280- The Missouri Progressive's Political Vision with Dan Schaefer

I didn't plan it . You can make all the conspiracy theories all you want . I didn't plan it this way . It's just happened OK , and I'm fine with it . Like I said , I accept any political flavor , if you will the left , the right , the green , the libertarian or the non-affiliate who's tired of the political BS , if you will .

So I welcome all of you here because , look , I pride myself of being friends of both sides of the aisle because they see me as a rational moderate , even though sometimes I could go a bit , sometimes my presentation could be a bit radical . That's why I curse both of them out for being idiots on some issues . But you know I do that here .

We both mature adults here . So if you want entertainment , know that go watch fox news , go watch the five , or greg gutfeld or something like that , or even or even abby phillips show if you want to watch arguments or things like that . Not Not going to happen here . It's not going to happen here .

Maybe disagreement , which is fine , disagreement doesn't equal hate . I got to keep saying that because people just treat disagreement as if it's a middle finger or cursing your mother or father . That's not happening . People just have different points of view .

Okay , and I'm going to keep reminding you that I don't care about sounding like a broken record , because the tribalism is just getting worse , not better , to be honest . Why ? Even even to some extent the state of local politics . You know I've been paying attention to local politics , the Democrats in New York City .

It's a fight between the moderates and the progressives and it's pretty vicious , to say the least . You know , the fight doesn't always have to be between two different parties . It could be between the tents , the different tents within the party True party politics . But we got someone here and I'm going to nickname him the Missouri Progressive .

You can correct me on that . You know Missouri is a red state , but before I did recording , before we start the recording , just talked about how missouri is slowly shifting blue and I even noticed that I would say since 2024 .

I don't know what's been happening before that , but I know since last year I was known as you changed because some republicans are going extreme , especially they're trying to restore dueling . I read that . So , uh , you could have definitely lose a stronghold if you keep pushing crazy stuff like this . Okay , I'll solid red or solid blue .

If you keep pushing , your luck , people will not put up with it . But anyways , I could drag on for an hour , but I'm not going to do that . I'm not going to torture my guests here . Missouri , sadly , a state that gets overlooked sometimes by me . I'm going to be honest , and I'm sure a lot of you too , but you don't have to admit it .

I will admit that for you it's probably calling you out nicely , but oh well .

All right , this is concerning Missouri , and and if you want to just zoom out a bit , this can affect us , even indirectly , nationally as well . So , and they're , they're overarching themes . You put two and two together , ok ? So the first and super basic question is what do you want the listeners and the viewers to know about ?

I'm running for the Missouri House of Representatives , district 97 . I ran last semester I almost said last semester . I'm going back to college here . I ran last November and I lost it . I got just over 35% of the vote and I was running against an incumbent Republican .

And even though I consider myself a native of Missouri , I also consider myself a native of California . Back in 1985 , I graduated from college , had been in St Louis for a couple of years after that and decided I'm going to go to California for a couple of years and see what it's like out there .

Well , a couple of years actually turned out to be almost 30 years . So I lived in the Los Angeles area , which I watch with intense interest these days , and what's going on in Los Angeles , and my son still lives out there and I know a lot of people out there , and so I get the inside scoop there a little bit .

But then I moved back to Missouri about 10 years ago and you know I worked as an engineer . My whole life I've been a technical guy , designing computer circuit boards , designing software . At one point I decided to branch off and see how the other half lives , so I traveled with the sales guys for a while , did the field sales tech sort of thing .

I did that for about 10 years actually and basically it was a globetrotter . I visited many different countries throughout Europe and as well as Asia , south Asia like India , australia , korea , etc .

So it gives me a lot of worldwide sort of globetrotting experience , learning how to deal with people in different countries and learning how America is actually perceived in these different countries Sort of an eye-opening experience for me .

But I had my head down interested in politics my whole life but I had my head down not really getting involved in it until I started doing my own podcast about 28, . I think it was 2019 when I started doing my own podcast .

I did about 200 episodes under two different titles and I got to talk to a lot of really interesting people out there and I was surprised how easy it was to get some fairly popular guests on the show . But it was a learning experience for me .

And then last year it was about one year ago now , that's a little bit more than a year ago I was calling the Democratic Party saying how come there's nobody running against a Republican in my district ? And they said well , how would you like to run ? So I did the Homer Simpson don't . I shouldn't have said that , but I ran anyways .

I had to clear it , you know , with my wife because she's , you know , going to be exposed to this as well . And we had fun with it . It was . It's difficult to push the Democratic perspective in a red state and that's why I don't necessarily consider myself to be a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat . I voted Republican before I voted for Reagan .

In both terms I'm showing my age right now . I voted independent on a number of terms and I still occasionally throw the switch for a Republican not necessarily for president , you know , on the local scene , like if a Republican is doing a better job or feels a better person , I'll throw the switch for them .

So I consider myself a progressive person , but also , when it comes to fiscal things , I consider myself conservative . So it's kind of a combination , I think a lot of people are talking about these days to be socially progressive

and fiscally conservative and you really don't fit into either party with that type of an attitude . But you fit better in the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party at this point , let's face it in Missouri they're kind of desperate for people to run so they sign up a guy like me . But I like what I see so far .

The Democratic Party has helped out quite a bit and they know where I'm coming from , they know what kind of attitudes I have and it's all over the internet what I do . I do TikTok and do a lot of writing and stuff . So they know who I am and where I'm coming from and let's see where it goes from here .

I don't care about partisan loyalty , I just think it just kills your IQ , at best by one third . Worst case scenario by probably two third . First case scenario by probably two-thirds . You know , I don't believe in partisan loyalty , that's . I'm proud to say that before I used to feel it keep up .

I've been an I ever since , so I was like , okay , yeah , yeah , I'm not comfortable voting for this . I have Republicans . What's wrong with you ? You have better candidates . I was looking up to you . I liked the Ron Pauls , but you drove them away . I don't know .

But in the book the Doom Loop he writes extensively about how politics existed like back in the 90s and people are confused because America only has two political parties .

And it's that way because of the way we do this first-past-the-polling type of voting , which is pretty archaic and antiquated , but regardless , the Republicans used to have their progressive wing and their conservative wing as well as the Democrats , so you essentially had kind of four different parties within Congress and that kind of kept things in balance .

Nowadays you're seeing a real stratification , a very vertical column .

If you look at the Republican Party , if someone wants to run as a Republican especially Republicans , to some degree Democrats , but more so with Republicans you have to buy into their philosophy , hook the top and they push it down their channels all the way down to the bottom and eventually out to the constituents .

And the way they're able to do that is they really control a lot of the media out there , especially like if you go into rural areas here , you tune in your radio . 90% of your talk shows are conservative and they're very religious as well . A lot of religious stations and Republicans have glommed on to that very , very well .

But what they've done is they've used it as a communication channel , a very vertically oriented communication channel . They pushed philosophy down that channel . Democrats , on the other hand , I think they try that . They fail at it miserably .

And so I think what they're doing now the word I get from Ken Martin who is the chairman of the DNC they're trying to do a bottom-up approach . They're saying okay , we realize that people in New York like your state . They have a different set of priorities .

Missouri has a different set of priorities , idaho has a different set California and so we can tolerate these differences . We can still make a party and tolerate these differences . There has to be some core ideas that tie you together , but they can tolerate the differences , and so I think that's a much more intelligent approach .

It's far more subtle , because messaging coming out in Missouri is not going to work in New York , it's not going to work in Idaho or California , but the core values are still there , and so I think that's the way to do it , and hopefully that'll be a way to go in the future .

So I don't mean to ramble too much , but I just thought to throw that out there , because politics is a lot different these days than it was a century ago , or even a half century ago .

If you will , I think that's one of the more core values for Democrats . That's why Democrats still have a lot of minority votes , even though Republicans have been creeping in on that Thanks to recent results . Will it last ?

All I'm going to say is this , and this is a hot take I think the MAGA base is very unique because once Trump is done , a lot of those folks are going to disappear , I think , because they're just for Trump , trump , trump , and that's the truth . I don't think the movement is sustainable . I could be wrong .

They fight for a while to try to figure out , okay , who's going to be the next leader , but they never can fill the shoes of that first person and everybody has that sense of perfection that that first person had , despite all the flaws . So , yeah , I think that the MAGA base will drift .

I don't think that , when it comes to voting , I don't think they're going to go anywhere besides the Republican Party . They'll still probably vote with the Republican Party . But yeah , the MAGA extremists , they found their man in Trump , and that's just been my observation . When he goes , the whole movement goes with him .

Don't , don't , don't drift , don't drift , don't drift too far away , at least not in front of their faces . Maybe behind the scenes you can , but not their faces , because they will boo you instantaneously . I almost laugh . I tried to be so immature . I'm not the biggest trump hater , but I'm also not the biggest supporter either .

Yeah , because I just try to be as fair as I can be . I support trump on certain things , uh , but but I don't , I don't see his first term . Trump has definitely been better so far . I'm going to be honest because it was more tamed and established . Republicans sabotaged him , I think , in some of the right places . That's good .

That's why I was like okay , well , I think the Republican establishment could kind of tame him , but this time that's not happening , because he made sure it was the most loyal , not based on confidence , based on pure loyalty . So that's a bit of a cult . You get rewarded for loyalty in that sense .

I mean I don't agree with the whole fascist um description that problem stayed away from . But cult I I agree with that more because I think that's way too drastic . If he starts killing millions of people of certain demographics , then I will say , yeah , he's the , he is second coming of hitler .

But he has not done that and I refuse to get down to that right . But cult I can settle with . I'm fine with that description because it is a cult , I agree with that . And he keeps saying fascist , fascist . I say stop , stop , that's too far , that's too far .

So you know the Germans from what I understand they , in their last election , hitler was voted in by like 30% of the vote or something like that , which is exactly what Trump got last time . He got 30% of the vote from qualified voters . Whole bunch of voters didn't vote . There's that element that , yeah , I agree .

You don't want to necessarily label it as fascist , but you do want to keep an eye on it . You know , because there are groups that are being targeted these days the LGBTQ community , especially here in Missouri .

They're being targeted to a huge degree and it's obnoxious when you think about it because you're such a small part of society they're like one percent , but they're an easy target .

And when that happens , when you start vilifying people for their , for their personal choices , their religious choices , sexual orientation , color of their skin , and Trump said well , the Mexicans are bringing over rapists , you know , and Lemon challenged him on a very , you know , he's so meek , it's unbelievable .

But he did challenge Trump on that one and Trump said well , someone's doing the raping . Well , you know , when you get that sort of rhetoric started , it gets a lot of people saying yeah , yeah , okay , yeah , and that builds on itself , that cascades into bigger things .

So , yeah , I would hesitate to call him a fascist at this point , because it does tend to be an overused term , but I'm keeping an eye on the guy because this is . I think it could go that way . So we have to be very careful .

That's ludicrous , that's insanity and I will never do that . I agree with being vigilant because cults is sadly a foundation for extremist radical movements that are destructive to society . I mean , generally speaking , I get that about the death and just , I guess a call is like to me . That's the perfect description right now . Um , at least to me .

I'm sure the trump support is gonna say , oh , look at these , look at these two , you know , infected with trump derangement syndrome I said no , I phrase , phrase trump when , when he's correct . I mean you could say that all you want . You know there's a comment section . Feel free to express that .

If you want , go ahead , I don't care , I'm , I'm 1a , you , to my sense of you , I won't . So just be . I haven't won rumble as well . If you feel a little safer , ironically , it's a safe space for 1A . The irony is rich . I've got Rumble , which will eventually be uploaded to there . But you comment there .

If you fear that YouTube is going to censor you Because I'm 1A , I am definitely pro-1A . We all should be pro-1A , except if it generates violence . And , of course , freedom of speech . Speech , not freedom of action . Hello , speech , speech . Speech is words , you know . Or it could be , you know , non-verbal communication . Yeah , it's , it's communication , not violence .

Um , and then you know . And then the 2a is more defensive gathering arms and all that . It's not going out there actively shooting people that you don't like .

If that was the case , america would see 6S as a nation . Let's be perfectly honest . She was just some happy trigger people .

I think it was Scalia that gave the majority comment on that and I think he twisted himself into a pretzel trying to explain that one away , because DC versus Heller if I'm not mistaken , that was the landmark case that basically said anybody can carry a gun , anybody can be considered militia even though you're not part of any militia , and then he proceeded to

ignore the very first few words of the Second Amendment a well-regulated militia . I've heard people say why don't we regulate firearms the way we regulate cars ? And I'm like that's cool Because when you think about it and this is a theoretical thing right here , but I go through this almost every day .

I live , you know , somewhat on the edge of a urban slash rural area I go down these country roads and I'm going like 60 miles an hour one direction , someone else is going 60 miles an hour the other direction and the only thing that separates us these two yellow lines in the road , you know and you think , at a closing speed of 120 miles an hour .

If you hit that guy you're both going to be dead , right , I mean so . But there's this implicit trust that I have . I don't even think about it half the time I'm driving down the road . I trust the other person knows what he's doing .

I trust that he's taking care of his vehicle to the point where his tire is not going to blow out or something else is going to happen . His car is going to jump over that double yellow stripe . Yeah , I keep an eye on him . You know I'm driving . I always keep an eye on it , just in case . But that's the sort of way I'd like to look at guns .

You know , because we said we live like on the edge of a rural area right here . Every November I wake up in the morning and the first thing I hear is gunshots . And it's because people behind the property here it's actually probably about , you know , maybe about a half mile or so they're hunting deer , right ? And so you know at first .

You know , when we first woke up in this place the first morning we woke up in November after moving in here , my wife's like oh , what's going on ? And there's people shooting out there . She's like firecrackers . Are those guns ? Those are guns . I can tell the difference between the two shots between a firecracker and a gun . She's like what's going on ?

It's another hunting deer . And she's like , well , this is kind of bad . I said well , I trust , I trust these guys know what they're doing . Not all of them know what they're doing . I'm sure that's what the government has to build itself on is trust , trust in its people .

Make sure that the rules and regulations are there so that we do have that yellow stripe going down the center of the road . We don't speak . We have cops out there to enforce it . But within those boundaries there's an awful lot of freedom and we should all agree that . You know there's certain regulations we adhere to . So that's sort of my argument against .

You know the DC versus Heller in the Second Amendment . And nobody I mean nobody wants a kid to get a gun and go to school and start shooting people , right ? So the question is , how do we stop that ? And I think regulations will help . It won't stop it . Ultimately People say , well , that's not going to stop everything .

If someone really wants to , they're going to . But it's like anything else in life the more difficult you make it , the less people are actually going to go through it to do it .

I'm left and I'm going to say it again health care I want the progressives to actually win on that issue . I'm actually rooting for them , as this is coming from a moderate independent . As I said , yes , we need a new idea .

Okay , I know this is a little random , but we need radical change because this private sector , employer-based health care system it's… it's a disaster .

Let's just compare the United States to every other industrial nation out there . We pay , on the average , $12,000 per person per year for health care . Now where does that money come from ? It comes from us , you know . Eventually it comes from us . We're the ones paying for it . We do it through insurance .

We do it every time we go to see the doctor and we have to pay the copay . Your kid breaks his arm . You know life happens like that . Right , you get cancer or something like that . You're going to need , like you know , maybe $100,000 worth of treatment to get you back on your feet again .

You know this is the way America goes , and we're fighting two problems here . One is medical procedures themselves are increasingly expensive and I'm not really sure how to get my arms around that , why that is , but I suspect a lot of it has to do with liability insurance . But the other part is the insurance companies .

If we're paying that much for a healthcare and if you think about how much healthcare do you need , I don't know about you , but for me over the past year I just probably taken maybe two or three thousand dollars worth . I had a case of bursitis in my shoulder and an usual checkup , so that's a maximum three thousand dollars . So there's that .

There's another nine thousand dollars that essentially , in a way , I'm paying for being a citizen . Other countries in the world are down to like at least six thousand dollars , like Canada is down to six . That's half of that , and they have what people will call socialized medicine . Well , it really isn't socialized medicine .

What it really is is it's it's , um , the hospitals and the doctors , they all work for themselves . They have their own , their , their own centers where they work . It's a single payer system for the government . You know , through tax money or whatever , pay single payer , but now they're paying $6,000 per person rather than $12,000 .

So right away , you're saving $6,000 . That's a conservative argument for me . You're saving money , saving a lot of money , and these multi-millionaire insurance executives are not buying their boats every summer . Look at how much these guys get paid , how much money they're sucking out from your healthcare . You know another criticism about Canada .

I've heard this a lot and they say well , you have to wait forever to get a procedure done . And that's true for things like what they call optional procedures . So let's say you have your meniscus is torn or something like that , okay , they're going to put you in the queue and you're going to probably wait about five or six months .

So you're limping for five or six months . You've got to bandage up your knee . If it becomes really , really bad , they'll get you in right away . But if you have something like a heart attack or something that needs attention right away , you get cancer or something . They're right on top of it . And that's not different from America too .

It's just you're going to pay a whole lot more for it . So in America you wait also for optional sort of procedures as well . So I think we're essentially getting . We're not getting any more quality than and I'm just picking on Canada right now but we're not getting any more quality from our healthcare than Canada is , but we're paying twice as much for it .

She said , no , no , no , I'm going to find you the right doctor . And she called around and found a really good guy , was able to get me in at a pretty reasonable amount of time , like within like two weeks , and did an excellent job . So you know . But I've heard horror stories about other doctors . Yeah , it's just , it's random luck .

I think you're going to get that , whether you're in Canada or UK or the Netherlands or whatever .

And if and this is a feel free to correct me here because it went out of a limb if they allow , you know , tourists , even foreigners , just to use their hospital , which I know europe , such like uk , I know they allow that for sure , because I've talked to people who've traveled that I want to travel some points and broaden my horizons even more and I just

think , man , america , I mean we could do so much better . But I just think , like you said , you already said it's a insurance company , these middle people just sucking so much money . It's a to the freaking top right . I think that's what . That's the big issue compared to a lot of these other .

I mean not just issue , but that's the biggest differentiator compared to all these other developed nations .

They have more of a government run , single payer , public run healthcare system , as opposed to having corporations and insurance be involved and just grabbing money and finding exploitations to suck the most money without providing much effort , maximize extraction of profit .

They've actually done a pretty good job there when you think about it , and the amount of money that they take out somewhere like around 2% , versus your insurance companies are taking up to 25% . So that's , I mean , that's just on the surface . Well , maybe the companies are corrupt , but they're taking your money anyways .

They're doing it in plain sight and the sad thing is it comes right down to it . I don't know what it's like up in New York , but in Missouri , here we have some rural areas that are basically hospital deserts . We have rural hospitals and health clinics that are closing at a fairly rapid rate , and where do these people go ?

And I don't know if you've ever been on a farm . I never spent much time on a farm myself but one thing I know about farming it is freaking dangerous . It's dangerous work . It's like you know you're sitting on a , you know a combine harvester or something like that You're out in the field hacking away at something or whatever .

I mean , these guys are always working and they're working with big machines the whole time and accidents happen .

And when they happen , if your closest clinic is , you know , the next city over , which could be like 150 miles away , or if you have a heart attack , I mean maybe not where you just get a heart attack or something you're probably not going to make it and I don't you know . Running for the state legislature in Missouri .

I'm not really sure at this point how to address that . I'm not sure if building health clinics is the right idea at this point , but having perhaps a rapid transportation system Medivac or something like that that's affordable they don't charge you $10,000 for a helicopter ride or something like that .

I'd like to see something like that put in place in the interim until we can resolve this situation once and for all . Upstate New York you guys have a lot of rural areas up there too . It's the same sort of story up there .

But now you know , I to go back to the pandemic pandemic exposed or re , or you know , or what's the word I'm looking for

, or what's the word I'm looking for . It made us pay attention to the issues . It just not even magnify , because magnify is not right . It just brought it back to the forefront about what kind of problems we have because we've been pushing it aside .

Pushing it aside , pushing it aside and the pandemic was a great example that exposes our inadequacies and our inefficiencies and our lack of capability . So that's a lesson that I think people should remember all the pandemics over with no , no , no , we're gonna have , we're gonna do that , we're gonna go back to the same stupidity .

We need to be better from it , not going back to the same nonsense , and I see that that's happening . So I probably discussed it . Um , they should be building more hospitals , um , in general , um , and too , which I like that you pointed out , have those .

I think transportation I like that should be kind of first and then maybe build , like small , more clinics . I'm not sure it's possible to do both at the same time . It would be ideal , to be honest .

These are interim solutions , of course , but , yeah , I don't know if they're the best solutions , but I certainly want to open up the dialogue and start talking about it , because if we don't talk about it it's going to be bad . Now you also brought up the pandemic , and boy oh boy , that exposed so many systemic problems in our nation .

One of them is , you know , going back to my engineering days .

I used to work for military contractors and we would have to build , you know everything , every component that we purchased , every component that went into used to work , like on , on flight systems , aviation systems , and every little component like capacitor or resistor , whatever you threw into this , into this design , had to be sourced in the united states and had

to have a second source in the united states , and it was a pain in the you know what to go through all this stuff . As an engineer , I just want to design stuff right and you end up doing all this paperwork . But you know , with the pandemic , what that exposed was .

We dropped that requirement , not only somewhat in military , but also especially in consumer electronics , for cars and other you know , even just regular computers and cell phones and so on . The politicians sort of looked the other way and they let every integrated chip not every , but a majority being manufactured by TSMC , which is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing .

And now we're seeing , oh , china may be attacking Taiwan or something , or maybe influencing or putting Taiwan under some sort of a bubble or something . This is a real big issue and I have to ask you how did the politicians allow this to happen ? We go back to medicine , to hospitals .

A lot of our medicines , the base elements for our medicines , are manufactured guess where Two different countries , china and India , and we have very tenuous relationships with China right now . Trump keeps poking a stick at them , and so they're taking all their business , their culture business and so on , and pushing it to different nations .

But what people aren't talking about is some of the base chemicals to make some of the things , like insulin , for example , comes from China , comes from India , and our relationship with India is not all that hot at the moment either .

These are big issues and if you look at it from a pure capitalistic perspective , they say well , we're saving money by doing this . Why ? You know what government's going to tell us to stop saving money . We're saving money by outsourcing all this stuff , but nobody's looking at the vulnerability of all of it .

So when the pandemic hits , we got issues with medicine , we got issues with components for cars I mean , you know the whole thing . It just blew up everything . The supply lines just shut down , and this is a big issue .

And again , I don't blame capitalism , I don't blame the guys working at these companies trying to optimize their costs , but I do blame the politicians . I say you guys are supposed to be keeping an eye on this stuff and making sure that these kind of things don't happen .

And I don't know why I suspect a lot of it had to do with lobbyist dollars and so on that just turned their backs on it and allowed this to happen . And so you know , when COVID hit , it was , it was , it was nutty , it was just crazy .

That's all I'm going to say about that Before I go on this long monologue , because I don't want that to be what gives you confidence to run for 2026 again for that same office .

We talk quite a bit actually we don't give away secrets or anything like that , but we do get to know each other , and so I think it's going to be more of an even playing field this next time around . Missouri has done a couple things over this past year , this past legislative session , that has been notoriously , notoriously unpopular .

It was driven all by the Republicans . Missouri was the first state to make abortion illegal . Within hours of the reversal of Roe v Wade , there was a trigger law in Missouri which made abortion illegal immediately . So Missouri is also a state that has the initiative petition . So people went out and got a bunch of signatures and they made abortion legal .

It was a long story there , but it came up on the November ballot . Last November People voted for it and made abortion legal . They wrote it right into the Missouri Constitution . Well , guess what happens ? Republicans are trying to back this thing out . They wrote a counter bill . Now the thing is Republicans can't change .

I mean legislators should say legislators cannot change the Constitution directly . I don't think any state legislature can . They have to go through the people . But the legislature can create ballot issues that will change a Constitution . So they created their own ballot issue and they put all kinds of wording in it that made it extremely misleading .

And then they passed another law that allows them to make the wording misleading . So it's going to appear on the ballot again . And the final kicker was the Missouri Supreme Court for some crazy reason , made abortion illegal again . They said well , we got all these rules , all these laws in the books that were from the era when abortion was illegal .

You guys haven't removed those laws from the books yet . So abortion will remain illegal and we can enforce it . This just happened a couple of weeks ago . People aren't talking about that , but the people that are paying attention are extremely mad , even Republicans extremely angry at this point .

Republicans , again , we voted for a statutory vote last time around , which would have raised the minimum wage and also allow for what we call earned sick leave For every 30 hours you work , you get one hour of sick leave , etc . And we would also raise the minimum wage with the inflation every year .

The Republicans took about three months to back that whole thing out because it was a statutory change , again driven by the people using an initiative petition made a statutory change , in other words , a change in the law , not in the Constitution .

Three months later , the Republicans backed it all out , except for one thing they let it go up to , I think , the minimum wage , let it crawl up to like $15 an hour , but they removed the earned sick leave . They removed tacking the minimum wage to the inflation rate . So they've done some other things like this and people are just furious .

Even Republicans are furious about this and Missouri always votes . When they vote on issues , they always vote progressive . So they voted for a couple of progressive issues and the Republicans wiped it all out . So that is kind of a long-winded explanation , but I think that would give me an advantage next time around .

People vote with what they're familiar with 80% of the time . We need to change that . That's our responsibility as voters . Okay , you left , right , center or up in the sky ? Okay , yeah , just just look at the candidates and , if you don't know , go to trusted news sources like ground news 1440 , even brute america .

Those are some good sources that that are sound milk , even the new paper which I'm going to put in , like right now , short , straight to the point , because I'm always saying it's busy , I , you know I don't have time . Well , I got a solution for you the motion is five minutes and that's if you want to look through the whole thing .

But if you just came by , politics , 30 seconds for a minute , top , yeah , okay , or or or stock another 30 seconds to . So that's what I'm going to say . I know we don't do shameless , plug in prematurely , but I think those ways to combat that , and , and so I'm relying on mainstream media .

I don't care , it's left , right , left leaning , right leaning to make the decisions for you because they get a , they got their own agenda and we should go what's right for you . If you want more benefits , you know what party to vote for there . If you want more religious liberties , you know what party to vote for .

Just go by issues that you care about and just stick to that , and hopefully the candidate doesn't have too many skeletons in their closet . Easier said than done these days , I'll say that much .

We can go about our lives and not have to worry too much about it , and we pretty much make up our mind , like a couple of days before we vote , or even right there at the voting booth , we just look at the issues and we just vote on them . So that's , I think it's one of the mistakes Democrats have made . We talked about this earlier .

They assume every voter is high information . Republicans are . Again . They have the messaging machine that assumes people don't know that much about politics . So they make it , they make they tell stories , they make it interesting . Yeah , obviously the stories are slanted toward them , but they get these buzzwords out there

, you know , like little Marco or something like that , just a little buzzwords out there , that that really make America great . Again , I mean you couldn't come up with a better phrase . It doesn't make any sense when you think about it , but boy , it sure resonates with a lot of people out there . I'll just say the .

You touched on that and I perfectly guess I was nodding almost passionately . Yes , yes , almost passionately . Say yes , yes , you see , this is . See , I'm talking to a progressive here and he has not . You know , he might say a few things , but it's okay , I'm not expecting , I'm not expecting unbiased person here , let's be real .

But he's not spreading misinformation on as well , and I could tell the difference . Can you tell the difference ? I want to see how informed you are . If you're brave enough , put in the comment section what part they think he's slanted on , whatever . Uh , look , if you call us both stupid and your mama's fat , anything like that . I'm getting work .

Um , I'm not gonna bring to attention . I was gonna say the haters have spoken , that's the most . I'm gonna mention the haters , or or the trolls , whatever label I'm gonna give you . But you're , you're not helping . Now I'll just laugh because I've been called a bunch of names . I've been called even though I work , which I laugh .

I obviously even right there in life . I was just laughing because I said you're a coward , you're miserable , apparently , and you're not going to face me . You feel that way , you feel like crap . You're not going to project that to me . Okay , and definitely not to this guest here . Okay , and definitely not to this guest here .

I'm sure he got wisdom that you could share with you . You know , I don't care if you don't like his politics to me as a secondary . I just care about the person's character , what they have , what value they have to share . I care more about the ideas , all that , all that good stuff . So now we already talked about the cult , extremism and all that .

I should tie this question earlier . But hey ben , like the number , how can regular , ordinary people fight against extremism ? Local and state governments ?

There's something in there and it takes a lot of reflection , I think , sometimes to understand , sometimes when someone's being extremist and extremism is extremely it's kind of a poor choice of words , but it's extremely seductive in many ways , because it gives you the simple answer You're suffering from your personal finances , you're suffering because there's another guy

with dark skin that's taking your job , you're not getting health care , but there's these other people over there that are jumping across the border and getting free health care . It's all a lie , I can prove it .

It's all a lie , but those are the simple answers , and so when people start sharing these types of messages , your radar should go up , and I think that's the best way to fight extremism on either end .

Right , we're seeing it now more on the right than on the left , but extremism on either end is very seductive , gives you the simple answer , and if you're alive for more than like a year , you know that nothing is simple . Everything's got a story behind it , so don't accept the simple answers Exactly .

Make fun of me , yeah , torture me for three hours , you're . You're gonna get viral clips . I guarantee it .

It's almost felt for the extreme left , even the extreme right , talking points and so forth . Wait a minute , I think . Wait , that's not true . Once I look it up . You debunk so many points you know . Go to someone you trust . Go to a fair article and do the research yourself , if you can I know some of you don't have time .

Go to someone who's very knowledgeable on a certain issue like abortion . Talk to someone who has done abortions or a lawyer who knows the laws around that . You know . You got to be your own advocate because , to be honest , everyone got their own interests . Let's just . Let's just be clear about that , I mean that's .

You know , not not all the time , but I still read their stuff . I just want to know what they're thinking , you know , and consider some of the ideas they put out there . I give you another example too , which I don't mean to ramble too much , but we're talking about the pandemic .

Earlier , when it first came out , when COVID first came out , they said , oh , this comes from the Wuhan wet market . You know , I'm like it sounds reasonable because I've read articles before where these markets that bring in these animals from the fringes of the forest or whatever , bringing in unknown viruses . So that resonated with me at first .

Then I found out there was , like this big virology research lab in Wuhan as well .

And then right around that time , this so-called conspiracy theory comes out and says , yeah , we think it was this lab , right , and of course all the people say no , no , it couldn't have come from the lab and I'm like no , sometimes conspiracy theories actually come true and sometimes they actually make sense .

So I you know that those kinds of things can happen too , but it all comes down to researching and , like you say , you don't have to be an expert at it , but get out , get out of your shell , get out of these social media channels and talk to some real people .

I said , leave me alone , man , I'm a teenager , I'm just trying to have fun . I don't care about pollution all day . The earth would clean itself yeah no , after I look into it , I shift further to the left when it comes to environmentalism .

I mean I don't agree every single policy , but generally I'll say I mean like center left when it comes to environmentalism . I mean I don't agree with every single policy , but generally I'll say I lean like center left when it comes to environmentalism . We do need clear energy . We definitely need to take care of Earth much better .

I mean , to me that's good enough . I don't need all these political wording and political correctness . That part that's why I consider myself in the center is I don't need all these buzzwords from the left . I put that away Care for Earth , clean energy , speaking of practical , you know speaking practical .

See that you had a , you know universal self-care in a more conservative case . For I mean , if you could make it either plainer than that so there's a left-wing , right-wing flare to it I think more people could be convinced . So just using these buzzwords , because it throws people off it , it definitely throws me off .

I said , okay , this is a politician , what , what the heck do you want ? So messaging is important . That's why I'm saying and that's what I'm going to say . So I want to give you a quick statistics before I wrap , before I ask for anything else , it's probably a gutsy question about the Missouri , you know by the Missouri government .

Ok , and just like any other state government , they have their lower chamber and upper chamber . As of now , they have what ? 24 Republicans in the Senate and 10 Democrats .

There there's 163 seats altogether . Republicans got 110 dems with 52 . There's one vacant yeah , so they almost got three quarters right there at house representatives yeah , so it's , it's a red state , but I do see that they their super majority influence is slowly chipping away , slowly chipping away .

Especially , they keep being radical and keep pushing unpopular policies . An extreme , and it's too restrictive . I mean , you're either too free or too restrictive . I think they don't trust the nuances as well as the democrats . That part I always give the democrats . They're more detail-oriented when it comes to policies .

That's why sometimes I'm gonna side with democrats on some of the issues . I mean there's some issues I mean when it comes to . You said you're a fiscal conservative . That part I always agree with republicans in general , even though they're not practicing that right now .

Look like they try to pass a big , beautiful bill , right so , and that's gonna drive up the debt for another four trillions of all fiscal conservatives out the window for the thousandth time . For the republicans , right ? Yeah , so I'm . That means I'm on right wing than a republican politician comes to that issue as well .

I haven't to reduce the web dole just for nothing . I want to eat almost lost his cool right there and start attacking trump . I don don't like both of them , but I understand why . Before I wrap this up , you know something popped up . You talked about the protests .

I'll just get your take on that for someone who actually lived in California Before I address that . I know some of you haters are going to think that California brainwashed him or something like that . That's okay . I'm sure he's heard to think that California brainwashed him or something like that . You know that's OK . I'm sure he's heard it a thousand times .

Yeah , but go ahead .

And one way to get your head around it is if you're flying to Los Angeles at night , you come out of the clouds and there's nothing but this huge carpet of lights as far as you can see , going to horizon , to horizon , and I remember when I first moved out there I had that experience . It is huge and the city is not built like New York City .

Los Angeles has a fairly small downtown area where you have these high rise buildings . They tend to spread out because they have the real estate available . May have to do with earthquakes and stuff like that .

So when they talk about , you know , the , the , the protests , and they gave the location of the protests I'm not highly familiar with downtown LA area fire or something like that you're going to get , like you know , 20 cameras surrounding it , looking at it and saying , oh , this is LA . It doesn't help when Trump says things like LA is on fire .

Larger situation that was actually a riot . This is really a kind of a protest . The riots were actually much more widespread , but even then it was containable . So I just kind of laugh when people talk about Los Angeles and talk about how the protests are out of hand . All you got to do is pull up TikTok or something like that , get some live video .

Most of people are just standing around holding signs and chanting and things like that . So it's just completely overblown . So I think when you call in like 4,000 military personnel at the patrol streets , there's going to be more military people there than there are going to be protesters . It's overblown .

But I think it's purposely overblown , not only by the media but I think by certain politicians that want it to be overblown . Another thing I know about LA and it's probably , I'm sure , the same thing is with New York as well they don't tolerate outsiders very well . If you come in from the outside .

You got to show a little bit of respect , as I was when I first arrived there , but I guess I'm talking about more , about agitators that come in and try to grab people off the streets . I've seen it happen in New Jersey . I've seen it happen in New York and Minneapolis .

Nothing gets people going quicker than that , and you don't even care who the guy is that's being snatched off the street . You're going to get your ass out there and you're going to try to stand in the way and gum up the works as much as possible . That's just common sense . That's just being good citizens of our communities , and so

I'm very proud . I'm very proud of LA , what they've done . I'm very proud of the way they've handled it . I'm very proud to see Gavin Newsom . I'm not a big fan of his , but I think he had some very good things to say over the last few days and it makes me proud to be like I say . I consider myself a native of both states .

My son was born out there , raised him out there , and he still lives out there . I still have some flesh and blood out there .

And what people don't realize is you can focus in on places like West Hollywood or even just regular Hollywood and you think this is all a bunch of kooks out there . But really when I moved out there in the 80s , the big industry out there was national defense and so you got a lot of conservatives out there . I lived in one of the outlying areas .

I lived out in Ventura County for many years . They're just normal hardworking people out there . There's nothing foofy about them at all . You get a small crowd of people but they get all the attention . Most of them out there are just hardworking Americans and they just want what everybody else wants .

They're not gonna get the coverage . That's boring . Who cares ? That's the media . That's the media's perspective . It's always going to be the case . Unless you get more , I'll say , informative , gutsy citizen journalists , if you will . That gives you more of a broader perspective . They're also going to show the .

You know the civilized people who's protesting responsibly , right ? I hate to say that . You know , of course , civilized people who's protesting responsibly , right ? I hate to say that . You know , of course I'm against the violence , you know . But but we do have to fight the protests .

I mean , yeah , I was going to address grievances in the collective and , I would say , pretty effective matter sometimes . So , yeah , Well , I mean , no , that's part of one . Hey , that's part of 1A . No 1A right there , yeah .

It was the LA protests and he was standing on like a slight berm , looking down at this parking lot and there's all these National Guard people down there and he was talking to them saying you know , you guys , you're on the wrong side of history , he says . But you know , we know we respect you guys , we totally respect you guys .

We know you're here to do a job . You know , we know you don't have a choice , but we also asking you to make a moral decision here . These are , these are your people you're talking with . You're looking at us . You've got the weapons . You're looking at ordinary citizens here who just want what's best for their nation in their community .

And I thought there was a really , when he went on for like five minutes or so , another , wow , this guy , you know , it was all impromptu on his side , it was all very contemporaneous and he just , he just said it and it was like man , that's like the culmination of the protests out there .

That that's the part that doesn't get on the tv cameras and I don't want ratings , you're boring .

That's common sense , that's rational and all that good stuff .

I don't know where they get the L from , but danformocom , and you go to that site there and then from there you can kind of branch out to the other side to have Facebook page , have a page where I publish all my writings I mean just TikTok page and things like that . So I got all the branch outs from there . But yeah , just go to danformocom .

There's a ton of information there . All my writing , a lot of my writings are there . So you get an idea of who I am . It's not your typical political website where they just have like one page and they put the bullet points in there and that's it , because maybe they don't want you to know more about it . I want people to know a lot about me .

I want people to know what they're voting for . I want them to have too much information rather than not enough . So , danformocom , and yeah , just go from there .

You know that's how 2026 comes . They can flip that seat . Blue . That's what we're hoping for . The incumbent is gone because he's running for the , the senate position , okay , so I think , yeah , I think you have a fair shot . I actually would agree as a fair-minded person .

Yep , I think I think you have a shot , so come on if you're skeptical before I get it . Yeah , it was super ready . Incumbent , fine , fine , yeah . But I think the time , the time is now , you know , and so she , when the next year comes , could be pretty exciting political time for Missouri .

Of course , all the House representatives in the national level and one third of the Senate and I give you know , I already gave my prediction there I think the Republicans could keep the Senate , but I think the House of Representatives could go to Democrats . That's my prediction , my general prediction .

Okay , you got a shot , and stop with the stop with the niche stuff , because niche stuff's not gonna help . You have messaging that could gather a lot of people . Okay , I'll say you deal with the niche stuff once you're in office , but with campaigning you gotta gather as much people as possible .

That's all that's my advice to the democrats that you know , generally speaking , ain't more americans you could gather , the better . All right , and I included the red states . So that's what I'm going to say about that one more thing is uh , go ahead .

That's how it works .

Or if I'm wrong , just correct me , because I don't care about my ego , right ? I mean , if I did forget , I'll do my own monologue podcast and just talk about whatever the heck I want to talk about and think all you people are just peons and all that . So , no , this , you know , I'm willing to learn , I'm willing to . You know , fight misinformation .

That means put my ego aside if you really want to be authentic and true about finding misinformation , so just say oh , no , I support

this because it supports my narrative . No , no , no , confirmation bias . That means you also . That's another source of misinformation , you know . I , for example let me just use some there you know , I just think all progressives are wacky . They burn garbage cans , they burn hospitals , and once I see that news coverage , aha .

Apple Podcasts , those reviews , I'm paying attention to , even the ones that are unreasonably too good , too positive . I like the ones that tells me why it's great , something more specific or tell me where I can improve . I like specifics . I like specifics . If it's a positive , negative , I don't really care about that as much . I like specifics , graphics .

And you know , if you think , four stars , four stars , five stars , five stars . If it's , you know , I'm happy to have that one star that that person never said anything , so it's a shadow hater . There you go . That means I'm a real podcast . Yay , a little more authenticity . I don't need perfection . I hate perfection .

If I have a five star , I think I'm phonies If I have a 4.4 , 4.4 , 4.5 rating than a 5 , because 5 is just inauthentic . I think they're going to think I pay a bunch of people . Oh , give me five stars , give me five stars . No , no , no .

So I have that messy review system , I suppose , having a perfect , clean review and then you know , share this with someone that you love , and that's all I can say from there . Oh , and donate if you want . That's completely optional and you have access to the more older stuff .

All right , for the first 140 episodes , and I'll start putting some exclusive stuff sometime in the future . I'm trying to figure out what . Maybe the visualization of the action Bible . I think visuals help instead of all that description that confuses people . I'd rather you believe in God or not , that's up to you . I'm not saying religious , I'm a spiritualist .

That's about a spiritualist . Religious is the space for the fakers . I'm a spiritualist , I'm walking that path and all that good stuff . And I will show some visuals about that book , the Action Bible . It's Bible in the comic book form . Yeah , more interesting instead of just a bunch of words that are confusing and all and all that .

And I get that , I get that I . I found the bible confusing to you when I studied it . So I think the visuals will help you out a bit . And , yeah , I'll do some of that from there , who knows ? And if you think I'm being too capitalistic or whatever . Just call me out probably , probably back down . I'll probably back down , who knows ?

Look , you have have influence here . It's not a rigged system Well , actually it kind of is , because sometimes I break people that you don't like because I think that's something valuable . I'll do some executive decisions , but mostly , no , you have influence people .

Just communicate with me and I'll be willing to work with you , all right , all right , this audio and visual journey has been completed . So whenever you're done listening or watching this podcast , you have a blessed day , afternoon or night . Thanks , elias .