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770,000 Bosses · Blue Dog Radio

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Blue Dog Radio.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we're heading to central Kentucky for a conversation with Zach Dembo, the Blue Dog endorsed nominee for Congress in Kentucky's 6th district.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Dembo is a ninth-generation Kentuckian.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: His mother grew up working on a dairy and tobacco farm.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: His father was a Jewish New Yorker who chose Kentucky and made a life there.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Zach's own path has taken him through an eighth-grade classroom in the Mississippi Delta, the United States Navy, and federal courtrooms as a civil rights prosecutor.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the way, those jobs started to connect.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, Dembo talks about a student who he still thinks about years later.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about what it feels like when somebody with very little power is standing across from somebody with a lot of it, and he talks about the responsibility that comes with being asked to represent another person, whether you're their teacher, their lawyer, or their elected representative in the U.S.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Congress.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Here's our conversation with Zach Dembo.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Zach Dembo, welcome to Blue Dog Radio.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're a ninth generation Kentuckian.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: What does that actually mean to you?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I knew that my family had been here a long time, but you know, you get you probably remember it with Ancestry.com and a couple other things.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: It became very like uh in vogue to like look into it.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so I went to the cemetery around the area where my family grew up, and I actually discovered we were ninth generation, which was crazy.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think anyone knew.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it was on both sides of my mom's family, my grandmother and my grandfather, all the family came over in the mid-1700s, and then you were able to look at the census records, and every single occupation listed for you know the men, unfortunately, because this was, you know, the 1800s and whatnot, was farmer.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that just meant, you know, I already felt a big connection to Kentucky, obviously.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up here, but seeing that nine generations of my ancestors have lived here and thinking of how many uh in on my mom's side, it's Roberts and and scarce are the names.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: How many Roberts and Scarces are buried in this amazing ground?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: And seeing some of the, you know, it just basically what it told me is I want to be here, and at the risk of sounding morbid, I want to be buried here.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, this is my land, and this is where my family is from, and these are my people.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: So it meant a lot to me.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's really why I moved my why I'm here and why I'm doing this.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Your mom grew up on a small dairy and tobacco farm and became the first person in her family to attend college.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: What did you inherit from her and what kind of spirit did you get from your mom?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: Both of my parents are amazing, very different backstories.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I mean, my mom just had to work so, so hard.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: And first we're talking, she was out there setting tobacco at age five.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: That is a very labor-intensive thing to set tobacco.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, on a small family farm, no one was off.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, as it used to be.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: Summers from school were so that people could work the farm, not so that they could play around.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: So uh, you know, I think what I inherited from her was just an appreciation for people who work hard.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, she, you know, worked hard herself and went through college, and that wasn't even enough for her.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: She went through med school.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so thanks to her, you know, I got to have a great education.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll be honest, I didn't have to work the farm, and that was because she said when she was out there setting tobacco, she resolved to herself, my kids are never gonna, never gonna have to do this.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm grateful to it.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, from her, I think I developed just such an appreciation for folks who have to work hard.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: And my God, my my grandma who raised four kids starting at age 17 and then raised a bunch of grandkids and worked.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, they're just such tough women and so uh so strong.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I think that's what I learned.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: I better or worse, did not learn from my mom the dairy farm hours, which she still keeps, much to my annoyance when I was a teenager, right?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: She'd still be up at 5 a.m., no matter what.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we didn't have any cows to milk, but she was still up then.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: So for better or worse, I didn't get that from her, but uh I learned so much from her.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: And she's still with us.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: I shouldn't talk in the past tets.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, your father's story is a little different.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: A Jewish New Yorker who ended up building a life in Kentucky.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, what brought him to Kentucky and what did growing up between those two family stories teach you about your hometown?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, exactly right.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: My dad actually was um born to an unwed Jewish mother in one of those uh unwed, uh, you know, homes for unwed women, um, where they'd send them away and then they'd give birth.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so the family never knew.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then he got adopted by uh a conservative Jewish family uh in in Brooklyn and eventually Long Island.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: That it's an easy answer as to why he ended up in Kentucky.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's because of my mom.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: He met my mom while they were both in their residency.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: She convinced him to be in Kentucky, and thank goodness, because I feel so, so lucky to have grown up here.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: But you know what's great about it is it's basically Kentucky's story and Lexington's story.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: Look, there are people like my mom who have been here forever and their family's been here forever, but especially in Lexington and some of the other towns all over this district, there are a lot of people who moved here very recently, right?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: And it's because they see the potential and the beauty and the amazing things about Kentucky.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm really lucky that my dad is someone who chose Kentucky.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that's a you know, I meet people all the time, and sometimes they say, Well, yeah, you know, I hate that you say ninth generation because I just moved here and I'm like, well, guess what?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: You're just as much a Kentuckian as me, and just as much as my dad, because he moved here for this too.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I think what I learned from him was to appreciate it through new eyes.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, obviously, the the whole Jewish side of my family, very, very different than my Southern Baptist mother's side.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I think religiously also that was a very interesting part of my upbringing.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: But it's kind of the perfect mix in my mind.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: What do people outside Kentucky misunderstand about the place and the people who call it home?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: No, no hate on, you know, folks on in the Pacific time zone.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, I was lucky to go to Stanford for college.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: And when I got out there, I was one of the few Kentuckians out there, and everyone was definitely smarter than me.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: They were definitely better traveled than I was, and so they knew all about all parts all over the world.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: But if it was between the Pacific Coast and the Eastern Seaboard, there was just a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of frankly, ignorance from folks.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think that's another thing that really like uh drove me to fight for places like Kentucky that are, you know, California's uh a beautiful, beautiful state, but Kentucky is just as beautiful and has just as much going for it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I just think there's uh there's so much to be said for it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I the first thing I'd say is, especially since this is kind of about politics, Kentucky is not a red state.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: It is not a blue state.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, so many folks uh like to summarize states that way.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: But as we well know, um, you know, in Kentucky, there's still, you know, uh at least like a million folks who vote Democratic, just like in Washington state, there are plenty of votes who folks who vote Republican.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: So first, I think it's so reductive to say, well, because one party gets 50% of the votes or less, even, that's the state.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then the other thing I'd just say is um, you know, there's there's a lot more diversity of of thought, of background, of religion.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, in Lexington, for example, um, there is uh an ever-growing Congolese population.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so Swahili, Swahili is one of the fastest growing languages.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people wouldn't think that about Lexington.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: Similarly, um, we had this festival here in Lexington, and I met um some folks from our Nepalese community.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so, you know, it is definitely a very diverse place.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, the other thing I'd say is you've got everything from the University of Kentucky and a and a land grant institution to a great school like Berea College, which is um now gone from not just being tuition free, but now being completely free because everyone's work study, and it's like one of the coolest small liberal arts college trying to take on the issue of sort of economic inequity and and unequal access to college.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um and yeah, I other than that, what I'd say is everyone knows about like the bourbon and horses here in central Kentucky, but you know, uh every post-it in the world is made in Kentucky, every Corvette in the world is made in Kentucky, dippin' dots are made in Kentucky.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: Now it looks like I haven't been able to go down and tour the corning plant, but it looks like every iPhone screen, as I hold up my cracked iPhone screen, is going to be made at the Corning Plant in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so there's just a lot of very, very cool things that, you know, again, people wouldn't get unless they uh they ask or come visit.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now you've called teaching eighth grade in the Mississippi Delta the hardest job you've ever had.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I actually just helped launch a uh canvas for some teachers yesterday.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we had a great event with the National Education Association and the Teachers Union who've been great supporters.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I I think it's the hardest job I'll ever do for a couple of reasons.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: One, just logistically, trying to get 25 to 30, those were my average class sizes, 25 to 30 kids who, in my instance, were between the ages of 12 and 17, because some had been held back several times, trying to get them all on the same page.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, first to be honest, for a new teacher, just classroom management, trying to get them quiet and in their seats when understandably they had so many things going on in their lives, and sometimes they weren't there, they weren't about that.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: But then more importantly, trying to reach them all at their level.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I had I had students who were reading above grade level, and then I had students who were functionally illiterate in eighth grade, and that's just such a massive challenge.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's exhausting because you're on your feet all day.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's exhausting because you're usually getting there at, you know, if you're doing uh drop off duty 6 30 or 7, and yeah, sure, the school day technically ends at 3 30.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Your work never ends at 3:30.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: You're doing extracurriculars out after work, maybe you're coaching, and then you got to think about lesson planning, grading.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, and so just it it's both very long hours, but also you just love your students so much and you want them to succeed.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, in other jobs, of course, you're passionate about it, but you don't feel like people's futures are literally in your hands.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: And that's how I felt for every single one of my students.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: And while that's an amazing honor, it's also very intimidating.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it's, you know, you feel so much responsibility.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that's why it was the hardest job.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it it is physically hard, it is mentally hard, but I think just emotionally, uh every teacher I know is in it for the right reasons, and it's about giving everyone the access to the education they deserve.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that just is a hell of a hard thing to do, particularly in an underserved school district like the one I was in.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a kid or a day from that classroom that you still think about?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, yeah, all the time.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, I I keep up with a couple of my students.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think about a kid named Rodney.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: Rodney was my second year, and so like my second year, I you know, first year is just so, so hard, as I'm sure you've heard.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: There's a reason a lot of teachers don't make it past the first year.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: But by the second year, you know, I had the classroom management down pretty well.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: I like was really making some leaps and strides.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: Rodney was always having behavioral issues, and like I was using everything I'd learned and thought that, and I just didn't get it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: And one day when we were doing um, you know, the we were doing some reading aloud and going around the room, uh, it became clear to me that Rodney actually was one of those that couldn't read.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and that's why he was acting up, because he didn't want anyone to know, even though I'm sure some of the kids knew, he didn't want anyone to know.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I just remember that just bowling me over.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it kind of makes me tear up to this day.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um but, you know, so what thankfully I had another period where for whatever weird reason I had a really small class.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: Normally I had huge classes, but in another period, and I got the assistant principal to put Rodney in that one too.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I got to see him twice a day, probably much to his chagrin.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: But what it meant was in that smaller class, I could spend more time like really working with him.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, I'm not gonna say in a year all of a sudden he went from like functionally illiterate to reading on an eighth grade level, but he made great strides that year.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: And more importantly, I hope he felt less embarrassed about it because it's not his fault at all.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: It is the system's fault.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like if we're having kids being passed through to eighth grade, there is no reason they should be illiterate.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: That is a policy choice, that is a school choice, and it's a failure of the system.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know if I ever told him in that in his words, but hopefully he learned it wasn't his fault that he was allowed in them in the richest country in the world to make a dayh grade without reading.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: So that's I think about Rodney a lot.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: But I think about all of them.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, of course, like by the way, there were amazing kids who didn't have a dime and had very difficult home lives and who were still crushing it in the classroom and were so smart and so amazing.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was it was the gamut, but that's that's one guy I think about.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so then you joined the Navy.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: What drew you from the classroom towards law and military service?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: I loved being in the classroom, but I saw that, you know, even if I was going on all cylinders, something the principal did or the superintendent did, or the state superintendent did, could still kind of screw with that.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think I was interested in having larger systemic impact.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I went to law school under that theory.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I came of age during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and one of the things that always bothered me was everyone had strong opinions on them.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, look, I was obviously very much against certainly the Iraq War and towards the end, the Afghanistan war.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but a lot of people who were the loudest on it had not served.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: They also did not have any family who were serving.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so, because of this all volunteer force in which less than 1% of Americans are ever going to wear the uniform, swear the oath, and agree to be worldwide deployable, it just kind of bothered me that something that's so important is something that a lot of us don't know anything about.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I'd not had any family serve.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, this was not something that I think my my parents were pretty shocked, to be honest, um, that I wanted to volunteer.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but and again, as a JAG, you know, I wasn't on the front lines.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's very rare that JAGs are going to see any kinetic action.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: But um I wanted to experience and understand what these folks were going through.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: And a great way of doing that is by being their lawyer.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so as their lawyer, I got to work with, you know, submariners and pilots and aircraft mechanics and and cooks and nurses and SEALs uh and you know, CBs and all of, you know, just the gamut of the Navy.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: I was at Naval Station Norfolk, which is the largest Navy base in the world.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's basically why I do it.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't seem right to me that I'd have an opinion or anyone, not that people can't have an opinion without serving, but for me personally, I wanted to have a better understanding of what it meant when we deployed troops or when someone, when a when an aircraft carrier, for example, like the Abraham Lincoln sits in the ocean for over 240 days.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I've been on the Abraham Lincoln.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so it's helpful to have that perspective as I'm thinking about how bad it's got to be for sailors to be trying to jump overboard.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that's why I did it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously it was an honor to serve.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it's you get great experience being a lawyer, but you know, I was lucky that that I think there were a lot of things that that I could have done, or there were very different things that people I went to law school with chose to do.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I was glad to be able to have that exposure and get some appreciation for the special folks who sign up to serve.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Changing tracks a bit, as a civil rights prosecutor, you worked cases where people entrusted with power were accused of abusing that power.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: What did sitting across from victims teach you about what an abuse of power actually does to people?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: We're in a cycle right now where people don't trust the system.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I completely understand why.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and you know, you know, my job as a prosecutor was to be laser focused on the evidence and the law.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, and it was a very high bar, right, to be able to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot of the civil rights cases that were brought to us that were investigated by law enforcement, first, they're all vetted, right?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you don't get on a federal prosecutor's desk without there being a long process.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: But frankly, a lot of it was me saying, you know, this doesn't, this doesn't meet the high legal threshold we need to do.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that was hard because sometimes things that can happen are wrong, but are not a crime.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so we closed a lot of cases.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: But for those cases that clearly met the threshold, we pursued them aggressively at every stage and meeting victims who did feel powerless in one way or another.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: Victims who, uh, as you say, had had someone much more powerful than them do something to them.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking of uh a kid who got pulled over by a deputy sheriff here in Kentucky, and the deputy sheriff immediately accused him of being drunk, and then after a back and forth, reached through the car and started just hitting him in the face.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: And the kid hadn't done anything.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he didn't think anyone would believe him.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, he was like a high school kid at the time.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe he was, maybe he was starting to go into the college, but and he was against this guy in a uniform.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it's just taught me about how important it is for there to be people enforcing faith in our institutions.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, not to bring it all back to Congress, but there's not a lot of faith in Congress now.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_03: I understand why it is not serving us well.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: We have individual members who are doing some good work, but as an institution, it's failed us.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think talking to victims and understanding where they're coming from is really informative.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: When you talk to voters out here in central Kentucky who time after time, no matter which party's in power, no matter who controls the White House, who controls the Congress, it still hasn't gotten better.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: Rich have gotten richer, corporations have gotten stronger, and we're all suffering.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so it is really helpful having worked with victims who felt completely uh powerless because I think there's some similarities.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, thankfully, most of the voters I'm talking to are not victims of violent crime, but there's definitely some overlap.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: What do you understand about Kentucky that National Democrats sometimes miss?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: A I understand and know that my folks here in Kentucky are an independent-minded bunch.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: One of the many reasons that you know the Blue Dogs is such a good fit for me is, you know, we're an independent-minded bunch.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like this district, they look at the fact that, oh, this district voted for President Trump by 15 points.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes nationally, that's the end of the analysis for them.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I always have to redirect them and say, yeah, it also voted for Andy Bashir, a Democrat, by 20 points.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: And you see people's eyes get big.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, well, you should have looked that up, you know.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, that's that's available data.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um that just shows you that at a time when so many people are convinced that like this is like sports teams and you're always going to root for your team no matter what.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: People in central Kentucky aren't that way about politics.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: We are that way about the Wildcats, so don't even come in with any of that Louisville nonsense.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, we we we have about 50-50 registration-wise.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: People call this a red district.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, literally, there is almost as many registered Democrats and Republicans, and it only shifted in October of last year.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: This was the state with the last state legislative house to change from Democrats to Republicans, and that was only 10 years ago when most of the South had been a different way.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, there are just so many folks who are still registered Democrats who feel that the party's left them behind and so will be voting Republican in some federal elections.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: But unlike places where people are just, you know, the brand is so toxic or there's no local brand that they'll ever vote for it, there are a lot of Democrats out there who are you're To come back, but they just feel like the way National Guard Democrats have been doing has left them behind, and I understand why.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, Governor Bashir is a great uh counterpoint to that, and that's why he's been able to be so successful, because those ancestral Democrats like him, independents like him, and even some Republicans like him.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that's because, you know, he's doing what I know the blue dogs value, which is like, how do we help working folks?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: How do we do things that affect people's everyday lives positively rather than some sort of pie in the sky thing?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh how do we have real deliverable change for working people?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, he's been really good about that, and he's been good about showing up in rural areas, not just places that are considered quote unquote blue, even though they aren't.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: They're just a group of people.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so he he provides a real example for us going forward.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I'd say that that's what I feel like unfortunately a lot of national press and and thoughts about this miss.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: Thankfully, thanks to the support of Blue Dogs uh and other great allies, we've made this more on the map.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: People recognize what's going on on the ground, uh, but it definitely took some some persuading.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about the kind of voter who might support Donald Trump for president and Andy Bashir for governor, sometimes on the same ballot.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does that voter want from government that neither national party has been very good at hearing and delivering on?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: The first thing I'll say is Governor Bashir and at least President Trump's rhetoric uh was about making it easier for folks to afford everyday things in their lives and making it easier to have a good job, a good place to live, a good school.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so you know, I mean, uh Governor Bashir has been laser focused on jobs in the economy since he got in.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's why he was everywhere.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: Anytime a factory was coming, he'd be sure to promote it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: His economic development strategy has led to lots of new jobs in Kentucky, but also his uh universal pre-K program has made sure that, you know, we're trying to get more affordable child care for folks.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then on the other hand, I mean, again, this is I think has been more an issue of rhetoric than reality, but one of the things President Trump said was that, you know, inflation was gonna go down, prices were gonna be cut in half, gas was gonna be below a certain point.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, I understand why that's appealing.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, inflation under the Biden administration was bad.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I understand why people wanted relief from it, and I wish they'd gotten it.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: I wish the prices had gone down.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: And instead, unfortunately, these trade wars and then this senseless war in Iran have just jacked up prices.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I think people voted just thinking, well, this isn't going great.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: But the other thing I'd say about voters like that is they also just want something different than the status quo, as I said, right?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: It is both parties, and I think they're just looking for someone who's on their side.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: And again, rightly or wrongly, some folks thought President Trump was on their side.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you when I'm talking to Trump voters, the word I hear most often is betrayal because they understandably believed he was going to change things because he certainly was a non-traditional politician.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: And now, unfortunately, they're seeing more of the same, but even worse, just someone who's benefiting himself and his family and has not made any of his promises.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, same thing with with Governor Bashir.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: He had his own special brand and was not viewed to be your sort of standard politician.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so the other thing I can say is people are sick of standard politicians.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: They want authentic, real people who will fight for them.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: You've made corruption central to your campaign.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so when you say corruption, what behaviors are you actually talking about?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: So many, I'm sorry to say.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, we see a lot of people in DC who use their position to get rich, right?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: And this could be the administration making 2.2 billion in crypto and other things.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: These could be both members of the administration and Congress playing the prediction markets.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: And thankfully it looks like they're starting to get caught more, but not as much as I think I'd like.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it's also long-standing issues of corruption, like members of Congress being allowed to trade individual stocks based on information that you and I don't have.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like members of Congress ever allowing to become lobbyists.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: I understand there's like a cooling off period now or something.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: That should be for life.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: If you agree to take the honor of being a member of Congress, you should never be allowed to lobby a member of Congress because you shouldn't be taking a vote thinking about a gig down the line.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: The other thing we unveiled in our platform is term limits.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think it is uh inherently corrupting to be in DC for too long.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: People could disagree about the amount of time, but we just see time after time politicians think their job is to get re-elected and die in office.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas what we need to do is someone to do their job and then go back to their community, to their farm, their school, their office, wherever they're working, and get back among real people and pass the torch.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: So that, you know, we've got people not only being there too long in terms of their their terms, but too long in terms of their age.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we see time and again these 70, 80, 90 year olds, one of the few silver linings of this campaign has been, even though I turned 40 during it, I found out I'm considered a young Democrat.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh let me tell you, Casey, when I was looking in the mirror at 40, I did not feel young.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: But that's really a reflection on our politics that 40 is considered young, whereas, I mean, objectively, based on my lifespan, I'm somewhere at the middle part.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um so uh that's just some of the many issues we're seeing, and why I can understand why folks would be fed up with both parties when you see people getting there leaving richer than they were, or maybe not even leaving, but staying in office and getting richer while all of us are struggling to scrape by.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do you make the case then that government can be trusted while also spending so much of your campaign talking about the ways government has been abused?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great question.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the answer is you gotta pick different people to come in, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's the first thing.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, so many of the people we're seeing, and there are some great people who do this, but you see people where this is part of their 20-year plan to be in Congress, right?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so they run for X office, then Y office, and they're you know, they're scheming and they're coming up with all these plans.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, my opponent in this race is a great example.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: He's been on the ballot six times, he's run multiple times.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: He ran as the lieutenant governor candidate to this terrible governor we have, who actually literally is in jail right now.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he got arrested last night.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you know, you just this sort of like career politician nonsense.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, we we had a great event with some of the blue dogs the other day.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, you've got um you've got Leela Gray, the brigadier general, right?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: You've got uh Sam Forstag, uh, you've got some other great folks who like actually have been out there doing real work with real people.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I think you start the difference.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: Is it gonna be as easy as just that?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely not.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not under any illusions that we get elected and everything changes.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's gonna take some hard, hard work.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the way that we change uh how we are represented is by choosing different people to represent us and a different set of values.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: What did representing people as a teacher, military lawyer, and prosecutor teach you about representation that campaigning or career politics really can't?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: Just making it not about you, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people um think about politics and politicians as they're in it for themselves.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: And with some people they're not wrong.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um but like all the stuff having my name on signs and like you know, being the brand is this part that I like the absolute least because really it's about, you know, when I was representing the United States or when I was representing individual sailors and marines, like it was my job to to fight for them.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: And like obviously there are ethical rules and you should never do anything unethical, but as long as you're within your ethical bounds, your job is to subsume your own interests, your own opinions, to be an effective advocate for others.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: Now, you know, there's a a mix of your own judgment as well as how you do that.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I again I think what was most important for me was just reminding myself that I'm the least important part of this equation.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: And let me add, that's how I view my my role in Congress, right?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: My job is to represent my 770,000 bosses, right?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: They are the most important people.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I hope, I mean, you know, I know I know that uh there's some great congressmen and women who've been able to stay true to that, but it seems like again, when people stay in too long, they view it the other way and they think, you know, they're there and they're the main part of the attraction.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I'd say that's what was the most helpful for me.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: I will say it's been hard because that means everyone's always telling me you need to talk about yourself more, you need to do a better job, you know, promoting your brand, um, you know, all of that.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so I've had to adjust that because now I realize that is a that is a part of the mission that, you know, being uh, you know, putting yourself out there and putting your name out there, it's something you need to do to achieve the mission.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: But uh it definitely was something that I was less comfortable with, and I was very comfortable with the idea of service over self.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to showing people who you are, w what do voters need to know about Zach Dembo before they place that vote of confidence in you come November?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_03: This race in this district is not about Democrat versus Republican.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's about do you want a new face, a corruption prosecutor who wants to change things, or do you want a status quo, corrupt career politician who wants to keep it the same?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: And that's in so many ways.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's it's first that you know my opponent has said time and again how much he supports the administration and any policy, whether it's tariffs, whether it's um the war in Iran, he's gonna fall in line on.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not saying that I'm going to then be the opposite and oppose the administration on everything.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: It should be a policy-by-policy thing.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: But your job is not to get in there and just be a rubber stamp for your party.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: And so what I hope people know is you have a candidate who has spent his entire career in public service putting service over self, and that that's the only reason I'm running uh is to continue that journey, and that if they are unhappy with how DC is working, there's only one candidate in this race who is going to try to fix it.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my last question.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: You gave up a few jobs that a lot of people could have probably happily done for the rest of their lives.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: So what would have to happen in Congress for you to look back and say giving those up was worth it?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I can already tell you that giving it up was worth it because it was the right thing to do at the time.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna win in November, but even if i if you wanted to say that we weren't, it would still have been worth it.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the effort is is worth it.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, as Theodore Roosevelt said, it's better to fail well, striving greatly, rather than being with the cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Once I get to Congress, it's about doing the job.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so whether I get to serve one term or you know, I had set the term limit of six terms.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: One term or six terms, it's just about taking the hard votes and and fighting for people.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think if I am able to affect some lives positively, then i it'll all be worth it.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: And again, this is not something where I'm looking to do this for the rest of my life, and nor is a lot of my self-worth tied up in what people say about me on the internet or whatever else.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so um no matter what, I have a I have an amazing wife.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: As we discussed, an amazing dog and cats.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: I hope at some point, if we're lucky and blessed, some amazing children, I I have a great situation.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's just I hope that I can do good for my fellow Kentuckians and you know continue my legacy of service.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Zach Dembo, thank you so much.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk to you next time on Blue Dog Radio.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was Zach Dembo, Blue Dog endorsed nominee for Congress in Kentucky's 6th District.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a moment in that conversation you keep coming back to.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's when he talks about Rodney, an eighth grader who was acting out because he was trying to hide the fact that he couldn't read.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are years later, after law school, the Navy, federal prosecution, and now a run for Congress, and Dembo still thinks about that kid.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: He still remembers realizing how much responsibility had been placed in the hands of the adults around him.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of our conversation, Dembo is talking about hundreds of thousands of people instead of just one student, but the language sounds remarkably similar.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's trusting you with something that matters, and you have a job to do.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can hear more conversations like this wherever you listen to Blue Dog Radio and read the stories behind them at the bark on our Blue Dog Substack.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thanks for listening.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: In Big Mouth USA.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're the hypocrites preaching the streets, aren't we?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Can they all be turned on?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: Where do they go to the end of the day?