December 7, 2025 • 45 mins
A candid conversation with Blake Fischer on rebuilding trust, cutting through outrage, and restoring self‑government.
Politics shouldn’t feel like a loyalty test, but for a lot of people it does. We invited Blake Fischer, creator of The Homeless Conservative, to talk about why so many “exhausted citizens” are stepping back, how the parties lost their grip on governing, and what it takes to rebuild trust in a system that seems to reward outrage over outcomes. From his early days on a mayoral campaign to launching a podcast meant to add clarity instead of heat, Blake lays out a simple frame: conserve the constitutional order, return Congress to legislating, and stop treating presidents like kings.
We dig into the century-long power shift from Capitol Hill to the White House, why executive orders keep multiplying, and how court rulings and crisis politics nudged us toward a presidency that tries to do everything. Blake explains how weak parties and strong PACs pushed primaries to extremes, sidelining nuance and elevating personalities. We trade notes on media incentives, the dopamine economy of fear and anger, and what younger voters—who only know politics in the Trump era—have been taught to expect. The throughline is practical: write down your principles before you pick your person, follow sources that cite evidence, and reward anyone who corrects themselves in public.
This conversation isn’t about agreeing on every issue; it’s about restoring the habits that make self-government possible. If you’ve felt torn between teams, wary of headlines, or unsure where to start, you’ll leave with a clearer map: how to talk across differences without losing your friends, how to pressure representatives to do their job, and how to sort fact from noise when the feeds light up. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s checked out, and leave a review telling us one principle you won’t compromise on—what would help you re-engage?
Thank you for stopping by. Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share. You can also support us by shopping at our STORE - We'd appreciate that greatly. Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.
Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carmen Lezeth (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.
This is the private lounge.
And um, my guest today is BlakeFisher.
Did I say your name correctly?
Because I always guess somepeople's names.
Blake Fischer (00:09):
Got it.
Carmen Lezeth (00:09):
Okay.
And you are the owner and thecreator of the podcast, uh, The
Homeless Conservative.
Blake Fischer (00:16):
True.
Carmen Lezeth (00:16):
So I'm excited to have you here, but I first want
to explain to people um we havea show called Culture and
Consequence that we juststarted, where we're talking
about political stuff, moreabout teaching, kind of teaching
some of the things that I thinkpeople don't know.
And you reached out or yourpeople, I don't know if it was
your PR people or who, but Idon't have people, it's just me.
(00:38):
You don't have people.
Okay.
Well, we get so many emails,you know what I mean?
So, and normally I would havebeen like, nope, I don't I don't
wanna, I don't want to talkabout politics on, but your
whole vibe totally intrigued me.
Your whole thing about um justkind of being a person who is
(00:58):
homeless as a conservativebecause you feel like maybe your
party has.
I don't know.
We'll talk about what you thinkabout that, but I was totally
intrigued by it.
So welcome to this show, andI'm really excited to have you
here.
Blake Fischer (01:10):
Well, thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
I'm glad it intrigued you.
I think there are, I thinkthere are more people like me
than uh we think there are, justbecause the loudest people are
the crazy people.
And I think everyone else hasjust kind of retreated.
So I'm like trying desperatelynot to retreat, but it it's hard
sometimes.
Carmen Lezeth (01:26):
It is really, really hard.
And I think you have somethingin your bio or on your website,
and my apologies, but you talkabout exhausted citizens.
Blake Fischer (01:35):
Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth (01:36):
I think that's what got me.
I'm like, okay, I may notbelieve everything you believe,
but I'm exhausted.
Blake Fischer (01:44):
Yeah.
I think a lot of people are.
I mean, from my, and this isjust maybe it's anecdotal
because it's the people I talkto, but it it does seem like,
and I think there's data thatbacks it up too.
I mean, like uh last year'selection, more there were more
independent people that wereregistered as independents that
voted than Democrats.
And and both parties have beenlosing people to, you know,
(02:05):
they've been leaving.
So not just like it's not newvoters signing up as
independents necessarily.
It's actually people areleaving Republican and
Democratic parties and sayingI'm independent.
Now, I don't think they'rereally that independent.
I think they generally stillfeel very much like one way or
the other with a party.
But to me, that's a huge signalthat they're at least trying to
tell someone that, hey, I don'tlike what you're doing.
(02:28):
And I think that's on bothsides right now.
It seems across the board.
And so I think what I'venoticed the problem is is that
normal people, who I'm calling,you know, sane, you know, people
that that want government towork and want to care about this
stuff, I think they just aretotally overwhelmed by not being
like feeling like they can'ttrust any news source, they
(02:50):
can't trust any person on socialmedia, because they'll see two
things back to back.
That's like one says this andthe other one says something
that completely contradictsthat.
And they're both presenting itas fact.
They're not presenting it asopinion, even.
And then the person goes, Well,I don't know who to believe
here.
Obviously, someone's nottelling you the truth, but it's
kind of too hard.
It's like kind of hard to diginto who's telling the truth at
(03:12):
that point.
So I get a lot of questions tome, just from friends and family
and stuff.
They're like, Okay, catch me upon this whatever big event
that's in the news, superpolarizing thing, since
everything's a 50-50 issue now.
Everything's like, you got tobe on one side or the other.
There's zero nuance.
You can't be like, well, here'san interesting.
No, it's like you either haveto be team A or team B, team
red, team blue, whatever it is.
(03:33):
And it seems like everything'slike that, whether it's a stupid
American Eagles Sydney Sweeneyad that we are enraged about, or
it's something that's actuallyhappening that matters.
And so I think people are justgoing, like, it's easier to
check out and not pay attentionto it.
I think the problem is whennormal people do that, we just
kind of leave it to the reallycrazy partisans that then
(03:57):
dominate all the discussion,dominate all the coverage,
dominate all the justeverything.
And then and then people end upin a general election four
years from the last time theyvoted, and they're like, these
are our two options again.
And then they just kind ofeither hold their nose and pick
something or they pick what'sclosest, or and and I think the
problem is it's like we're justlike totally seeding between
(04:18):
those, especially presidentialelections, to the crazies.
And and then the normal peoplego like, why is it so bad?
Carmen Lezeth (04:25):
But I'm gonna disagree with you with just one
thing.
I'm I'm gonna try not to arguewith you at all because I want
this to really be a body.
I know, but you know what?
I that's not what my show'sabout.
And my whole thing is I want usto have a great dialogue.
So the thing I'm gonna disagreewith you about is I actually
think more people are notleaving because there are people
(04:47):
like you and people like me whoare saying, wait a minute.
Now, something you don't knowabout me is I was a Democrat.
And when the whole Joe Bidenthing happened in this last
election, I became not anindependent in California where
non-party affiliate, you know,non-party um, I forget what the
other P stands for, but it's notindependent.
(05:08):
It's no party platform.
Blake Fischer (05:09):
That's what I did.
Carmen Lezeth (05:10):
Um so I agree with you that more people are
doing things, or I'm hoping,maybe I'm hoping, more people
are becoming less inclined towant to be on the extremes.
I've always thought we weremore to the middle.
I remember in the past, I wouldlisten to people like, and and
all my liberal friends are aboutto have a panic attack, but
(05:33):
most of them already know.
I used to listen to like SeanHannity, um, it was K ABC out
here in Los Angeles, LarryElder, you know what I mean?
Like I used to Bill O'Reilly onthe radio.
Now, I didn't agree with them,but I could listen to them
because I was, I wanted tounderstand what their thought
process was.
And at that time, I was like,oh, I can see where you're
(05:53):
going.
Like it was a way for me to beeducated, you know what I mean?
But now it's all too hard.
It's all too painful, you know?
Blake Fischer (06:02):
Yeah, and I think what the I so I agree.
I don't think you're wrongabout that.
I do think people are, if theyare like when I say they're
checking out, I think that more,I think there are definitely
like the majority.
And I think it's like a hugemajority.
I don't think it's like 51%majority.
I think it's a most people areum, if they're if they're kind
(06:22):
of paying attention.
I think there's multiplebuckets of people.
I think there's a lot of peoplethat just vote every four
years, and that's right the mostthey pay attention to it.
I don't love that.
I think as citizens, we'resupposed to be a little bit more
involved.
I don't think voting is, Ithink we've kind of elevated
voting a little too high on thelist of things that like are
supposed like that's like theall-important thing.
It's really just a jobinterview that you're
(06:45):
simultaneously firing someoneand hiring someone else at the
same time.
Right.
I think what we've done is thatmost people feel that way.
I think.
I think most people go, I'mvoting.
You hear a lot of anecdotalstories about people like
holding their nose and votingfor the lesser of two evils.
You hear that term all thetime.
And I think those peoplerealize that I'm voting for this
(07:07):
person, and if it doesn't gothe way I think it will, I will
vote for someone else.
You know what I mean?
Like that's generally how itgoes.
I think the sort of crazies,the people I'm talking about
that are kind of um have alwaysvery partisan.
And I think that they feel likethe second they vote for
someone, they have to thendefend every everything that
person does from then on if theywin.
(07:29):
And that's not how I thinkAmerican politics was set up to
be.
I think we're always supposedto be holding the people that we
elect accountable, like always.
That's like our number one job.
That's the press's number onejob.
And what's happened with peoplelike Sean Hannity is someone I
used to pay attention to too, asa conservative.
Uh, I loved watching BillO'Reilly back in the like 90s,
(07:49):
early 2000s and stuff.
Uh, I think most of the time,and but I also like I just think
it's good to listen to peopleand pay attention to people that
you're you know you're going todisagree with because it's
going to challenge your beliefsand your views.
And you might realize, oh,actually, that's a great idea
that I do agree with.
Because I think most of this ismuch more nuanced.
But what we've turned it into,you know, I think Trump is the
(08:11):
symptom of this.
I don't think it's that hecaused this, but what we've
turned it into is like, no, onceyou, you've got to be my least
favorite question is when peoplego, Are you, do you support
Donald Trump?
And I'm like, what does thatmean?
Like, yeah, I don't supportanyone blindly.
I don't just blindly say anypolitician can do anything they
want.
And if they've got the rightletter after their name, I'm
(08:33):
gonna say, okay, there are goingto be things I disagree with
that he does.
There are gonna be things Iagree with.
There are going to be, and thatshould be the case with
everyone.
Carmen Lezeth (08:42):
Yeah, but you're paying attention.
So I think that's kind of why Ialso wanted to have you on the
show is I don't think a lot ofpeople are paying attention as
closely, you know.
So that's why they end up beinglike, well, I'm a Democrat, so
I have to only support theDemocrat.
And I can't tell you how muchflack I got for loving John
McCain.
I mean, I didn't vote for JohnMcCain, but I've always loved
(09:04):
him.
I always thought he was such agreat human being, you know?
And I disagreed, like the, youknow, the whole Sarah Palin
thing is just so unfortunate,right?
Blake Fischer (09:14):
It is, it just is that campaign was off the rails
by the time they picked SarahPalin.
They already knew it was a HailMary to try to potentially win.
Carmen Lezeth (09:21):
They already it was a weird, and and it's and it
wasn't really, it wasn't JohnMcCain.
Like it that's what was so offabout it, you know.
But before we go any further,because I can see you and me, we
could be talking about thisforever.
I want to get back to when didyou decide that this is what you
wanted to do?
When did you know you were aconservative?
And when did you well, I'm youknow, I know it's a silly
(09:44):
question, but just to get aflavor, because I know you did
something way, you know, you didsomething very different.
Let's get a little backgroundon who you are and how you came
to this.
Blake Fischer (09:53):
I'm weird.
I don't think most peopleshould pay as much attention to
politics as I do.
So that's the first caveat.
Is that like I say at the topof my show, I'm a political
junkie so that you don't have tobe.
It I have always enjoyed this.
My uncle ran for mayor.
I'm in Oklahoma City.
He ran for mayor and won when Iwas in eighth grade.
So I was like dealing, I wasdoing like behind the scenes
campaign stuff with him, uh,because my mom was helping him a
(10:14):
ton, like all the timevolunteering.
So I got kind of an early tastefor that.
That most eighth graders arenot paying attention to mini
politics, much less like localmayoral politics, and you know.
And so I kind of like that'sprobably what got me kind of the
bug of so that's like 1998.
Uh, and I didn't, I was not 18yet in the 2000 election,
(10:35):
although that was something Iwas very much paying attention
to.
I loved cable news in like the90s.
I loved a lot of those shows onlike CNN and and Fox News.
Fox News was a totallydifferent thing in 1998, 1999.
It really was.
And like I really liked BillO'Reilly's show.
Uh I I thought he was he got abad rap for no personality stuff
(10:56):
aside.
He had some flaws, obviously, aflawed human being, but the
show was very much down.
Like he let he had people on hedisagreed with, he let them
have the final word a lot oftimes.
Yes, it got heated sometimes,but they were having real
discussions about like, okay,give me your point.
Well, what about this?
And he was asking them, hewasn't just giving them softball
questions, and he wasn't doingwhat Fox News does now, which is
(11:17):
where they just kind of havetwo people come on and they have
like token Democrat, but it'sprobably not someone that's very
good at being on television.
It's like, you know, they'rejust like challenging them,
right?
Yeah, they're uglier than theRepublican that's on the TV.
You know, it's like all thesekind of things like that that
they that's what there wasn't asmuch of that back then.
Remember, Glenn Beck was on CNNin the early 2000s, which is
(11:38):
what people forget that.
Carmen Lezeth (11:39):
That is so wild.
Blake Fischer (11:41):
When it was on CNN, and then he's like slowly
gone off the rails.
And what my theory on what hashappened is that the way media
has changed over the last 20, 30years, um, especially with
social media coming in andYouTube and that, everyone
started like needing to have ahot take or an extreme kind of
thing.
And what happens is that thenyou the audience loves that.
(12:02):
I mean, social media, we know,loves outrage, they love fear.
Those are the things that keeppeople on the platform.
And so those platforms servethat stuff up more.
Yeah.
And I think there's a whole likeif you are, I hang out with
like 20-year-olds a lot becausemy wife is uh the the women's
like 20-something pastor at ourchurch.
So we hang out with20-somethings quite a bit.
And often I'm having these kindof conversations with them.
(12:24):
I'm like, they only knowpolitics with Donald Trump in
it.
Like, if you're 22.
Carmen Lezeth (12:29):
That's right, because they're so young.
Right.
Blake Fischer (12:30):
If you're 24, that's all you've known.
Because for all this, you know,almost decade he that he's been
in the picture and it's kind ofbeen this crazy topic thing.
Social media has changed theway the coverage of this stuff
works.
And so what I've noticed isthat it just seemed like um, so
I kind of grew up in just adifferent political kind of era
where it seemed like I was amusician, so I hung out with
(12:52):
people I disagreed with all thetime.
I mean, it would be like that,you know, like a Republican in
California or a Democrat inOklahoma.
It's like I was surrounded bypeople I disagreed with, but I
never had a problem havingdiscussions with this.
Was you know, we were liketouring around the country
before we had smartphones.
So all you could do is talkabout stuff.
So it was we talked abouteverything.
It was movies, it was music, itwas politics.
(13:14):
And I've just never had asituation where I couldn't be
friends with someone because wedisagreed.
And I feel like that's totallyshifted.
Carmen Lezeth (13:22):
Okay, I was just gonna ask you has that changed
for you now?
Blake Fischer (13:25):
Uh no, I don't think it has changed for me just
because I think I I always whenI have discussions with people
like that, I'm just honest aboutlike, I think you you're wrong,
and here's why I think you'rewrong, or something.
But I'm not like mean about it.
I'm never like you're an idiotor you're evil.
I think the big problem is overthe last it really started in
(13:46):
the 90s too.
This was going on, uh,certainly in the 90s, but it
turned into we we no longer justdisagreed with what people,
like their opinion on how to fixsomething was.
It was they had bad intentions.
It was like they're evil orthey're trying to destroy the
country or like that languagehad just come in.
And so so basically I wasreally interested in politics
always.
I wanted to do a podcastforever about it, but I just
(14:08):
kept not doing it because Icouldn't figure out like, well,
what do I do?
What is what's like how do Ibe?
Carmen Lezeth (14:13):
I think you found your niche.
Blake Fischer (14:14):
I think finally after like COVID happened and
stuff, and and I had startedsome uh music podcasts with
friends, I was like, oh, this isactually pretty fun.
I think I should just do this.
And so, um, and I just alsojust saw that there was not a
there are some great people thatare um very fact-based and very
like honest about like, hey,we're calling out no matter
(14:36):
what, but they are getting fewerand fewer and fewer because
there are so many of thosepeople that I used to pay
attention to that I don'tanymore because they've kind of
been captured by the crazy partof their audience.
And once they get captured bythat, they can't get away from
it.
And so you've seen it happen.
Tucker Carlson is anotherperson that was like someone I
paid attention to when he was onMSNBC.
Carmen Lezeth (14:55):
And I'm gonna be honest that I never liked him
even on MSNBC.
Blake Fischer (14:59):
You know how somebody just rubs you the wrong
way.
Yeah, he, but yeah, like I knowhe's a smart guy, and something
has happened over the last 20years where he's lost it, he's
either lost his mind or hereally believes this stuff, or
he's just lying to his audience.
I don't know.
I really cannot figure out thatconundrum because he's saying
things that directly contradictlike very strong opinions he had
(15:21):
10 years ago.
And I but I feel like that'severyone on my side, especially.
Carmen Lezeth (15:27):
Let me ask you this question.
So, because it because I Icould listen to you the whole
time, but then I don't need tobe here.
You could just talk morepodcasts.
But no, you're great.
Let me ask you this question.
Can you explain to my audiencewhat what it means to be a
conservative?
And what is it that you thinkthe Republican Party has maybe
(15:48):
changed, left out, is not doingwhat may have kept you with the
Republican Conservative Party?
Blake Fischer (15:57):
That's a great question because I think so much
of the problems with the way wetalk about politics is that the
definitions of these words havechanged like significantly.
And you might have a differentdefinition of conservative than
I do.
For me, what conservatismreally should mean, I mean, this
is this would be what I wouldfight for.
Okay, is like I want toconserve the constitutional
(16:17):
order that we set up for thefederal government and for the
states to work.
I think that's a good thing.
Carmen Lezeth (16:22):
So you're a const you're a constitutional
conservative, right?
Blake Fischer (16:26):
Yeah, no, that doesn't mean we can't change the
constitution because there areamendments for, right?
If we have amendments for, solike that's not what I'm saying
either.
I'm not saying I'm not one ofthese people that thinks that we
should just like ditch all theamendments that came in or
something and just keep it theexact same.
I think it's meant to be anevolving thing.
But I think that was designedto be hard for a reason because
I think the founders were smartto think that A, we should not
(16:49):
trust anyone with absolutepower.
We should not trust any oneperson or any one branch with
more power than without checkson them.
Um, they designed thepresidency to not be what it has
turned into over the lasthundred years.
It was the least powerfulbranch of government, honestly,
at when it was designed.
And Congress had all the power.
They just couldn't foresee thatCongress would, I guess, give
(17:11):
that power up voluntarily, whichis kind of strange to me, too.
Carmen Lezeth (17:14):
So before you keep going, and I'm sorry I keep
interrupting you, but I just Iknow my audience, so I want to
make sure they understandsomething.
So when we talk about equal,we're talking about legislative,
executive, and um, what am Imissing?
Uh judicial.
All three of those are supposedto be equal and supposed to be
checks and balances.
And that's what we're talkingabout.
Blake Fischer (17:34):
Yeah, except I disagree.
I do not think they were meantto be equal.
I think that's something thatstarted with like, I mean,
honestly, you started hearingthat kind of um rhetoric, I
would call it during likeWoodrow Wilson, FDR, Newton, and
these ones that wanted moreexecutive power.
And so they started callingthem co-equal branches, but
that's not in the constitution.
(17:56):
The the founders never calledthem coequal, but they called
them, they certainly saidthere's checks and balances.
Checks and balances.
Carmen Lezeth (18:02):
Okay.
Blake Fischer (18:02):
But the but when you look at the list of things
that it says, you know, gotArticle I, which is covering
Congress, Article II, which isuh the presidency or the
executive branch, and thenarticle three, which is the
judicial branch.
Judicial.
There are a lot of things listedin Article I that it says
Congress has the power to do.
And there are not very manythings that it says, you know,
basically the president has thepower to pardon.
(18:23):
Right.
The president has the power toveto legislation that comes to
them, although Congress can thenoverwrite that veto with
two-thirds majority.
So Congress even has a check onthe executive branches check on
them.
Right.
You know, so if you had a roguepresident that wasn't gonna was
gonna veto everything that cametheir way, Congress still has a
way to go past them.
You just gotta get two-thirds.
You gotta get a bigger majoritythan you do to just pass a
(18:45):
simple law.
Carmen Lezeth (18:46):
But that's not happening.
Blake Fischer (18:47):
No, it's not for a while, right?
Taxing, uh, taxing, all thatkind of uh the ability to uh
declare war.
All of these things arecongressional things that the
president actually does not havethe ability to do.
But over the last hundredyears, we have slowly ceded that
power to the executive branch.
So my main problem with sayingthat the Republican Party is not
(19:09):
very conservative right now isthat I don't see that anyone in
Congress is interested ingrabbing that power back.
And I think that almost everyproblem we have.
Carmen Lezeth (19:18):
Wait, say that again because you just confused
me.
Blake Fischer (19:22):
Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth (19:22):
Um, say that again.
That was great.
I'm just confused by what youmean by that.
Blake Fischer (19:26):
So Congress has slowly given this uh slowly
given their powers away to theexecutive branch by normally
what they're doing is like somesort of thing comes up.
Let's say that it's World WarII.
I mean, that's a good exampleof this because it's a crisis.
Okay, we need to act quicker.
And so a lot of times they willthen go, okay, we're gonna
write a law that says thepresident can do X, Y, and Z.
(19:46):
And then they always tried todo it in a way that said, like,
yeah, but we have a final checkon that by saying, uh, for
example, it happened in the 70swith the stuff that Trump's
using right now for his excusesfor the reason he has the
ability to levy tariffs.
The president does not have theability to create terror.
That's Congress.
But Congress did pass a lawthat basically said, okay, the
executive branch can do this inemergency situations.
(20:09):
And then we can, uh, I can'tremember, they called it a
legislative veto, is what theycalled it.
Well, what happened is thatthey wrote that law.
Great.
Okay, we've got to check onthat.
The Supreme Court came back andsaid, no, you actually, there's
no such thing as a legislativeveto.
That's not anywhere in theConstitution.
That that part of the bill getsbasically stripped out.
So now all they've done iscompletely handed that power
(20:30):
over to the president.
Over the presidency.
And without the check ofCongress being able to come
back.
Now, the thing is, Congresscould pass a law today that
takes all that away.
Like I said, this is allcompletely, again, if if Donald
Trump tried to veto it, you canget two-thirds of Congress to
say, no, we actually need thatpower back.
Um, I think that would actuallybe wise to do, but it looks
like it's gonna, if it's anyone,it's gonna be the Supreme Court
(20:52):
that says.
So, like, but Congress hasslowly done that.
Started with Wood WoodrowWilson, it uh it escalated quite
a bit with FDR.
Um, it escalated a lot moreunder Nixon.
It's just slowly done this.
And and you see the number ofexecutive orders, if you look at
the just how many executiveorders, it's increased with
every president and reallyramped up with George W.
(21:12):
Bush, Obama did more than Bush,then Trump did more than Obama,
and then Biden did more thanTrump, and then Trump has done
more than Biden did before.
You know, so we just keep we'redoing everything via executive
order.
Congress has only passed, Ithink, I could be wrong on this,
so don't quote me on.
I think they've only passedfour bills since Donald Trump.
Carmen Lezeth (21:31):
I mean, okay, I think what people don't
understand, and and I think it'ssomething I want to emphasize
here, is I say thisrespectfully.
Um Donald Trump, I think is adifferent kind of entity that
has occurred.
And I'm trying to be asrespectful as possible.
(21:52):
I mean, I think you're right.
We've eroded our power.
Congress is supposed to be areflection of the people, right?
Because we put them into power.
They should be those checks andbalances, but it's been
stripping away.
You're absolutely right overall that time.
I love how you did that.
But I feel like Donald Trumphas just changed the game.
(22:15):
Oh, yeah.
And I I don't look at everyoneknows how I feel about Donald
Trump.
You can already guess.
But my question to you is isnot how do you feel about Donald
Trump, but do you think DonaldTrump is an anomaly, or do you
think this is the way in whichwe're gonna go forward in the
Republican Party and theConservative Party?
(22:36):
Do you see any way of thischanging?
Blake Fischer (22:40):
Oh, yeah, that's tough.
I I think that I think he is alittle bit of an anomaly in a
sense that I don't think peopleare very it we've seen that
people have tried to repeat hissort of style and it doesn't
work.
It doesn't work.
It looks, it's like animitation.
I think that Donald Trump isauthentically himself, if that
makes sense.
Um, I don't think he's trying,he's not doing the politics.
(23:00):
No, it does, me too, but atleast like he but he's
authentically himself, and thepeople that have tried to um
repeat that somehow have notsucceeded for the most part.
Most of his even people that hepicks to run for congressional
seats and stuff have lost.
I mean, JD Vance is theexception.
But even JD Vance, I mean,going back to that Senate when
he won that Senate thing, uh hiswhat I guess that was 2020.
(23:23):
Yeah, that was before that.
Carmen Lezeth (23:25):
That was before though Trump, right?
Blake Fischer (23:26):
Oh, Trump had no in the primary.
And that's kind of hitch hiswagon to him.
But even in that, JD Vance, Ican't don't have the exact
numbers, but he won by like sixpoints, and the governor of
Ohio, who's also Republican, wonby like 18 points.
Yeah, so there's a discrepancy.
It was still like he was likeJD Vance lost one by a lower
(23:47):
margin than all the otherRepublicans uh on the ballot in
Ohio that year or whatever.
And I might not be completelyright about all the Republicans.
But either way, the point beingthat other than JD Vance,
almost everyone else, HerschelWalker, I can't even remember
most of the people's names, mostof them didn't win in the
primary.
Um, because people just don'twant an imitation, I think.
People want at least someone tobe authentic and honest.
(24:08):
I do think he's in anomnipotent in the sense that we
thought that we could give thesepowers to the executive branch
because that person would be umrespectful of like norms and
some of these things that are alittle bit more not written down
as law, but they're more likethis is the way we do things.
Carmen Lezeth (24:25):
Romney or John McCain, or you can go down the
list of, you know,conservatives, Republicans who
would not abuse right.
unknown (24:34):
Yeah.
Blake Fischer (24:35):
But my my thing, going back to like, what does it
mean to be conservative?
My thing is to not trust, likeI like, I think human nature is
unchangeable.
I think that we are not good bynature.
And I think you have to, youhave to write every law and you
have to rule you.
Well, I mean, not in a not in asense that I think people are
bad, but in a sense that I thinkyou have to design government
(24:57):
to expect someone that is bad tobe in that position and make
sure that you can check that.
Does that make sense?
Like it's not great.
Carmen Lezeth (25:06):
You just blew my mind.
Like, I no, that please keepgoing.
That was actually really umsomething I never thought of
because I actually believe mostpeople are good, but in the
context that you're putting itin, yeah.
Um, okay, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Wow.
Blake Fischer (25:21):
Well, yeah, I just I think that that's how you
know you even look at how muchI mean, because go back to the
founding of the country, andthey were very suspicious of
single people like kings havingall the power to do whatever
they want.
And so they very they foughtand fought and fought over like
how do we design a governmentthat makes sure that doesn't
happen.
And I just don't, and I thinkthey did the right thing.
(25:43):
I think they just didn't, theydidn't imagine that Congress
would be like, yeah, sure,here's all our power to the
executing brand.
It it seems so silly becausenow we literally have, I think
the anomaly here is that whereDonald Trump is definitely an
anomaly is that he really onlycares about himself.
Uh, he does not really careabout the Republican Party.
He's said over and over againhe doesn't consider himself a
(26:05):
conservative.
So I don't really understandwhy the defense of people who do
consider they're they'reconservative, why they can't
disagree with that and stillvote for him.
Like that's fine.
Carmen Lezeth (26:13):
No, but what's what's your reasoning for why
people don't see as clearlywhat's everything you just said,
me and my I'm not extremelyliberal.
I'm very to the middle.
Okay.
I I used to be proud to callmyself a conservative Democrat.
Blake Fischer (26:28):
Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth (26:29):
Because I really believed that's what I was.
Now I want nothing to do withthe word conservative because
I'm so dusted by it, right?
Blake Fischer (26:35):
Well, right.
And I think that that's theproblem is that like
conservatism needs a rebrand forsure.
Because the problem is mostpeople just go, oh, well, Donald
Trump's conservative.
Well, no, I mean, he is notconservative.
He's not conservative at all.
And you used to be able to haveum we as voters, and I actually
don't think it's we as votersin the general election.
(26:56):
I think it's really theprimaries, and we could get into
a whole thing about why I thinkthe primaries are really part
of the problem uh that we have.
But talk about that next timeyou come on, but it's work.
You know, what we've done isthat we've we we no longer award
people that are nuanced.
And so you cannot be a uh asocially conservative Democrat.
You cannot be a uh sociallyliberal conservative, you know,
(27:17):
like you can't, we just don'tallow that anymore.
Those mentions like all thepeople that we would consider a
little centrist, John McCain,uh, you know, all those kind of
people that you've mentioned,those all they kind of got
forced out of the Donald Trumpera.
And on both sides, Democratsare doing the same thing right
now where they're going, it'sthis ideological purity test.
(27:37):
Although, oddly enough, theideological purity test on the
right right now is uh, do yousay nice things about Donald
Trump?
It's not actually, it hasnothing to do with issues
because that might change.
Um the Democrats are doing it alittle bit more on actual some
sort of ideology, although it'sit's kind of near to some of the
things that they've uh justhammered down on, which I just
(27:57):
go, I think electorally aresuper foolish.
I just think like very clearlyin 2024, people were rejecting a
lot of the things thatDemocrats were going, you have
to be A, B, and C, or you can'tbe in our party.
I think if the parties had morepower, we'd be in better shape.
Carmen Lezeth (28:14):
Um you said more power.
Blake Fischer (28:17):
Yeah, and what I mean, what I mean by power is
like we don't have because oflike, okay, again, again, not
assigning intentions, but likegood intentions don't lead to
good results all the time.
And one of those things wouldbe campaign finance reform in
the 2000s.
They're trying to, you know,get money out of politics, which
is impossible.
And what ended up happening isnow all the PACs, super PACs,
(28:38):
can get unlimited donations, butyou cannot unlimited donate to
parties.
Right.
So the parties are basicallyabsolutely chained to those
PACs.
That's right.
Unless those packs are singleissue, which means they only
care, like the NRA only caresabout gun control.
Carmen Lezeth (28:52):
They only care about guns, they don't care
about anything else.
Nothing else.
Blake Fischer (28:55):
And Planned Parenthood only cares about
their thing.
Carmen Lezeth (28:57):
And so they're only going to, they're only
going to be with that person forthat issue whatsoever.
That's the only thing they'regoing to.
Like, as long as you're PlannedParenthood, I'm going to back
you and give you millions ofdollars.
Blake Fischer (29:09):
Right.
And so Planned Parenthood inNRA and all these other people
are like hanging over thepoliticians.
Well, I don't, we don't endorseyou if you don't completely get
in line with us.
And what that's like, if theRepublican Party and Democrat
Party had any control over theirprimaries at all, Bernie
Sanders, who is not really aDemocrat, and Donald Trump,
who's not really a Republican,would not have been able to run
(29:31):
for president in 2016.
They would not have been.
Carmen Lezeth (29:32):
I agree with you 100%.
Blake Fischer (29:34):
You know what I mean?
And so that's what's we beenweird is that we've turned it
into um, I do think Donald Trumphas changed politics in a
couple of ways that I don'tthink are going to change.
I think one is that we arefully in, I think Obama sort of
started this, but Trump sort ofput the nail in it.
Is like, it is aboutpersonality and nothing else.
Like, unfortunately for mostvoters, now it's do I like this
(29:56):
guy or not like this guy?
And that is it.
Carmen Lezeth (29:58):
I gotta go back even further and say Clinton,
right?
Personality was a thing.
Blake Fischer (30:04):
But I will say Clinton was a very good
politician.
Carmen Lezeth (30:06):
Like he he was very Okay, we're not gonna
disagree on whether BarackObama's a good politician or
nothing.
Yeah.
Blake Fischer (30:13):
Like I think that he could see where the country
was and he was going there.
Like honestly, like DonaldTrump honestly ran Bill
Clinton's campaign this lastyear.
I mean, it was not muchdifferent if you look issue to
issue.
Carmen Lezeth (30:24):
Say that again.
Say that again.
Blake Fischer (30:26):
Like Donald Trump basically ran like Bill Clinton
did in the city.
Oh, okay.
Carmen Lezeth (30:29):
I see what I mean.
Okay.
Blake Fischer (30:30):
It's not that much different.
Like if you look, if youwatched the if you watched the
um and you see, you know whatI'm hating about you right now?
Carmen Lezeth (30:37):
You're you're you're telling me stuff I've
never thought about.
Blake Fischer (30:40):
So I'm not saying they agree on everything, but
really they are closer becauseBill Clinton was seeing that,
like, hey, I've got to be alittle more he was leaning into
the conservatism side a littlebit.
We were kind of demandingfiscal responsibility and some
of that stuff.
Uh, and so Bill Clinton leanedinto that so so he could get
re-elected.
And uh, and and that stuff didhappen.
He had for the first time, youknow, he was dealing with a
(31:02):
majority in Congress that wasRepublican.
And he had, if you were gonnaget anything done, you have to
work with them.
Carmen Lezeth (31:07):
Yeah.
Blake Fischer (31:08):
Um, I think that Obama was just a little too
green at it at the time.
I think that he, I think.
Carmen Lezeth (31:14):
I think there were other things also.
I mean, I don't want to getinto a debate about Barack Obama
or Bill Clinton, but I alsothink there were other issues
happening with Barack Obamabeing the first black president.
That was a big deal.
And I think there was there wasnot only negotiation happening,
but other stuff at play that wecan talk about on another
podcast.
Blake Fischer (31:33):
But yeah, I also think generally presidents are
better if they've been governorsbefore.
I think that that's I agreewith you a hundred percent
stepping stool whereas likecoming from the Senate, it's
just a totally different thing.
Like, you know.
Carmen Lezeth (31:43):
Yeah, and it was the state, wasn't he state
senator?
Blake Fischer (31:45):
He wasn't well, he was a state senator for a
couple years, and then he was astate center for two years
before.
Carmen Lezeth (31:50):
It was like two years, yeah.
That's yeah, yeah.
I agree with you there.
So, and and again, I'm nottrying to stop you.
I am trying to stop you.
I just want to make sure we getthe full flavor of who you are.
Yeah.
Um, and I, you know what?
I think the whole thing aboutarguing about politics is also
bad.
And I'll tell you, one of thethings that bothers me is people
believe that they have facts ontheir side.
(32:13):
People believe that, you know,because they watched a YouTube
video or whatever, they listento you or they listen to me and
they're like, well, this is, youknow, and people aren't doing
the research, right?
Because we have the attentionspan of a gnat.
Oh, gosh.
So we can't research anything,we can't look at anything
further than that headline orwhatever, you know.
So my question to you is how dowe fix it?
Blake Fischer (32:36):
Oh boy, that's that's a tough one.
I mean, I think I think thefirst thing is to reward the
people that are doing it well.
Uh so most most of that is now.
I mean, you know, I followindividuals more than I follow
organizations just because theorganizations can totally
change.
And it's not, I I want thoseorganizations to be better.
I do.
I think that we're lackinginstitutional fortitude lately.
(32:59):
I feel like everyone's justkind of using whatever the
institution is as a platform tofurther their own career or
something.
And and what I would like toget more to like these
organizations, be they newsorganizations or political
organizations or whatever, to bemore about the institution and
not about the individuals makingit up.
(33:20):
But right now we're kind ofjust not in that thing.
With social media and stuff, itis about single individuals.
That's where a lot of peopleare getting their news, is from
you know, that kind of stuff.
So reward the people that do agood job at it.
And I think the one way you cantell someone does a good job at
it is citing sources.
I just think that's the primarything that has to happen, is to
say, well, here I'm pulling upthis resource that says this is
(33:43):
the facts.
And it's not just me tellingyou it's the facts.
It's like, here's the New YorkTimes or here's Washington Post
or here's Fox News or who'swhatever the source is.
It's like, give me somesources.
Uh I don't know.
Carmen Lezeth (33:53):
So that's what we do on culture and consequence.
We, you know, we'll have ourconversation, but then
afterwards, when I'm editing,I'll put at the bottom where our
sources are from.
Or if we make a mistake, likethat's the other thing.
Why, why can't people just say,you know what?
I made a mistake.
I apologize.
Let me take that back.
Here's the actual information.
We don't do that either.
No.
(34:13):
While I'm um, I just realized Ihaven't put out your website
for the audio.
I want to make sure everyoneknows it's
thehomelessconservative.com.
That'sthehomelessconservative.com.
Please go and check him out,follow him on YouTube.
Let me ask you this.
Um, what do you thinkindividual people should do if
(34:36):
they're feeling lost, besideslistening to your podcast or
coming to your YouTube?
No, really.
No, or checking us out on ourlittle political thing that
we're doing.
What would you say to someonewho maybe is a Trump supporter,
is disenchanted, is trying tofind their way through, or a a
Democrat who's like, this isn'tworking for me either.
(34:57):
What do I do?
Where do I go?
Who do I listen to?
Who do you listen to?
Who do you like?
Blake Fischer (35:03):
Yeah, I think the the first thing to do is to
talk to people about it.
I think that what's alwaysfascinating to me is that I can
have um, I think a lot of peoplethink that they we've been
told, okay, don't talk aboutpolitics or religion at the
dinner table or whatever, youknow, and like in company.
And I just think that we've notdone a really good service to
us as citizens to be like, oh,you shouldn't talk about
(35:24):
politics.
I think that most of the timewhen people start talking about
an issue, they find that there'sa lot more in common than they
have where they disagree.
Carmen Lezeth (35:32):
And I think that the Well the problem is people
don't know how to talk.
Blake Fischer (35:35):
Yeah.
But I mean, I think you just doit and it's going to be messy,
maybe.
But like, you know, like trustthat the other person, like as
long as you believe the otherperson has good intentions, like
they're not, they don't havebad intentions, like go into it
with that and also go into itthat like with the with the idea
that we can disagree and uhlet's find things that we can't
agree on, let's find things wedisagree on, and you can still
be friends.
I think that's the primarything because so many people
(35:58):
have just isolated to being onlyaround people that they agree
with.
Carmen Lezeth (36:02):
I I find it hard to be friends with some of my
family members who are Trumpsupporters.
And I say that on, I I really Ilike at the beginning of this
second term, I was like, okay,you know what?
All right, he's our president.
Let's just we, you know, I'mgonna hope for the best, man.
I'm gonna hope I want to beopen to it.
He's our president.
Blake Fischer (36:20):
You would like things to go well.
Carmen Lezeth (36:22):
I want it to go well.
I want to believe tariffs aregonna work, even though I know
they're not, you know, no thing,okay?
Just trying to do it, okay?
And and then it just got reallybad, especially with the whole
immigration thing and just howthings are being done, not why
you want them done, how they'rebeing implemented, right?
Because even if I disagree withyou as president, George Bush
(36:44):
or whatever, I'm gonna be like,okay, you're the president.
I understand the logic.
I disagree with you, but I'mgonna move on, you know?
Right.
But this has been so much ofit.
First of all, it's every day.
Every day it's something.
And then it's just petty, someof it's so bad.
And so what's happened with me,I'm just being very vulnerable
here with you because I want tohear what you have to say, is at
(37:06):
some point I was like, yeah,no, you keep supporting someone
who is hurting other people.
Like I don't know how else to,I don't know how to walk through
that.
So what would you tell me?
What would you say to me?
Blake Fischer (37:18):
Well, see, I had these conversations with my
Trump supporting people as well.
So I'd like the same thing.
And normally what I'm trying tobring that back to is that um
my call out for the people thatare super MAGA and support
Donald Trump no matter what.
And by the way, this would goacross the board with any
politician.
It doesn't matter, it's justlike it's obviously a phenomenon
right now with Trump, but itcould be with anyone.
Anybody in the future, right?
(37:39):
Right.
Is that like you've got to havelike ideals and principles, and
and you've got to have, I thinkpeople need to do a better job
at like going, what is my ideaof how like where I stand on
this issue?
And that's not how it workswith Donald Trump.
How it works is well, whatDonald Trump says I support.
And that might be somethingdifferent on Tuesday than it is
(38:01):
on Wednesday.
And so that's what I've triedto call out with like Trump
supporting friends, is is andfamily members.
It's like, okay, what is thewhat's the principle here that
you're supporting?
And normally I can call outsomething in the past, I'm like,
I know you don't believe that.
So I had a conversation with afriend the other day, really
close friend, where they'redefinitely more supportive of
Trump than I think they shouldbe.
He's named all of his kidsafter president.
(38:22):
So I know this guy cares aboutthe constitution.
Carmen Lezeth (38:24):
I don't know which caring on the
constitution.
Blake Fischer (38:26):
And I go, I know you don't really believe that
what Donald Trump is doing isgood.
I know that you don't like, Iknow you don't believe that.
So I'm just trying to get by,I'm trying to get under like,
why do you then support him?
And I think it's like talkingabout those issues first, and
that's at least how I try tocome at it from arguments, is
going, like, how do you thinkthis furthers what you want?
Because I mean, depends whatyou want.
(38:47):
I mean, obviously everyone'sgoing to be in a different area
on that.
But I think that we just we'vegone way too far down this hole
of tribalism and turningpolitics into a religion, like a
replacement for religion, whereyou can't ever be wrong, you
can't ever be nuanced, and youcan't ever um admit your team,
(39:08):
you know, isn't the good guys orsomething?
And I just think that's a badway to do it.
So, like I'm trying to getpeople out of that tribal
mentality.
Carmen Lezeth (39:15):
No, you're right, but you still okay, but here's
the problem.
We still didn't answer myquestion.
I agree with everything youjust said.
Blake Fischer (39:20):
How would they do that if they want to be?
Carmen Lezeth (39:21):
I'm sorry.
Blake Fischer (39:22):
So it's like, how would they get out of that if
they want to?
Carmen Lezeth (39:24):
No, like so.
For me, I have I have dismissedthem and I I have decided it's
just not in my best interest.
Yeah.
You know, we we have a lot ofpeople who are Trump supporters
that listen to our show.
We do.
And and and it's because wehave Rick Costa, who's our co
host, he um has a um a religiousshow.
And so a lot of people whofollow Christianity also come to
(39:48):
our show, and I feel soblessed.
And I love them.
And we don't talk aboutpolitics on the shows that they
come and visit.
And it's fine, even if we did,it would be respectful.
You know what I mean?
Because everyone knows what thebar is.
And I Think um, you know, Iwant to do better as well.
That's why I started the othershow, and that's why I'm having
you on.
And I want you to come back.
Will you come back?
Blake Fischer (40:09):
Well, I would love to anytime.
Carmen Lezeth (40:10):
And maybe then we could do some debating.
I ain't gonna debate with you,but you and Andrea and maybe
Joel would have a great time.
Blake Fischer (40:17):
I don't know.
I guess I called it arguing ordebating, but really I think
it's more like discussions.
It's like being able to beingable to talk with people and
saying, and you coming from adifferent viewpoint and uh and
even just being able to findwhere the common ground is.
I just think we're not doingenough of that.
And even then looking at whenwe were talking about the shows
we used to pay attention to, youknow, it was Hannity and Combs.
(40:37):
It was a Democrat and aRepublican on that Fox News
shows that argue each other.
It was Tucker and what's hisname on uh James Cardville,
right?
On on MSNBC at the time, orthat was CNN, I guess.
Carmen Lezeth (40:46):
No CNN.
Blake Fischer (40:47):
Yeah, so we so we we used to have these people
that would sit there and argue.
And now, if you've noticed,that's just totally changed.
Now it's like only Republicansover here, only Democrats on
these shows.
And I just think we're nothaving those discussions enough,
and people aren't being able tolisten to those discussions
enough.
Carmen Lezeth (41:02):
We're going to have those discussions because
I'm going to ask you to comeback.
Um, you're right.
I don't want to argue, and Ithink you and I are probably
more aligned.
That I think most people are.
Yeah.
And I think we could have likewe could have a really good
conversation about Barack Obama,and we will disagree on certain
things, but I think we'd alsoagree on a lot of things or at
least be able to see the throughline.
And that's what I alwayslearned when I was listening to
(41:24):
Fox, right?
Was and I don't listen to Foxanymore, but Oh, I don't either.
Blake Fischer (41:28):
Yeah, I'm in the same boat.
It's like it's totally off therails propaganda at this point.
Carmen Lezeth (41:32):
Off the rails.
But back in the day, I was ableto, even if I didn't understand
why they believed what theybelieved, I understood the
logic.
I mean, even though I disagreedwith what they believed, I
understood the logic.
And I think that's what thedifference is right now, is that
we don't even try to understandwhy you believe what you
believe so that I can understandwhere you're coming from.
Blake Fischer (41:53):
But I think part of the problem there is that
most people don't really have agood answer for that question.
If you ask them why theybelieve what they believe, it's
really just because Donald Trumphas the right letter after his
name or because he's told me Ihave to.
Or it's the same, like I said,same thing on the left.
It happened with Biden too alot.
Like where, just because that'sthe most recent example, is
like, no matter what he did,I've got to defend it because
(42:14):
he's got he's on my team.
Yeah.
And I'm like, this is notsports.
This is not, you know, it'sthis is it's different.
And so I think the biggestproblem is that most people
don't really have a firmfoundation of what they believe.
Like I said, I think it's Ithink the stat is like 37% of
people polled in the UnitedStates can't name the three
branches of the government.
So if we don't know that, likethen we're not doing good civics
(42:36):
education.
There's a whole discussionthere about like we are just not
educating people well enough.
Carmen Lezeth (42:41):
Well, I said it the other day on the show, and I
got so many emails, like peopleget upset.
I said, if you can't pass thesame tests that people pass to
become U.S.
citizens in this country, Idon't want you voting.
And it wasn't evenconservatives, it was liberals
who came after me for sayingthat.
Blake Fischer (42:59):
I I agree.
Not legally, but yes.
I mean, I agree, I feel thesame way.
I'm I go, and I've said that toRepublicans specifically
because just the immigrationdebate is a little bit different
on obviously the right.
Of course.
But I mean, I've had thatconversation with like chances
are that immigrant passed acitizenship test that you can't
exactly look at.
You know what I mean?
And so, like, there's you know,they might be more civically
(43:22):
educated about this country thanyou are.
And I don't know that that'sthe thing is I would say that we
obviously have an educationproblem, but you have access.
I'm not saying you, you haveaccess to the same internet I do
where I look at this stuff.
You know, it's not yes, there'sa lot of stuff that's false.
Yes, there's a lot of stuffthat is but the basics we should
all know.
Carmen Lezeth (43:41):
I'm just right.
Right.
Blake Fischer (43:42):
And you should be able to find the answer you're
looking for.
Uh it is hard though.
I'm I will not lie about itbeing uh a challenge to like
sort through what's fact, what'scrap, what's um yeah, but
knowing the three I'm justsaying there's the template of
the United States that youshould know.
Carmen Lezeth (44:00):
If you don't look it, I get mad at people at
people because they can't nametheir representative, they don't
even know who represents them.
And I'm like, oh my god, I justwant to say thank you.
This was not what I wasexpecting.
I was excited to meet you, butI was a little nervous.
Thank you for being so cool andchill.
Again, it's Blake Fisher fromthehomelessconservative.com.
(44:20):
Please check him out.
Please follow him on YouTube,check out his podcast, and we're
gonna have you back.
Do you have any last words?
Blake Fischer (44:27):
No, that's really it.
I'm probably I'm starting to doprobably more YouTube stuff and
less the full like hour-longpodcast stuff just because I'm
kind of tweaking content.
But yeah, so YouTube's probablythe best place to go.
Uh the homeless conservativeissue.
Okay, that's the same.
Carmen Lezeth (44:40):
The homeless conservative.
Okay, I'll make sure to put itdown at the bottom as well so
everyone um sees it.
But thank you so much for beingon the show.
And um, everyone remember atthe end of the day, it really is
all about the joy.
And we'll see you again nexttime.
Bye, everyone.
Blake Fischer (44:55):
Thanks for stopping by, all about the joy.
Be better and stay beautiful,folks.
Have a sweet day.
Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.
This is the private lounge.
And um, my guest today is BlakeFisher.
Did I say your name correctly?
Because I always guess somepeople's names.
Blake Fischer (00:09):
Got it.
Carmen Lezeth (00:09):
Okay.
And you are the owner and thecreator of the podcast, uh, The
Homeless Conservative.
Blake Fischer (00:16):
True.
Carmen Lezeth (00:16):
So I'm excited to have you here, but I first want
to explain to people um we havea show called Culture and
Consequence that we juststarted, where we're talking
about political stuff, moreabout teaching, kind of teaching
some of the things that I thinkpeople don't know.
And you reached out or yourpeople, I don't know if it was
your PR people or who, but Idon't have people, it's just me.
(00:38):
You don't have people.
Okay.
Well, we get so many emails,you know what I mean?
So, and normally I would havebeen like, nope, I don't I don't
wanna, I don't want to talkabout politics on, but your
whole vibe totally intrigued me.
Your whole thing about um justkind of being a person who is
(00:58):
homeless as a conservativebecause you feel like maybe your
party has.
I don't know.
We'll talk about what you thinkabout that, but I was totally
intrigued by it.
So welcome to this show, andI'm really excited to have you
here.
Blake Fischer (01:10):
Well, thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
I'm glad it intrigued you.
I think there are, I thinkthere are more people like me
than uh we think there are, justbecause the loudest people are
the crazy people.
And I think everyone else hasjust kind of retreated.
So I'm like trying desperatelynot to retreat, but it it's hard
sometimes.
Carmen Lezeth (01:26):
It is really, really hard.
And I think you have somethingin your bio or on your website,
and my apologies, but you talkabout exhausted citizens.
Blake Fischer (01:35):
Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth (01:36):
I think that's what got me.
I'm like, okay, I may notbelieve everything you believe,
but I'm exhausted.
Blake Fischer (01:44):
Yeah.
I think a lot of people are.
I mean, from my, and this isjust maybe it's anecdotal
because it's the people I talkto, but it it does seem like,
and I think there's data thatbacks it up too.
I mean, like uh last year'selection, more there were more
independent people that wereregistered as independents that
voted than Democrats.
And and both parties have beenlosing people to, you know,
(02:05):
they've been leaving.
So not just like it's not newvoters signing up as
independents necessarily.
It's actually people areleaving Republican and
Democratic parties and sayingI'm independent.
Now, I don't think they'rereally that independent.
I think they generally stillfeel very much like one way or
the other with a party.
But to me, that's a huge signalthat they're at least trying to
tell someone that, hey, I don'tlike what you're doing.
(02:28):
And I think that's on bothsides right now.
It seems across the board.
And so I think what I'venoticed the problem is is that
normal people, who I'm calling,you know, sane, you know, people
that that want government towork and want to care about this
stuff, I think they just aretotally overwhelmed by not being
like feeling like they can'ttrust any news source, they
(02:50):
can't trust any person on socialmedia, because they'll see two
things back to back.
That's like one says this andthe other one says something
that completely contradictsthat.
And they're both presenting itas fact.
They're not presenting it asopinion, even.
And then the person goes, Well,I don't know who to believe
here.
Obviously, someone's nottelling you the truth, but it's
kind of too hard.
It's like kind of hard to diginto who's telling the truth at
(03:12):
that point.
So I get a lot of questions tome, just from friends and family
and stuff.
They're like, Okay, catch me upon this whatever big event
that's in the news, superpolarizing thing, since
everything's a 50-50 issue now.
Everything's like, you got tobe on one side or the other.
There's zero nuance.
You can't be like, well, here'san interesting.
No, it's like you either haveto be team A or team B, team
red, team blue, whatever it is.
(03:33):
And it seems like everything'slike that, whether it's a stupid
American Eagles Sydney Sweeneyad that we are enraged about, or
it's something that's actuallyhappening that matters.
And so I think people are justgoing, like, it's easier to
check out and not pay attentionto it.
I think the problem is whennormal people do that, we just
kind of leave it to the reallycrazy partisans that then
(03:57):
dominate all the discussion,dominate all the coverage,
dominate all the justeverything.
And then and then people end upin a general election four
years from the last time theyvoted, and they're like, these
are our two options again.
And then they just kind ofeither hold their nose and pick
something or they pick what'sclosest, or and and I think the
problem is it's like we're justlike totally seeding between
(04:18):
those, especially presidentialelections, to the crazies.
And and then the normal peoplego like, why is it so bad?
Carmen Lezeth (04:25):
But I'm gonna disagree with you with just one
thing.
I'm I'm gonna try not to arguewith you at all because I want
this to really be a body.
I know, but you know what?
I that's not what my show'sabout.
And my whole thing is I want usto have a great dialogue.
So the thing I'm gonna disagreewith you about is I actually
think more people are notleaving because there are people
(04:47):
like you and people like me whoare saying, wait a minute.
Now, something you don't knowabout me is I was a Democrat.
And when the whole Joe Bidenthing happened in this last
election, I became not anindependent in California where
non-party affiliate, you know,non-party um, I forget what the
other P stands for, but it's notindependent.
(05:08):
It's no party platform.
Blake Fischer (05:09):
That's what I did.
Carmen Lezeth (05:10):
Um so I agree with you that more people are
doing things, or I'm hoping,maybe I'm hoping, more people
are becoming less inclined towant to be on the extremes.
I've always thought we weremore to the middle.
I remember in the past, I wouldlisten to people like, and and
all my liberal friends are aboutto have a panic attack, but
(05:33):
most of them already know.
I used to listen to like SeanHannity, um, it was K ABC out
here in Los Angeles, LarryElder, you know what I mean?
Like I used to Bill O'Reilly onthe radio.
Now, I didn't agree with them,but I could listen to them
because I was, I wanted tounderstand what their thought
process was.
And at that time, I was like,oh, I can see where you're
(05:53):
going.
Like it was a way for me to beeducated, you know what I mean?
But now it's all too hard.
It's all too painful, you know?
Blake Fischer (06:02):
Yeah, and I think what the I so I agree.
I don't think you're wrongabout that.
I do think people are, if theyare like when I say they're
checking out, I think that more,I think there are definitely
like the majority.
And I think it's like a hugemajority.
I don't think it's like 51%majority.
I think it's a most people areum, if they're if they're kind
(06:22):
of paying attention.
I think there's multiplebuckets of people.
I think there's a lot of peoplethat just vote every four
years, and that's right the mostthey pay attention to it.
I don't love that.
I think as citizens, we'resupposed to be a little bit more
involved.
I don't think voting is, Ithink we've kind of elevated
voting a little too high on thelist of things that like are
supposed like that's like theall-important thing.
It's really just a jobinterview that you're
(06:45):
simultaneously firing someoneand hiring someone else at the
same time.
Right.
I think what we've done is thatmost people feel that way.
I think.
I think most people go, I'mvoting.
You hear a lot of anecdotalstories about people like
holding their nose and votingfor the lesser of two evils.
You hear that term all thetime.
And I think those peoplerealize that I'm voting for this
(07:07):
person, and if it doesn't gothe way I think it will, I will
vote for someone else.
You know what I mean?
Like that's generally how itgoes.
I think the sort of crazies,the people I'm talking about
that are kind of um have alwaysvery partisan.
And I think that they feel likethe second they vote for
someone, they have to thendefend every everything that
person does from then on if theywin.
(07:29):
And that's not how I thinkAmerican politics was set up to
be.
I think we're always supposedto be holding the people that we
elect accountable, like always.
That's like our number one job.
That's the press's number onejob.
And what's happened with peoplelike Sean Hannity is someone I
used to pay attention to too, asa conservative.
Uh, I loved watching BillO'Reilly back in the like 90s,
(07:49):
early 2000s and stuff.
Uh, I think most of the time,and but I also like I just think
it's good to listen to peopleand pay attention to people that
you're you know you're going todisagree with because it's
going to challenge your beliefsand your views.
And you might realize, oh,actually, that's a great idea
that I do agree with.
Because I think most of this ismuch more nuanced.
But what we've turned it into,you know, I think Trump is the
(08:11):
symptom of this.
I don't think it's that hecaused this, but what we've
turned it into is like, no, onceyou, you've got to be my least
favorite question is when peoplego, Are you, do you support
Donald Trump?
And I'm like, what does thatmean?
Like, yeah, I don't supportanyone blindly.
I don't just blindly say anypolitician can do anything they
want.
And if they've got the rightletter after their name, I'm
(08:33):
gonna say, okay, there are goingto be things I disagree with
that he does.
There are gonna be things Iagree with.
There are going to be, and thatshould be the case with
everyone.
Carmen Lezeth (08:42):
Yeah, but you're paying attention.
So I think that's kind of why Ialso wanted to have you on the
show is I don't think a lot ofpeople are paying attention as
closely, you know.
So that's why they end up beinglike, well, I'm a Democrat, so
I have to only support theDemocrat.
And I can't tell you how muchflack I got for loving John
McCain.
I mean, I didn't vote for JohnMcCain, but I've always loved
(09:04):
him.
I always thought he was such agreat human being, you know?
And I disagreed, like the, youknow, the whole Sarah Palin
thing is just so unfortunate,right?
Blake Fischer (09:14):
It is, it just is that campaign was off the rails
by the time they picked SarahPalin.
They already knew it was a HailMary to try to potentially win.
Carmen Lezeth (09:21):
They already it was a weird, and and it's and it
wasn't really, it wasn't JohnMcCain.
Like it that's what was so offabout it, you know.
But before we go any further,because I can see you and me, we
could be talking about thisforever.
I want to get back to when didyou decide that this is what you
wanted to do?
When did you know you were aconservative?
And when did you well, I'm youknow, I know it's a silly
(09:44):
question, but just to get aflavor, because I know you did
something way, you know, you didsomething very different.
Let's get a little backgroundon who you are and how you came
to this.
Blake Fischer (09:53):
I'm weird.
I don't think most peopleshould pay as much attention to
politics as I do.
So that's the first caveat.
Is that like I say at the topof my show, I'm a political
junkie so that you don't have tobe.
It I have always enjoyed this.
My uncle ran for mayor.
I'm in Oklahoma City.
He ran for mayor and won when Iwas in eighth grade.
So I was like dealing, I wasdoing like behind the scenes
campaign stuff with him, uh,because my mom was helping him a
(10:14):
ton, like all the timevolunteering.
So I got kind of an early tastefor that.
That most eighth graders arenot paying attention to mini
politics, much less like localmayoral politics, and you know.
And so I kind of like that'sprobably what got me kind of the
bug of so that's like 1998.
Uh, and I didn't, I was not 18yet in the 2000 election,
(10:35):
although that was something Iwas very much paying attention
to.
I loved cable news in like the90s.
I loved a lot of those shows onlike CNN and and Fox News.
Fox News was a totallydifferent thing in 1998, 1999.
It really was.
And like I really liked BillO'Reilly's show.
Uh I I thought he was he got abad rap for no personality stuff
(10:56):
aside.
He had some flaws, obviously, aflawed human being, but the
show was very much down.
Like he let he had people on hedisagreed with, he let them
have the final word a lot oftimes.
Yes, it got heated sometimes,but they were having real
discussions about like, okay,give me your point.
Well, what about this?
And he was asking them, hewasn't just giving them softball
questions, and he wasn't doingwhat Fox News does now, which is
(11:17):
where they just kind of havetwo people come on and they have
like token Democrat, but it'sprobably not someone that's very
good at being on television.
It's like, you know, they'rejust like challenging them,
right?
Yeah, they're uglier than theRepublican that's on the TV.
You know, it's like all thesekind of things like that that
they that's what there wasn't asmuch of that back then.
Remember, Glenn Beck was on CNNin the early 2000s, which is
(11:38):
what people forget that.
Carmen Lezeth (11:39):
That is so wild.
Blake Fischer (11:41):
When it was on CNN, and then he's like slowly
gone off the rails.
And what my theory on what hashappened is that the way media
has changed over the last 20, 30years, um, especially with
social media coming in andYouTube and that, everyone
started like needing to have ahot take or an extreme kind of
thing.
And what happens is that thenyou the audience loves that.
(12:02):
I mean, social media, we know,loves outrage, they love fear.
Those are the things that keeppeople on the platform.
And so those platforms servethat stuff up more.
Yeah.
And I think there's a whole likeif you are, I hang out with
like 20-year-olds a lot becausemy wife is uh the the women's
like 20-something pastor at ourchurch.
So we hang out with20-somethings quite a bit.
And often I'm having these kindof conversations with them.
(12:24):
I'm like, they only knowpolitics with Donald Trump in
it.
Like, if you're 22.
Carmen Lezeth (12:29):
That's right, because they're so young.
Right.
Blake Fischer (12:30):
If you're 24, that's all you've known.
Because for all this, you know,almost decade he that he's been
in the picture and it's kind ofbeen this crazy topic thing.
Social media has changed theway the coverage of this stuff
works.
And so what I've noticed isthat it just seemed like um, so
I kind of grew up in just adifferent political kind of era
where it seemed like I was amusician, so I hung out with
(12:52):
people I disagreed with all thetime.
I mean, it would be like that,you know, like a Republican in
California or a Democrat inOklahoma.
It's like I was surrounded bypeople I disagreed with, but I
never had a problem havingdiscussions with this.
Was you know, we were liketouring around the country
before we had smartphones.
So all you could do is talkabout stuff.
So it was we talked abouteverything.
It was movies, it was music, itwas politics.
(13:14):
And I've just never had asituation where I couldn't be
friends with someone because wedisagreed.
And I feel like that's totallyshifted.
Carmen Lezeth (13:22):
Okay, I was just gonna ask you has that changed
for you now?
Blake Fischer (13:25):
Uh no, I don't think it has changed for me just
because I think I I always whenI have discussions with people
like that, I'm just honest aboutlike, I think you you're wrong,
and here's why I think you'rewrong, or something.
But I'm not like mean about it.
I'm never like you're an idiotor you're evil.
I think the big problem is overthe last it really started in
(13:46):
the 90s too.
This was going on, uh,certainly in the 90s, but it
turned into we we no longer justdisagreed with what people,
like their opinion on how to fixsomething was.
It was they had bad intentions.
It was like they're evil orthey're trying to destroy the
country or like that languagehad just come in.
And so so basically I wasreally interested in politics
always.
I wanted to do a podcastforever about it, but I just
(14:08):
kept not doing it because Icouldn't figure out like, well,
what do I do?
What is what's like how do Ibe?
Carmen Lezeth (14:13):
I think you found your niche.
Blake Fischer (14:14):
I think finally after like COVID happened and
stuff, and and I had startedsome uh music podcasts with
friends, I was like, oh, this isactually pretty fun.
I think I should just do this.
And so, um, and I just alsojust saw that there was not a
there are some great people thatare um very fact-based and very
like honest about like, hey,we're calling out no matter
(14:36):
what, but they are getting fewerand fewer and fewer because
there are so many of thosepeople that I used to pay
attention to that I don'tanymore because they've kind of
been captured by the crazy partof their audience.
And once they get captured bythat, they can't get away from
it.
And so you've seen it happen.
Tucker Carlson is anotherperson that was like someone I
paid attention to when he was onMSNBC.
Carmen Lezeth (14:55):
And I'm gonna be honest that I never liked him
even on MSNBC.
Blake Fischer (14:59):
You know how somebody just rubs you the wrong
way.
Yeah, he, but yeah, like I knowhe's a smart guy, and something
has happened over the last 20years where he's lost it, he's
either lost his mind or hereally believes this stuff, or
he's just lying to his audience.
I don't know.
I really cannot figure out thatconundrum because he's saying
things that directly contradictlike very strong opinions he had
(15:21):
10 years ago.
And I but I feel like that'severyone on my side, especially.
Carmen Lezeth (15:27):
Let me ask you this question.
So, because it because I Icould listen to you the whole
time, but then I don't need tobe here.
You could just talk morepodcasts.
But no, you're great.
Let me ask you this question.
Can you explain to my audiencewhat what it means to be a
conservative?
And what is it that you thinkthe Republican Party has maybe
(15:48):
changed, left out, is not doingwhat may have kept you with the
Republican Conservative Party?
Blake Fischer (15:57):
That's a great question because I think so much
of the problems with the way wetalk about politics is that the
definitions of these words havechanged like significantly.
And you might have a differentdefinition of conservative than
I do.
For me, what conservatismreally should mean, I mean, this
is this would be what I wouldfight for.
Okay, is like I want toconserve the constitutional
(16:17):
order that we set up for thefederal government and for the
states to work.
I think that's a good thing.
Carmen Lezeth (16:22):
So you're a const you're a constitutional
conservative, right?
Blake Fischer (16:26):
Yeah, no, that doesn't mean we can't change the
constitution because there areamendments for, right?
If we have amendments for, solike that's not what I'm saying
either.
I'm not saying I'm not one ofthese people that thinks that we
should just like ditch all theamendments that came in or
something and just keep it theexact same.
I think it's meant to be anevolving thing.
But I think that was designedto be hard for a reason because
I think the founders were smartto think that A, we should not
(16:49):
trust anyone with absolutepower.
We should not trust any oneperson or any one branch with
more power than without checkson them.
Um, they designed thepresidency to not be what it has
turned into over the lasthundred years.
It was the least powerfulbranch of government, honestly,
at when it was designed.
And Congress had all the power.
They just couldn't foresee thatCongress would, I guess, give
(17:11):
that power up voluntarily, whichis kind of strange to me, too.
Carmen Lezeth (17:14):
So before you keep going, and I'm sorry I keep
interrupting you, but I just Iknow my audience, so I want to
make sure they understandsomething.
So when we talk about equal,we're talking about legislative,
executive, and um, what am Imissing?
Uh judicial.
All three of those are supposedto be equal and supposed to be
checks and balances.
And that's what we're talkingabout.
Blake Fischer (17:34):
Yeah, except I disagree.
I do not think they were meantto be equal.
I think that's something thatstarted with like, I mean,
honestly, you started hearingthat kind of um rhetoric, I
would call it during likeWoodrow Wilson, FDR, Newton, and
these ones that wanted moreexecutive power.
And so they started callingthem co-equal branches, but
that's not in the constitution.
(17:56):
The the founders never calledthem coequal, but they called
them, they certainly saidthere's checks and balances.
Checks and balances.
Carmen Lezeth (18:02):
Okay.
Blake Fischer (18:02):
But the but when you look at the list of things
that it says, you know, gotArticle I, which is covering
Congress, Article II, which isuh the presidency or the
executive branch, and thenarticle three, which is the
judicial branch.
Judicial.
There are a lot of things listedin Article I that it says
Congress has the power to do.
And there are not very manythings that it says, you know,
basically the president has thepower to pardon.
(18:23):
Right.
The president has the power toveto legislation that comes to
them, although Congress can thenoverwrite that veto with
two-thirds majority.
So Congress even has a check onthe executive branches check on
them.
Right.
You know, so if you had a roguepresident that wasn't gonna was
gonna veto everything that cametheir way, Congress still has a
way to go past them.
You just gotta get two-thirds.
You gotta get a bigger majoritythan you do to just pass a
(18:45):
simple law.
Carmen Lezeth (18:46):
But that's not happening.
Blake Fischer (18:47):
No, it's not for a while, right?
Taxing, uh, taxing, all thatkind of uh the ability to uh
declare war.
All of these things arecongressional things that the
president actually does not havethe ability to do.
But over the last hundredyears, we have slowly ceded that
power to the executive branch.
So my main problem with sayingthat the Republican Party is not
(19:09):
very conservative right now isthat I don't see that anyone in
Congress is interested ingrabbing that power back.
And I think that almost everyproblem we have.
Carmen Lezeth (19:18):
Wait, say that again because you just confused
me.
Blake Fischer (19:22):
Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth (19:22):
Um, say that again.
That was great.
I'm just confused by what youmean by that.
Blake Fischer (19:26):
So Congress has slowly given this uh slowly
given their powers away to theexecutive branch by normally
what they're doing is like somesort of thing comes up.
Let's say that it's World WarII.
I mean, that's a good exampleof this because it's a crisis.
Okay, we need to act quicker.
And so a lot of times they willthen go, okay, we're gonna
write a law that says thepresident can do X, Y, and Z.
(19:46):
And then they always tried todo it in a way that said, like,
yeah, but we have a final checkon that by saying, uh, for
example, it happened in the 70swith the stuff that Trump's
using right now for his excusesfor the reason he has the
ability to levy tariffs.
The president does not have theability to create terror.
That's Congress.
But Congress did pass a lawthat basically said, okay, the
executive branch can do this inemergency situations.
(20:09):
And then we can, uh, I can'tremember, they called it a
legislative veto, is what theycalled it.
Well, what happened is thatthey wrote that law.
Great.
Okay, we've got to check onthat.
The Supreme Court came back andsaid, no, you actually, there's
no such thing as a legislativeveto.
That's not anywhere in theConstitution.
That that part of the bill getsbasically stripped out.
So now all they've done iscompletely handed that power
(20:30):
over to the president.
Over the presidency.
And without the check ofCongress being able to come
back.
Now, the thing is, Congresscould pass a law today that
takes all that away.
Like I said, this is allcompletely, again, if if Donald
Trump tried to veto it, you canget two-thirds of Congress to
say, no, we actually need thatpower back.
Um, I think that would actuallybe wise to do, but it looks
like it's gonna, if it's anyone,it's gonna be the Supreme Court
(20:52):
that says.
So, like, but Congress hasslowly done that.
Started with Wood WoodrowWilson, it uh it escalated quite
a bit with FDR.
Um, it escalated a lot moreunder Nixon.
It's just slowly done this.
And and you see the number ofexecutive orders, if you look at
the just how many executiveorders, it's increased with
every president and reallyramped up with George W.
(21:12):
Bush, Obama did more than Bush,then Trump did more than Obama,
and then Biden did more thanTrump, and then Trump has done
more than Biden did before.
You know, so we just keep we'redoing everything via executive
order.
Congress has only passed, Ithink, I could be wrong on this,
so don't quote me on.
I think they've only passedfour bills since Donald Trump.
Carmen Lezeth (21:31):
I mean, okay, I think what people don't
understand, and and I think it'ssomething I want to emphasize
here, is I say thisrespectfully.
Um Donald Trump, I think is adifferent kind of entity that
has occurred.
And I'm trying to be asrespectful as possible.
(21:52):
I mean, I think you're right.
We've eroded our power.
Congress is supposed to be areflection of the people, right?
Because we put them into power.
They should be those checks andbalances, but it's been
stripping away.
You're absolutely right overall that time.
I love how you did that.
But I feel like Donald Trumphas just changed the game.
(22:15):
Oh, yeah.
And I I don't look at everyoneknows how I feel about Donald
Trump.
You can already guess.
But my question to you is isnot how do you feel about Donald
Trump, but do you think DonaldTrump is an anomaly, or do you
think this is the way in whichwe're gonna go forward in the
Republican Party and theConservative Party?
(22:36):
Do you see any way of thischanging?
Blake Fischer (22:40):
Oh, yeah, that's tough.
I I think that I think he is alittle bit of an anomaly in a
sense that I don't think peopleare very it we've seen that
people have tried to repeat hissort of style and it doesn't
work.
It doesn't work.
It looks, it's like animitation.
I think that Donald Trump isauthentically himself, if that
makes sense.
Um, I don't think he's trying,he's not doing the politics.
(23:00):
No, it does, me too, but atleast like he but he's
authentically himself, and thepeople that have tried to um
repeat that somehow have notsucceeded for the most part.
Most of his even people that hepicks to run for congressional
seats and stuff have lost.
I mean, JD Vance is theexception.
But even JD Vance, I mean,going back to that Senate when
he won that Senate thing, uh hiswhat I guess that was 2020.
(23:23):
Yeah, that was before that.
Carmen Lezeth (23:25):
That was before though Trump, right?
Blake Fischer (23:26):
Oh, Trump had no in the primary.
And that's kind of hitch hiswagon to him.
But even in that, JD Vance, Ican't don't have the exact
numbers, but he won by like sixpoints, and the governor of
Ohio, who's also Republican, wonby like 18 points.
Yeah, so there's a discrepancy.
It was still like he was likeJD Vance lost one by a lower
(23:47):
margin than all the otherRepublicans uh on the ballot in
Ohio that year or whatever.
And I might not be completelyright about all the Republicans.
But either way, the point beingthat other than JD Vance,
almost everyone else, HerschelWalker, I can't even remember
most of the people's names, mostof them didn't win in the
primary.
Um, because people just don'twant an imitation, I think.
People want at least someone tobe authentic and honest.
(24:08):
I do think he's in anomnipotent in the sense that we
thought that we could give thesepowers to the executive branch
because that person would be umrespectful of like norms and
some of these things that are alittle bit more not written down
as law, but they're more likethis is the way we do things.
Carmen Lezeth (24:25):
Romney or John McCain, or you can go down the
list of, you know,conservatives, Republicans who
would not abuse right.
unknown (24:34):
Yeah.
Blake Fischer (24:35):
But my my thing, going back to like, what does it
mean to be conservative?
My thing is to not trust, likeI like, I think human nature is
unchangeable.
I think that we are not good bynature.
And I think you have to, youhave to write every law and you
have to rule you.
Well, I mean, not in a not in asense that I think people are
bad, but in a sense that I thinkyou have to design government
(24:57):
to expect someone that is bad tobe in that position and make
sure that you can check that.
Does that make sense?
Like it's not great.
Carmen Lezeth (25:06):
You just blew my mind.
Like, I no, that please keepgoing.
That was actually really umsomething I never thought of
because I actually believe mostpeople are good, but in the
context that you're putting itin, yeah.
Um, okay, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Wow.
Blake Fischer (25:21):
Well, yeah, I just I think that that's how you
know you even look at how muchI mean, because go back to the
founding of the country, andthey were very suspicious of
single people like kings havingall the power to do whatever
they want.
And so they very they foughtand fought and fought over like
how do we design a governmentthat makes sure that doesn't
happen.
And I just don't, and I thinkthey did the right thing.
(25:43):
I think they just didn't, theydidn't imagine that Congress
would be like, yeah, sure,here's all our power to the
executing brand.
It it seems so silly becausenow we literally have, I think
the anomaly here is that whereDonald Trump is definitely an
anomaly is that he really onlycares about himself.
Uh, he does not really careabout the Republican Party.
He's said over and over againhe doesn't consider himself a
(26:05):
conservative.
So I don't really understandwhy the defense of people who do
consider they're they'reconservative, why they can't
disagree with that and stillvote for him.
Like that's fine.
Carmen Lezeth (26:13):
No, but what's what's your reasoning for why
people don't see as clearlywhat's everything you just said,
me and my I'm not extremelyliberal.
I'm very to the middle.
Okay.
I I used to be proud to callmyself a conservative Democrat.
Blake Fischer (26:28):
Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth (26:29):
Because I really believed that's what I was.
Now I want nothing to do withthe word conservative because
I'm so dusted by it, right?
Blake Fischer (26:35):
Well, right.
And I think that that's theproblem is that like
conservatism needs a rebrand forsure.
Because the problem is mostpeople just go, oh, well, Donald
Trump's conservative.
Well, no, I mean, he is notconservative.
He's not conservative at all.
And you used to be able to haveum we as voters, and I actually
don't think it's we as votersin the general election.
(26:56):
I think it's really theprimaries, and we could get into
a whole thing about why I thinkthe primaries are really part
of the problem uh that we have.
But talk about that next timeyou come on, but it's work.
You know, what we've done isthat we've we we no longer award
people that are nuanced.
And so you cannot be a uh asocially conservative Democrat.
You cannot be a uh sociallyliberal conservative, you know,
(27:17):
like you can't, we just don'tallow that anymore.
Those mentions like all thepeople that we would consider a
little centrist, John McCain,uh, you know, all those kind of
people that you've mentioned,those all they kind of got
forced out of the Donald Trumpera.
And on both sides, Democratsare doing the same thing right
now where they're going, it'sthis ideological purity test.
(27:37):
Although, oddly enough, theideological purity test on the
right right now is uh, do yousay nice things about Donald
Trump?
It's not actually, it hasnothing to do with issues
because that might change.
Um the Democrats are doing it alittle bit more on actual some
sort of ideology, although it'sit's kind of near to some of the
things that they've uh justhammered down on, which I just
(27:57):
go, I think electorally aresuper foolish.
I just think like very clearlyin 2024, people were rejecting a
lot of the things thatDemocrats were going, you have
to be A, B, and C, or you can'tbe in our party.
I think if the parties had morepower, we'd be in better shape.
Carmen Lezeth (28:14):
Um you said more power.
Blake Fischer (28:17):
Yeah, and what I mean, what I mean by power is
like we don't have because oflike, okay, again, again, not
assigning intentions, but likegood intentions don't lead to
good results all the time.
And one of those things wouldbe campaign finance reform in
the 2000s.
They're trying to, you know,get money out of politics, which
is impossible.
And what ended up happening isnow all the PACs, super PACs,
(28:38):
can get unlimited donations, butyou cannot unlimited donate to
parties.
Right.
So the parties are basicallyabsolutely chained to those
PACs.
That's right.
Unless those packs are singleissue, which means they only
care, like the NRA only caresabout gun control.
Carmen Lezeth (28:52):
They only care about guns, they don't care
about anything else.
Nothing else.
Blake Fischer (28:55):
And Planned Parenthood only cares about
their thing.
Carmen Lezeth (28:57):
And so they're only going to, they're only
going to be with that person forthat issue whatsoever.
That's the only thing they'regoing to.
Like, as long as you're PlannedParenthood, I'm going to back
you and give you millions ofdollars.
Blake Fischer (29:09):
Right.
And so Planned Parenthood inNRA and all these other people
are like hanging over thepoliticians.
Well, I don't, we don't endorseyou if you don't completely get
in line with us.
And what that's like, if theRepublican Party and Democrat
Party had any control over theirprimaries at all, Bernie
Sanders, who is not really aDemocrat, and Donald Trump,
who's not really a Republican,would not have been able to run
(29:31):
for president in 2016.
They would not have been.
Carmen Lezeth (29:32):
I agree with you 100%.
Blake Fischer (29:34):
You know what I mean?
And so that's what's we beenweird is that we've turned it
into um, I do think Donald Trumphas changed politics in a
couple of ways that I don'tthink are going to change.
I think one is that we arefully in, I think Obama sort of
started this, but Trump sort ofput the nail in it.
Is like, it is aboutpersonality and nothing else.
Like, unfortunately for mostvoters, now it's do I like this
(29:56):
guy or not like this guy?
And that is it.
Carmen Lezeth (29:58):
I gotta go back even further and say Clinton,
right?
Personality was a thing.
Blake Fischer (30:04):
But I will say Clinton was a very good
politician.
Carmen Lezeth (30:06):
Like he he was very Okay, we're not gonna
disagree on whether BarackObama's a good politician or
nothing.
Yeah.
Blake Fischer (30:13):
Like I think that he could see where the country
was and he was going there.
Like honestly, like DonaldTrump honestly ran Bill
Clinton's campaign this lastyear.
I mean, it was not muchdifferent if you look issue to
issue.
Carmen Lezeth (30:24):
Say that again.
Say that again.
Blake Fischer (30:26):
Like Donald Trump basically ran like Bill Clinton
did in the city.
Oh, okay.
Carmen Lezeth (30:29):
I see what I mean.
Okay.
Blake Fischer (30:30):
It's not that much different.
Like if you look, if youwatched the if you watched the
um and you see, you know whatI'm hating about you right now?
Carmen Lezeth (30:37):
You're you're you're telling me stuff I've
never thought about.
Blake Fischer (30:40):
So I'm not saying they agree on everything, but
really they are closer becauseBill Clinton was seeing that,
like, hey, I've got to be alittle more he was leaning into
the conservatism side a littlebit.
We were kind of demandingfiscal responsibility and some
of that stuff.
Uh, and so Bill Clinton leanedinto that so so he could get
re-elected.
And uh, and and that stuff didhappen.
He had for the first time, youknow, he was dealing with a
(31:02):
majority in Congress that wasRepublican.
And he had, if you were gonnaget anything done, you have to
work with them.
Carmen Lezeth (31:07):
Yeah.
Blake Fischer (31:08):
Um, I think that Obama was just a little too
green at it at the time.
I think that he, I think.
Carmen Lezeth (31:14):
I think there were other things also.
I mean, I don't want to getinto a debate about Barack Obama
or Bill Clinton, but I alsothink there were other issues
happening with Barack Obamabeing the first black president.
That was a big deal.
And I think there was there wasnot only negotiation happening,
but other stuff at play that wecan talk about on another
podcast.
Blake Fischer (31:33):
But yeah, I also think generally presidents are
better if they've been governorsbefore.
I think that that's I agreewith you a hundred percent
stepping stool whereas likecoming from the Senate, it's
just a totally different thing.
Like, you know.
Carmen Lezeth (31:43):
Yeah, and it was the state, wasn't he state
senator?
Blake Fischer (31:45):
He wasn't well, he was a state senator for a
couple years, and then he was astate center for two years
before.
Carmen Lezeth (31:50):
It was like two years, yeah.
That's yeah, yeah.
I agree with you there.
So, and and again, I'm nottrying to stop you.
I am trying to stop you.
I just want to make sure we getthe full flavor of who you are.
Yeah.
Um, and I, you know what?
I think the whole thing aboutarguing about politics is also
bad.
And I'll tell you, one of thethings that bothers me is people
believe that they have facts ontheir side.
(32:13):
People believe that, you know,because they watched a YouTube
video or whatever, they listento you or they listen to me and
they're like, well, this is, youknow, and people aren't doing
the research, right?
Because we have the attentionspan of a gnat.
Oh, gosh.
So we can't research anything,we can't look at anything
further than that headline orwhatever, you know.
So my question to you is how dowe fix it?
Blake Fischer (32:36):
Oh boy, that's that's a tough one.
I mean, I think I think thefirst thing is to reward the
people that are doing it well.
Uh so most most of that is now.
I mean, you know, I followindividuals more than I follow
organizations just because theorganizations can totally
change.
And it's not, I I want thoseorganizations to be better.
I do.
I think that we're lackinginstitutional fortitude lately.
(32:59):
I feel like everyone's justkind of using whatever the
institution is as a platform tofurther their own career or
something.
And and what I would like toget more to like these
organizations, be they newsorganizations or political
organizations or whatever, to bemore about the institution and
not about the individuals makingit up.
(33:20):
But right now we're kind ofjust not in that thing.
With social media and stuff, itis about single individuals.
That's where a lot of peopleare getting their news, is from
you know, that kind of stuff.
So reward the people that do agood job at it.
And I think the one way you cantell someone does a good job at
it is citing sources.
I just think that's the primarything that has to happen, is to
say, well, here I'm pulling upthis resource that says this is
(33:43):
the facts.
And it's not just me tellingyou it's the facts.
It's like, here's the New YorkTimes or here's Washington Post
or here's Fox News or who'swhatever the source is.
It's like, give me somesources.
Uh I don't know.
Carmen Lezeth (33:53):
So that's what we do on culture and consequence.
We, you know, we'll have ourconversation, but then
afterwards, when I'm editing,I'll put at the bottom where our
sources are from.
Or if we make a mistake, likethat's the other thing.
Why, why can't people just say,you know what?
I made a mistake.
I apologize.
Let me take that back.
Here's the actual information.
We don't do that either.
No.
(34:13):
While I'm um, I just realized Ihaven't put out your website
for the audio.
I want to make sure everyoneknows it's
thehomelessconservative.com.
That'sthehomelessconservative.com.
Please go and check him out,follow him on YouTube.
Let me ask you this.
Um, what do you thinkindividual people should do if
(34:36):
they're feeling lost, besideslistening to your podcast or
coming to your YouTube?
No, really.
No, or checking us out on ourlittle political thing that
we're doing.
What would you say to someonewho maybe is a Trump supporter,
is disenchanted, is trying tofind their way through, or a a
Democrat who's like, this isn'tworking for me either.
(34:57):
What do I do?
Where do I go?
Who do I listen to?
Who do you listen to?
Who do you like?
Blake Fischer (35:03):
Yeah, I think the the first thing to do is to
talk to people about it.
I think that what's alwaysfascinating to me is that I can
have um, I think a lot of peoplethink that they we've been
told, okay, don't talk aboutpolitics or religion at the
dinner table or whatever, youknow, and like in company.
And I just think that we've notdone a really good service to
us as citizens to be like, oh,you shouldn't talk about
(35:24):
politics.
I think that most of the timewhen people start talking about
an issue, they find that there'sa lot more in common than they
have where they disagree.
Carmen Lezeth (35:32):
And I think that the Well the problem is people
don't know how to talk.
Blake Fischer (35:35):
Yeah.
But I mean, I think you just doit and it's going to be messy,
maybe.
But like, you know, like trustthat the other person, like as
long as you believe the otherperson has good intentions, like
they're not, they don't havebad intentions, like go into it
with that and also go into itthat like with the with the idea
that we can disagree and uhlet's find things that we can't
agree on, let's find things wedisagree on, and you can still
be friends.
I think that's the primarything because so many people
(35:58):
have just isolated to being onlyaround people that they agree
with.
Carmen Lezeth (36:02):
I I find it hard to be friends with some of my
family members who are Trumpsupporters.
And I say that on, I I really Ilike at the beginning of this
second term, I was like, okay,you know what?
All right, he's our president.
Let's just we, you know, I'mgonna hope for the best, man.
I'm gonna hope I want to beopen to it.
He's our president.
Blake Fischer (36:20):
You would like things to go well.
Carmen Lezeth (36:22):
I want it to go well.
I want to believe tariffs aregonna work, even though I know
they're not, you know, no thing,okay?
Just trying to do it, okay?
And and then it just got reallybad, especially with the whole
immigration thing and just howthings are being done, not why
you want them done, how they'rebeing implemented, right?
Because even if I disagree withyou as president, George Bush
(36:44):
or whatever, I'm gonna be like,okay, you're the president.
I understand the logic.
I disagree with you, but I'mgonna move on, you know?
Right.
But this has been so much ofit.
First of all, it's every day.
Every day it's something.
And then it's just petty, someof it's so bad.
And so what's happened with me,I'm just being very vulnerable
here with you because I want tohear what you have to say, is at
(37:06):
some point I was like, yeah,no, you keep supporting someone
who is hurting other people.
Like I don't know how else to,I don't know how to walk through
that.
So what would you tell me?
What would you say to me?
Blake Fischer (37:18):
Well, see, I had these conversations with my
Trump supporting people as well.
So I'd like the same thing.
And normally what I'm trying tobring that back to is that um
my call out for the people thatare super MAGA and support
Donald Trump no matter what.
And by the way, this would goacross the board with any
politician.
It doesn't matter, it's justlike it's obviously a phenomenon
right now with Trump, but itcould be with anyone.
Anybody in the future, right?
(37:39):
Right.
Is that like you've got to havelike ideals and principles, and
and you've got to have, I thinkpeople need to do a better job
at like going, what is my ideaof how like where I stand on
this issue?
And that's not how it workswith Donald Trump.
How it works is well, whatDonald Trump says I support.
And that might be somethingdifferent on Tuesday than it is
(38:01):
on Wednesday.
And so that's what I've triedto call out with like Trump
supporting friends, is is andfamily members.
It's like, okay, what is thewhat's the principle here that
you're supporting?
And normally I can call outsomething in the past, I'm like,
I know you don't believe that.
So I had a conversation with afriend the other day, really
close friend, where they'redefinitely more supportive of
Trump than I think they shouldbe.
He's named all of his kidsafter president.
(38:22):
So I know this guy cares aboutthe constitution.
Carmen Lezeth (38:24):
I don't know which caring on the
constitution.
Blake Fischer (38:26):
And I go, I know you don't really believe that
what Donald Trump is doing isgood.
I know that you don't like, Iknow you don't believe that.
So I'm just trying to get by,I'm trying to get under like,
why do you then support him?
And I think it's like talkingabout those issues first, and
that's at least how I try tocome at it from arguments, is
going, like, how do you thinkthis furthers what you want?
Because I mean, depends whatyou want.
(38:47):
I mean, obviously everyone'sgoing to be in a different area
on that.
But I think that we just we'vegone way too far down this hole
of tribalism and turningpolitics into a religion, like a
replacement for religion, whereyou can't ever be wrong, you
can't ever be nuanced, and youcan't ever um admit your team,
(39:08):
you know, isn't the good guys orsomething?
And I just think that's a badway to do it.
So, like I'm trying to getpeople out of that tribal
mentality.
Carmen Lezeth (39:15):
No, you're right, but you still okay, but here's
the problem.
We still didn't answer myquestion.
I agree with everything youjust said.
Blake Fischer (39:20):
How would they do that if they want to be?
Carmen Lezeth (39:21):
I'm sorry.
Blake Fischer (39:22):
So it's like, how would they get out of that if
they want to?
Carmen Lezeth (39:24):
No, like so.
For me, I have I have dismissedthem and I I have decided it's
just not in my best interest.
Yeah.
You know, we we have a lot ofpeople who are Trump supporters
that listen to our show.
We do.
And and and it's because wehave Rick Costa, who's our co
host, he um has a um a religiousshow.
And so a lot of people whofollow Christianity also come to
(39:48):
our show, and I feel soblessed.
And I love them.
And we don't talk aboutpolitics on the shows that they
come and visit.
And it's fine, even if we did,it would be respectful.
You know what I mean?
Because everyone knows what thebar is.
And I Think um, you know, Iwant to do better as well.
That's why I started the othershow, and that's why I'm having
you on.
And I want you to come back.
Will you come back?
Blake Fischer (40:09):
Well, I would love to anytime.
Carmen Lezeth (40:10):
And maybe then we could do some debating.
I ain't gonna debate with you,but you and Andrea and maybe
Joel would have a great time.
Blake Fischer (40:17):
I don't know.
I guess I called it arguing ordebating, but really I think
it's more like discussions.
It's like being able to beingable to talk with people and
saying, and you coming from adifferent viewpoint and uh and
even just being able to findwhere the common ground is.
I just think we're not doingenough of that.
And even then looking at whenwe were talking about the shows
we used to pay attention to, youknow, it was Hannity and Combs.
(40:37):
It was a Democrat and aRepublican on that Fox News
shows that argue each other.
It was Tucker and what's hisname on uh James Cardville,
right?
On on MSNBC at the time, orthat was CNN, I guess.
Carmen Lezeth (40:46):
No CNN.
Blake Fischer (40:47):
Yeah, so we so we we used to have these people
that would sit there and argue.
And now, if you've noticed,that's just totally changed.
Now it's like only Republicansover here, only Democrats on
these shows.
And I just think we're nothaving those discussions enough,
and people aren't being able tolisten to those discussions
enough.
Carmen Lezeth (41:02):
We're going to have those discussions because
I'm going to ask you to comeback.
Um, you're right.
I don't want to argue, and Ithink you and I are probably
more aligned.
That I think most people are.
Yeah.
And I think we could have likewe could have a really good
conversation about Barack Obama,and we will disagree on certain
things, but I think we'd alsoagree on a lot of things or at
least be able to see the throughline.
And that's what I alwayslearned when I was listening to
(41:24):
Fox, right?
Was and I don't listen to Foxanymore, but Oh, I don't either.
Blake Fischer (41:28):
Yeah, I'm in the same boat.
It's like it's totally off therails propaganda at this point.
Carmen Lezeth (41:32):
Off the rails.
But back in the day, I was ableto, even if I didn't understand
why they believed what theybelieved, I understood the
logic.
I mean, even though I disagreedwith what they believed, I
understood the logic.
And I think that's what thedifference is right now, is that
we don't even try to understandwhy you believe what you
believe so that I can understandwhere you're coming from.
Blake Fischer (41:53):
But I think part of the problem there is that
most people don't really have agood answer for that question.
If you ask them why theybelieve what they believe, it's
really just because Donald Trumphas the right letter after his
name or because he's told me Ihave to.
Or it's the same, like I said,same thing on the left.
It happened with Biden too alot.
Like where, just because that'sthe most recent example, is
like, no matter what he did,I've got to defend it because
(42:14):
he's got he's on my team.
Yeah.
And I'm like, this is notsports.
This is not, you know, it'sthis is it's different.
And so I think the biggestproblem is that most people
don't really have a firmfoundation of what they believe.
Like I said, I think it's Ithink the stat is like 37% of
people polled in the UnitedStates can't name the three
branches of the government.
So if we don't know that, likethen we're not doing good civics
(42:36):
education.
There's a whole discussionthere about like we are just not
educating people well enough.
Carmen Lezeth (42:41):
Well, I said it the other day on the show, and I
got so many emails, like peopleget upset.
I said, if you can't pass thesame tests that people pass to
become U.S.
citizens in this country, Idon't want you voting.
And it wasn't evenconservatives, it was liberals
who came after me for sayingthat.
Blake Fischer (42:59):
I I agree.
Not legally, but yes.
I mean, I agree, I feel thesame way.
I'm I go, and I've said that toRepublicans specifically
because just the immigrationdebate is a little bit different
on obviously the right.
Of course.
But I mean, I've had thatconversation with like chances
are that immigrant passed acitizenship test that you can't
exactly look at.
You know what I mean?
And so, like, there's you know,they might be more civically
(43:22):
educated about this country thanyou are.
And I don't know that that'sthe thing is I would say that we
obviously have an educationproblem, but you have access.
I'm not saying you, you haveaccess to the same internet I do
where I look at this stuff.
You know, it's not yes, there'sa lot of stuff that's false.
Yes, there's a lot of stuffthat is but the basics we should
all know.
Carmen Lezeth (43:41):
I'm just right.
Right.
Blake Fischer (43:42):
And you should be able to find the answer you're
looking for.
Uh it is hard though.
I'm I will not lie about itbeing uh a challenge to like
sort through what's fact, what'scrap, what's um yeah, but
knowing the three I'm justsaying there's the template of
the United States that youshould know.
Carmen Lezeth (44:00):
If you don't look it, I get mad at people at
people because they can't nametheir representative, they don't
even know who represents them.
And I'm like, oh my god, I justwant to say thank you.
This was not what I wasexpecting.
I was excited to meet you, butI was a little nervous.
Thank you for being so cool andchill.
Again, it's Blake Fisher fromthehomelessconservative.com.
(44:20):
Please check him out.
Please follow him on YouTube,check out his podcast, and we're
gonna have you back.
Do you have any last words?
Blake Fischer (44:27):
No, that's really it.
I'm probably I'm starting to doprobably more YouTube stuff and
less the full like hour-longpodcast stuff just because I'm
kind of tweaking content.
But yeah, so YouTube's probablythe best place to go.
Uh the homeless conservativeissue.
Okay, that's the same.
Carmen Lezeth (44:40):
The homeless conservative.
Okay, I'll make sure to put itdown at the bottom as well so
everyone um sees it.
But thank you so much for beingon the show.
And um, everyone remember atthe end of the day, it really is
all about the joy.
And we'll see you again nexttime.
Bye, everyone.
Blake Fischer (44:55):
Thanks for stopping by, all about the joy.
Be better and stay beautiful,folks.
Have a sweet day.
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