Debating the Divide: Fascists and the Steve Miller Band (Hour 2)

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Ladies and gentlemen.

Ladies and gentlemen.

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Ladies and

gentlemen.

Ladies and gentlemen.

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gentlemen.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Here's Johnny.

John Peterson.

Nobody

a MDX.

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We're here.

And it's a beautiful, beautiful day in the capital city of Madison.

A little overlooking State Street.

What a great place to be.

That's

John Peterson.

I'm Gordy Young.

Dominic Lee is in the producer's hot box there, pushing the buttons and flipping the switches willy-nilly.

We

should put some ventilation in there one of these days.

I feel sorry for the kids.

I'll

bring my own personal little fan.

It's a good idea.

Sunny skies, today's high near 80 degrees.

Right now it's 65.

Okay.

All right.

It should be nice all day long.

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All right, just a little tips

there.

Just a little extra something.

All right, and we were talking about Christopher Rufo.

His idea, you know, he's the guy who came up with critical race theory as a bad thing

in our schools.

Christopher Rufo.

Yeah, Christopher Roofball, and they weren't teaching it in K through 12, but they did have it as an elective, I believe, in college.

But anyway, he's got a new plan, and that is to take out the movement leaders, the liberal movement leaders, and that's

the

formula for success for the Trump administration.

And we have Mark here who says that's what the fascists did in Germany, Spain, Italy,

Russia.

Thank you, Mark.

Yeah.

Add the U.S.

to that list.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay.

Hey, this hit the fan and we're going to play a whole bunch of cuts from this.

Everybody is probably familiar with Mehdi Hasan, who was a MSNBC host for quite a while.

Right.

And he filled in for everybody incredibly.

Yeah, and he had a weekend show.

Brilliant.

Really good.

And now he is, he is

debating 20 fascists on the YouTube channel Jubilee.

Really?

Yeah.

And I just thought I'd play the compilation that's available on X.

kind of is a broad view of all of the people that he, he was there for like an hour and 40 minutes.

This is a long version of it.

But that's what

they do with this format,

right?

Yeah.

It's usually about an hour.

Yeah.

Charlie Kirk does it sometimes too as well.

He

kind of does

around.

Which is hilarious.

The guy is a dummy.

All right.

Let's listen to this, uh, this sample of what it was like for that hour and 40 minutes.

Okay.

Mediason.

I'm in a room full of, I don't know what to call you anymore, conservatives, Republicans, fascists, I don't know.

Are your parents Americans or immigrants?

No, my parents are United States citizens.

But they're immigrants, you said.

No, they came here as immigrants.

However,

but I want to make the claim that we can't even- So they are immigrants.

I came here as an immigrant, I'm an immigrant.

But at

this point, when they came, the United

States- I think that the people aren't happy with the way this is going.

First, fourth, fifth, 14th,

22nd amendments.

Those are

my amendments that I came

with today.

I'm

trying.

If you don't want to debate them, just say so.

Are you supporting like raping innocent women, nons, dude?

Killing priests?

I mean, priests still brandish guns and kill people.

You just refused to

condemn the Nazi holocaust, my friend.

I don't think you're in a position to ask anyone any questions.

I

said that one pardon against somebody.

It was 1600 pardons.

600 of those were

people charged with.

Yes, one example that you just gave me.

I can give you more.

Okay, fine, fine.

And I'll say the exact same thing every single time.

Then your

argument will fall apart.

When was the Islamic Republic of Iran founded?

1979.

When was Gaza occupied by Israel?

Uh, 19...

Well, they're

very first time.

67, yeah.

So can we do the math together?

12 years before the Islamic Republic of Iran existed, Israel was oppressing, occupying, dispossessing the people of Gaza.

So your argument makes no sense.

Neither of us are economists.

It's the economists'

studies.

Don't

assume who I am.

Are you an economist?

I could be.

But are you?

I could be.

Are you?

I'm not going to tell

you.

Are

you?

I'm

going to major in economics, right?

Are

you an economist?

No, not right

now.

Okay,

so when I said neither was an economist, I was correct.

Everyone here uses an iPhone designed by an immigrant, is on Gmail.

Fair point.

Designed by

an immigrant.

But

what is on a YouTube show?

If that

all came to a YouTube show, founded by an immigrant, you

wouldn't be here.

Fair point, but that's a tiny minority.

So

you all love immigrants,

whether you

like

it or

not.

We're not going to use your common

ground

because you said I'm not

American.

Please try.

Please try.

I don't think you're American.

I'm saying you're not American.

I'm saying you're not American due

to values.

How do you think you're not American on values, either?

I think you're a little fascist-y, little racist-y.

I'm an American citizen.

I went through lots of vetting.

I took my test.

And that's how

it should be.

But he

wants us to leave.

But he wants us to leave.

Some people

don't really care about vetting, do they?

It's not really about vetting, is

it, my friend?

But people should not

have the right.

You're in

denial.

You got rid of an American citizen from the country without process.

That's the Fifth Amendment violation.

Since I'm not up to date on that

specific basis,

I'm sure you can.

We

weren't aware that American citizens are being deported.

It's pretty big story.

Maybe if you read the fake news you might know.

If this is how you

get rounds of applause, you sit in a room with 20 people who agree with you.

Wow, amazing.

Amazing.

That must make you feel good.

We should be nicer to you, otherwise you'll deport us.

What a great argument.

This is a free speech to make.

It's not your country, my friend.

It's our country, whether you like it or not.

There you go.

Wow, okay.

Nice sample of an hour and 40 minutes worth of debating.

20 fascists.

surrounding America and jubilee jubilee is the channel

yeah

okay yeah youtube and you can check it out there if you'd like i have another uh clip here it is uh a guy arguing that we're gonna lose uh our demographic the white people in this country so let's listen to 101 here

okay but it is a taboo subject should we be concerned about the demographic so no anglo-saxon european american zero percent of america it doesn't matter

Are they 0% of America?

Well, let's say if it becomes 0%, it should not worry.

They're not going.

Why are you bringing weird hypotheticals?

But there has to be.

I mean, they're still part of our country.

There's culture.

There's, I mean, even Britain, like,

I mean, it concerns me.

But it

concerns me when Britain is changing.

And it's, you know, it's like, they're losing their culture.

But it's losing their culture.

Are they?

Are they going to try to?

I'm from the UK.

I'm telling you, no one's losing their culture.

London is going to be very little British in one day.

What's the plan?

That's what we want to know.

What's the plan?

You just made that up.

Have you been to London?

How do we know?

Cyrus, have

you been to London?

No.

So then maybe you shouldn't come in places you don't know anything about.

But what's the plan?

I grew

up in London.

What's the general plan?

London is a very British city.

I was

in London a

few weeks ago.

OK.

It's

a very

British city.

I

hope

not.

It's a very British city.

It's a very British city.

Yeah, London.

And this is a woman who was talking about her parents who were immigrants, but now they're Americans.

So let's listen to cut 102.

I'm

an immigrant

and an American, and I

employ

many American citizens, both naturalized and the ones born here.

I employ Americans.

My

parents, no, my parents

came as... Americans is defined by you.

My

parents came as immigrants to become naturalized, so I'm not necessarily

opposed to immigrants.

Oh, wow.

So you're the child of immigrants?

Correct.

I'm a child of immigrants.

I was

born here.

But you don't accept immigrants or Americans?

Not at this moment.

So your parents are not Americans?

Not at this moment.

No, they're

citizens.

They became naturalized.

You just said you can't be citizens by being naturalized.

No, I was born here, and I'm not

opposed to naturalization.

But are your

parents...

Are you against naturalization?

No, I never said...

You did.

You began.

Everyone was here.

They could play it back on YouTube.

You said Americans or immigrants?

Are your parents Americans or immigrants?

No, my parents are United States citizens.

But they're immigrants, you said.

No, they came here as immigrants.

However,

but I want to make the claim that we can't I came here as an immigrant.

I'm an immigrant.

At

this point when they came, the people

are happy with the way this is going for you.

The United States economy was not at.

It's better now.

The American economy is better than it's been for many years.

And I can say that as somebody like Donald Trump.

We're giving millions of

billions of dollars

to people

of minorities as well as

the reason the economy is doing badly now is Donald Trump's tariff policy.

Nothing to do with migrants.

In fact, the congressional businesses.

I'm an immigrant.

I started a business.

No, I understand because the SBA is giving people billions of loans.

They're giving them billions.

I'm not saying you did, but I'm saying that statistically speaking, they're giving

billions of loans to these people.

So should we do statistics?

According to statistics, immigrants are 80% more likely to be entrepreneurs than native-born Americans.

More likely to start businesses and hire Americans.

Immigrants are more likely to pay in taxes than take out in benefits.

They're more likely to add to innovation and jobs and

wages.

This is what

the statistics show.

The Congressional Budget Office, which is bipartisan Republicans and Democrats both use it, they have said that the immigration surge that you mentioned,

will lead to an extra $9 trillion of GDP over the next 10 years.

That amounts to $65,000 per American household.

That's $65,000 for each and every one of you holding up a red flag.

All right, pause.

You've been voted out by the majority.

Please

return to your seat.

There you go.

And they fact check all of these figures.

When they do mention some of them,

then

they fact check a little bar comes across and tells you whether they're lying or not.

Minnie was right on.

Factual as heck.

So now here is one last cut and this is the autocrat This is the guy.

This is just right off the chart.

So let's go to 103

bits that you disagree with.

Can I just be clear?

Yeah, absolutely Okay, I'm more than willing to I'm more than willing to amend it and whenever it's in your favor Yeah, absolutely.

Can Democrats do the same when they're in office?

No, absolutely not.

No, I don't absolutely not.

What do you believe in autocracy by who?

Honestly, quite frankly, anyone who is in line with Catholic teaching.

Donald Trump is not Catholic.

Oh, of course.

He's not.

I completely agree, and that's part of the problem.

You don't support Trump?

No, I don't.

I didn't even vote for him.

I wrote in, like, John Pork or someone.

Why did you?

I can't even

remember.

Why did you vote if you don't believe in democracy and you want autocracy?

Well, because quite frankly, I voted... This is fascinating.

I kind of voted just to be strong.

I came with this argument, but I'm more to my own argument.

I'm much more interested in this, so... Yeah, absolutely.

How do we get to an autocracy?

I think, quite frankly, that...

If we are able to enact local leaders, I think quite frankly, these far right conservative sitting right around people.

Yeah, absolutely.

So well actually I have quite some of the people don't make the cut from what I can see visually actually hold on for a moment I do think that there are people who happen to not be white who do actually have history in this country and have roots in this country for instance from the Mexican-American war we subsumed a lot of territory of people who have far stakes in this country who happen to be Hispanic or what have you okay I am for defending the traditional demographics of this country which is majority white so how

does the United States

I mean, we've gone so off topic, but how does the United States look like under you?

Sorry, what's your name?

My name is, well, my name's Connor.

It's a pleasure to

meet you.

Nice meeting you, Connor.

Well, that's Mehdi Hassan.

Mehdi Hassan and he was on the program Jubilee and he was surrounded by 20 fascists and each one raising the red flag because they, you know, they object or, you know, they want some attention, they want to make it out to the table and debate with Mehdi.

Yeah.

It's, it's interesting, but you know, this rapid fire back and forth, it's hard to keep track of who's

just

saying what.

I feel like it's got to be so draining too.

I

mean,

like

an hour and a

half of pure talking.

For some reason, I think, uh, many is energized by that.

Yeah.

That's the whole thing.

But yeah, I think it energizes him to hear these contradictory statements being made and then finally being able to kind of make some sense out of it, or at least at least.

you know, respond to the ridiculous nature of them all.

But here, this is a response I thought was really a good observation.

It

said

here, many of son Jubilee episode just shows that these aren't your average boomer maga, white trash, sunglasses, truckers anymore.

These kids are educated and understand the ins and outs of their ideology and go further than Trump.

Democrats and the left have no idea

what's coming after Trump.

And it's a good point.

I mentioned here, you know, my sons are Gen Zers and they're very, very firm.

They're very progressive, but they're, they don't compromise.

Yeah.

But there's another side to it that's not compromising either.

And I wasn't aware of how strongly these individuals feel about their particular fascism.

Yeah.

Wow scary I know I know but this really hit the fan watch

the whole thing if you can all right 19 minutes past the hour coming up in about 15 minutes.

We'll talk with former Madison mayor Paul Soglin Brittany Merleau's up next with a look at the weather on John and Gordy in the morning WM DX

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92.7 WMDX, John and Gordy in the morning.

This portion of the show brought to you by Virlo Mattress.

You can accessorize for less.

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That's right, you can raise your feet up in the bed.

You have an adjustable bedroom,

right?

Yeah, great.

I tried that last night.

It's just fantastic.

Yeah.

Can you hang, you know, can you go to a 45 degree angle just all the way like that with your

feet like sleeping a slant?

Yeah, I guess you could.

You could raise your feet up.

It raises your knees up.

You raise your feet and you head up.

It raises your knees up.

Can I do a U-shaped thing?

Okay.

You actually can, yeah.

Can you

really?

You

don't want to

do that.

Doesn't seem right.

723, let's go to Brittany Merlot.

She is, she's

at the EAA this morning.

I

forgot that's happening.

Yes.

Well, this is quite the visual.

But

where are you, Brittany?

Where are you located there at

Oshka?

I am.

Right at the front gate right now.

So the place where you have to enter to get into the grounds, I am right there.

Come say hi if you're here.

Are you checking people's tickets?

They're papers?

They might work.

Wow, so it looks like

it's already bustling with activity in back of you there.

Absolutely.

I mean, the campsite is packed.

There's about 40,000 people that I believe are camping.

There are approximating numbers right now.

There's been 6,000 volunteers here for over a month trying to get this event ready to roll.

About 10,000 planes fly in here and about 700,000 people come here.

So this is the place to be in Wisconsin this week for sure.

If you've never been, you don't have to be into aviation.

It's going to suck you in.

You're going to fall for it.

You're going to fall for it.

You did.

You did.

Now you're flying

airplanes.

I know.

Yes.

And it's all because of this event.

So I come here every year.

I camp the whole time.

I cover it and of course forecast the weather because we're out here in the middle of it with no power, no luxury bed that retracts.

I was thinking, man, they need to make one for camping.

I think they make

a portable that you can carry out into a tent somewhere.

Perfect.

Next year, I'm investing into that.

How

many

times have

you been there, Brittany?

This is gonna be my sixth year in a row.

Once I've been here, I covered it for work, for media, and once I saw what it was all about, I hands down, I'm here every year, whether it's vacation or working.

A little tip next time, don't wear the ice t-shirt that you have on.

I'm

just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

You certainly don't want to wear that.

No.

The thing is, I went out to DC with the kids and we bought FBI t-shirts and a hat.

Really, seriously, it looks just like the stuff they wear when they go out.

And I'm thinking, geez, what if they did the same thing with ice t-shirts?

That would be really scary,

wouldn't it?

That is,

that is scary.

Well, what what can we expect weather wise for today?

It's looking beautiful here We have a lot of sunshine and nice mild temperatures today.

Yeah,

yeah Not too bad.

Enjoy it now because the heat is going to crank up as we go into the middle of the week So right now 60 degrees or so a little bit of wildfire smoke does want to sneak into the area So a sunny hazy kind of day highs at about 82 degrees still refreshing comfortable

Tonight, we get a little partly cloudy.

Tomorrow morning, a chance of showers and storms early in the morning.

I think there's a wind down by midday for you there.

And then it's going to be hot and humid

into

those mid to upper 80s, the dew point starting to rise.

And by Wednesday, I'm going to stay.

Oh, I wish I had the AC here.

But if you I would stay in the AC 90s.

Oh, no.

It's

bad.

Are we expecting that the smoke to be a factor this week?

It should only stick around today.

I think it should come out of here tomorrow.

All right.

Great.

All right.

Okay.

Well, very good, Brittany.

Well, keep us posted.

Yeah.

You know.

We'll do.

You have a good week up there.

And have fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I hope to get a ride in the blimp.

So I'll have stories.

Wow.

All right.

All right.

Wow.

Yeah.

Sounds like a lot of

fun.

All right.

Thank you, Brittany.

Yeah.

Take care.

Have

a

good

day.

Thanks, guys.

That's Brittany Merlot, our chief meteorologist.

And this portion of the show also being brought to you by Madison Hearing Aid Center.

You can check them out at MadisonHearingAidCenter.com.

They're at 4706 Cottage Grove Road in Madison.

Go to their website and they are helping people change their lives.

Their number one goal isn't just selling hearing aids.

It's improving the quality of life through better hearing.

Give them a call.

Talk to Jim or Sarah at 608-249-4077-608-249.

four zero seven seven Madison hearing eight center dot com.

All right.

Well, I got some bad news for everybody.

Health care is going through the roof.

It's going to happen.

I've been mentioning it a few times here.

The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, they'll be losing some of their subsidies, the COVID subsidies, and that will raise rates quite a bit.

That's going to make things jump up.

Yeah.

This is a story out of the lever.

You might want to check that out.

A great place to go, the lever.

This is the

story some corporate media reports frame the suit there is a United Health group investor lawsuit against the company because of the higher denial rates now you won't get this but I mean this is crazy stuff the investors are taking on United Health for its aggressive anti-consumer tactics but in reality

Court documents reveal some of the United Group's investors are concerned that the company's changing corporate practices have been too consumer friendly.

United, United Health Group has one of the highest denial rates of any major insurer, which can force patients to forego critical treatments until the doctor's orders.

Now, what they're doing is they want to sue them to prevent them from not denying people coverage.

They want.

they ensure to deny coverage so they can make more money as investors.

All right.

Wow.

Head is spinning.

Okay.

All right.

729.

When we return, former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin will join us on Johnny Gordy in the morning.

WMGX 92.7 it's John and Gordy in the morning in the capital city Madison a few blocks from the Capitol and You know the legislators.

I'm so glad that we don't have to see them anymore Not at all.

Not at all.

What do you mean?

I think we're gone now for the

summer

Well, we've got a we've got a beautiful day ahead of us here.

Bright, beautiful sunshine on State Street and highs in the low 80s.

Time now for us to check in with former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin.

Good morning, Paul.

Morning, guys.

How you doing today?

Just fine.

All

right.

We've got a lot to talk

about.

We're going to get into the Epstein files here.

We were talking about it earlier here in the program.

Wait a minute.

It was a bad strategy, wasn't it?

I mean, you know, to run on this, they wanted to vilify Hillary and Bill, and they really nailed them for it being on their flight logs.

So then they just kept that line of thinking going.

And they ran on it

years and years

and then they decided there's nothing to see here and then they just tried to drop it.

No one was no one wanted that to happen.

So what's your impression of this whole Epstein episode?

Well, I think like most people, you know, I'm curious.

I'd really like to know what's going on, especially what accounts.

For the reversal of a position on this thing What what did the Trump think was there when he used it as a campaign technique or strategy?

And why is it now that he is standing up to the core?

Mega base Yeah And say no this is of no interest and forget about it and then accusing

basically accusing them of being wacko liberal Democrats.

Well that's not a good thing to do either and then of course that just energizes the megabase to really really seek this information out and demand that they see the documentation.

And you know, I think he I thought you know, he's had an easy ride All he has to do is tell these people something and they believe it and let him get away with it And he thought he could get away with this particular item.

Yeah, didn't happen

It brings to mind.

I just finished stolen pride by early Russell hot child.

She wrote another book I'm blinking out on the name right now

that covered the same ground as Kramer's book about here in Wisconsin.

I can't remember the name of that book now.

But in any case, the point that she makes is you can take all these issues.

Trump's inappropriate language, his abuse of people, the fact that he's

The fact that he's got, this is important, the support of folks who he's crushing in terms of their environment, their water, their air they breathe.

He's crushing them in terms of his tax policy, hurting them and helping the rich and everything.

We know about Trump, but the point she makes is that

You've got a significant part of the American people who feel that they've been standing in line all their lives.

And that under the leadership of Democrats, and this is where the attack on diversity, inclusion, and equity comes in and becomes so important in the discussion, that they've been standing in line all their lives to get a fair shake.

And that Democrats have been bullies and moved other people, women, immigrants, people of color, move them to cut in line.

And that the appeal of Donald Trump said, I'm going to put an end to this.

I'm going to stop people from cutting line ahead of you.

I'm going to look out for your interest and that that view of Trump is more important in terms of how they decide to vote than any rational decision about Trump's economic policies, Trump's environmental policies, and whatever.

And I think when we talk about the Epstein case,

That also is going to be the case.

They're not going to be effective.

I mean, Trump could end up being on a list of his best partners in crime, and it's not going to impact their votes for him.

They may, for some other folks, may be just enough to tip it to Democratic support in the next election.

for the vast, vast support, vast part of his base.

They're not looking at that stuff.

Right.

Right, you know, I never understood the DEI thing at all because, you know, through the many decades that I looked for work and may have been turned down for jobs, I never thought that maybe somebody else was getting in.

before me because of their race, because of something else, some other reason.

I never questioned it.

It was just part of job seeking.

You know, that's what happens, you know?

Well, you know, and very few of us ever get the, you know, the first job or the second job we wanted.

And I suppose it's the

It's the belief, not the reality, that's the driving force in all of this.

The belief that that is in fact happening.

When in fact, when we look at the impact of most programs, DEI or affirmative action, all that's really happening is people who have been prejudiciously excluded in the past.

Let's take a very common one, which is applications for home loans.

I mean, we just know that that was government policy as well as that of the financial institutions for years to simply say, if you're in a certain neighborhood or if you're a person of color, you're not getting the loan or you're not getting it at a reasonable rate.

And what these programs did,

was attempt to exclude or end that kind of prejudicial, that invidious discrimination.

So, yeah, there is a shake-up in the line, but the shake-up is basically people are going to the right place in line in our society.

And that's how I always look at it.

It was one of those situations where

the employer is looking for a specific person for that particular job.

And maybe I didn't fit all the criteria that they had exactly for that job.

So, you know, they chose somebody else.

I don't know.

I always accepted that.

I just went on to the next job market and, you know, essentially that's what you have to kind of deal with.

It's part of life.

And now they're making it, they're vilifying it, obviously, and they're trying to make it, it.

I guess it's a DEI for conservatives, you know, the biggest part was when they revealed that they want more conservatives in the universities and more conservatives hired, which is DEI, you know, blatantly DEI, right?

Exactly.

And, you know, when you're speaking about that in terms of, say, universities where

where there's, this is something that indirectly affected me.

There was a push to get more conservative professors in the areas of political science and government and history.

And there was a position that certain people wanted filled and they thought this

former conservative politician would be just great at it.

Well, the point was, I can say this since I'm not gonna slander anyone.

The guy was an idiot.

Totally unqualified to teach, had nothing to do with his politics.

But yet it was thought that he was discriminated against because of his ideological views.

Now, maybe.

Maybe he had his ideological views because he was an idiot.

He certainly couldn't express them.

That's

for sure.

Let's turn the discussion toward the Democrats and what's happening right now.

You

know, the Epstein files have come out and there's still, you know, ICE is still in Los Angeles, although I guess they've pulled some of those ICE agents out of there.

Hearing calls now from people like while Gavin Newsom is one and Beta O'Rourke is another one about, you know, the Democrats need to be more forceful about maybe looking at redistricting, give some of this, you know, that's what the GOP did.

Do a lot of redistricting and kind of voter, you know, get the voters in line.

Where do you think things stand right now?

Is there, is there a direction?

There's been some areas where the Democrats have been lax, which have led.

to some of the disasters.

I mean, one example is redistricting.

I mean, it's very clear that the Republican playbook going back 15, 20 years ago, precisely with the 2010 census, was to gerrymander congressional districts around the country as well as state legislative districts.

And Democrats did not effectively

go after that.

There's no question about that.

But if we want the Democrats to stop trying to hang on by their fingernails in every election and work on bringing out the base, we gotta shift the base.

And the very discussion we just had now about Epstein and people thinking about how they're cutting in line,

I mean, you know, there's this myth whether you're in rural Wisconsin or you're in rural Kentucky or rural Louisiana.

There is this myth out there that in terms of redistrict redistrict redistribution of wealth i.e.

Tax dollars that their tax dollars in these poor rural communities are going to the cities going to fund urbanites

people of color, immigrants, their tax dollars are going for welfare, for cheats.

Well, that's not true, and it's the exact opposite that's the case.

There's absolutely no question that urban blue cities, blue states, are paying the vast majority of taxes that are subsidizing everything from free lunch programs to

health clinics in rural communities that are voting red, voting for Trump.

And the Democrats have to go out there in an FDR style and get a new political realignment of this country.

Absolutely.

Bring in some youth, Gen Zers.

Definitely got something going.

Why don't we talk more after this break?

Paul, we've got a few more questions.

Maybe we can get into the Steve Miller band.

Yeah, we want to talk about that too.

Paul Soglin, we'll continue the conversation with him right after this.

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We're going to talk about Steve Miller Band in just

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Yeah, playing some Steve Miller, some great stuff, his early stuff.

I really love like Brave New World and living in the USA.

Quicksilver girl.

Yeah.

Paul, when you were here, you know, in the late 60s, you, uh, you saw the Steve Miller band before they were the Steve Miller band, right?

They were the imitations.

Yeah.

Uh, it was Miller, Boss Gags, Ben Chidrin.

Um, and I think their most popular venues were fraternity parties, which some of us would wait until about 11 o'clock at night and crash those.

And then get to hear them and it was

fun.

That was like mid 60s, 66, 67?

62.

Really

early?

62, 63 because I think by the end of 63 Miller had left Madison.

Yeah, moved either San Francisco or Texas or somewhere out west.

Yeah.

Yeah, those were some fun times.

And I think that's around, he had what, the saving grace album, I think was Sailor.

Oh yeah.

And I remember one song, Dear Mary of the Sailor album was always one of my favorites.

And I heard those on, you know, the old underground station.

Progressive.

That's right.

Yeah.

Oh yes.

Those were

fun times.

By the

way.

Yeah, go

ahead.

Before when we were discussing

I forgot the names of those authors of those books or the names of the books Kramer's book is the Politics of Resentment.

Oh,

yes, and Arlie Haaschild's first book is Strangers in Their Own Land.

And in that case, she tells one story about a guy working for a chemical company who is a trump supporter.

And one of his jobs was to take the chemicals and dump them in the swamp.

Thus poisoning Wow the bayou is the very place where he lived where his family and friends were dependent upon Recreation and food and Yet he was a Donald Trump supporter and that mean that's unlogical, but you read you read her books and You start to get an understanding of

sort of what's going wrong here in terms of the political realignment and In terms of this business is standing in line You get the political realignment or FDR brings together Working people with a new deal which holds pretty much holds up until 68 when Richard Nixon

adopts his southern strategy, which is to exploit in the south, the resentment towards the civil rights movement that creates a new realignment.

And while he's not as great as Trump is going to be, Nixon does the same thing.

And he speaks to a strange white male Americans.

And basically says, I'm going to stop these people from getting in line ahead of you.

Ronald Reagan did the same thing.

And so this is a problem for the Democratic Party, excuse me, because it really needs to bring together working people of all races in a common movement to bring greater equity to our society for everybody.

And they frame it in a way that the Democrats are always giving handouts to these people and you know, that's the problem.

They

want

freebies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they've kind of turned it.

you know, against the Democrats in a way that is kind of convoluted and bizarre.

And I want to throw something in.

This came over the weekend.

Trump exempts more than 100 polluters from environmental standards, exempting dozens of chemical manufacturers, oil refineries, coal plants, medical device sterilizers, and other polluters from Clean Air Act rules, believe it or not.

One rule exempts about 50 polluters from reducing cancer risks of people living within six miles of a chemical.

plant by 96%.

So Trump's actions will cause more cancer, birth defects, and more children to suffer asthma.

These exemptions only last, by the way, two years.

And I guess, geographically, where that's happening is most likely in areas where people voted for

him.

Yeah.

First state comes to mind Texas, of course.

But you know, there are chemical alleys, you know, there are cities that are, you know, just built on that and they're trying to clean up the cities where, you know, minority areas are included and they're very near these chemical plants.

So they're trying to clean it up and they can't do it.

Unfortunately, we have to leave it there.

Paul Soglin, thank you for joining us.

We'll talk to you

again soon.

We appreciate it.

Again, we'll be in a couple of weeks.

All

right,

good.