Speaker 1: Get command, don't get supremely magxell coming.
Speaker 2: Hey, Welcome everybody. This is Matt Connorton Unleashed. This is
of course the podcast only addition, which we also affectionately
affectionately referred to as mcu AF. Because this is strictly online,
we are completely unencumbered and uncensored and truly unleashed on
this version of the program. And of course Jenny is
with me as always.
Speaker 3: President and account it for.
Speaker 2: And joining us for his first time on the show.
Brandon Lemaye is here. Hi, Brandon Hobby, so welcome, and
for those of you who are streaming the show live, welcome.
I will have the chat room open if you'd like
to chime in. Of course, most people will get the
podcast version of the show, which we will of course
be including in the podcast feed. So of course, as always,
you can get Matt Condorton Unleashed on your podcast platform
of choice or go to Matt connorton dot com for
the podcast. But if you are joining us live, you
know we didn't really do much to promote this ahead
of time. This is a little bit spontaneous, so welcome,
and you are again you are invited to participate in
the chat room. But Brandon, so your first time on
the show. Jenny and I of course have known you
for for a bit now, at least a couple of years, right,
especially you know, Jenny of course knows you better than
I do. But it's been how how long has it been?
It's been at least a few years, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it definitely has been, Yeah, because I
met Jen through my work as an organizer for rights
and democracy, Okay, yeah, and you know it feels like
I've known Jen for a while, but also not that
long either.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so Brandon, who are you and what do
you do? Let's let's uh give the give our our
listeners and viewers some background on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So you know, I was born and raised
here in Manchester, New Hampshire. You know, I am a
product of the public school system here. I went to
Plymouth State University, where I studied political science and minored
in French. And that's about that time that I got
involved in politics because at the time, this is around
like twenty ten actually sorry, twenty twelve now at this
point twenty eleven, and there was a huge effort to
defund the university system, and I don't know if either
of you are aware of this, but New Hampshire College
students graduate with some of the most debt at public
universities in the country.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that, but it doesn't it doesn't actually
surprise me either.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we are like routinely like forty eight, forty nine,
fiftieth in terms of like average student debt. And a
lot of that is because we just don't fund public
institutions in the state like we do in a lot
of our surrounding states as well. So, you know, I was,
I was political before that. I grew up in a
union household. You know, my first direct action was standing
at a picket line and when I was four years old,
and actually Bernie Sanders was huge in helping to end
that strike at the time. So my dad was part
of the ib W twenty three twenty. They had a
bunch of members in named Hampshire Vermont and so like,
that's what I really learned about the value of leveraging,
you know, the power that elected officials have. And in
that case, you know, Bernie Sanders was using his soft
power as as a senator. Actually I think he's being
centered at that time, but anyway. But anyway, as as
a public elected official, you know, Bernie Sanders was able
to you know, use his leverage because the unions had
backed Bernie and now it was time for Bernie's to
back the union, and you know, he was able to
help put pressure and to have management and sign the
contract that you know led me and my family to
have all the things that we need in life. So,
you know, I learned some early political lessons, you know,
as a kid, but again became really charged in college
because then, you know, my own well being was at
stake here because you know, I was working thirty hours
a week. We're gonna at the grocery store, and I
still graduated with tens of thousands of dollars in debt,
and it was clear to me that we needed to
invest more in our university systems, not less. So you know,
it became involved, you know, with the College Democrats at
the time, I became an organizer. I'm the Manhasion Democratic
coordinated campaign. And then I would say more recently in
my career, I've gone more towards like the nonpartisan issue
advocacy groups, and I kind of good that work a
lot more fulfilling.
Speaker 2: So where are you now in terms of what you're
doing and your your activism, your advocacy and groups that
you're involved in, and and and the causes that you're
involved in that matter the most to you, and that
and that you feel are the most pressing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, like in my time as an organizer, writes
in Democracy, I originally had started in housing issues. You know,
I was actual knocking doors not too far you know,
from your neighborhood actually, because there were out of state
landlords coming in buying up you know, these multi family
homes from you know these previously, you know, you'd have
like a mom path you know on the first floor,
rent out, you know, second third floor. Now they start
to retire and they want to cash in on their investment.
So there was this guy who was basically coming in
with all this money that was financed in New York City.
They were looking at places where they the landlord said this,
by the way, quote unquote, where landlords are undercharging their
tenants for rent because a mom pod landlord, they usually
just want to charge, you know, to pay for the mortgage,
the property taxes, and you know, whatever repairs and stuff
are needed over the life of a building. But it
was obvious to me and some of our leaders that
like we needed to talk to these tenants to be
able to talk to each other and to either resist
these rent hikes a lot of these people. We're also
facing renovation evictions in the Hampshire. If the landlord wants
to renovate, they can just say get out in thirty days,
and there's no legal definition of what our renovation is.
So like we've seen times where like a landlord like
literally just repainted and that was considered we called a renoviction.
And so seeing a lot of these injustices, you know,
has really kind of just even charged me even more.
And the housing crisis has not gotten any better in
that time. But also, you know, in my time at
Writes and Democracy, now you know, I've opened up a
little bit more into issue areas, particularly working with Gen
on like healthcare and how terrible this system is. And
before meeting Gen, I knew that our healthcare system was terrible. Yeah,
and you know, after knowing Gen, I can specifically articulate
why in in depth, and so you know, like like
issues that are really important to me and important to
the organization I work for. Rights in Democracy is really
giving access to things that you need to survive, Like
you can't just get by with less housing to a
certain extent, right, Like, sure you can downsize your home,
but once you're a renter, I mean, your choices are
pretty slim and you're either, you know, faced with either
paying more money in rent or you go homeless. I
also got to see the same similarity with healthcare, Like
you can't go with less health care. You can't, you know,
go with less blood pressure medication. You can't you know,
just have a good quality of life. And then you know,
go so long between like confusions that you might need.
So I see the profit incentive really ruining the lives
of working class people. And now particularly kind of talking
more like today at Rights in Democracy, we put on
a summer training series. We're gonna be doing the same
series again this fall, and really the point is is
that we want to help people to identify the problem,
to be able to use the same language to identify
the problem, and then to be able to talk about
the solutions. One thing that I've kind of noticed in
my lifetime, and I'm not the first person to make
this observation, is that it feels like the right wing
is really good at messaging. I was just listening to
a podcast about Bill Clinton. It's called the Dolla. I
absolutely love it, and I forget what the actual thing was,
but like Bill Clinton said something silly, all right, and
Rush Limbaugh had bumper stickers of that printed out like
the next day, like yeah, this is like pre internet here,
So like, you know, and I see this too a
lot on social media. I'll hear it when I go
to the Borderman and Alderman and I hear public testimony.
Conservatives are on point with their messaging. Yes, like one
of their leaders says something and they are saying the
same thing over and over again, now heavily with what
they're saying. I'm a little jealous of that, of how
well they stay on message. I think sometimes problem with
like the left is that we're a bit more I
think diversified. We have different reasons, you know, like why
we're involved with this. We have our own unique perspectives.
We cherish unique perspectives, but it doesn't quite always lead
to good messaging or using terms that people don't quite understand.
So really like a huge point of this is kind
of just getting our messaging, you know, And like the
messaging of like our leaders, our members on point and
then we are launching conversation pods with people who attend
the training. So what we want to do in this
is to create a space for like minded people to
be able to talk about, you know, the difficult conversations
they're trying to have with their family members, with their neighbors,
with their community members, and kind of like work through,
like some of the problems that people are having and communicating.
A huge point of our summer training series is just
how to talk to somebody who might disagree with you politically.
And I can give you a little bit of an
example of kind of what we focused on you like here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and before you do that, I mean just interject,
I do want to say that, you know, and and
we we talk about this on uh also do you
know the Hanging Left podcast with Todd Air and and
I kind of went on a rant on one of
our shows on there, and I've probably I'm sure I've
said it at some point on here too, that you know,
one of the things that frustrates me so much as
a registered Democrat about the Democratic Party is I I think,
I think, I mean, I I'll even go I'll speak
a little further and stronger on it. I my personal
opinion is that Democrats are generally horrendous at messaging, absolutely
horrendous that, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and on the shooting their own what's that, they're
really good at shooting their own. They're really good. Can
you hear me?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's it's a little choppy say that again, They're
really good at what.
Speaker 4: They're really good at shooting their own, especially here in
New Hampshire. You know, prime example being this is primary seasons,
people starting to run for different offices, but the party
is already trying to pick their favorites and tell people
not to run, which is absolutely wrong. The party back
the candidate after the primary, but when it comes to
the primary, they shouldn't be stepping in. They shouldn't be
telling anybody whether they should run or not. The people
make that decision when they go in and vote at
the primary.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just though I think there's a broader just
problem with Democrats having so much difficulty communicating. And I
always like to give this example. You know, on the
rare occasion that a Democrat comes along who actually doesn't
know how to communicate, well, they wind up serving two
terms as president. You know, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, you
know Democrats who actually understood how to talk to people
about the issues that matter to them. But I feel
like that's such a rare thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also to I was just talking about this
with one of our leaders at RANS and Democracy Today,
is that I take Trump as an example. The party
establishment didn't really like Trump, especially like twenty fifteen around
the era, Trump is really really popular with the Republican base,
and once the party realized that, like, oh Trump is
going to be the nominee very likely, and he's really
popular with our base, then they acquiesced to him. And then,
as use the example of Bernie Sanders on the side
of the Democrats, and what did they do. You know,
they saw Bernie was especially in twenty twenty, they saw
Bernie gaining momentum, and then what happens. You know, Pete
Boutage Edge drops out, endorses Biden. You know, all the
others drop out, endorse Biden. Biden gets enough to win
the primary, and you know, here we are today and
now we have a second Trump term. Obviously Biden won
that race, but what good did that do to only
have the white House for four years. So I really
see that, like the Republican nurture their base, and it
seems like Democrats fight their base quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that goes to what that goes to the point
Jenny was making about shooting their own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, now you're right, literally, the Conservatives are better
at shooting each other.
Speaker 2: Well, that's uh, obviously obviously obviously, Brandon, because we don't
want to get canceled. Obviously you're referring to former Vice
President Dick Cheney, uh shooting his lawyers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. And also the two.
Speaker 3: Guys that was a funny one, you.
Speaker 1: Know, also conservatives. Also the guy actually, you know what,
I want to say this. I don't know if you
also saw, but some guy was arrested for threatening Kelly
a I our governor here, and I saw the committee
to elect House Republicans try to claim this guy as
a leftist. Now, I'm not going to try to claim
this guy was a conservative. A lot of these people
are often they have incomprehensible politics.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: But he was also mentioning like how he wanted to like,
you know, fight the like Jewish controlled FEDS. Doesn't really
quite sound like a leftist to me. But again, like
the right is really violent, and I find it really
hilarious how they try to pinnle a lot of this
violence on the left, even though most domestic terrorism in
the past fifty years, like I'm talking, like like for
every one incident of leftist terrorism in that time, there
have been three instances of right wing terrorism.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I hear, I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 4: But I'm going to interject into saying that I would
like to see us get away from all of that
because in every instance where a murder has taken place,
where somebody has done harmed to somebody else, there's something
wrong with that individual, not right, not left. There's something
mentally ill wrong with them, or something wrong that enables
them the ability to take another human life. And that's
what we should be talking about as a society, not
the it's a left person, it's a right person. It's
a grant we all can see there, you know. But
when you get down to the the the crux of it,
these people have an illness about them that something about
them in their brain told them that murdering somebody was okay, right, yeah,
So for me, so I wish that was more the conversation.
And hey, guess what, we don't do good in mental
health care at all. You know, we could talk about that, right,
It's how many of these people who fell out of
the system or were missed by the system, who were
exhibiting signs beforehand, and people missed it, right, just like
we do when somebody takes their own life. We miss
those signs as a as a society. But we're in
this point now. It's really scary because there's so much
hate and vitrioll out there that it is giving people
almost a permission to be harmful to one another. Right,
Oh yeah, yeah, and that's terrifying in and of itself.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 1: I also think too that we just have a deeply
violent culture. So you know, I was making some jokes
here about like right wing violence here, but I do
want to state that, like Americans as a whole, left,
right center whatever, we are a violent bunch. We love violence.
Our foreign policy is violent, our domestic policy is violent.
Speaker 3: Violence, our sports are violence.
Speaker 4: What do we entertain ourselves with violence of a sort?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well that's a human thing. That's a human thing.
Speaker 4: But in America we go too far in that. Now
it seems like, especially in the last decade we have,
we're etching more and more into the society.
Speaker 3: We're going backwards.
Speaker 4: It's okay to be a racist out front now, it's
okay to be a white supremacist.
Speaker 3: Now you're defended for being that.
Speaker 2: I can't I can't recall a point in a moment
in my lifetime up to now where it's been as
cool to be openly racist and anti Semitic and and
all of it and anti immigrant than it is right now.
Like it seems like it seems like all the cool kids,
you know what I mean, they're they're open about it.
They're you know, the the the Maga bros. They're they're proud,
They're loud and proud, and they think it's great. And
they they they're really uh, they're they're enjoying themselves. They're
having a good time.
Speaker 1: They're having fun. They are ye no but no, But seriously, though,
I I okay. So I'm on TikTok a lot, and
I really respect us. Name's Jammel Bowie. He's also a
columnist for The New York Times. Not a great big
fan of his publication of these days and we're a
very big fan of him the individual, and he pointed
out something that has made me think quite a bit
in one of his tiktoks, which is, we are returning
to a level of political violence not since seeing, not
seen since the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. You know,
I mean, think about all the leaders that we lost
in that time. I mean JFK, Martin, Luther King Junior,
you know, Fred Hampton. You know, like we've had a
lot of prominent political figures assassinated in that timeframe. And
you know, in his opinion, yeah, we are regressing back
to that.
Speaker 3: I feel like we are too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, no, no, it's a it's a really
scary time. And you know, violence doesn't it's like it's
especially like to have violence we're seeing today. It doesn't
accomplish anything, if anything, Like I mean, it's really sad.
But like when I hear that, like you know, a
public figure, especially on the right, you know, is attacked
or there's an attack that's barted, my first thought is like,
please don't let this guy be a leftist. Please don't
let this guy be a leftist, like, because it's only
going to give the right more justification for reprisals.
Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't matter. Though. It doesn't matter, though, Brandon,
because even no matter what his political no matter what
the shooters political proclivities may be, the right is going
to call them a leftist. They'll just lie about it.
It does, so it doesn't even matter.
Speaker 3: They'll go back on in time to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Timothy.
Speaker 4: McVay, Yeah, what would they say, Oh, Timothy mcveay, Right,
they'll that all must be must be woke. You know,
if that's and it's and that that just speaks to
the degregation of our society the way it used to
be is Democrats or Republicans. You could give a disagreement
with something like Reagan would say, I can disagree with you,
but I can get a but we can work together
on the things that we do agree on, Like you know,
maybe eighty percent of the things I agree with you on,
but twenty percent we don't. Well, eighty percent, I'll work
with you on that twenty percent. And when I served
in the House, you know, I could be on opposite
sides of the PODi having a debate with somebody on
one thing, and then on the next thing we're on
the same side, working together. On it, and it feels
like that doesn't exist anymore. There's no coming together anymore.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: The President of the United States used to say, immediately
after taking the oath, I am the President for all Americans.
And now we have a president who says, I am
the President for Republicans. But the left are demons, and
the left are bad and evil and dehumanizing.
Speaker 3: And the country and hate America.
Speaker 2: That's the part that just makes me the angriest when
I hear that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because there's a whole lot of people serving in
this military that fall on the left side of the
political spectrum that would be really offended by that, not
to mention a whole lot of the rest of us.
You know, I consider myself a patriot. I've always considered
myself a patriot. I was a proud first responder. One
of the proudest things I ever got to do was
so the America can flag onto my jackets. I like
that is a memory that was etched in me, getting
to sew the flag on my shoulders, when I got
my bunker jacket, when I you know, got my gear,
and to have anybody tell me that I'm not a patriot,
My grandfather's name is inscribed on harmon wall at Norwich
University after thirty years in the marine.
Speaker 3: Screw you.
Speaker 4: My family knows plenty about this country, and we're very proud,
and we're very patriotic.
Speaker 3: And how dare you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's more patriotic than being able to debate with
one another?
Speaker 1: Well that's what they claim. But the thing about it
is they don't really want you know, and I don't
want to do leg a left right thing here, but
like I do just have a lot of this on
my mind right now, considering, you know, the assassination of
Charlie Kirk, you know, eight days ago. You know, like
we're seeing like Jimmy Kimmel get you know, indefinitely suspected
did from you know, his talk show for not even
making fun of Charlie Kirk. He was making fun of
trust to Charlie Kirk. You know, I think Stephen Colbert,
the highest rated uh you know, nighttime show, gets canceled
for his jokes. Literally, He's literally got canceled for jokes
about Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And that's what just happened here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and and just and maybe I'm spending a
little too much time on social media here, but like
I I really like to follow the right quite a bit.
Like I'm still on Twitter, I'm never calling it X.
And I've been seeing a lot of like the rhetoric
that's been that's been kind of coming out here. And
I mean, these people just went from like you know,
like six months ago, being like I should have a
right to say that black people have a lower IQ.
And these are the same people that are now saying like,
you're not mourning Charlie Murk, Charlie Kirk sufficiently, you know,
and like what I want to say, he did not
deserve to be to be killed. He did not deserved
to be murdered. But also I got it didn't sit
right with me how much the media has kind of
whitewashed what he said, like, oh, he just wanted you know,
the spirit of debate. It's like, now this guy would just.
Speaker 4: Spirit of debate is not complaining about Jewish money and things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And like going to campus and talking
to some like high eighteen year old and then like
finding like you know, like the dumbest clip and then
posting that online Like that's not really good faith debate.
That's not really like listening to each other, like he
was just trying to get slammed dunks and he had
a radical agenda that was incredibly hateful. So I think
sometimes when I point that out, people say, like, what
you think he deserved to die? And like, but also
I'm not going to whitewash his legacy either, Like he
believed really hateful things, right, he.
Speaker 4: Said that if he saw a black pilot, he'd be
really worried.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he'd literally you know, like that's how.
Speaker 3: We would do. So what would he say?
Speaker 4: I wonder what his opinion was for a female pilot,
because we all know that he thinks a woman's place
is in the home, in giving birth, and it's that
kind of thinking that puts a lot of women in
bad places. And I could speak from that personally. Did
the man deserve to be murdered? No, nobody deserves to
be murdered. I'm anti death penalty for any you know, period.
And you know, he had every right to spew whatever
he wanted to spew and to debate people on that.
We might I don't necessarily agree with how or what
he might say, but that doesn't give anybody the right
to take him away from this.
Speaker 3: For them, there are two children that.
Speaker 4: Are going to grow up and they're not even gonna
have a memory of their father because they're too young
that they will have no memory of their dad. And
that's super awful, horrible, And Jimmy Kimmel didn't say anything
to the contrary of that. He didn't say that murder
was correct at all. He was Trump was literally asked
about the guy's murder, and he flipped the conversation to
his ballroom, like, go watch what Jimmy Kendall actually said
and what he was playing, and he was picking on Trump.
Because Trump didn't go, gee, you know, sorry, yes, I'm
very sad. He immediately changed the conversation to check out
all this equipment over here. We're building the ballroom they've
wanted for the last one hundred and fifty years, because
you know, for the last one hundred and fifty years,
the Americans have been complaining about not having a ballroom
in the White House, not about not having chemo for
their children.
Speaker 2: Carolyn Poole put in a comment that's worth reading because
it's on this subject read earlier, that they want Kimmel
to apologize and give a substantial donation to the family
and his Foundation. By the way, there is there is something,
there's another element to this whole thing. There's a common
thread between what happened to Colbert and what has happened
to Jimmy Kimmel is that in both instances, there is
a merger that someone wants to get approved. So they
that's why they So that's why Colbert is his contract
does not be He's still on, but his contract is
not being renewed. And that's I think the real reason
they've done this to Jimmy Kimmel. They want to make
sure that that these mergers that are happening behind the
scenes get approved. And that's the real reason they're acquiescing
to Trump is is uh is money folly? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Also also full full transparency here. You know, I am
an anti capitalist, I am a socialist, and I think
that this is a great example about how capital conspires
with bascists. See what is it viacom? And then what
is it? Is it? Uh? What's the name of the
bachel parent company? Was it Byte Dance or something like that? Oh? Uh,
sky Dance, sky Dance, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 2: Dance is TikTok yeah, skydance Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So here's the thing. The the interest of Viacom
and sky Dance is only to make money and they
do not care about you know, like the concept of
free speech. They don't care about democracy. Their only job
is to make money for their shareholders or whoever. And
by the way, this is a problem in healthcare and
housing as well too. There's no regard for human rights.
There's no regard for any of this except for making money.
And you know, I think that this is really like
a canary in the coal mine here. If you've looked
at how like authoritarian governments have risen in any part
of the world. The media, the comedians are usually the
first targets because they are the most visible targets, right
And I think that's exactly what's happening right here, Like
we don't have freedom of speech, Like go ahead and
say your true thoughts about who Charlie Kirk was, say
your true thoughts about you know, Israel committing a genocide,
you know, say your true thoughts.
Speaker 3: You know, people are losing their jobs with Donald Trumps.
Speaker 4: They say something negative about Charlie Kirk, they're losing their
jobs if they disagreed with his opinion. And a lot
of these people have said nothing that supports a murder
or what happened to this man, because it's horrible. Yeah,
none of us, and none of these people are saying, oh,
he deserved it, because nobody deserves to have their life
taken from them.
Speaker 3: That's just no.
Speaker 2: I mean, just for the record, I think he was
a bad guy. I think you put a lot of
really toxic things out into the universe in terms of
his politics. But that being said, I'm absolutely horrified. But
what happened to this man, my god, And that's I mean,
I mean, it's chilling. I think it's horrible and and
I could if it can happen to him, it could
happen to any of us.
Speaker 4: But going beyond that, though, let's expand this a little bit,
because what's really bothering me is the assault on the
press period. Not just that these guys are getting taken
off the air, but the press in general is being assaulted.
People are losing their jobs in that regard. And if
you look at like I was watching a video earlier
from one of the press guys who were in la
during with Ice trying to stand up with Ice and
them literally being targeted and shot at with these less
than lethal like the guy had to have emergency surgery.
They had to take this thing out of his leg.
It was really bad. But the press are being assaulted intentionally,
Like they're very obviously press, but they're they're being targeted.
And the only reason to target the press is to
silence them so that people don't know what's going on.
Why else do you target the press exactly, and to
control the message. So if we're attacking the press, if
we're attacking people and costing them their jobs, if they
say it's something you don't like, we're what free speech?
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean well also too. It's kind of
complicated here because in some ways I also do blame
the press for normalizing Trump, especially like what they're doing today.
I just don't think that they have done a good job,
Like they're kind of in this weird middle position where
they don't want to lose their access to Trump and
other Republicans. And by way, this is true of any
like this even applies to Democrats to as well, but
I think it's incredibly worse on the on the right here.
But like they they normalize Trump, they you know, like
ABC again, like they cowed down to Trump, you know,
in this very instance, with Jimmy Kimmel right here. So
it's like, you know, they're being attacked for you know,
opposing Trump or having one of their employees opposed Trump.
But at the same time, like a lot of media,
like executives and media owners, they are in lockstep. They
love Trump, tax cuts, they love a lot, they love
the bill. So it's always kind of this weird balancing act.
But the press always ends up getting burned anyways, Like
anytime you try to appeal to a fascist, you're going
to get burned.
Speaker 2: True, true, Well, loyalty when it comes to Trump only
goes one way ultimately.
Speaker 1: Oh well yeah, well, I mean yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's a losing game and I feel like we're
all paying the price for it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, mm hmmmm hmm.
Speaker 1: I think it should be a little bit more optimistic though.
Speaker 2: So let's kind of circle back to the part about messaging,
because you know, we've talked about a lot about again,
these are these are examples, right because you mentioned how
the right is so much better at messaging, and and
here here we are we've been talking about. This is
how they control the message. Here's an example. You know,
what's happening right now, so so what what is the solution,
because you started to talk about earlier Brandon solutions as
far as how democrats can get better, because, like I say,
by the way, I'll just give you a quick example
of how I feel democrats are horrendous at messaging and
and and maybe maybe you can maybe you have an
idea of how to fix us. This is a rant
I'm sure as Jenny's heard me say this before. During
the Biden administration, when uh, the economy was actually doing
extraordinarily well coming out of COVID and except for inflation,
that was like the one major problem that everyone was
complaining about. But we actually we were doing better on
inflation than the entire rest of the industrialized world. Coming
out of inflation. We actually had the lowest inflation of anybody.
But we had a president who couldn't manage to put
these sentences together to explain to the American people, Yes,
we understand prices are too high, I know, but we're
actually doing better than the rest of the world and
this will get better. To just hang in there, because
the fundamentals of the economy are actually extraordinarily strong, record
low unemployment. You know, all everything else about the economy
is great. We have this one problem, but we'll get
through it. But we are doing better than everyone else
we had. We had a you know, at that point,
a near octagenarian president who who couldn't I mean we
all saw the debate. I mean Biden could barely you know,
he was not the messenger he was at one time.
And and but unfortunately, because the Democrats are so bad
at messaging, there really wasn't anybody else in the Democratic
Party who could explain what I just did either. So
this is this is an example of where that's That's
an example of where I'm coming from, where something should
be very, very easy and simple to explain. I'm not
an economist, I'm not even good at math, but I
understood and I can and I can explain it, but nobody.
It's like once Democrats get elected, it's like they forget
how to explain anything to people. It's really strange. But
but how do we fix that? Well?
Speaker 1: I do want to push back a little bit here
because I don't think actually the economy was that good though,
because I mean, you did explain inflation, but I believe
that like they could have talked about well, they talked
a little bit about corporate greed depending on like who
you were listening to. Yeah, but there's this weird balancing
act that Biden had to make was that like, listen,
the economy is really good right now, and don't talk
about inflation at all. Like look at the stock market,
look at you know, like, hey, we have like you know,
we're routing jobs. But it's like, you know, are people
going from working in a factory to going to work
out like RB's you know, for like considerably less. So
I think also it's really important about messaging is actually
having a good policy, having a good plate of policies.
Speaker 3: Agreed.
Speaker 1: I can't really tell you what, like Harris's plan was
on healthcare. I couldn't really tell you like what like
like she had like a housing plan that was going
to give first time home buyers twenty thousand dollars. But
I'll tell you right now, I make the medium wage
in Manchester. Throwing that twenty thousand dollars help throw in
an extra hundred thousand dollars, I'm still not qualifying for
a mortgage anywhere in the city. The city that I
grew up in, and that was you know, working, It
was a working class town. And it's harder and harder
for folks, and they never really acknowledged, you know, like
the the like they'll play a lip service like, oh,
housing's really expensive. We're gonna you know, get more horrible housing.
How are you gonna do that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm not seeing you know, any prominent
Democrats maybe outside of like like the Bernie Sanders you know,
you know, you know, the Corey Bushes or yeah, yeah,
but you know she did to leave as well, Like
you're not seeing like, hey, we need to invest in
public housing. We need to repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which
prevents us from adding new housing units without destroying existing
housing units. A lot of these solutions are private markettions
that are making developers wealthy, and they're leaving you know,
the poor and working class. Well there's really only the
working class. Uh, you know they're leaving this you know,
basic human need to be unaccessible. So I think like, like,
like a really good first point of good messaging is
we actually need something to.
Speaker 2: Message, have a policy that you can articulate. Yeah yeah, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and here's the thing I'm not I I
have critiques of Bernie Sanders, even though I did just
praise him quite a bit year, but I would say
he was probably one of the best messengers that the
party has ever seen, Like you like what he actually supported,
Like what's Bernie gonna do about, you know, skyrocketing health
care costs? Oh Medicare for All, Like these are like
solid policies that you can go out and communicate to them.
So I tend to believe that, you know, our future
presidents should be current aldermen or city councilors or state
senators at this time. So I really think that focusing
as local as we can, it's where you have the
most control. I say that, like we need to be
holding our local uh you know, I mean really any
level too, but holding our elected officials accountable, demanding that
they actually have solid policies that we can go out
and communicate. And I think also what's really important as
well too, is like, you know, being present in your community.
You know, I recommend to anybody here, like go to
your like your city hall, go to a Bordemar and
Algrin meeting, go to like, you know, a committee meeting
up at the state House. If you can spend some
time and conquered, you really see how like what's going
on and communicating you know, whether it's a podcast, whether
you know, it's a coffee hour that you want to
do with some friends where you kind of like discuss everything.
But then also I think it's really good that like
we're that we need to be like recruiting people to
run for these positions, supporting them to get elected, and
then also working with them while they're in powered or
you know, the work doesn't stop as soon as the
election's over, that's when the work really just begins. So
I really value you know, getting friends together, getting a
group and trying to make as much change as you can,
even if it's just like a little bit like maybe
it's making you know, the zone and codes in your
city like more lax. Maybe it's you know, advocating for
universal childcare and you know, the state house. But I
really think that like the core there is like we
need good candidates that actually stand for stuff. And also,
mind you too, I'm not I'm not an elected I'm
not a Democrat anymore. You know, I work for a
non partisan organization, and I think that if you're really
frustrated with the Democratic Party, we really need to be
decentering the Democratic Party. They are not going to save us.
They do not want to listen to us. They do
not want to hear what we have to say. They
want to stick you know, their fingers in their ears
and say like, let's send out like another like fourteen postcards,
you know, two weeks before election. You know, they're not
expanding their base at all, you know, Like I've knocked
a lot of doors for various Democrats in my time,
specifically here in Manchester, and I can tell you I've
noticed that the doors are getting further and further apart.
The party is not adding new people, especially compared to
Republicans and independents. It really tells me something that, you know,
when a plurality of the people here in Manchester are
choosing to register as independence, it would make me think
if I were a party leader, like why are people opting,
you know, not to associate with my party? Now? Maybe
they want to vote both primaries, right, but the mythod
like a true independent is not real. Like most independents
vote one way most of the time, right right, There
are like split ticket voters here and there, But people
don't want to associate with the brand of the Democratic
Party because what does the Democratic already actually stand for?
So I personally have tried to change the party within.
I'm I got really tired of that, so I do
my issue advocacy. I like to say I help any
good person running for office here, if they happen to
be a Democrat, then great. But I really don't think
that the party is going to be the basis of
our salvation. It's going to be people that are forming groups,
people that are working together, building their own power, and
then having the party come to you, Like we need
to have like a strong group of people here in
New Hampshire that are just advocating for medicare for all.
And these people are willing to knock on doors, They're
willing to make phone calls, they're willing to camp paign
for a candidate if they support this one issue, Like
you know, I mentioned Medicare for alls as an example.
I think that's really the only way. Like we can't
ask the Democratic Party to, you know, drop their corporate donors,
like they are going to have to realize that they
don't have a big support anymore. But we overhear you
and we will help you. But here are conditions. I
don't really I don't really see any any better way,
if I'm being honest with you.
Speaker 2: But well, you know, for a long time I called
myself an independent because I didn't want to be associated
with either party, either of the two major parties, and
I kind of still don't. But then, you know, I
sort of gave in, I guess you could say, and said,
I'll just start calling myself a Democrat again because I'm
not changing my registrate. You know, I don't bother to
change my registration back and forth. And at this point,
I think there's I mean, unless something drastic changes on
the right, I don't think I'll ever vote for another Republican,
you know, I mean, most of my most of my
votes over the years have been for Democrats anyway, but
I have voted for independence at certain times, and and
I have voted for Republicans a couple of times, usually
just if it happened to be in a local election
and there was a Republican on the ballot who I
knew personally and who I felt was someone of integrity.
Even if I didn't necessarily agree with them on everything,
I might I might vote for them, and I will
publicly acknowledge and Jenny knows this about me, I did.
I kind of regret it in hindsight, but I did
vote for Kristan Nunu a couple of times. Ideologically the
kind of here, this is how low the bar is for,
you know, the type of Republican I would accept. But
ideologically Kristan Nunu uh, always seemed to me that the
kind of of Republican who does not entirely terrify me,
you know what I mean, like a like a Northeastern
moderate Republican who I don't think is totally evil. So yeah,
in hindsight, I regret it because as soon as it
became inconvenient to him to continue to oppost Trump, he
just completely gave in and got right back on the
Trump train. So now I regret it because I don't
think he has any character.
Speaker 1: But uh, I don't think. I don't. I don't really
think Snonia stands for really anything other than maybe his
family's legacy, you know, but definitely yeah, like he he's
not you know, he's not like the the Laura Lumer
type of conservative. You know that's saying like florides, turning
your kids trends or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, but he's if anything, it's more kind of
like a dangerous like I think it's more dangerous, you know,
like he's affable, like the media in New Hampshire loves
to New New Yes, you know, I actually used to
be his tracker. I used to used to film him
giving speeches and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
I can tell you every reporter that he bumped into
like instant pals with them. You know. He's just yeah, yeah,
and he and he kind of has a tendency to
say yes to like the last person that he talked to, yeah,
which is honestly sometimes a huge plus in politics, you know, uh,
you know, just kind of saying oh yeah, oh yeah,
that sounds great to me. You know, like he said,
he said like things about like not wanting to change
the abortion laws in New Hampshire, ends up signing a
bill doing that anyway.
Speaker 3: So you know he and that they buried it inside
the budget.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's like and that's I mean,
it's calculated, and I gotta respect.
Speaker 3: That utilized rate by medical instrumentation.
Speaker 2: But he could but he so but speaking of that too,
so Sanudu also could just blatantly there was Jenny and I, Uh,
this was a number of years ago now, but there
was a podcast that Jenny and I became aware of.
I don't remember what show was on, but Sonunu was
on this right wing podcast. And Sanuduo had always portrayed
himself publicly as being as being a pro choice Republican
and it consistently pro choice, and that was something he
was never going to budge on on this podcast. The
podcaster kind of asks him about that, and Sanudu actually said, well,
I don't think there's a I don't think you'll find
a more pro life governor in the entire country. I've
I've been consistently pro life.
Speaker 4: Like he just blatantly lies in front of a right
wing reporter and his whole lingo changed.
Speaker 3: I liked that man. I liked that man. I voted
for that man.
Speaker 4: But what he signed that budget into law knowing farewell
that there was a mandate in there that would force
rape by medical instrumentation, which when I say that, that
means forcing a transvaginal ultrasound on anyone prior to them
being allowed to have an abortion, regardless of siety of
circumstances of what have you. I was done that. That's
just disgusting, beyond disgusting. Yeah, there's no coming back from
signing something like that. You should have said, nope, go
fix it, take that out, not going to do this.
And later, but not until after it had been law
for a year in this state. And I have no
idea how many women or young girls were put through
something that they should have never been forced to go through.
That there was one should be forced to go through
prior to an abortion. It was law for a year.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was ever enforced him anyway,
because I don't know if most people even realize it
was there.
Speaker 4: Do you think that the medical community goes against the law,
You're crazy because they lose their licenses to practice if
the law says you must do this.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm in a terrible situation.
Speaker 2: No, I know, I'm just I'm just saying I think.
Speaker 4: It happened to one person. That's one person too, I agree,
But nothing like that should ever be in law. That
should never be in law. But of course I'm taking
this a little up. But he was supposedly pro choice and.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, and if I'm going to tie this back
in though, this is because like no one's really held
new accountable for anything. The media in New Hampshire absolutely
has not, and part of that has been because local
journalism has been so gutted. A lot of like the
people that I've been and conquered, you know, for decades,
have told me like every like you know, major for
New Hampshire publication would have their own state House reporter.
And now when I talk to like reporters from like NHPR,
Union Leader, Conquered Monitor, you're seeing them having to cover
the state House and a bunch of other stuff too,
So like there's not really a lot of attention necessarily
paid to what's actually going on. And also to like
these reporters don't want to lose their access to the politicians,
holding them accountable is again kind of like a balancing act.
So I really think that's kind of where like citizens
kind of have to fill that void. We shouldn't have
to necessarily, But I really think that like we really
should be drawing more attention and talking about the things
that we're seeing a conquered or like our local city
hall or or really.
Speaker 3: Don't suppressed challenges at all, No, not at all, Like
you know, a lot if anything they they.
Speaker 4: I don't, for lack of a better term, they whitewashed stuff. Okay,
when the Nazis were in conquered and they did a
Nazi match salute down the street, WMUR.
Speaker 3: Reported they were walking.
Speaker 4: They walked down the street. They did not walk down
the street. We were there, We saw it, We videotaped it.
They were watching and doing the tittle hitler thing. And
when they said that, I was so angry by the
way that they said it and made it sound like
to me, it was like they were saying the person
that they assaulted it was their fault, that it was
the person's fault they got assaulted by these people just
walking down the street.
Speaker 2: I think they refused. They didn't even call them Nazis,
and they they kind of made it sound like they
were just out for a summer stroll and somebody got
in their way or something. NBC News ten in Boston
did a much better job. Yeah, they also saw their
report and they did a really good job, and they
called them neo Nazis and they were and and they
they covered exactly what happened. But Channel nine just really
was like, like.
Speaker 3: Those call themselves Nazis, they're very proud of who they are.
Speaker 4: They carry the Nazi flag, they did the Hail Hitler salute,
they were saying Ale Hitler. They I mean, they're not
quiet about being Nazis. The fact that the media doesn't
have enough courage to call them that is alarming because
that's how the media has gotten.
Speaker 2: Some of the media, Like I said, NBC town out
of Boston.
Speaker 3: Maybe, yes, they did do a much better Dan, Yes
they did it.
Speaker 1: Funny though that like a Boston a Boston media organization
like covers New Hampshire better than New Hampshire media like has. Yeah,
it's absolutely wild to me. And I will say, like
they are in Bolden because Trump is in office. Oh yeah,
a lot between twenty sixteen twenty twenties here in Manchester
and you know, the four years that you know that
Biden was president, you know they were they were sad,
they were sad. But as soon as Trump got reelected,
you know, I've seen my friends and I have seen
an increase in Nazi stickers being posted all over Manchester
seeing we're seeing these people that are proud to be marching.
And then we have a.
Speaker 4: Business Downstown that was assaulted. There was a bit of
a street that had a swastika painted on their window.
And there was also last weekend at the Mosaic, not
in the Mosaic or collective itself, but the bathroom just
outside of it, the men's bathroom.
Speaker 3: There was something put there that was racial.
Speaker 4: That actually, uh, which is why they're doing a fundraiser
right now for Black Lives Matter because of what was
written in that bathroom.
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what was said, I just know
that it was bad enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, As kind of going back to the media, So
what's been really frustrating is a lot of ridiculous stuff
gets said, specifically in the inter State House, and w
WR does not cover it. The UNI Leader does not
cover it. And somebody from WMR has told a friend
of mine that WMR does not cover anything in the
New Hampshire State House unless it gets regional media attention.
They are so afraid to actually call anything out, and
so they're not really doing their due diligence to inform
the citizenry, like wm R if you want to know
what happened during the legislative session, Like they don't cover
anything really, So it's like there's not really a lot
of good sources of information and these processes, like you know,
the process as genos like passing a bill, you know,
to somebody that doesn't really know the legislative process, it's
really complex. Like you need people that know, you know
something about the process. You need to know, you know
what an executive you know what an executive session is
on a committee. You know, they need to know, like
what does an expedient to legislate actually mean. It's really
difficult for the average person who's busy with a lot
of things to be able to kind of discern that.
So again, I think that's kind of where like you know,
like we and I think you're doing this yere at
your show, is you know, showing people like what is
actually going on, to talk about it and to maybe
actually do something about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, yes, indeed, Like I always say, you may
not get into politics, but politics gets in there the
aspect of your life.
Speaker 3: Everything that you do, breathe, eat, drink, think about has
got some level of government involved in it. So you
should be a little more concerned with what those critters
are doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you don't care about politics, your boss, your landlord,
and your insurance companies certainly do.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, absolutely, absolutely, Well, we've been on
for almost an hour. Is there a we can start
to wind this down? But I mean, I mean, is
there anything we didn't discuss? I mean we're not on
a you know, on the podcast here, We're not on
a particular schedule or anything. So if there's anything we
didn't get into that that either of you want to
touch on, we certainly can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just kind of one thing that's been kind of
on my mind, kind of keeping it local here in
New Hampshire. So, as a community organizer, I like to
spend a lot of time in the field. I like
to leave the house. I like to go all over
the state talk to as many people as I can.
And you know, I'm a chatty person. I'm an organizer
and a leader of ours. At rad invited me out
to the Antrim Home and Harvest Festival this weekend and
you know, they had like a bunch of table set
up on Main Street. I don't know if you've ever
been to Antrim, it's cute as hell. I love it.
That's a very cute downtown and so like I was
just like striking up conversations with people and kind of
asking them them like so like you know, I'm just
stopping it from Manchester, like what are like the issues
like out here, Like what problems are people facing? And
virtually everyone I talked to said, like the school funding,
you know, like our school budget is raising our property taxes.
And when I go all over the state, it's pretty
much a similar story. Our property taxes are through the
roof here and a lot of this and a lot
of people don't realize this is like this is tied
directly because the state is not providing municipalities, you know,
with like adequate education funding. We've slashed the interest in
dividends tax, which I like to call it the millionaire's tax,
and then that burden is following more heavily on the
working class here in New Hampshire. You know, property taxes
are really regressive. And actually, my friend John Kuiper did
really good TikTok about this where he compared a home
and I want to say it was just not a
Portsmouth that was like one of those surrounding towns. It
was a home that was about six hundred thousand dollars
out there, and he did the property tax assessment on it,
and their property taxes for the year. I think we're
something like, you know, like nine thousand bucks, and then
he finds a house half the cost and new market
and which is much more work in class, and did
the property tax calculation, and the tax bill was the same.
So when we have a system that relies so heavily
on property taxes, the people that can afford it the
least end up paying a higher share of what they're
actually taking in what their homes are worth. And we're
not really considering, like, how else could we be raising
revenue in this state. And I think that a lot
of particularly Democrats, are really afraid to talk about things like,
you know, like not even just reinstating the millionaire's tax,
but even upping it. I think that we need some
sort of progressive income tax in the state to invest
in things like education so that the students here don't
graduate with some of the highest amount of debt in
the country. That we need to be investing in rural hospitals.
There is a hospital in Franklin that's closing down soon
and people in the North Country hospital.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't conquered bought that Franklin hospital, the only
one that I know of that's in Franklin, which would
mean that means all of those patients will either have
to be going to Lakes Region, Dartmouth or Conquered Hospital.
Speaker 3: And that's that's that's that's not cool. That's I.
Speaker 1: Was just talking to somebody in Gilmington today, one of
one of our tendees of our training series. You're saying
that paramedics are actually training on how to give birth
in a car or an ambulance.
Speaker 2: Wow, we already do that.
Speaker 3: They already do that. But they already do that.
Speaker 1: They've had six berths in the ambulance in the past years. Shoot, yeah, because.
Speaker 3: Oh, I get what you're saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because there's no there's no well New London Hospital
closed their obstructors a long time ago. Franklin closers. If
you go here in Manchester CMC closed, there's years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nowhere to have a baby.
Speaker 4: You can have a baby a Conquered Hospital at Dartmouth,
I think, Lakes Region and Elliott.
Speaker 3: But that's not a lot used to be every hospital
delivery not anymore. And that's the thing about there's gonna
be a lot of stork pins going on.
Speaker 4: But you know that's scary because that's that's a lot
of risk when you're you know, something goes wrong and
they bleed out.
Speaker 3: There's yeah, there's a lot of things that can go wrong.
Speaker 4: It's better to be in a controlled environment or at
least in a in a in a midwiffery.
Speaker 3: Situation where you've got.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's The next thing gonna tell me is the
cops are going to be training to deliver because they
make it to the scene sometimes first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I think that I don't see enough
of this on the left, I think particularly, you know,
unfortunately Democrats are the main you know, party of power
on the left, but I'm not really seeing a lot
of messaging, particularly from the newancial Democrats about like how like,
you know, these things are not just costs to a community,
They're an investment in a community. Like why would you
want to move into a community where if you're going
to start a family, you know it's going to be
forty five minutes at like the quickest to be able
to get to a maternity ward. No, that's scary, you know,
you know, like if we're not putting money into these
basic things, like these are services, they're not supposed to
be making money, Like highways don't make money.
Speaker 4: It's not just not too The other side of that
coin is when that ambulance is traveling that much farther
another twenty minutes to get to the next closest hospital,
that's your crew and your ambulance that's out of town.
So if you're an andover New Hampshire and used to
bring your patient to Franklin, now you're bringing your patient
to Conquered, that's a twenty minute additional run there and back.
There's the ambulance is no longer in town, So you're
hoping that the next towns are going to cover your
town if another call happens, because you can't get a
quicker turn not turning around quicker. I mean I used
to work there. I used to bring people there, and
at least in Franklin you could like run back kind of.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you can't. There's no note. You can't do that.
You can't do that from Conquered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I just want to say, this is not
an accident like this just didn't. It's not an unfortunate
series of events that have led us here. It has
been an intentional disinvestment in public good. In the public good,
whether it's hospitals, whether it's an EMS service, you know again, education,
you know, Like, these are all problems that are fixable,
but the people in power in our state government right
now don't want to fix that. They personally don't want
they don't want these things.
Speaker 4: I feel like Americans are just ignorant because if we
were smart, we would want our children to be the
best doctors, the best paramedics, have the best equipment.
Speaker 3: You would want the best.
Speaker 4: So then when your ass is old and it's you
they're picking up, they got the best, and you've got
the best taking care. Instead, we make med school so
freaking difficult that we don't have enough neurosurgeons. We can't
have a level trauma one center or a level true
center even in most places, because we don't have the
providers necessary to provide that care, which often is talking
about pediatric emergency medicine.
Speaker 3: I mean, we don't have that. You can't get to
that trauma center.
Speaker 4: Right. This is what we're denying ourselves is the very
best because we're too chinsey to want to invest in it,
and we're gonna nickel and diamond bitch about everything.
Speaker 3: Why should I pay for this? Why should I pay
for that? Well, so you live longer, so.
Speaker 4: You live better, right, so you live in a better, cleaner,
happier world. And instead we're going freaking backwards in this country.
There's more hate, there's more vitual, there's more nastiness. We
don't want to invest in anything where New Hampshire just
lost funding so students like kiddos who like come out
of foster care and don't have anything can go to
school that come from low income families can go to
school that that funding just got pulled by the FEDS
to thank you Trump. The money that's supposed to be
going to these rural hospitals we have in the North Country,
we have in limited access areas are going to close
because that money has now been cut off and people
think it's only gone, it's not going to affect them,
and by the time it.
Speaker 3: Does, it's going to be too little, too late. Then
what But we're letting this happen. People are so.
Speaker 4: Angry and pissy and so nasty in their view they
can't see through their own hate to realizing they're screwing themselves.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, No, we're shooting ourselves in the
foot here. Again. It's because we view these things as
costs we view these things as a waste of tax
payer money, and we're not really viewing them for what
they are, which is an investment back into us. Like,
you know, I always find a line of like why
should I pay for the school district? You know, I
don't have any kids in this school, But it's like
did you go to school at any point in your life?
Do you want? You know, in you know, a doctor
that knows how to read when you go to the hospital.
But again, I think a lot of this ties back
into like we are so individualistic as a culture that
we don't really see a lot of these like these
publicly funded programs as like an investment of themselves. They
view it as like, oh, we're giving money to somebody
who doesn't deserve it. And you know, I've even seen
this kind of line of thinking even that, like with
local democrats here, like they think that these services will
make us lazy and not want to work anymore, when
in reality, it's like no one wants to work right
now because you can't afford to live.
Speaker 4: You can't afford to work, Like I think a lot
to be able to work one job and afford to live,
but people are working two in three jobs and they
still can't afford to live.
Speaker 3: And the way our society is now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was gonna say, like, I'm a comfortable
man without any kids right now, and I can't qualify
for a mortgage anywhere in Manchester.
Speaker 4: The grocery bill has gone up like fifty bucks in
the last few months and there's no sign of it
going down. Like I'm even able to buy some stuff
off at Amazon because it's cheaper than my local discounted
grocery store, which is really bizarre.
Speaker 3: But yeah, everything is. The prices are insane. I can't
I don't buy. I don't know anybody everybody I.
Speaker 4: Talked to who's not buying as much meat as they
used to because they just can't afford it.
Speaker 3: They're cutting back, they're.
Speaker 4: Making pastas, they're making more giant meals that will last
a little bit longer or stretch it a little father,
Like you know, if you put a chili together, you
can get away with a little less meat in it
and more bean to kind of fill it up, and
you know, ways to cut corners because it's.
Speaker 2: Just although in fairness, I mean, Trump did warn us
that this was going to be happening. Remember he said
that at Christmas time, instead of buying your daughter ten dollars,
maybe you just buy her one or two dolls and
that would be good enough.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, could you imagine who like Obama or
Biden said that, you know, like like like how like
you know, the entire right wing, like like you know,
environment there would be like fropping at the mouths.
Speaker 3: Oh oh yeah if I did any of the things
that he's doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like That's one thing that frustrates me is that, like,
you know, we had hyperinflation one maybe not hyper inflation.
I don't know what the actual term is here, but
like because of COVID right, like production was down, man
demand was still pretty steady, that's conlation. But now we're
seeing inflation that is completely man made. Like these are tarriffs, yeah,
one by one tyrant here. I don't know why we
even allow the president to impose tariffs that's not supposed
to it's.
Speaker 4: It's nothing he's doing is supposed to be legal, but
he's doing it anyway because he knows it's going to
get tied up in court.
Speaker 3: He doesn't give two ships about the law.
Speaker 2: Trump has done so many things by executive order that
that no one has ever attempted to do by it.
He just does it. He just does it, and he
gets away with it. He has a compliant Congress and
a compliant Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: He's wanting to shut him down, nobody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really can act as a as a monarch.
Speaker 4: And when you are acting above the law, as the
nation's number one law enforcement person in charge of everything,
who's going to stop you? If Congress isn't willing to
stand up to you and say no, if lawmakers not
just lawmakers, but if if law enforcement is willing to
go along to get along when you I mean, somebody
posted in the chat room earlier that in Massachusetts they're
just dangling money over people's heads.
Speaker 3: Hey you get a twenty five thousand dollars sign on bonus.
Speaker 2: I'll put that comment back up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we're people are people are apparently in American
are very cheap with their to give up their morals
or their values. You know, they'll sell their souls for
a few extra bucks. You know, we we we in
this country said it's illegal for law enforcement to profile,
it's illegal for law enforcement to do quotas because we
saw all the bad things that that happened, innocent people
being captured to make those numbers. And now here we are,
law enforcement is allowed and an't even encouraged to profile.
They're encouraged to grab everybody. How many bodies did you
get today? They want that three thousand body count of day.
They don't care if you're legally legal or whatever. We
watched how many American citizens have we seen beaten, being
told they have no rights, being taken into custody, held
for hours or even days. And there are American citizens.
Speaker 3: And this is happening.
Speaker 1: One thing I think a lot about, you know that meme,
how like men think about the Roman Empire every day
or I don't know if you've heard that or not. Well,
I think about the Roman Republic more so. And one
thing that's really interesting to me is that even after
the republic fell and we started to see like you know,
like like emperors didn't really comm emperors at the time, though,
but they still kept a lot of the aesthetics of
a republic. You know, they still had senators, they still
had you know, like some like you know, like like
elections to I think they were like the tribunals or whatever.
I'm I'm a little rusty now on that. But I
really fear that we are kind of in this state
right now. I feel like we look like the republic,
but we have really moved towards autocracy. And I have
one fear in one hope and then maybe I can
shut up here. Which is my one fear is that like,
you know, maybe it's probably gonna be Democrats to take power,
you know, maybe again soon, and that they're just gonna
kind of forget that eight years of Trump happened, and
then they're just going to be so.
Speaker 3: Well, my hope is that they won't do anything to
prevent it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we really need, I we we need something
to save this democracy here, Like we need radical reforms.
We need to really curb the power of the executive.
We really need to make sure that like we can't
have federal agents going like completely masked up, no bad
showing in, kidnapping people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not having to identify themselves at all, Like that's
never been It's always law enforcement is supposed to identify themselves.
That's how you know they're really law enforcement. We've spent
years and years and years pounding it into women's heads.
If it doesn't look like it's a cop cock called
nine one one and don't you know, and to be
careful and people pretending and now they're just doing it.
Speaker 2: Well, law enforcement too tends to skew conservative. So for them,
I mean, this is a great.
Speaker 3: Some law enforcement. This is great because yeah, they can
do whatever they want and look at those accountable for
the abuses that look at.
Speaker 2: The cops and conquered who let those They let the
Nazis just get in their trucks and drive off.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, they didn't drive off, No no, no,
they climbed in the back of a uquaw, sat down
and drove off. I'm sorry, I'm gonna say that. I'm
gonna say the quiet pad out loud. If that color
or the skin have been different, do you think they
would have allowed them to pile in the back of
a U haul and drive off, because that's what.
Speaker 2: Would have been beaten with clubs.
Speaker 1: Photop enhanceshur state troop or fiz pumping a proud boy
like they are at the very least sympathetic to their causes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think also too, as we're disinvesting in things
like education, healthcare, housing, we're seeing an increase in law
enforcement at a time when crime is at an historic low.
It's spiked during COVID, but crimates have returned in the
general trend that they were going. So like my fear
is that like as schools are being defunded, you know,
like we we are adding to police departments, and we
see this in like the federal level too, like we're
cutting education funding for more ice agents. We are, you know,
we're getting more and more money into the into these
systems and again like ice, like ice agents are making
more money than teachers.
Speaker 4: And they're talking about taking special education students out of
the public class room and putting them into an institution again,
a special building just for them. I mean, centuries of
progress is being undone in a matter of months, and
it's getting and people are stepping back and allowing it
to happen. And that is just mind boggling to me.
Like I thought we wanted our kids to be better, right,
have a better world than us.
Speaker 1: Well, going back, we need to demand that our leaders
can express a bold vision of how they're going to
reverse the damage that has been done. And like we
can't just keep having and I say we I again,
I'm not a Democrat anymore, but I acknowledge I'm in
a reluctant coalition with Democrats right because I am on
the left here. But like, we can't just be saying like, oh,
Republicans are so terrible, like we're going to undo what
Trump did, which is what they do need to do,
but they also need to start stating, like what do
you actually believe? Like what are your solutions on healthcare?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like what are what are your solutions?
Speaker 3: Yet all the time in office? Why do you do
something more for it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly. So I think that we need on the
left really need to hold you know, the candidates that
we support more accountable. Like we can't just have them,
you know, voting and then receiving absolutely no feedback, no
consequences from us. And I think that like, you know,
we we we should be a little bit rude to
them in my opinion when when called for Yeah, you know,
like we can't just let we can't let the Democrats,
you know, just return to the status quo. I think
a lot of privilege, more wealthy, more white Democrats just
kind of wish that we could return to two thousand
and eight right now. Two thousand and eight wasn't working
for a lot of Americans, right, you know, like the
inability of this country to recover from the Great Recession
is why we have Trump in the first place. And
you know, like all these things that received bipartisan support,
like NAFTA, I mean, those gutted industrial jobs and in
those regions, that's where Trump really got his base of
support right there, because both Democrats and Republicans sold out
those union workers to ship those jobs to non union
workers overseas, and Trump all he had to do is
just occasionally refer to that fact. Now he he hasn't
done anything really to rectify that at all. He really
just kind of renamed after I forget what's even called
at this point. But you know, like I think Americans
are just like they're they're craving some sort of recognition
of the harm that's going on. And I think they
see that in Trump. I believe they saw that in Bernie,
but they're not really seeing that like a whole lot
of and a whole lot of other places. But do
I say, like, we do have some good local candidates
and even some people running for you know, CV one
that like are talking about that. So like I don't
want to be all doom in gloom like there there
is hope. But you know, these folks, you know, are
going to face a lot of opposition from the party itself.
They have their chosen candidates that they want to win,
who are.
Speaker 3: Not really that popular, and that's that's the problem.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, good, you got to get these old people,
not to be ageists, but no way to avoid it.
You got to get these old people out of there,
you know. I mean, you know, like like Chuck Schumer
and you know, just just people who are who are
past their uh. I mean, look what they did did
with Diane Feinstein. I mean, she was she was non compassmentus.
I mean, she was gone, and they wheeled her in.
It was like weekend at Bernie's, right, They they wheeled
her into vote. I mean, and it was elder abuse
what they did to her. But I mean, but that's
so emblematic of the Democratic Party, you know, and uh,
you know, and Biden not to keep going back to that,
but another example, there.
Speaker 4: Needs to be some new blood at the top to
attract people, and especially here in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: So so I was just talking to a member. I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna, like you know, out them
here but you know, they are part of a Democratic
committee here in New Hampshire in like a red rural area,
and like they were thinking, like how do we get like,
you know, like younger families involved with the party. And
somebody had the idea of like, oh, what if like
we have somebody like we pay like somebody's daughter granddaughter
to like watch over some like kids. We'll have like
a little play area where like we'll be in the
same room but we'll be having the meeting. And the
State Party said, legally we cannot provide childcare. Uh, don't
do it. It's like you want new people to come in.
You want like if you're talking about younger people. I
know people think of like eighteen and twenty year olds,
but like think about the people like you.
Speaker 3: Get people to show up at church. There's a daycare
at the church. They're just volunteers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here's the thing. Add add in like a
few like thirty year old couples with kids to a
Democratic Committee meeting and you will lower the average age. Right,
You're bringing younger people in. But there seems to be
like a resistance to change. Kah. I think again, it's
because a lot of people that have power within the
Democratic Party, are comfortable like they are wealthier, they are
more white, and anything that's kind of like a threat
to that power. I like to joke that progressives actually
pose a bigger threat to the power of the Democratic
Party than Republicans do, because if you're party chair of
the hand your Democratic Party and you get absolutely wiped
out by Republicans in the election, well, guess what, You're
still party chair. You still get to put on all
these fundraisers. Now if a progressive challenges you for your
party seat right there, Oh, you don't have the access
that you did. Right, So a lot of it is
it's it's it's self preservation and an inability to change
its obstinates.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, one hundred percent, I agree. I agree, Yeah,
I agree. Well, I think on that note, we should
we should start to wrap this one up. I think
it's been a really good show, and of course we'll
we'll do more of these, but anything else.
Speaker 3: Yes, check out the Union Leader tomorrow.
Speaker 4: There will be an op ed by yours truly regarding
transportation issues.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, tomorrow and the Manchester Union Leader.
Speaker 1: Please send me a link once it's hosted.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely very good, very good. And of course Jenny,
you can people can follow all of your everything that
you're doing at Jen Coffee dot com, g.
Speaker 3: E N N C O F f e y dot com.
Speaker 4: Come check it out and see what kind of trouble
I may or may not be getting into here or
there or in DC or wherever.
Speaker 2: And of course people can follow me at my website.
Matt Connorton dot com and Brandon for people who want
to know, this has been wonderful, thank you for joining us,
and for people for people who want to know how
to follow you, where to find you, how to keep
up with everything you're doing, uh, where should they go?
And and any of the organizations that you work with
that you want to mention, or events coming up, or
anything at all that you want to make sure our
listeners and viewers know about.
Speaker 1: Please Oh yeah, yeah, so you can follow me. I'm
on Blue Sky, I'm currently well, I'm on a permanent
Twitter embargo. I am LeMay Brandon, jay As and Juliet
at leasy dot social. I am LeMay for tenants on TikTok,
I've really posted in a while, but I'm going to
make a commitment to do that. If you want to
learn more, about the organization that I work for write
some democracy. It is Radmovement dot org r a D
as in Delta dot org. And I also just want
to shout out an organization that I sometimes volunteer for,
which is the Mutual Aid Relief Fund m A r
F n H. They are on Instagram, you can find
them on Facebook as well. They do great work providing
you know, basic necessities to those who are housing insecure
or you know, specifically at home with themselves. They put
on free stores all over the state giving out supplies.
I'd recommend if you don't know what to do, go
go do some mutual aid help, your help, your fellow
you know, your fellow person in your community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, excellent, that sounds that sounds fantastic. Well, thank you
Brandon and everyone who joined us on the live stream.
Thank you, and of course everyone else who gets this
in the podcast feed. Of course, you can find the
show on all of your or any of your favorite
podcast feeds of choice, or you can go to Matt
Connerson dot com and find it there as well, or
on the IPM Nation YouTube channel, et cetera, et cetera.
So Brandon, thank you, and Jenny, thank you and we'll
talk to y'all a little bit later. Bye everybody, Bye
the Commander, don't thee Supreme Leader Magzi coming