Are America's biggest cities moving further left? In this episode of It's a Numbers Game, Ryan Girdusky breaks down the controversial platform released by the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), examining policies on housing, policing, immigration, education, reparations, and economic reform.
Then, Ryan is joined by Los Angeles radio host John Phillips to discuss Spencer Pratt's surprising mayoral campaign, why he fell short of making the runoff, and what the results reveal about the political future of Los Angeles and California. They also explore the rise of socialist candidates, voter confidence, election integrity, California's governor race, and whether Republicans can remain competitive in deep-blue cities.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Grodoski. Thank
you guys for being here. Happy Wednesday. We have a
great episode for you today. I have on a radio
show host and grew up all things California to talk
about the Golden State and what happened, what's going on.
I know a lot of people are disappointed about Spencer
prattenam making the runoff. My aunt like cornered me at
a family party recently and she telling me how angry
(00:23):
she was, and I was like, amyry, and I don't
think you've ever even been to Los Angeles anyway. I
know people are disappointed. So I on a top of
California if we can see any rays of sunshine coming
from that state or if it's going to be all
doom and gloom come November. But before we get into that,
I have a truly hilarious story the Twin Cities Democratic
(00:44):
Socialists of America, that is the cities of Minneapolis and
Saint Paul in Minnesota. It's the group, by the way.
The DSA is the group that AOC and Rashida Talib
are affiliated with. They released their policy platform for all
their candidates running for office, and I think It is
a work of art. If you were going to do
a South Park episode and have a character of a
(01:07):
self hating white communist in a place like Seattle, you
know me as Minneapolis, Brooklyn, Denver, insert whatever city, this
is what you get. It is. You cannot believe a
real person wrote this. If I said, an AI make
a shit list of policy goals, it wouldn't do the
job that this does. Now, I'm gonna read you guys
(01:29):
the policy platform because but by this is not a
fringe group, right. They have dozens of elected officials who
are DSA members, and more and more every year, like
wonderful people like Graham Platner, you know, people who are
upstanding members of their community, not at all, raging alcoholics
allegedly with domestic issues revolving women allegedly, or you know,
(01:51):
write on Reddit page as well into their mid thirties
how they love killing people or allegedly want to rape
men for the power struggle but not for the gay
sex allegedly all things. I mean, wonderful people like that. Okay,
let me break down the dssay of Minneapolis and Saint Paul,
the Twin Cities DSA platform. I'm going to read this
(02:12):
to you, and I'm going to give you commentary during it.
This is how it starts. The United States political system
is rigged against working people. This is not a democracy
where we have a real say in what our government does. Billionaires,
by elections, the system works in their interests, funding wars
and genocides and giving themselves more handouts. As a local
(02:33):
chapter of the DSA twin Cities, DSA's mission is to
unite workers into a powerful political movement to win the
battle for democracy and change the world. Okay, stop. First
of all, just to side note, the number of billionaires
and semi billionaires who donate to the DSA back canids
are too numerous to mention. They include Netflix founder Read Hastings,
(02:56):
wife Hyatt Hotel heiress Susan Pritzker, Hedge fun Air, Elizabeth Simmons,
a lot of errors and people married in That's really
the theme you always see from like DSA donors. They
all got their money, they didn't work for it, like
they married well or they were born into it. And
it says a lot about the people who want to
(03:19):
vote for DSA people. I mean, say what you want
about a hooker, but at least they work for their bocks.
I mean not the DSA endorse people or DSA donors. Okay,
to the back to the public policy platform. The bosses
live lives of security and comfort, while the rest of
us US contend with unlivable wages, terrible working condition, ice,
(03:39):
kidnapping our neighbors, and the climate crisis looming. Every day.
Millions live precarcity, facing daily struggles to do with food
on the table and a roof over our heads. In
America has been democracy for the capitalist olig ochs, authoritarians
for the authoritarianism for the working class. Right stop, how
(04:00):
much do you want to bet? Ninety percent of these people,
given the opportunity to leave America wouldn't do it. And
the ten percent that would would choose a country that
was whiter than America. They would go to England or
Ireland or some part of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
None of them want to go to a true diverse,
(04:25):
you know, socials paradise like Venezuela or the Congo that
never seems to hit their top list of where you
want to be at least old socialist in the seventies
would flee a Cuba. I can from credit back to
the public policy platform. The Democratic Party is unable to
effectively counter Trump and the Republican authoritarianism takeover because both
(04:46):
parties represent different phases of the same capitalist donor class
that controls our country. The establishment sooner turned to embrace
the rise of fascism than to see the working class
begin to govern as a democracy. I don't know who
at the DSA has not been paying attention, but Democrats
(05:08):
in Congress aren't exactly been giving Donald Trump a giant hug.
There are seven senators I look this up, seven senators
who have voted with Trump less than one percent of
the time. There are only five Democratic Senators voted with
Trump twenty to thirty percent of the time. These people
are so delusional. Back to the program, we are building,
(05:30):
the party that we need to win the world we
deserve that's DSA to quote our nations, our national program.
Workers deserve more our goals, but workers in charge of
the government through a new democratic constitution that establishes civil, political,
and democratic rights for all. Is based on proportional representation
in a single federal legislature. So basically they want to
(05:50):
end the sentence. What they're saying and he ends the
role of money in politics with a government by four
and of the working class with the powerful labor unions
and social movements organizing every city in town. We hope
to build a social society where people come before profits.
Basic needs are guaranteed, the largest corporations are put under
public ownership and democratic control, Peace around the world is secured,
(06:15):
and workers around the world joined together in the common
struggle to construct socialism worldwide. Did you ever go to
like a dinner party with people you don't know and
everyone has seen them a movie like the same movie,
except like one or two people, and you want to
tell them like at the end of the movie, it
(06:35):
goes terribly wrong. Everyone dies or starves to death and
ends up in a dictatorship like we've all seen the movie,
except for you doesn't end up right. But you also
hate those people. You're like, you know what, watch the
whole freaking movie and see what goes on. Like you're
really cross between then, because you can't believe somebody like
that exists. As the Twin Cities Democratic Socialism of America,
(06:58):
we fight not for the landlord, the bosses, and the
corporate interest. We fight for us that sounds lovely, Okay,
their demands this is this is when it starts getting good.
We will commit to decolonizing Minnesota after centuries of genocide,
Territory held by settlers will return to the First Nations.
Decolonize the settler state of Minnesota. I'm sorry. We maintain
(07:21):
the rightful sovereignty of this land to those indigenous tribes
and nations that occupied state occupation State of Minnesota currently administers.
We demand the settler state of Minnesota recognize the illegality
of the eighteen fifty one Traverse des Sue Treaty and
recognize the Dakota sovereignty over said stone land and the
full reinstatement of treaty rights to the First Nation. So
(07:45):
you think that Palestine's bad? Really, the forefront is Minnesota.
Return of land. Return the land to the First Nation,
starting with the expirating state, federal, and large private holdings,
with the return of the rest of the land as
soon as possible. All right, I look this up. There
are four thousand Dakota Native Americans who are the Dakota
(08:08):
tribe who currently live in Minnesota. There are two point
six million homes in Minnesota. Are they saying like every
Dakota person because they're going to get all the land
that they get, like six hundred and fifty homes, And like,
are you have to be to fold Dakota or can
you be like an Elizabeth Warren Dakota because I could
get in on that, Like is there how Dakota do
(08:30):
you have to be to pop up like a nice
real estate portfolio? It says restoration of land. Create and
fund the state's team, who shall, under control of the
respected First Nations, carry out the restoration project on their behalf.
Take down Fort snealing and the persecution of Native women
and the legal and extra legal discrimination, assault and killing
(08:50):
of Native women. Fund grassroots Indigenous organizations that defend their community,
like the MIIWRC. Don't know what that is, Okay, I'm
not going to make light of this because it is terrible,
But most people who attack and kill Native American women
are Native American men. Just saying, just saying, those domestic
(09:12):
partnerships and alcoholism and all the rest of it that
go that happens a lot in that community is a
big part of that. And you're going to end up
in trouble with the same people. You're get to all
these houses too. Next steps add the Dakota and on
a shabby language education to all schools. How public signage
(09:33):
include one of those languages. So they're going to reinstate
the Dakota language to the education curriculum. I don't know
if they have been in a public school recently. The
kids can barely speak English. They are using AI to
figure out how to boil water. This is not the
(09:54):
situation where we're going to be adding the language of
the Dakota people, which is, you know, a dead language
to the curriculman. You might as well be adding Latin.
It's very difficult. Also, imagine like the Somali refugees who
all of a sudden have to be learning Dakota. This
is I mean, it would be kind of funny to
watch on a YouTube page, but this is a recipe
(10:16):
for you're not going to get what you want. Okay,
and all racist cultural iconography fan racist tribal mascots convert
Columbus and Thanksgiving holidays into ones that celebrate the first Nations.
You thought that it was just Columbus Day, didn't you?
I know I did. I thought, Oh, Columbus Days really
going to end the line. No, no, no, no, no,
(10:36):
they got to get rid of Thanksgiving day two because listen,
I get it. They hate their families, like most of
the people hate their families. Other people like their families,
and they like the idea of just Thanksgiving. I mean,
I've celebrated Thanksgiving in the South a bunch of times.
They got to have mac and cheese and sweet potato casserole,
like they got to figure out the day. Just because
you don't like your uncle who watches Fox News and
(10:58):
he's at the dinner table, that doesn't mean you need
to go like leave Thanksgiving for the rest of us.
I don't understand the need to Like. I get it
because it has to do with like white people moving places,
which is terrible for the DSA. But still, like you
think they would draw a line. But no, back to
the program. We will build an economy that serves the
needs of the many by taxing the rich and putting
(11:20):
workers in control of their own livelihoods. They're going to
mandate a living wage of twenty dollars an hour for
all workers, regardless of race, employment, or status, regularly adjusted
for accounts of inflation and changes. No discrimination in based pay, race, gender,
or nationality. Okay, do you know when you were driving
(11:41):
and there's a construction worker ahead of you and they're
supposed to be holding a sign saying roadwork ahead, like
the basically the road is closed, and instead they're either
smoking a cigarette or they're on their phone. Mostly they're
on their phone. I'd actually respect them for smoking a
cigarette because that takes a little bit more effort, and
you don't see that sign, and so you're stuck on
a road that's under construction and takes twenty more minutes
to get out of it and figure out, and you're like,
(12:01):
why didn't you at least hold up the sign. That
person should not deserve twenty dollars an hour, That person
should not deserve any pay. There are just some people
who every day wake up and say the bare minimum.
And I'm okay that those people who are not even
trying don't make the twenty dollars an hour. But you
know what, Listen, if you really want the robotic revolution
(12:24):
to come faster and all the machines to automate all
those jobs, especially the lower paid jobs. By all, I mean,
twenty dollars an hour is the way to go. They
go on and say fair working hours set a legal
limit of thirty two hour work weeds, but compensation for
loss and overtime. By the way, I work like two
hundred hours a week. Working only thirty two hours would
make me lose my mind because if I don't work,
(12:48):
there are just some people like this. And it's not
just me. It's like you know, other people like you know,
nice sociopaths. But if there are some people, if they
don't work, they are left alone with their thoughts, and
that's when you know, bad things happen. Some of us,
you know, idel hands are the devil's playground. We got
to keep ourselves busy otherwise you don't know what's gonna
(13:08):
happen in the streets. Goes on to say they're going
to take over public ownership of key industries and workplaces
in the Twin Cities necessary for human life, dignity, and flourishing.
They're going to give free universal health care guarantee the
health and well being of the public rather than profits
for healthcare corporations. All right, I want to input something
I've been thinking along and hard about this. I wish
(13:30):
just once liberals and socialists who talk about this and
scream up free healthcare, that they would give something back
to the taxpayer, because it's not free healthcare. It is
taxpayer funded healthcare, So we should get a trade off
as the taxpayer. Like this, if you want me to
pay for your health care, I get to see what
(13:52):
you're eating, and if you order Uber eats more than
once a month, I should get the right, as the
per paying your healthcare bill to tase you. Like if
I'm gonna pay your healthcare bill and you eat more
than one twinkie a month, I should have the right
to hit you in my car, like I mean, this
(14:13):
is how we're gonna get on board with the free
healthcare stuff. I will pay my hard earned money for
you to get health care, but so help me god,
if I see you supersize the McDonald's, I get to
push you in front of a bus. Like this is
how we are going to have a true, fair, democratic
system when it comes to health care. Let's go on
(14:35):
free quality education, fully fund our schools, reduced class sizes,
and implement free universal childcare. I envy socialists, by the way.
I envy them because they are the only people in
the world who still believe that more time in government
run schools produces more educated people like Minnesota, by the way,
spend seventeen thousand dollars per people, and it doesn't do
(14:57):
terribly in the rankings, but not getting better, hasn't gotten better,
and they keep pouring money into it. Let's go back
union power. Protect and expand the right of all workers
to organize labor unions, collectively, bargain, strike, and carry out
a secondary boycott's worker ownership. Provide public supports and education
to transition privately owned workplaces into worker cooperatives because you
(15:21):
know they can only get better. Provide tax incentives that
reduce taxes on worker own enterprises, so the guy who
burns the French fries at McDonald's also owns it. Is
This is where we're going to really get good stuff
going on. We will build a democratic society and political
system that guarantees the freedom and liberty for all people
in Minnesota. All right, it's gonna pick up. They demand
(15:45):
queer liberation. Defend Minnesota's status as a sanctuary for trans
and queer internal refugees. Protect children and adults rights to
gender firming care, and ensure fully full equality and body
autonomy for all. Queer liberation, so all the trans kits
(16:05):
all over the country. They get to go to Minnesota
and they're going to celebrate being queer in trans and
learn how to duck walk while they're getting their breasts
and balls shopped off. And I'm going going back to
health care one more time. I don't pay for your
health care if you're non n if you're non binary,
Like if you're non binary, you're one of two things.
(16:27):
You have a mentally health a mental health disorder, and
you work at Starbucks and you're burning the coffee or
you weigh five hundred pounds, And in either case, I
don't have to pay for your government provided health insurance.
Like if you could be fitted for a boat cover,
you don't get the taxpayer funded money. That's just another
That's how I'm intertwining all their thoughts. They demand for
(16:49):
racial justice, dismantling structural racism, implement reparations that address the
historical seizure of wealth from radicalized communities, such as redlining
and the construction of highways that leaves intense disparities Today,
I thought all the Native Americans were gonna own the land.
Like what happened to what they said just a few
(17:10):
paragraphs up, like that we're gonna give all the land
back to the Native Americans. Now they got to share
it with like who, I mean the blacks and I
guess you know does other people? Historical historical disparities is
what they're talking about. So like historical seizures of wealth,
do like Sicilians and the Irish get get in on this?
Is there like a cut off date? You know what
if you're like, you're like a Mexican, but you're a
(17:31):
Tella novella star, so you look Scandinavian, do you still count?
I mean there should be like a color you that
we're gonna work with. How brown are you to be
oppressed enough to get this? You know, DSA seizure of wealth?
These are good questions. I think they're gonna also they're
gonna also do socialist feminism and patriarchal oppression and domestic violence,
(17:53):
implement full parent to leave and expand and redistribute community
care work equally across genders. Okay, Okay, I'm gonna say
something that the DSA of Minnesota is not going to like.
But if you punish domestic violence and you go after it,
you're gonna be putting away a lot of black men,
(18:13):
not I mean just saying it. If you look at
all the statistics of per capita where domestic violence happens,
they'll always say the victim, but never the perpetrator. And
they will say, like, black women are forty I think
it was like thirty five percent more likely to be
in a domestic violence situation than a white woman. Who
do you think is doing that domestic violence? Do they
(18:35):
all have, you know, Korean husbands and boyfriends. Just just
gonna say, this is not going to work out to
your whole racial quota stuff DSA Okay, going back, publicly
funded election and private donors that allow for what allow
the wealthy and corporate interest to buy your elections. And
I know this has gone long, but this is the
cherry on the cake. This is when it's like, I mean,
(18:56):
this is prime DSA insanity. We will hold the fascist
and imperial war machine at home and abroad, Abolish ice
and the entirety of the Department of Woland Security and
resist fascism. Stop kidnapping our neighbors and return anyone who
was deported. Support community organizing to defend against any incursion
(19:18):
by state or federal forces to undermine democracy and human rights.
Ensure full reconciliation and reparations for those harmed by ICE.
If you abolish ice, I'm just gonna say, you're putting
a lot of Latinos who make more than twenty dollars
an hour out of work, because that's who really does
the job. I don't think they know what that next up.
Free Palestine. I'm actually, by way, I am shocked shocked
(19:42):
that it took this long to talk about freeing Palestine.
I don't know what I mean, the Palestinians, they're losing
their mojo. Free Palace. A year ago, free Palestine would
have been very top. They would have made it before
healthcare or you know, feminism, feminist socialism, like, they would
have been right out the top. So Palestinians, I mean,
you're really your falling in stature. They are talking about
(20:06):
freeing Palestine, of course, because that's what every DSA person believes.
And maybe maybe we could also compromise. Maybe an idea
is they could fly Palestinians in from Palestine, but they
have to live in the facilities that they're doing. The
drag Queen Story Hour and the transit of chot children,
like maybe they could do like a drag queen story
(20:27):
hour on a roof of a tall building with a
bunch of doctors who performed transurgers on children, and we
see how things go. Like I'm just saying, like, let's
just let's let's try that out and we'll see how
well the dsay's you know, racial equitable, you know plan works.
I just play this out to his fullest. I think
(20:49):
we go full tilt to what they're saying. All right,
here's the rest. Divest from the war economy and any
and also for and divest from companies in Minnesota engage
in weapons development of the United States military or that
that enable war crimes domestically or abroad. We would fight
to provide conversion jobs for the millions of workers displaced
(21:11):
by canceling the war industry. What are they gonna do
with all these workers? You know, many people work to
make weapons. Excuse me, sir, I know you used to
make weapons, but now you're gonna make fake balls for
all the internal trans kid refugees. I mean, what are
they talking about. These people are so insane. All right,
let's keep going because we're almost at the end. We
(21:32):
will provide safe and dignified housing for all wholes rend heikes,
public housing, organized renters housing first. I don't know how
because they're giving the lamp back to the Da Coda Indians.
This doesn't make any sense. Maybe they gonna give the
land and then like they're gonna steal it back, but
like in a nicer way without the smallpox blankets. I
don't understand. There's no like, there's no thought process behind this.
(21:53):
We will transition away from fossil fuds towards a green
and sustainable future with clean air to breathe and clean
order to drink for all. Okay, they're like five minutes
away from just saying horse and buggy for everybody no more.
And they're gonna use unions to do it. I'm sure
that will make it cheap. Dismantle the racist, toxic highway
(22:16):
system and invest in our neighborhoods. Rebuild I ninety four
into a fast public transit quarter, and return ownership of
the land in the Twin cities to build more community controls, housing,
commercial establishments, and parks. What like the highways are racist.
People aren't bortant racists. The highways make them racist? Okay?
(22:37):
One last one. We will build a system of public
safety that serves the needs of our communities and truly
keeps us safe, comprehensive public safety, fully fun, and support
mental health responders and community safety programs. You know, you're
seeing a bankropper, You're seeing a man with a gun.
You're seeing a man with a machete. Quick, quick call
the non binary woman who works to sterilize all all
(23:00):
the queer and trans refugee kids. She's gonna stop the
crimes free. She's the mental health advocate who works with
these children to make sure that they know they don't
have a gender. She's gonna do it. I mean, these
people are crazy. I would love love to see how
(23:21):
that goes. I mean, who needs it goes up? Rainy
and violent and racist cops whole police accountable for public violence,
including financially accountable for misconduct lawsuits, and oppose the expansion
of surveillance state. Who needs cops? Who needs cops? You
got these fat ladies with ice whistles. They're gonna stop
the crime. They're gonna stop the crime. And then the
(23:41):
mental health lady who works with the trans refrigi children,
you know, to make sure that they know that they
can get their healthy breast cut off at twelve, they're
gonna manage to, you know, stop the crazy guy like
with the gun, Like this is this all makes sense?
And then they're all gonna live together with the Palestinians.
I mean, this is this, it's crazy abolition as a horizon,
(24:04):
organized the world without prisons, armed policing, and replace the
police with an elected force of neighbors representing the neighborhoods
in which they live. I hate to break it to you,
but if people got to vote on how to punish
criminals in their neighborhood, there are certain criminals that are
going to get the guillotine in Minnesota. Like, there's the
(24:24):
guillotine is going to come back to Minnesota. It's going
to be a lot worse than the cops and the
judges are doing right now. But hey, this is the
socialist world view that they presented, and it's a masterpiece.
It's an absolute work of art, and I am happy
that they did that. Okay, I know that was long.
I hope you had a laugh because it made me.
I was crying at some points, laughing when I was
(24:45):
reading this the first time. They're nuts, and unfortunately they're
winning elections. But it is what it is. That's America
in twenty twenty six. Speaking of the land of Nuts,
Let's talk about California. That's coming up next. John Phillips
is the host of The John Phillips Show on KABC
Los Angeles. John, thanks for being here, Thank you for
having me. So let's talk Spencer Pratt, because I mean,
(25:07):
I have relatives in my that I know who like
never Ben Los Angeles and they were disappointed that Spencer
do not make the runoff. He ran a very interesting campaign,
obviously losing in the mail in ballads. Here's and like, look,
I'm not saying voter fraud never happens. There have been
elections that have been stolen, like the mayor's race in Bridgeport,
Connecticut a couple of years ago, where staffords were like
(25:29):
stuffing ballads. Absolutely does happen. But when you make the
accusation that voter frauds happening, you have to show me
the proof. This is a very democratic city. And in
my opinion, if you were going to steal an election,
you're the Democrats. Why wouldn't you steal the election against
Steve Hilton, which is much more important for governor. I
don't believe the election of still if I think this
(25:49):
is a very democratic city, what are your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I think there's a lot of truth to what you
just said. Los Angeles is not just a very democratic city.
It's a very left wing city now. And it's a
left wing city in the sense that you're going to
see a November matchup between a socialist candidate and the
Democratic machine candidate.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And I think in.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Terms of the ballot harvesting that you saw at the
last minute that caused the results of the election to swing,
I don't think it was coming from the unions and
the Democratic Party. It was coming from the DSA. The
DSA was able to outorganize the unions in this election
in a way that got their candidate into the runoff,
which is not what the Democrats wanted. What the Democrats
(26:35):
wanted was a Carton Bass Spencer Pratt November matchup because
they felt like they could turn that into a traditional
Republican versus Democrat, conservative versus liberal Maga versus Democrat establishment
and they win that easily by twenty points. You look
at the polls between Nitia Rahman and Karen Bass, and
(26:59):
I think going into that matchup is Nitya Rahman. I
think it's entirely likely the Democrats lose another seat to
the DSA. And politics, when you look at it globally,
tends to happen in waves where you know, you go
back to the nineteen eighties and you had all these
center right candidates. You have Reagan here, you had Thatcher
(27:20):
in England. Then you go to the nineties and you
have the center left, you have Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.
Then the populist movements of Brexit and Trump that we've
seen going on now in these big American cities. You
see these DSA takeovers at the council level and at
the city wide level. Where you saw it happen in Chicago,
you saw it happen in New York City, you saw
(27:41):
it happen in Seattle. And now it looks like Los
Angeles will be the next big American city to fall
to a socialist candidate.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Yeah, and there is a lot of good that comes
from an outsider candidate. But Spencer Pratt had no organization
to counter that. Now, I don't even know if you
had a lay really to counter it. I don't really
know if Spencer pread anything besides those great viral videos.
But you need an organization to get people to show
up and vote, and he's doing And also you had
the other candidate who was running, who was a Democrat
(28:13):
but running essentially as this on the same issue. Spencer
Pratt was running on I can't remember his name is
blanking on me now, but he came in fourth place,
like taking four percent of the vote, starting on homelessness
and housing costs. And he was a Democrat. He was
doing Spencer Pratt from like the center left, so there
was obviously people eating away at those numbers, not to
mention the four hundred other people running a lower level.
(28:34):
The problem to me for Los Angeles, like the problem
in many major cities now, is that they're too geographically big, right,
So you look at neighborhoods like the Palisades, like Bealle
and Cino, Sunland, Harbor City, San Pedro. Pratt does probably
want a majority in some of those precincts. The problem
is is they have a downtown Los Angeles attached to them.
(28:58):
And you see that in like Buckhead and Austin sorry Atlanta.
Rather you see that in Staten Island and New York
City where these Republican enclaves are, these conservative enclaves are
just wealthy enclaves are stuck in these massive cities, and
you know that's really what these people are being stuck by,
is not just you know that the city's you know,
(29:18):
the city's just too geographically large really to encompass, you know,
their needs.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
And we've tried to break up before. I mean, there
was a San Fernando Valley secession movement at one point
the past that failed. There was a movement that you know,
Bruce Hirschenson to take a blast from the past, was
involved with to have allowed Hollywood to succeed from the city.
There is a movement to allow San Pedro and the
port cities to secede from the city, and none of
(29:47):
it worked. You're right, La is a geographically very large
city with you where you have a lot of different
places that really have nothing in common. I mean, it
was kind of hobbled together. They're in a water politics
sense a long time ago. Or you know, you need
a port, so let's go ahead and have the city
limits run down the one ten freeway all the way
(30:09):
down to San Pedro and then we'll take that. No,
you're part of La. But you know, Pallas Verdes isn't
Long Beach isn't okay. I guess it made sense at
the time. But to go back to Spencer Pratt, he actually,
for a first time candidate, ran a pretty credible race
where I know people who are registered voters in Los
(30:30):
Angeles who had people knocking on their door making sure
that they voted for him. Those ads that he put out,
the AI ads went everywhere, I mean all over social
media feeds. People were text messaging them to me. And
I was on vacation in Alaska and when people would
find out what I did for a living, they'd ask
me about the Spencer Pratt ads. So he was able
(30:52):
to cut through the noise in ways that Republican candidates
in big blue cities typically don't. I think the problem
is is just a math problem. Los Angeles is a
very left wing city and there is a lot more
of them than there are of us. And it's just
as simple as that. And you look at you know,
(31:14):
Nathia Rahman is a socialist, and you go, okay, Well,
when I went to political science schools, I was taught
that socialists believe that the government should own the means
of production. Well, you know, now, the means of production
are in China. We don't do any manufacturing here. We
don't have any farming in Los Angeles, So it's kind
of an outdated way of looking at it. The people
(31:34):
that she was talking to were the baristas or I
guess the means of production is, you know, the machine
to make the latte.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
But you know, these people believe that they grew up
in a very you know, many of them in the
affluence of the nineties in the early two thousands, and
their parents owned homes in California, and they went to
find schools and they have totally useless degrees, and now
they're never going to be able to own a home.
(32:02):
They're renting in really bad parts of town, and they
just don't see a future where they can live the
life that their parents lived here, or ai looming on
the horizon, or they're.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
From very wealthy families and they don't need to work.
That's there's an element of that too. There's a big
part of that, especially in New York. I know of people.
There's a thing called like hid in New York and
people will admit to like their darkest secrets, and so
often someone says, I have five million dollars in my
grandparents gave me. But I don't tell my poor friends
(32:34):
right that I'm that I'm that I'm so wealthy. That
does happen. When you said that, when you're talking the
makeup of the city, I was just imagining Los Angeles
as older celebrities talked about it from like a hundred
years ago, when they were like it was just lemon
trees and thinking like they needed lemon trees and then
orange trees. So they were just cobbling together vegetation of
(32:54):
different regions of the city to kind make it into
one place. And that's really how they did it. But yeah,
I get what you're saying. I agree with what you're saying.
I think that that's a big I think it's a
big part of it is just that the city has
translated and these big cities New York, La, Chicago have
become spongeous. If you're got forty four genders, you're not
(33:15):
staying in San Bernardino. You're going to Los Angeles. You're
not staying in Fresno. I mean, you're just there's a
few of them. But I'm sorry, if you're four hundred pounds,
you know, lesbian with twelve cats, you probably La is
more of your style.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, and it just becomes self selecting. I mean, people
talk about California losing population, where we have people moving
out to Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas, whatever. But that's just
a part of it. You also have people within the
state of California. I'm a good example of this. I
used to live in Los Angeles County. I couldn't take
(33:51):
it anymore. So now I live in the Coachella Valley,
a different part of the state, but not Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Even with in the city limits. You've seen people who moved.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
To places like downtown LA when that was safe and
fun and we had Staple Center going up and Disney
Concert Hall and LA Live and all of those things,
and now they go, wait a minute, it's not safe
to live here anymore. So they moved to the outskirts
of the San Fernando Valley. So you see the self
selection of Republicans moving to other parts of the city,
(34:26):
other parts of the state, other parts of the country.
And you see the unattractive baristas with purple hair and
forty five piercings on their face where they look like
they got attacked by a stapler. All moving in and
that's your electorate now, And of course they're going to
vote for a socialist because what else are you going
to do if you're one hundred pounds overweight with purple hair.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
So let's talk about the governor's race for a second.
Steve Hilton's likely to make the runoff. A couple of people,
like Track Elections, have already called Steve Hilton's in the runoff,
which I mean Tom Steyer got lost some six hundred
million dollars on two failed races. He wish you had
that kind of money to burn. Now, his chances are
very slim. We're just going to admit that it's they
(35:09):
are slim. If he does well enough, is there a
chance that he could protect some vulnerable state legislative seats
or something down battle? That's important because I think that's
really you know, it's a big part of it.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
It's possible, although really that's negligible right now because with
the Prop fifty maps, you really only have a handful
of congressional races that are even going to be contested.
So those seats that would have had generated national interest,
especially when Kevin McCarthy was the speaker, where he needed
(35:42):
to protect his people. In California, that just doesn't exist
the way it used to in previous cycles in terms
of the state legislature. Yeah, it could make a difference
in some of those seats, but the Democrats have super
majorities in both houses. So what you're arguing over is
what type of supermajority are the Democrats going to have?
(36:04):
Are they going to control eighty percent of the seats
or seventy five percent of the seats? And the answer
is does it really matter?
Speaker 1 (36:12):
I like seventy five more than eighty, But okay, let's
look if there's any golden nuggets as I could see them.
There's two races worth paying attention to in California. One
is the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction. I care
a lot of education. It's a nonpartisan race. There's no
r or deal though. Sonya Shaw is the more conservative
(36:33):
person in the ballot. She's probably a her. I know her,
I've met her. She's a conservative. She's coming. She came
in first place. There was like one hundred people running
her race. I think is important, I think as a nonpartisan.
And then the other race is the ballot initiative demanding
voter ID when you vote in person and when you
mail in a ballot. That's really the two things. And
(36:54):
polling to show that the voter ide law is fifty
to fifty right now in the polls. Is that good assess?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Well, if that were to pass, that would be extremely
helpful to try to clean up our voting situation, which
needs dramatic reform.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
In addition to that.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
What we really need is we need the federal government
to step in, because I know there's a lawsuit that's
now in the works that says that well, right now,
the Post Office, due to budget cuts and other circumstances,
can no longer guarantee that they will postmark a parcel
the day that you drop it off. It would be
either that day or the day after. Well, if California
(37:34):
allows election day voting and you drop off a ballot
on election day and they can no longer guarantee that
that will be postmarked on the same day, you're disenfranchising
those voters.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So there is an.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Excuse to eliminate a large portion of how California conducts
its elections at the federal level that I think would
be very helpful and at least in terms of counting
the ballots faster, and you know.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I mean, yeah, I mean Peru, which is not exactly
what I would consider a first world country. I love it,
by the way, when you say third world country and
people are like, this is not a third world country
unless there's universal plumbing, it is a third world country
in But that's like a really hard line I have.
But Peru was able to count their ballads. I think
(38:25):
they are ninety six percent done in twenty four hours.
And they have it, by the way, dysporia across the
entire world, where it's you know, they'd get the votes
in Miami, which was all like the Peruvians. They are
in the Peruvians. Yeah, they've done it in a remarkable
faster speed than in California. And I think that, I mean,
what was it Rocanna was talking about this or somebody
most saying. I think it was Rocanna who was like,
(38:47):
I have friends who are no longer going to vote
anymore because they think that every election is still because
of how long it takes to count ballots. Yeah, it's maddening.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, I mean when I was in political science school,
I remember the state that all always had a population
that had the least confidence in their voting system was
organ and that was because Oregon was the first state
to do all vote by mail elections. They've been doing
it for a very long time, and it always used
to be the test case of don't be like organ
(39:16):
because the population doesn't buy into the fact that it's
a free and fair election. And instead of everyone going
in the opposite direction, we've all become Oregon, or at
least we haven't in California. I mean they took the
exact opposite advice. And I think that the FED stepping
in would be helpful. Voter ID would be helpful, and
(39:39):
we used to have it so that instead of everyone
being mailed in absentee ballot, you had to specifically request one.
So if you're in the military, or you're a flight attendant,
or you know whatever, you work long shifts at the hospital,
you're a trauma surgeon, you could vote via absentee if
you specifically requested it. Well, now we send them to
(40:00):
everyone and then we don't clean up the voter rules.
So when I lived in an apartment building that had
a lot of people moving in and out all the
time in Los Angeles County, there was always a big
stack of ballots in the mail room that just sat
there and then one day they just disappear.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
And I don't know where they went.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I don't know who picked them up, but they were
just there and then they weren't. And if you want
your population to buy into the fact that you're running
a fair process and you're playing it straight, then mail
rooms in apartment buildings all over the states should not
have stacks of ballots.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
And well, I mean, and the most insane thing is
that they do this because they say it's going to
increase photo turnout. It hasn't. Primary is like it's like
every other state. It's like thirty something percent. I mean,
that's like the same numbers in most other states of
the primary.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
And you know what's funny, if you actually want to
increase the percentage of participation in your state, the best
thing you can do is clean up the roles. When
someone dies, take them off, when someone moves, take them off,
when someone goes to prison, take them off.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
It's not that hard. No, I agree with you. New York.
Actually they had a ballot initiative to do this, to
make universal mail and billeting. And you have to have
an excuse to have an appsenty value. You can't just
request one. You need to say why you won't be
able to vote. And they were like, let's do away
with all those things. And New York State voted against it.
They were like, no, we like all those things in place.
So it was one of the few times I took
(41:32):
pride in my home state where I was like, Okay,
we're not completely insane. Then, I mean, we have a
shriver up svil of Hope. No, I agree, and it
is I guess it is going to take. I mean,
the DOJ is very aggressive and there's a lot of
people in California from the DJ, so I don't see
why they don't do this. I'm gonna my lawsuit in
the DJ backing up in California, in Los Angeles specifically,
(41:52):
so I get it. Anyway, thank you coming this podcast
where we go to hear the more about you, read
your stuff everything.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Well, you can listen to me between noon and three
Pacific time on KABC in LA and KSFO in San Francisco,
and then I'm on the weekends in Fresno, and then
you can read my newspaper column in the Southern California
News Group, which is the LA Daily News, the OC Register,
the Riverside Press Enterprise, and most importantly, the Redlands Daily Facts.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Can I admit something to you. I did your show
one time, and before you go on your show, there's
always the news, the weather, there's like a report perforeance
It's like five minutes. I was wiped out one day.
I was so tired and I sat down waiting for it.
I'm listening to the news and I fell asleep, and
all of a sudden, here Ryan Ryan right, and I go, oh,
and you go, where are you? I go, I'm sorry,
(42:40):
I had my phone. I mean you were like, were
you in the bathroom? I was like, oh my god,
I fell I was exhausted. But anyway, his show is great.
If you are in California and you're not listening, you should.
All right, Thank you John becoming this podcast. I appreciate it.
Thank you for having me. Now it's time for they
Ask Me Anything segment. If you wanted part of the
Ask Me Anything Things segment only Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast
(43:02):
dot Com. That's Ryan at Numbers Game Podcasts dot com.
Numbers is plural. First question comes from Keith. He writes
two questions that are pretty lengthy, so I'm going to
answer the second one, Keith, Sorry, but the first one.
You right that the example of New York education spending
hit home with you, but you don't see the data
present it in a way that you can digest in
easy sound bites. In a world we live in, is
there a way to show data that makes it more
(43:23):
relatable to each person, like the cost per person and
the performance versus like Mississippi, to demonstrate that they are
paying thousands more per person than Mississippi for substandard results.
That's a great way to do it. But you know,
Mississippi for New Yorkers is a very far removed place.
It's like, you know, you talk like Mars. Basically, I
would I would be willing to bet a super majority
(43:44):
of New Yorkers have never been to Mississippi, and if
they did, if they heard of it, they think of
it from like the nineteen fifties, like they have no
idea how like parts that are very very nice. I
go to Missippi all the time. I think you could
just compare it to like a local state. Why you
can compare it to New Jersey. New York spends ninety
billion dollars per on education per over year and it
(44:05):
ranks number twenty seven in reading, in math or the
NEA test scores. We could fund New Jerseys education twice
and have billions left over, and New Jersey ranks in
the top five in math and reading. So clearly it's
not just like a cultural thing, which you know it is.
Mississippi is doing phenomenal things. Louis and is doing phenomenal things.
(44:27):
There's just a lot of waste going on, and it's
not reaching the children. You know, I wouldn't say New
Jersey is the idea of the best idea in education
in the world. However, at least they're spending some of
the money towards the kids, which is not the same
can be said about New York. And I think that
that's an important thing. And you could just compare to
local regional states. Massachusetts is number one. We blow the
massachus out of the water. All the local states. It's
(44:49):
a lot of bad spending. And I think you could
say you could fund three Massachusetts and you'd have much
better test scores than you would if you did it
for New York. I think that's a good comparison in
my opinion. Maybe you guys maybe disagree. Next question is
from Eric. He writes, Dearest Darling, Ryan Gerdoski a phrase
no one has ever said, what is going on with
the governatorial election in Oregon? As an elder millennial gay
(45:11):
in Portland, all of my friends are obviously progressive women,
and we all hate Tina Kotech she's the governor is
it seems like she has a glass shaw And Christine Dresen,
she's the Republican, is perhaps the most impressive Republican candidate
in memory. I can't find any polls on this race,
so insight would be greatly appreciated. So there have been
two polls won by a Democratic firm and one by
a Republican firm. Both show actually that it's neck and neck.
(45:34):
They're both within the margin of era. I think believe
one's tied and the other one Dresen's up by a point.
Here's the problem. In every Oregon governor's election from two
thousand and two till the most recent one four years ago,
the Republican has always gotten between forty two and forty
seven percent. I have to see some polls showing Christine
(45:55):
Dresen polling in the high forties to see any kind
of movement. Because last time was her best chance, and
there was a third party progressive stealing votes or sorry,
third party, I think centrist Democrats stealing votes, and I
have to see some evidence that those votes are going
to go towards her. I think she's a very cabled person.
It's obviously not a great year for Republicans with the polling. However,
(46:17):
like if I see a posing her forty eight nine percent,
I'm going to start believe there's a toss up, a
potential upset. I just haven't seen that yet. So that's
the that's the situation. I really hope that she wins.
I think Oregon could use the sanity check. Okay, last
question comes from Mark. You write, Hey, Ryan, I've been
reading some literature on how primary elections are a poor
way for parties to choose candiates run for office. Many
(46:39):
primary voters are uninformed and make their decisions based on
name recognition who has the flash's TV ads. Many other
Democratic nations don't have primaries, and the candets are instead
chosen by the party, which helps them better keep their
elected officials in line. Furthermore, primaries length in the campaign
season and divert precious resources for a general election. For instance,
John Cornyn and the Allies and text has been over
one hundred million dollars just to lose by twenty eight points.
(47:02):
That money could have easily gone to Republican candates in
tough races like Alaska or Ohio and North Carolina. Do
you think nominating conventions would be a better way to
choose candates than primary elections? Can you explain both pros
and cons? So some states actually do do nominating conventions
for the governor's races. Glenn Youngkin was not chosen a primary.
Glenn Younkin was chosen in a nominating convention. Had we
(47:22):
had a primary in Virginia, a woman named Amanda Chase
who called herself Trump and heels, likely would have won
and she would have almost certainly lost the general election.
So in states like that that keep people from running
in states that are tough, states like Listen, Christino, Donald
would have never won a nominating convention. I know that's
ancient history now in twenty ten, but she was the
(47:43):
one who said that she was a witch. She could
have only won from a primary, and then the Republicans
would have had a senator, a Republican senator for in
Delaware for at least one, if not two terms. There
are a bunch of times when yeah, a nominated convention
would work. However, the con of that side is that
the conservative candidates would most likely lose. Utah does this
(48:05):
weird thing where they do both a primary and a
nominating convention. Like the nominated convention leads the top two
to get to the primary. So Mike Lee, the senator
right now from Utah, he lost the nominating convention to
a guy named Tim Bridgewater, a businessman who would run
for office unsuccessfully both times. Tim was a major donator
of the party and the party wanted him. He lost
(48:28):
the primary, though, to Mike Lee, who was absolutely the
more conservative candidate. Would Tim be as more be a
senator who was more conservative? Would he be like an
anti Trump person? I don't know. But Mike Lee was
absolutely more conservative candidate. So the pros of this are
is that we do get conservatives elected when we make
(48:48):
sure they keep him in line, and when we are
when the party is really thoughtful about how to nominate,
are a more capable candidate, I will say that, And
sometimes they're very concert but a lot of times they're not.
And the party infrastructure of the party base sometimes will
just move from like knee jerk to need jerk. There
are tons of people who run as MAGA candidates who
(49:10):
are you know, establishment hacks, and everyone's so shocked and
upset when they turned out that they are, you know,
nothing like they claim to be. I think that that.
I think there's some merit to that. I know that
some people who are really great in the Senate would
not have gotten there if it was up to up
to up to nominating conventions. I think maybe nominating conventions
(49:32):
for certain offices would be good, maybe not for like House.
I think House should really be very democratic for where
the people vote, and we should keep it, you know,
very democratic. Remember back in the day, the Senate wasn't
even picked by the people at all. It was picked
by the state Senate. The state senate elected the Senate,
So there were there were a lot more ways that
we used to do things that were less democratic, but
(49:56):
they were representative more of the states because the senators
would then have to represent what the state Senate's interests
were to be renominated. So we wouldn't have had a
situation like Obamacare pass, because the state senates would have
elected people to represent what the state's interests were and
a lot of states interest wasn't for Obamacare other policies
(50:17):
like that. There are a lot of things that we've
done to kind of rid ourselves as being more of
a federalist system into it just a straight democracy that
haven't been productive. So not productive, but they haven't always been.
I don't know, they haven't been. I guess what people promised.
So would the would the nominating process help? Probably maybe
in governor's elections, maybe in maybe in certain certain elections
(50:41):
like Senate. I would say though that the cons would
be We're going to lose out on a lot of
good conservatives who can win. I think that's what you
have to put in mind. So two sided what is
a two sided sword or two step beside a dagger
or whatever that my mother used to say. There's pros
and cons of both. I think for for some offices,
I think maybe a nomining convention would work. So who knows.
We wouldn't have Ronda sand As though, remember that we
would never understand as if we did a nominating convention,
(51:03):
we would almost certainly have Adam Putnam, who was no
ron to sand As. Nobody is and he's phenomenal so
I don't know. I've got to pick your poison. But anyway,
that's this episode. I hope you guys liked it. I
hope you guys laughed. If you liked this podcast, please
like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts where
we do their podcasts, and on YouTube. Throw me a
subscribe on YouTube. It means a lot to grow the channel.
I really appreciate you all, and I will see you
(51:24):
guys on Friday
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Grodoski. Thank
you guys for being here. Happy Wednesday. We have a
great episode for you today. I have on a radio
show host and grew up all things California to talk
about the Golden State and what happened, what's going on.
I know a lot of people are disappointed about Spencer
prattenam making the runoff. My aunt like cornered me at
a family party recently and she telling me how angry
(00:23):
she was, and I was like, amyry, and I don't
think you've ever even been to Los Angeles anyway. I
know people are disappointed. So I on a top of
California if we can see any rays of sunshine coming
from that state or if it's going to be all
doom and gloom come November. But before we get into that,
I have a truly hilarious story the Twin Cities Democratic
(00:44):
Socialists of America, that is the cities of Minneapolis and
Saint Paul in Minnesota. It's the group, by the way.
The DSA is the group that AOC and Rashida Talib
are affiliated with. They released their policy platform for all
their candidates running for office, and I think It is
a work of art. If you were going to do
a South Park episode and have a character of a
(01:07):
self hating white communist in a place like Seattle, you
know me as Minneapolis, Brooklyn, Denver, insert whatever city, this
is what you get. It is. You cannot believe a
real person wrote this. If I said, an AI make
a shit list of policy goals, it wouldn't do the
job that this does. Now, I'm gonna read you guys
(01:29):
the policy platform because but by this is not a
fringe group, right. They have dozens of elected officials who
are DSA members, and more and more every year, like
wonderful people like Graham Platner, you know, people who are
upstanding members of their community, not at all, raging alcoholics
allegedly with domestic issues revolving women allegedly, or you know,
(01:51):
write on Reddit page as well into their mid thirties
how they love killing people or allegedly want to rape
men for the power struggle but not for the gay
sex allegedly all things. I mean, wonderful people like that. Okay,
let me break down the dssay of Minneapolis and Saint Paul,
the Twin Cities DSA platform. I'm going to read this
(02:12):
to you, and I'm going to give you commentary during it.
This is how it starts. The United States political system
is rigged against working people. This is not a democracy
where we have a real say in what our government does. Billionaires,
by elections, the system works in their interests, funding wars
and genocides and giving themselves more handouts. As a local
(02:33):
chapter of the DSA twin Cities, DSA's mission is to
unite workers into a powerful political movement to win the
battle for democracy and change the world. Okay, stop. First
of all, just to side note, the number of billionaires
and semi billionaires who donate to the DSA back canids
are too numerous to mention. They include Netflix founder Read Hastings,
(02:56):
wife Hyatt Hotel heiress Susan Pritzker, Hedge fun Air, Elizabeth Simmons,
a lot of errors and people married in That's really
the theme you always see from like DSA donors. They
all got their money, they didn't work for it, like
they married well or they were born into it. And
it says a lot about the people who want to
(03:19):
vote for DSA people. I mean, say what you want
about a hooker, but at least they work for their bocks.
I mean not the DSA endorse people or DSA donors. Okay,
to the back to the public policy platform. The bosses
live lives of security and comfort, while the rest of
us US contend with unlivable wages, terrible working condition, ice,
(03:39):
kidnapping our neighbors, and the climate crisis looming. Every day.
Millions live precarcity, facing daily struggles to do with food
on the table and a roof over our heads. In
America has been democracy for the capitalist olig ochs, authoritarians
for the authoritarianism for the working class. Right stop, how
(04:00):
much do you want to bet? Ninety percent of these people,
given the opportunity to leave America wouldn't do it. And
the ten percent that would would choose a country that
was whiter than America. They would go to England or
Ireland or some part of Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
None of them want to go to a true diverse,
(04:25):
you know, socials paradise like Venezuela or the Congo that
never seems to hit their top list of where you
want to be at least old socialist in the seventies
would flee a Cuba. I can from credit back to
the public policy platform. The Democratic Party is unable to
effectively counter Trump and the Republican authoritarianism takeover because both
(04:46):
parties represent different phases of the same capitalist donor class
that controls our country. The establishment sooner turned to embrace
the rise of fascism than to see the working class
begin to govern as a democracy. I don't know who
at the DSA has not been paying attention, but Democrats
(05:08):
in Congress aren't exactly been giving Donald Trump a giant hug.
There are seven senators I look this up, seven senators
who have voted with Trump less than one percent of
the time. There are only five Democratic Senators voted with
Trump twenty to thirty percent of the time. These people
are so delusional. Back to the program, we are building,
(05:30):
the party that we need to win the world we
deserve that's DSA to quote our nations, our national program.
Workers deserve more our goals, but workers in charge of
the government through a new democratic constitution that establishes civil, political,
and democratic rights for all. Is based on proportional representation
in a single federal legislature. So basically they want to
(05:50):
end the sentence. What they're saying and he ends the
role of money in politics with a government by four
and of the working class with the powerful labor unions
and social movements organizing every city in town. We hope
to build a social society where people come before profits.
Basic needs are guaranteed, the largest corporations are put under
public ownership and democratic control, Peace around the world is secured,
(06:15):
and workers around the world joined together in the common
struggle to construct socialism worldwide. Did you ever go to
like a dinner party with people you don't know and
everyone has seen them a movie like the same movie,
except like one or two people, and you want to
tell them like at the end of the movie, it
(06:35):
goes terribly wrong. Everyone dies or starves to death and
ends up in a dictatorship like we've all seen the movie,
except for you doesn't end up right. But you also
hate those people. You're like, you know what, watch the
whole freaking movie and see what goes on. Like you're
really cross between then, because you can't believe somebody like
that exists. As the Twin Cities Democratic Socialism of America,
(06:58):
we fight not for the landlord, the bosses, and the
corporate interest. We fight for us that sounds lovely, Okay,
their demands this is this is when it starts getting good.
We will commit to decolonizing Minnesota after centuries of genocide,
Territory held by settlers will return to the First Nations.
Decolonize the settler state of Minnesota. I'm sorry. We maintain
(07:21):
the rightful sovereignty of this land to those indigenous tribes
and nations that occupied state occupation State of Minnesota currently administers.
We demand the settler state of Minnesota recognize the illegality
of the eighteen fifty one Traverse des Sue Treaty and
recognize the Dakota sovereignty over said stone land and the
full reinstatement of treaty rights to the First Nation. So
(07:45):
you think that Palestine's bad? Really, the forefront is Minnesota.
Return of land. Return the land to the First Nation,
starting with the expirating state, federal, and large private holdings,
with the return of the rest of the land as
soon as possible. All right, I look this up. There
are four thousand Dakota Native Americans who are the Dakota
(08:08):
tribe who currently live in Minnesota. There are two point
six million homes in Minnesota. Are they saying like every
Dakota person because they're going to get all the land
that they get, like six hundred and fifty homes, And like,
are you have to be to fold Dakota or can
you be like an Elizabeth Warren Dakota because I could
get in on that, Like is there how Dakota do
(08:30):
you have to be to pop up like a nice
real estate portfolio? It says restoration of land. Create and
fund the state's team, who shall, under control of the
respected First Nations, carry out the restoration project on their behalf.
Take down Fort snealing and the persecution of Native women
and the legal and extra legal discrimination, assault and killing
(08:50):
of Native women. Fund grassroots Indigenous organizations that defend their community,
like the MIIWRC. Don't know what that is, Okay, I'm
not going to make light of this because it is terrible,
But most people who attack and kill Native American women
are Native American men. Just saying, just saying, those domestic
(09:12):
partnerships and alcoholism and all the rest of it that
go that happens a lot in that community is a
big part of that. And you're going to end up
in trouble with the same people. You're get to all
these houses too. Next steps add the Dakota and on
a shabby language education to all schools. How public signage
(09:33):
include one of those languages. So they're going to reinstate
the Dakota language to the education curriculum. I don't know
if they have been in a public school recently. The
kids can barely speak English. They are using AI to
figure out how to boil water. This is not the
(09:54):
situation where we're going to be adding the language of
the Dakota people, which is, you know, a dead language
to the curriculman. You might as well be adding Latin.
It's very difficult. Also, imagine like the Somali refugees who
all of a sudden have to be learning Dakota. This
is I mean, it would be kind of funny to
watch on a YouTube page, but this is a recipe
(10:16):
for you're not going to get what you want. Okay,
and all racist cultural iconography fan racist tribal mascots convert
Columbus and Thanksgiving holidays into ones that celebrate the first Nations.
You thought that it was just Columbus Day, didn't you?
I know I did. I thought, Oh, Columbus Days really
going to end the line. No, no, no, no, no,
(10:36):
they got to get rid of Thanksgiving day two because listen,
I get it. They hate their families, like most of
the people hate their families. Other people like their families,
and they like the idea of just Thanksgiving. I mean,
I've celebrated Thanksgiving in the South a bunch of times.
They got to have mac and cheese and sweet potato casserole,
like they got to figure out the day. Just because
you don't like your uncle who watches Fox News and
(10:58):
he's at the dinner table, that doesn't mean you need
to go like leave Thanksgiving for the rest of us.
I don't understand the need to Like. I get it
because it has to do with like white people moving places,
which is terrible for the DSA. But still, like you
think they would draw a line. But no, back to
the program. We will build an economy that serves the
needs of the many by taxing the rich and putting
(11:20):
workers in control of their own livelihoods. They're going to
mandate a living wage of twenty dollars an hour for
all workers, regardless of race, employment, or status, regularly adjusted
for accounts of inflation and changes. No discrimination in based pay, race, gender,
or nationality. Okay, do you know when you were driving
(11:41):
and there's a construction worker ahead of you and they're
supposed to be holding a sign saying roadwork ahead, like
the basically the road is closed, and instead they're either
smoking a cigarette or they're on their phone. Mostly they're
on their phone. I'd actually respect them for smoking a
cigarette because that takes a little bit more effort, and
you don't see that sign, and so you're stuck on
a road that's under construction and takes twenty more minutes
to get out of it and figure out, and you're like,
(12:01):
why didn't you at least hold up the sign. That
person should not deserve twenty dollars an hour, That person
should not deserve any pay. There are just some people
who every day wake up and say the bare minimum.
And I'm okay that those people who are not even
trying don't make the twenty dollars an hour. But you
know what, Listen, if you really want the robotic revolution
(12:24):
to come faster and all the machines to automate all
those jobs, especially the lower paid jobs. By all, I mean,
twenty dollars an hour is the way to go. They
go on and say fair working hours set a legal
limit of thirty two hour work weeds, but compensation for
loss and overtime. By the way, I work like two
hundred hours a week. Working only thirty two hours would
make me lose my mind because if I don't work,
(12:48):
there are just some people like this. And it's not
just me. It's like you know, other people like you know,
nice sociopaths. But if there are some people, if they
don't work, they are left alone with their thoughts, and
that's when you know, bad things happen. Some of us,
you know, idel hands are the devil's playground. We got
to keep ourselves busy otherwise you don't know what's gonna
(13:08):
happen in the streets. Goes on to say they're going
to take over public ownership of key industries and workplaces
in the Twin Cities necessary for human life, dignity, and flourishing.
They're going to give free universal health care guarantee the
health and well being of the public rather than profits
for healthcare corporations. All right, I want to input something
I've been thinking along and hard about this. I wish
(13:30):
just once liberals and socialists who talk about this and
scream up free healthcare, that they would give something back
to the taxpayer, because it's not free healthcare. It is
taxpayer funded healthcare, So we should get a trade off
as the taxpayer. Like this, if you want me to
pay for your health care, I get to see what
(13:52):
you're eating, and if you order Uber eats more than
once a month, I should get the right, as the
per paying your healthcare bill to tase you. Like if
I'm gonna pay your healthcare bill and you eat more
than one twinkie a month, I should have the right
to hit you in my car, like I mean, this
(14:13):
is how we're gonna get on board with the free
healthcare stuff. I will pay my hard earned money for
you to get health care, but so help me god,
if I see you supersize the McDonald's, I get to
push you in front of a bus. Like this is
how we are going to have a true, fair, democratic
system when it comes to health care. Let's go on
(14:35):
free quality education, fully fund our schools, reduced class sizes,
and implement free universal childcare. I envy socialists, by the way.
I envy them because they are the only people in
the world who still believe that more time in government
run schools produces more educated people like Minnesota, by the way,
spend seventeen thousand dollars per people, and it doesn't do
(14:57):
terribly in the rankings, but not getting better, hasn't gotten better,
and they keep pouring money into it. Let's go back
union power. Protect and expand the right of all workers
to organize labor unions, collectively, bargain, strike, and carry out
a secondary boycott's worker ownership. Provide public supports and education
to transition privately owned workplaces into worker cooperatives because you
(15:21):
know they can only get better. Provide tax incentives that
reduce taxes on worker own enterprises, so the guy who
burns the French fries at McDonald's also owns it. Is
This is where we're going to really get good stuff
going on. We will build a democratic society and political
system that guarantees the freedom and liberty for all people
in Minnesota. All right, it's gonna pick up. They demand
(15:45):
queer liberation. Defend Minnesota's status as a sanctuary for trans
and queer internal refugees. Protect children and adults rights to
gender firming care, and ensure fully full equality and body
autonomy for all. Queer liberation, so all the trans kits
(16:05):
all over the country. They get to go to Minnesota
and they're going to celebrate being queer in trans and
learn how to duck walk while they're getting their breasts
and balls shopped off. And I'm going going back to
health care one more time. I don't pay for your
health care if you're non n if you're non binary,
Like if you're non binary, you're one of two things.
(16:27):
You have a mentally health a mental health disorder, and
you work at Starbucks and you're burning the coffee or
you weigh five hundred pounds, And in either case, I
don't have to pay for your government provided health insurance.
Like if you could be fitted for a boat cover,
you don't get the taxpayer funded money. That's just another
That's how I'm intertwining all their thoughts. They demand for
(16:49):
racial justice, dismantling structural racism, implement reparations that address the
historical seizure of wealth from radicalized communities, such as redlining
and the construction of highways that leaves intense disparities Today,
I thought all the Native Americans were gonna own the land.
Like what happened to what they said just a few
(17:10):
paragraphs up, like that we're gonna give all the land
back to the Native Americans. Now they got to share
it with like who, I mean the blacks and I
guess you know does other people? Historical historical disparities is
what they're talking about. So like historical seizures of wealth,
do like Sicilians and the Irish get get in on this?
Is there like a cut off date? You know what
if you're like, you're like a Mexican, but you're a
(17:31):
Tella novella star, so you look Scandinavian, do you still count?
I mean there should be like a color you that
we're gonna work with. How brown are you to be
oppressed enough to get this? You know, DSA seizure of wealth?
These are good questions. I think they're gonna also they're
gonna also do socialist feminism and patriarchal oppression and domestic violence,
(17:53):
implement full parent to leave and expand and redistribute community
care work equally across genders. Okay, Okay, I'm gonna say
something that the DSA of Minnesota is not going to like.
But if you punish domestic violence and you go after it,
you're gonna be putting away a lot of black men,
(18:13):
not I mean just saying it. If you look at
all the statistics of per capita where domestic violence happens,
they'll always say the victim, but never the perpetrator. And
they will say, like, black women are forty I think
it was like thirty five percent more likely to be
in a domestic violence situation than a white woman. Who
do you think is doing that domestic violence? Do they
(18:35):
all have, you know, Korean husbands and boyfriends. Just just
gonna say, this is not going to work out to
your whole racial quota stuff DSA Okay, going back, publicly
funded election and private donors that allow for what allow
the wealthy and corporate interest to buy your elections. And
I know this has gone long, but this is the
cherry on the cake. This is when it's like, I mean,
(18:56):
this is prime DSA insanity. We will hold the fascist
and imperial war machine at home and abroad, Abolish ice
and the entirety of the Department of Woland Security and
resist fascism. Stop kidnapping our neighbors and return anyone who
was deported. Support community organizing to defend against any incursion
(19:18):
by state or federal forces to undermine democracy and human rights.
Ensure full reconciliation and reparations for those harmed by ICE.
If you abolish ice, I'm just gonna say, you're putting
a lot of Latinos who make more than twenty dollars
an hour out of work, because that's who really does
the job. I don't think they know what that next up.
Free Palestine. I'm actually, by way, I am shocked shocked
(19:42):
that it took this long to talk about freeing Palestine.
I don't know what I mean, the Palestinians, they're losing
their mojo. Free Palace. A year ago, free Palestine would
have been very top. They would have made it before
healthcare or you know, feminism, feminist socialism, like, they would
have been right out the top. So Palestinians, I mean,
you're really your falling in stature. They are talking about
(20:06):
freeing Palestine, of course, because that's what every DSA person believes.
And maybe maybe we could also compromise. Maybe an idea
is they could fly Palestinians in from Palestine, but they
have to live in the facilities that they're doing. The
drag Queen Story Hour and the transit of chot children,
like maybe they could do like a drag queen story
(20:27):
hour on a roof of a tall building with a
bunch of doctors who performed transurgers on children, and we
see how things go. Like I'm just saying, like, let's
just let's let's try that out and we'll see how
well the dsay's you know, racial equitable, you know plan works.
I just play this out to his fullest. I think
(20:49):
we go full tilt to what they're saying. All right,
here's the rest. Divest from the war economy and any
and also for and divest from companies in Minnesota engage
in weapons development of the United States military or that
that enable war crimes domestically or abroad. We would fight
to provide conversion jobs for the millions of workers displaced
(21:11):
by canceling the war industry. What are they gonna do
with all these workers? You know, many people work to
make weapons. Excuse me, sir, I know you used to
make weapons, but now you're gonna make fake balls for
all the internal trans kid refugees. I mean, what are
they talking about. These people are so insane. All right,
let's keep going because we're almost at the end. We
(21:32):
will provide safe and dignified housing for all wholes rend heikes,
public housing, organized renters housing first. I don't know how
because they're giving the lamp back to the Da Coda Indians.
This doesn't make any sense. Maybe they gonna give the
land and then like they're gonna steal it back, but
like in a nicer way without the smallpox blankets. I
don't understand. There's no like, there's no thought process behind this.
(21:53):
We will transition away from fossil fuds towards a green
and sustainable future with clean air to breathe and clean
order to drink for all. Okay, they're like five minutes
away from just saying horse and buggy for everybody no more.
And they're gonna use unions to do it. I'm sure
that will make it cheap. Dismantle the racist, toxic highway
(22:16):
system and invest in our neighborhoods. Rebuild I ninety four
into a fast public transit quarter, and return ownership of
the land in the Twin cities to build more community controls, housing,
commercial establishments, and parks. What like the highways are racist.
People aren't bortant racists. The highways make them racist? Okay?
(22:37):
One last one. We will build a system of public
safety that serves the needs of our communities and truly
keeps us safe, comprehensive public safety, fully fun, and support
mental health responders and community safety programs. You know, you're
seeing a bankropper, You're seeing a man with a gun.
You're seeing a man with a machete. Quick, quick call
the non binary woman who works to sterilize all all
(23:00):
the queer and trans refugee kids. She's gonna stop the
crimes free. She's the mental health advocate who works with
these children to make sure that they know they don't
have a gender. She's gonna do it. I mean, these
people are crazy. I would love love to see how
(23:21):
that goes. I mean, who needs it goes up? Rainy
and violent and racist cops whole police accountable for public violence,
including financially accountable for misconduct lawsuits, and oppose the expansion
of surveillance state. Who needs cops? Who needs cops? You
got these fat ladies with ice whistles. They're gonna stop
the crime. They're gonna stop the crime. And then the
(23:41):
mental health lady who works with the trans refrigi children,
you know, to make sure that they know that they
can get their healthy breast cut off at twelve, they're
gonna manage to, you know, stop the crazy guy like
with the gun, Like this is this all makes sense?
And then they're all gonna live together with the Palestinians.
I mean, this is this, it's crazy abolition as a horizon,
(24:04):
organized the world without prisons, armed policing, and replace the
police with an elected force of neighbors representing the neighborhoods
in which they live. I hate to break it to you,
but if people got to vote on how to punish
criminals in their neighborhood, there are certain criminals that are
going to get the guillotine in Minnesota. Like, there's the
(24:24):
guillotine is going to come back to Minnesota. It's going
to be a lot worse than the cops and the
judges are doing right now. But hey, this is the
socialist world view that they presented, and it's a masterpiece.
It's an absolute work of art, and I am happy
that they did that. Okay, I know that was long.
I hope you had a laugh because it made me.
I was crying at some points, laughing when I was
(24:45):
reading this the first time. They're nuts, and unfortunately they're
winning elections. But it is what it is. That's America
in twenty twenty six. Speaking of the land of Nuts,
Let's talk about California. That's coming up next. John Phillips
is the host of The John Phillips Show on KABC
Los Angeles. John, thanks for being here, Thank you for
having me. So let's talk Spencer Pratt, because I mean,
(25:07):
I have relatives in my that I know who like
never Ben Los Angeles and they were disappointed that Spencer
do not make the runoff. He ran a very interesting campaign,
obviously losing in the mail in ballads. Here's and like, look,
I'm not saying voter fraud never happens. There have been
elections that have been stolen, like the mayor's race in Bridgeport,
Connecticut a couple of years ago, where staffords were like
(25:29):
stuffing ballads. Absolutely does happen. But when you make the
accusation that voter frauds happening, you have to show me
the proof. This is a very democratic city. And in
my opinion, if you were going to steal an election,
you're the Democrats. Why wouldn't you steal the election against
Steve Hilton, which is much more important for governor. I
don't believe the election of still if I think this
(25:49):
is a very democratic city, what are your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I think there's a lot of truth to what you
just said. Los Angeles is not just a very democratic city.
It's a very left wing city now. And it's a
left wing city in the sense that you're going to
see a November matchup between a socialist candidate and the
Democratic machine candidate.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And I think in.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Terms of the ballot harvesting that you saw at the
last minute that caused the results of the election to swing,
I don't think it was coming from the unions and
the Democratic Party. It was coming from the DSA. The
DSA was able to outorganize the unions in this election
in a way that got their candidate into the runoff,
which is not what the Democrats wanted. What the Democrats
(26:35):
wanted was a Carton Bass Spencer Pratt November matchup because
they felt like they could turn that into a traditional
Republican versus Democrat, conservative versus liberal Maga versus Democrat establishment
and they win that easily by twenty points. You look
at the polls between Nitia Rahman and Karen Bass, and
(26:59):
I think going into that matchup is Nitya Rahman. I
think it's entirely likely the Democrats lose another seat to
the DSA. And politics, when you look at it globally,
tends to happen in waves where you know, you go
back to the nineteen eighties and you had all these
center right candidates. You have Reagan here, you had Thatcher
(27:20):
in England. Then you go to the nineties and you
have the center left, you have Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.
Then the populist movements of Brexit and Trump that we've
seen going on now in these big American cities. You
see these DSA takeovers at the council level and at
the city wide level. Where you saw it happen in Chicago,
you saw it happen in New York City, you saw
(27:41):
it happen in Seattle. And now it looks like Los
Angeles will be the next big American city to fall
to a socialist candidate.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Yeah, and there is a lot of good that comes
from an outsider candidate. But Spencer Pratt had no organization
to counter that. Now, I don't even know if you
had a lay really to counter it. I don't really
know if Spencer pread anything besides those great viral videos.
But you need an organization to get people to show
up and vote, and he's doing And also you had
the other candidate who was running, who was a Democrat
(28:13):
but running essentially as this on the same issue. Spencer
Pratt was running on I can't remember his name is
blanking on me now, but he came in fourth place,
like taking four percent of the vote, starting on homelessness
and housing costs. And he was a Democrat. He was
doing Spencer Pratt from like the center left, so there
was obviously people eating away at those numbers, not to
mention the four hundred other people running a lower level.
(28:34):
The problem to me for Los Angeles, like the problem
in many major cities now, is that they're too geographically big, right,
So you look at neighborhoods like the Palisades, like Bealle
and Cino, Sunland, Harbor City, San Pedro. Pratt does probably
want a majority in some of those precincts. The problem
is is they have a downtown Los Angeles attached to them.
(28:58):
And you see that in like Buckhead and Austin sorry Atlanta.
Rather you see that in Staten Island and New York
City where these Republican enclaves are, these conservative enclaves are
just wealthy enclaves are stuck in these massive cities, and
you know that's really what these people are being stuck by,
is not just you know that the city's you know,
(29:18):
the city's just too geographically large really to encompass, you know,
their needs.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
And we've tried to break up before. I mean, there
was a San Fernando Valley secession movement at one point
the past that failed. There was a movement that you know,
Bruce Hirschenson to take a blast from the past, was
involved with to have allowed Hollywood to succeed from the city.
There is a movement to allow San Pedro and the
port cities to secede from the city, and none of
(29:47):
it worked. You're right, La is a geographically very large
city with you where you have a lot of different
places that really have nothing in common. I mean, it
was kind of hobbled together. They're in a water politics
sense a long time ago. Or you know, you need
a port, so let's go ahead and have the city
limits run down the one ten freeway all the way
(30:09):
down to San Pedro and then we'll take that. No,
you're part of La. But you know, Pallas Verdes isn't
Long Beach isn't okay. I guess it made sense at
the time. But to go back to Spencer Pratt, he actually,
for a first time candidate, ran a pretty credible race
where I know people who are registered voters in Los
(30:30):
Angeles who had people knocking on their door making sure
that they voted for him. Those ads that he put out,
the AI ads went everywhere, I mean all over social
media feeds. People were text messaging them to me. And
I was on vacation in Alaska and when people would
find out what I did for a living, they'd ask
me about the Spencer Pratt ads. So he was able
(30:52):
to cut through the noise in ways that Republican candidates
in big blue cities typically don't. I think the problem
is is just a math problem. Los Angeles is a
very left wing city and there is a lot more
of them than there are of us. And it's just
as simple as that. And you look at you know,
(31:14):
Nathia Rahman is a socialist, and you go, okay, Well,
when I went to political science schools, I was taught
that socialists believe that the government should own the means
of production. Well, you know, now, the means of production
are in China. We don't do any manufacturing here. We
don't have any farming in Los Angeles, So it's kind
of an outdated way of looking at it. The people
(31:34):
that she was talking to were the baristas or I
guess the means of production is, you know, the machine
to make the latte.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
But you know, these people believe that they grew up
in a very you know, many of them in the
affluence of the nineties in the early two thousands, and
their parents owned homes in California, and they went to
find schools and they have totally useless degrees, and now
they're never going to be able to own a home.
(32:02):
They're renting in really bad parts of town, and they
just don't see a future where they can live the
life that their parents lived here, or ai looming on
the horizon, or they're.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
From very wealthy families and they don't need to work.
That's there's an element of that too. There's a big
part of that, especially in New York. I know of people.
There's a thing called like hid in New York and
people will admit to like their darkest secrets, and so
often someone says, I have five million dollars in my
grandparents gave me. But I don't tell my poor friends
(32:34):
right that I'm that I'm that I'm so wealthy. That
does happen. When you said that, when you're talking the
makeup of the city, I was just imagining Los Angeles
as older celebrities talked about it from like a hundred
years ago, when they were like it was just lemon
trees and thinking like they needed lemon trees and then
orange trees. So they were just cobbling together vegetation of
(32:54):
different regions of the city to kind make it into
one place. And that's really how they did it. But yeah,
I get what you're saying. I agree with what you're saying.
I think that that's a big I think it's a
big part of it is just that the city has
translated and these big cities New York, La, Chicago have
become spongeous. If you're got forty four genders, you're not
(33:15):
staying in San Bernardino. You're going to Los Angeles. You're
not staying in Fresno. I mean, you're just there's a
few of them. But I'm sorry, if you're four hundred pounds,
you know, lesbian with twelve cats, you probably La is
more of your style.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, and it just becomes self selecting. I mean, people
talk about California losing population, where we have people moving
out to Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas, whatever. But that's just
a part of it. You also have people within the
state of California. I'm a good example of this. I
used to live in Los Angeles County. I couldn't take
(33:51):
it anymore. So now I live in the Coachella Valley,
a different part of the state, but not Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Even with in the city limits. You've seen people who moved.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
To places like downtown LA when that was safe and
fun and we had Staple Center going up and Disney
Concert Hall and LA Live and all of those things,
and now they go, wait a minute, it's not safe
to live here anymore. So they moved to the outskirts
of the San Fernando Valley. So you see the self
selection of Republicans moving to other parts of the city,
(34:26):
other parts of the state, other parts of the country.
And you see the unattractive baristas with purple hair and
forty five piercings on their face where they look like
they got attacked by a stapler. All moving in and
that's your electorate now, And of course they're going to
vote for a socialist because what else are you going
to do if you're one hundred pounds overweight with purple hair.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
So let's talk about the governor's race for a second.
Steve Hilton's likely to make the runoff. A couple of people,
like Track Elections, have already called Steve Hilton's in the runoff,
which I mean Tom Steyer got lost some six hundred
million dollars on two failed races. He wish you had
that kind of money to burn. Now, his chances are
very slim. We're just going to admit that it's they
(35:09):
are slim. If he does well enough, is there a
chance that he could protect some vulnerable state legislative seats
or something down battle? That's important because I think that's
really you know, it's a big part of it.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
It's possible, although really that's negligible right now because with
the Prop fifty maps, you really only have a handful
of congressional races that are even going to be contested.
So those seats that would have had generated national interest,
especially when Kevin McCarthy was the speaker, where he needed
(35:42):
to protect his people. In California, that just doesn't exist
the way it used to in previous cycles in terms
of the state legislature. Yeah, it could make a difference
in some of those seats, but the Democrats have super
majorities in both houses. So what you're arguing over is
what type of supermajority are the Democrats going to have?
(36:04):
Are they going to control eighty percent of the seats
or seventy five percent of the seats? And the answer
is does it really matter?
Speaker 1 (36:12):
I like seventy five more than eighty, But okay, let's
look if there's any golden nuggets as I could see them.
There's two races worth paying attention to in California. One
is the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction. I care
a lot of education. It's a nonpartisan race. There's no
r or deal though. Sonya Shaw is the more conservative
(36:33):
person in the ballot. She's probably a her. I know her,
I've met her. She's a conservative. She's coming. She came
in first place. There was like one hundred people running
her race. I think is important, I think as a nonpartisan.
And then the other race is the ballot initiative demanding
voter ID when you vote in person and when you
mail in a ballot. That's really the two things. And
(36:54):
polling to show that the voter ide law is fifty
to fifty right now in the polls. Is that good assess?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Well, if that were to pass, that would be extremely
helpful to try to clean up our voting situation, which
needs dramatic reform.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
In addition to that.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
What we really need is we need the federal government
to step in, because I know there's a lawsuit that's
now in the works that says that well, right now,
the Post Office, due to budget cuts and other circumstances,
can no longer guarantee that they will postmark a parcel
the day that you drop it off. It would be
either that day or the day after. Well, if California
(37:34):
allows election day voting and you drop off a ballot
on election day and they can no longer guarantee that
that will be postmarked on the same day, you're disenfranchising
those voters.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
So there is an.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Excuse to eliminate a large portion of how California conducts
its elections at the federal level that I think would
be very helpful and at least in terms of counting
the ballots faster, and you know.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I mean, yeah, I mean Peru, which is not exactly
what I would consider a first world country. I love it,
by the way, when you say third world country and
people are like, this is not a third world country
unless there's universal plumbing, it is a third world country
in But that's like a really hard line I have.
But Peru was able to count their ballads. I think
(38:25):
they are ninety six percent done in twenty four hours.
And they have it, by the way, dysporia across the
entire world, where it's you know, they'd get the votes
in Miami, which was all like the Peruvians. They are
in the Peruvians. Yeah, they've done it in a remarkable
faster speed than in California. And I think that, I mean,
what was it Rocanna was talking about this or somebody
most saying. I think it was Rocanna who was like,
(38:47):
I have friends who are no longer going to vote
anymore because they think that every election is still because
of how long it takes to count ballots. Yeah, it's maddening.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, I mean when I was in political science school,
I remember the state that all always had a population
that had the least confidence in their voting system was
organ and that was because Oregon was the first state
to do all vote by mail elections. They've been doing
it for a very long time, and it always used
to be the test case of don't be like organ
(39:16):
because the population doesn't buy into the fact that it's
a free and fair election. And instead of everyone going
in the opposite direction, we've all become Oregon, or at
least we haven't in California. I mean they took the
exact opposite advice. And I think that the FED stepping
in would be helpful. Voter ID would be helpful, and
(39:39):
we used to have it so that instead of everyone
being mailed in absentee ballot, you had to specifically request one.
So if you're in the military, or you're a flight attendant,
or you know whatever, you work long shifts at the hospital,
you're a trauma surgeon, you could vote via absentee if
you specifically requested it. Well, now we send them to
(40:00):
everyone and then we don't clean up the voter rules.
So when I lived in an apartment building that had
a lot of people moving in and out all the
time in Los Angeles County, there was always a big
stack of ballots in the mail room that just sat
there and then one day they just disappear.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
And I don't know where they went.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I don't know who picked them up, but they were
just there and then they weren't. And if you want
your population to buy into the fact that you're running
a fair process and you're playing it straight, then mail
rooms in apartment buildings all over the states should not
have stacks of ballots.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
And well, I mean, and the most insane thing is
that they do this because they say it's going to
increase photo turnout. It hasn't. Primary is like it's like
every other state. It's like thirty something percent. I mean,
that's like the same numbers in most other states of
the primary.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
And you know what's funny, if you actually want to
increase the percentage of participation in your state, the best
thing you can do is clean up the roles. When
someone dies, take them off, when someone moves, take them off,
when someone goes to prison, take them off.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
It's not that hard. No, I agree with you. New York.
Actually they had a ballot initiative to do this, to
make universal mail and billeting. And you have to have
an excuse to have an appsenty value. You can't just
request one. You need to say why you won't be
able to vote. And they were like, let's do away
with all those things. And New York State voted against it.
They were like, no, we like all those things in place.
So it was one of the few times I took
(41:32):
pride in my home state where I was like, Okay,
we're not completely insane. Then, I mean, we have a
shriver up svil of Hope. No, I agree, and it
is I guess it is going to take. I mean,
the DOJ is very aggressive and there's a lot of
people in California from the DJ, so I don't see
why they don't do this. I'm gonna my lawsuit in
the DJ backing up in California, in Los Angeles specifically,
(41:52):
so I get it. Anyway, thank you coming this podcast
where we go to hear the more about you, read
your stuff everything.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Well, you can listen to me between noon and three
Pacific time on KABC in LA and KSFO in San Francisco,
and then I'm on the weekends in Fresno, and then
you can read my newspaper column in the Southern California
News Group, which is the LA Daily News, the OC Register,
the Riverside Press Enterprise, and most importantly, the Redlands Daily Facts.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Can I admit something to you. I did your show
one time, and before you go on your show, there's
always the news, the weather, there's like a report perforeance
It's like five minutes. I was wiped out one day.
I was so tired and I sat down waiting for it.
I'm listening to the news and I fell asleep, and
all of a sudden, here Ryan Ryan right, and I go, oh,
and you go, where are you? I go, I'm sorry,
(42:40):
I had my phone. I mean you were like, were
you in the bathroom? I was like, oh my god,
I fell I was exhausted. But anyway, his show is great.
If you are in California and you're not listening, you should.
All right, Thank you John becoming this podcast. I appreciate it.
Thank you for having me. Now it's time for they
Ask Me Anything segment. If you wanted part of the
Ask Me Anything Things segment only Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast
(43:02):
dot Com. That's Ryan at Numbers Game Podcasts dot com.
Numbers is plural. First question comes from Keith. He writes
two questions that are pretty lengthy, so I'm going to
answer the second one, Keith, Sorry, but the first one.
You right that the example of New York education spending
hit home with you, but you don't see the data
present it in a way that you can digest in
easy sound bites. In a world we live in, is
there a way to show data that makes it more
(43:23):
relatable to each person, like the cost per person and
the performance versus like Mississippi, to demonstrate that they are
paying thousands more per person than Mississippi for substandard results.
That's a great way to do it. But you know,
Mississippi for New Yorkers is a very far removed place.
It's like, you know, you talk like Mars. Basically, I
would I would be willing to bet a super majority
(43:44):
of New Yorkers have never been to Mississippi, and if
they did, if they heard of it, they think of
it from like the nineteen fifties, like they have no
idea how like parts that are very very nice. I
go to Missippi all the time. I think you could
just compare it to like a local state. Why you
can compare it to New Jersey. New York spends ninety
billion dollars per on education per over year and it
(44:05):
ranks number twenty seven in reading, in math or the
NEA test scores. We could fund New Jerseys education twice
and have billions left over, and New Jersey ranks in
the top five in math and reading. So clearly it's
not just like a cultural thing, which you know it is.
Mississippi is doing phenomenal things. Louis and is doing phenomenal things.
(44:27):
There's just a lot of waste going on, and it's
not reaching the children. You know, I wouldn't say New
Jersey is the idea of the best idea in education
in the world. However, at least they're spending some of
the money towards the kids, which is not the same
can be said about New York. And I think that
that's an important thing. And you could just compare to
local regional states. Massachusetts is number one. We blow the
massachus out of the water. All the local states. It's
(44:49):
a lot of bad spending. And I think you could
say you could fund three Massachusetts and you'd have much
better test scores than you would if you did it
for New York. I think that's a good comparison in
my opinion. Maybe you guys maybe disagree. Next question is
from Eric. He writes, Dearest Darling, Ryan Gerdoski a phrase
no one has ever said, what is going on with
the governatorial election in Oregon? As an elder millennial gay
(45:11):
in Portland, all of my friends are obviously progressive women,
and we all hate Tina Kotech she's the governor is
it seems like she has a glass shaw And Christine Dresen,
she's the Republican, is perhaps the most impressive Republican candidate
in memory. I can't find any polls on this race,
so insight would be greatly appreciated. So there have been
two polls won by a Democratic firm and one by
a Republican firm. Both show actually that it's neck and neck.
(45:34):
They're both within the margin of era. I think believe
one's tied and the other one Dresen's up by a point.
Here's the problem. In every Oregon governor's election from two
thousand and two till the most recent one four years ago,
the Republican has always gotten between forty two and forty
seven percent. I have to see some polls showing Christine
(45:55):
Dresen polling in the high forties to see any kind
of movement. Because last time was her best chance, and
there was a third party progressive stealing votes or sorry,
third party, I think centrist Democrats stealing votes, and I
have to see some evidence that those votes are going
to go towards her. I think she's a very cabled person.
It's obviously not a great year for Republicans with the polling. However,
(46:17):
like if I see a posing her forty eight nine percent,
I'm going to start believe there's a toss up, a
potential upset. I just haven't seen that yet. So that's
the that's the situation. I really hope that she wins.
I think Oregon could use the sanity check. Okay, last
question comes from Mark. You write, Hey, Ryan, I've been
reading some literature on how primary elections are a poor
way for parties to choose candiates run for office. Many
(46:39):
primary voters are uninformed and make their decisions based on
name recognition who has the flash's TV ads. Many other
Democratic nations don't have primaries, and the candets are instead
chosen by the party, which helps them better keep their
elected officials in line. Furthermore, primaries length in the campaign
season and divert precious resources for a general election. For instance,
John Cornyn and the Allies and text has been over
one hundred million dollars just to lose by twenty eight points.
(47:02):
That money could have easily gone to Republican candates in
tough races like Alaska or Ohio and North Carolina. Do
you think nominating conventions would be a better way to
choose candates than primary elections? Can you explain both pros
and cons? So some states actually do do nominating conventions
for the governor's races. Glenn Youngkin was not chosen a primary.
Glenn Younkin was chosen in a nominating convention. Had we
(47:22):
had a primary in Virginia, a woman named Amanda Chase
who called herself Trump and heels, likely would have won
and she would have almost certainly lost the general election.
So in states like that that keep people from running
in states that are tough, states like Listen, Christino, Donald
would have never won a nominating convention. I know that's
ancient history now in twenty ten, but she was the
(47:43):
one who said that she was a witch. She could
have only won from a primary, and then the Republicans
would have had a senator, a Republican senator for in
Delaware for at least one, if not two terms. There
are a bunch of times when yeah, a nominated convention
would work. However, the con of that side is that
the conservative candidates would most likely lose. Utah does this
(48:05):
weird thing where they do both a primary and a
nominating convention. Like the nominated convention leads the top two
to get to the primary. So Mike Lee, the senator
right now from Utah, he lost the nominating convention to
a guy named Tim Bridgewater, a businessman who would run
for office unsuccessfully both times. Tim was a major donator
of the party and the party wanted him. He lost
(48:28):
the primary, though, to Mike Lee, who was absolutely the
more conservative candidate. Would Tim be as more be a
senator who was more conservative? Would he be like an
anti Trump person? I don't know. But Mike Lee was
absolutely more conservative candidate. So the pros of this are
is that we do get conservatives elected when we make
(48:48):
sure they keep him in line, and when we are
when the party is really thoughtful about how to nominate,
are a more capable candidate, I will say that, And
sometimes they're very concert but a lot of times they're not.
And the party infrastructure of the party base sometimes will
just move from like knee jerk to need jerk. There
are tons of people who run as MAGA candidates who
(49:10):
are you know, establishment hacks, and everyone's so shocked and
upset when they turned out that they are, you know,
nothing like they claim to be. I think that that.
I think there's some merit to that. I know that
some people who are really great in the Senate would
not have gotten there if it was up to up
to up to nominating conventions. I think maybe nominating conventions
(49:32):
for certain offices would be good, maybe not for like House.
I think House should really be very democratic for where
the people vote, and we should keep it, you know,
very democratic. Remember back in the day, the Senate wasn't
even picked by the people at all. It was picked
by the state Senate. The state senate elected the Senate,
So there were there were a lot more ways that
we used to do things that were less democratic, but
(49:56):
they were representative more of the states because the senators
would then have to represent what the state Senate's interests
were to be renominated. So we wouldn't have had a
situation like Obamacare pass, because the state senates would have
elected people to represent what the state's interests were and
a lot of states interest wasn't for Obamacare other policies
(50:17):
like that. There are a lot of things that we've
done to kind of rid ourselves as being more of
a federalist system into it just a straight democracy that
haven't been productive. So not productive, but they haven't always been.
I don't know, they haven't been. I guess what people promised.
So would the would the nominating process help? Probably maybe
in governor's elections, maybe in maybe in certain certain elections
(50:41):
like Senate. I would say though that the cons would
be We're going to lose out on a lot of
good conservatives who can win. I think that's what you
have to put in mind. So two sided what is
a two sided sword or two step beside a dagger
or whatever that my mother used to say. There's pros
and cons of both. I think for for some offices,
I think maybe a nomining convention would work. So who knows.
We wouldn't have Ronda sand As though, remember that we
would never understand as if we did a nominating convention,
(51:03):
we would almost certainly have Adam Putnam, who was no
ron to sand As. Nobody is and he's phenomenal so
I don't know. I've got to pick your poison. But anyway,
that's this episode. I hope you guys liked it. I
hope you guys laughed. If you liked this podcast, please
like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts where
we do their podcasts, and on YouTube. Throw me a
subscribe on YouTube. It means a lot to grow the channel.
I really appreciate you all, and I will see you
(51:24):
guys on Friday
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