A Good Solid Brow-Beating. Jason Rantz Talks to A&G

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand: “A Good Solid Brow-Beating. Jason Rantz Talks to A&G”

Date: August 11, 2026
Host: Armstrong & Getty (iHeartPodcasts)
Guest: Jason Rantz, Seattle conservative radio host & commentator

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the state of politics in the Pacific Northwest and the broader nation, focusing on perceived progressive overreach, the impact of local elections, and the challenges conservatives face in organizing and voter turnout. Jason Rantz shares first-hand observations from Seattle, discussing rising crime, controversial ballot initiatives, and frustrations about leadership. The hosts and Rantz also discuss the strategic moves made by the far left, voter apathy among conservatives, and the importance of active civic engagement. The tone is candid, urgent, and sometimes satirical, inviting listeners to greater political action.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Political Climate in Washington State

• Direction of Washington State

  • Rantz asserts that the state is "not going in the right direction," citing key conservative ballot initiatives: repealing a persistent income tax attempt, restoring a revoked Bill of Rights measure, and banning transgender girls from girls' high school sports.

    • "All three poll on the side of conservatives because...these are issues that regardless of how one identifies politically, can say, yeah, this is not something we want in our state." (Jason Rantz, 02:51)

  • Frustration at Democratic leadership for ignoring these concerns, kicking decisions to public vote.

• Seattle’s Governance and Social Problems

  • Rantz criticizes Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson as “a socialist, who's never held a real job," unable to manage rising crime and homelessness.
  • Even left-leaning media outlets are losing patience with current leadership.

2. Progressive Electoral Strategy

• Local Level Power and Organization

  • The hosts remark on the left’s focused and effective efforts to gain control of DA, county attorney, and school board positions.

    • "It was ingenious that they ran their candidates for district attorney...and took over the school boards while the rest of us were assuming...everybody has the same values." (Podcast Host, 07:50)

  • Rantz adds that conservative and independent voters are less organized, while far-left activists "do this professionally."

• Voter Turnout and Apathy

  • Low voter turnout—especially in primaries and non-headliner races—gives disproportionate power to organized subsets.
  • School board and local elections commonly decided by those tangentially connected or by "name recognition" voting.

• Teachers Union Impact

  • Hosts and Rantz agree that union members and affiliates vote reliably, while conservatives often do not fully participate.

    • "The teachers and the teachers union folks vote every single time, 100%." (Podcast Host, 09:40)

3. Criminal Justice Reforms and Practical Consequences

• Vancouver Policies

  • Discussion of Vancouver police being ordered to stop citing shoplifting and hard drug use due to public defender limitations.
  • Rantz blames "liberal-dominated" Washington State Supreme Court for lowering case-load thresholds, leading to the inability to prosecute and subsequent criminal releases.

    • "We're going to have to just release people. We're not even going to be able to charge them. And this is a direct result." (Jason Rantz, 06:57)

• Delayed Recovery from ‘Defund’ Movements

  • Both hosts and Rantz note that rebuilding public safety after anti-police measures is slow and fraught.

    • "It's really, really, really easy to destroy our communities and lead to this rise in crime. It takes a long time to go back to normal." (Jason Rantz, 06:22)

4. Conservative Messaging and the Danger of Cynicism

• Voter Disengagement

  • Rantz rebukes conservatives for spreading narratives about “rigged” or “stolen” elections, suggesting it breeds defeatism and reduces turnout.

    • "Elections don't need to be stolen if people aren't voting...if you were to believe that the tallies are being manipulated behind the scenes, make it hard for them, then go ahead and vote." (Jason Rantz, 10:55)

• Advocacy for Civic Participation

  • Host laments generational complacency and the failure to instill civic duties and appreciation for liberty.

    • "Perhaps the most corrosive force in politics or running a country is comfort—being comfortable because you stopped doing the work." (Podcast Host, 11:46)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Local Ideological Wins and Consequences:

  • "We are unapologetically blue. And Seattle is the worst of the worst..." (Jason Rantz, 04:21)

• On School Board Races and Name Voting:

  • "They look, oh, I like that name. I have an aunt named Susie. I'll vote for her...especially if you don't have any kids, you're not paying as close attention to it." (Jason Rantz, 09:17)

• Call-to-Action and “Brow-Beating”:

  • "We gotta keep brow beating them. And anyway, that's what people tune in for. A good solid brow beating." (Podcast Host, 10:08)

• Sober Appraisal of the Situation:

  • "We're losing because...we don't get out the vote. And there are too many people on our side who have decided to give up because they think the system is so corrupt that they can't win elections. But you're handing over the election to the left." (Jason Rantz, 11:30)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:44 – Jason Rantz is introduced and opens his analysis of Washington state.
• 02:18 – Rantz details the current ballot measures and critiques of state governance.
• 03:44 – Host and guest lament the rise of inexperienced but ideologically aligned politicians.
• 05:27 – Commentary on San Francisco’s shift and Vancouver’s policing issues.
• 06:00 – Rantz explains how state supreme court decisions led to crime consequences.
• 07:48 – Host reflects on the far left’s electoral “genius.”
• 08:37 – Rantz and hosts dissect why conservative and independent voters get out-organized.
• 09:40 – Impact of teachers unions' reliable turnout.
• 10:08 – Discussion of conservative voter apathy and importance of organization.
• 11:46 – Host's reflection on generational civic complacency.
• 12:27 – Episode winds down; Rantz signs off.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode offers a frank, sometimes biting critique of progressive dominance in local politics—especially in Seattle and Washington state—as well as a call for greater conservative organization and engagement. Jason Rantz highlights escalating crime, problematic reforms, and the strategic missteps of conservative and independent voters. Both guest and hosts urge listeners to get informed, get active, and not to surrender to cynicism or complacency, lest they forfeit influence over critical local and cultural decisions. The conversation is punctuated by urgency, humor, and a shared frustration with the direction of West Coast politics.

Transcript

[Jason Rance]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

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[Conservative Commentator]

Abolish the police. Abolish ice. Abolish borders. Abolish the Senate. Abolish the Constitution. It's an extreme political ideology that is gaining traction. The Democrat leadership has lost control. They know it. And people like Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez Hong in Wisconsin, Abdul EL Sayed in Michigan. You talk about the big tent. The Democrat Jewish attorney general of Michigan cannot even go to her party's nominating convention because she says, I won't be safe there because of the supporters of Abdul EL Sayed.

[Podcast Host]

It is not hyperbole to suggest that we are in a battle for the Constitution of the United States and the way that Constitution has given us such a wonderful way of life. So much opportunity, so much safety. And nobody knows that better than our colleague Jason Rance, who holds down afternoon drive on one of the great conservative radio stations in America, Seattle Red 7:70am Jason joins us now. Jason, how are you, my friend?

[Jason Rance]

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

[Podcast Host]

Excellent. Oh, it's a pleasure. I'm so glad you had a little bit of time. You based out of Seattle. You're a man of the Pacific Northwest, which is one of my favorite places on Earth. My daughter lives not very far from you. Watching the progressives damage your state and city is painful, and it's got to be painful for you, but at the same time kind of energizing. Help people understand what Washington state looks like, in what direction it's headed these days.

[Jason Rance]

We're certainly not going in the right direction. The biggest fight right now is, well, there's actually quite a few fights coming into this election. We've got three initiatives on the ballot that have been forwarded by conservatives. One is to reverse course for the 12th time on an income tax the Democrats keep trying to impose on all of us. They have completely rigged the system to make it as difficult as humanly possible to get rid of this income tax, but we're obviously going to fight for that. The other two issues, one having to do with the Bill of Rights which no longer exists in the state of Washington. After voters passed it, the Democrat legislature said, now we're going to just reverse court on what the voters wanted. And the final one would ban transgender girls from competing against biological girls in high school sports. All three poll on the side of conservatives because I don't think they're viewed as political issues, at least not inherently, that these are issues that regardless of how one identifies politically, can say, yeah, this is not something we want in our state. Democrats continue to ignore it. So now it's going to the people. Seattle specifically, we're seeing an increase in crime again. Homelessness is getting out of control. And we have a mayor who's a socialist, who's never held a real job in her life. And she's not handling this position very well to the point where even left wing media is calling her out for incompetence.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Katie Wilson, the mayor of Seattle, reminds me of Francesca Hong, the woman child who wants to be governor of Wisconsin. They're kind of cut from the same cloth.

[Jason Rance]

Dreamy.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, at least Francesca Hong has been a cook. I mean, she's had a job. Tends bar now and again, but kind of that dreamy. All they know is what they learned in their soc classes at college, supported by mom and dad. Still, it's just shocking to me that these people get elected.

[Jason Rance]

Well, the good news is, at least in Wisconsin, she'll win tonight. Hong will win the primary. She's not going to get elected. There's no one serious who thinks she stands a shot in Wisconsin for governor. It's the same thing in Michigan, where, you know, privately, Democrats will acknowledge, yeah, there's no way Abdul Al Said is going to win this. He's too extreme for Michigan. The threat for Republicans would have been Haley Stevens. Different take in Seattle and Washington. Right. I mean, we are deeply, deeply, deeply blue. We are unapologetically blue. And Seattle is the worst of the worst. So you can get someone like a Katie Wilson or El Said or Hong, and they could in fact win there. And that's the scary part where people don't look at these people at the local level where I'm from and say, okay, I guess I agree with them ideologically, but they don't have any experience. And I don't want to turn over the reins to a major city with a huge budget to someone like that simply because I agree with them ideologically. There's got to be someone else who I can align with, who actually comes with some experience. We don't vote like that. And we suffer the consequences as a result.

[Podcast Host]

We've all watched San Francisco take a turn toward the sane. Daniel Lurie's the mayor there and he's no conservative, but he's the sort of fellow that you're describing. He can perceive reality and tell you about it. I see in Vancouver, which is one of the great places on earth that the police have been ordered to stop citing shoplifting and public hard drug use. I mean, doubling down on the absolutely corrosive policies that we've seen fail so miserably everywhere else.

[Jason Rance]

Well, and that's the sad part about all of this. This is 2026. This is in 2020 through 2023, where a lot of the defund police and the abolitionists had a whole lot of control and decided to completely redefine what policing and prosecution meant and meant. And we all saw the results of that. We saw crime skyrocket. Only recently in the last couple years have we seen those numbers to start coming back down to where they used to be pre Covid because, you know, it' going on a diet. It takes a very long time to lose like 10 pounds and then you go to Vegas for the weekend and then you gain 15. It's really, really, really easy to destroy our communities and lead to this rise in crime. It takes a long time to go back to normal. And that's what we've seen only for Vancouver to reverse course. And again, this was all by design that not to get too in the weeds. But the reason why they're doing this in Vancouver is because the Washington State Supreme Court, which is dominated by liberals, lowered the threshold for the minimum or, excuse me, the maximum cases that a public defender can hold. And every prosecutor outside of Seattle and King county said we don't have enough, you know, defenders for this, for what you're asking. And if you change these rules, you're going to make it so that we can't actually prosecute. We're going to have to just release people. We're not even going to be able to charge them. And this is a direct result. They ignored all of the complaints coming from the prosecuting attorney's office because they're the ones who have to fund the public defender's offices. They just ignored all of that. They implemented the plan and now we're seeing the results. And again, this is not just specifically to Vancouver. If you go all around the state of Washington, you're gonna see similar instances in which criminals are being let go because they just don't have public defenders

[Podcast Host]

to handle the Cases we're talking to Jason Ranc. You know, Jason, occasionally I'll take off my patriot and concerned citizen hat and just put on my political science, you know, analyst hat. And I've gotta tell you, the far left were, it was ingenious that they ran their candidates for district attorney, county attorney, that sort of thing, county prosecutor, and got the Marxists in and took over the school boards while the rest of us were assuming that, well, everybody has the same values because we all grew up with them, we were taught them, we love this country, blah blah, blah. That was a stroke of evil genius. But as you indicate, digging our way out of the holes that's created and we need to win back those offices and then spend years on doing this stuff we do.

[Jason Rance]

And you know, generally conservatives and independents sit to a degree just by their, you know, definition of being an independent. We're not particularly organized and the far left is. They are very organized. A lot of them do this professionally. They, you know, sort of live in this activist space. They take advantage of younger voters who, especially during primaries when the turnout is generally low. As long as you're organized, you bring out X amount of people depending on where it is you live, it's almost a guarantee that you're going to win in the primary. That doesn't always translate to general election win. Sometimes it does, but, but it doesn't always. And they've been able to take advantage of that. You combine and I'm glad you brought up specifically, like school board races, those also are just low turnout elections. Even in generals, you've got people who vote who have no clue who they're voting for. They look, oh, I like that name. I have an aunt named Susie. I'll vote for her. That's how tend to vote on these races, especially if you don't have any kids, you're not paying as close attention to it.

[Podcast Host]

And if they vote at all, and the teachers and the teachers union folks vote every single time, 100%.

[Jason Rance]

And that's where the organizational stuff comes into play. And that's on us, right? I mean, the people who are listening, I guarantee you there's a huge number of people who didn't even vote. And if they did vote, they didn't vote on every single election. And if they did vote on every single election, I guarantee you they didn't do enough research on all the candidates before they decided to vote. And that that needs to change.

[Podcast Host]

Well, we gotta keep brow beating them. And anyway, that's what people tune in for. A good solid brow Beating to your point about organizing. You remember when Barack Obama first came on the scene and we were told he was a community organizer. And three quarters of America said, what the hell's a community organizer? But they know on the left, and you know, the irony is what we're calling for is individualists of the world unite. I mean, it's just not in our nature. But we'd better and quick.

[Jason Rance]

Yeah. Again, we cede power to folks who hold minority viewpoints, and yet they have control over the legislatures, they have control over the culture because we've allowed them to take over. We know when we pull individual topics. Defund police is a perfect example of that. Open borders. We know where the American people, regardless of their political ideology, stand. They are against police defunding, they are against open borders, and yet they're not voting. And if we can't inspire them to vote. And some of that, by the way, is on conservatives in particular, who I think send a bad message about elections being stolen. I think systems can be rigged to make it difficult to win. I hold that view. But elections don't need to be stolen if people aren't voting. So even if you were to believe that the tallies are being manipulated behind the scenes, make it hard for them, then go ahead and vote and make it more difficult for them to steal anything, if that's what you truly believe, and I don't believe that. I think that we are losing because we. We don't get out the vote. And there are too many people on our side who have decided to give up because they think the system is so corrupt that they can't win elections. But you're handing over the election to the left.

[Podcast Host]

Jason, I agree with you 100%. I think it's an absolutely great point. Perhaps the most corrosive force in politics or running a country is comfort being comfortable because you stopped doing the work. And our generation, I'll take the blame. I don't think we did a good job of convincing our children how important liberty is and limited government and how sacred our rights are because we assumed we got comfortable. We assumed everybody agreed. But keep preaching the good word, Jason. Love it. Big fan. Jason Rance, host of the Jason Rance show on Seattle Red 7:70am in the afternoon, where we're honored to be on in the morning. Thanks a million, Jason. Good to talk to you.

[Jason Rance]

Thanks for having me. Appreciate you.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Jason's also. I didn't want to kiss his butt too much, but he's a terrific writer and, and appears on Fox News semi regularly, that sort of thing. I, I don't know how he finds the time and energy. This mess is all I can take combined with, you know, family responsibilities and, and having something like a personal life. But anyways, terrific, terrific guy and a hell of a talent. So, so much more to get to. Hope you can stay around if you can. As always, subscribe to the podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand. Armstrong and Getty.

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