For twenty years, Lisa Ekman worked deep inside the Democratic system on Capitol Hill. She witnessed the messaging, the pressure, the internal shifts, and the quiet expectations that shaped everything behind the scenes. And eventually, she walked away from all of it.
In this conversation, Lisa breaks down what changed on the inside, the moment she could no longer stay silent, and why the culture around the party became so rigid and emotional. We talk about her time in Congress, the COVID-era atmosphere she saw from within, the rise of identity-driven politics, and why honest disagreement slowly disappeared.
We also cover her new book, Deprogramming Democrats & unEducating the Elites, which lays out how fear, guilt, and institutional messaging shaped a generation of voters and created a culture where questioning the script was treated like betrayal.
📘 Lisa’s Book:
Amazon: https://a.co/d/4sP5DQH
Website: https://deprogrammingdemocrats.com/
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Share the episode with someone who’s starting to ask harder questions.
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He asked me, you know, do you think all Republicans are
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racist? And without even really missing
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a beat, I said in my brain literally broke.
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And I couldn't think my way out of it, couldn't come up with an
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answer. I couldn't figure out a way that
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it could be true that these agencies actually truly care
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about my health and are doing are not captured by industry and
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aren't doing what you know the people with the most money want
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and are doing what is best for our health.
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How did you get in through the Democratic Party into the
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government? What did you do there?
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And then kind of that moment where you started to see things
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a little differently. Sure.
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So. Welcome to Stay in the Fray
00:00:55
podcast. I'm your host, Ryan.
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This is where headlines get hit hard, hypocracy gets shredded,
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and the absurd are laughed at. If you want comfort, this isn't
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your place. If you want blunt and
00:01:07
unfiltered, I'm your guy. Join me in the Fray, all you.
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Need to do is just. Listen up, guy.
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Hey, guys, excited to have a guest here with us today for
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this episode. My guest did something that not
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a lot of people do in politics once they've kind of implanted
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themselves, which is she changed her mind.
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This is Lisa Ekman. She spent years inside the
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Democratic machine on Capitol Hill.
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She watched this this shift that's happening in real time,
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and then she eventually walked away from it.
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So, oh, then she wrote a book. By the way, Lisa, thank you so
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much. I'm.
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I'm looking forward to this conversation.
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I've been waiting all week for it.
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So how are you? I am doing great, thank you.
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It is a pleasure to be here and I appreciate you taking the time
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to have a conversation with me of.
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Course, right off the bat, the book is called, I'll Say It 16
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Times for you, deprogramming Democrats and uneducating the
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elites, correct? And we'll get, I'll have all the
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links out everywhere, but we'll, we'll get to that.
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We'll get to that. Let's let's, let's get this out
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of the way. Tell me about how you got to
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capital. How, how did you get in through
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the Democratic Party into the government?
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What did you do there? And then kind of that moment
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where you started to see things a little differently.
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Sure. So I'll do this briefly because
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I think there's a lot we can dig into.
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I spent more than 20 years in Washington, DC as a Democratic
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advocate and lobbyist focusing on disability policy.
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I worked to make the federal programs and federal laws more
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supportive of people with disabilities, which meant I was
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nonpartisan, ostensibly, but we worked most with the Democrats
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because we were about growing programs.
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We were about spending more money on on things.
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And that that makes you more likely to succeed working with
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Democrats as the way things are now.
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And so I arrived in Washington, DC at the very tail end of the
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Clinton administration. I was fresh out of my master's
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in social work, and I got nominated for a program called
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the Presidential Management Internship Program, which was
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created by Jimmy Carter in the 1970s to draw people with
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graduate level education into federal service.
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It was his idea on how am I going to attract and train the
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managers for the for for our federal bureaucracy.
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So the Dean of my school nominated me and I went straight
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to work for an appointee of AT at the Social Security
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Administration of Bill Clinton. So a political appointment went
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straight to work for her. While I was in that program, I
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also got detailed to the United States Senate and worked for
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actually three different senators, including one that
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pretty much everyone has heard of, Senator Ted Kennedy of
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Massachusetts. He was one of what we call the
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disability champions in the Senate.
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And so I went and and did a detail there with him.
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I also worked for Tom Harkin of of Iowa for a while, a little
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while. And then during the rest of my
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time there, I ended up working for a variety of non profits as
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well as government contractors implementing federal programs.
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And in the middle of that time I went to law school and I went to
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Georgetown, which was a fascinating experience.
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And I was also the president of the Law Democrats at Georgetown.
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So I during that time also while I was in law school, volunteered
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at the headquarters in Chicago for President Obama's first term
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doing disability outreach, voter outreach, and then, you know,
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worked throughout the rest of up until the event that changed the
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world, COVID. I worked at a variety of federal
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nonprofits as well, as I said, government contractors.
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And the very last nonprofit I worked for had a small political
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action committee attached to it. So I also got to, I administered
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that, which meant I got to see a little bit on the money side of
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the equation as well. So I kind of got to see DC in
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all its glory, good, bad and ugly.
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And I usually emphasize a focus on those last two.
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I didn't ugly, But yeah. So, you know, I it was COVID
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that sort of helped bring me out of my stupor.
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But there was something that happened a few years before
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COVID. A few things.
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Let's jump. Into that, let's see where where
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the shift happened here. Yeah.
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So the first thing that happened is that even before, way before
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COVID, I started to notice the change that was happening within
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our country and within politics. And it used to be, you know,
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when I first got detailed to the to the Hill, senators of
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different part of the different parties used to have dinner
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together all the time. There were outings and things
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like that. And even one of the senators I
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worked for, he was part of a bipartisan acapella singing
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group that would, you know, you know, sort of exemplify sort of
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the, you know, you're an American, I'm an American, and
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we're going to work together to try to improve our country.
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And I felt like the conversations we had on the
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Hill, especially prior to 911, I do think 911 shifted a lot of
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things. And we'll probably get into that
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a little bit later, but I used to believe that we could get a
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whole bunch of different people with really different views in a
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room together. And it felt like we were having,
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you know, rational, reasoned conversations where we all
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wanted to see our country improve.
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We disagreed about how that might happen, but we all were
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working in good faith towards a compromise that would leave us
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all not fully satisfied but believing that we got something
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to incrementally improve the country.
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And I saw that change, you know, over the years that I was there
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and I, I saw so much more sort of antagonism about people who
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didn't think like we did or across the aisle.
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And I started to hear a lot more things like, well, you know,
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that might be a really good idea, but I don't think it, the
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optics of it would be very good or I don't think the donors
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would like that or I don't. Think that I don't mean to
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interrupt you When did you start to kind of see this?
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Because I, I, I, I only am aware, you know, maybe the last
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10 years or so, but you're saying it might have been
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before. It was a little bit before that.
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I think that social media, the advent of social media did play
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a role in it. But I, I really think that it
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was what, during President Obama's term, and I think that
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there was a lot of divisive rhetoric that was being used and
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sort of a stocking of the division A.
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You know, you'll hear a lot of people of my generation say
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this, for example, you know, I'm not saying there is not racism.
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I'm not saying that discrimination doesn't occur.
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But it felt like in the 80s and the 90s, you know, it wasn't
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that we were colorblind. We saw we were different colors.
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We just didn't care if you were a good person and you were fun
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to hang out with. We hung out and it wasn't that
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big of a thing. But I feel like early 2000s with
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social media, it started to creep back in.
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And then with Obama, it really started to heat up that rhetoric
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around dividing us by by race. And then we saw how that's
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developed later on. Well, I got, I got, I continue
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to get torched whenever I'd I talk about Obama being the, the
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true beginning of the division of the way that we handled
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division in this country because of identity politics and because
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of, you know, this, this idea of being a victim.
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And I feel like he preached that and, you know, to point fingers
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instead of taking accountability or having accountability.
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And so I agree 100%. And so it's interesting to hear
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somebody that kind of lived through it as a Democrat see the
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same thing. And, and, and, and again, I'm
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called all sorts of horrible things.
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I'm a, I'm this all the buzzwords because I critique or
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criticize Obama and his policy. So anyway, I just wanted to.
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Well, yeah, And, you know, that's fair.
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And as we get further on, I will talk about why I think that
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happens so much and why Democrats respond with that sort
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of visceral anger when you point something like that out.
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And there's a reason and you shouldn't look at it.
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Don't take it personally and shouldn't look at it badly.
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I I didn't. I viewed as desperation on their
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part and and maybe I go a little too extreme with you're just
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desperate. So I have to work on toning
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myself down as well. Which, which, which is fair.
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You know, I think that something else happened that, you know,
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started before Obama, but really geared up during Obama.
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And that was the push to get everybody to go to college.
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And the critical theory, the critical race theory, the, and
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the divisiveness that that brings, the victimhood
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mentality, the lack of accountability that goes along
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with the idea that you're oppressed.
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And no matter what you do, you'll never succeed because
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they're, you know, and you're an oppressor, Ryan, because of the
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color of your skin also got geared up during Obama's term.
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It was everybody go to college. And now what we see now is just
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reading an article about this today is just a glut of college
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educated people with absolutely no job skills really that fit
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the current environment. And we see an unemployment rate
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of almost of just under 10% for young college educated 9.2.
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Yeah, I guess it's a little bit better, but yeah, so and and
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that's when we're gonna get worse.
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And we can talk about that a little bit later because I think
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that is fueling a lot of the the issues both on what I will call
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the brainwashed left and the brainwashed right.
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So, and, and I should say that, you know, I, I don't believe
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that deprogramming is necessary only on the left.
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The reason why I say deprogramming Democrats is
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because that's my experience and that's what I can speak to.
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I, I sort of reject the division that they have us under of left
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and right. And we can talk about that more,
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but let let's finish the, the the setup and then we'll circle
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back because I it's easy for me to get distracted too, but so
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we. I have 16 things I want to ask
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and I'm trying to like keep it all at by baby.
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Go ahead, this is great. Yeah.
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So I think that was part of it. So part of me was starting to
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become really disillusioned about my ability to make a
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difference. The other thing that happened
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along those lines during that time was the passage or the
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Supreme Court decision in Citizens United.
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And money just started flooding into DC.
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It may not surprise you or it might, I don't know.
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But in 2020, four, $4.6 billion was spent on lobbying.
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And that's with AB. And that's the money that the
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average voter is competing with in order to for someone in
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Washington to hear them, you know, to hear their concerns, to
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be responsive to. And that is, you know, just a
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fraction of the $20 billion spent on the federal elections
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last year. And so, so when you start
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thinking of it that way, you know, it was, it's not
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surprising. I heard, well, you know, that's
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not going to play well at midterm.
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So we're not going to support that or we can't give the other
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side a win because that won't play well in the election or
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those kind of things. You know, and Citizens United
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was 2010. It was right around the same
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time that Obama, you know, was picking up steam and Obamacare
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got passed and all that. So, and in the meantime, you
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know, we're recovering from, you know, the, the, the market crash
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and everything else is going on. People are struggling.
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And then always when you struggle, you look for someone
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to blame. And when the the rhetoric heats
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up and is divisive, it gives you that other to blame.
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So all of that sort of was a Stew.
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I think that sort of created that environment.
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And, you know, for me, you know, I went to Washington, DC because
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I wanted to make our country better.
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I wanted to I, you know, it as a younger person, I would have
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laughed at the idea that I would go work for the government.
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You know, I'm not going to go work for the man.
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You know, I'm not going to go do that.
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But that's exactly what I did because I thought I could
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actually make a difference. But as I started to see the new
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environment and how much money was playing a role in politics
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and how tribal things were starting to become, I became
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less and less optimistic that I was going to be able to make a
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difference. And, you know, for me, I, you
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know, I gave up of having a family that wasn't in my, you
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know, my, I have no children of my own.
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And so I've poured everything into, you know, my career and
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trying to make a difference. And that's where I was getting
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my meaning and my identity. And so as I started to see, hey,
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I'm not really making a difference, I started to become
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kind of disillusioned. At the same time, you know, I
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unfortunately lost both of my parents within two years to
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illness, my dad in 2014 and my mom in 2016.
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And it gave me a lot of exposure to what I like to call the sick
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care system in our country. And in particular with my
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mother, she, So my dad had a back issue.
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He had surgery for it and then had just like a catastrophic
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complications to that surgery that left him functionally
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quadriplegic with adrenal failure.
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And so he needed 24 hour care. He needed help with everything.
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And my mom, who already had multiple sclerosis, became his
00:16:01
primary caregiver. And after he lived 5 1/2 years
00:16:06
after that surgery. And every day was a struggle,
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you know, he fought for every day.
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He was really happy to be here, but it was a really hard time
00:16:15
for both of my parents. And the toll of taking care of
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him, the financial stress, all the anxiety, the fact that she
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was already immunocompromised led to my mom being diagnosed
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with stage 4 of an extremely aggressive cancer, Yeah, in
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2013. And, you know, she got the you
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may want to get your affairs in order speech.
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You may have, you know, a few months to live.
00:16:40
And so she said, Lisa, I'm going to do conventional treatment,
00:16:43
but I'll do anything else that will help improve my odds.
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Will you research it for me? And so I said sure.
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And, you know, this is, I worked part of my work around
00:16:54
disability policy involved health care, and it involved
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health research. And so I was, you know, I was
00:16:59
like, sure, I'll look into it and I did.
00:17:02
And, you know, I found things that made me extremely
00:17:05
optimistic for her, but also started to really make me
00:17:08
question some of the regulatory agencies that are in charge of
00:17:12
our so-called healthcare system. You know, I, I found two books
00:17:18
that were amazing. One focused on nutrition and its
00:17:21
role in helping someone beat cancer.
00:17:23
And the other one also looked at nutrition, but really focused in
00:17:27
on sort of the, the mental and spiritual and emotional aspects
00:17:32
of what causes cancer and what also can help you beat it.
00:17:36
And so, you know, we got my mom to a naturopath.
00:17:39
She had surgery and she started chemo, a round of chemo of 6
00:17:44
treatments and we got her to a natural path.
00:17:47
We changed her diet, everything she put in on her body, cleaned
00:17:50
her home with, and then we worked on her stress reactions.
00:17:55
We did guided meditation, we did focus breathing, we did all
00:18:00
sorts of things like that. And after the 3rd chemo
00:18:03
treatment in that first round, she had a battery of tests and
00:18:06
she was cancer free. There was no evidence of cancer
00:18:09
in her body anymore. And her doctor was amazed and
00:18:13
astounded and couldn't believe it.
00:18:15
What a miracle. And, you know, even though he
00:18:18
said at one point when I tried to bring her organic food into
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her into the hospital while she was having a blood issue, dealt
00:18:26
with that he didn't think it mattered what she ate, you know,
00:18:29
and that was just sort of what, you know, I was shocking to me.
00:18:34
You know, the one thing he did say that I thought was really
00:18:36
somewhat astute is her attitude about what's going to happen
00:18:39
matters a lot. And I think that's 100% true.
00:18:43
But that's a story for a different day.
00:18:45
But so she finished those six chemo treatment, you know, the
00:18:50
round. And she was cancer free for two
00:18:52
years, completely cancer free. And we got to take her all over
00:18:56
the place, and she got to do a lot of things that, you know,
00:18:59
she had on her bucket list. And then a tiny little growth
00:19:04
appeared where the original tumor was.
00:19:08
And her doctor recommended chemotherapy again.
00:19:11
And she had one chemotherapy treatment, and it fried her
00:19:15
kidneys, and she died of kidney failure.
00:19:19
Yeah. Thank you.
00:19:20
It was very hard, Ryan, But the reason I tell this story is that
00:19:26
it really did create a lot of cracks in the dam that held the
00:19:31
flood of truth back from me about the government in which I
00:19:35
had placed so much of my faith and so much of my trust and the
00:19:39
agencies that I did as well. You know it, It made me think,
00:19:43
what in the heck is the USDA doing?
00:19:45
That food pyramid doesn't at all resemble what all the science
00:19:49
says about nutrition. You know that I've just read and
00:19:54
you know what in the world is going on with cancer treatment.
00:19:58
You know, chemotherapy hasn't really improved in 50 years.
00:20:02
And it's basically, let's throw all this poison at someone who's
00:20:05
already struggling and hope that we kill the cancer cells but not
00:20:09
too many of the healthy cells around it.
00:20:12
So, so that's sort of started to create some cracks, but at the
00:20:17
same time, I had to go back to DC and I was working with those
00:20:21
very same agencies and the people there.
00:20:24
And so I kind of had to pigeonhole that.
00:20:25
I kind of had to put that aside so that I could go back to work.
00:20:30
Now, that was in 2016. So flash forward a few years,
00:20:35
you know, Donald Trump gets elected.
00:20:37
I think the world is over. I think, you know, he's going to
00:20:40
destroy our country. I.
00:20:41
Think you were on that team you were on.
00:20:43
I had full scale TDs, I had full scale everything the media told
00:20:51
me about him. I believed.
00:20:52
I didn't double check it. I never went back and watched
00:20:55
the full speech to see. Did he actually say that or is
00:20:58
that out of context? All the things and I literally
00:21:02
cried on election night. And I'm not joking.
00:21:05
There were tears just flowing and Oh my God, what's going to
00:21:08
happen to women's rights? What's going to happen to, you
00:21:10
know, all the, all the vulnerable people, just like
00:21:14
every good progressive member of the cult would do.
00:21:18
And so I did. And, you know, I proceeded to
00:21:21
spend the next three years fighting everything that he did.
00:21:28
At the same time, as I had mentioned, I was really growing
00:21:31
disillusioned with doing this work at all.
00:21:34
I kind of joked that, you know, as I started to go to meetings
00:21:38
on the hill, I no longer took notes of the meetings.
00:21:42
I, I just made check marks every time.
00:21:44
I felt it was being lied to and you know, that's how I would
00:21:48
judge the meeting like it. It was that ten Wow, that was a
00:21:51
15 bagger, pretty good one, you know, kind of thing.
00:21:55
And so you can. Get to 20 next time.
00:21:57
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And and you know, I would often,
00:22:01
you know, put stars next to it if it was like the chief of
00:22:04
staff lying to me instead of the policy person or whatever.
00:22:07
But the the yeah, so. Bottom line is you weren't doing
00:22:12
what you what you wanted, what you wanted to be doing, which is
00:22:15
actually taking notes and helping and doing, yeah.
00:22:18
Exactly. And I could almost to a tee tell
00:22:22
you what was going to happen in every meeting that I went to,
00:22:24
depending on who I was meeting with, what party they were and
00:22:28
how high up in the leadership they actually were.
00:22:31
And so, you know, or, or the pecking order, sometimes it's
00:22:34
leadership, sometimes it was just a brand new congressperson
00:22:37
and they had a brand new person working on an issue.
00:22:42
And most of that time I spent trying to educate them about the
00:22:44
issue or that kind of thing. But so in October of 2019, I
00:22:52
scheduled my retirement for March 31st of 2020.
00:22:56
Oh goodness, so you were right on the the COVID.
00:23:00
We were just just finishing up two weeks to flatten the curve.
00:23:04
And so, yeah, I, I like to believe that.
00:23:08
So, so you had just lost interest, like you had said,
00:23:10
because you felt all of these things were happening and, and
00:23:13
you just, you were just going to be out.
00:23:14
I'm I'm done. I'm just going to retire.
00:23:16
Like that was the mindset. That was the mindset.
00:23:19
And, you know, I actually had gotten into a new relationship
00:23:23
that I started in February of 2019, and I just couldn't
00:23:29
foresee myself continuing to do what I was doing just for the
00:23:35
sake of money, you know, and that was really what it was at
00:23:38
that point. It was really kind of appealing.
00:23:41
I was, I, I, I used to say I get paid the medium bucks because I
00:23:45
wasn't, you know, making the big bucks.
00:23:47
But and, you know, they had an attractive, you know, match to
00:23:51
the retirement thing. And so I could have tried to
00:23:54
write it out, but I needed something more meaningful and I
00:23:59
didn't know what I was going to do next at that point.
00:24:03
And I had been talking about trying to find something new,
00:24:07
but I had sort of really gotten pigeonholed into a very specific
00:24:13
set of skills. And, you know, there were times
00:24:16
where I was offered significantly more money to
00:24:19
lobby for, say, healthcare facilities or, you know, do
00:24:24
other kinds of consulting. And it just wasn't appealing to
00:24:27
me because the for me, the whole point of doing the work was to
00:24:31
to improve the world, to make our country a better place.
00:24:35
And so when I felt like I couldn't really do that anymore,
00:24:39
I decided to to retire and take a little time to figure out what
00:24:44
came next. Were you still, I mean, there's
00:24:50
no other way to say it, filled with TDs anti Trump when you
00:24:54
left or, or had you kind of just, I guess I missed the part
00:24:58
or were you being kind of open to this idea that maybe and
00:25:01
look, we all, we all get it. He's not always the most likable
00:25:04
personality. I I get it.
00:25:06
But just from a political standpoint, all the things that
00:25:09
you were being told, did that contribute to you being OK?
00:25:13
I'm done because I'm seeing through this.
00:25:15
No, not at any. I was still.
00:25:18
Yeah, and I'll relay the story I had with my boyfriend, who is my
00:25:21
partner, and he'll become big in a few minutes in the story, too.
00:25:26
But, you know, prior to us getting together when we were
00:25:30
just friends, you know, we were having some conversations and he
00:25:35
asked me, you know, do you think all Republicans are racist?
00:25:42
And without even really missing a, a beat, I said, well, I guess
00:25:46
you'd have to be at least a little bit because it's so
00:25:49
ingrained and programmed into Democrats heads that Republicans
00:25:55
are racist. Their policies are racist.
00:25:57
All of them are racist. If you vote for someone who's
00:26:00
going to try to put in place the policies of the Republican
00:26:03
Party, then you must be racist. You must not care.
00:26:07
And this we'll get into a lot. You must not care about black
00:26:10
people. You must not care about, about
00:26:12
trans kids. You must not care about the
00:26:15
people that we, we had been programmed to believe the
00:26:19
Republicans were going to hurt. So I, I hadn't seen through the
00:26:24
veil at all at in October of 2019, I was just done playing
00:26:30
the Washington game, you know, and, and it is, and it, it, it
00:26:35
gets old at a point because you're never really sure if you
00:26:39
have actual friendships because it, you know, unless it's
00:26:44
completely away from work, people who don't do anything
00:26:47
related to politics, because people are always looking at
00:26:51
what can you do for me? Who can you introduce me to, you
00:26:55
know, kind of thing, as opposed to just, hey, I think you're a
00:26:58
really interesting person. I'd like to, you know, have a
00:27:00
drink with you and spend some time or we have a hobby in
00:27:03
common or whatever. So I was just done with with
00:27:06
that. And, you know, and oddly enough,
00:27:09
two things I had kind of toyed with were teaching and writing a
00:27:15
book. So turns out that came to be a
00:27:19
little bit later in the game. But yeah, so flash word now to
00:27:24
COVID, you know, And so I was still completely under the spell
00:27:28
and I bought everything that they were saying and I was
00:27:33
afraid. I bought some masks, which I
00:27:36
will say I barely ever wore, only maybe once or twice because
00:27:39
pretty soon you'll, I, I, I did wake up and, you know, I was, I
00:27:45
didn't want to kill someone's grandma, you know, and not even
00:27:48
know that I was sick and pass it on to someone.
00:27:50
So I was doing everything I could to kind of follow the
00:27:55
rules and do what I was told. And just like you're supposed to
00:27:59
and trust the experts, just like you're supposed to and listen to
00:28:03
what the government tells you. And my boyfriend, his name is
00:28:09
Jamie. He was not.
00:28:11
He was really questioning from the beginning.
00:28:15
Is this really as bad as they say it is?
00:28:18
Should we just really be taking a different approach?
00:28:20
And so, as you might imagine, he and I were verbally sparring
00:28:25
about this a little bit in what I would now call a mixed COVID
00:28:29
household, you know? I'm sure there were a lot of
00:28:32
those. I'm sure there were.
00:28:35
And at at some points it got particularly heated and we were
00:28:39
having a particularly heated conversation one day and Jamie
00:28:42
said to me or I said to him, I said, Jamie, I just can't
00:28:46
believe it. I can't believe these agencies
00:28:48
that I've worked with for 20 years, the people in them that
00:28:52
I've worked with all this time, would do this to us, would do
00:28:56
this to the world without the data and the evidence to support
00:29:00
what they're doing. And he just really calmly looked
00:29:04
me in the eyes and he asked me a question and he said, Lisa, if
00:29:09
they'll poison our water, what won't they do?
00:29:13
Now, I already knew this to be true because of the research I
00:29:17
did for my mom, which is part of why I share that story.
00:29:20
They put the fluoride in the water.
00:29:22
It lowers IQ, it calcifies your pineal gland, it does all sorts
00:29:29
of bad things, and there's all sorts of things in the water.
00:29:33
Now I knew it to be true, and I also know water is the most
00:29:38
essential thing for us. If you don't get it, you're
00:29:40
going to die in about 3 days if you have no fluids.
00:29:45
And So what it did is push the cognitive dissonance that I have
00:29:49
been holding in my head. And I believe everyone on the
00:29:52
left has to in order to believe the contradictory things that
00:29:57
the experts tell them all the time.
00:29:59
But it pushed mine to the point where my brain could no longer
00:30:02
hold it. And I'd like to say my brain
00:30:06
literally broke and I couldn't think my way out of it.
00:30:11
I couldn't come up with an answer.
00:30:13
I couldn't figure out a way that it could be true that these
00:30:18
agencies actually truly care about my health and are doing
00:30:22
are not captured by industry and aren't doing what you know, the
00:30:25
people with the most money want and are doing what is best for
00:30:28
our health and that they poison our water.
00:30:32
It just, I couldn't. And so then Jamie did something
00:30:36
else that, you know, was really key for me waking up.
00:30:40
And that was the fact that all these people who were
00:30:43
supposedly, you know, on the right or independent thinkers
00:30:47
were saying, do your own research.
00:30:50
And at the same time the Democrats were trying to censor,
00:30:53
they were censoring people left and right and shutting down
00:30:57
conversation and shutting down debate.
00:31:00
Zuckerberg admitted it. Well, yeah, it's all, I mean,
00:31:03
it's all admitted. And I I detail a lot of this in
00:31:07
the book, you know, with the the Twitter Files and everything
00:31:11
else. And you know, the government was
00:31:16
getting private industry to do through direct pressure,
00:31:21
coercion, what it the First Amendment prevents it from
00:31:25
doing, basically, which the the Supreme Court even has said,
00:31:29
Nope, can't do that. That still runs afoul of the
00:31:33
Constitution. But So what Jamie said is he's
00:31:38
like, Lisa, if you don't believe me, prove me wrong.
00:31:42
Go get the research. Show me how I'm wrong.
00:31:46
And I think I screamed at him. Fine, I will.
00:31:48
And then what happened is I allowed myself to ask questions
00:31:54
again. I allowed myself to do research
00:31:58
with an open mind from sources beyond who were approved
00:32:04
government credentialed sources and as many in the truth
00:32:10
community would say. I started going down rabbit hole
00:32:13
after rabbit hole and my life has never been the same.
00:32:16
You know? My entire reality collapsed.
00:32:19
Everything I thought to be true, not true.
00:32:22
Everyone I trusted could no longer be trusted, including
00:32:25
myself, because I realized I had been indoctrinated and
00:32:32
brainwashed through lies and propaganda.
00:32:35
And that I had, through indoctrination in school
00:32:40
especially sublimated my intuition to the point where
00:32:45
you, my gut would tell me that can't be true, you it must be
00:32:49
wrong. But if an expert told me that it
00:32:51
was true, I had to believe it. So, you know, I went through
00:32:55
what I now would term a dark night of the soul, all of, you
00:33:00
know, trying to rebuild my self esteem, my identity, my sense of
00:33:07
self. And it was really, really,
00:33:10
really challenging. But the conversation with Jamie
00:33:14
and the censorship also reminded me that, you know, I was, in my
00:33:18
heart, a classical liberal, as they say, meaning I believed in
00:33:22
liberty and that I am a First Amendment absolutist.
00:33:26
And what was happening around that time with freedom of
00:33:32
speech, but not just freedom of speech, because the First
00:33:35
Amendment guarantees our freedom of assembly.
00:33:37
It guarantees our freedom of association.
00:33:40
It. So you can't go see grandma in
00:33:43
the hospital who's sick, but you can have a huge protest if, if,
00:33:49
if they agree with the reason you're protesting, right.
00:33:53
And also our freedom to worship when and where we please.
00:33:58
And all of these natural born God-given rights enshrined in
00:34:02
our First Amendment being eviscerated without so much as a
00:34:05
conversation about do we actually have to go this far?
00:34:11
Do we have to do this? Is this justified by the data
00:34:15
and the evidence that we have? And at the same time, you have
00:34:19
10s of thousands of scientists and doctors and researchers who
00:34:24
published the Great Barrington Declaration and sign it saying,
00:34:28
yeah, we probably ought to just treat this like we have every
00:34:31
other, you know, infectious disease and take an approach
00:34:34
that protects the vulnerable. And meanwhile, nobody is paying
00:34:39
any attention to them in the government.
00:34:42
And I always like to remind people that there is no public
00:34:46
health emergency exception to our Constitution.
00:34:49
In fact, there is no exception to our Constitution.
00:34:53
And, you know, but they controlled everyone the way that
00:34:59
they always do. And that's with fear.
00:35:02
And once you get someone afraid enough, they will do just about
00:35:05
anything once you tell them that you can keep them safe.
00:35:08
And that's what I think we saw happening during COVID.
00:35:11
That's why, you know, I'll go back to 911.
00:35:16
That's why people were willing to look the other way when they
00:35:21
completely gutted the 4th Amendment with the Patriot Act
00:35:25
and the Transportation Security Act after 911 is because they
00:35:30
made people afraid. You know, that they were willing
00:35:34
to give more power to the government to protect them.
00:35:37
And, and I think that is a very clear distinction between what I
00:35:46
see from people who are on the right or independent versus
00:35:52
people who are Democrats, is that the ability to control them
00:35:56
through fear is, is, is different.
00:35:59
You know, and I in retrospect, put a lot of the blame is not
00:36:06
the right word. But the the reason, a big part
00:36:10
of the reason for that, I believe is, is that so few
00:36:12
people on the left have any sort of spiritual or religious faith.
00:36:17
And I, and I read that when reviewing the book, you know,
00:36:22
you, you put some emphasis on that as well.
00:36:24
And you know, I'll, I'll toss it out here.
00:36:27
I, I, I'm, my whole life have been back and forth when it
00:36:30
comes to faith. And I, and I, I want, I've
00:36:33
always believed in individual spirituality.
00:36:35
I believe that it's it, you need that.
00:36:37
But you're right, the people that don't and the times in my
00:36:41
life where I kind of abandoned that notion, notion, wrong word
00:36:46
probably, but you do when you you're able to be, you're so you
00:36:51
can get so scared and so worried about life.
00:36:55
And I'm, I'm making this very generalized.
00:36:57
But but that that you could fall prey to that, I mean, easily and
00:37:01
just, and you didn't really have anything to kind of to, to lift
00:37:05
you out of this hole. The, the the, the being scared
00:37:07
to you're basically giving your autonomy to somebody, if that
00:37:11
makes any sense. I'm I'm somebody.
00:37:13
No, it it, it totally does. So you know.
00:37:16
The way they talk more about the religion thing.
00:37:20
So I think that there is this natural desire among humans to
00:37:26
feel connected to something bigger than themselves.
00:37:29
You know, the world can be a very scary place if you are not.
00:37:34
And when you have a connection to the creator, however you want
00:37:40
to, you know, envision that I, I personally don't, I push anyone
00:37:45
towards any particular, you know, interpretation.
00:37:49
And I myself have my own personal relationship with God.
00:37:54
I don't go to church or any other formalized religion
00:37:58
because I don't think that's necessary in order to be
00:38:02
connected to the creator. I don't look negatively at
00:38:08
anyone who does and I highly think that the power of prayer
00:38:12
in a group is very real. The energy putting that energy
00:38:15
together is very real and the community that you can create
00:38:19
through those institutions are is amazing.
00:38:22
On the other hand, I do also think that some it has been used
00:38:27
often misused. Now we see all the the money
00:38:30
involved in religious institutions, but also has been
00:38:34
used as a mechanism of a different mechanism of control
00:38:37
throughout history as well. But, and I'm not trying to get
00:38:41
sidetracked into that, but the point being that we that people
00:38:45
want to be connected to something real.
00:38:47
And they also want to believe that there is some power, some
00:38:52
good behind good, some power, you know, that is going to make
00:38:57
everything OK, you know, and that if they don't have that
00:39:02
through their own connection to, to God, they look somewhere else
00:39:08
to place that and that they put it into government.
00:39:13
And it's very clear that, you know, if you go back to, I'm
00:39:18
sure you've probably heard this quote from Karl Marx that, you
00:39:23
know, religion is the opiate of the masses, right?
00:39:26
And what he meant by that is that if people have religious
00:39:31
faith, they will not be able to see how absolutely miserable
00:39:36
they actually are, and therefore they won't allow the government
00:39:40
to take over control. And so, you know, part of what I
00:39:45
came to while I was researching for the book is that our country
00:39:50
has been in a slow cultural revolution towards communism
00:39:54
that began about the same time that the Cultural Revolution
00:39:59
began in China, but because of our very strong constitution and
00:40:04
our history of individualism. It's taken a lot longer to kind
00:40:10
of breakdown those institutions, but what is very clear when you
00:40:15
look at any sort of socialist or communist revolution throughout
00:40:19
history, there are two institutions that have to be
00:40:22
destroyed in order to get there. One is religion and faith, and
00:40:27
the second is the family. And we have seen concerted
00:40:31
attacks on both of those things in the US since, I would say
00:40:37
about the 1960s, around the same time that the Cultural
00:40:41
Revolution started in in China. They were already communist, by
00:40:46
the way, at that time. But Mao, my understanding, I
00:40:51
will say, I am not a scholar in in what happened in China, but
00:40:57
my understanding is that he was fearing that people were
00:40:59
beginning to reject the communism.
00:41:02
And that is why he moved to destroy religion, destroy and
00:41:08
destroy the family. And the other piece of that was
00:41:12
creating chaos in the cities through his Red Guards, which
00:41:16
was the youth who then created a lot of of destruction in the
00:41:21
cities, somewhat similar to we what we have seen with Antifa
00:41:26
and BLM and some of the other things going on in our country.
00:41:30
So, you know, I think that part of the other thing is that, you
00:41:36
know, most religions beyond just giving you sort of or, or if you
00:41:42
have your own faith, beyond giving you a, a sense of
00:41:47
connection, it gives you a sense of acceptance.
00:41:49
It gives you a sense of that you're loved and you're enough.
00:41:55
And I think we are in a situation in our society, I
00:42:01
can't speak for cultures across the world because I don't live
00:42:04
there, but where people feel very disconnected from one
00:42:09
another. In my experience, there's very
00:42:12
little sense of community. COVID really spiked that up
00:42:16
because it forced us all online. And so now people's online lives
00:42:20
are almost more real than their, you know, life outside of the
00:42:26
screen. And so many of the things that
00:42:29
used to create a sense of community and sort of gave us
00:42:35
the idea that we may, you know, all work in different jobs and
00:42:39
we may come from different backgrounds, but we're all
00:42:41
Americans at our base and we can relate to one another.
00:42:45
So many of those things have really disappeared.
00:42:48
You know, like, I used to be in a bowling league many years ago,
00:42:53
and I played competitive pool on a team, and I was in a dinner
00:42:56
club. And, you know, a lot of people
00:42:59
got a sense of community through church.
00:43:01
You might not know how your neighbor voted, but you knew
00:43:04
they brought the best salad to the church picnic, right?
00:43:08
And we don't see that anymore. And it becomes a lot easier to
00:43:13
make someone else the responsible party for your
00:43:17
problems when you don't interact in real life with anyone like
00:43:23
that. And I think that's part of what
00:43:25
we see all the time now. I've, I've always said I was
00:43:29
independent and, and because I liked the idea of, of having
00:43:33
these conversations and, you know, I don't have to have all
00:43:36
of these. I don't have to believe all
00:43:38
these things and, and hate all of these things.
00:43:41
You know, I can pick and choose based on the issue.
00:43:44
And so, but what happened, you know, in the last, you know, not
00:43:47
on a quite the level of you, because you work there, you kind
00:43:52
of invested in it more than I was, but just I started seeing
00:43:55
that I wanted to go and have a beer with somebody that, and if
00:43:58
I disagree with them, we could just kind of laugh it off and
00:44:01
whatever. And then I lived up in a blue, I
00:44:04
won't say exactly where, but it was a very, very north eastern
00:44:08
blue state, blue city and town and the things that were said to
00:44:14
me. And it was right during the 2016
00:44:15
election. And, and I, I was, I was shocked
00:44:19
because I grew up in Texas. So I wasn't used to, you know,
00:44:22
having that, quite that push back.
00:44:25
But I mean, I'd be at a bar and just having a beer and just
00:44:28
trying to talk normally. And, and, and the, the victory
00:44:31
on the, I mean, the, this just spewed at me for possibly voting
00:44:37
for Donald Trump and it, and it opened my eyes to this kind of
00:44:40
this, this like something's not right here.
00:44:43
Like I don't remember this happening during, you know, Bush
00:44:46
versus who I, you know, I don't remember this happening and
00:44:48
something's going on. And so I looked into it more and
00:44:51
that's where, you know, and again, this isn't about me, but
00:44:53
that, that's why I connected with what you were saying when
00:44:56
we, when we spoke was I found all these things out from
00:44:59
different ways as well. I mean, you found it out your
00:45:01
way. I'm finding it out my way.
00:45:02
And I'm hoping that it's something that people are
00:45:05
opening their eyes to in the, in the religion, in the, I mean,
00:45:09
look in New York City, that's exactly what I'm thinking.
00:45:11
And when you're talking about this, this, you know, everybody
00:45:14
there is just feeding off of being taken care of.
00:45:17
And there's a lot of, you know, the lack of the whole religious
00:45:21
mixture and what's going on and, and, and right now is so Ron
00:45:25
Mandani and, and, and I'm worried that spreading.
00:45:28
You see pockets of it here and there and you see people that
00:45:32
just turn their noses up to religion.
00:45:34
You turn their noses up to this idea of family and telling women
00:45:38
that, you know, angry that heaven forbid we suggest that a
00:45:43
woman might want to stay home and be a mother and want to be a
00:45:46
family. Not even that.
00:45:47
Just have a father present that the how important that is.
00:45:51
I can go off on all this being with the black community and all
00:45:53
these missing fathers and we're just getting away from all of
00:45:57
that. You're seeing a decline in
00:45:58
everything. No, we definitely are.
00:46:01
And again, this is, this is on purpose, you know, I mean.
00:46:04
You think this? Is I?
00:46:05
I 100% believe it. It is and it is been done
00:46:12
through our universities in many ways and it has also been done
00:46:18
through the design of our welfare programs.
00:46:21
You know you will lose funding if you get married.
00:46:26
That sends a very clear message. Have another kid, but don't dare
00:46:30
have dad in the house. Yeah.
00:46:31
So I do think it it was done on purpose.
00:46:36
One thing I will not, I don't do in the book and I, I, I don't
00:46:41
really do because I am not trying to tell.
00:46:43
I'm not trying to reprogram anyone, Ryan.
00:46:46
I'm not trying to tell you who did it.
00:46:47
I suggest everybody do their own research to figure out and come
00:46:52
to their own conclusion about who exactly was doing it.
00:46:56
But the Democratic Party and the leadership of it has been
00:47:01
instrumental, I'll just say, in accomplishing some of these
00:47:05
goals. But I, I definitely think that,
00:47:08
you know, there have been concerted effort to weaken the
00:47:12
family and but even to go beyond that, to make it so that not
00:47:20
only are there not gender roles, we can't even say what a gender
00:47:25
is anymore. And we have a sitting Supreme
00:47:29
Court Justice who during her confirmation hearing, declined
00:47:33
to to say what she thought a woman was because she's not a
00:47:38
biologist, You know, So and as a lawyer, that's, that's
00:47:43
ridiculous to me. There's women are a protected
00:47:47
class according to the Supreme Court.
00:47:50
And one of the, not to get too deep into like legal theory, but
00:47:54
basically to be a protected class, there have to be
00:47:58
definable visual ability to tell who is a member of that class.
00:48:05
And women have, you know, they're, they're not the most
00:48:07
protected, long story, but they are a protected class.
00:48:13
But now a Supreme Court Justice says, I can't tell you who's in
00:48:15
that class. Well, that means you're about to
00:48:17
try to destroy what that class is.
00:48:21
And, and you know, I, I, I will say that I have recently, and
00:48:28
I'm joking about this kind of, but I have burned my feminist
00:48:32
card. You know, modern feminism is
00:48:36
nothing like what we envisioned it to be.
00:48:39
And you know, it it it is responsible for in large part
00:48:44
the fact that I chose not to have children.
00:48:47
And like the 90% of women over 50 who chose not to have
00:48:52
children who have been surveying, I regret that choice.
00:48:55
I can't go back and change it. And part of why I'm speaking is
00:49:00
that I hope that young women who are now man hating, angry, want
00:49:06
to be a boss babe. Worst thing that could ever
00:49:09
happen to me is to get pregnant May listen to me and hear my
00:49:14
cautionary tale. You know, one of the biggest
00:49:17
things getting back to the religion topic is that, you
00:49:21
know, aside from wanting to be connected to something bigger,
00:49:25
we're all looking for meaning and purpose, I think, in our
00:49:28
life. And you know, having that
00:49:31
connection to God can give that to you.
00:49:34
But also there's nothing that you could do.
00:49:37
I don't think as a, as a human meaningful or purposeful than
00:49:41
having them reproducing and raising the next generation of,
00:49:47
of children and raising responsible, compassionate,
00:49:51
loving adults who will carry on our species into the future.
00:49:57
And, you know, if I, when I have conversations with young women,
00:50:01
you know, I say to them, do you really think anyone is going to
00:50:04
remember what you do at work? Do you really think 10 or 15
00:50:08
years from now there will be some women who invent something
00:50:11
that, you know, everyone will know about?
00:50:14
It's a very small percentage. You know, I, half of the most of
00:50:18
the people at my old nonprofits probably don't even know who I
00:50:21
am. And it's been five years, you
00:50:23
know, So, yeah. That you can erase the meaning
00:50:28
of reproduction. And what that does, you know, in
00:50:32
terms of giving purpose and and meaning to your life and replace
00:50:38
that with work is just, it's not, I don't think it's very
00:50:43
valid. And but I think it's something
00:50:46
that a lot of young women have been convinced of.
00:50:50
I saw the saddest little video was a, you know, a woman was on
00:50:54
a campus interview, you know, trying pro-life, trying to talk
00:50:59
to to young women about abortion.
00:51:01
And this young woman, I, I would say probably 20, maybe 21,
00:51:06
student looking had said she had had an abortion and she didn't
00:51:10
regret it. And if she got pregnant today,
00:51:13
she would do it again. And in fact, she was, she was
00:51:17
planning to go get herself sterilized very soon.
00:51:21
And her friend came over and gave her a high 5 for it, you
00:51:25
know, and then she said, why in the world would I want to have
00:51:28
kids on a dying planet? And you know that that's sort of
00:51:32
the. This notion of why would I want
00:51:35
to bring kids into this world for X&Y&Z reasons mean interrupt
00:51:40
you. No, yeah.
00:51:41
And but to me, that is so very, very sad, you know?
00:51:44
And it's one thing, you know, like it's one thing, you know, I
00:51:48
was always sort of of the, you know, abortion should be safe,
00:51:52
legal and rare. And we really ought to make sure
00:51:54
people have supports that they need if they get pregnant and,
00:51:58
and, you know, don't feel like they have the supports in order
00:52:02
to to have that child. We've gone so far from that.
00:52:06
Young women use it as birth control basically.
00:52:09
And I, I think that there is something chemically that
00:52:12
happens to a woman when she becomes pregnant that doesn't
00:52:17
just go away, you know, with an abortion, you know, but I also
00:52:21
think like, I also think there's the, there's a fair bit of
00:52:26
misogyny within feminism these days.
00:52:30
The, the things that I would have said our characteristically
00:52:34
female, you know, nurturing softness, kindness is now looked
00:52:40
at as weakness and not female and it's looked at as bad.
00:52:44
It's, it's, it's actually hating those things that are sort of
00:52:47
intrinsically, hormonally and biologically woman and, and
00:52:55
women, so many women just basically act more like men.
00:52:59
You know, they're not, they, they don't want to be women.
00:53:02
And, you know, I think that is part of, you know, what happened
00:53:07
to me as well. And once I woke up from the
00:53:12
stupor, I don't, I don't feel that way anymore, you know, but
00:53:17
I think that going along with that, they've been pushing
00:53:22
gender ideology to try to completely even destroy what it
00:53:27
means to be a woman. As though the way we look on the
00:53:33
outside, all that's all you got to do is, you know, wear some
00:53:37
makeup, put on a dress, and now you're a woman.
00:53:40
I also think has some misogynistic things going on.
00:53:44
But I raised that because it that is also part of destroying
00:53:50
the the nuclear family that goes along with the Cultural
00:53:53
Revolution idea. And it is also part of getting
00:53:58
children to place their faith more in the institution of
00:54:01
school and not in their parents. If they keep getting taught.
00:54:06
You could be any gender you want.
00:54:08
If your parents tell you otherwise, they're wrong.
00:54:10
And we're a safe place and your parents may not be.
00:54:13
And you know, if you decide you want to transition, you can do
00:54:16
it. Well, we're.
00:54:17
Not even going to tell them and. How exactly exactly Oh.
00:54:21
My gosh on that. Yeah, there's a lot in my book
00:54:24
about that, too, because it is. It is something that is really
00:54:29
pernicious. It's very, it's another one that
00:54:32
just really, really opened my eyes to the fact that the
00:54:35
Democrats are on the wrong side. If you think you can compel me
00:54:39
to use speech that I believe is completely inaccurate, either
00:54:45
for scientific or religious reasons or just because I don't
00:54:48
want to, you know, that that's a problem.
00:54:52
And there was AI think it was a Washington Post.
00:54:55
I can't remember for sure who did it, but it was some survey
00:54:58
in 2023. And nearly half of Democrats
00:55:04
between like, the ages of 18 and 29 believed it should be a crime
00:55:11
to misgender someone. So you could go to jail.
00:55:14
Yeah. I heard that one too.
00:55:15
Colorado. I think it's something along
00:55:18
those lines. But I mean, seriously, this is,
00:55:23
I mean, it's not about me. But real quick, I've mentioned I
00:55:25
was independent and, and my big issue right now is I is because
00:55:28
of the things we're talking about, especially something like
00:55:31
this. I mean, there's, there's a,
00:55:33
there's a open a scroll of just all the things that have that
00:55:37
have pushed me away from being able to align with anything on
00:55:41
the on the modern left. We keep using the word modern,
00:55:44
modern feminism, modern. And there's a true to that.
00:55:47
The, this wasn't, you know, even, I know, like I said, I was
00:55:50
never a Democrat or fiscally Republican.
00:55:52
The whole thing socially this, physically that, and I never saw
00:55:56
the Democratic Party and the, and the way I see them now.
00:55:58
And it's, it's extreme and, and I cannot align with it.
00:56:02
And so it's these things that you're talking about right now
00:56:05
with the gender and the, you know, a crime to misgender
00:56:08
somebody. I mean, this is, this is insane,
00:56:10
.06% of the country is causing the 90, you know, 9.4% of my
00:56:17
math is how good it is to, to, to cater to them to alter their
00:56:21
lifestyle to all of a sudden worry about their, their young
00:56:25
girls in the bathrooms, things like that.
00:56:27
And I'm called, we're called, everybody's called all these
00:56:30
horrible things for questioning the issues that surround
00:56:34
something like the trench or the, the gender identity.
00:56:37
And let's just talk about the bathrooms, let's talk about
00:56:40
sports. You do you, if you're an adult,
00:56:42
you do you leave the kids out of it and whatever.
00:56:45
That doesn't make me this horrible person that people want
00:56:48
to make me out to be. And so that's kind of what what
00:56:50
I was so intrigued by with you is, you know, you were talking
00:56:53
about so this that 3 1/2 year period and then you lead up to
00:56:56
where you finally retired. Were you seeing the all of these
00:57:00
things? And I think maybe I missed that
00:57:02
all of these types of extremisms from the from the left start to
00:57:06
kind of like. Yes, I was.
00:57:10
Yeah, I was. But I would say that I kind of,
00:57:14
I got out of it in 2020 just as it was.
00:57:18
Really turning. Really bad.
00:57:20
So everyone else was putting their pronouns in their emails.
00:57:24
You know, luckily who the organization I work for didn't
00:57:27
require us to do that. Well, follow up question, were I
00:57:31
was going to ask you, were people were you and anybody
00:57:36
else, did anybody speak out and were they, I mean, did you feel
00:57:40
pressure to not say anything? Were people questioning this?
00:57:43
This kind of? Game, you know, it was weird
00:57:47
because it happened sort of subtly and then all of a sudden
00:57:50
it was there and you know, I was.
00:57:53
Were there others like you though that were kind of like
00:57:56
this is a little? No, no, most everybody was just
00:57:59
really going along with it. And and there, yeah, because the
00:58:03
peer pressure is intense and it is, there is this need
00:58:11
requirement for ideological conformity, you know, that I
00:58:15
talk about. And you had to just kind of go
00:58:19
along and it happens sort of incrementally.
00:58:22
So you give an inch and then you're all of a sudden you
00:58:25
notice I'm 6 feet from where I was.
00:58:27
But and I'm not comfortable here.
00:58:29
But how do I say anything without being, you know, shoved
00:58:34
off the Cliff that is in? The beginning 6.
00:58:37
Feet and and and people didn't I mean I was being pushed.
00:58:42
So I was the chair of the board of a a large coalition of like
00:58:47
100 organizations all focusing on disability.
00:58:51
And we were being pushed to do more work around, as they call
00:58:55
it, intersectionality and around trans issues and, you know, and
00:59:00
around race and things like that.
00:59:03
And I did push back and probably slowed that down.
00:59:08
But as soon as I retired, they went full in on it.
00:59:12
And, you know, I did some consulting work after the fact,
00:59:18
attended that coalition's annual meeting, which was all done on
00:59:25
Zoom. It was the weirdest thing ever,
00:59:28
you know, 'cause all you saw were like 100 little black boxes
00:59:32
with beams and pronouns, by the way.
00:59:35
And the entire agenda was about race and gender and not about
00:59:44
disability. It was all about those things
00:59:46
which to me was very telling of what had happened in the
00:59:51
interim. And I can guarantee you I would
00:59:53
not have lasted long as the leader anymore of that coalition
00:59:57
because I had pushed back about as much as I could so.
01:00:01
You tried a little bit to. I tried a little bit, but I, you
01:00:05
know, I was on my way out and so I didn't, you know, I think part
01:00:10
of what I talk about and what I have I learned as I was, you
01:00:15
know, going through writing the book is that there the people on
01:00:20
the left and again, in part goes back to the lack of spiritual
01:00:23
faith, rely a lot on external validation for their own sense
01:00:27
of self and their self esteem. And part of that, you know, in
01:00:33
part because I'll go back and blame social media in part for
01:00:37
this, you know, cancel culture started to happen and people on
01:00:43
the left, the loudest voices are the ones that are often the
01:00:47
farthest out there, right. And so, yeah, and, and it's on
01:00:55
the left and the right, I think. And I should have, I should have
01:00:58
said too, like I am an independent now.
01:01:01
I feel completely politically homeless.
01:01:03
You know I voted for Donald Trump in 2024.
01:01:06
That. Was going to be one of my
01:01:08
questions for you. Is with the with the hope that
01:01:10
he would. Shift over My question was did
01:01:13
this push you to to completely go the other way and and, and
01:01:17
did you vote? How did you vote if I was going
01:01:20
to see if you would even tell me but.
01:01:22
No, yeah, I'm, I'm an open book on this.
01:01:24
I I one of the things that happened, you know, when I woke
01:01:28
up and I decided to write this book and found my own faith is I
01:01:31
let go of fear. I do not care if you do not like
01:01:34
me, and I don't mean you, but I. And no, we and we should be like
01:01:38
that, yeah. But it is that is a very hard
01:01:40
thing for someone on the left. It really is because relies so
01:01:44
much on being part of the that group.
01:01:46
It's so much a part of their identity.
01:01:49
And then the I would call them like sex SECT of the progressive
01:01:56
cult. So you have the race sect and
01:01:58
you have the gender sect and you have, you know, all these
01:02:01
different sects, but they don't want to be excommunicated.
01:02:07
They don't want to be different. So you see the virtual signaling
01:02:12
of the Ukrainian flag in the bio or the picture with the mask or
01:02:16
see, I'm one of you, I'm good. So I get my, my validity from,
01:02:22
from you. And that used to be me.
01:02:25
So I'm, I don't like to be too, you know, harsh about it, but
01:02:28
it's just a reality that I that I see basically, I can't ever
01:02:35
see myself voting for a Democrat in the in the near future unless
01:02:40
they do AA188-ON free speech and a 188 on a lot of things it's
01:02:46
getting. Further, further and further
01:02:48
extreme. I mean, you get AOC.
01:02:50
I saw I was trying to possibly make it.
01:02:53
I'm like really a guy like Bernie.
01:02:56
We used to be extreme and now he's, you know, but mom, Donnie,
01:02:59
a Newsome out there, I mean he's they're doubling down on they
01:03:04
just keep digging. I feel like as somebody who used
01:03:07
to be kind of in the middle and was, was kind of just wanting a
01:03:09
good a good candidate either way.
01:03:12
And then now it's I just can't align with it.
01:03:13
I know the right has its problems, but my goodness, all
01:03:17
of these things that you're talking about so far today are
01:03:20
all the things if you went back and I'm just shamelessly
01:03:23
plugging myself, I guess. But if you go back and you
01:03:25
listen to a lot of the things that that I've been talking
01:03:27
about over these last few months, can't I did a whole
01:03:30
thing on cancel culture or thing all these things and it's all
01:03:33
it's just lefty extremists methodology.
01:03:36
It's this game plan that they have.
01:03:39
It's and it's hate, hate, hate. And how dare everything Donald
01:03:42
Trump, man, that's the joke is that he could do this and then
01:03:44
it would be his fault. And you know, the, the protests,
01:03:48
Oh, please, please, Gaza, we we've got to stop it.
01:03:51
And then he does. And then it's like, OK, what's
01:03:53
the next thing now that we can yell about and it and it's this.
01:03:56
And now I've seen it as kind of an observer.
01:03:59
And that's why it's so interesting to hear from you as
01:04:02
somebody who like went through it and and and kind of was, was
01:04:07
on that side of things and did things like Antifa and all these
01:04:11
things. Were you ever like, I don't want
01:04:14
to align with this, Like this is not who I am.
01:04:17
Well. I mean, I woke up in 2020.
01:04:20
So it was before George Floyd. It was before, you know, all of,
01:04:25
of that. But I there were things.
01:04:27
Antifa, right? Still kind of the that whole
01:04:30
thing or not really. I I think it mostly really
01:04:34
started to rear its ugly head. George.
01:04:36
Floyd Yeah. The, the Summer of Love, as they
01:04:38
call it, you know, the, the mostly peaceful protests that
01:04:42
did $2 billion worth of damage and, you know.
01:04:45
All that in the background, there's flames everywhere.
01:04:48
Yeah. So, but, you know, there were a
01:04:51
few things that I, I just didn't buy into the whole time that I
01:04:56
think kind of kept me a little bit from going over the, the
01:05:00
deep end. And maybe in part because all
01:05:04
the identity politics they were pushing, I wasn't part of I, I'm
01:05:09
not a black person and I'm not gay.
01:05:12
I'm not, you know, so it didn't you know, The thing is that fear
01:05:18
going back to something we're talking about is the way they
01:05:21
get people and IA lot of that is through the identity politics.
01:05:27
A lot of that is, oh, if you're trans or you love someone who's
01:05:30
trans, then those nasty Republicans are going to
01:05:34
genocide you if you're black, You know, despite the fact that
01:05:40
the, the biggest enemies of, in my opinion of, of the black
01:05:45
culture in our country are Democrats.
01:05:48
And, you know, I, I detail a little bit of that in the book,
01:05:53
but they, you know, oh, if, if you know, the, the Republicans
01:05:58
get elected, they're going to do XY or Z to you.
01:06:02
And so that, that didn't work on me.
01:06:06
And I always sort of had a problem with where my party was
01:06:09
on immigration, to be honest. And then it just became so
01:06:12
blatant. I, my, my family immigrated from
01:06:16
Eastern Europe on both sides in the early 1900s.
01:06:20
So I'm I'm second, yeah. So I'm not anti immigrant, but
01:06:28
also I am very much about assimilation on the melting pot
01:06:33
and that if you are coming here and you do not believe in the
01:06:37
values of our country, you should not be here.
01:06:40
I not that I have anything against you because of your
01:06:44
race, your color or anything, but societies that do not share
01:06:50
basic values fall. There's just no if, ands or buts
01:06:54
about that you're. Seeing it now, that's what we're
01:06:56
seeing. Yeah, that is what we're seeing.
01:06:58
A House divided does not stand. And I don't consider myself a
01:07:02
Republican. I don't consider myself a
01:07:05
Democrat. And I think I I think that
01:07:09
there's a very large percentage of people who find themselves
01:07:12
where we are. It's neither party is neither
01:07:17
party speaks to us. And quite frankly, the parties
01:07:22
are way too powerful. You know, our founders warned us
01:07:25
about this. They call them factions and we
01:07:29
now have them and they are are ripping us apart and they are
01:07:33
it's a purposeful divide and conquer strategy.
01:07:36
Keep us fighting each other over things that don't matter while
01:07:40
they, you know, drain the treasury, do horrible things in
01:07:44
our name across the planet and really don't do much to actually
01:07:49
address the concerns of of American citizens.
01:07:53
So it. Feels like 2 teams.
01:07:54
It feels like I'm supposed to be over here or over here, and if I
01:07:57
which I've done now is just I I'm getting away from the the
01:08:01
extreme left. Does that make it means all of a
01:08:04
sudden I found myself over here where I'm a MAGA or I'm this and
01:08:08
that and I've I've fallen prey to the other side of it, which
01:08:10
is I'm so frustrated with the division and, and, and, and what
01:08:15
I do. I do think that the, the extreme
01:08:18
left is, is the bigger the bigger role in that starting
01:08:22
with Obama that I found myself now, you know, aligning with
01:08:25
things maybe on the right that I'm I usually more moderate
01:08:29
with, you know, and like you just said about immigration.
01:08:33
That's a perfect example. Look, why can't we, why can't we
01:08:37
be OK with immigration? However, this, this, this and
01:08:41
this need to be applied. You can't just, you know, oh,
01:08:44
and, and if you chat, if you challenge what you, if you said
01:08:47
what you just said, which is, you know, they need to
01:08:49
assimilate, they need to do these things.
01:08:51
All of a sudden, you're the buzzwords, you're all of these
01:08:54
things now. And that's just not the way.
01:08:56
There's no mental anymore. No, Well, there is no space in
01:09:01
the middle. You know, I mean, I, I think
01:09:04
that there are two things that I say to people now about like my
01:09:09
sort of buzz phrases for after my wake up.
01:09:13
And that is question everything, right, especially your own
01:09:17
beliefs and why you have them and follow the money.
01:09:22
Yeah, I I read that as well. In your in your stuff, follow
01:09:24
the. Money, yeah, follow the money
01:09:26
and it's a very illuminating when you follow the money, it's
01:09:29
very illuminating. And but the the question
01:09:32
everything, I think that's what is that people on the left no
01:09:37
longer question anything, especially not the belief that
01:09:41
they have, because they have been indoctrinated through
01:09:45
school to have them. They have been told that only
01:09:49
uneducated rubes believe anything different.
01:09:52
And they're certainly not one of those, right?
01:09:54
So they have to like, you know, and then you have the social
01:09:59
media and the media echo chamber and then the fact checkers, who
01:10:04
are all left-leaning, by the way.
01:10:06
Thank you. I was going to ask you about
01:10:07
Fact Check and go ahead on that because I, I, yeah, I was fact
01:10:11
checked and I'm like, yeah, it was fact checked by who and.
01:10:13
Follow the money. Yeah.
01:10:15
Follow. It's all worth leaning
01:10:16
nonprofits right from here on. Yeah, follow the money.
01:10:21
And when I say follow the money, it has three pieces to it.
01:10:23
Who paid for it? Who benefited from it and where
01:10:26
did it go? If you start doing that with all
01:10:29
of these things, you'll find some really interesting answers.
01:10:33
I did that. The protests.
01:10:35
Oh yeah, you follow the money with a lot of the protests and I
01:10:37
found a lot of stuff. But anyway, I didn't mean it.
01:10:39
Go ahead. And I didn't.
01:10:40
Even no and and I think that's true.
01:10:42
I've begun to question if there have been any organic protests
01:10:45
in the last 20 years that weren't funded, and I've noticed
01:10:48
that they kind of have lost their vava voom since they cut
01:10:52
off USADAID funding. Interesting, I might have to go
01:10:56
readdress that. Yeah, so take a look at that.
01:10:59
But what I was gonna say about the isms and the phobia calling
01:11:05
and all of that is that you, you are the isms, You're a yeah, the
01:11:11
isms, you're a racist, you're a whatever, you're transphobic IST
01:11:17
phobia. I just always laugh at the
01:11:19
phobia. It's like, no, nobody's afraid
01:11:21
of y'all. Maybe you wish we were, but that
01:11:23
ain't what is going on. But anyway, I digress.
01:11:27
I, I just the, so there's two points I want to make about it.
01:11:33
When nobody, when your policy ideas don't work, fear is all
01:11:39
you have. So you know you.
01:11:44
They use fear. And what has happened is most of
01:11:49
the people on the left are extremely compassionate.
01:11:53
Might not seem like it when they're hurling the isms and the
01:11:56
phobias at you, but what they have done is they have use
01:12:03
brainwashing and indoctrination techniques to create selective
01:12:09
compassion so that people are only on the left are only
01:12:12
allowed to be compassionate to people who are vulnerable in
01:12:16
their who they have been taught are vulnerable, historically
01:12:19
oppressed, marginalized groups, all of that stuff.
01:12:24
So the only those people are worthy, deserving of their
01:12:29
compassion. And what they have done is they
01:12:31
have manipulated that compassion using fear and then weaponized
01:12:36
it into anger. And so they are now feel 100%
01:12:43
justified in being so angry at you.
01:12:47
That's why they're good at anger.
01:12:48
Don't care about that poor trans kid.
01:12:51
OK, now what they also can't do is get below the talking points
01:12:58
because they haven't examined their own beliefs at all.
01:13:02
They don't have to because they constantly get confirmation bias
01:13:06
and reaffirmation and repetition.
01:13:09
Repetition, which is one of the main indoctrination techniques.
01:13:13
I'd say they get a morning memo each day and what their talking
01:13:17
points are. But Oh yeah, this is the talking
01:13:19
points, and this is the word you're supposed to use even
01:13:22
today. Word of the day, Buzzword of the
01:13:24
day. Like, like, yeah, I think it was
01:13:26
his last State of the Union address.
01:13:28
Biden's speech was fiery. That was the word that everybody
01:13:32
used. Fiery.
01:13:35
It's so funny that you, you bring this up and I, and I swear
01:13:37
people, I didn't plan this at all, but when I was reading your
01:13:42
stuff, reading your work, your book, this what you're talking
01:13:46
about right now, I had highlighted right here in front
01:13:48
of me and, and it was the idea because as soon as I, as soon as
01:13:52
you said, the people on the left are the most compassionate, of
01:13:56
course, immediately I was like, what?
01:13:59
They're the, the, the hate, the burden, this.
01:14:01
And then I went on, I read, I continued on and, and, and I
01:14:05
can't agree with you more. I, I just feel like there are
01:14:08
these people that feel like they have to protect other people.
01:14:12
They have to this, the virtue signaling that this, they have
01:14:15
to. And then there and then there,
01:14:16
that stuff's being taken and it's being spun into hate and
01:14:19
spun into fear. And that's why they're the
01:14:21
loudest, the most violent, the most whatever.
01:14:24
And that and it's such a perfect, the way you put it was
01:14:27
was well done. Well, thank you.
01:14:29
I just want to let you know I had that here, Here, I said.
01:14:32
You said here. That's well, I see.
01:14:34
I told you that we'd probably get to everything that you
01:14:36
wanted to like maybe. Ask everything but we.
01:14:39
We'll get there. Not quite, but we're we.
01:14:41
Still got some a couple minutes. I, I definitely, there are a few
01:14:44
things I want to ask that are really basic because I like to
01:14:46
do the quick questions for you. I wanted to know.
01:14:49
And if you have something else, feel free to please, you know,
01:14:51
continue. But real quick.
01:14:54
Has anybody sought you out from the old crew, from the old
01:14:57
Democratic Party and said, hey, what are you doing here?
01:15:01
What's this book? What is this nonsense?
01:15:03
No, no. No, I will say you think.
01:15:06
They're blinded to it all, or they just don't even.
01:15:08
I don't think they know. I mean, I will say that like I,
01:15:12
I think I mentioned this maybe to you before we started
01:15:15
recording. I have a a love hate
01:15:17
relationship with technology, so I'm not probably not using
01:15:21
social media and everything else to the best effect to get the
01:15:25
word out there. I think they'd all just think I
01:15:29
lost my mind, you know, I fell in love with this guy and he
01:15:32
brainwashed me to believe whatever.
01:15:36
Although if they could have a conversation with me, it's
01:15:38
obviously clear that I and have not lost my mind.
01:15:42
Although I thought I was when I first started waking up.
01:15:45
Because I mean, only crazy or stupid people believe what I now
01:15:51
believe, right? And so I'm.
01:15:52
Fascinated with how intense I see people hate big big bad
01:15:56
orange man. I'm so fascinated to see, to
01:15:59
talk. That's why I'm so glad to talk
01:16:00
to you to see people and not that all of a sudden you love
01:16:03
Trump at all, but but the fact that you're able to say, you
01:16:07
know what, OK, this isn't, this is not a, this is not a game
01:16:10
plan. This is not a, a strategy to
01:16:12
just hate this guy. He won.
01:16:14
He won. He's doing what he ran on for
01:16:16
the most part. And you know, and if we want to
01:16:19
win, we need to come back and, and have our own strategy.
01:16:23
And instead their strategy is just hate Trump and, and
01:16:26
everything we're doing. And they're on the 20% side of
01:16:29
every 8020 issue. And that's not, that's not going
01:16:31
to get him anywhere. And I feel like they're fading.
01:16:34
What do you think? Do you think the Democratic
01:16:36
Party is fading or do you think it's that's kind of just maybe
01:16:39
just a little bit highlighted right now I'll.
01:16:41
Be honest, I think both parties are.
01:16:43
The Democrats are really fading. I mean, I don't know what Mag is
01:16:48
going to do after Trump is gone. You know, and it's become really
01:16:54
clear as we see what's what's happened to Marjorie Taylor
01:16:56
Green in the past couple weeks, that the establishment is not
01:17:01
going to let anybody survive Who is out of line.
01:17:05
You know, and right now you have Trump leading MAGA, But when
01:17:11
he's gone, I, I, I honestly don't know, you know, I.
01:17:15
Think he's priming JD Vance? They're not.
01:17:17
They're not molding this guy to continue on the MAGA movement,
01:17:21
if you will. You know, I don't have my pulse
01:17:24
or my finger on the pulse of MAGA about this because I've
01:17:27
kind of pulled back from MAGA a little bit because I see a lot
01:17:30
of cult like behavior now going on there too.
01:17:34
Not everybody. But I think that I have a lot of
01:17:38
questions about a lot of things that President Trump is doing.
01:17:41
And if you raise them with a lot of the MAGA crowd, he can do no
01:17:44
wrong. And that is not any better than
01:17:47
than the cult on the left, you know, where authority is always
01:17:51
right and you have to worship authority and idolize the
01:17:54
expert. And so I'm not sure.
01:17:58
I know I've heard a lot of people who are huge Trump
01:18:01
supporters raise a lot of questions about Peter Thiel,
01:18:04
raise a lot of questions about JD Vance's connection to him.
01:18:07
And, you know, I'm not, I am not on board with ushering in the
01:18:14
technocratic oligarchic rule of this country.
01:18:18
And I know a lot of people are asking questions about that.
01:18:20
So and there's just something I think about JD Vance that puts a
01:18:25
lot of people off that I know of.
01:18:27
So I'm that's. Amazing.
01:18:29
I haven't talked to a lot of people about JD.
01:18:30
That's what I'm saying. I'm not interesting because I
01:18:33
think otherwise. Just imagine I like the guy.
01:18:35
I mean, like I said, just for different reasons.
01:18:37
This is all probably the next the next conversation about the
01:18:40
future. You make a good point.
01:18:41
I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen when Donald Trump's
01:18:45
gone. And but the Democrats are so far
01:18:48
behind. And, you know, can Gavin Newsom
01:18:50
really win it? And I mean, it's just, it's
01:18:52
just, it's crazy. And so part of what I was going
01:18:54
to get to was the the future. But let's circle back.
01:18:57
What what's that? What was her name that always
01:18:59
said circle back? Jen.
01:19:01
Press Secretary Yeah, we'll, we'll, let's circle back here to
01:19:05
your book. I mean, let's really focus on
01:19:06
the book. That's why that's that's why we
01:19:08
connected. And, and again, admittedly,
01:19:12
I've, I've read as much as I could until we, we had our talk
01:19:15
and I'm going to keep going with it.
01:19:16
And it is really good. I, I enjoy it.
01:19:20
And, and I again, it's fascinating because I feel like
01:19:25
one of the ways you set it up, and I'll set it up the same way
01:19:27
is that people can can believe all, you know, they can have
01:19:32
their opinions about everything right now and what's going on.
01:19:35
And you can still put yourself in your shoes if you are like
01:19:40
you, if you're like me, who's kind of gravitated towards MAGA
01:19:44
because mostly because of the insane behavior on the left, in
01:19:48
my opinion, you know, I can relate to it.
01:19:51
OK, Wow. She's seeing these things
01:19:53
through this. And I feel like anybody can read
01:19:55
it. Some people might get, you know,
01:19:57
butthurt by it if they're true, still staunch Democrats.
01:20:01
But and I and I love, I love that part of it.
01:20:03
And and again, I look forward to to continuing through it.
01:20:06
And, and I just wanted to know, I mean, you could have walked
01:20:09
away. I mean, I know this is a very
01:20:10
basic question because the obvious answer is you want to
01:20:12
spread, spread your word. But you could have walked away
01:20:14
from this and gone from my understanding you, your
01:20:17
relationship and in, in a nice fresh air, you know, and you
01:20:23
could get away from it all. But instead you chose to dive
01:20:27
almost in a way deeper, researching, writing a book,
01:20:31
putting yourself out there to where people, like I said, could
01:20:33
maybe find you. Why did you choose to do that?
01:20:36
Like what was your, what was the incentive?
01:20:37
What, what moment did you go? I'm doing a book.
01:20:40
So after I woke up, I went through a lot of emotions and I
01:20:47
got really, really angry. I got angry that this had been
01:20:52
done to me, you know, that I had been indoctrinated and
01:20:55
brainwashed and essentially my life choices taken away from me
01:21:01
in many ways because of, of, of that indoctrination and
01:21:06
brainwashing. And I also recognized like we
01:21:10
literally had an administration try to open a Ministry of truth.
01:21:15
We, you know, they, they, they cancelled it.
01:21:18
Nina Jenkins. I don't remember what they were
01:21:20
calling. I was like the Disinformation
01:21:22
Bureau or something like that. Yeah, I forget.
01:21:24
I remember what? I forget the title, but yeah,
01:21:27
she. So I felt like we were really,
01:21:31
really close to losing our Republic because I've always
01:21:34
thought there were three amendments that kept us free
01:21:37
really in the Bill of Rights, the 1st, the 2nd and the 4th.
01:21:42
And for many people, you may not be that familiar with the 4th
01:21:45
because it doesn't exist anymore.
01:21:47
Really. It's the it's the right to be
01:21:50
safe in your person property and effects from unreasonable
01:21:56
searches and seizures from the government without a warrant
01:21:59
issued by a judge or magistrate upon probable cause.
01:22:05
Well, they started gutting that with war on drugs.
01:22:08
They started making exceptions to the warrant requirement.
01:22:12
The Supreme Court did. And then when 911 happened and
01:22:16
the Patriot Act passed, they gutted it even more.
01:22:22
And that's what Edward Snowden told us about.
01:22:24
They're looking at all your information like it should apply
01:22:28
to our digital property as well. And we'd have no digital
01:22:34
privacy. We have no digital privacy from
01:22:37
the companies that, you know, we click yes on the terms without
01:22:42
reading them. But the government is using that
01:22:46
in order to completely avoid the 4th Amendment.
01:22:50
And I use this as an example because it's very clear we are
01:22:55
searched without a warrant every time we go on a flight.
01:23:00
The the TSA is unconstitutional to me.
01:23:03
You cannot require someone without probable cause to open
01:23:07
up your bag and show me everything you have.
01:23:09
But it got us used to not worrying about our 4th Amendment
01:23:14
rights. And then most young people who
01:23:16
were born, you know, who are younger, who have been alive in
01:23:20
the digital age, only they don't have any expectation of privacy.
01:23:24
And in fact, they do the opposite.
01:23:26
They want everybody in the world to know everything they're doing
01:23:29
as long as it paints them in a positive light.
01:23:31
Or they can come and have a tantrum.
01:23:33
It's one or the other. Either oh, look at how great my
01:23:36
life is, or Oh my God, look at how terrible.
01:23:38
My life. I bet most of them would be
01:23:39
willing to give up their 4th Amendment right?
01:23:41
They'd be like, that's not important.
01:23:42
I'd rather this. I'd rather I'd rather this,
01:23:44
this, this and. This.
01:23:45
I'd rather be safe. Yeah.
01:23:47
Yeah. I'm not lying.
01:23:48
Maybe on the plane thing, I'm willing to talk about it, but
01:23:50
you know, I haven't really thought about it in that way.
01:23:53
But so our 4th Amendment literally doesn't exist so
01:23:57
anymore. And they've been trying to chip
01:23:59
away and some states are are making some progress, I think on
01:24:02
the second. But really what keeps us free is
01:24:06
that we have a free mind and we have the ability to speak about
01:24:10
things when they go wrong. And that's the First Amendment.
01:24:13
And so when I really saw the threat to these fundamental
01:24:18
rights that the Democrat Party was posing, I said, I can't not
01:24:24
say anything. I have to do something.
01:24:27
But I think I, I recall a moment where, you know, I really had to
01:24:32
struggle with the fact that my life was controlled by fear.
01:24:36
Up until 2020, my entire life, most of the decisions I made
01:24:41
were about security, safety, comfort.
01:24:44
And you think that's definitely being applied today to this
01:24:47
point on the demo from the Democratic?
01:24:49
Oh totally 100%. I'm just making.
01:24:51
Sure, we emphasize that. Yeah, 100% it's all fear based
01:24:55
and you know, exploring my own faith and and getting a
01:25:00
connection to the creator. I recall a day where I said I'm
01:25:04
done and I screamed it out on my farm in the mid to nobody to the
01:25:09
air. I'm done being afraid.
01:25:11
You're not getting my fear anymore.
01:25:14
And and then I said, OK, no more fear.
01:25:18
I have to speak up because I feel like if at the time when I
01:25:23
started writing this, we were, I was expecting a, a second Biden
01:25:26
term. It was way before the
01:25:28
substitution, the the democracy substitution that we had at the
01:25:32
last minute, very democratic. Yeah, very democratic.
01:25:36
But and, and, and she wouldn't have been better.
01:25:39
In fact, she'd have been worse, I think on the on this and many
01:25:42
things, both sides. Should be able to agree on that,
01:25:45
but they won't. No, they never will.
01:25:47
You know, we're just racist and misogynistic because we wouldn't
01:25:52
vote for a black woman, even though I voted for the black
01:25:56
woman to be my governor. But she was a Republican, so you
01:25:59
don't hear anything about that. And she didn't.
01:26:01
Win that's the other thing I was going to ask you about but we we
01:26:03
you know again so much to talk to you about we'll we'll
01:26:05
definitely I'll definitely have to have you back on for sure
01:26:07
but. Yeah, but so that's the point is
01:26:10
I, I let go of the fear. I was like, I have to do
01:26:14
something to help save the country that I love.
01:26:16
And I knew that if we had another four years of Democrats,
01:26:19
it would be lost, you know? And so I rushed really to get
01:26:24
the book out. And I spent a lot of time going
01:26:26
around talking to people, mostly to try to help people, help
01:26:30
someone they know. Wake up.
01:26:34
Most of the people who are still in the cult, you know, who are
01:26:38
still strong Democrats, I think they have a hard time hearing my
01:26:42
message, you know, although I, I have heard other people who are
01:26:48
Democrats, but not way out on the fringe.
01:26:52
So, you know, I kind of feel that way, but I don't feel like
01:26:55
I can speak up. And so maybe they'd be open to
01:26:58
it and maybe my book could give them some, you know, help and
01:27:02
support and for them to understand, you know, you know,
01:27:07
because another reason I wrote it is so that people who are
01:27:10
waking up know they're not alone.
01:27:12
You know, it's a really like, I still don't feel like I fit
01:27:16
anywhere, you know, And and that I think is a really scary place
01:27:21
sometimes to put yourself because we are communal in we
01:27:25
want connection. We want a community.
01:27:27
And it's hard when you sort of give up what you had as your
01:27:33
community for a very long time and and try to find a new one.
01:27:38
And especially in a time where as we were talking about before,
01:27:42
like there's so much less in person opportunity to have
01:27:48
community in the way that we used to.
01:27:52
So. Latch on to that latch on to it
01:27:55
for sure. Yeah, any way they.
01:27:57
Can and if they, if the Democratic Party is their their
01:27:59
safe spot, they're going to stay with them.
01:28:03
Yeah, So that's what really, you know, was the moment I I decided
01:28:07
to write the book. And then, you know, I wrote it
01:28:10
and now what I realize and, you know, it's, I understand it, but
01:28:15
a lot of people don't read very much books much anymore.
01:28:20
So I'm trying to, you know, I'm doing my best to think of ways I
01:28:24
can get this message out. And I love having conversations
01:28:28
like this. I hate sitting in front of a
01:28:30
camera talking to the camera, you know what I mean?
01:28:33
Like it's just. Like I knew most of my stuff.
01:28:36
It's it, I didn't like it. And I'm getting used to it
01:28:38
because as you can tell, I can talk to we both can talk, but
01:28:42
but but I go ahead. You're saying that you enjoy the
01:28:47
conversations. Yeah, yeah.
01:28:48
And I'm just trying to, you know, figure out other ways that
01:28:51
I can help help get the message out, you know, And my biggest
01:28:55
thing is, and I think I put this in an e-mail to you that like, I
01:28:58
really want us to get back to a point that people who have
01:29:03
difference of opinion, even if they're very big differences of
01:29:06
opinion, can talk to one another in a respectful manner that, you
01:29:10
know, doesn't assume the person is morally inferior because they
01:29:15
differently and remind us of those things we have in common.
01:29:20
And how we can, you know, be how we can start looking at each
01:29:25
other as humans again, as opposed to a member of a
01:29:29
different tribe, essentially. And so that's part of, you know,
01:29:34
the goal now for me. I mean, you referenced a lot of,
01:29:38
you know, you know, Orwell and you know, my favorite book is
01:29:40
Brave New World, you know, Huxley and all that.
01:29:42
And you reference that and then you think about like The Time
01:29:45
Machine, you know, when, when they went out and then the two
01:29:48
human species had like completely divided off.
01:29:51
And, and I think about that all the time.
01:29:53
Like what's this going to be like, you know, in 50 years?
01:29:55
What's going to be like in 200 years?
01:29:57
And are we going to still be, are we going to know the United
01:30:00
States is, is what we know it as?
01:30:02
But I know you're, you're pressed on time.
01:30:05
And I and I wanted to just ask you, if not because it's recent
01:30:09
and it's was the biggest event that happened.
01:30:13
How did you feel as a former Democrat, somebody who
01:30:17
understands the indoctrination at the reaction to Charlie's
01:30:21
death and Charlie Kirk's death? How do you feel when you watched
01:30:25
people celebrate it, when you watched people like joke and
01:30:28
area? It was something where you're
01:30:30
like, I made the right decision. Did it like solidify that or
01:30:33
were you just like not surprised at all?
01:30:36
I had to ask you about Charlie. I just.
01:30:37
I know and I get it. And you know, the, the reaction
01:30:42
was quite frankly, very horrific and saddening to me, but not
01:30:48
surprising. You know, I made the right
01:30:50
choice and I understand where where that comes from based on
01:30:55
where they are. And I think, you know, this is
01:30:59
this is the part that is really, really challenging with those, I
01:31:02
think waking those up, those people up who are still
01:31:07
indoctrinated and on the left. And that is that they've gotten
01:31:10
to a place where they believe that speech in and of itself is
01:31:15
violence, that if you say something mean, you are
01:31:20
committing a violent act against an individual.
01:31:23
And, you know, that is completely inconsistent with the
01:31:29
First Amendment of our Constitution.
01:31:32
And I, I respect, you know, I defend their right to say what
01:31:35
they said. I believe that that's
01:31:37
constitutional speech. But it is very much we have to
01:31:43
get back to a place where we don't other people based on
01:31:46
their beliefs in a way that allows horrific acts to be
01:31:51
committed. And, you know, it, it is
01:31:55
somewhat chilling to me because I, you know, I, I obviously have
01:31:59
nowhere near the reach that Charlie Kirk did.
01:32:01
And I didn't know him personally, but I'm kind of
01:32:04
trying to do the same thing that he did.
01:32:06
And that is to have conversations with whoever will
01:32:09
have them so that, you know, truth can see the light, you
01:32:16
know, and again, you know, just like with President Trump, they
01:32:20
took sound bites out of context and they spun what Charlie, who
01:32:25
he was and what he was saying. You know, I never, you know,
01:32:30
I've watched a lot of his speeches since he was
01:32:33
assassinated and he never was disrespectful.
01:32:37
He always wanted like, you know, even if he was like talking to
01:32:43
someone who is trans, you know, and he completely disagreed with
01:32:46
the whole thing. He thought it was social
01:32:48
contagion, you know, and it wasn't against God and all those
01:32:53
things. He always ended with a prayer
01:32:57
for that person to be happy to accept themselves, whatever it
01:33:01
was. And so, you know, I, I do worry
01:33:05
about that in, in that way, and I'm really glad I'm out of it,
01:33:09
you know, and I don't have to and I don't, I'm not afraid of
01:33:14
the pressure, you know, I don't care.
01:33:16
I, they can't affect me. Whatever they say about me, I
01:33:21
don't care anymore. And you know, I would pray for
01:33:25
them to love themselves too. You know, that's sort of where
01:33:28
it all comes from. I think is you know, is doing
01:33:34
that, but I think it highlight I wanted to highlight something
01:33:37
else as you talked about, you know, The Time Machine and the
01:33:40
two sets of humans. I think that we based on the
01:33:44
social media and media, media and community ecosystems people
01:33:48
live in. We literally live in different
01:33:51
realities now and it's only going to get worse.
01:33:55
AII don't we didn't even get to that at all, But what is where
01:33:59
is that taking us? I think that we're, we use
01:34:04
different terms for things. We are starting to have
01:34:07
different languages almost. And, and so I feel like it's
01:34:12
important that we continue to have these conversations and,
01:34:17
you know, start from a place of love and kindness and
01:34:21
compassion. And what I was going to say
01:34:24
before, you know, when they get to the isms, when they get to
01:34:27
the phobia and they start throwing it at you, it, it is
01:34:30
often because you push them into a corner and they can't get out
01:34:35
of it. And even though you're not a
01:34:39
threat to their literal physical survival, you are a threat to
01:34:44
the survival of the delusion that they live in.
01:34:47
And you have activated the reptilian survival brain at the
01:34:54
in the brain stem that is in pushing them into fight or
01:34:58
flight. And they are pushing at you as
01:35:01
much as they can to get you away.
01:35:05
Because their subconscious knows that if they admit what you are
01:35:09
saying is true, the entire House of Cards could fall.
01:35:13
You would be pulling on the sweater and all it would come
01:35:17
completely undone. Because that's what happened to
01:35:19
me. And I used to react pretty
01:35:22
strongly at Jamie when he would push me into these corners until
01:35:26
I finally couldn't anymore. And so you know that, or you
01:35:32
should know that when they get to that point, you're getting
01:35:35
through, but you're not going to ever get them to admit, hey,
01:35:39
you're right, or hey, I'll look into that.
01:35:43
Not in that conversation most likely, but you may have planted
01:35:46
a seed and that may lay dormant for a while, but then at some
01:35:50
point may germinate and then bloom into a free mind again.
01:35:56
So I mean that I think is the important thing to remember.
01:36:01
The other thing just quickly from the book that I'll say, and
01:36:05
then I really do have to wrap up, get to my next thing, but
01:36:10
try to access the true compassion that you know that
01:36:13
person has, knowing that the compassion has been manipulated
01:36:18
and weaponized and all of those things.
01:36:21
But you know, like you say, try to get them back away from the
01:36:26
selective compassion. And what about those 95% of
01:36:28
girls you know, what about or those kind of things.
01:36:33
And finally, ask questions. Don't try to tell them anything
01:36:40
because they if you're not the expert or what you're saying is
01:36:44
contradicting expert, we're going to dismiss it out of hand.
01:36:47
But if you can ask them questions, you know, for the
01:36:51
trans issue, I always ask, hey, you know, I'm really interested.
01:36:55
Can you tell me what studies you rely on that show that it
01:36:59
improves outcomes for for youth? And they don't like that either.
01:37:05
But again, sometimes, but, but at least you're trying to be
01:37:10
sciency, right? And you're, you're respecting
01:37:13
their view and wanting to know where they come from.
01:37:16
And again, they might react and say, well, you're just
01:37:19
transphobic and you don't believe that.
01:37:20
But then they might go to their computer and go, hey, I, I
01:37:24
really should know this. So it's not about.
01:37:28
And again, don't take it personally.
01:37:30
And you know where it is, Baja honor and all those things and
01:37:33
just try to be. And this was the the word that
01:37:36
often gets people when I talk to try to be patient.
01:37:39
Patient and I've had to wear Oh my gosh, Lisa my I that's I've
01:37:44
that's probably the best thing to end on is because I've doing
01:37:47
what I've been doing here for not that long.
01:37:51
I mean at first I was just combatant and you can't you just
01:37:53
can't do that. I mean I was, you know, on on
01:37:56
social media all day like firing away at people and you just
01:37:59
can't I mean it just it's pointless.
01:38:01
I mean, firstly, it's, it's, it's not going to do anything.
01:38:04
And so I appreciate you saying what you did there.
01:38:06
Again, I have so many more things, but I, I let me plug the
01:38:08
book again for sure. And because I've got most people
01:38:12
that are that most of my people are, you know, like minded to
01:38:15
us. But I do have some that I talk
01:38:18
to every once in a while that come on and they're, they're
01:38:19
not. And then you've got people that
01:38:21
are also worried about friends and family that may be going
01:38:24
through this. So I put up a bunch of reels, I
01:38:27
put up a bunch of things, but but it's, I mean, is it Amazon
01:38:31
primarily or is it your website you want to go and plug that
01:38:34
real quick for me. My website
01:38:36
isdeprogrammingdemocrats.com. Programming democrats.com OK.
01:38:41
But you can. Amazon is probably primarily
01:38:44
where people buy the book. Barnes and Noble as well.
01:38:47
It's available there and I don't have a preference wherever you
01:38:52
works best for you to buy your books.
01:38:55
I, I Amazon was very simple and and it came right up and it was
01:38:59
there. But again, it deprogramming
01:39:04
Democrats and uneducating the elites.
01:39:07
Write it down. Go get it.
01:39:09
Look at all my stuff. And you can always message me
01:39:11
everybody if if you want want the link for some reason.
01:39:14
If you can't find it on Amazon, let me know.
01:39:18
But you know, I don't know how to how to end this.
01:39:20
I have so much more we can talk about it.
01:39:22
So hopefully we can do this again.
01:39:25
So. Certainly we'll find it, we'll
01:39:26
find a time to do it again. And and the way I always like to
01:39:29
to end it, Ryan is with some some optimistic hope because I
01:39:34
see a lot of people waking up. I do.
01:39:38
And I see the thing with Charlie woke a lot of Democrats up.
01:39:43
And I see more and more Democrats waking up when they
01:39:46
see the way the media or the government is framing something
01:39:50
and it it's inconsistent with their own BBC, the other
01:39:54
experience. Yeah.
01:39:57
And and so I don't think we're that far away from getting to a
01:40:01
point where enough people are awake that we can start
01:40:04
demanding some accountability from our elected representatives
01:40:07
again. And I think we're and I think
01:40:10
we're pretty close. And this kind of conversation
01:40:13
and I see I'm seeing this kind of conversation a lot more now
01:40:17
happening all over the place a little some some larger scales
01:40:20
than ours, but some lower scales than ours.
01:40:22
And hopefully we can just continue to grow together as a
01:40:25
team. So thank you so much.
01:40:27
My pleasure, thank. You yeah, I know you got to run
01:40:29
and keep spreading the word so. Will do you.
01:40:33
Too. I can't wait to talk to you
01:40:34
again, so thank you so much. My pleasure.
01:40:36
All right. Thanks, guys.
01:40:37
Love you all. Bye.
01:40:38
All you had to do is just listen.
01:40:44
Up.