Transcript
Nikolas DeGroot on Ground Floor Democracy & Talking Politics Face-to-Face (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Tue Jun 2, 2026
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It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
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Yeah, come on!
Here's Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Dude!
Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.
Happy Tuesday everybody.
Oh Man, it feels good to be back on the air Greg.
It was a long 23 hours 24 hours 22 hours, whatever it was
good to see you buddy.
How are you?
I'm doing quite well peachy keen loving life It's Tuesday.
That means it's not Monday True.
We are that
much closer to Wednesday, which is always a good feeling.
Yeah, sure it is That is Greg block folks.
He is coming to you live from radio park in Racine
And just up the coast from him is me.
I don't
know if
that was grammatically correct, but I am in Marinette, Wisconsin in beautiful northeast Wisconsin.
I am a mere a couple hundred feet from the beautiful
Waters of Green Bay and it is a beautiful gorgeous warm day here.
So I'll take it Hopefully you guys had a great day as well Dom is joining us from Madison as always.
How are you my friend?
I'm doing pretty good.
I
design style for
new apartment?
In what way like, um, you know
What is the style you're going for in your apartment?
Like Art Deco or... Like Art Deco, are you going for... Are you going for modern?
Are you going for a country look?
Like, you know, looking like your grandma's kitchen?
Are you going for an old... Dom's
like, I got a couch and a TV.
Pretty
much.
Okay, let me rephrase the question.
Let me rephrase the question, and I don't mean to sound like that guy, but when your girlfriend sees the place, what does she say, like, as far as, hmm, I can see this, this, and this?
She says, this
and that's
okay
for the shabby chic.
get yourself You know like except for the couch.
I think a couch is kind of gross Yeah, if it's been used listen,
burn it.
Okay
You might as well just put like a poster with no frame of John Belushi wearing the college sweater and then next to that just a Blues Brothers poster.
I want to go more into this, your friends who give you Jimmy John's flag.
That seems very interesting as well.
just give swag as gifts at that age.
We're canceling all the, we're canceling all the guests and everything we're talking about tonight.
We're going to focus on this specific topic tonight.
Dude,
that's the case.
I am totally taking a powder.
I'm not sitting through that for two hours.
Knock yourself out.
I'll go run some errands.
I don't know if you guys are handy or not, but I, we have this great porch and I don't like, you know, it's the, the seasons are so short here in Wisconsin, but I, I'd like to be able to use it through October.
So I thought about buying heaters, you know, those big portable heaters you see at restaurants.
I didn't want to do that.
So we bought something unassuming, a little fire table, which can be hidden, but gives off some warmth.
And I'm trying to put this thing together today.
I cannot believe that places like Menards or Home Depot or whatever, expect general
The general population to put together a fire table.
There are like three tubes.
You can't mix up Mm-hmm I'm not the handiest guy in the world, but I'm slogging through this setup and I think I got it down, but I don't know if you guys are handy I've done a lot of bad stuff when it comes to putting things together I put a toilet seat on once that has it was up at a 45 degree angle because I put the bolts on wrong
My wife bought a table off the back of a truck in Chicago years ago.
And I put the legs on and the chairs didn't fit.
And we got into an argument over it.
She's like, that doesn't look right.
I go, well, honey, this is what happens when you buy furniture off a truck because they know you're not going to complain because they're mob related.
And it turns out I had the legs on the opposite side of the brackets.
So it's stuff like that that has
haunted me over and over.
Quick question.
Yeah.
Do these things come with instructions?
They do and I follow them listen,
dude.
I but you know these diagrams are so like I Don't know you have to have like bionic eyes sometimes
to see what they're very detailed I mean, I don't disagree with you.
I I like putting stuff together.
I'm a Lego kid So when I when we get something it's always my job, and it's not a job.
It's a pure blown love for me But sometimes you do get like I was putting together a workbench table in my garage and the instructions that came with it were not
as helpful as I think they thought they were.
And I really had to.
There were a couple, I mean, and I think when I put something together, I'll say I have to go back every once in a while.
I'm like, oh, I missed this one thing.
Oh, I got to go back and like unscrew four screws and go back and blah,
blah,
blah.
But yeah, I mean, it's so frustrating.
So I get it completely.
That's why I always go online to try to find videos too, because I do not want to
I like putting things together.
I don't want to be angry at the end of it.
Right.
That's typically
how I am, but the fire thing makes me nervous.
Like you put a
table together wrong.
Okay.
Maybe the table falls over.
It's uneven or whatever.
You only used eight bolts and 17 screws.
I don't know what it is, but, um, yeah, it can be very frustrating, but I, when I have time, I don't mind it, but I'm just not very good at it.
I'm willing to
admit
that.
Hey, man.
He said that that's.
Well, I mean, that's where YouTube always comes in handy for me.
YouTube University has been a godsend.
Yeah.
No, it seriously has.
We have a great show, folks, tonight.
It is great to have you here with us on Nightlight.
We have Nicholas DeGroote coming up at 535.
How cool is this?
Nicholas started a group called Ground Floor Democracy.
And it's just people getting together.
I won't give away everything, but in really cool places, just to talk about current events and politics and have a civil...
discussion.
So I'm excited to get into a big argument with Nicholas.
I joke, guys.
I'm joking.
It'll be great to have Nicholas here.
That's at 535.
And then at 620, we have Mr. Jason Mansmith.
He's been on the show before.
He's the marketing director of the Thrasher Opera House.
Have you ever heard of a cooler venue name than that, gentlemen?
No.
I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty metal.
Right?
Yeah,
And I'm not saying they haven't had metal acts there before, but they have just like a great lineup.
Like
just comedians and plays and everything.
We'll talk to Jason about what's coming up in this really cool venue in Green Lake, Wisconsin.
We've got a great question of the night, but first guys, I think we need to get to something.
Big stuff here.
We are doing one of our great civic media text to win contests.
We are in day number two.
It's still fresh.
You still have so many opportunities to win.
It is the civic media accelerate your summer multi-state text to win contest.
Do you know how that works, Greg?
I do know how that works.
You only need one thing to play, right?
It's the app.
That's all
you
need, folks.
I'm gonna give you the keyword in just a moment here.
Text that in on the app and you will be eligible for a daily prize of a hundred bucks and a Wisconsin Dells prize package.
Things like, well, a lot of stuff that you can do at Wisconsin Dells for miscellaneous tickets for experiences at the Dells.
Those are just the daily prizes.
And when you enter the contest, you are automatically enrolled
for our grand prize.
And this one's good, Greg.
And I know you're excited about this.
You want to tell the people what the grand prize is?
Oh, I'm very excited.
The grand prize is a $250 grocery card and a $250 gas card.
So all of that could be yours.
And you have seven opportunities a day.
to text in, we're going to be giving stuff away.
We're going to be giving you, we should, we'll be giving those prices away, seven AM, nine AM, 11, one, three, five and seven, seven times you can enter every single time.
And we, we wish you the best.
Here's the best part too, is that if it's your first time playing, you will probably get a message from us at city media to invite you to do something like,
follow us on Facebook, sign up for newsletter.
If you do that, you'll get one extra entry in the entire conscious.
Can't do it every time, but you'll get that one extra entry.
And if you enter in every single time, that is still, let's see here.
That is 71 entries total.
That's a lot.
Yeah.
And the good thing is we can't play so that increases
the
listeners.
So just click on that link.
When you get a confirmation link, click
on
that link and go to town and
What Greg just said, great stuff and an extra chance to win.
Absolutely.
And it's very easy.
So
250 bucks, a $250 gas card, a $250 grocery card, get yourself some Twinkies, whatever you want to buy.
There's
no
right or wrong folks.
And that's all we need.
So, Greg, you know what?
I'm going to let you, if you're okay with this, you want to give the keyword?
I'd love to.
I absolutely
would.
Lay it on
us.
All
right.
This
words, this hours keyword is Mr. Greg Buck.
Grocery, G-R-O-C-E-R-Y Grocery, as in, I'm going to buy grocery with the money I win from the Accelerate.
Yeah, because it doesn't make sense.
Grocery is the word.
G-R-O-C-E-R-Y.
You can text it in right now.
Good luck.
You have until the end of the hour, but you only get to enter in once.
But the word is grocery.
We'll let you know throughout the hour as well.
Remind people, folks coming in a little bit late in the game, want them to be able to enter in.
But that is the keyword for this hour.
Good luck.
And yeah, let's, let's, let's get the show a rocket and a rolling then.
I was following along and you spelled it right.
That was perfect.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Great keyword.
Impressive.
Yes.
Especially given our grand prize.
So good luck
everybody and text that in and off you go and good luck.
So guys, we got a great question tonight too.
So maybe we should get to that.
What do you think Tom?
Let's talk about the question.
I
think
that means yes.
Question.
Question.
question.
All right, so about I would say two weeks ago,
There were some stories in the news for several days really about these 11 or I think it was at the time 10 maybe it was 12 but they settled on 11 missing scientists that scientists that just vanished and people that do research and I admit Greg I fell for it I was like oh my gosh we got to talk about this well yeah
Our pal Tucker, who's also our senior producer, debunked this theory in about three minutes and told us what happened.
And there was an excuse for every scientist that had gone missing.
Well, Fox News kind of ran with the story in the last day or two.
Regardless.
Didn't stop him.
So that is kind of the inspiration for tonight's question of the night, which is, what is a conspiracy theory you believe?
What is a conspiracy theory?
Conspiracy theory, you believe.
855-752-4842-855-757.
You can also text us on the app right after you send in that keyword.
And if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or ex Twitter, you can drop us a stream comment and be part of the fun here at Night Light on this awesome Tuesday night.
And I've known Tucker, our senior producer for some time now and he's great.
We absolutely love him.
What I did not know.
And when he, when we kind of brought this up, he just, he looked at, he goes, I'm also like an award winning, I've won awards for my research.
I'm like, okay, let me trust you then to do that.
Cause he knows it a lot better than that.
Cause what happens is I start looking things up and I'm like, but wait a minute, but wait, I know.
So it was a great article that we saw in the New York times we will put in the show notes too regarding the,
conspiracy
theory regarding these
missing scientists.
And it really focuses on something important.
And I think that depending on the conspiracy theory we're talking about, it could also lead to great harm because it affects families, it affects loved ones, it affects communities.
I mean, perfect example, perfect example.
They're eating the cats and the dogs, a completely made up
a completely
made up thing
said by the vice president of the United States back when he was running for office.
And he even admitted saying, well, it's not true, but I needed to start the conversation.
So you lied.
So that lie he told turned into conspiracy theory, which affected the immigrants, affected their families, affected the community and affected the way the country looks at Springfield, Ohio.
So this is a really great article.
And we're gonna, you know, we'll talk more about this in the second hour about what people believe and what they don't believe, but I think it was, it was a very good read.
This place
information can be dangerous.
No question about that.
Sydney politics weighs in on the stream and says, what happened to the hair dom?
Did Greg and Pete make you cut it?
We would never do that, Sydney.
Great
to
have you with us.
When we come back, we're going to tell you how many times Donald Trump tweeted last month.
It's insane, folks.
Or social, whatever you call it.
This is Nightlife with Pete and Greg.
Coming back.
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Welcome back.
This is Night Light, a Tuesday night edition with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach and Dom Lee along for the ride.
holding down the fort in Madison and working the board.
It is great to have you with us.
I'm in Marinette, Wisconsin.
Greg is in Racine.
And together, the three of us make up the Yatterhey Triangle, and you'll know what that means if you watch us on the stream.
Tune into the stream.
We like to be watched.
Like some kind of Illuminati thing.
Yeah, I'm taking like the I'm taking the I'm taking the Jay-Z hand thing This is a good reason to watch the live stream folks taking the Jay-Z hand thing or the diamond Dallas page thing if you love wrestling from the 90s and make it into a triangle It's not the Illuminati.
It's the yatter.
Hey triangle.
I'm a Marty now.
I love it.
It's thank you side down
Well, there's no such thing as an upside-down triangle, but
What you just did plays right into the question of the night, which is what is a conspiracy theory you believe?
Let us
know.
You can text us, stream us, or let us know on the app.
But we have a caller, Dom.
And
it's
our pal Greg.
Can you put him through?
Patch him in.
Let's do it.
Hello, guys.
Hey there,
Greg.
Good evening.
Thanks for calling.
Hey, Dom, good bumper music with the Sam Cooke twist in the night away, too.
That's awesome.
Appreciate that.
That's really cool.
Um, hey, so, um, I, um, I don't know if I used to believe, but I did give, like, when I was small, um, which is when, you know, some of our conspiracy theories start when we are small children, but, um,
You know, so if you step on a crack, you break your mother's back, you know, I don't know if I really believe that, believe that, but they gave some credibility to it.
Or if you go across a black cat's path, it will give you so much bad luck.
And I can't even see whether a cat is black or not, but anyway.
So that's the thing.
But yeah, what I really wanted to tell you guys is this Friday night in Waukesha is going to start Friday night live and it's going to be a music festival in downtown Waukesha, nine stages or more of local live music.
And so you guys should try to
make it down, maybe even do a nightlight remote there sometimes.
That would be really fun.
I mean, I don't know if we'll be able to do it this time.
That's a kind of a
short
notice, but we appreciate the invite.
And that's something we are talking about or doing live remotes for the show.
It's every week during the summer and this year, they were just advertising that they're going to be designated area for
um alcohol consumption uh downstairs so are downtown so people can actually drink in open air so um that's
awesome greg uh
and i saw your text
too about how sometimes directions are in chinese and foreign languages or so it seems but uh that awesome stuff glad you're part of the show greg thanks for the call pal
appreciate
of foreign language, so.
But anyway, we'll see you guys later.
Have a great night, Greg.
Thanks so much.
Have a good night.
Speaking of Greg, Greg, this is something you'll be interested in, thanks to the, I think this was on The Daily Beast.
Donald Trump set a record.
Last month, he posted on TruthSocial, the platform nobody ever goes to,
861 times in May.
That is a record.
And let me just say USA, USA, USA.
That is impressive.
861
times.
That's nearly 28 posts a day, folks.
That takes a lot of work.
It needs nimble thumbs.
It needs a real dedication.
to needing attention.
And what I did find out, if you brought up Truth Social, which is very funny, is that the parent company of Truth Social lost a lot of money last quarter.
And their stock is worth like eight bucks.
They've only made like $3 million in any sort of profit whatsoever.
And they've lost like hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hasn't it
always done poorly
though?
Yeah, it's always done poorly.
Well, they always, they always say like, we don't make money with this, but they really don't make money with this.
Does he's just willing to take a loss so he can do whatever
even though he's welcome back on Twitter or he could
Oh, yeah, he has a Twitter account.
He has to yeah, yeah Elon Musk unwhatevered him banned him But yeah, he he he truths all over the place 28 times a day apparently That's insane.
Yeah, so I mean But that's that's what our president is doing only he is only beating out sitting congressman from Wisconsin Derek Van Norton for most tweets in a day.
So is that
Oh, Derek will tweet 100 times in a day.
He will tweet 100 times a day.
He is a special point.
His thumbs must be huge.
Yeah, huge.
He's huge.
Before we get out of here too, really quick, this came across the wire today.
NPR News is reporting this.
After a judge temporary blocked Trump's 1.8 billion and
billion anti-weaponization fund, they are officially walking away from it.
It has garnered no support.
Republicans are not happy about this.
And really, when it comes down to it, no one can really justify why anyone is going to be giving what has seemed to be $2 billion to various people who helped try to take down the government.
So that fund, the $1.776 billion fund is being abandoned.
How about that?
And
the good thing is, if you're into weaponization,
The Justice Department is still doing it.
A DOJ spokesperson kind of came to their defense, the people that stormed the looters.
The traders, they're called traders.
The traders and defended them, even though they beat up cops and left the place trash and all that kind of stuff.
They
pooped on the floor.
Yeah.
Well, the bathrooms probably work crowded, Greg, I'm just... That's true.
I mean, Nancy Pelosi's office has a great desk.
She probably has her
own bathroom.
Oh, yeah, of
course she does.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Our Accelerate Your Summer text-to-win multi-state contest is in full play right now, and our keyword this hour is grocery.
G-R-O-C-E-R-Y-G-R-O-C-E-R-Y.
Text that in only on the app, and you are eligible to win $100 and a nice little price package.
Even our next
guest
can
enter.
How about that?
We should remind them that.
Keyword, grocery.
Text it in.
Good luck, everybody.
We're coming right back.
with Nicholas DeGroote.
This is Pete and Greg and Nightlight.
Welcome back to Nightlight.
I am Pete Schwabba, sitting across or upstate, I should say, from Greg Bach.
And Dom Lee is in Madison.
We are the Yatterhay Triangle.
And just a quick reminder, folks, civic medias accelerate your summer multi-state text-to-win contest is in full swing.
And this hour's keyword is grocery, G-R-O-C-E-R-Y.
Grocery, text that in right now, only on the app and you're eligible for our daily prize.
Very excited to welcome this next guest to the show.
He founded this great group called Ground Floor Democracy and he joins us now over the phone to discuss this group which celebrates civility.
I love it.
Mr. Nicholas DeGroote.
Nicholas, how are you?
I'm good.
Thanks for having me, Pete and Greg.
Yeah,
it's our
pleasure.
What tell us about ground floor democracy and where do the inspiration for this come from?
Yeah, so honestly, I was feeling a lot of anxiety post election, and I was sort of looking around at my community and figuring out what would be the best way for me to get involved.
At the time, my schedule was really busy.
I was a full-time student.
I'm a single parent, which is obviously also a full-time job.
And then I was taking my son to the park every day after school for about two hours.
So I was like, well, I'm here in this public space every day anyway.
Like, why not just open up a space for people to sit with me and talk with me because
Even at that point, I really just felt like the place where things need to be fixed the most is the way that we all talk to one another about these things that are really contentious that we feel strongly about.
So I basically just did that.
I threw up a whiteboard where I would write a question of the day every day and I got a bunch of chairs and I'd set up a few chairs and then I would just invite people to come and sit with me.
Along the way, I would just meet people who are also feeling the tension of the moment and wanting to find ways to get involved, but also unsure of where to go or where to get started.
And I met people who are doing other really incredible things in the community, other mutual aid organizations and, you know, group projects that are just really incredible.
And I teamed up with a lot of them to work on different projects and slowly I've just been weeding together with the community and it's been really eye-opening to see how much work is really being done that like a lot of people don't see if you're not actively in those areas and getting involved with those things.
So then I was thinking to myself, I'm like, okay, so like where
What do we what is this about?
What are we trying to do and?
I was in school at the time so I learned about this concept called commons related to this scientist Eleanor Ostrom and she won a Nobel Prize for her work in this particular subject in relation to
like nature commons, which are basically like community owned nature spaces.
And she basically did a whole thing about like what are the structures that are necessary to like make these kind of organizations work effectively.
And so I'm just taking the work that she already did and I'm translating it to other types of things.
So like to me there's two things in particular that I really think our democracy needs to like
Move forward from where we are right now Really like three but but the two things that I think need to be built that don't already exist our first a civic commons Which is what we're trying to do with politics in the park.
I think a politics in the park is the first program of that civic commons that we're trying to build and then another example would be like a media commons where it's sort of a
community owned media group that's driven by the concept of civic journalism.
So I would ideally like to work with some community journalists who are already doing work in the community and try to come up with workshops and things that we can teach people to, you know, go out there and produce news, but like do it more disciplined than how it's currently.
you know getting out there and I think if we give people the tools we can you know build a more reliable system for supporting our democracy and then sort of the third thing is like helping organizations that already exist build democratic structures within them so that you know a lot of people I think really get into sort of the nonprofit space with like all of the best intentions at heart and then like
a generation will go by, and they're no longer in charge of those organizations.
But because of the way that they're built, now kind of one person gets to decide all these things about how the organization operates.
And it sort of creates this drift towards authoritarianism, even on the small scale.
So ideally, what I would like to do is help support the small democracies that will hopefully allow our large democracy to function better.
Well, I mean that's it's it sounds like quite a plan from Just simply taking your kid to the park to where you're at right now.
I want to bring it back to the original time though You know you you go to the park you put up a whiteboard with a question what were the first feelings toward Especially you know with social media out there
How apt were people or how bold were people to come in and actually have a conversation or did they say like what is this?
Like can you tell me before I actually say anything?
What were those first times doing it like for you?
Yeah, so this has been a like fascinating journey even from like my own perspective because I can tell you that like Putting up a sign and just inviting anybody to come and talk to you does this to like a lot of anxiety from the jump Like you're like, oh, I don't know who's gonna come and try to sit down like
Am I gonna have somebody who's you know really crazy and dangerous try to come up to me right away and cause a scene but like it just hasn't materialized that way and What I found is that like there's there's definitely some apprehension but like people are pleasantly surprised when they sit down and start having a conversation and there's almost like an apprehension for it to end like people people
Enjoy the time that we do it and for a while I even have like one gentleman who just like regularly seemed to be showing up to Like take part in it.
I actually haven't we took a break for the winter and I haven't seen him in the new year book But what I have had is so like last year there was a lot more days where it was just me sitting by myself in the park for sure but this year I've had only
two days of the days that I've been out there where nobody has been with me.
Like most days I have at least a couple of people show up and sit down and talk.
Our guest is Nicholas DeGroote.
He is the founder of Ground Floor Democracy.
He gets together with people in parks and encourages conversations, civil discourse, something that we could all use more of for sure.
Nicholas, one of my biggest...
dislikes for social media specifically Twitter X whatever you want to call it is that it allows people to remain anonymous and They're always full of courage when they don't use a real picture or their real name and they say really hateful things Have you had but I found that not to be the case like when you're talking to people face-to-face It's about you know problems in our towns like how do we
get water, pay for the pool operation or whatever.
It's much more mundane.
Have you encouraged any people with vitriol or that are that angry like they are on social media when it comes to sitting face to face in a park?
Well, and like what you're saying is like at the heart of like why I chose
to do this the way that i'm doing it because like i think the thing that needs to happen is we need to get off the social media and get back to the in person to be honest with you i don't even know how what the percentages on the amount of people on the internet that are actually people and not right that are designed specifically there to be outrageous and and get the clicks and stuff like that so like i have not had an experience like that.
out in public yet.
That's not to say that I don't think that it ever will happen, but for the most part, even the people who come in, there are people who come in, they're ready to have a debate.
That's what they're expecting.
They're expecting that I'm gonna argue with them about a particular point, but then once they realize that that's not really what I'm doing, there's always this shift to a calmer light.
like we're just here, almost like we're on the same page already.
Even though we haven't even really discussed anything.
Well, I think that's the problem is people, well, I don't wanna say the problem, that's, you know, people come in with their guards automatically up, up high, ready for anything.
And then you have to sort of talk them down and be like, nope, we're just here to have a conversation.
We're here to find out what the connective tissue between us is.
And that's where my question goes to, you know, you've had a lot of conversations, you talked to a lot of folks.
What are the connective tissues the things that really worry people out there?
I mean, I don't want to say regardless of who they voted for but when you break things down we have families we have Jobs we have things we have to pay for what are those points in our lives that make us more connected than divided?
Honestly, I think that like People would be surprised the extent to which across the spectrum
People want to be there for one another like especially when people are going through hard times.
Yeah, like I've never had anybody sit down and talk to me regardless of their political affiliation Who didn't want to see somebody who needed help get help?
That's a great answer
Have you thought about setting up a subsidiary to politics in the park called politics in the dog park, Nicholas?
Would people be even more calm under those circumstances?
Actually, you know the dog park in Oshkosh is not a terrible idea for a spot to like set up one day It's like those
puppy interviews with celebrities you like if there's if there's some heated discussion bring in some dogs
If you do though, I want a
taste.
I want some commission for that.
I do have an actual question for you.
We've got about two minutes and we have to do a break and then we'll come back with more with our guest, Nicholas DeGroote, the founder of Ground Floor Democracy.
But has this like inspired you at all to become even more active in your community or even run for office?
Not run for office, but be more involved in the community.
Absolutely.
I think that like in a lot of ways we put a lot of stock in politicians and their ability to do things.
But to be honest with you, when I really thought about it and I had even considered the possibility of running for an office, like where I really came back to is like the truth is that the power resides in the community.
And at the end of the day, like that's where I want to be doing my work is as close to the community as possible.
Great answer.
That's where that's where the most important work is being done and That just like before we go to break that leads me to my thought is that we are an election year here in Wisconsin We're voting for local leaders and that's where a lot of that great work is happening So those conversations happening happening at the local level and we're voting we're voting for people who want the jobs in our city councils County boards things like that.
It's very very important Nicholas what you're doing
Yeah
Oh, there you are.
All right, Nicholas, we will, we're gonna break.
We're gonna take a really short break.
We'll come back and we'll have a few more minutes.
Nicholas DeGroote is our guest.
He is the founder of democracy, ground floor democracy.
And he joins us now over the phone from Oshkosh.
We'll have a few more minutes with Nicholas.
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We are coming right back with Nicholas DeGroote.
This is Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
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I am Peach Waba, he is Greg Bach, and the other he is Dom Lee, folks.
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Something we could all use so good luck everybody text those in and we will read your texts regarding the question of the night after the news at the top of the hour right now We are in We are in we're in interview mode Greg.
We have a great
guest.
Nicholas
is here.
He's telling us about his organization and he is the founder of Ground floor democracy politics in the park.
That's what he does folks.
He goes to the park
has a seat presumably by a swing set or something and talks to people about the issues of
the day.
Nicholas.
We should
go to a park and talk to Nicholas.
I would love to do that.
Yeah,
absolutely.
What if we went there and acted like bots though?
Well, I would have to get my robot suit and have to get my lights all lit and practice my robot walk.
Like,
more.
Meep more.
It might be too involved.
No one landed on the moon.
Meep more.
Nicholas, I was reading it.
Bring more people in.
Hey, we just wanna help you get the butts in the seats.
That's why we're here.
So
you
said, yeah, in a recent article, you said you were a political science student at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
And
you were eager to attend political and academic events, but you looked around and saw donors, university administrators, professors, and students required to be present for class.
And you felt out of place.
You went from there to doing what you're doing now.
Why did you feel out of place in college?
I don't know if other places necessarily the right word.
I think that like college is just built for a very particular kind of student.
And like I wasn't that student because I'm 30 years old and I have a kid and all the responsibilities outside of education being the regular part of my life.
But also I had to be a full time student in order to.
Get the full Pell Grant and stuff like that.
So I think the system is really set up in a way that's like not ideal if you're somebody who's trying to return to school And you have other things going on in your life that make it difficult to make school your number one priority
Yeah, interesting
I don't add you know as someone Nicholas who went to went to college again later quote later in life would be to most people I went back when I was 26 got a degree in political
science it
is very hard because you have to people are really excited oh you're going back to school but there's really not a lot out there to like make it easier to do what they want you to do which is get that diploma it's tough I mean like full-time job kid full-time school that's three full-time jobs I don't know how you would find the time
Yeah, and I mean that was it right is like and and that's like everybody everybody's life is like that and then To try and tack on an extra thing of like hey come and be more civically engaged I totally understand why people like hear that and they sort of cringe away from it But I think that we're just sort of in this moment where it's like
even those of us who are living these incredibly busy lives already, we have to try and eke out even a little bit more room to be more civically engaged if we want to start to see things moving in a more positive direction.
Because it's pretty obvious to me that we're just headed in a bad one.
And if we don't do more to take the reins and shift us into a more positive direction, I don't know where the cliff is, so we'll see what happens.
Nicholas DeGroote is our guest.
He's the founder of Ground Floor Democracy.
He hosts meetings in the park, very casual meetings where people talk politics and issues and come together.
A great idea and it's been a success so far.
I want to ask you, Nicholas, before we let you go, we've got about a minute and a half or so.
In this article I read about you, you said you felt like after the first couple of meetings, you had to start facilitating or guiding the meetings, which makes sense to me.
And one of the questions you asked the attendees is if you could change one thing about your local government, what would it be?
I'd like to ask you that same question.
What would you change?
To be honest with you, I'm a really big fan of sortition, which is random lottery as a way of doing governance.
I think that local government especially could like do a lot to introduce sortition even
even not necessarily completely to the city council, but even a portion of the city council being chosen by sortition, I think could really do a lot to change our democracy and change the way we think about how regular people can do government.
I think I know what that word means based on what you said after it.
But can you explain to people listening like myself who might not know?
Yeah, so it's just instead of people being elected into positions There would instead be a random lottery of the people who live in that area to be chosen for those positions That's
bold.
I love that
I would be totally down for that.
Totally.
Nicholas,
Greg and I might
surprise you one of these days and crash one of your parties here in the park.
But in the meantime, keep up the great work.
Thank you for spending time here with us tonight.
You're making a difference.
I think it's fantastic.
Thanks for being here tonight.
Absolutely.
Thanks a bunch, guys.
Thanks a
lot.
You got it.
That's Nicholas DeGroote.
I think they have a website, Greg.
I should
ask them to do it.
Yeah, we'll put that in the
show notes if you want to check it out.
Perfect.
All right.
You have about 45 seconds, folks, to get in the keyword for this hour's multi-state text to win.
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Text that in and be quick.
We are coming back to read.
The responses to your question, your answers to the question of the night, and we will have Jason Mansmith here, too, in hour number two, telling us what's happening at the Thrasher Opera House in Green Lake.
Don't go anywhere, folks.
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It's Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.
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