Latest / Breaking The Meta / Imagine Running for Office With THIS Last Name in 2026
Transcript
- Breaking The Meta: Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Winson. Today we are sitting down with the man who probably has the worst name humanly possible for running for office in 2026. we'll give him the fact that he is trying to help this country. His name is Rob Epstein and he is not related and he is running for State House District 23 in the state of Georgia. Hello, Rob. How are you doing? Rob Epstein: Not related. Yeah, I'm doing great yourself. Breaking The Meta: I have to ask, how many times do you have to, as you're going around and campaigning and talking to people, do you get asked about that? Rob Epstein: I mean, way I introduce myself now is, hi, my name's Rob Epstein, not related. It's just, it's at the end. I'm saying, yeah, I've been encouraged to maybe put an asterisk and my, my yard ⁓ signs that says, you know, asterisk and down the bottom, not related. ⁓ I've had a couple of people ask, ⁓ ask for the files. It's a thing. Breaking The Meta: Ha ha! Yep. Yep. You've been like, if I could, I would. ⁓ So thank you for being here. Thanks for sitting down with us. I appreciate it. And I'm really looking forward to learning about you. ⁓ Let's start. Yeah, let's start off with just a little bit learning about who you are and why you decided to run for state house in the first place. Rob Epstein: Thanks for having me. Sure, yeah. So 30 years in technology was my profession. Starting in the late 90s, that'll give you a feel for how old I am. Software engineer by trade. Quickly fell into kind of engineering leadership and management where I found a real kind of comfort place of kind of leading people and helping mentor people. I don't know if you're familiar with Simon Sinek, but from a... Breaking The Meta: Mame sounds familiar. Yeah, yeah, he's ⁓ Yeah, yeah, right. Rob Epstein: The leadership guru kind of, yeah, he says his most probably most popular phrase is being a manager isn't about being in charge. It's about taking people who are in your charge. And so that was my perspective. Certainly the way I walk through life, just trying to show up as best I can for people kind of in a constant race to the back of the line. I have really no need to do for me. more in students and other succeed. professionally, being a manager and helping people kind of plot a course professionally from point A to point B ⁓ was exceedingly rewarding and grew some amazing relationships. Matter of fact, some of my first campaign contributors were from my professional experience and people I had managed before. ⁓ So ⁓ I'd always been kind of a political onlooker. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. So why did you decide to run? Rob Epstein: ⁓ I don't, for the record, consider myself particularly political. Like I don't have any political ambition other than just being a good public servant. ⁓ My wife was never a huge fan of anything that might have been a run for political office, very much one in our private life not to be public. ⁓ She passed away last year after a four-year cancer battle. She passed away in May. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Right. Yeah. Rob Epstein: Of course, that was hard. Luckily, four years, I had plenty of time to kind of grieve with her. So by the time ⁓ that reached the end, of we were both at acceptance and in a pretty decent place. ⁓ Doesn't make this year of firsts really any easier, but ⁓ I certainly entered it with the right frame of mind, I think. So after she passed, ⁓ I very shortly after that retired. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. No. Rob Epstein: and just kind of prayed on where I needed to be next, how I needed to serve. ⁓ My faith is very important to me, by the way. I'll be honest, if the only thing I accomplished with this run is disassociating Christ followers from Christian nationalism and how my faith has been a bit corrupted ⁓ by this conflation of... Breaking The Meta: Mm. Amen to that. Rob Epstein: being a Christ follower and being patriotic. ⁓ So if I can just kind of reset that for people and let them see kind of a defined disciple of Christ, like what that walk looks like as it relates to kind of showing up with love and compassion and grace for others, that'll have been a good win. Look, wanna, of course I wanna win the race. Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know. Breaking The Meta: Yeah, we need to do the other stuff too, but let's get that as well. Yeah, I feel you. Rob Epstein: I prayed on it and I felt called to run for this seat, which felt weird because like I said, I'm not political. So I was like, okay, well it's a timeout. That can't be where you want me to go. Kept sitting with it and that kept coming up. So yeah, in November, I kind of committed myself to this race. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Wow. So as you are going around your district and talking with people, what are the things that most people talk to you about? What are those pain points of your district that they need your help with in the state house? Rob Epstein: Yeah, look, we get a whole lot of conversations about federal level issues, ⁓ some of which have certainly some state ramifications. ICE being one of them, a lot of people are just frustrated with the erosion of personal liberties and... ⁓ not following due process, just all of the mess that kind of comes with the way ICE is executing what we've seen executed very successfully in the past with other administrations. So people are certainly spun up about that. ⁓ There are certainly things we can do at the state level to encourage ⁓ them to not be in the state. ⁓ So I hear that a lot, ⁓ certainly affordability. Right now in the state house, there's a lot of talk of ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Right. Rob Epstein: reducing the state income tax, in fact eliminating it phased over a number of years, and adjustments to property tax. And it plays well in that all of that comes off as I now have more money in my pocket. And that's certainly one half the affordability equation, but like what are we doing to actually help drive costs down or at least keep them stable? Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Rob Epstein: ⁓ So those conversations often end up reminding them that those taxes pay for services that a lot of our ⁓ less fortunate citizens are taking advantage of. And I think if society can't do ⁓ health, home, and food well, and democracy, then what are we doing? So I hear lot about that. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Rob Epstein: Certainly housing affordability in this county is really rough. We've got a lot of institutional investors. In fact, there's one neighborhood that's 55 % investor-owned properties. So getting a handle on that. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Wow. Rob Epstein: and helping solve the housing affordability crisis. are like, yeah, got my kids are living with me. The 40 years old, like they just can't get out. They one they're working full time and they're just not making enough money to be able to afford the homes in the area. Talk to real estate like, well, yeah, they just move further out. Well, people want to. You know, carry on life in the place they started like it's wanting to stay in the county and not have to continue to retreat further out from Atlanta. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Right. Rob Epstein: So those come out a lot. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. ⁓ One of the other things that comes up a lot with, I think, a lot of people in this country is this idea of accountability or the lack thereof when it comes to our representatives. What does accountability mean to you? What does being held accountable by the people of your district look like? Rob Epstein: Yeah, for me, I guess it's pretty simple. It's showing up. ⁓ think certainly in my district, I'll speak more broadly for Cherokee, citizens aren't used to public servants that are showing up. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Rob Epstein: holding town halls, being accountability starts with hearing the areas where you're falling short. And if you're not willing to enter those arenas and take those hard truths and have a dialogue with people, then they're never gonna feel comfortable that the levers of government are being pulled in their favor. So for me, it starts there and it has started already with showing up in not just kind of safe blue. areas but digging into those conservative areas like business clubs and chambers of commerce to listen to those voices and hear I am I'm as I mentioned I moved up here in August ⁓ I'm not even the district a year so it's really important to me to get out and just listen to people ask what what's hurting them what's keeping them from the fulfilled life and then noodling on that figuring out how we can make that life better Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Georgia is a purple district, even though the state on the state side, it has been run by Republicans for a while now. How how has the recent events of the last year, especially with Trump's tariffs and the big feudal big, big, beautiful bill and now the Rob Epstein: A while, Breaking The Meta: war in Iran, and the loss of the ACA subsidies and just a myriad of things that have happened over the last How has that affected your interactions with people that have been historically conservative? Has that opened doors in a way that may not have been there two years ago? Rob Epstein: hundred percent. And I don't even think the state party necessarily appreciates how much. ⁓ so the S party will tier races based on the likelihood of flipping that, that given seat. ⁓ I'm not in a tiered race and compatriots of mine a little further south, but still in the same County are starting to get tiered. But as I've been out there talking to like, I'm not. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Mm. Rob Epstein: from a canvassing perspective, because I'm knocking doors, I'm not knocking on Democratic doors. I'm knocking on independents, people that maybe don't have a voting record or even leaning Republican. And they are frustrated. It's not what they voted for. And I have a very heavy Latino population. I've got a just under 20 % Latino population. And, you know, we know the conservatives put up a big fight to flip those votes and they did, ⁓ because people in that community that are voters, ⁓ they fought hard to get here the quote unquote right way. Right. So it was a, it was a convenient message to say, we're not going to come after those community members. We're just going to come after the criminal element. ⁓ and they won votes and that population is they're pissed. They're, they've had it. They were sold a thing. Matter of fact, I'm working with a political strategist who was part of the effort to turn those votes. And she felt horribly enough that she is now helping Democrats in the state. Breaking The Meta: Mmm. Wow. Rob Epstein: reverse that damage because she felt used. She honestly believed that the policy was going to be, we're just going to go after the criminal element. And that's what she sold to her pot. she's Latina. She sold that to her population in native language. And so, yeah, there's an immense amount of frustration and willingness to go a different direction because of those issues. Breaking The Meta: Wow. Mm. That's amazing. So let's do a little bit of future casting. So November 3rd comes along and you win. Congratulations. ⁓ January comes along, you're sworn in as the representative for the 23rd District of Georgia State House. What are the first things that you want to do? Rob Epstein: The very first thing I'm going to recommend is a one line change to the Georgia corporate code that bans corporations, homed in Georgia from contributing in any way to any political campaign. Full stop. ⁓ We have to get our public servants serving the public again. And until we can fix the corporate money issue, it's not going to happen because nobody can write a check as big as a corporation can. Breaking The Meta: Mm. There you go. Right. Rob Epstein: So that's step one, very first thing I'll do. Also on the democracy side, fight for automatic runoff ballots, rank choice voting. We don't have that in the state. There's several states that do and it's very successful. Georgia is really bad about runoff elections. It costs so much money and waste so much time. So from a democracy perspective, that's the next thing I do. Breaking The Meta: Mmm. Love it. Rob Epstein: Probably the third thing on my list is, so healthcare is a huge deal for me. Going through that battle with my wife, her four-year cancer battle, and being on the other side of it and having now marketplace insurance, it went from $750 a month to $1,500 a month in January. I gained a lot of lived experience and empathy for how terrible our private marketplace insurance is. If I had this insurance, when my wife was going through a cancer battle, we'd have lost our house. I wouldn't have been able to send my kid to Berry College to play soccer. I mean, it would have destroyed our life because cancer chose her and nobody should ever have to deal with that. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Rob Epstein: while they're also struggling with the passing of a loved one. So fixing that is at the tip top of my list. ⁓ Georgia hasn't accepted the Medicaid expansion yet. That's step one. Free expanded coverage for the least of us ⁓ needs to happen. Beyond that, Georgia's got About a $17 billion cash surplus portion of that is statutorily mandated as a rainy day fund. But then there's this other bank of around let's call it 10 that's sitting in cash reserves. Money that tax, great taxpayers of this state have contributed and are getting no benefit from. Breaking The Meta: sitting there. Yeah. Yeah. Rob Epstein: Let's find a way to help drive down prescription drug costs in the state. Let's find a way to help for the time being while we're trying to fix our insurance delivery in this country. Let's at least help those who are stuck in this, I don't have employer's insurance. I'm having to buy it off the marketplace. It's cruddy. Let's figure out a way to use that money to help them. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. State legislatures just like our just like our federal government systems of Congress. ⁓ They're not perfect and they can always do things better. If you could go in and snap your finger fingers and change one way that your legislature is working right now in a way that you disagree with what what would that be? Rob Epstein: I'll speak on maybe a bit, ⁓ generically on this. ⁓ I'm not going to come at it from a Robert's rules of order kind of position, but the way it functions as. Let's just pretend like it's a society. The poisons that are affecting our society in general are infecting our state houses, especially specifically Georgia have a friend who won the special election in the Northeast corner of the state, Eric Gissler. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. Rob Epstein: ⁓ speaking to him as he was serving his first term. ⁓ It's so broken that as a Democrat, it's a minority party member of the legislature, if he has a good bill idea and he's talked to his co-legislators on the other side and gotten them to sign, he can't actually submit that bill under his name. He's got to fully just hand it off to somebody on the Republican side, put their name on it. They're the lead sponsor for it to show up. And I don't know that anyone in the state really cares about that. Like, what's the purpose of that? So. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. other than bragging rights for the person who gets to put their name on it and be like, look at the bill that I passed, even though I had no part in it. Yeah. Rob Epstein: That's it. that doesn't help society, doesn't help our constituents. So we can run a better ad in the next election cycle? It's gross. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ For anyone that has been listening up until this point and heard all the different things that we've talked about, what are one or two things that no matter what you would want someone listening to come away with knowing about you and your campaign? Rob Epstein: It's a great question. Number one that although faith drives how I show up in the world, it's not a mandate to how everybody else should show up. Every person's a different person. Whether you're agnostic, atheist, Buddhist, Muslim, does not matter to me. You're free in this country to worship the way you want to worship, to show up for people the way you want to show up. Discipleship of Christ informs the way I show up for sure ⁓ I show it with love compassion respect And Nate, you know support of the dignity of life of everybody regardless of how they're choosing to live life ⁓ So the second thing I want to walk away from is that in my belief and in the people that I've spoken to is what Christianity is all about. So if someone walks away from watching my campaign or me on the campaign trail, if they walk away with a slightly better ⁓ understanding of the Christian faith ⁓ and maybe a different view of Jesus, he's not the white toga wearing gun toting person that see in ads. The third thing is that I'm an open book and present. fully present. So for anyone who's in my district wanting to reach out, they can hit up my website at robepstein.org. There's my contact information. I'm happy to sit in any living room, in any subdivision, in any business and have a conversation ⁓ with anybody and we'll make it respectful ⁓ and we'll make it come from a place of empathy and love. Breaking The Meta: Rob, thank you for sitting down with us and spending some time letting us get to know you and what you hope to do for your district. appreciate it. Rob Epstein: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Breaking The Meta: Yeah, and for everyone else that has listened this far, thank you so much. Please consider hitting all those buttons down below, like, subscribe, share it makes it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing, which is interacting and interviewing amazing people like Rob and all hundreds now of other candidates around the country that are wanting to do things the right way. They want to be held accountable. They want to break the status quo. They want they want to make changes that in some cases we've been talking about for decades. So please watch the content, share the content, comment on the content, interact with it. And ⁓ it increases the chance that people in districts like Rob's get to see his face and ⁓ hopefully gets him over the edge so we can actually change things. And ⁓ for people that don't know 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. And again, Rob, thank you for being here and everyone else will see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye guys.