Why does he have that? Because they funded his campaign. So I mean, there's a clear line. It's not even like, it's like a kindergartner could understand this, you know, you pay me a bunch of money to get me into a place, I'm going to make sure to, you know, open the door for you every time you ask to come in and you'll leave with a contract. so ⁓ you know, this, this war could very well be justification for more defense spending as well. So, ⁓ there's a lot of things this work can be justification for, but, ⁓ but that's certainly one of them. And it all comes down to. Back to that accountability and trust that you talked about, you know, like the integrity it's like, do we, it might be that, you know, when I look on paper, we need to invest in our defense budget. It might very well be that. But I want to make that decision divorced from outside influence, divorced from defense contractors, divorced from weapons manufacturers, and instead make that decision because it's what's best for America's position in the world and what's best for our safety. So we're not taking any corporate PAC money because of that, because we don't want to be tied to anyone that we're making decisions for as a campaign or, once I would become a congressman, if that's what the people decide. I want to be representing them. We've had over 4,000 contributions and the average gift is $23. You know, we're very proud of that because that shows that we're a legitimate grassroots campaign and we've taken no PAC money. And that's important to us. Justin, for everyone that has listened up until this point and heard everything that you've talked about, what are... What are one or two things that no matter what you would want to make sure that they come away knowing about you and this campaign? Look, I think I want people to know that I'm a principled leader who's going to stand on my principles, going to stand on my values. I want them to know that, ⁓ you know, I think America's in crisis and I think we need to send fighters to push back right now. And then I just, think I want them to know to get engaged in whatever way they can. We might not agree on all of the points of my platform. We might not have the same views on immigration or the same views on the economy or the same views on this administration. ⁓ But what I do think we have the same views on is we want to send real people to Congress. We want to send people who aren't bought and sold to Congress. And I am one of those people. And that keeps me in a position to listen to the people, not to the consultants, not to the DC insiders, and certainly not to the millionaires and billionaires who influence so many of our elected officials. so Look, if you want to find out more about me, you can go to JustinDouglas.us. We're very active on all the socials, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. You can find us there. But yeah, ultimately, I want to be a candidate that represents the working class. I'm somebody who's had the experience of not knowing if I was going to be able to cover my mortgage the next month or my rent the next month. I've never owned a house before. I rent still. How many people in Congress right now rent their homes? Not many. ⁓ So I think we need to send people to Washington that have these types of principles and character. And that's why I'm on the ballot. And so that's what I wanted to know about me. ⁓ Justin, thank you for spending some time with us. I really appreciate it. It was great to get to know you a little bit. Thank you so much for having me on. And thanks to your audience for watching. Yeah. And for everyone else listening, please, please hit all those buttons below. It really helps make it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing, which is interviewing amazing people like Justin, who are trying to do things exactly the way we wanted to do. We're trying to ⁓ not take pack money, trying to break the status quo, trying to fix all these problems that we keep saying need to get fixed. ⁓ and they need visibility and name recognition because of that. So please watch and share this video, even if you don't live there, but especially if you know people in Pennsylvania, send this video to them. That way there's the best chance of people in his district to see ⁓ and learn about Justin and his campaign. So please do that. And for everyone who is new to breaking the meta, just so you know, we're about having hard conversations when necessary, breaking the status quo and fighting for the idea that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender or identity, get rights, respect, dignity and safety. Again, Justin, thank you for being here. For everyone else, we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye guys.