Latest / Follow the Leighder / Working-Class Survival and a Run for Congress | Matt Fulmer, SC-01

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Working-Class Survival and a Run for Congress | Matt Fulmer, SC-01 · Follow the Leighder

• Leigh/@followtheleighder: Howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson. And just as we do around here, we go searching for cool folks and we found one in South Carolina, Matt Fulmer. Welcome to the studio. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Matt, you are running for office in South Carolina in for Congress in 01. And for folks listening, that is Charleston and Hilton Head. If you need a frame of reference, it is the southern coast of South Carolina as it was presented to me. And also for those who are not too familiar with the coast, that is not Outer Banks. That is North Carolina. We learned that about 10 minutes ago. Well, he and I were having a little chitchat before then I was making a map. Matt, tell us, you're a waiter running for office. What brought you into this fight? Thank you for your service. Thank you for running, but what brought you here? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah. Thank you very much. Hello everybody. So my name is Matt Fullmer. I've been working in restaurants for the last 12 years, and I feel very, very close to the America that most of us are living in and more and more people are getting all too familiar with. I have coworkers that are homeless. It's by choice. They're smart people around here. Rent is about $20,000 a year for a studio apartment. So they're vehicularly homeless. They live out of their cars or... One guy lives on a broken boat that's stuck in a marina. So he just pays the morning fee because it's cheaper. I work with people that work multiple jobs. I found out the other day that one of my coworkers is a public high school teacher and he's still showing up for six hour shifts at nighttime because that's what you got to do. So most people are aware they're looking at a future where they're going to have to work harder to have less. That they are being priced out of the most important moments of their lives from being able to start a family to being able to retire. And all of this is happening while corporations make record setting profits and wealth inequality explodes. And those two things are related. This economy is designed to advance the people that are farthest ahead. And that's going to be at the expense of everybody behind them. And it's no one person's job to save the world. We all have a chance to contribute. This campaign is just my contribution. There's a movement happening across the nation. I'm just one part of it. I'm just trying to make sure it has a voice down here in South Carolina. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank you for running and I love this very. just like you said, working in the working class, in the restaurant industry, waiter, it is America. It is people living in their cars because they can't afford homes. ⁓ It is all sorts of people of different backgrounds coming together to make a restaurant shift work ⁓ with all sorts of legal status or gender background, sexuality. It is, ⁓ truly, the restaurant industry is a perfect example of the melting pot of America because every everybody's there for food. Talk to me about how working alongside so many different people over the last 12 years has shaped how you see how this administration is treating other citizens. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Well, first of all, I think that most people are fundamentally good. I do believe in the fundamental goodness of human beings. think the differences that arise between us in terms of ideology or worldview are largely just environmental. we never, no two people have had the chance to be the same person or think the same way. We're all largely products of environments and experiences that we didn't choose for ourselves. So I have plenty of coworkers that voted for Donald Trump and I still like them as people. I know they just get their information from a totally different place that I do. and. I kind of walked away from your question because that's where I first wanted to, to respond. But I think like to pull me back in, we're talking about how this administration is treating fellow Americans. Was that where we're supposed to go with it? Okay. So would it, right. My, my concern with ICE, I think that's part of what this question was anchored in. My concern with ICE is that it's being used as this standing private army for the president. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ yeah, it's all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: I am an abolish ICE candidate. ⁓ If to whatever degree that we need immigration enforcement, it can be in a different entity that doesn't look like ICE, that isn't housed under the office of the president. We're not supposed to have a standing military that can be turned on our own population and with enough funding, with enough personnel, ICE is totally equipped to do that. So I share those concerns about the degree that ICE can be manipulated into something that we're told it's not supposed to do. ⁓ Of course. I think both political parties, not just the Trump administration, inherit a fundamentally broken economy and cannot move fast enough to repair it or aren't trying to. And that's where most of our problems arise from. And I think that's, that's how Donald Trump also came back into power. When people can't make rent and it's election day, it's really difficult to come to the polls and vote to keep things the same, regardless of how you feel about women's rights or immigration or democracy itself. And we're seeing the two parties in power just keep passing the ball back and forth. They keep getting brought into power on a wave of economic anxiety that soon pushes them out. And part of the reason I'm running is like, it's time for this to stop. I do believe in having multiple political parties and a system that would empower independent candidates, things like rank choice voting, multi-member districts. I also believe in getting money out of politics, which both political parties fall victim to or ally with. And then the last part of this is you have to fix the economy. Every election is basically about economic matters because money ain't everything, but not having it is. And I'll take a breather. So I'm not doing just full campaign pitch mode for you, but the story, the story of the economy is it rewards ownership before work, passive income before active income. We prioritize return on investment before W-2s, before active labor. And in that situation, you just wind up with people having these snowballing passive income streams that completely eclipse what most people can accomplish with a whole second job. And then they turn around and start buying up all the stuff regular people need to build their own wealth and security. And we've created this American aristocracy that has an unacceptable level of control over the prices we pay, over the candidates we elect, and over the laws that we follow. And that's really central to the message that I'm bringing with me throughout this district. And it's central to the message that millions of people in America are trying to say right now. Ha Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and thank you, because what you are painting is a history. Like all of this has been going on, all of this anxiety, and it's one thing to, like you said, pass the ball back and forth, blame the other person, but really, as you said, the working class is not being cared for at the end of the day. The people who are ⁓ going to work, paying taxes, ⁓ Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: using the services that the community that we're in is being deeply affected. Can you talk a little bit, you've already mentioned housing. ⁓ What does it look like for health care and your stance on that? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: So i'm probably support single payer health care i have so many stories now that i can pull from about people who have experience health care and other nations and how much better it is than what we got over here and the through line for all of them is single payer health care it's those words when my uncle was in italy he fell down dislocated his arm they patched him up no fee and he's not an italian citizen. All He doesn't pay Italian taxes. It's just that affordable, that accessible for them that they waived whatever minor copay he was supposed to have as a foreign citizen of Italy. know a Canadian American guy, dual citizen. He injured his neck twice. Once in Canada, once in America. In America, the operations were a hundred thousand dollars in Canada, completely free, including the physical therapy. So single payer healthcare is just the idea that there's one account that the government puts a bunch of money into, and then you as a citizen can pull from the account for your healthcare expenditures. Whatever you as a society decide it should cover. And most of us would say it should cover ambulance rides, it should cover the ER, it should cover non-negotiable medicines or devices like inhalers or insulin. That's what other countries do. And it pushes the price of products and operations way down because you have maximum leverage to negotiate over the profit-seeking elements of healthcare. You don't just let a ⁓ company charge as much as it wants for its medicine. You have the ability to negotiate a price that encourages people to make the medicine, but also makes it as affordable and as accessible as possible to your population. So Medicare for All is the dominant strategy for introducing a single-payer healthcare system. But I think it's important to talk about single-payer specifically in those words because it communicates The foundation the foundation for for why for what health care should look like medicare for all some people have misconceptions about it just because they think it's the existing medicare system for everybody which it's not it's a much more improved system that would also be cheaper to operate. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's, I appreciate that. I've also, you know, I've heard some other folks talk about Medicaid, but the pushback is that it's just not as effective as single payer option. There's just some, there's just a lot to go through the weeds and I appreciate you explaining single payer option to such detail and for showing us that you understand the gravity of the situation. ⁓ Thank you. ⁓ Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: On your website, and I wanted to point this out, ⁓ folks, I've interviewed quite a few candidates running for office across the country and Matt Fulmer's website, beautiful color scheme, very nice branding, but up top it says solutions for the tab to go and find, you know, his stance on certain policies. And I wanted to point that out to you, the audience, because a lot of times I interview candidates and their website says issues. So I like the forward thinking language. I like, I just wanted to point that out. at the high level. I think that is smart that you are caring and running that consistency even through how your website is designed. So props Matt for that. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: . Thank you. I Yeah, thanks. I think it's important. there's a Candidates generally they've been slow, but they're starting to learn how to say the right things They're starting to learn that the economy is the number one thing they need to focus on We are all gonna get so tired of hearing the word affordability Like everyone's gonna be saying it now You're gonna be up to your eyeballs in the affordability talk because people think it's a super Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah ⁓ Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Important keyword and what I'm seeing is I'm seeing a lot of people and I'm specifically thinking about Democrats my own party That are learning how to say the right things that are learning how to key in on the pain people are feeling and are just reinventing ways to communicate it, but we need them to Show that they can walk us through the solutions, right? You can't just talk about the problems. You have to talk about the solutions So my website is written in a way where I don't just tell you what I believe in but I make a case for why Everyone should believe this, or, know, I make the case for why it's important to do it. The hardest thing I think moving forward this cycle for Democrats is going to be trying to parse out who just, who has learned how to talk like a populist or progressive or a visionary or a former, and who really believes it. So I hope in earnestness that what I've written on my website does communicate to people that I didn't just learn the word affordability and I'm fighting. I'm fighting because I know the message is more powerful than myself as a candidate. Like an idea will live beyond me. When you communicate an idea, other people take it and shape it, carry it with them and communicate it with their own strengths, communicate it with their own abilities. So that's, that's kind of what, what my website is anchored in. So thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk about it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's it also shows that I mean even you talk about being educated on the topics and the policies beyond just the buzzwords and you very clearly explain where your head's at and where you're going and like you said the movement beyond you. One of the things you talk about is education whether it's a universal pre-k or looking at job workforce development. Can you expand on these Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes, ⁓ increased programs for our communities. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Right so right now in places like germany or finland students are going to public colleges and trade schools for under five hundred dollars a semester. In some places there's no tuition and there's just very very minor fees and that's because these colleges don't give young students tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the form of loans which colleges can just prey upon. because the students don't have much leverage to negotiate, you know, a good price for themselves. What these nations do is they directly fund advanced education and that gives them the leverage to negotiate things like the price of tuition and the price of fees and executive salary. And how much administrative staff do you need? And do you really need these multimillion dollar, you know, sporting programs, gyms, rock climbing, Rawls, coaching salaries, X, Y, and Z. And it also allows them to expand student body sizes. And they pay per student, lesser about as much as we do. So that's a model that I would like to see us implement. We used to be closer to it. I think it was under Ronald Reagan. He cut, you know, funding for advanced education by about 20 to 25%. So that is the direction we need to go into. If we want to call ourselves a real meritocracy, if we want to be a nation where every person has the chance to create or build themselves, everyone has to have an opportunity. ample opportunity, not just one, but ample opportunity at advanced education and job training. So that's, and it's doable. I mean, it does have a new price tag associated with it because we'll, we'll be getting more people into the system, but we got the money out there, right? We always have the money for war. We always have the money for bank bailouts. We certainly have the money for this. Right now our GDP is like $30 trillion and our tax receipts are only five. There's, there's plenty of money out there. just the people with the money keep paying our government to not come get it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ And like you said, the shifting in priorities when you start workforce development or universal childcare, those dramatically transform communities and state, and you're talking about... You know, people like to just, ⁓ you government funded is somehow low quality. But that's when the low quality is an outcome of all the military spending, right? It's like, it could be so much better. And ⁓ I really appreciate just, like you said, the workforce would be ours. It would be our standards. It would be our neighbors going and using those programs. It would be our neighbors using the universal child. It would be our employers in our local community who... Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: don't have to worry about parents needing a sick day or sick leave or just you know child care or pre-k there's just a lot of everybody wins when we all chip in a little bit. So and then of course when we examine where all the money is going like you're like wait so I I so appreciate this with sorry go ahead Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah. No, I, I realized I didn't even hit universal pre-k because I was talking about advanced education. Uh, back during world war II, we had about nickel a day childcare, right? Cause a lot of the guys are fighting and a lot of the women were in the workforce. So America used to have a nearly, uh, national publicly funded daycare program. And it was cheap and nickel a day would be comparable to $10 a day. Now we nixed the program after the war, other countries reestablished or continued theirs. So this is still an option for us. And it's not uncommon to hear parents say, child care costs more than tuition right now. Intuition is over $10,000 a year on average. So this is definitely something we can do. And we're already seeing certain states start to implement it. You know, it was New Mexico. They just got theirs going. So this is very doable. It's some low-hanging fruit. There's, if we, if we invest in anything with our public money, we should take care of our most vulnerable. We should take care of people at the beginning of their life, at the end of their life, when they're sick and when they're injured. And Universal Pre-K fits into that story, into that dynamic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And that's it's it's it's ⁓ kind of bleeds right into you talk a lot about tariffs, tax reform, ⁓ corporate consolidation. How are you seeing the impact of tariffs in your local community or broader in South Carolina? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: So Charleston area, which my district is kind of built around, it's not all of Charleston, but it's the periphery. It's one of the major ports on the East coast. So tariffs are situationally useful. They can be used in a way to increase the price of foreign products. So people buy domestic products and you might want that for really critical technologies. You know, if there's a global war, if there's a global virus, you do want to have domestic industry for the most important products like vehicles or like medicine. But the way that the Trump administration is using them has been really here and there. It's been inconsistent and it's been put on things that we can't readily create here in America. You know, it's been put on Brazil. It's been put on crop, countries that have crops that we can't readily grow here because we don't have much of a tropical climate like tea or coffee. So largely not supportive of the Trump tariffs. I'd be in favor of tariffs in a very, very niche specific way. But there's one more word you mentioned in there, which is monopolization, which corporate consolidation. And I think that's the real story of inflation in America. The greatest driver of inflation that we're experiencing comes from market consolidation. Prices are basically just about who has leverage in a relationship. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: If the seller has leverage, prices get to go up. If the buyer has leverage, prices get to go down. And as customers, as Americans, we are losing leverage over the stuff we are buying because of rampant corporate consolidation across almost all industries. In meat packing, about four companies control 80 to 85 % of the market. Whereas 40 years ago, they only had 26%. So that's got something to do with the price you're paying for meat. Seeds, four companies, about 60%. percent in healthcare, there's one or two dominant health insurers per state. And it didn't used to be this way. Like in 1980, it was still about 50, 50 independent to conglomerate. And it's just gone the conglomerate favorite since then. key to getting prices down is going to be breaking up these large monopolies or in some cases, incentivizing new competitors, startups, independent businesses, small to medium sized businesses. And the last part, in some cases, like healthcare, is just providing a public alternative that can compete with the for-profit elements that don't really belong in our most critical services. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and that's such a great way to talk about how... mergers and acquisitions and hostile takeovers and all of this amongst themselves has led us to be eaten by this massive wolf mouth, right? Like when it was all, everything was smaller and now it's just so clearly them against us, the corporate. I mean, even when we're talking about EpiPens, you mentioned that on your website too. I know you talked about healthcare briefly, but ⁓ inhumane. ⁓ Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: That's a, that's the, that's, that's yeah. I mean, so the parent copy of EpiPen was Mylan and they had almost complete market capture. They were making like 90 % of the EpiPen market. And I believe it was over about a six year period. Prices went up by $500. And we have to remember like these corporations are self-interested. Like they are there to make money for themselves. And if that means hurting people, that means some people have to die because they can't afford a life-saving profit or a life-saving product. They'll absolutely take that situation. So there has to be some other kind of mediator in this relationship. And that should be us, the American people. And thankfully we're still a democracy, you know, as manipulated by money that we are, we are a democracy and this is the greatest tool we have to take care of each other. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. And one of the things that does threaten our democracy, speaking of money and corporations, is campaign finance reform. Can you speak a little bit to that? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Absolutely. So we would love to overturn citizens United. ⁓ that's a lot of people are working on that effort. There are some people out there who have a theory that even within the framework of citizens United standing, you could put limits or bands on contributions to super PACs. I'd love to see how far they go with that through a legal system that I personally wouldn't be prepared to navigate. But additionally, I would say let's explore taxing. these large contributions to candidates or super PACs or other kind of lobbying firms. And then you use that to fund a public fund that is available for candidates who don't take super PAC money or who don't take corporate PAC money. And that way you have the wealthiest people in the country indirectly funding the candidates they are trying to keep out of power. So public matching funds, if you want to see it in action, you can also look at what happened in New York city. Like if everyone's familiar with Zoran Mondani, New York city has their own public matching funds program. So Zoran had to forego certain kinds of fundraising, but for every dollar he got from a small dollar donation, he got a percentage of public money. And that made sure that his campaign could grow in ratio along with his actual public support. Leigh/@followtheleighder: As... Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that's, it's so, so creative, the different ways that people are having to combat Citizens United and just the different avenues to take because it can seem very daunting to run for office. and then see all the money that is available out there, but you sell your soul. There's no way to balance someone like Boeing and the common person. And so I appreciate you speaking on that because Citizens United is just bad. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah. I don't know if y'all know this. I don't know if y'all know this as viewers. I'm sure a lot of y'all are very involved. But candidates are basically coached just be fundraisers. Like the advice I have been given from people that work in this field running for this campaign. is like the first two months, all you really do is you sit down for eight hours a day, you pick up the phone and you're calling names. You're calling arranged lists of names for people who have donated to candidates before or participated in primaries and you're just asking for money. And that means that the best fundraisers, the people that the establishment consider the best candidates are just people who have a bunch of rich friends because they can empty their contact lists. They can go through their LinkedIn and they can get max donations. And the sad thing is this doesn't stop. When you go to Congress, that is still considered their job. The Democratic Party wants to help elect people who can go sit in Congress and still call for six, eight hours a day. You can still go to the big balls and social events and fundraise for the Democratic Party. That is how they see the strength of a candidate. It is someone who can call wealthy people and get money from them. And that's deeply perverse because that is not the experience most of us have. We are not very wealthy people who have the ability to donate over $3,000. to every candidate that calls. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's, it's very real. And I appreciate your commitment to clean campaign finance, either in the legislation that you hope to pass or even in your own campaign. Because it again goes back and ties into your stance on human rights. and you will proudly defend the rights of all people. I know I asked this question a little bit earlier, but there was just so much to cover. could have been ICE, immigration, et cetera. But looking at reproductive rights or access to IVF, ⁓ marriage equality, transgender Americans, how do you stand on that? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah. So I think that women should have the freedom to navigate their own pregnancies. I do believe we should federally codify Roe vs. Wade. When it comes to transgender individuals, like their people, I support them. I know that's a very vague term. But more specifically, they should not be arrested or fined for using a restroom at an airport or off the side of a highway. And the thing is, if the people that are truly transphobic are not supportive of transgender people being able to use the bathroom that fits their understanding of themselves, you're going to wind up with people that look exactly like me, but have a vagina going into the ladies room. So there's no winning for those people. If you're really that transphobic, like there is no winning, you are going to be uncomfortable one way or another. So I, there's, there's a great degree that we need to support trans people, but they need to be able to live life as, as the word identify is almost too cheap for this. Cause people don't understand it. When, when we say trans people identifies a certain gender, it's not like a declaration. It's not a cheap statement. There are people out there that have. incredibly deep, profound feelings of being in the wrong body from birth, from the age, as soon as they form an identity for themselves. And they should be, that should be recognized as something that's true. It's not a mental disability. It's just one way to be a person. And I need to do a lot more work to understand the ins and outs of their lives and the challenges that they're facing. I only really understand the tip of the iceberg. because it's not something I don't talk to my trans friends about being trans, but it is something I'm learning more about and I'm with them all the way. The last part of that was marriage equality. Yes, I don't want to see that overturned. Like love is love. If I can marry a woman, a woman should be able to marry a woman. And I think that's really clear cut. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Talk to us a little bit about the, ⁓ I know that South Carolina and North Carolina contributed a lot of soldiers ⁓ population wise to the American military. There is a lot going on with our military, whether it's the war abroad or it's concerns about AI technology and military, there's a lot to cover here. ⁓ We'll start off, how are you, if given the opportunity today, how would you have voted on the War Powers Resolution Act? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Yeah, I would have voted to restrain the president's powers. Sorry, I got a plane going overhead. I hope that doesn't, that doesn't pick up too much or interrupt your product. But yeah, no, but the ability to wage war should rest within Congress and the American people. It'll happen much less often. Leigh/@followtheleighder: last week. You're all good. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Both political parties, not just now, but in the past, have sort of been happy to let the president do it so they don't have to take the hard votes on foreign policy. ⁓ This war with Iran should not have happened. Iran is not a threat to us. It's really difficult to believe that they were developing a nuclear missile because you've seen the leadership of Israel, like Benjamin Netanyahu, cry wolf for 30 years about this and it hasn't happened. We also had the strikes, you know, about half a year ago in which we were told the nuclear program was completely obliterated. So this war is just baffling to me. I think that ultimately maybe it was done just because certain donors were trying to get the people in power to do it. I think it's just imperialism. Countries tend to try to control trade routes and they try to control natural resources because that's where wealth and economic dominance come from. And we've seen this start in Venezuela. They had a quick victory. They now took it to a place that's not going to be a quick victory. it's, it's ultimately, think, because China is starting to lap us technologically that the people in power are looking at, well, what else can we use? Well, we have this massive military. Maybe that's the answer to our problem. Whereas China actually has some very capable statecraft and industrial planning that we're not willing to do here because our economy is so financialized now. It's not really about industrialization. It's not about making things. It's about making money. So I think the people in power are leaning towards imperialism really hard because that's the only card they have to play, or at least the card that they're compassionate or brave enough to play. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank you for that. The second question, and this could be related to military or environment or just however you want to hook this in, but AI is a real hot topic. AI data centers, AI privacy, AI military surveillance. ⁓ What are your perspective on AI and how you see the future for your constituents? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Right. So the purpose of new technologies is not to replace work. It is to replace workers. And for decades now, the American people have been losing their value as laborers because new technologies have enabled globalization. It's enabled whatever they were creating to be created somewhere else. It's also enabled new technologies that replace work, not just AI, but automation. And it is a concern. I think. We shouldn't be afraid of new technologies. just want to make sure that the benefits that they bring are equally shared amongst our people. And we're probably looking at something like a Star Trek future a lot, a lot closer to us than we realize. And Star Trek, there's this thing called the materializer and it can basically create everything. The Star Trek is this vision of a post-scarcity earth where no one needs to go hungry. No one. ⁓ lacks clean drinking water because we can create the basic necessities of life. And we really are there, but in or we're up, we're almost there, you know, but we can't really realize that kind of humanity until we have more democratic input over these very powerful new technologies that are being developed. So like many other people, I think what we're looking at is there probably needs to be some kind of public stake taken in the creation of these mass job displacers. And that can sound scary right now because you really don't want people like Donald Trump having that kind of power or leverage. But we do need to know that like our day is coming, like Donald Trump is temporary. And if we as the voters do finally crack the code and get some solid people in power, this is direction that we should go. That we need to have more input over these mass. mass displacements of people and the technologies that incur them. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Thank you for such a thoughtful response. At first you started with right and I was like, feel like I might've just, and you you cruised through that one. Because there's so many different perspectives on it and one of the things you're talking about is nuance and regulation and ensuring that. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: No. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Americans have a future somehow and some way about this because again it goes all back to corporate consolidation To like who gets to control Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: We've yeah, we've always been told. Yeah, we've always been told that or we're primed to believe that money comes from work. And as an American, you're brought up on this idea that this is a country where all you need is about 40 hours of solid effort a week to get to the most important moments of your life, where you can buy a home, where you can pursue an education, where you can maybe start your own business, where you can raise a family or eventually retire securely. We've always been told it was work that got you there and people are learning. Sally their own personal experiences or the experiences their friends and that's just not true anymore than there's something else to having money and having financial security. Not the end of the day it's just control over stuff it's control over land control over water it's the ability to make things and it's the leverage to charge people. The highest degree that you can for the things that you're making and we're feeling that right now because of corporate monopolization because of the monopolization over the most important things we need to buy including. rent, including food, including medicine. So I think that the gears are turning for a lot of people just because all the systems in America are starting to make the case against their own existence and encouraging us to try something new and encouraging us to try the things that are working around the world, like single payer healthcare, like the public funding of advanced education that we see in Germany or Finland and other countries, so on and so forth. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I like that you're bringing up different countries around the world looking at different options and because there are some things that we could do nationally. There's also things that we could look and test in states and and ⁓ and so it's. It's a sad thing. It's a sad experience or fact that it is such a wealthy country, the United States, and we as Americans are, we don't see that, particularly not in livelihood wealth. And I appreciate you speaking so well to all of our working class issues today because it's, it's tired. It's hard out there. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: It is and the thing is I think most of us feel it like what I'm describing the vast majority of the country sees it either because you're living it or you know someone who is there's people out there who've Who played everything the right way like they they worked their whole life. They were able to retire They had a good retirement count and now it's getting pillaged because of what they're paying for their end of life care Or because of what they have to pay to help out their own children You know, be able to go to college, be able to afford a home. And at the end of the day, we're just seeing all this money funnel upward. And, ⁓ I'm sorry. I think I walked away from like my first impulse for your question, but yeah, but what I was saying is this isn't surprising to most people. The reason most politicians aren't talking about it is because they have to, they have to make their money from people who aren't experiencing the world the same way we are. Like there is a real battle here between the voters and the donors and candidates have to choose which one they want to go with. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Well, and tell us, why do you think you stand out against the other candidates running for office? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: So there is one other guy who I really like. He's a young mechanic and he's probably closest to me. It is hard to tell us apart other than like some superficial differences and stuff like that. But mostly it's just I have to navigate the economy in the way that most people do because I make a regular amount of money. I don't own a home. I know what it's like to look around for an apartment and realize, Hey, a thousand dollars around here is going to get you a room in someone's house on Facebook. And there's basically no working class people up in Congress. It'd be better if it was, it'd be better if people, you know, have had to navigate this economy within the last five years. And more importantly is that I don't talk about myself too much. Most candidates. You hear him speak, they're going to give you a resume and they're going to talk about issues and they're going to run on sentimentality to the degree that they have solutions. It's going to sound vague. It's going to sound something like we need to expand the ACA. We need to expand Medicare. We need to give, know, provide more money for housing, provide more money for education. And all of that is too vague for me. It's basically saying you're going to run on spending an unspecified amount of money for an unspecified amount of people. And when people explore my website or see me talk in public, I really try to lay out this story of how we got to the moment we're in. And then I start talking about very specific solutions to how we can get out of it. Or at least, know, when I promise solution, it is rooted in these universal programs for childcare, healthcare, advanced education, because I believe we all deserve this and that this is going to become more and more necessary as our value of as workers continues to go down. And the last part is I just believe the message is more important than myself. Like I know that I'm just doing my part. And if people resonate with what I'm putting out there, they're going to go out there, they're going to share it, they're going to communicate and strengthen it in their own way. And that's how a movement grows. And I have more faith in a movement than just any one candidate we send to Congress. If you consider things like, you know, women getting the right to vote. That didn't happen because people waited around for it to be politically viable. It took an ocean. took millions of people fighting with everything they had at every opportunity they were given to make it politically viable. And that's the heart of my campaign. I said, I'm not going to do whatever the polls tell me to do or the consultants tell me to do, or whatever seems politically expedient to say. Like I'm really standing on what I believe. Because. ⁓ That's the only way, if you're not gonna fight for what you believe in, then who is? So, and I still see other candidates out there to this day that are just, you they have other people writing their policy pages. They other people telling them what they're supposed to say. So, yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Alright. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for your transparency, your commitment to research, commitment to history, commitment to transparency and helping educate the voters because that's a whole other thing. hardly could get there, we're running out of time, but misinformation and like you said, getting information from somewhere else. And there is a re-education component that a lot of candidates need to employ ⁓ because we're working uphill. Can you direct the listeners to where they can volunteer, donate, or otherwise support your campaign? Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: Absolutely. If y'all would like to get involved, please check out the website. It's fulmerforcongress.com. That's F-U-L-M-E-R, fulmerforcongress.com. We're not taking super PAC money. We're not taking money from the normal villains. So your contributions really, really matter. That's the only way staff are ever going to get paid. Additionally, if you want to sign up to volunteer, we're going to be rolling out the phone banks. And if neither of those are appealing to you, then please consider at least sharing this video or other content that we create with other people so it lives beyond ourselves and the movement keeps on growing. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, Matt Fulmer, you have been an excellent guest today. ⁓ Hop back in. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: ⁓ and my- I was going to say my handles, course, Matt for Carolina, the TikTok and the Instagram and all that, Matt for Carolina. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely, Matt for Carolina. And again, that website is Fulmer for Congress. That is South Carolina, 01 Matt Fulmer, congressional candidate. Thank you so much for your commitment to the working class and for ⁓ everything you were doing. I know it takes a lot of courage, it takes energy. I'm sure you would rather be doing something else, but thank you. Matt Fulmer, SC-01 Candidate: I love doing this. This is fantastic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's going to take all of us and have some with me. Alrighty folks, well that is the end of the episode. I'm your host Leigh Larson. This was Follow the Leader. Let me know in the comments, what did you think of this? ⁓ Are there issues going on in your local area, your state that Matt Fulmer's topics today resonated with? Let me know. hear about it. But until then, like, share, comment, subscribe, you know the drill, and I'll see you next time on Follow the Leader. See ya!