Latest / Breaking The Meta / 5 Things We'll Never Agree On. 5,000 We Can.
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- Breaking The Meta: Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Quinson. Today we are sitting down with Jason Pierce who is running for Texas's Congressional District 4. ⁓ Yeah, so hello Jason, how are you doing? Jason Pearce CD-04: Yes, sir. Hello, I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing today? Breaking The Meta: I'm doing great. For everyone. Let's let's start off if you wouldn't mind letting anyone know who isn't a part of Texas. What is encompassed in District 4? Jason Pearce CD-04: So the map is very fair if you look at it. ⁓ to make it easy, ⁓ typically it's like the western side of Plano, Frisco, the colony, Prosper, and then it goes all the way up to the northern border. It's ⁓ Grayson, Fannin, Wemar, Red River, and Bowie County. So the whole northern border all the way east to Texarkana. So ⁓ it's a very small district. It takes like two hours to get to the halfway point, so it's pretty massive. Breaking The Meta: ⁓ my goodness. So you've been doing a lot of driving. Jason Pearce CD-04: Yes, I put quite a few miles on my car, which is ⁓ not a bad thing. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. So would you mind letting us ⁓ learn just a little bit about who you are and why you decided to run for Congress in the first place? Jason Pearce CD-04: Mm-hmm. I'd be more than happy to. ⁓ so I'll just kind of share some of my lore, I guess. so I was, ⁓ born and raised in Plano, Texas. I, ⁓ had my first job at 12 years old shoveling stables. I wanted to ride horses and my family couldn't afford it. So I decided to work for free horse rights. ⁓ big fan of War of the Rings. ⁓ at 13 is when my dad had his first heart attack. He lost his job. Breaking The Meta: There you go. Nice. Jason Pearce CD-04: I family went bankrupt. ⁓ At 14, I had my first paid job making $4.25 an hour at an ice cream parlor. And after six months, I saved up enough money for an Xbox. I'm real proud of that. And then I spent high school going to varsity tournaments and working trying to save money. I got to college and went to UNT for a semester. I ended up having to drop out because I could no longer afford the debt. I had also developed a severe social phobia. So ⁓ I was going to like vomit every day before school because I was terrified to make eye contact with people or pass them in the hallway. And ⁓ so I got into sales and forced myself to talk to hundreds of people a day. Had many panic attacks on my lunch breaks. ⁓ I worked minimum wage, ⁓ 90 hour work weeks, commission only, know, retail, restaurant, customer service, you name it. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mmm. There you go. Jason Pearce CD-04: So I've had to choose between food, rent and healthcare many times. I know what it's like to get excited for a different flavor of ramen noodles. So, um, I struggled a lot. Um, at 25, I joined the, uh, mortgage industry as a customer service rep. broke four records in my first five days nationally. Um, the SVP promoted me to get licensed as a mortgage loan originator. became federally licensed and licensed in 28 different states. Um, Breaking The Meta: Yeah. ⁓ wow. Jason Pearce CD-04: I did that for a few years, then I taught myself how to trade stocks and was a day trader during ⁓ the kind of COVID era. ⁓ After that, I decided to get into security and was ⁓ a security supervisor for the Dallas Cowboys headquarters for about two years. During that time, I also taught myself how to become an insurance agent. And so I got licensed in insurance and then I was a trainer for Allstate for a while. was about to go into management, then the election happened and I had to make a choice between my country and my own comfort. And so I left my job last October to campaign full time. ⁓ the real reason why I'm running there, there's a couple. The first is, ⁓ basically, you know, I'm a big believer in the, ⁓ there's a psychological principle. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jason Pearce CD-04: The bystander effect, know the more people that there are the less likely there are to get help And so I was like yelling at my TV coming home from work getting sad getting angry and doing it over and over again every day So at one point I was like, there's nothing stopping me from being that person I'm not gonna wait for somebody else to do it. So I jumped in there. I was initially running for County clerk and Then some people heard me speak a couple times. They were like, why aren't you running for district four? And so was like, oh, that's so nice of you. Thanks and Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jason Pearce CD-04: I went to Pat Felon's website, took two minutes, didn't even get past the homepage and I was like, yeah, I'm switching. ⁓ doing that. And then the second thing, which is the biggest reason, honestly, is ⁓ being able to get out of that feeling of isolation and loneliness that can come with being a Democrat in Texas and really finding not just a community, but a second family. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: There you go. Mm. Yeah. Jason Pearce CD-04: I wanted to pay them back for everything that they did for me. They really saved my life in a lot of different ways and ⁓ I just want to repay them. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. As you have driven around District 4 and talked to probably thousands of people at this point, what have been the common pain points? What are the things that most of the people are telling you that they hope ⁓ that you can help them with as a member of Congress? Jason Pearce CD-04: Yeah. Absolutely. I'd say number one is affordability. know, even before I got into, you know, politics, so to say, I being in sales for such a long time, about 90 % of my conversations during that time period where I can't afford rent, I need a lower bill, you know, I'm on a fixed income, things like that. So ⁓ affordability, not just for groceries, gas, but for housing and housing availability. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jason Pearce CD-04: Then there's also the education. know, Texas has the voucher scam that's basically just taking money away from public schools. And my sister is a special education teacher, so I know firsthand just how underfunded they are. I've had multiple friends who are teachers quit because they had no support. ⁓ And then I'd say probably the other biggest thing would have to be basic human decency, honesty, and integrity. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mm. Jason Pearce CD-04: It's really sad how rare it is in this industry where, you know, I feel like I'm just doing what any normal decent human being should be doing and people are thanking me for it. And I'm like, it's not anything that special. I'm just a person. but the other thing is I would have to say accountability for the current administration. A lot of people are seeing all of these things happening and they're looking at our leadership and seeing people write strongly worded letters while Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jason Pearce CD-04: The other side is ignoring the ref and throwing haymakers kind of thing. So there's a lot of stuff, but those are kind of the main ones. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah, those are the big ones that understand. One of the other things that has come, you know, a lot in my conversations and honestly. It's been across the aisle, it's a bipartisan issue is this idea of accountability or lack thereof when it comes to our representatives. So. Jason Pearce CD-04: Yeah. Absolutely. Breaking The Meta: My question to you is what does accountability mean to you? What does being held accountable by your constituents look like? Jason Pearce CD-04: Sure. It's actually going to town halls and having them say thank you and give you hugs instead of trying to yell at you for not doing your job. you know, their approval, they are the ones who decide whether you're successful or not. It's not my role to say whether I am or I am not. It is the people who put me in office. ⁓ know, integrity is so important to me. I feel like there's really two kind of pillars to integrity. ⁓ One is that it only matters when it's tested. And two, you know, experience comes by default, but you can't teach character. And I think that that is just so important nowadays more than ever, just because of how unchecked this current administration has been. ⁓ think people on both sides, they see that this is not normal. And so some of the things that I believe in, in order to kind of bring back that accountability, ⁓ Is you know banning stock and cryptocurrency trading for all elected officials including the judiciary? I've already sold all of my stocks and all of my assets. So the only thing I have is an IRA. I have nothing else ⁓ I also believe in term limits ⁓ for everybody including the judicial system ⁓ and ⁓ You know, I think that Having some kind of ethical requirement where Breaking The Meta: Mm. Jason Pearce CD-04: You can't just like ignore the courts and then suddenly you're 50 files deep and like things that you've been doing wrong and nobody can catch up so you get away with it kind of thing Breaking The Meta: Mmm. Yeah. Obviously. Texas while there's argument whether or not Texas is even more of a purple state. If you look at the registrations, it actually is. I know there's a problem with voting. People getting out to vote is a big problem. But needless to say, there are a lot of conservatives in Texas, regardless. What has been your experience, especially after this last year of this administration and everything that they have done, when you have gone? Jason Pearce CD-04: Yeah. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: when you've gone out and talked to people and interacted with people who may have been historically conservative. Jason Pearce CD-04: Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm in a unique position. So I'm very open about the fact that I was raised in a very far right, very conservative household. ⁓ I spent all of my youth up until I was like 23 years old, ⁓ as like, ⁓ someone in that kind of realm. ⁓ it wasn't until I, you know, started interacting with different communities and reaching out to, ⁓ multiple different groups of people and really expanding my network, ⁓ that I realized I might be wrong about some of these things. So the way that I look at it is the only reason that I am who I am today is because of people who had compassion, empathy, and patience with me during that time in my life. And so I try to show them the same courtesy. I have a one-time benefit of the doubt rule. If you are willing to have a genuine conversation and you're asking questions in order to understand and not accuse, then by all means, I'll talk with you as long as you want. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Jason Pearce CD-04: ⁓ If you're like, I'm a racist and proud of it, then that's probably gonna be different. ⁓ But you know the The thing that I think especially the media in this administration is trying to do is create this sense of division that you know your neighbors and your colleagues co-workers and even your own family are your enemies and That's not true. ⁓ If you look at Breaking The Meta: I would hope so. I would hope that would be a little bit different. Mm. Jason Pearce CD-04: anybody in your community, you walk down the street, most people aren't just like yelling hate speech at people while they're walking down the sidewalk. You know, they're, they're decent people who have genuine conversations. And at the end of the day, I think a lot of us want the same thing, which is the success of America. ⁓ And they just think about it in different ways. Or ⁓ the thing that I've noticed specifically, especially with explaining things to some of the more conservative people is They genuinely just don't know what we stand for. They have no idea what our policies are. And I think that the downfall of the Democrat party for probably the past like decade or so has been how reactionary our policies and stances have been. ⁓ Rather than giving people a solid idea of this is what we believe in, they're gonna say whatever they wanna say. ⁓ Now you have an option to pick between the two of us and make the decision that's best for you. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jason Pearce CD-04: So I know what worked for me in terms of explaining things in a way that makes sense and maybe a different way that they may have heard. I'm probably the most progressive candidate in Texas or nominee in Texas. And I have said nothing but progressive policies. And I have had so many conservative people tell me, good luck, I'm voting for you. I had a best friend who we stopped talking for three years over politics. Breaking The Meta: There you go. Mmm. Jason Pearce CD-04: And I posted a list of like 75 different policy ideas that I had come up with over the course of like a year or two. And he called me and he was like, I had no idea that that's what Democrats believed in. I've never been impressed by a Democrat before. If I could vote for you, I would. And I know that there are people who just genuinely don't know. And I think that it's our job to give them the opportunity to understand and explain it in a way that they can understand. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Yeah, I think that's one of the cool things about Texas and a few other states actually this year. ⁓ For the first time in maybe, I don't even know how many years, it's been a long time. Texas has someone running in every district, which is just awesome and hopefully has the ability to make us all realize, get out of this idea of identity politics and realize that we're not as different as it Jason Pearce CD-04: Yes, yes. That's great. Breaking The Meta: as our elected leaders want to make us think we are. Jason Pearce CD-04: There's five issues we will never agree on. There's no point in arguing anymore. Like I've had arguments with my family for like 10 years. They're not moving on those issues, but there are 5,000 issues in between that affect everybody equally and that we can work on together. So I think that focusing on the things that do unite us and bring us together and make us all stronger is far better than something that stokes fear, hatred and division and tries to separate us. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. One of the other things that has been obviously very strongly in the news is things like the ⁓ war in Iran that our administration has started. But in terms of foreign policy, this is not new for this administration, whether we're talking tariffs or Venezuela or the threats to take over Greenland or, you know, talking, pretending you're going to leave potentially leave NATO, we left the WHO, there's just, it's been wild. So much, probably more than, definitely more than I've said already. Jason Pearce CD-04: There's so much. There's a lot. Yes, yes. Breaking The Meta: The fact is, regardless of what this administration wants us to believe, we are no longer at the head of the table in terms of the world. Jason Pearce CD-04: Yeah, we've lost our standing as one of the waiters, you know, and it's so sad because Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jason Pearce CD-04: I'll be honest, I expected this to happen, but I didn't expect it to happen so fast. just looking back even just a couple years and seeing how far we've fallen in such a short amount of time, it really kind of stresses just how important this midterm is. ⁓ I'll be honest, I think that this is probably the last chance we will ever have to save our democracy. ⁓ and it is by far the most important election in our nation's history. we have to get control of just, you know, not having generational trauma every day on the news. Breaking The Meta: Hahaha. Yes. ⁓ So where do you see our foreign policy going forward, knowing that some of our closest allies don't trust us, don't trust a trade deal we've made? I mean, we had an issue with the EU where we had a deal, then we put tariffs on them, then we made a new deal, and then we threatened more tariffs on them. How do we move forward from that kind of damage? Jason Pearce CD-04: Yeah. So there's two reasons why this is happening right now that I really see as the foundation behind why they're making these decisions in the first place. One, distract from the Epstein files. They're literally ready to start a war and murder civilians overseas if it means that Donald Trump doesn't get brought forward in front of Congress to ⁓ be investigated. And The other one is insider trading, manipulation of the stock market. Because I used to do trading and stuff for a while, I know how important the news is and how much of an impact that can have. I've seen cryptocurrencies drop 75 % in one day. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jason Pearce CD-04: There are actually videos of Trump in the Oval Office bragging about making JP Morgan chase a billion dollars in one day. And so I think that tariffs are just an excuse to ⁓ say, hey, we're going to make it way more expensive to buy from this country. So people sell their stuff so they can keep their profits. then once the price drops down, then all the billionaires buy the stocks back in. They have a much higher share of the profits now. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jason Pearce CD-04: then they remove the tariffs and suddenly everything's great and the pricing goes back up and they make a billion dollars. ⁓ right now, foreign policy wise, I think that we are definitely siding with Russia and Israel far more than we need to be. ⁓ Russia specifically, they invaded an ally nation and we are treating Putin with far more respect than Zelensky. They literally had Marines on their knees rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin. And then they didn't even have anybody come say hi to Zelensky. And then they ambushed him in the Oval Office saying that he wasn't wearing a suit and that he should say thank you. He's a wartime president. He just came from a war zone and you want him to wear a suit? Like, come on. ⁓ And then, yeah, know, Israel's committing genocide ⁓ in Palestine. It's not even a question if anybody Breaking The Meta: Yeah. a suit. Yeah. Jason Pearce CD-04: Thanks differently, I've saved hundreds of videos over the course of the past few years. ⁓ I have made sure that there will always be evidence available. And I think that the war in Iran is an extension of trying to, you know, take over the Middle East and kind of wipe out the ⁓ people that they disagree with, ⁓ as well as trying to get resources like oil and stuff like that. And the fact that it distracts from the Epstein files is just a bonus. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Yeah. So I want to do a little bit of future casting if you don't mind. ⁓ So let's say November 3 comes around and you win. Congratulations. January 2 comes around and you are sworn in as the representative of the 4th District of Texas. What are the first things that you do? Jason Pearce CD-04: I love that. Mm-hmm. Yes. Thank you. introduce articles of impeachment and use Article 2, Section 4 in order to impeach the entire administration. Breaking The Meta: Okay, what's the second thing you do? Jason Pearce CD-04: So the next thing that we need to do is we need to start working on breaking up these monopolies. I want to ban corporations from buying single-family homes as well as force them to divest over the next 10 years. I also believe in ⁓ ending overseas tax repuls for billionaires and corporations. ⁓ If you do business in America, you need to pay taxes in America. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mm. Jason Pearce CD-04: ⁓ I also want to make ⁓ it mandatory for all high school seniors to have civics and financial literacy classes. So they know how our government works. I'm still shocked at the amount of people who genuinely have no idea how our government is ran. And, you know, I want people to know things that I wish I knew that instead of just getting thrown out into adulthood and figure it out yourself kind of thing. ⁓ I want people to know Breaking The Meta: Mm. Yes. Jason Pearce CD-04: what an IRA is, how to invest safely, how to do your taxes, and how to prepare for retirement. one of the biggest things about why they're defunding education is because the people in power need a working class, and they need a working class that can only afford to work for them. And so they're making sure that they don't have the same tools to be able to reach the heights that they already have. but they keep dangling the carrot of, you may be a billionaire one day, but you're bankrupt as soon as you leave school and you have a hundred K in debt. So there's a lot of stuff. Breaking The Meta: Yes. Yeah. Just and just for everyone listening, it is impossible for everyone to be as wealthy as capitalism wants to make us think that we can be there. There is. There is no way that everyone can be a millionaire or or more. There just isn't enough money in the world there. It's just not possible. So. Jason Pearce CD-04: Yes. We are all closer to homelessness than we are to being a billionaire. Yeah, the way I look at wealth is one of the things that I pride myself on is I'm poor. I'm good at being poor. ⁓ But, you know, I've paid off all my debt, but my net worth is definitely not high. So I know how to use my money in a good way. But whenever I got into this industry and I saw the amount of money being thrown around and some of the totals that these people are donating, it Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jason Pearce CD-04: It's mind boggling to me. you know, personally, whenever I see a vast amount of wealth, ⁓ it's sickening to me because the only thing I can think about is how many people had to be hurt for that amount of money to exist in the first place. So you can only become a billionaire by making sure other people don't get paid. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yep. ⁓ You Texas, the Texas Senate race might go down in history as one of the most expensive races ever. They've already spent, I mean, the Republican Party, even before the runoff has already spent 70 million, I think. Jason Pearce CD-04: Yes, Millions and like a quarter of a ⁓ yeah. ⁓ that's actually one of the things that I'm pretty proud about. so I campaigned for a year and, I spent less than $1,500 on my campaign in that time. And the only thing that I had was business cards and I spent a hundred dollars on a website. and then I just went to every single event and networked with Breaking The Meta: Wow. Jason Pearce CD-04: genuinely every single person at every single event that I could ⁓ and you know my my primary colleague ⁓ I don't like to call him an opponent because he is actually a genuine friend of mine at this point ⁓ he had a team of five people he had his own business that was you know funding his campaign he had a double doctorate a crazy resume ⁓ you know ads merchandise he was passing out t-shirts stickers had signs and all this stuff and I'm showing Breaking The Meta: Mm. Did he have one of those cannons that shot the the t-shirts? ⁓ Jason Pearce CD-04: ⁓ man, it would have been next, I'm sure. But, yeah, you know, I don't think that anybody even expected it to be remotely close. And I had made peace with just being, you know, over 30%. And then when election night happened, I think that everybody was shocked. ⁓ part of the reason why I did it that way is I wanted to prove a point that money doesn't beat genuine compassion and ⁓ you know, hard work, empathy, I intentionally did not ask for donations for almost my entire campaign. asked for donations twice and I wanted to show people that it can be done a different Breaking The Meta: For everyone that has listened up until this point and heard everything that we have talked about, what are one or two things that no matter what you'd want to make sure that they know about you and your campaign? Jason Pearce CD-04: That I'm not special. I'm not trying to be. I'm not doing this for money, power, glory, anything like that. When I said it earlier that, you know, I feel like I found a second family, I wasn't lying. I don't see people as voters or constituents or anything like that. I'm not going to events for voter outreach or to connect with people. I'm going to catch up with friends. I'm going to see how I can help my family, you know, that I genuinely enjoy listening and learning and hearing the stories from everybody that I speak to. and I'd say the other thing is just the fact that I'm a normal person. I, I know what it is like to struggle. I've struggled so much. And the only thing that I learned from that is that I don't want other people to go through what I did and I have had to stand up to bullies for quite a long time. ⁓ I do prefer to be a communicator and an educator first, ⁓ because I believe that, you we do need fighters, but the way that we fight is just as important as the fight itself. And there is so much more that unites us than divides us. And I really do have hope that we can get back to what we are meant to stand for as a country. Breaking The Meta: For anyone that wants to learn more about you and support you, whether volunteering or whatever, where can they find you? Jason Pearce CD-04: So my website is piercefortexas.com. So if you want Peace for Texas, just remove the R. I'm pretty proud of that one. Breaking The Meta: There you go. Jason, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for spending time and hanging out with us. It was great to get to know you and what you hope to do for the people of the Fourth District. ⁓ For everyone else listening, thank you so much for listening this far. Please hit all those buttons below. makes it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing. So like, subscribe, share, all of that stuff. And ⁓ just so you know, people like Jason, ⁓ this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's why I'm interviewing as many people as I'm interviewing. There are so many people. Jason Pearce CD-04: My pleasure. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: in this country that want to do things the right way. They're grassroots campaigns at minimum. ⁓ They want to be held accountable. They want to break the status quo. They want to fix the problems that we keep saying we've got in this country that we've been complaining about in some cases for decades. ⁓ So please support whether it's watching this video and sharing it with people, whether it's watching their content and sharing it. This is how we give them visibility and name recognition. Jason Pearce CD-04: Yes. Breaking The Meta: and allows whether it's news outlets to pay attention to them or just people in their districts to see them. These kind of things. That's how it increases that. So please watch share. It really does help out. And for people that are new to breaking the meta, just so you know, this this podcast is all 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, get rights, respect, dignity and safety. Jason, again, Thank you so much and for everyone else, we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye guys.