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Good morning and welcome, welcome to Matt Nair on air.
Jane Matt Nair, Greg Buck, Galvin Beaconoff coming to you live from our home ish at Radio Park, Denver C.
You can always join us, call or text the number is the same.
855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.
We have a jam-packed show for you today.
Coming up after the 9.30 news, New York Times' best-selling author, Andrew Watkins, is going to join us.
She has been on the show numerous times before.
grew up in a white Christian nationalist household and she has some pretty interesting perspectives on some of the white Christian nationalists who are now in the Trump administration and their efforts to move us along in that direction.
So Andrew Watkins joining us after the 9 30 news, we had to shuffle things around a little bit.
So Jim Santel is going to be joining us in the 10 o'clock hour so much.
Greg to talk about with Joe Santel.
Oh my gosh, Supreme Court, Trump, it's all, yeah, it's never not happening, the news, especially when it comes to the law, very big cases being decided by the courts right now.
Yep, so Jim's gonna join us in hour number two, right after the 10 o'clock news, after 10.35 for Audio Sorbet, where we lighten things up and get away from the news so we can all take a breath.
An old colleague of mine and a good friend, Tony Larino, is going to be joining us after 10.30.
Tony and I go back a long,
long way in
this business.
So we'll share some memories that's all coming up at 10.35.
And then we'll wrap up the show as we always do with this.
Shouldn't be a thing.
Today, the All I Want for Christmas edition.
It's so sweet.
Yeah.
Yes, it'll just it'll just it'll warm.
It'll warm your heart.
It'll warm your heart.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Hey, we are still in the midst of our multi-state grown-up giftless text to win contest.
But the only way to win every day 200 bucks in cash.
That's our daily prize.
We also have three grand prizes.
A brand new snowblower stainless steel cookware set.
Portable air conditioner, but you must enter via the Civic Media app.
So grab your phone, open up the Civic Media app, select your favorite station, perhaps W-A-U-K.
And text in this word.
Oh boy.
The word is.
Yeah.
Food.
Food.
F-O-O-D.
Should be tough to screw that one up.
Well, you know, I mean, food as
in what you eat.
Yes, food as in what you eat food is this hour's keyword F O O D You want to text that in by 10 o'clock this morning and you're in you're in the running for all of those prizes You have numerous chances throughout the day to enter your next shot with a new keyword coming up in the 11 o'clock hour with Tom Hartman So stay tuned for that a couple of things we wanted to start off with Greg buck.
Yeah, we're not gonna spend a lot of time on this but
President Trump did go back out on the stump last night.
Okay.
He was in Pennsylvania.
All right.
All about how great his economy is, you know.
A plus, plus, plus, plus.
A plus, super, plus A. Everything is great with the economy.
And I posted this on Twitter yesterday when I heard he was going back out on the road and I just kind of speculated how long he would actually stay on script.
Yeah.
Because that tends to be an issue for
him.
And, uh, yeah, he didn't stay in the script.
Well, no,
we have a
little clip from last night.
Calvin, can we play that clip from the president of the United States, please?
You can give up certain products.
Uh, you can give up pencils.
That's under the child policy.
You know, every child can get 37 pencils.
They only need one or two.
You know, they don't need that many, but, uh, you always need, you always need steel.
You don't need $37 for your daughter.
Two or three is nice, but you don't need $37.
So
just cut back, everybody.
It's fine.
The man who is bragging about all of his gold decorations in the oval office and his ballroom and his jet that he's getting from Cutter that we're going to pay for the refurbishing and that he gets to keep, he is telling us how to tighten our belts and just give the kids less this year, Greg.
It's going to be fine.
I don't know.
Scott Bassett said we're doing great and people are spending more than ever.
So apparently they're not listening.
They're going to be buying their kids more.
But, you know, the thing that goes back to me for all of this is that, one, the examples are so weird.
The pencil and he's truly a man who he thinks he's talking to a group of people in 1931.
Because pencils and dolls, I think that if any child, any child got 37 dolls at some point, even that child would say,
I'll
take socks.
Are there any socks at
all?
Is it
another doll?
But also the thing is, you know, if the numbers are correct and there was higher black Friday spending than ever, that means that a fair amount of that spending was probably done on credit cards.
And the reason why people are spending on their credit cards is because they're not able to afford everything out of their pocket.
So they have to make due because
You know, you're, you're a parent.
You want to give your kids stuff at Christmas.
You want them, you want them to be happy.
And I'm not saying that stuff makes kids happy, but every parent goes through that where they're like, I don't want to say no to my kid.
I want them to be, you know, I want them to open those presents on Christmas.
Oh, but I also have to pay for groceries.
I have to pay for school.
I have to pay for my car.
I have to pay for gas.
I have to care, pay for home repair.
Oh, the wife slipped and broke her ankle this morning.
Well, that's not going to be another $10,000.
So like listening to him say that,
It, like, is so tone deaf in the fact that regular folks like us, taxpayers here in Wisconsin, people who've, regardless of who they voted for, are having a tough time.
And people of all stripes are agreeing on that.
It's just the problem is instead of doing something about it, Jane, it's about who do we blame.
And that doesn't get anything done.
We need to
find
real solutions so people can afford the things they need to pay for.
Yeah, and maybe, I don't know, Trump, look at some of your own policies and how that's affecting people's pocketbooks.
Last night on the campaign trail where he was to be talking about his fabulous economy, he also attacked transgender Americans, repeatedly blamed former President Joe Biden for inflation and illegal immigration, and then demanded that Representative Ilhan Omar leave the country.
So.
But yes, just buy this stuff, you guys for Christmas and it's all
good.
I mean, I love, I asked the question for a reason earlier this week with regard to the text to win contest.
If you win that $200, what are you spending it on?
And I'm going to bet
it might be bills.
I'm going to say a lot of people are going to be spending it either on presents for other people or bills.
or maybe even putting it away for a rainy day.
I don't see a great percentage of individuals saying, I want to buy that pair of racing gloves I wanted for my, my Maserati.
They're going to be using the money sensibly because when we get money like that, when we come into those moments, we're usually saying to ourselves, all right, how much is it?
We got to put this much away.
We got to put this on the credit card.
We got to do this and that.
And it's, it just,
Again, the speech is not geared towards solutions to the people.
And when you watch the video, those are regular folks behind him.
Those are, those are all, I didn't see any, I didn't see what looked like any billionaires behind him.
They all look like hardworking folks from Pennsylvania.
And I'll bet you all of them say, yeah, it's getting tough.
Got to tighten the belt.
Can't
do these things I want to
do.
Yeah.
Even some of the exit interviews they did after this rally last night did not sit well with people who were saying, you know, I love him.
I think he's wonderful.
But
This is not my lived experience.
And somebody else said, do any of these people actually grocery shop?
I would really be curious among members of the Trump administration, because they're all multimillionaires.
When is the last time any of them actually physically stepped foot in a grocery store?
I would ask the question, one of any of them actually had to think about, oh,
I don't know if I can afford that this month, right?
And honestly, that that that spreads to a lot of people in Washington, a lot of people in Congress and the Senate, you know, they are of other situations financially than we are.
They don't have even when they have the best of intentions of trying to help, they don't still understand the struggle of regular hardworking tax paying folks.
And, you know, I just
What I don't understand is the breaking point, you know, there's going to come a point where people are going to be giving up their homes again because they can't afford their mortgages.
I don't want to paint a doomsday picture.
I really do not.
I don't want to scare anybody.
But the way is going right now is becoming untenable.
And the things that people have to pay for, you only get so much limit on your credit card too.
And then you got to pay that at maybe between a 20 to 30 percent interest rate.
Yeah, it's shocking what credit cards companies get away with it.
It truly is.
Yeah.
And again, if he's going to keep going out on the stump like this and continuing to tell people, you know, it's everything is great.
Just buy less.
Yeah.
I don't know that that's going to place a well down the road.
But again, he can't he bragged last night about how he didn't stick to the script.
Yeah.
Well, we've been that's the problem is when you look at that, when you look at that topic or that whatever, that just goes back to
you know, who he's always been and how we've, how we have taken him into our media and to our lives.
And once he started doing politics seriously in 2015, uh, he was a joke and he loved that because he got to say whatever he want.
And then it, you know, I mean, that's the thing is when I hear things like that, I'm like, yeah, that's kind of our doing though.
Like we, we, we, we as an American electorate did not hold his feet to the fire.
Like we did other politicians, Republican and Democrat by the way, because honestly, I've said this before and I say this again, I said to myself,
I could have dealt with a Marco Rubio 2015 candidate and a 2016 president versus what we have now, but because we treated it in the 24 hour media circus, he was the joke.
He then used that to his advantage.
And here we are 10 years later and there's no going back.
The, the, the, you know, the toothpaste is out of the tube, Jane.
There's no saying like,
well, he
needs to be more responsible.
Like we don't ever say, well, maybe he's finally becoming the president.
We all want that's cause we don't expect that anymore.
In fact,
we're
incredulous to if he came out today and said, I really want to work on a comprehensive immigration reform with the Republicans and the Democrats in a room.
We all be going, are you a robot?
Because we just don't expect that of him.
And that's sad that we do not expect those standards from the president.
We have a couple of texts coming in that I wanted to share.
Jim in Campbell's Board says, Jane, to the president, tell him, you don't need $100 billion.
You can live on $25 million.
Good luck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Tom in Hartford listening on WAUK says, if I win the $200, I'll be buying presents.
And Peter in New London on WISS says, if the economy is so good, why do I have to buy less?
Yeah.
That's a really reasonable question.
It's, it, you know, the problem I have to, and what really worries me is the fact that the people who are at that rally who had those sentiments of like, this isn't my experience.
This is not right.
I'm not, I'm not, the economy isn't reflecting in my pocketbook.
The economy they say is not reflected in my pocketbook.
But then the question is, do you go home and reflect on your vote?
Do you reflect on your attitude?
Do you reflect on your opinions and say, maybe there's something else?
I'm not saying you're become a liberal.
I'm not telling you to change parties or I'm saying just going home and as, as Will Westmoreland said, I'm not going to tell you, you have to, I don't make it to say you have to tell me you were wrong.
Just tell me you might have been lied to.
And if your economy is bad at your home, ask yourself why and what can we do to change that?
And you got to talk to your reps.
You got to call your representatives now and tell them,
your, as you put it, lived in experience.
Yes, your lived experience.
Go to myvote.wi.gov, myvote.wi.gov.
If you are not certain who your representatives are, all you have to do is put in your address and they will all come up, including their contact information so you can give them a call.
When we return the GOP health care plan, okay.
All the details on the way stay close.
You are listening to Mattnair On Air coming to you across
the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be right back.
We had a gym was in Malaga Malaga to us in Malaga and and I
know where that is Jane But why don't you tell everybody else listening where Malaga is Malaga is
an island That didn't help at all in the water.
It's thank you in the in the sea
When
Jane
retire, she's gonna start geography lessons.
You mean she's gonna
be teaching.
I'll be teaching geography.
Yes.
Look for that food is the word F O O D and good luck
Healthcare, wow.
Ashley Moody was on faux news.
She's a member of the Trump administration.
Here's what she said.
The healthcare thing, this is a temporary fix while we actually dig in and explore how we can address healthcare for the American people.
The Republican plan is we thought a lot about this.
We put pen to paper and this is our best scenario right now.
to propose a fraud-free, actually affordable health care plan.
Did you
say fraud-free?
Fraud-free.
Oh.
That was a lot of words.
Yeah.
That really didn't say anything.
I bet you they thought more about that statement than they did about health care.
I'm sure they did.
The full Crapo Cassidy bill that Senate Republicans are expected to hold a floor vote on this week.
directs the Department of Health and Human Services to put money into health savings accounts, okay?
Paired with bronze or catastrophic plans on the exchanges.
Now, it's my understanding that the bronze plans are the worst plans that give you the least coverage, correct?
It's the gold and silver and then the bronze.
Yeah.
Okay.
Appropriate funding for payments to reduce premiums in plan year 2027.
So not next year.
Apparently next year you're just going to have to struggle with your increase in premiums of 200, 300%.
But just hang on.
Just hang on.
It's going to be fine.
Senate Republicans announcing yesterday they will vote on their own health care proposal later this week.
The 32-page bill will not address the expiring marketplace tax credits.
Which is what they said they would talk about to reopen the government.
Yeah, but they will send payments to certain Americans through health savings accounts to cover some of the cost of health care.
Now the number that I've seen kicked around is $2,000.
Okay.
that doesn't cover anybody's deductibles.
Well, the thing is, deductibles are at least $5,000 per individual, I would assume.
Well, and on top of that,
you're giving people money from the government.
This is socialized medicine.
This is, this is not something that like, it's not going to be a, it's not a fix.
It's not even a bandaid.
It's not, it's,
Okay, you can pay your copay or maybe get a minor procedure done and pay out of pocket that way.
But this is not a fix.
This is not anything at all.
And once again, they've had now 10 years to think about
it.
15 years.
Well, no, I'm talking about one Trump.
I'm talking about Donald Trump when
he
said, you know, four, I would say 14 years and 50 weeks.
We've had 14 years and 50 weeks to talk about this.
And again, this is not.
a solution.
And we got Troy from Mount Horribon, the line who wants to talk about this.
Troy, what do you have to say about the healthcare issue?
Hey, real quick,
if they're
going fraud free, are they going to kick Rick Scott out of the Senate?
There it is.
There
it is.
And if you don't know what that's, thank you very much, Troy.
Appreciate the call.
If you don't know what that's about, Google Rick Scott.
Medicaid fraud and read for yourself one of the largest Medicaid fraud schemes in American history.
And somehow he didn't get arrested, didn't get thrown in jail, got to become a governor and then got to become a senator.
So we
need, and I've seen, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I've seen other Republicans say that Rick Scott is the one who should be put in charge of fixing our healthcare system.
Yeah, the Rick Scott.
Again, I'm not going to shake a stick at $2,000.
That will help with something, but again, but you know, as I mentioned earlier in jest, if my wife falls and breaks her ankle coming down the stairs, then we are in trouble.
We're not, I don't know if we're bankrupt, but we are not going to, but it's not going to be an easy, easy life because we're going to be paying on another thing.
And I really just come on, give us some solution, not.
You can't pay everyone off basically.
You can't just throw money at the problem.
You have to come up with actual ideas.
Yes, actual solutions, which they've had since the ACA went into effect.
They've had a long, many, many, many years to talk about their plans.
But don't worry, they're focused on it now and they're putting things on paper.
Yep.
Maybe they're playing hangman.
We don't know.
News is next.
When we come back, Andrew Watkins will be here.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matt and Air on Air.
On this civic media radio network, we'll be right back.
Good morning and welcome, welcome to Matt and Air on Air.
Jane Matt and Air.
Greg Bak.
Doctor's slide on the board coming to you from our home at Radio Park in Racine.
You can join us.
at 855-752-4842.
You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream.
Good morning live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter before we get to our next guest.
I do want to remind you, we are in the midst of our multi-state grown-up gift list text to win contest.
Our daily prize of 200 bucks up for grabs through this week.
But you must have the CD app.
So grab your phone, open up the Civic Media app, pick your favorite station, perhaps WAUK.
And text in the word food.
F-O-O-D.
Food is this hour's key word you have until 10 o'clock.
to text that in to be in the running for that 200 bucks, one of our three grand prizes.
Tom Hartman will have the next keyword for you coming up in the 11 o'clock hour, but don't want you to miss out on this chance.
So text in the word food, F O O D. Right now we are delighted to be joined by Andrew Watkins, New York Times.
best-selling author, and she has a great sub-stack called For Such a Time as This.
I highly encourage you to check it out and subscribe.
Good morning, Andra.
Thanks for joining us.
How are you?
I'm great.
How's everybody?
We are good.
Right before you joined us, we were talking about the Republican plan for health care.
I have a couple text messages that I just wanted to share with everybody before we move along.
Andra Phil and Mount Pleasant said,
My employer last June gave us a 2.9% raise.
In July, they asked us to pay 3% more for insurance.
What do you think about that?
Yeah.
And Mary and Wauwatosa, Jane, I'll miss you on Civic Media.
Your years of hosting, professionalism, and thoughtful responses to my occasional comments.
As a happy retiree, I wish you the same.
Thank you, Mary.
I will be in touch with you, by the way, Mary.
She's got a little...
tagline on there about she's got a resource of deserving underprivileged hopes who would welcome some household donations.
So I will get in touch with Mary and we'll follow up on that.
But, Andra, I wanted to talk with you about the First Amendment.
One of the reasons why we like having you on the show is because you grew up in a white Christian nationalist household.
And so I think that gives you really unique perspectives on what is happening with some members of the Trump administration.
Russ Vote, for example,
is a prime example of Christian nationalism within this administration.
But particularly, let's talk about the First Amendment and the right to free speech.
OK.
So one of the things that I always talk about when I'm here is the role that the Heritage Foundation, they come up a lot when I talk to y'all.
So the role that the Heritage Foundation played.
in writing Project 2025 and started writing this thing in 1979.
This is a long-term plan that they've put together.
And so last year in October they published a paper called Project Esther.
I think we've talked about it here before that targeted certain types of speech as being anti-Semitic and therefore termed it domestic terror to engage in that kind of speech and
and expression.
Over the weekend Pam Bondi took that and morphed it from the president's NSPM seven declaration which took a whole host of things including things like anti-Christianity, anti-capitalism, anti-family, you know traditional family and and tried to label those things domestic terror.
and so now Pam Bondi took that list and ordered the FBI and the IRS to investigate groups, Antifa groups, which let's reiterate again, Antifa is not an organized thing.
There isn't an Antifa club that you can join.
I tried.
I've
tried many times.
He's still waiting for his shirt.
I know.
I gave him
$30 all right.
But, you know, this directive targets Antifa groups and asks the IRS to investigate them for quote unquote tax crimes at the same time that it orders cash patel to set up a tip line with the FBI so that Americans can call in and say, you know what, I think my neighbor is a member of Antifa.
I think this guy at work is a member of Antifa and get cash rewards.
for turning their fellow Americans in for these things.
So it's a very sweeping attack on the First Amendment that we haven't seen much about in the media anywhere.
And so I've been writing about it this week.
I've done more than one interview about it and I'm grateful to be able to talk about it here today because more Americans need to know about this very aggressive attack to essentially label our beliefs.
the product of our own minds, domestic terror and prosecute people
for that.
And I think it's important that people remember that this administration touts that they are all about free speech.
The whole thing about Elon taking over Twitter was he's going to bring back free speech and instead of squelching Americans voices,
Well, I'll tell you what, my timeline changed dramatically on Twitter once Elon took over, filled with hateful, misogynistic, racist, I mean, vilth.
But as you said, Andra, now they're very going to specifically target speech that they don't like.
It's just speech they don't like.
And this also, to me, seems a way to target fundraising mechanisms for Democrats.
Right?
By labeling them all Antifa and they're all terrorist groups and that way we can stop Democrats from raising money.
That has been a long-term goal of the Heritage Foundation to, you know, dismantle a thing like Act Blue.
You know, that would be one of the principal things that they will ultimately target with this if more Americans don't rise up and start protesting this kind of thing immediately.
Initially, I think they're going after, I think the order that she put everything in is the order that they're going to go after.
So initially, I think they're going after people who are immigration friendly, who are saying, we need to have more immigration.
We need to work for immigrants.
We are attorneys for immigrants.
We are groups that help people come here and remain here legally.
We are protesting ICE.
We are filming ICE.
We are putting that on social media.
We are trying to help people who are being attacked and kidnapped and disappeared by ICE and Border Patrol So, you know, those are the first groups I believe who are in line Because they're so far behind their quota numbers on who they wanted to have arrested and disappeared by now So, you know, all the pressure is being put on that one.
I think first and so if you're in any of the groups that I just named You could potentially under this order
be deemed a domestic terrorist simply for trying to help a human being come here and flee oppression in another country or remain here and keep from having to go back to a country where you were in
danger.
It's the question you usually ask at the end to wrap everything up, but I want to talk about it right now.
And if people are listening right now and hearing this and going, well, I don't like Antifa, and I don't like immigrants, and I love this.
So I'm on board.
Why do I care?
My First Amendment's not being threatened.
What is the problem with that attitude towards this?
For that individual who is not a billionaire, not a millionaire, not a senator, not in Trump administration, just like, hey, I like this.
Nothing wrong with that.
I'm going to go back to my life.
Why is that a problem for them?
Because history shows us if we look at these kinds of attacks on speech and expression that they always define this stuff extremely broadly and Nebulously so that they can then come along and just decide at random who has violated these orders So just because today you think well, I'm not doing anything.
I'm not anti-capitalist.
I'm not anti-American.
I'm not anti-family
which is another anti-traditional family.
I don't care who marries who, you know, but saying I don't care who marries who is anti-family to this crowd.
So, you know, not understanding what they mean by these definitions and these groups of people that they're going to go after could mean that you think you're fine, right?
You think you're fine.
and you're not fine.
And so it really is imperative that Americans wake up and understand these people mean a certain list of things when they define these groups and understand that you could very easily be on that list without thinking you would be today.
Yep.
If you are just joining us, Andra Watkins is our guest.
She is a New York Times best-selling author and the author of the great substack called For Such a Time as This.
I highly encourage you to check it out on substack and subscribe.
It's fantastic.
Is anyone else really bothered by this whole Americans ratting out other Americans?
That's terrifying.
For cash.
For cash.
For cash.
Yeah.
Terrifying.
What other countries, Andrea, have we seen things like this happen?
Oh, Nazi Germany.
Oh, yeah.
The version of that.
Russia does that.
You know, China doesn't do that because they surveil their people so closely that they can just basically say, you can't have your own money anymore.
We're shutting it off.
And you know, you've lost all your social credit.
So until you earn it back, we're not going to give you anything, you know, access to anything that you want.
So, you know, authoritarian regimes, Hungary has done versions of this under Victor Orban, which is one of the people who advised the Heritage Foundation on these kinds of documents.
Oh,
yeah.
He has, he has worked with that.
So, you know, for an American to sit and look at this and say, we're too exceptional,
This is America.
This will never happen here.
We, you know, we have our right to our eradicate individualism and part of that means we get to say whatever we want.
You know, if that's what you want to cling to as believing that that's the America, that this statement purports to champion, you are deluding yourself.
And, you know, you have to get up and realize that this
is determined to rob you of every First Amendment protection you have.
And Greg, we've talked about this before, and we've seen this now happen in real time.
At some point, you become not MAGA enough.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is out.
Was there anyone who was more MAGA than Marge?
I mean, come on!
And now she is persona non grata.
She turned on the king, and she's out.
It's not that big of a stretch for that to happen to you.
Exactly.
I mean, the Nine of the Long Nives in Germany was in part exterminating people who had been allies of the Nazi regime.
So, you know, they do go after people who aren't MAGA enough, who aren't Nazi enough, who aren't whatever version of fascism enough.
That is historically represented.
And I'm going to go back to something I said earlier in the show today, you know, and it pertains to the, your economic state of mind and where you are on your kitchen table economy.
If you look at, but we've been talking about right now, along with the things being said about our economy, and you're just not seeing it.
It's not a, and it's not.
you know, connecting with you and you feel, oh, I'm not, I don't want to, I mean, I don't like my neighbor next door, but I'm not going to call a phone number and rat on him.
I don't like this at all.
Cause again, when could it happen to me?
That's when you need to sit back, self reflection, ask yourself, have you been lied to and move on from there?
That's, that is responsibility of those individuals now.
We're going to continue our conversation with Andrew Watkins on the other side.
You can always join us at 855-752-4842.
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We're playing this through Friday along with three grand prizes.
So text in the word food by 10 o'clock.
Tom Hartman will have another shot for you coming up in the 11 o'clock hour and just one real quick heads up before we get back to Andra.
I'm looking at the 511wi.gov website.
There are accidents all over the state.
In Milwaukee, in Beaver Dam, we have a whole closure of eastbound and westbound, Wisconsin 28, around Madison, around Janesville, Green Bay, Appleton, Nina.
So please be careful if you're out in the roadways.
It's still slick and it's going to be blowing.
And so just.
Take a look at that website.
It's free and it's very, very useful.
511wi.gov.
As I mentioned, Andra Watkins is here.
She is a New York Times bestselling author and also the creator of the Substack for such a time as this.
I highly encourage you to check it out.
Andra, in the time that we have left, let's talk a little bit about the Christian Nationalist Project 2025 vision for education.
Well,
They published a heritage foundation again.
We talk about them so much I'm just a document called the Phoenix Declaration of Public Education and so the state of Florida Just adopted the Phoenix Declaration of course as the first state in the country to undergird their public education system in the state of Florida
And it's a short document, you know, the Heritage Foundation doesn't put out a lot of shorts, but this one's pretty short.
And it's a statement of what they believe needs to happen with public education.
But I did a whole translation on my sub-stack.
of this document into Christian nationalist language.
I took out all the benign, bland language that they hide behind and put in what they actually mean.
So I encourage people to go and look at that newsletter because it shows you everything they intend to do with public education in Florida, but not just in Florida.
They want to apply this to every state.
So we're going to start seeing other states have this come up.
And I want more Americans to be able to go into these meetings and ask questions like, when the Phoenix Declaration calls something an ideological fad, what does that mean?
Because the document wants to purge all ideological fads out of public
education.
Ideological fads?
If you don't know that Christian nationalists believe that being LGBTQ, being trans, being non-binary, being in a same-sex marriage, you know, those kinds of things are ideological fads.
That's what they mean when they're talking about ideological fads.
It's a fad.
You
know, if people just couldn't learn about this, that it exists, if we just drove it all back into the closet,
and didn't teach anyone that this can happen, then nobody would be this.
It's just become this bad because we've learned so much about it.
So that's what that means.
But getting people on these boards and commissions to define what's an ideological fan to you, what does that mean?
When you're saying that all people need formation, that's a big word in this document, all Americans need formation, what does that mean to you?
Because when a Christian nationalist uses the word formation, they mean Christian nationalist religious indoctrination.
Formation means indoctrination.
So, you know, rather than going in and telling them that, ask them to define, well, what does that mean?
What is formation?
Please define that for me.
Tell me what that means.
And then help them understand in the crowd what that means.
But I'm guessing that if I say, tell me what formation means, they're not going to say what you just said, they are going to then give me another buffed out, shined up piece of information that makes it sound very non-threatening and very welcoming to like, hey, we want better education.
You know, like they have backups, right?
Like if they say formation, I know what that means.
But if I say what is for, I want them to tell on themselves, they know how not to do that.
Some of them do.
At the local level, I wouldn't say that a lot of them do.
So I'm actually putting together a booklet that groups can go into public meetings and have questions and have responses when they give answers like that Greg.
so that more people in the audience can understand what they're really reading in this document, because it turns all U.S.
public education into forced Christian nationalist religious indoctrination from kindergarten onward.
Well, and we've heard, I want to say I've heard Pete Hegs say this, we are going to teach our kids to love our country, right?
We're going to teach them to be patriots.
And I would assume that means never questioning anything, always accepting everything that you were told by the government, right?
Just be a good soldier and do what you're told and everything will be fine.
Right.
So, and accepting that we're a white Christian nation and we're founded as a Christian nation, you know, the Christian nationalist revisionist history.
is another thing.
Yeah.
Follow Andrew Watkins.
Subscribe to For Such a Time as This on Substack.
It is marvelous.
Andrew, thank you so very much for all your appearances here.
It's been so enlightening.
We really, really appreciate it.
Thanks.
I love meeting you and we'll stay in touch.
Tell Tom Hartman I said hello.
We'll do so.
Thanks a lot.
Andrew Watkins, appreciate it.
News is coming up next when we return.
We will be back with Jim Santel from Amicus, a law review.
Stay close.
You are listening to Matt Nair on air on the CIP Media
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