Make Politics Boring Again, Please

Hello

everybody. And welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. I’m Sarah Longwell, Publisher of The Bulwark, and I am out of the office this week. I am traveling. So we are going to give you a bit of a treat.

I hear from a lot of you that’s your favorite part is really just listening to the real people. And so we’re gonna give you just the raw audio of one of our latest focus groups. This group was a group of Trump twenty sixteen voters who then did not vote for him in twenty twenty. So these are our our swing voters. In this group, all but one voted for Biden, and they were from Ohio, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

They’re all women, and we wanted to see how they were thinking about the big races in their states. Obviously, from Doug Mastriano to Hersha Walker to J. D. Vance, there are some low quality Republican candidates running in those states with really extreme positions on a portion. I think that shifted the focus from sort of a referendum on democrats to a choice election.

And I use choice deliberately both to say that it is now about the right to choose. The abortion issue is obviously looming large, but also just a choice between Democrats and these very sort of extreme Republicans. And even if you’re frustrated with Democrats, you’re looking at some of these Republicans and thinking, I don’t know. So Meghan from my office is the moderator. I hope you guys enjoy this and I will be back next week.

Although, I gotta tell you, I got good news and I got bad news. The good news is that this podcast has an incredible audience, very devoted who show up every week to listen to the focus groups and the analysis. And I really appreciate all of you listening. If you love this show, you should go leave a review at podcasts. But the bad news is I I don’t know if it’s bad news.

I think it’s kinda good news. For the remainder of our season, we are gonna go behind a paywall. So if you are not a Bulwark Plus subscriber, this is gonna become a Bulwark Plus product, and we hope that you will subscribe to the Bulwark to hear the rest of the season of this show because obviously it’s gonna get pretty interesting here as we go into the general election. In return, we’re gonna ungate and make free the next level, which is the podcast that I do with Tim Miller and Jonathan V last. After Labor Day, that is gonna become free and public come out behind the paywall, so we’re gonna do a little bit of a trade here.

But if you listen to this podcast and you love it, we’d sure appreciate if you could go become a Bulwark plus member you get a lot of benefits other than just this podcast. But thanks so much for sticking with us and for being a great audience, for sending all your questions and comments. And I’ll catch you guys next week.

Okay. Well, so I just want to establish kind of a baseline of where everybody is coming from Everybody here was a Donald Trump twenty sixteen voter and a non Donald Trump twenty twenty voter. But let’s kinda find out what that means. So for non Trump twenty twenty, who here voted for Joe Biden? We’ll do show a hands.

K. So this is everybody but why don’t you tell us who you voted for in twenty twenty?

I completely went independent on my voter registration. So I voted for Joe Jorgensen and the Libertarian Party.

Sure. And then I’m curious how you guys identify politically these days, which I know is These are imperfect buckets. I’m going to ask you to put yourself in. But just for the point of this exercise, if you guys could do your best I’ll ask if you consider yourselves current Republicans, former Republicans, or independents. And we’ll start there.

So who still identifies as a Republican? Show a hands. Okay. So we’ve got four about half the group here. Who considers themselves a former Republican.

K? So we’ve got about a couple Republicans and about half to a little more than half that are former Republicans. And then I’m also curious where on that spectrum you guys self identify, very conservative, conservative, center right, moderate, or just dead in the middle moderate. So where am I very conservative people? And where am I conservative?

So just conservative. We have no very conservative. And how about center right moderate? So two, And then who’s finding themselves dead center these days? One, two, three, four, five, six.

Okay. So six out of nine on that. Okay. So like I said, just sort of some baseline setting here. Thinking about changing parties changing votes in twenty twenty.

I’m curious, and I’ll let everybody share a little bit about that. But thinking about that twenty twenty vote, most of you were for Biden, one of you were for third party Joe Jorgensen. But would you say that vote was an anti Trump vote, you weren’t gonna vote for him again, didn’t like what you were seeing in those four years, or would you say that was an affirmative vote for Joe Biden, you liked him, you liked what you were hearing, for Joe Jorgensen, you liked her, you liked what she had to say. So let’s see my anti Trump votes for twenty twenty. Okay.

So nearly everything. Do you like Joe Jorgensen? Like Joe Jorgensen? Okay. We’ll start with you.

So take me back just a bit. Tell me in twenty sixteen why you decided to vote for Trump and then in twenty twenty, why decided to not vote for Trump again and go ahead and vote for

Biden. How you were thinking about Well, I didn’t like the Clinton machine. I mean, there’s just my my perception is that there’s, like, a machine that’s kind of behind her that, you know, it’s going to be this that or the other policy and it’s going to get be done. It’s gonna get done that way, and I didn’t like that. And I didn’t know everything I probably should have known about Donald Trump.

But that is what largely precipitated my vote in twenty sixteen.

Mhmm. And

in twenty twenty, I didn’t perceive that I had some big cheating behind him. And the country had already been torn apart for four years over over all of this shenanigans has been going on. And I just wanted someone that would get us back to, like, someplace relatively normal. Like, make politics boring again, please. But that was my thing.

Brings up a good

point. I’m gonna ask ask it two ways. I wanna show hands for who would class to find their twenty sixteen vote, add an anti Clinton, just couldn’t do it, couldn’t vote for her, and who was that pro Trump really liked him, like what he had to say. So look, where are my anti Clinton votes? One, two, three, four, five, six.

Okay. So six out of nine.

So let

me hop over to and why don’t you tell me how you were thinking sixteen and then

twenty? In sixteen, I kind of was anti Clinton. I just felt as a I don’t know. Everything she said as a woman did not hit to me as a woman. I didn’t feel like everything she portrayed was what I believed and felt like she kind of clumped all women in together and I probably didn’t know as much about trump as I should have.

And then in twenty twenty, it was kind of the lesser of two evils I wasn’t necessary for Biden, but I thought at the time he was probably in the better choice side of the two. K? And tell me

how you were thinking about it in sixteen and then twenty?

So I guess, like, my political beliefs I’ve always kinda spawned, like, from early on. Like, I couldn’t ever classify myself as one or the other. I always brought up different things, like, in high school discussions, college discussions. So when I voted for him in twenty sixteen, it was more how he was very no BS kind of guy. I like straightforward, and that seemed like what he could bring to the table.

And then in twenty twenty, I decided to just go full on with my my gut and just go completely independent because most people don’t even know that there’s a third option. So there’s, like, some percentages you have to hit to be able to get the third option on the ballot. And, like, that’s, like, what a lot of third party libertarian they’re trying to do right now is just get the idea that there is another option. You don’t have to pick between the lesser of two evils, and Joe Jorgensen is legitimately wonderful person. Who has nice good morals, no sketchy backgrounds, no creepy things.

Like, as a woman, she is appealing and cleaner ways than Hillary Clinton was. And she resonates with me as a person. As a woman, somebody I’d be proud to explain to my kids. How presidents work and how our democracy, and essentially our public should work. So Sorry for the long winded answer.

Okay.

Helpful.

Tell me about sixteen and twenty for you. K. Again, raised in Kansas City. To Democratic parents always always strong Republican from early on. And I think it was driven by fiscal responsibility, which always kept me under the Republican perspective, historical anyway.

So twenty sixteen, I felt similar to whoever just said that about I didn’t believe that Clinton fairly represented all women on her platform or appearances or whatever it is. Again, from the traditional Republican voting for me, it it, of course, leaned me towards Trump. I had reservation with him, but like someone else said, I did appreciate what appeared to be forthrightness at the time, kind of the no BS mannerism. I also kind of thought, oh, no. He isn’t a bit hokey, and how’s this gonna play out on an international stage?

Because you know, I don’t know how well respected he’s gonna be, but I also thought, well, Ronald Reagan was an actor and I always felt that he became a really strong leader for our country. So that was one of the reasons I thought don’t cut him short too quickly. Fast forward to twenty twenty, disappointed in just some of his behavior the divisiveness that I felt was building under his leadership within the country as someone said, can’t we just go back to quiet politics. Again, I’m just so exhausted of the noise and and the extremists on both sides just exhaust me. I really believe that The majority of our country is kind of in the center and they’ll have a few hot buttons that are important to them.

But I think most of us are normal. These small percentages on the edges are starting to run the country, and that’s just concerning for me. So I thought, well, I’d really haven’t in my life voted Democratic, but I just felt like Joe just seemed a little stable. I knew he had a lot of international experience, which I thought was gonna come into play. It certainly has as far as diplomacy.

So I kind of went with the lesser the two evils. Mhmm.

And how about you well,

I’m gonna preface this by saying

that in

twenty sixteen, I was twenty two. So still not really what I would consider in the adult world yet. I was in grad school, still taking a lot of my politics and my political views, from my parents, which I think is understandable. I went four year to college, into graduate school, and I was in my first year at the time. And the vote for Trump was anti Clinton.

All the way because my reasoning at the time was that I did not want the career politician in the White House. Prior to politicians. We didn’t have too many of them. It

was

my opinion. And I also thought it would be interesting to have not a politician, but someone with a background in business in the White House. Because a country you could think of it as just one large business. You can’t run it into the ground. That that’s pretty important.

And those were my most cognizant points when I was voting at the time. Four years later, I’d have a little more life experience. And I had realized that even though you have a businessman in the White House, even though there were objectively some good decisions, the way in which he was behaving other countries already viewed us disparagingly. And it seemed like Trump was just giving them more and more ammunition. The amount of satire, the amount of cartoons, the amount of jokes, it embarrassed me.

I didn’t want him in the White House anymore because of his conduct. I’m not sure how much of it is just rumor, but I know the effect it’s having, and I wanted that to stop. K?

How about you? So in twenty sixteen, I, like, Oh, somebody that does business and everything. I thought, okay, we need at that point, politics was kind of boring. I was like, yeah. Okay.

K? Maybe a business person would kinda help things along and everything. And by twenty eighteen, I’ve traveled the world. And I have seen the way that we were laughing stock, like literally I went to Poland and was helping people learn English, and I meant he. Literally, his whole presentation was making fun of Americans.

And Donald Trump. And he was literally like, is he a genius or is he a buffoon? The rhetoric that he was doing and how it was just making everybody think that and that’s how Americans are. And I’m it was just totally not my cup of teeth. At that point, So twenty twenty, I did vote for Joe Biden.

It was definitely an anti Donald Trump vote. Again, as everybody said, I wish politics would just be boring again. Like, when I was growing up, I never remembered politics ever being like this. And I do feel these extreme groups on either side are just fueling it. And unfortunately, the media does elevate it and everything.

Because where I am from, I don’t see that at all. I mean, I just feel like I live in normal America. I mean, I don’t see the crazy things that I see on the news all the time. So I’m just like, I just wanna go back to that. So, yeah.

So why don’t we go ahead and skip on over to how are you

thinking about it in twenty sixteen and twenty? Probably a lot of repeats, but I was definitely not voting against Hillary Clinton. I was just a lifelong Republican. And I had many, many reservations about Donald Trump. But as was said before, I think I really convinced myself that the businessman concept was something new and I am a big believer in both the country running as a business and also the public relations and optics and all of all of that, which is not why I voted for Donald Trump, but it’s why I didn’t vote for Donald Trump the second time around.

But I think at that time in twenty sixteen, I was probably pretty busy and distracted and not as educated as I should have been. And my husband was definitely very influential, so I was getting a lot of information from him. I’m not proud to say that, but I’m gonna admit it. And so then, you know, four years later, I was very embarrassed, and I am a big advocate of the public relations of any business. So I think that was just so horrific.

And then just to pile on to that, the divisiveness in the country. I mean, I’ve, you know, we’ve never seen anything well. We’ve never seen anything like this. It very likely existed, you know. We didn’t have Twitter back in the, you know, eighteen hundreds, so it might have looked very similarly.

And

my vote in

twenty twenty was definitely not for Joe Biden. It was it was definitely just against Donald Trump. It was most certainly the the lesser of two Eagles.

Did your husband vote

for Trump again? He did. And and he was horrified for four years and and still, but I forgot again. So So, like, a wasted trip to the halls that night.

Okay. How are you?

Definitely anti Clinton. Everyone’s really said everything very well. Congratulations. But the anti establishment, if Joe Biden was running in two thousand sixteen, I would have voted for him then. So fast forward, he I feel he’s very honest.

I felt he had experience, would work across the aisle. And it was definitely for Joe, but also anti Trump both together. Mhmm. Tell

me about your vote for Trump in sixteen a little more. Like,

anti Clinton, that that was the establishment. That’s who they wanted. Yes. I I didn’t feel that was the right choice. And like everyone else said, you have hope, you know, not the the established politician or the people, business background, everything that was said to us, and you’re just hopeful because it was so anti establishment.

Mhmm. Okay. So I was I, like everybody else, was very pro business. I run the business end of our dental practice, and so I really figured that he could run the country like a business and we would be successful.

There were

some things that I agreed with him. And then I just really wanted him to not say another word. If he just could have been quiet, I think he would have been he would have been elected again. And if he wasn’t like trying to always poke the bear or say things from Twitter, like, when you once you become president, you have to become presidential. You have to be that person that we all look up to.

And I agree with other people. We were laughing stock around the world. I wasn’t in love with with Hillary. I I don’t love the way that she presents herself. I don’t love the way she presents women all the time like we said.

And I think she often makes more enemies than makes friends. When someone would talk about Ronald Reagan and, I mean, I can tell you where I was when he was shot he was a president that you looked up to. And I was young at the time, but it seems that all of politics has just gotten into this, like, alarmist. We need our fifteen minutes of fame, thirty minutes of fame. There’s no death.

And we’ve become a country that is so divided. Families have been divided. Friendship have been lost. Because of this. And I I don’t remember this when I was growing up.

I don’t even remember this prior to Bill Clinton. Where we had such problems that we couldn’t come together as a country. I blame a lot of it on the media. It’s like a scare tactic. We need to make progress in the country.

And it seems like we’re so divided that we can’t even come together on anything. And I feel like our country is going backwards and not forward. And it’s it scares me. It scares me. It scares me as a mother of a daughter.

You know, when you asked about, are we Republicans? I’m a fiscal republican, but I am a social democrat. You be you, you be happy being you, but you shouldn’t have to tell me who I can be. And let’s work together to make this economy strong and make us have a presence in this world where we were looked up to and where we’re thought of as also we can take care of others. But we really take care of ourselves.

So completely dovetail into my next

question. I’m just gonna go around the room and get us kind of caught up So my question to the group next, and I’ll go around. But my question is, how do you think things are going right now in the country? Is there anything you wanna add that was a pretty like, you knew that’s what I was gonna add. I tried.

Yeah. You pretty much nailed it. But if there’s anything you wanna add can also come back to you at the end once together, ladies have spoken if anything. No worries. But why don’t you take it?

How how do you think things are going?

I mean, Twitter’s a lot more quiet. I honestly have zero respect for Joe Biden as a person, as a leader. He is embarrassing in different aspects. I think he’s also delusional. I don’t know if he’s, like, just cooped up in the White House and only says what people tell him to say because the things like I’ve seen like, come from his, like, like, social media accounts and news articles.

Like, I I honestly tried to avoid, like, mainstream news on TV. I tried to, like, something comes up through searches and whatever I tried to, like, look into it myself. The extremist media was, like, literally affecting my mental health. So I spent a lot of time outside away from technology. I think, like, what is has become more important to me is local politics.

I have a lot more influence there. I must keep my TV off because I’m still embarrassed.

How do you think how do

you think things are going? It’s hard because my daughter just turned thirteen and my son is fourteen and

a half and they are getting to the point where they ask a lot of questions or, you know, taking classes in school and trying to understand what’s going on and it’s hard for me to explain to them that these are our options. I’d love to have a thirty thirty option that could blow the other two out of the water. I I guess I’m not at the point where I have faith that they’re we’re gonna get enough votes to make a difference and I’d like to see that change, then it’s hard to explain to them why we have a seventy nine year old president and why the people in Congress are as old as they are and they’re the ones who are making decisions. You know, like, we from any other job, you retire at a certain age. You know?

And he if he’s gonna run again, he’s gonna be you know, eighty five years old. But at the same point, I don’t know who wants to be the president right now either. You know? And it but it’s hard for me to explain to them that this is what it’s coming down to. You know, the like yeah.

Donald Trump made a lot of noise. And every time he opened his mouth, it was, like, my goodness. Like, my kids have to hear this. You know what he’s saying? And I think the only changes is that Joe Biden doesn’t talk.

You know what I mean? Like, he talked so little. One of my kids asked me a couple months ago. Is he still the president? Like, you know, because you don’t hear anything never so I don’t know.

I don’t I don’t think it has changed much at all. I don’t think it’s any better and I don’t know. I don’t know what we can do as a country to have a better option because it’s not great. And this is not what I’d like to see my kids grow up and have to deal with us. How do

you think things

are going? Frustrated.

I’m frustrated with the government taking away women’s rights. I’m frustrated with some states like on what teachers can teach and how we can treat our students and making sure that they can get everything that they need and having to basically ignore things and that’s not what they need. A frustrated with the economy, I mean, I have had to turn off the news and this summer has been amazing just being outside and kind of, like, putting it all out. Like, I haven’t heard what students are telling me or anything like that. So I’ve kind of like had a mental refresh over the summer.

Minus me watching, like, the January sixth, like, trials, which unfortunately, then you was like, it brings back things, and I’m just like, how did we do this? So I feel better that We’re not having riots like that right now, but I’m very frustrated too. So that’s where I’m

at. Can I get a quick show hands of who else watched some of the January six hearing some of the coverage. Keep them up. Let me see. Okay.

So we’ve got so you have

earring. Let me

watch some of the

coverage. Some of the earrings. That’s good. Okay. How do you think things are going?

I’m

very concerned. The country’s just absolutely divided. It’s not just either president, but it’s the Congress, the Senate. To me it just seems like kindergarten, arguing amongst themselves, believing what they want to believe, I don’t feel they have the voters or their people’s best interest in mind, and I honestly feel that money lets the candidate win. How we said Hillary was the establishment, and she had the money.

Trump had the money. And it’s like whoever our new candidates are gonna be are gonna survive because they could put the most money into a campaign. It all gets done, to me, at least, to finances, and it’s just it’s it’s alarming.

How

about you? Well,

first of all, you know, like, I react emotionally every time I hear Joe Biden attacks on the basis of his age. I don’t know if any of you are interested in the Rolling Stones, but did you know that Mick Shagger is seventy nine? Is anyone gonna tell Mick Shagger that he shouldn’t be Mick jack or anymore because he’s seventy nine. I don’t think so. If you don’t like his style, you know, or his substance, then vote for somebody else.

Don’t stay because he’s too old. That that just pisses me off. Mhmm. But where I think we are now as a country is that everyone is so segmented on the Democratic side of the spectrum, you have the very progressive democrats that are as much of a crop in Biden’s throat as anything else so that even the party, the Democratic party, can’t get it shipped together on anything. And it’s not Joe Biden’s fault me.

It’s like, violently moderate. This is like a really moderate guy. And just congress is not going to let him, get very little of anything. Like, he got, like, some things done just last week that nobody thought he was gonna get done because everybody wants something, like, they want either really extremely liberal things. And then, you know, if your Republicans want, like, Well, there’s hardly any moderate Republicans left.

God bless their arm. They lose Chinese, but there’s hardly any moderate Republicans left. So you don’t have anybody on that side can even work with anymore. So the center is not there anymore. There’s no center that holds.

Every time I hear Joe Biden, being attacked and thinking, you ought to be throwing flowers at this man’s feet. We would have another term, Donald Trump, if it were not for this man. This is the guy that everyone felt like people could vote for, and they did. But instead of, like, okay, let’s work with you. They’re attacking him.

That’s where I see it. Sorry. Sorry to unload. No? Sorry.

That’s how do you think things are

going? Not great. I feel things could be way worse again with different leadership. I think that the art of compromise is getting lost on the two extremes. I feel like I’m an intelligent person that I can watch the news or read an article and filter through the BS and the propagandous so to speak.

When I see things like that, what’s frustrating for me is I feel that there’s a large group in our population base that do not step back and analyze for themselves, it’s easier to listen to sound bites and follow that. Which is so frightening. And I feel like our society right now just lives on those sound bites. It seems like just single topics are dividing things. Again, women’s ride and I’m with all of you.

I’m And even though I’m conservative in many ways, I don’t want anyone telling me what I can or cannot do with my body, and I don’t wanna judge anyone else who makes their choices that are right for their life. Like many of you, I kind of shut things off. It’s exhausting. I mean, even our local politics here in Pennsylvania. I guess we all based on the states that represented.

There’s a lot going on in each state as well that’s concerning. I’m like, oh my gosh. I just can’t believe some of the choices we’re gonna have to make between certain candidates. Yeah.

Who’s in Pennsylvania? Do you find most frustrating?

I think Mastriano is just like a nut job, just extremely frustrating And in watching the debate, so I was like, okay, we have a few rational Republicans on this panel here. And I’m like, gosh, how can we kind of get them going? Because I think ultimately they’re going to have the chance to maybe get more things done across both aisles and back to rational people dealing with rational people. And yet, what happens is Mastery Terminal gets, you know, the Republican nomination. I was like, oh my gosh.

So, you know, you’ve got that, you’ve got doctor Oz as the other option. So it’s just making it very easy for me to be like, oh, it’s gonna be easy to vote line item by line item instead of straight republican ticket or straight democrat looking at each this is what I finally came to as I’m more mature through many years of boating. I used to feel comfortable doing pretty much a straight line on something. These days no way. It’s line item by line item by line item.

Even though I still relate and I’m still registered Republican. No way am I voting for Mastriano or Oz. So my vote will go to the demo. On that. They’re

okay. Some of the most extreme things are about Mastriano that keep you from not — Uh-huh. — to do it. And inversely, do you kind of like some things about Federman or Shapiro?

I like some things about all of them. It’s the things I strongly dislike that will keep me away. For example, Mastriano. Big anti vaccine or big anti, don’t tell us what to do with our bodies yet in the same breath Oh, all women. Yeah.

Portions will be banned, and he’s gonna try to tell me what to do with my body. Even though he’s saying the government shouldn’t tell him what he should do with his bike. Talk about confusing messaging. I’m like, dude, like, If it works for you, gray, but if you’re female, it’s not to work for you. So I cannot stand his mixed message on that.

At all. I don’t like his participation and rallying cries for January sixth events that just wrong to us. Again,

I’m not

from Pennsylvania originally, but I have lived here over twenty years. I feel like it’s my home. I don’t like his scurty way about coming into politics in Pennsylvania without any scanning the game. He had you know, he’s kinda sliding across the border, and he’s a he’s a Trump puppet. But then I got a shapero and, you know, I I feel like he has taken on some tough battles within his experienced as an attorney general that I think was for betterment of the people in general, but he just seems more stable.

You know, which rational were stable.

So I’d be

remiss in this group full of women, not to ask you guys how you were thinking about abortion being on the it’s I think fair to say it’s on the ballot in all of your states, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania coming up this fall. So I’m curious how you guys are thinking about that. I promise we’re not going to litigate abortion. We only have, you know, half hour left anyway. My question is this.

So we’ve got in each of your races, actually. So we’ve got talking about Mastriano in Pennsylvania, You’ve got Vance in Ohio, in the Senate, he’s the Republican senate nominee, and you’ve got Hershel Walker in Georgia. And these are all guys that are the Republican nominees for senate and governor who have said that they believe in no exceptions. For abortions. And I’ll actually ask, do you think that no exceptions is too extreme?

Yes. Okay. Talk to me about that. And how do you think about that when you’re gonna be voting this fall?

Okay. Truthfully on pro life, because I feel that a a conception, it is a person. As said, I do not judge others, person, I wouldn’t wanna be a politician making these decisions. And

I feel it should be on the ballot, let the majority of the people vote. And let that be the role. Mhmm. So instead of it being a question, it’s gonna be through these candidates. Who are kind of running on these platforms of how of what their decisions are.

So Truthfully, that wouldn’t change my mind to vote for can it. One of them, I think, will it take right long either way. Mhmm. What are you’re in Pennsylvania. What are your thoughts on Mastriano?

I feel he’s

dangerous, and he is running against against Shapiro. He has a phenomenal track record. He took down the pedophile priests, put him in jail, and I mean, he has a track record. And, like, this was, like, the easiest candidate decision I ever had to make, because often they don’t have track records. Yeah, Masterion is absolutely dangerous, but I’m voting for Shapiro based on his track record of going after the priests that molested children and adults and Yes.

Okay.

How are you thinking about Mastriano, Shapiro, and Oz Federman? Similarly, I

find Shapiro to be appealing. You know, I don’t claim to be up on everything current, and I don’t have a ton of time to do the research and I should, but I also appreciate the battles that Shapiro has taken on. I do see feel like he seems to be kind of rational and cognitively and emotionally normal, which you know, maybe he’s not, but we haven’t seen any evidence that I’m aware of. Otherwise, I think that Mastriano is terrifying. He he feels far more extreme than Trump to me.

Trump was smart enough even to not be saying things quite this extreme at this point in a in a political race. So, yeah, I I would say, I am But

about him, do you think seems more extreme than Trump? You know, I guess it’s the

abortion stance. I do find it hard to relate to I I would say I would consider myself generally to be a pro life person, but it to me, it’s absolutely absurd to say that there are no exceptions to that. I am pro choice. I do believe that people that every woman should have the ability to make her own choices. But, you know, if if I was going to lean a little bit more, it might be a little more pro life.

But to say that there are no exceptions to that. I think about how that would have impacted my own life. Okay.

Sure.

I’m gonna skip over to you because you’re in Ohio, so you’ve got J. D. Vance is the Republican nominee for senate. Who had originally said that he he would support no exceptions and no exception ban on abortions in Ohio. Do you have any thoughts on him?

Are you familiar with him at all? Just based

on the fact

that he

says no exceptions, I wouldn’t vote for him. Okay. Do you know much about his opponent? Not that

much. I’m not that involved in local politics. But just knowing that that is his stance? No.

He does not voting for someone. That is not him. Got it. Talk to me about Hershey Walker. Oh,

Hershey Walker.

So

if you watch some of the commercials, he doesn’t look like he’s all there. And it’s a little it’s a little scary. I’m not sure. Somebody, for me, he seems like a puppet, and someone’s got some his hands up, his shirt, and kinda controlling it. It’s been very depressing kind of being a Republican in the state of Georgia.

A lot of people

in Georgia took a Republican ballot even though we didn’t intend to vote Republican in November, but we took a Republican ballot because they wanted to make sure that any Trump naunted candidate did not make it. Yeah.

There were quite a few names, but I think it was like pretty locked in I chose to be public and ballot. I voted for Gary

Black, the agriculture commissioner. But, you know, that didn’t work. All these candidates get on the ballot to begin with, and then they rise to the top. It’s it’s because you

have primaries. And the most die hard turnouts are the primary. I I’m beginning to think that rank choice voting is probably a better way to go because then, like, It’s not the die hard on either side that are it’s finally gonna put people on a ballot for a general election.

So for the oh, midterms, will you be crossing over again and voting for Oh, I’ll I’ll be voting for Warren, I don’t like him either. You

may not like him, but it’s like, you want

Oh, do you Yeah. I don’t I don’t want Walker and I don’t want Hornock. I don’t like what Hornock has been spending? I don’t like what he’s been

He can’t spend.

He

the things that he votes for and the thing, like, the IRS new auditors and twenty seven thousand new people like god and, like, babies. Let

me tell you something. The IRS owes me and my husband thirteen hundred dollars. They have owed it to us for more than a year. They agree in principle. They owe us thirteen hundred dollars.

I cannot get through to the IRS. Oh, I know.

All of

them, it takes, like, a week to even get into the queue on hold.

And

then you’re on hold for a whole day. And then some poor person takes your call. And you explain it to them and they they agree with you. They agree. Yeah.

It should be this, should be that. But, you know, here I am, a whole, like, more than a year later. So, yes, put the money into the IRS, let them hire people, better systems. Yes.

I I just

I’m I unfortunately, I’m a when it comes to that, I’m like a seaman of the above. I don’t like any of your above. So I’m trying to figure out who is my least So who’s the least worse? But, you know, walkers was gonna to vote for whatever they tell

him to vote for. Example,

he’s a puppet. He’s family and not big room exists. So how how are you guys thinking about Campanabrom’s? Again,

how about would you see that

you have? Yeah. This playing is very smart for this election cycle. You know, I have done a lot of legislative work at the capital for years and things became extreme when Kemp was elected. But Kemp, to his credit, is not not talking about how extreme he actually is.

I think Kim’s gonna be reelected. Will I vote for Stacey Abrams? Probably yes. I will probably vote for Stacey Abrams. Not crazy for Stacey Abrams.

No. I’m not. But I think, you know, for Georgia to get out of this ditch that we’re in, I think it’s gonna take maybe it’s split split government. We’ve never had that, a split between Democrat and Republican. But if we get that, it might be very interesting to see.

I don’t think Stacy can ever be as liberal in Georgia as people think she’s going to be. And there’s things that are coming out of her campaign. I’m not happy with, but That’s what

I will do. I was just filling out taking care of my kids’ absentee ballots today, making sure that they we’re gonna get theirs because they’re all in school. Yeah. You have to vote. I just it’s it’s harder and harder and what Kemp has done economically in Georgia?

I can give him a thumbs up. But socially and the whole heartbeat brightening. My daughter told me a very scary thing last weekend. We’re we’re moving her into college and things like that and one of the things we were talking about was just her cell phone or whatever. And she told me this is the night before I’m leaving her end.

She has gotten rid of her she had an app. That tractor period. Yeah. She

needs to get rid of that. She definitely needs to get rid of that. She’ll end up getting

getting, like, Yes.

Yeah. I thought I thought, here’s my eighteen year old daughter who’s gotta think, to me, like, that was one of the greatest That’s how you guys have

great innovation, but you hate what?

What is this? I’ve heard of this. It’s you know, people say that they’re getting rid of their phone app on on Apple phones where you can track your cycle and people are getting rid of it because they’re afraid that that’ll get a peanut because you can have your phone wrapped up with a peanut,

you know, and if you get it if you look as if you are planning that you yes. Staring them.

Have an abortion. And then I wanna say, you know, like, camp will talk about, well, we have exceptions for rape and incest. But there needs to be a police report. How many police reports do you think a company insist or even rate? Like,

twelve year

old kids do not file police reports. They hope to God they’re not pregnant. And, like, they are pregnant. They deny it. Or as long as they possibly can until I can’t.

I worked at the capital for all of that two thousand nineteen when that bill was being passed. It was, like, one of the most awful experiences of my life to watch all of this stuff coming down and I have heard every argument in the flooring against it’s horrible. It’s horrible. And it was just political when it got done. That that’s it.

Sure. So I’m gonna pull in I know we’re kinda winding down here, and then I’m gonna do a little lightning round of a bunch of stuff I wanna ask you guys about. So I’ll pull together my Pennsylvania girls, ladies, women. Sorry. Any Oz fans?

No. That’s it. Do you guys tell me what you guys think of Mastriana, the hero? I

am all for Shapiro. I think he is level headed. I just think he is just all inclusive of trying to help everyone. I think that’s coming from like his record of showing what he’s done for the state already. Masturano, I I hate to say it, but your students will be taught by half of basically all the teachers there because he’s slashing budgets.

And there will be no teachers teaching anybody. So just speaking from that side and us he can go back to Jersey. And Federman is running an amazing, hilarious campaign with his charcuterie boards and we call this a veggie like, It’s spot on and so cheap and I love it. Yeah. So creative.

And you know

what

he is getting? Those millennials that are, like, on the TikTok and Snapchat, like, all of those, and just he’s not even saying much. I mean, he’s not doing these huge bashing commercials. I mean, literally, he is holding up a veggie tray. That’s it.

It’s

great. I love

it. Yeah. What about you? I feel like I could explode.

Do you have a third option? Don’t have to pick between the lesser like, of two evils there. What while you might not know their names because they don’t have the money, they don’t have the backing, Joseph Celoskie just got we are approved for the ballot in Pennsylvania. He is independent. If you just go on like, look up his site.

Like, you will see a super quick, like, where he stands, he’s in the middle, he’s bringing the power back to the people. Like, we forget that we run this and they don’t although with their money, they do. It’s just, like, you do have a third option. It’s gonna take time and people and communication. For people to say, hey, like, there is someone who is a little who is a lot more level headed.

You haven’t you have a third option. It’s tell me why you don’t like Mastriana? I mean, Floyd, honestly. So, like, the road I live on, everyone is very spaced out. And when twenty twenty, we there was all sorts of Trump signs and there’s right now, there’s anti Biden flags with the funny sayings against him still up on our street.

And after all of that, we have one massriano sign. I honestly I’ve spent a lot of my time looking at independents and vegetarians and another option So I haven’t looked at him as closely as I need to. I have heard that he is extreme. I’m very much pro choice like with the vaccinations, like, you can’t tell me what to do. Abortion, you can’t tell me what to do.

I’m in control for personal fertility stuff. I don’t track anything anymore, but just hearing that that’s even like a thing. It’s like women can’t even, like,

have an easy

way to do things on their own personal phones. It’s like mind boggling to me. Like I said, I don’t know enough about the demo and the republican candidates because I’m focusing on the third party, because I’m just, like, I have a lot of hope in a nutshell. You have a

third choice

Got it. Man, you’re doing the work for the third parties out here for the people. Okay. So I’ll do a little quick lightning round. But first, I usually play this game in the groups where it’s like a fake little game where if the election were I make everybody tell me who that they were gonna vote for, but this group is pretty decided except so I’m gonna put you on the spot.

Are you going Kemper Abrams

if it’s today? I don’t I don’t know. I’m really late. So you can have to pick I I

just really

I can’t. It’s so hard when I don’t like either of that. I would probably split my ballot, so I would probably end up doing I probably do camera.

Temp and warnock?

Yeah.

Okay. And then

would you

go Ryan or would you

go Vance? Today I go, Ryan.

K. Okay. And then another little lightning round. I’m sure you guys have all heard the rumors, so show of hands who would vote from twenty twenty four. Please, no.

That is zero. Add it. Nine. We’ve gotta have better options as we do. Sorry.

Yeah. It can’t

get there

again. Yeah. He literally felt like he teared up when

you even mentioned — Yeah. — that possibility. Yeah. It’s so visceral. How many times can

you get impeached?

I just

it was sort of said before, but I just don’t think many normal people want this office anymore. And I think that’s what’s really scary. I think if Washington or, you know, Lincoln or Virginia, one of them would have been under the kind of pressure that you’re under now with social media and the media in general. It’s just really hard to imagine a really, truly normal person wanting that job again. Does anybody

come to mind

on either side of the aisle that you’d like to see?

I’ve vote for Liz

Cheney. How

about my Liz Cheney fans? One. Yeah. Do you mind

her? Yeah. K. We’ve got four out of nine for Liz Cheney. Anybody else?

But

she can’t win. She has not been win ever. She

asked who I’d

vote for. Yeah. Yes. How about

Joe Biden? Mm-mm. One out of nine. How about a two out of nine? Okay.

How about Kamala Harris? Zero out of nine.

How about

Joe Jorgensen twenty twenty four for there we go. I don’t know. You might have gotten some jorgensen curious people after singing her phrases. You gotta check out Spike Cohen too. K?

How about Pence twenty twenty four?

God. No. How

about Rhonda Santos twenty twenty four? K? Nobody else comes to mind. That’s kind of part of the problem. Right?

That, like, I don’t think of anybody that you guys wanna be wrong here. I would Rompi. We’ve got one two from Metrombie. Like, you just promised twice that four from Metrombie. Wow.

It’s kind of one now. Wait. I voted twice. So I didn’t count you twice, but don’t worry. Okay.

Last little bit here, I wanna ask you guys about who here has heard about the search going on at Trump’s place in Mar a Lago by the FBI. K. Everybody that’s who is unplugged. So that’s fine. So we’ve got about eight out of nine there.

Does anybody think that the search is justified? Okay. So we’ve got k. So we’ve got about eight out of eight on that. Does anybody think it’s just purely political?

No. Does anybody think this search should continue? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Eight out of eight. Does everybody here trust the FBI to lead the investigation and will trust the findings? One, two, three. Keep them up four, five, five out of nine. Okay.

Would anybody trust another, like, a bipartisan committee to do it instead? Show hands. Show hands. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. How about the secret service to do it instead?

One. Mhmm. How about an independent investigation? One, two, three, four. Whole group.

Okay. That’s gonna be it. You guys have been great. I really appreciate getting all of your thoughts. It’s tough time out there, so I appreciate you guys making the time.