Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Veterans Organizing: Building a Political Caucus That Works
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Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face. This is the Pikes Beaks Region's political podcast from a veteran's point of view. Joining me this morning is Dick Wilkinson. How are you doing, Martin?
Speaker 2:Doing great, adam, good morning.
Speaker 1:And my name is Adam Gillard. I am your co-host here Tonight. We actually got a pretty fun episode to start off with here. We're going to talk about some pretty cool things that are happening at the state level. We're going to talk about some pretty cool things that are happening at the state level that Dick's got some experience other places but some folks up there in Denver have been working on and kind of brought us in on. So we are establishing a Democratic Veterans Committee or caucus. I'm not sure what the verbiage is that the state wants, because it's a bylaws thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But what it's going to do is it's going to take veterans' issues and put brainpower like vets' brainpower behind it and start to really sort through and focus on where we want to put our weight as veterans and as different, you know, organizations with the state level, federal level, really everywhere that you know vets can be affected, whatever reach we can have.
Speaker 1:Right, uh, really, everywhere that that you know that's going to be affected, right, and in this area where you know 15% are vets and then a higher percentage of you know spouses and dependents and things like that, in this area it could have a huge impact on us. Um, you set something up, this like like this, down in New Mexico. Uh, tell us a little bit about, like that process and some of your, the successes and the wins that New Mexico got out of this.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, I was part of a team of people that were reinvigorating the caucus, had been on the books and had been part of the bylaws and the party down in New Mexico for a few years, but the leader changed out and there was a little bit of a dead period there. Um. Afterwards a new person came on um. She was a retired uh Navy um captain and so she took you know, had great gusto and recruited a great team and put together a lot of uh structure. I think uh ran the meetings with you know at. They were official meetings of the party, so we had, you know, robert's rules in place and everything to like make motions, to take action and things like that, and so that kind of structure right up front with a good group of people. It included active sitting state legislators and then folks from the community like myself, and we all work together to have two or three areas of focus.
Speaker 2:But where I got involved was the legislative focus, and what we did was New Mexico has just a short session and they only have a session once a year and it's usually either 30 days or 60 days. That's it. That's all the legislative time that happens down there. So it gives the volunteers time to get prepared. So whenever the legislators would drop their potential bills like late in the calendar year, we would comb through all of that and decide which ones affected veterans or their families, active duty or, you know, retiree, whatever and then we would select some, elevate them and get to work.
Speaker 2:And it's basically an internal lobbying campaign. Right, you're going around and communicating with not only the veteran legislators, but they become those internal champions to talk to their counterparts so that they can recruit the support that they need to get a bill passed. And then we would stick with it and watch it throughout the process through the committees and into the final floor vote, and we would send in volunteers to communicate on behalf of the veteran community and say, hey, this is why this change would affect me, my family, this is what I would have experienced on active duty if this had been better. And and that was it, you know, we would sell it with those kinds of personal stories and that's where I that's what I did is I would get volunteered into certain bills that I said, hey, I have a relevant talking point for that and I would communicate at the roundhouse, you know, give that testimony while committees were open and um that you know it got things done, so absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy how much power just being a vet, like you walk into a place.
Speaker 2:They took it seriously.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they, they listen. Um, you know I have meetings down here, even at uh in Jeff Crank's office. When I go down and talk to his representatives we have pretty good conversations, but they, you know, it's usually around veteran issues and things like that, because they care and they want to help veterans too. So just having that tag and the real life experience to go along with it. You know you talk about the lobbyist industry. They're getting paid to do things. Sure, you know these volunteers. They're lobbying with their own their own blood, sweat and tears. You know they've already paid the price for a lot of these things.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's powerful to get those firsthand experiences in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so every year we'd manage to get three, two, three, four different veterans-focused bills passed. That I honestly believe. If we weren't doing that type of effort, it would have been much harder. It might have taken several years to get things over the line, squeak and wheel gets through grease.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know like, these are one of the things. If you're not making noise, there's other things that they can focus on just as easily and just as like qualified too. You know, there's always things that they can be putting money towards and looking at. Yeah, if you're not saying like, hey, no, give us some attention over here, they're not going to just give it to you, it's not going to happen. Yeah, they're not going to give it to you.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so you know we covered down on the like. Every state has a retiree home that's run by the federal government for folks that are veterans, that don't have family members who care for them at the end of life, right, and the one in New Mexico is stationed out in Truth or Consequences. It's far out in the middle of nowhere, really.
Speaker 1:I love that city just because it named itself after a game show, just so the game show would go there, or something like that. Yeah, they won a contest by naming themselves.
Speaker 2:So that's where the old folks home for veterans is at. It's a pretty cool area too. It's a population that's vulnerable, obviously, and they don't have family members to take care of them. So, they're even extra vulnerable.
Speaker 1:It's very isolated down there. It's very isolated.
Speaker 2:It's very isolated and so we would go down for visits and just kind of look around. And then I know that that turned into basically a campaign to improve the services and consider, you know better, you know, potentially relocating to a larger place, but that one I'm sure still underway and I don't know if it'll ever happen, you know. But uh, it was something that we, we realized hey, these folks are probably need a little bit of support. Uh, and especially during the pandemic, there was serious concerns about the safety situation there. So we went down and did some unannounced visits to see how the facility would know facility would respond, things like that.
Speaker 1:Not in a just a little audit, not in a probing way.
Speaker 2:I mean not in like an offensive way. I should say we were probing, but not in an aggressive way, you know. But you don't get the truth when it's a scheduled visit and you know and they. They dust everything and put the flowers out, and everybody's sitting in their chairs and the TV's on.
Speaker 1:You know, with the generals, I know, like they haven't seen a piece of trash in years because their trash can is immediately emptied. Everybody empties trash cans for them, one or two in New Mexico.
Speaker 2:I think there was two in New Mexico when we first got started. There's like 13 judicial districts down there and there was two districts that had a veterans court and we said, hey, this is a resource that if the local judge we can find one in the different districts can support it, then you know, let's not focus too much on population density. And you know, let's not focus too much on population density, let's focus on is there any cases in this district any given year where a veteran could have qualified for this type of court? And if there's any at all, like, let's try and open up that pipeline. And that worked like gangbusters, that within weeks we had judges that were like, yeah, we'll take it on. And I think you know, basically simultaneously we had three different districts stand up veterans courts all within, you know, a few months of each other. That's amazing. Yeah, so those are the kind of impacts that a group like this can have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of times, when you know, I think about veterans and like how we get taken care of, I always focus on the federal level, like what can really be done at the state level that can make a big impact for, or like what does the state level have an impact on for us?
Speaker 2:So we named our group the Veterans and Military Families Caucus, because we wanted to make it clear that we were also supporting legislation that was in focus on the family members for children, spouses, and not just the conditions for the service member. One of the things that I was attached to was the purple star schools. Um, there, uh, it's a way that the DOD promotes a culture that supports children that are coming into the school, that are military population and a lot of the staff are going to be veterans and stuff. You are in a more maybe a rural place out in like Eastern New Mexico and, uh, it's a way for that school to basically gain resources for the school, counselors and teachers to integrate those kids, uh, help support them with counseling or whatever they need, and be ready for them, you know, knowing that they're going to roll out, so supporting them in that process as well, and so getting those schools to register as Purple Star schools. We made a legislation where it was like the state supported it and made it easier for them to do that, so that schools could quickly register and get that DOD support, and the state had to put a policy in place for the schools to do that, and so we got that done.
Speaker 2:One thing that happens in a lot of different states and I know other veterans groups work on this license reciprocation. If you're a medical professional in one state and you're, let's say, an x-ray technician, and you've got certifications in Ohio, right, and you want to move to New Mexico, those certifications and those licenses may not transfer Right. So we put in you know, grace period where different professions and it it was up to kind of there's different groups that can weigh in on that but different professions and the licensing bodies that coordinated them We'd say, hey, either you have like a one or two year grace period when you arrive and within that time we expect you to get locally licensed, or, depending on the profession, we'll just reciprocate from wherever you're at and you don't have to get licensed here because they use the same test or something like that. So those kind of things where somebody doesn't have to suspend their career, they can start looking for work before they arrive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, teaching certificates are a big into that. Yeah, because a lot of spouses you know they are teachers so they bounce around with the military member and yeah, that's something that you think would travel with you easily. But once you cross lines, those imaginary lines, you know all of a sudden you're not a teacher anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and there's a ton of professions that have that concern. So you know that's one thing. That was an incremental process over years that had started before we picked up the torch right. But those are some examples of legislation. And then taxes. Of course. You know there's always a way to restructure the tax system for veterans if they're disabled or you know, property tax changes, things like that, and so that's a perpetual process of like, what can we do to support veterans? One of the things there people say oh, you're giving up tax money for what reason? The turnaround effect of that is, if you make your state more desirable for veterans and retirees to live there and bring their families there and bring generations of people there, then you get an economic impact that outweighs the property tax impact right by orders of magnitude, usually right Because they're bringing their retiree money and probably another paycheck plus their spouse and then their kids go to college there, stuff like that. So it's very beneficial to the state to be incentivized to bring retirees and veterans into the community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one thing I always talk to our elected officials about is getting rid of the state tax for military members here, like active duty military members. Because the sooner that we get them involved in our communities, because when your ballot doesn't have local elections on it, you don't care. Yeah, you know. So the sooner that we can get them involved in our communities and our elections, the better off everybody's going to be. But there's no incentive for them to change to here, so I always bring that up so and.
Speaker 1:I hope that's something that this veterans caucus that we're talking about up in Denver can focus on and put some weight behind, because I think that would have a huge benefit for us.
Speaker 2:Well, how many people did you know in the military that would switch their home of record to Florida or Texas or whatever Arizona there's?
Speaker 2:like five six, seven states that don't tax active duty pay, don't tax retirement pay and all sorts of stuff, or no state tax at all, and so people, as soon as they land there, they're like bam changing that home of record and then they never change it, and you know what that does.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the long rope here, and this will transition us into our next topic. I think that's headcount in your district, and so if you have, you know there's a high population of people who have a home of record somewhere in some County in Florida, don't necessarily live there, but they're a voter in the head count for that congressional district, for that County seat, whatever, right. And so the you're attracting it's a. You can attract a specific population of people to become head count within your district, and there are certain states that have a stranglehold on that and I don't know how that couldn't be strategically beneficial, especially from you know. I hate to say it, but it's a partisan angle, right, and every now and then we would put on our, you know, blue britches down in New Mexico.
Speaker 2:And remember there is a bigger theme to all of this right and it's getting elected people into office that are supporting these blue initiatives. So the long rope there is you get headcount and you can recruit a specific type of people. Where else in politics do you get the opportunity to do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, having such a targeted genre of people to talk to and to place places To talk to, that's the most important part.
Speaker 2:You're talking points are sound, the issues they face you can understand, and so that's what I see is the like.
Speaker 1:You know why I say attract a certain population is because you can speak to those issues and do something about it and that's kind of one of my pushes always with our elected officials is that I think we would net more blue voters if we did it here, because the folks that are already like sitting there with Texas, they're with Florida, they're not going to change it to be here, no, but but like the, the space force and air force, you know the more progressive folks that are out there, like they will change it to be here and we can push them, make things happen, you know. So, yeah, hopefully this veterans caucus, you know well I was gonna say, is effective. I know it's going to be effective. Yeah, we got some great people in it and I think we're going to have a lot of good pressure, you know, from the vets, you know, to get some changes around here.
Speaker 2:And so there's a meeting for that tomorrow on zoom and I'm not sure you know how all the invites went out, but it's just the first. It's a kickoff type thing introductions and maybe a little bit of an intro to whatever the charter is for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's had a couple points of business. It just came in he said you could have a few minutes to there too, so get your ideas out there. Yeah, I think it's big news for us here locally to get that kind of infrastructure set up at the state. Bigger news here locally to get some of that kind of infrastructure set up at the state. Yeah, Bigger news here locally is that we had a new candidate throw their hat into the ring for CD5. Jessica Killen, former captain. I think she did like six years what service.
Speaker 2:I care very much, I think the Air Force, yeah, okay, yeah, captain in the Air Force, I'm going to groan at that. I'll meet you eventually, jessica, but just know, I groaned at your air force affiliation. If that's true, if it's not, please let us know. I mean, we'll have to correct the record.
Speaker 1:Maybe she's a warrant officer or something some low level like that.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, yeah, you know what that would change the game significantly. I would be her campaign manager.
Speaker 1:But uh, she uh first day, you know? Uh, so she's the chief of staff of doug emoff, the uh former second first gentleman yeah, yeah um, and he also. She also worked in the biden administration, so she's got she checks all the boxes right a lot of deep chops, you know political chops. That's great. First day $750,000 she raised. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like we had said, that's the Imhoff connection, that's the war chest that Kamala had pulled together at the end of the last cycle.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of money in those bank accounts right now that is a great point, yeah, and one way to do that is to transfer it to other candidates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can transfer it to other candidates.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one way to do that is to transfer it to other candidates. Yeah, but that's more money than Crank has in the bank. I think he did a million last year. Yeah, but what he's got right now, he's going to have to plus up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's going to really have to Right.
Speaker 1:I mean, for so long Lamborn never had to campaign here because they had the money to just flood the zone with their propaganda. Yeah, with that type of money, that makes it a real, real possibility. But we have to get through the primary still. Yes, and there's like four or five candidates, I think, right now. And Joe Reagan, he raised about $50,000 last quarter. Jamie Smith was like $18,000. Zuri Horowitz was around $5,000 or $6,000 last quarter. Jamie Smith was like 18. Zuri Horowitz was around five or six, and then there was one other lady that didn't report any money. But so all pretty small numbers. When you talk about a congressional campaign at this level and the fact that the national level is looking at us here like that's Well, it's contested for sure.
Speaker 2:That's exciting.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, we lost it by it's not a safe 14 points last time yeah so, like everybody's saying it's safe, like in air quotes, yeah, safe red, but that's because we've never had any resources here to push it.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Yeah, well, and midterm years are totally different than presidential years, right, like that's a you know campaign 101. Like presidential years are the big, the big show, right, you know, and if you're in the off years, that you got to change your math, you got to change your strategy, you know, because not as many people are going to show up and vote. So, yeah, so that benefits the underdog in those situations usually.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, it should be interesting to see you know once the campaign really starts. You know, I think this is the her trying to push everybody else out and just kind of like set the tone, like no, that's a strong showing to do that.
Speaker 2:That is a way to do it, and I mean the only way that you know. Well, my first take was wow, an 18 month campaign, right. But if you're saying there's those other folks, I mean if they've just rolled through a cycle and just kept their bank accounts open like that, I understand that. But yeah, to jump out with a big lead like that, and then, you know, the only way that could fall flat is, if there's a the next quarter or two quarters from now, just things simmer down. You know, I mean who?
Speaker 1:knows, I mean, you could ride that in this area. Just that alone. Well, sure, sure. But.
Speaker 2:I'm saying as far as like uh strategy or looking weak, uh, if you have a couple of flat quarters, right, that's all. That's what I'm saying your, second, your other person in the primary who's nipping at your heels?
Speaker 1:yeah, we'll see a flat quarter and be like, oh, this is my chance, you know yeah, I might try to recruit more people or recruit more money in that quarter I've heard that theory before too, that like how early you join is kind of like how strong you are, you know, as a candidate. So if you jump in early, you know to try to like get people on your side, it makes you look kind of weaker or less of a candidate. Sure, have you heard that?
Speaker 2:I've seen it. I've seen it where there are people that jump in early and then there are people that are like I know when I'm going to pull the trigger and there's not going to be any condition that's going to change my timeline, Right Like I've got a plan and I'm going to execute my plan and what you do is not going to change my plan.
Speaker 1:I've seen that and a lot of these plans. They go around fiscal reporting.
Speaker 2:Yes, so what quarter do you enter, so you know you can make your big push. Yeah, so she didn't enter, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she didn't enter until the end of the last one, so she doesn't have to report until November. Okay, but she started off with 750. So like November's report is going to be pretty solid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean yes, the quarter you start in is definitely a critical first step, right, and you play it either two ways you Don't expect much, right, or you do what she did. It's my first quarter and I can just keep doing this if you want, yeah that's a I hate big money.
Speaker 1:I don't like people coming from out of the area, but she was raised here in Colorado Springs so I do feel more comfortable about that and I hate Citizens United and big money like this. But you have to play the game.
Speaker 2:I don't. I like big money and I'm from everywhere cause I'm a soldier, so you know I'm. I can't make us take a stance on from here, not from here. That's what.
Speaker 1:I have to keep swinging back to too. It's like like me personally, like like, why do I think like that when I'm one of the transients, you know? So, yeah, that's a good point too is that you know you can't hold it against her, but she was raised here in Colorado Springs, so it is a plus one.
Speaker 2:And for me money like if I ever run another, another campaign like man. You know a lot of my money is not going to come from because I like I say I'm from everywhere, so I'm going to pick up the phone and call people all over the country. Right, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was. If you have donors coming from all over the place, it doesn't. What does it look like? Right, because you know the primary. You're only trying to talk to a couple of hundred people. You know to get through the caucus and things like that, or to get through the caucus to the primary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to get through the convention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you only talk to a couple of hundred people, yeah, and if those couple of hundred people think that your outside money is going to influence you, could be screwed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, you can get uh pushed out by the uh, what it is. The state central committee is what it is. Yeah, that's the people that vote on who's going to end up on the ballot, and they down select within the party so that you get the right people on the primary ballot Right and so yeah, but um, yeah, so exciting times.
Speaker 1:You know new candidate. I think it's going to be interesting to see how she comes into the community and, uh, yeah, looking forward to meeting her. Um, next thing we wanted to talk about was the uh ongoing Middle East turmoil. Uh, israel is trying to spark some more matches over there. Um, they did some strikes in Syria. Uh, you want to tell us about that a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 2:I um heard about that this morning and I guess it happened yesterday or I'm not really sure what time, but in the last 24 hours. There's a population of folks that live on either side of the border in the Golan Heights region, so some are in Israel and some are in Syria. They're a group of Arabs called the Druze D-R-U-Z-E and Israel defends them. In general, whenever there's been any kind of skirmish or conflicts in those areas, israel will strike over the border, and so they did that. I guess there was a couple hundred people flee from north to south into Golan Heights area and Israel closed the border and then started shooting, and they shot into the conflict area where Syria's new government was attacking. You know what they claimed as a rebel group with just the Druze people. I don't know what they're really doing or not, but the thing that kind of made everybody's eyes pop wasn't that they bombed Damascus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they bombed yeah, they bombed Damascus in the daytime and, uh, it was not a light little tap, it was more than one shot and they were big missiles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and daytime strikes? Nighttime strikes are psychologically terrifying, because you don't really know what's going on. Sure, but daytime strikes means you can't do a dang thing about this. Your air defenses mean nothing. We are coming in and we are doing this, yeah, and that's even more psychologically damaging. That's what I'm saying, man.
Speaker 2:I'm like blow stuff up in the daytime and just scare the hell out of people. Right, and that's what I saw, was a video of these are becoming more common News anchor woman sitting on a chair and downtown Damascus is behind her and probably from the look of it, that was a real glass wall behind her. And the bomb landed quarter mile away. I mean, it was just on the other side of the courtyard, basically, and it was open space from there to where the impact happened. There was no building, there was nothing in between. It was a line of sight shot a quarter mile away and it was ugly dude and it rocked her out of her chair. She like jumped out of the chair and was screaming, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was massive. Yeah, I can't imagine living under that kind of fear, like, say, daytime. But yeah, daytimes aren't safe. Now, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So yeah that. So that's going on in the. I guess uh trump was had made some kind of statement about. You know, he didn't, basically didn't support that, because there's a delicate uh relationship with the syrian, the new Syrian government, that America is trying to sort of feel it out and Israel pushing the issue doesn't help. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've been trying to get them under a little control for a while now.
Speaker 2:So a little more of the same in that regard, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you let them indiscriminately bomb people in their own country, they're not going to care about indiscriminately bombing capitals in other countries. Yeah, yeah, you know. Because like what was the, what was the reason for bombing damascus? They did, they haven't, they haven't said just said anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody, somebody got an itchy finger and they're like, yeah, we see an opportunity yeah, and it's, uh, people, there's too many people with that itchy finger on buttons right now. Sure, sure, it's scary, you know, ours included, you know, with Trump being kind of cornered. Now, you know, and we're going to kind of transition into the the files that don't exist. Yeah, that shall not be named. Yeah, epstein the Epstein files that don't exist, never existed or were made up. The Epstein files that don't exist, never existed or were made up. Yeah, people went to jail for um, but, yeah, it still never existed. Uh, his name. There's some good documents out there that have been leaked with, like the, the evidence that was submitted and, like you know, his name circled on some things and things like that that that look pretty.
Speaker 1:You know damning Um. You know damning um, but with him, you know, kind of being backed in the corner pissing off his own, you know maga.
Speaker 2:Uh, conspiracy, right, yeah, yeah. Or the q anon folks, right, yeah, the deep state, yeah, the deep state. Q anon side of the house, like epstein, was a, because q anon was all about the cabal of world leaders that, secretly, you know drink child, drink child blood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pizzagate and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was there. That was the foundation of QAnon. Was sexual immorality in political power right? And Epstein was the? You know the whole story was birthed out of that kind of conspiracy, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:And now you know with him. I think he's worried a little bit. I think he's worried a little bit. What do you think his options are when it comes to either regaining control of his MAGA followers or just kind of going full tyrannical and trying to scare people back into line? What do you think is going on in the administration right now.
Speaker 2:I think it's a much bigger problem than they want to admit. I think that's why his public statements so far are explicit downplay of who's still talking about that. Isn't that story boring? Who cares about that? That's what he just says over and over for like the last three days, right. And then you've got Fox news. You know I like to talk about Jesse waters. I didn't watch it this episode, but I saw the little clip and, uh, he was like something's fishy. You know, like I can't, I can't believe it. Right.
Speaker 2:And even all of Fox news and the, you know as they call it, the manosphere, right, the the the online you know podcast folks um, almost all of them have said um, said that they can't believe what's going on right now and that there's more to the story. They're still committed to their original beliefs and the government coming out and saying, oh, there's no list, they just they're like yeah, of course, the government said that and it just. It's just unfortunate that the government is their hero's government, right, and so the schism there is just terrible for some of these folks. There was one dude and I don't remember his name, I can recognize his face. He was like the only one that had been, he's been on the conspiracy bandwagon consistently until like Monday, and then he was like I'm just going to believe the government on this one. Those are our guys in the government and they're telling us the truth.
Speaker 1:I think you're talking about Tim Pool, maybe. Yeah, where he's like my friends in the administration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and he just said I'm over it, I'm going to move on and I believe them and he's like the only one, but I'm pretty sure it's already been proven that he's taken some some.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:He was one of those folks got hired as a consultant or something, but then it just turned out that it was like he was literally. It was like Russian RT, you know, like propaganda yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, but but yeah, so he's obviously somebody that can be bought and paid for. And then he had a meeting with the administration his friends in the administration tell him it's cool, yeah, but nobody else is buying that you know.
Speaker 1:But I mean, at the end of the day, is it going to matter? Because you still see a lot of things online where it's like, if he did things in the past, god saved his life after that assassination attempt and he is here to save our life. Oh, sure, sure, you know. There's still that like cultish.
Speaker 2:Would there be a revolt if the list came out? If there is a list, if the list comes out and donald trump's in in, implicated in some way, in whatever, even just conspiracy to stuff, do stuff right, um, would his base revolt? I don't, I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:No, I mean the the things are going on in like the fema responses in his areas right now and they're not revolting Right and they're accepting it Down in Texas and even North Carolina is still digging themselves out of things, and there's flooding going on everywhere right now and people aren't waking up to it. They think that this is all kind of part of the plan.
Speaker 2:Sexual morality is not this man's call claim to fame right.
Speaker 1:Right From the beginning. This was known. All of this stuff was known before.
Speaker 2:Yeah so I don't. The base has already forgiven his. You know lifestyle there. How horrific is that. You know, that's it, that's all there is to it.
Speaker 1:Really. I've read the reports from, like, katie Johnson and even his first wife, ivanka Ivana I can't remember what her name was, but like the police report that she filed against him like horrific, horrific things yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And people are just kind of like yeah, okay, yeah, and it just like that's. When you start reading things like that and you start seeing people who, for who they are.
Speaker 2:Like you can't just say, oh, that was in the past. No, that's foundational. That's who he is, yeah, yeah, but I mean, the boys will be boys. Locker room talk excuse came out in the 2016 campaign and that was that. That was the moment where it was either this is going to be forgiven forever yeah, and no revelation will ever change anybody's mind yeah, or this is where we draw the line Right. Yeah, change any anybody's mind. Yeah, or this is where we draw the line right yeah, and the line was not drawn there.
Speaker 1:Boys will be boys, that was it. Um? Have you seen? There's a video of those uh classes teaching men to be alpha males, where you pay like ten twelve thousand dollars and get screamed at and, yes, they just get tortured and brutalized.
Speaker 1:Yes, uh, I saw a clip that they had to add something in after graduation about talking to the men like, okay, don't go home and be a-holes to your wife. Like they call us up and they say he comes in and barking orders at us and blah, blah, blah, blah, you can't go home and be an asshole. Yeah, like, yeah, man, like I have such a problem with that. You know, like you guys wanted indoctrinate yourselves like oh, you can't really use this.
Speaker 2:They would want their money back. I would think right.
Speaker 1:Be like wait a minute.
Speaker 2:What did I pay you for?
Speaker 1:I have such a huge problem with pushing military culture onto the civilian population. You know the Jocko guy that writes like self-help books. This sounds familiar Navy SEAL, extreme Leadership, I think think his name was one of his books. Uh, yeah, he, he'll tell a story about. Yeah, when I was, you know, in Afghanistan doing this and this guy was screwing up, I told him to stop screwing up and blah blah, blah.
Speaker 1:It's like yeah, cool man, you're in a battle zone, you're in a war zone. That doesn't need to, that doesn't belong in the boardroom, like that type of mentality, cause they never go into the like, the, the, the burden of leadership. Sure, when you're an extreme leader like that, there's a burden that comes with it, that weighs on you and like you carry it with you 24, seven like, all the time, and it it hurts people, like that's why suicides are so high. Oh, sure, because we have a burden on us that we feel all the time that we cannot fail. Yeah, and that does not need to be pushed onto the civilian population.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I, yeah, I agree. Uh, you know, I I don't see it is being pushed from the monetary position of like people will buy this, right, yeah, um, but the there's probably just as much pull from uh group. You know some, some population of the american men, right, they're like I want that type of you know whatever lifestyle mentality uh, it's gonna make me better at some thing that I do because we've all, because we've all, sat in front of tvs of you know whatever lifestyle mentality. It's going to make me better at something that I do Because we've all sat in front of TVs and played.
Speaker 1:You know, cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians, and so from an early, early age. Now, with the modernization of, you know, television, social media, people are inundated with this thought that it's okay to kill people, sure, and it's not people, sure, and it's not like. People need to get out of that mindset that, uh, you know, yes, they are heroes, but they're not our heroes because of killing people, body counts, right, there are heroes because they raised their hand and said yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to go put myself in some bad situations and I'm going to help protect you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, and I think people have lost that. They want the killing and that's disgusting to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but I definitely I try, and I'm getting a little bit too old to have this lens anymore. But for a long time I tried to look out at the rest of the American population, of my peers, basically, and kind of compare, maybe in a I don't know, kind of compare, maybe in a I don't know, I think in a healthy way of like what do I, what am I doing that's different than what they do, or what? How would my lifestyle be different if I had this same job but wasn't in the Army? Those kind of things, just so that I could I don't know why I just wanted to be able to understand that better, because maybe I knew that the existence I was living was so bizarre.
Speaker 2:But now that I'm getting older, like I say, I don't I don't do that as much and I guess cause I'm not in the military anymore but, um, I could see the admiration and and I mean that in a good way of like man, I wish I was doing the cool stuff you're doing and so I can see how those people would get a little bit older, get a little bit of money in their pocket and be like man I want to level up in life, and then they're like well, I always thought those guys were pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And that's about it. It doesn't take much more than that a flashy cover and a bald dude and you're like you're in man.
Speaker 1:So you know, yeah Well, all right, we'll end it on that. Thanks, we'll end it on that. Thanks for joining us again this week. On left face Uh, join us. Tune in next week with Dick Wilkinson, adam Gillard Uh, we'll talk to you then. Bye.
