Latest / Breaking The Meta / Steve Merrill Wants to Put Utah's Working Class First
Transcript
- Breaking The Meta: Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Winson. Today we are sitting down with Steve Merrill who is running for Utah's third congressional district. Hello Steve. How are you doing? Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Hello? I'm doing great, how are you? Breaking The Meta: I'm doing so good. To start off, because a lot of people don't know much about Utah, what part of Utah is encompassed in the third district. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: So honestly, most of it, ⁓ 60 % of the state falls into this new district. Utah has been in the news a lot lately because we had redistricting, ⁓ an evolution of lawsuits having to do with getting fair maps. And so what ⁓ we to basically have the state quartered, but now Salt Lake City gets a district basically to itself. Breaking The Meta: Okay. Wow. Yep. Yep. Okay. Okay. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: And so I end up with the district that's and then everyone else. So I get a lot of, you know, farmers and ranchers and mountains and national parks. it's beautiful. We're going a lot of driving. Breaking The Meta: You're doing a lot of driving, aren't you? Wow, okay. All right. ⁓ So would you mind starting off with telling us a little bit about who you are and then why you decided to run for Congress in the first place? Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: ⁓ that'd be fine. ⁓ My name again is Steve Merrill. I'm a husband, a father. I'm a database programmer by day. I decided to run because I want to get back to where our communities, especially our working communities are actually interacting with each other. I want them united together. We used to have a society, you know, I grew up on these black and white TV shows. And when you see Leave It to Beaver and Mr. Ed, Breaking The Meta: Mm. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Neighbors are helping neighbors and talking to each other and there for each other. And I feel like we've lost a lot of that. The focus on rugged individualism ended up being stop introducing yourself to people and stop living together in community. So I wanna get us back to that. My main goal is getting us where we have ⁓ an infrastructure where people don't have to work two or three jobs to survive so that they can actually take part in community. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Has politics always been part of who you are or is this like you just saw and you're like, okay, I need to kind of jump in. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: It has certainly not always been part of who I am. I was raised in a household that in retrospect was probably a Reagan Republican conservative household. But at that time, that meant focusing on a small government and making sure there was money for education and treating immigrants with respect and dignity, which feels like it's kind of lost now, especially on the Republican side. ⁓ I started getting into politics more heavily Breaking The Meta: Ha ha! Hmm. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: really in 2016. There was an event that triggered that. I have a stepson who is half Hispanic and the day after the election in 2016, he walked into kids chanting, build the wall at him. So it kind of was thrust into my life that, you know, I can ignore politics, but it's not going to ignore me. So if I get involved, I can make change for good. Breaking The Meta: You Ugh. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So as you go around your giant district and talk to and talk to people, what what are the things that what are the pain points of your district? What are the things that most people are talking to you about? Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Nuh-uh. You know the size of the district that's hard to just pinpoint one or two. ⁓ In general, economic pressures are certainly an issue. Housing affordability and for a lot of the area. ⁓ The cuts to Medicare have made it so that universal health care is is a big goal for me and we are now at a point where we also need transportation involved in that. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ my goodness. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: because I have areas that are two hours from the nearest hospital and that hospital is going to shut down because it was covered, you know, it was basically funded by Medicaid. So now there are four hours from their nearest hospital. And so it's, yeah, it's crazy. So. Breaking The Meta: ⁓ my goodness. So emergency care must be pretty much non-existent. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: It is. have the ⁓ Navajo Nation is based around the four corners in the southeast corner of our state and Avajo Mountain, which is in Utah. They now have a nurse that's there. But for a long time, it was there was nobody within two and a half or three hours to help them. So if there was an issue, it was we're going to go get Terry to give us a ride over to the hospital. And hopefully we make it in time. At least now there's someone they can give an Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Wow. Hmm Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: immediate response, but it's still basically hopping a car and drive. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. You said that it's a lot of rural. I'm assuming that also is a lot of farming. Have the tariffs and stuff been of a big effect to ⁓ your district? Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Absolutely. Farming, ranching a lot of cattle here. The other piece that's really hurt us is it's a large mining area, whether that's coal mining or oil drilling or iron mining. A lot of that stuff, either because the energy sector is moving to renewable or because like in the case of iron, you have to export it from the country and bring it back. The tariffs were not just one hit. They were doubled or quadrupled over. Breaking The Meta: Mmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: over the course of the production. And so we've seen the industry has just collapsed. So, you when I say the economic struggles, it's not just the increase in price. For a lot of people, doesn't matter how much stuff costs, they lost their job. So I have zero and that's five dollars or ten dollars. I have zero. Breaking The Meta: Yeah, yeah. One of the other things that I think comes up a lot, regardless of the side of the aisle that you're upon, is this idea of accountability from our representatives or the lack thereof. So my question to you is, what does accountability mean to you? What does being held accountable by your constituents look like? Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: So I'm gonna treat that as two questions, because I think accountability flows in multiple directions. When I'm in the House of Representatives, main constitutional edict is to hold accountable the other branches and hold ourselves accountable to take care of ⁓ war resolutions, since that's pretty in the news today, and handle tariffs. we need, the legislature needs to hold the other branches accountable. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: It also needs to hold itself accountable to do its job. And that's, know, a lot of people look at me and it's a Republican legislature, but I'm seeing on the Democratic side, people are just not standing up and making sure that that job happens. It doesn't matter what party you are. You got to do the job. ⁓ Accountability then also flows down. And that's where you ended the question of how am I held accountable by my, my neighbors, my community, my district. And I think that Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're not- you're not the first person to say that I will tell you Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: the focus I'm gonna have is consistent communications. I want to be doing, you know, TikToks, Facebook updates, Instagram videos, a couple times a week, three times a week. I wanna make sure that we have town halls, which has been a thing, you know, for a year we haven't seen many town halls. I wanna make sure town halls, I'm not surprised, but with the town halls, you know, our current representative, ⁓ Because the new district's one of our current representatives, I push that she does town halls regularly, but they're Tela town halls. And so her team curates the eight questions that make her sound the best when they ask her. I need town halls. Yes, Tela town halls are important because that's where you're going to reach everyone that can't just drive. But I also want to make sure I'm doing regular in-person town halls and it's not you get an hour and then my team is rushing me out. I want to give them the evening. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: And if people want to talk to me after then, you know, we'll talk after. I don't like the town halls I've seen that are, I can give a long answer and that they don't have to answer anything else. So I think accountability is not only being present and listening, but also giving your time enough to be present for anyone and everyone who wants to talk. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned the problems that your your districts having with hospitals and the deserts that you're forming with things like ⁓ the tariffs that affected a lot of the people that work there. I know that rural areas tend to lean more on ⁓ at least currently the Republican side or what is considered conservative and Republican. Have you noticed as you're walking around that all of the events, whether you're talking the ACA subsidies or the tariffs or even what's going on around the world right now, have you seen an effect on people and how they are maybe not always changing their mind, but at least being more willing to Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Mm-hmm. Breaking The Meta: to have discussions about things because of everything that's going on. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: I have, yeah. In fact, a good friend of mine who was a three-time Trump voter and argued with me before the last election that, you know, Trump says it's going to be this and Trump says we're going to have that came to me and said, I thought Gaza was safe because we had Trump. I thought we weren't going to start any international conflicts because we had Trump, because that's what he promised. He's the peace president. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: I thought economically we'd be better off and these tariffs are killing us. ⁓ He has come to me and said, what can I do? And, you know, unfortunately the simplest answer is not a lot because Trump is in office. But the broader answer is making sure our voices are heard. We are seeing in some of the most rural areas where it's absolutely shocking that it happens, we're seeing no Kings protests pop up. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Wow. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: And where you would think, yeah, there are like three people. Well, the first one might've had 20, which they're already saying is huge, but the last one had 800. Yeah, it is massive how much momentum is being gained to just recognize that the struggle isn't really against Republicans or Democrats. It's against Trump and the other elites who just don't care. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: I mean, we want people to actually care. So it's growing and there are a lot of people that have given up. I won't say that they've given up conservative principles. That's who they are. But they had given up the party loyalty in order to better help each other. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Sure. Right. Yeah. I, my biggest hope from all of this is that we will stop. We will get past the identity politics to be able to actually have conversations with each other about issues and realities to a point that we haven't had in a long time because the fact remains. Concert the idea of conservative and progressive and liberal and moderate and all these they're very subjective. terms when it comes down to it there, which is why they'll say, lot of you hear people say, well, it's like, well, compared to Europe, we're all practically to the right, which is true. But it doesn't change the fact that we're so focused on a name, ⁓ like a letter next to our name, that we're not actually discussing the actual problem. So it's good to hear that ⁓ in your district, people are Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: the sun. Breaking The Meta: At least willing to talk, even if in the end there's still going to be differences, it's got to start with a conversation somewhere. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: You know, when I was growing up, I and I don't know if this was real or just the perception that I was I was given by my parents, but I always had the idea that everyone we elected had the same end goal that we wanted to make America better, that we wanted to improve the economy, that we wanted to make it so that we could interact with our neighbors and just have good lives. And it was just a question of how do we get there? Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: You know, the conservative philosophy was, well, we can't spend money until we have it. And so sometimes we got to cut back on things and struggle through together. And the liberal philosophy was we need to take care of people and then figure out how to get the money necessary to take care of people. But both of them had the end game of everyone is taken care of and financially we're sound. It was just which path do we take? Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: I don't think that everyone in government right now has the same end goal. And so now it's not a question of paths, it's, hey, let's establish that goal first. And everyone who wants that goal, the starting line is the same. Let's get those first few steps together. And then we'll worry about what path is fastest. Breaking The Meta: No. ⁓ Yeah. Yep. Yeah, the way I describe it is we used to have the same non-negotiable line at the bottom. And it feels like that's changed between these groups of people. ⁓ Since World War II, the United States has been at the head of the table for Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Mm-hmm. Breaking The Meta: lack of a better reason than we were isolated from the rest of the world and we're the only ones that weren't completely destroyed after the war. in the last year, and I wouldn't didn't think I'd say literally days, you know, before this interview, this administration has summarily destroyed one way or another our place at the table, whether through tariffs, or, or, or Venezuela or Greenland or the talks of NATO are leaving the who and now ⁓ starting a war with Iran. It's there's a lack of trust from on the world stage when it comes to this administration, to this country, to our government, the flip flopping on tariffs. How do you see us being able to go forward as a country? What kind of foreign policy do you see us having going forward, knowing that? How can a how can a country trust us? when even if we get a Democratic president in 2028 and say, you know, ⁓ we're going to fix things. Well, 2032 could come around and everything could be flip flopped again. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Yep, absolutely. Yeah, that's a great question. And the answer is not one that people necessarily want to hear because it's not going to happen in an instant. This is going to take a long time to rebuild our position on the world stage. I think it starts with going back to the earlier discussion, accountability. The United States hasn't been accountable to anyone. And to this point, Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: We have either as a country not needed it or it's been swept under the rug when it has been there. I'm not gonna say that we don't have blood in our hands from the CIA overthrowing regimes and places, but that has not come through the way it has lately. ⁓ I think accountability for that, I know accountability for that starts with us joining the International Criminal Justice Court. Breaking The Meta: Yeah Right. Hmm Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: I think that we need to submit ourselves to the world stage and allow justice to happen when we have a leader like we have now who starts taking unilateral power and doing whatever he wants and committing war crimes. We have to have someone who can hold him accountable and right now that's not in our country because he has too much power. That. Our legislature isn't holding him accountable and. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yep. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: And a lot of people want to say, again, it's Republicans not doing enough, but how many step out and then are just absolutely crushed? When was the last time we heard Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger as major players in anything? They were party leaders, but Trump ended their careers. So we have to get into ⁓ the International Criminal Court so that we can have an outside group holding us accountable. After that, Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: The legislature has to take back its power. There was a chance a few weeks ago to end the authorization for the use of military force. We didn't do it and now we attack Iran. So we need to terminate that. We need to give the legislature back the power over wars and conflicts. We need to get the legislature the power over the border. We need to give the legislature the power over tariffs. Breaking The Meta: Yep. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: We need to put some guardrails in on how much executive orders can do without legislative oversight. And we need our legislature to actually provide that oversight. Start demanding people come in and report to them and use subpoenas and require them to answer questions and not Pam Bondy's, I'm gonna just scream at you that the thousand, 50,000. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. 50,000 though, Steve, 50,000. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: but actually answer the question. And if you won't answer the question, you're going to sit there until you do. And everyone in the legislature, regardless of political affiliation, needs to hold them to the fire until they give us the answers. Breaking The Meta: Mm. No. I want to do a little bit of future casting if you don't mind. ⁓ So November 3rd comes around and congratulations. You've just won. January 2nd comes around. You are sworn in as a representative of Utah's third district. January 6th comes around. You finally choose a speaker of the house and all the other stuff that you need to do or Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: I'm Breaking The Meta: whatever order it is, I forget. Either way, what are the first things that you do once you are a representative? Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: the first thing I do probably is find a couch to sleep on. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: You again you are not the first person to say something like that Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: We got to start with taking care of the biggest crises. So that's going to be our international conflicts and it's going to be the people who are suffering the most. So we need to get the SNAP benefits back in place and the Medicare, Medicaid back in place and start making sure that people are able to survive until January 8th and then until January 9th. Because right now those aren't guaranteed. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: After that, we can start worrying about how to rebuild, how to take care of smaller things, but we've got to start with the major, major crises that are killing us. Breaking The Meta: No. ⁓ I wanted to ask this because it is also something that people ⁓ bring up quite often is ⁓ money in politics and what your stances are on ⁓ money in politics and the future of that if you get voted in. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Money itself is just a commodity. It's something we need. Money when there is power tied to it becomes corruptive. money, you know, we see so much effect from APAC. We see so much effect from Elon Musk dropped $250 million to try to manipulate the election. That isn't who we are. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Like as Americans, we shouldn't be manipulated by who has the most money. We should be manipulated by who has the best ideas and is going to do the best for us. I would love to see Citizens United overturned. I'd love to get lobbyists and corporate PACs out of the discussion. I'd love to get, honestly, it's not going to happen. But my dream would be we actually write into the law that anyone who wants to run gets this much money to run. Breaking The Meta: Hmm Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: provided to them by people who want to get people out there and that's their cap. And it's not a question of who has the most money, because y'all have the same. It's who spends it best and builds the relationships that earns them the votes. But I don't imagine that happening in the next cycle or two of a legislature. Breaking The Meta: No. No. Probably not, but I will also say you aren't the first person to say that that I've interviewed. So. ⁓ If and when you get voted in, I'll make sure to connect you with the ones that I've heard that have said the same thing. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: It sounds like you've been talking with a lot of really good thinkers. Breaking The Meta: Really good, good people. keep telling people if you want to feel some hope, watch some of these interviews because there there are some amazing people running for office. ⁓ For everyone that has listened this far and heard everything that we've talked about, what are one or two things that no matter what you would want them to know about you and your campaign? Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Probably that my focus is is going to be on uniting working communities and providing accountability. Everything is going to be based in that. So if you have a question of well, what are we going to do in this situation? Well, determine whether it affects the working class and then determine how we're best accountable and everything will stem from that. So if if we can, you know, in high school I was in a group that said you gotta keep the main thing the main thing. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: So that's my focus. That's that's got to be where the emphasis is. So economic decisions going for universal health care, going for housing, you know, affordability. All of that comes from making sure we're taking care of the working class. And when we're talking about, you know, should we attack Iran? ⁓ There better be accountability, because maybe I mean, there are going to be times it was reasonable for us to attack Germany in ⁓ 1945. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: There's good reason, but there was accountability for it and we have to have that in place. We can't just start doing stuff and hope that people decide they like us. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Steve, where, where can people find you if they want to know more about you want to support you volunteer, whatever. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Sure. Most socials it's vote the number four Merrill, M-E-R-R-I-L-L. ⁓ My website is www.votethenumberforemerrill.com. That is the digit four, not spelled out the number four. Also that people kept spelling Merrill wrong. So I picked up www.voteforme.us. So we can be in this together. If you vote for me, it's a vote for us. How do you like that? Breaking The Meta: Yep. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: And then if people are willing and able on that website, there's a donation link. 60 % of the state is it's bigger than 19 states in the union. It is a lot of driving. It's going to be a lot of hotel rooms. It's going to be billboards and radio ads and it all adds up. So anything that they that people are willing to chip in would help immensely. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. For everyone listening, ⁓ the reason that I am doing what I'm doing and interviewing so many people, for those of you that this may be your first one, I have interviewed almost 100 people running for Congress in the last month and a half. And the reason I'm doing it is because there are amazing people like Steve right here who are trying to do things the right way. They're not taking corporate PAC money. They want to be held accountable. They want to change the problems that we've been screaming about. for decades in some cases. But they need visibility and they need name recognition. And the way you do that is if you don't have millions of dollars, you either support with what little you can if you're able to and they use it as well as they possibly can, or you watch videos like this and you share it with other people that you know. Yep. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Boost socials. When stuff is posted, share it, push it out to your network and then let them push it out to their network, Breaking The Meta: Yep. Yep. The fact is, is the more people watch videos like this, the more chance that people in his district will see the video as well. So for everyone listening, that's one of the it's one of the cheapest ways that you can help out if you cannot help out financially. ⁓ Steve, thank you so much for sitting down and talking with us. I really, really appreciate it. Steve Merrill - Utah CD3: Thank you for doing this. I appreciate you helping me get out there and get seen. Breaking The Meta: Absolutely. And for everyone listening, thank you so much for listening this far. ⁓ Please hit all the buttons below, share, subscribe, all that stuff. It helps to make it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing. And for those of you that are new to ⁓ this podcast, just so you know, Breaking the Meta is about having hard conversations when necessary, fighting to break the status quo, and the idea that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender, or identity, deserve rights, respect, dignity, and safety. Steve, again, thank you so much for being here. For everyone else, we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye guys.