← Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
Can the State Guard Save Our Democracy? w/ Adrian Bonenberger. Independent Veteran for Governor of Connecticut.
00:46:31
Army Ranger, combat vet, and author Adrian Bonenberger just declared his candidacy for Governor of Connecticut as an independent — and he's bringing a bold, historically-rooted idea to restore citizen-soldier democracy from the ground up.
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- [00:01]
A
This is the story of the 1. As the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, she knows the only thing more important than having the right safety gear is having it there when you need it. That's why she partners with Grainger for auto reordering, so her team members can count on her to have cut resistant gloves on hand and each shift can run safely and efficiently. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
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B
I'm not a Pete Hegseth fan, but the warrior ethos is actually at the heart of the infantry. And that's. And not just the infantry, but armor and artillery. You've got to be. And you remember it, you know, during your combat deployments, you've got to be in a completely different headspace. And that headspace is the most competitive alpha. I'm getting out there and I'm going to find. I will find and kill the enemy. That is what your job is to do. And doing that makes sure that the people around you are safe. So when you see that type of thing in ICE and that type of rhetoric or any law enforcement agency, you're like, what the fuck?
- [01:20]
A
Welcome to Independent Americans. Welcome to episode 444. I'm your host, Paul Reikoff, and I am coming to you today. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see behind me from beautiful Tampa Bay, Florida, USA, where the weather is sunny and 80, hooray. It is Wednesday, February 18th. I am here in Tampa Bay because it is winter break for my boys. They have no school and we are sick of living under the frozen tundra of the Northeast. We got down here for a couple days to thaw our brains and our bodies and our souls and to catch the Yankees in a couple of spring training games and to get a bit of a break. But we are continuing to bring this show to you and we are gonna continue to bring you all the things that you love about this show and a very, very important conversation. I told you I would pick a different musical artist to introduce my boys to every day. And since I'm in Florida, today's artist is Flo Rida. Who else? Right? He's saying good feeling, which is something I want to share with you today because we need it in this brutal winter that we're all going through. And of course, my house, which you'll hear at just about every sporting event on the planet. But Flo Rida brings energy and we're going to try to do the same today and bring you the five eyes that I bring you at every show. Independence, integrity, information, inspiration and impact. And I'm doing a special episode today. And our guest today is going to bring all those things and much more as we continue our Meet the Independent Candidate series. For years now, I brought you independent candidates and especially independent veteran candidates. I try to bring them to you first before anybody else. And I am very happy that today's guest is. Is not only a new candidate, but a returning champion. He's joined us on this show a number of times. He is an Army Ranger, combat vet. You know him from when he joined us on this show in 2022 along with his wife, Irina after a trip to Kyiv when they were trying to get her parents out of Ukraine during the first brutal days of the Russian invasion. He's been a journalist, he's been an author, he's been a combat leader. He's been a lecturer at Springfield College. He is a true patriot, a real thoughtful person, one of the smartest guys I know. And now he is running for governor of Connecticut as an independent. Rejoining us on Independent Americans Today, the great and powerful Adrian Bonneberger is back on Independent Americans. Welcome back, sir.
- [03:50]
B
Thanks so much for having me, Paul. And I appreciate you having spearheaded this initiative because I probably. I don't know that it would have occurred to me to run as an independent if I wasn't aware of the Independent Americans movement and the other independent veterans. I mean, it's something that a lot of people think about, but that's leadership, right? Is when you do a thing that other people are talking about and thinking about, but you do it, then you see the other people who are out there thinking in the same space. You give it a name and a definition. So I really appreciate your leadership in that department and this podcast.
- [04:27]
A
Appreciate you, Brian. And I forgot to mention you also, along with me and Bonnie Carroll and others, we founded American Veterans for Ukraine, which continues to pound away. You were visionary, you know, in trying to elevate voices around that issue. It's something you continue to care about. But, dude, you're one of the most, like, deeply patriotic people I know, and I'm excited to hear more about why you're running the unique focus your campaign has. I want to talk about Ukraine in a bit, but let me start with the question I ask everybody, and especially you, because we've talked to you in a number of different places. Where are you and how are you my friend.
- [05:03]
B
Right now? Well, I. Let's. Let's answer. How am I first? I just declared my candidacy for governor of Connecticut. So I just blew up my life like the coyote in the old cartoons or the roadrunner, that box with the thing. I just detonated my life. But that's okay. I think everyone's got to do it if they really want even a chance, even a small chance of affecting change. I'm up in Springfield, Massachusetts, a little bit colder than where you are down there in Florida, A little chillier, a little bit of freezing rain going on right now, teaching, lecturing a class in English up at Springfield College, which is a cool little liberal arts college in Springfield, Massachusetts, near the Basketball hall of Fame.
- [05:50]
A
I know it well. As you know, I went to school right up the street in Amherst. And if folks have never been to Springfield, going there for the hall of Fame is worth the trip alone. I mean, it is my favorite hall of fame, especially for kids. I mean, the Baseball hall of Fame's great. I haven't been to Football hall of Fame. I've been others. But the Basketball hall of Fame is really special, and I think it's a time when we need to reflect on our collective history and find things to celebrate. Springfield's also had a lot of hard times. I mean, you also went to school in New Haven. It's kind of that Greyhound bus line that goes up into Connecticut, all the way into Amherst and Holyoke. That's, that's kind of an example of a city that's been left behind in the last couple of decades, right?
- [06:31]
B
Yeah, absolutely. You've, you've been there, you've gone to school, you went to school there. You've seen that bus line. That's New England. And it's, it's, it's one of the things that's, that's really, I think, foundational to, to the campaign that I'm running is this. We live in not just Connecticut, but New Englanders and I think Northeasterners more broadly, because you could easily wrap Pennsylvania and New York into that. We live in this weird post industrial, almost apocalypse, where in the 60s and 70s, deindustrialization started happening, the economy started shifting, and then in the 90s, offshoring happened. The manufacturing that was left at the end of the Cold War shrank or moved overseas. And so you have all of these cities that were industrial powerhouses for centuries that helped win multiple wars for the United states, and suddenly 30, 40% of the population was out of work. They never really fixed that. Some of the places were able to transition. New Haven had Yale. I think the difference between New Haven and Bridgeport and Springfield is Yale. Yale is a huge employer in New Haven. You know, New London's got electric boat. Stratford's got Sikorsky. Hartford's got the government and the insurance industry, but New Haven's got Yale. And I don't know. I mean, it's a really difficult question. I think we've papered over it a lot in Connecticut, but. But that underlying problem of a massive population that moved to Connecticut and grew and had multiple generations of careers in Connecticut not being fully employed or engaged is a problem that continues. And again, not just a Connecticut problem, that's a bigger Northeastern problem.
- [08:30]
A
No, I mean, it's a reflection of America. If you think about in New York, Newburgh and Kingston, and then you go up into Springfield, New Haven, Holyoke. Right. And then all the way up into Bangor, Maine. And these cities that feel like, you know, their time, their better time has passed. And then there are some, like, I think a beacon New York and others that have tried to turn it around. Right. And they found these pillars that can do it. But so many of these cities have been kind of hollowed out. Right. And then you had, you know, migration and immigration happen. Right. I know that tons of Puerto Rican immigrants and other immigrants would come up on the, on the, on the Greyhound lines and, and stop along those cities and work in factories. And now you've got almost like ICE traveling behind them, hitting these cities. Right. So I want. You're like, I feel like, you know, when I watch these movies about the founders, I feel like Adrian Bonneberger couldn't have been a founder. You could have. You're like a man from a time past because of your. Your values and your understanding of history and your reverence and your. Your depth of, like, love for this country. But let me ask you, before we get into your campaign and everything else, just can you react to all that is ICE right now? And as an American, as a combat veteran, as somebody I look to as a really important voice for our generation, your reactions to all that ICE has become and done.
- [09:49]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what a. It's always a shame when you see a bureaucracy mismanaged. But this isn't mismanagement. It's deliberate abuse. It feels like Americans being deployed against Americans. You think to yourself, I think anyone who was an officer in the military looks at what happened, particularly the two shootings that happened, and the initial response, which was to refuse any sort of accountability, even a slap on the wrist. Just the idea that they had done anything wrong was seen as some sort of insult. And I Think, you know, I think particularly about my experiences in Afghanistan. And as a commander, anytime there was any kind of problem, like if there was a car or a wagon with civilians in it with Afghans who got hit by an errant bomb or collateral damage or something, like there was an investigation that happened and there was responsibility. I mean, the American government, there's a thing called salacia payments, which is money that you would give to an Afghan family. When we felt, when we judged that we had done something incorrect, either because a night raid went wrong or something else, and we had the. This is under the Bush administration. This is before Obama was my second deployment. Let's talk about my first deployment under the Bush administration. Guys like Don Rumsfeld were like, yeah, well, if we blow everybody up and we don't take any responsibility for it, these people are all going to turn on us. So we have to take responsibility and issue salacial payments. And, uh. Was it blood money? Was it wrong? Like, yeah, it was. That wasn't. We shouldn't have been dropping bombs on those people in the first place. But, like, at. Even Bush had the, like, the instinct to say, like, well, if. If there's no accountability, this thing is going to completely go off the rails. And so now you have ice and the perception is, I, I don't know if, I guess if you're in maga, you don't think this is true. But the perception among a lot of Americans, certainly myself, is that this isn't. This. This is an institution that is being weaponized against the American public without any accountability. It seems in, in recent days that they're. They're. They're trying to reel that back in and start to take accountability. But, you know, that's. That's the very, very beginning. These, These are people who have, you know, weeks or months of training when they need years of training to do this type of thing, being set onto the streets, and it's a catastrophe. And to say nothing of due process. You know, the lack of due process with taking people in America and just throwing them on a plane. The reason you have due process is to make sure you've got the right person. And the thing that people on the right will tell me is like, well, they're all illegal immigrants. They've committed horrible crimes. And my response is like, how do you know? It's like, how do you know if you're just grabbing them up off the street? Yeah. So it's really dangerous times. The people who are backing ICE fully to the hilt, they think ICE Agents shouldn't have any accountability, should be able to wear balaclavas and body armor and roll around in vehicles without license plates or whatever. Are the same people who are howling about Obama's jade helm and overreach of the federal government. Look, brother, if you, if you were outraged by Obama and I don't see you outraged about Trump, then I guess you're not really outraged. I guess, I guess that's not, that's not principled. So that's, that's my take on that. I'm, I'm, I'm appalled by it. I also, not to rant too long about this, but, like, I don't have any faith. Another reason I'm, I'm running as an independent. I've got zero faith that the national government is going to be able to figure this out. I've got zero faith that the Democrats at the national level are going to be able to solve this. Whether or not we take the House, whether or not we take the Senate. That's where I'm at, you know, and people could say, you know, I'm, I'm messed up over that or whatever, but I, people have asked me why I don't run for Congress, and it's like, why I don't run for Congress because why don't I, why don't I take off my pants in a windstorm and void my bowels, you know, into the wind? That's why. Because I can't do anything up there. That's why I'm running at the state level. That's a level you can do stuff.
- [14:11]
A
I love this. And one of the reasons why I'm excited to have you on the show and why I'm excited you're running is you have no failure of imagination. And I think that comes from your experience. I mean, you've been in combat zones in Afghanistan, you've been in combat zones in Ukraine. You've seen all the variables of what force and democracy can look like at its best and at its worst. And I want to get to your unique idea that it's the centerpiece of your campaign. But before I do, you know, you are, you've trained soldiers to fight in Afghanistan, in the US In Ukraine. I really want to underscore how I feel about this and get your thoughts. I mean, the behavior and the lack of professionalism, the lack of discipline, the lack of accountability is like we would see from Al Qaeda. Again, so much the antithesis of how any American forces, even the worst National Guard unit, the worst law enforcement unit, would never accept this level of brutality and accountability and bad training and bad execution and bad leadership. And I think that ice's culture is rotten to the core. And I feel like it needs to be brought down past the studs, completely abolished and disbanded, because I don't think you can ever rebuild the trust that ICE has lost with the American people. And I feel like it's so broken and veterans like yourself are in such an important and unique position to call them out on it. These guys who were in mom's basement playing Call of Duty, you know, five weeks ago, and now they have guns in their hands, pushing around kids. It's fucking terrible. But it's also absolutely unacceptable in the world of profession of arms. So can I just ask you, as a real thoughtful leader in the profession of arms and all that that entails, which is also going to be a centerpiece of your campaign, can you talk about that piece of this?
- [15:59]
B
Yeah, it's. I mean, I, if, if, if we can agree that there is a role for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol in the United States and in every country. I worked with the border police in Afghanistan. That's a thing that like every country needs and needs to do and needs to do capably. I think the first and most important thing to acknowledge is that like, and I always thought this was a little weird about what we did in Afghanistan when I was partnered with the Afghan National Police and the Afghan Border Patrol is that there's military and there's law enforcement. And the problem with militarized law enforcement, I think, I don't know if you agree, is that these are too, like, completely different things. I'm not trained in law enforcement. If I were to go to the police chief of my hometown of Branford, Connecticut and say, hey, I should be a police officer, he would rightly be like, I mean, if you're fit, if you're physically fit, maybe in a couple of years you got to go to the police academy, you got to do all sorts of stuff, because that is a different mentality, It's a different type of vision. It's a different field of vision. It's a different kind of awareness. It's a different relationship you have. You're enforcing laws. The military is for a space where there is no law. There's only violence, there's only war and murder, essentially state sanctioned murder. I'm glad we have the best military in the world. I'm proud of our military, as you probably are too. I'm proud of my military service and the guys that I served with the guys and the gals that I served with because there were women who wanted to go out and combat patrols with me, too, who were competent, and there were guys who weren't terrific soldiers who wanted to stay back and man the, you know, man the radio. I was fine with that. You know, to each, to each their own. But for me, it's like the military is a very, very specific mindset. I'm going to say something a little bit controversial here in that, particularly when it comes to the infantry, I sort of agree with Pete Hegseth's warrior ethos. I don't agree with anything else that dude has done or said. I don't. And I'm not a Pete Hegseth fan. But the warrior ethos is actually at the heart of the infantry. And not just the infantry, but armor and artillery. You've got to be, and you remember it during your combat deployments. You've got to be in a completely different headspace. And that headspace is the most competitive alpha. I'm getting out there, and I'm going to find, I will find and kill the enemy. That is what your job is to do. And doing that makes sure that the people around you are safe. So when you see that type of thing in ICE and that type of rhetoric or any law enforcement agency, you're like, what the fuck? You know, like, I'm, I'm your neighbor, dude. Why is that coming? Why is that energy coming at me? Oh, it's not coming at you. It's coming at an illegal immigrant. It's like I'm walking down the street. It could easily come at me. I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, you're a protester. You're an antifa. I'm going to come after you. I, I mean, like, no, that's because when you're in that headspace, that military headspace, you're looking for targets. You identify a target and you put them down. That's what I saw with Preddy. That's what I saw with, with Renee Goode. You know, you saw target target, target acquisition, and you saw what people immediately called, you know, righteous kills. I mean, the defenders of ice, I, I, I, it looked to me like murder. And, and, and so as, as somebody, I want. If there's one thing that I want people to understand, it's that you are what you train to do. If you're training to do military stuff, you're looking to kill people. That's what the military is there to do. They should only be training to do that. That's another thing. I don't want the National Guard training law enforcement. I want the National Guard. I want the active duty training lethality. If you're a military police, you shouldn't be training law enforcement. You should be training how to direct traffic when we're moving east toward Moscow or when we're moving up toward Beijing or when we're moving to defend our country from an invasion. I do not want law enforcement and military mixed. Mixing them up is the worst catastrophe you can do. And one other quick point, that in reflecting on the Constitution and the vision of the founders, the founders were. They were backward thinking in terms of Athens and Rome and they were incredibly prescient. We think of the Second, Third and Fourth amendments as constraining our military. But something that we forget if we're not aware of the historical context and a key point here is that the military used to be used almost exclusively for law enforcement. The military is what you used for riot control when you were a kingdom and not like a. A developed professional country. Like the things that led up to the Revolutionary War were redcoats being called out to control riots and then opening fire on a crowd of. Maybe they were revolutionaries, maybe they were upset citizens about the taxation. But in either case, the redcoats opened fire. So the reason the founders put the Second, Third and Fourth amendments in place wasn't just to constrain a standing army. And it was because to them a standing army was also federal law enforcement. I don't think a lot of people understand that. I don't think a lot of people understand that when they see ICE or the FBI or CBP or any of these other agencies, they think, oh, the second Amendment, that's a militia. Or that's the active duty. And it's like this is the story of the 1. As an H VAC technician, he and his digital multimeter are in height demand. So when a noisy office H Vac turns out to be a failing blower motor, he doesn't break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product information, he selects the product he needs to keep everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. No, it's this other stuff too.
- [22:13]
A
Yeah, this is. This is a really important point and I'm going to get to it when I get to your campaign. But before we leave that topic, I want to just bounce off of something you said which is really important. Anybody who's been, especially in the combat arms in the military knows that there's the war face, there's the warmind. When you flip, you flip that switch. They talk a lot about the three block war, right, where it's peacekeeping, you know, kind of the mixed area and then straight up combat. And unfortunately, many of us in Iraq and Afghanistan had to do all three, right. You had infantry guys like me trying to fix schools, right. And then you had, you know, people who are in logistics, having to shoot people when they're on patrol. It was just that melding of modern warfare and especially, I would argue, a misuse of our military in so many ways and an overuse of our National Guard and an overextension of so much of our military where we just got accustomed to everybody kind of doing everything. But we were trained to kill, right? Trained to destroy, break people's stuff and kill them. And when you're trained to do that and you're in that mode, it's a different mindset. And you see it, you understand it. It's like playing one sport versus another. If you're trained to play tackle football, you can't switch to two hand touch. And that's what's happening with ice. You see it. They have a killer mentality, they have an aggressive mentality. They want to put people down. There is no attempt to de escalate. There's no culture of de escalation, of reconciliation, of protection of anyone except themselves. And I think that this is a really important point that we as combat veterans have to highlight and explain and pull apart. But let's go to you as a combat veteran, an independent combat veteran running for governor. You are now running for governor. This is a big fucking deal. I applaud you. We've said that there are more coming. You're one of the ones I knew that might be coming. Here you are, it's now official. Just answer the most maybe important question, Adrian. Why the hell do you want to run for governor of Connecticut?
- [24:06]
B
Yeah, it's.
- [24:09]
A
You're there, I got you. Yeah, you're there.
- [24:12]
B
Yeah. It's a number of factors, but it ultimately comes down to me looking at where I could actually have an impact so much of politics. And what frustrates me about politics today, particularly big party politics, Republicans and Democrats, is people make these wild promises and rarely if ever deliver on them because the promises they make are promises they cannot keep. Or they best case scenario just run on vibes on this idea that, well, if they're on the right Push back against leftism if they're on the left. Well, it's pushed back against fascism. And there's no real expectation that people can accomplish concrete things. And this really came into focus for me with the Mandami campaign. The Mandami campaign was happening at the same time Zoran Mamdani, now the very popular mayor of New York. And I probably would have voted for him, too. But having said that, it was also pretty clear to me that, like, the things that he was saying that he wanted to do in New York were not achievable. And there are a lot of people who expect him to do that. There was just an article this morning in the Wall Street Journal about how, you know, he said, apparently he backed off from saying, I'm going to tax the wealthiest New York residents. And now the message is either I tax the wealthiest New York residents or there's a 5 to 10% across the board hike in property taxes for New Yorkers. It's like, okay, so now we're at it. Now we're at the re. This is the real issue. The real issue is that New York City is a city built around commercial real estate. And there's big problems with commercial real estate. And it's a. It's a knowledge. It's a city that, that. That has a lot of knowledge. And white collar workers that appears to be maybe getting replaced a little bit by AI. Not clear. So New York is facing a lot of the problems that that many other cities in the United States are facing now. And to make budget, he's got to do something. Can he tax the billionaires? Not clear that he can. So now he's trying to frame things in a way that he hopes, I think will galvanize support among New Yorkers for what he wants to do. But he can't do it unilaterally. And after I got back from Ukraine, I started writing a memoir about my experience as training in Ukraine and, and not just my experiences training in Ukraine, but reflecting on those experiences versus the experiences I had training American troops. And we talked about this, I think in the first time we podcasted in my experiences training Afghans and night and day training Afghans. A lot of the Afghans never really picked up what we were laying down. I never blamed them. They were doing their own thing. They were from a different culture. Some of the time, you know, we had problems with interpreters. We had interpreters from Kabul. We're in a tribal area where they speak a very odd, like, mountainous dialect. Not even clear that they Understood what we were trying to tell them through the interpreter. A lot of cultural mismatches there, but brave people, very brave people. A lot of brave Afghans died fighting against the Taliban. I'm not trying to fault them there. Just we were trying to fit them. We were trying to fit a very large round peg into a very tight square hole. Square hole didn't work in America. Even Americans, you know, we're very procedural people. People come into the US Military from a lot of backgrounds, but they come in pretty young, and it takes folks a lot of repetitions to kind of understand combined arms warfare and do it correctly. Time after time after time. Gosh. And the Ukrainians pick that stuff up. Like what we would pick up in weeks, they would pick up in hours or days. And I don't know if they're an engineering society or they have it in their blood, but training them, it was actually a joy. They picked it up so quickly. And as soon as they picked it up, they started riffing on it. And it occurred to me that we were leaving a lot of capabilities on the table. And also, not only that we were leaving capabilities on the table, but at the same time, we were leaving human capability on the table, the ability to defend ourselves as a country.
- [28:38]
A
We.
- [28:38]
B
We also had. Had really lost. There's this huge detachment between people living in America and the professional military. Like the. The civil military divide. It's a real thing. People worry about it on the military side because civilians don't understand them. I worry about it because the way the Constitution was set up, as we were talking about earlier, citizens are supposed to be in the military. It's supposed to be a citizen, soldier, military. And if citizens don't think it's their responsibility, if they're unplugged from it completely, we pay for that. We pay our taxes. Somebody's on an aircraft carrier or they're in Delta Force or whatever. Not my problem. The system really starts to fray. So at that time, I was doing research, and I found that being aware basically of the way that the country used to be organized militarily, we used to have militias, and then there was a very small standing army, active duty. Because Connecticut's a pretty old state. It's got a lot of old traditions. One of the things that the Connecticut governor has the ability to do explicitly is to call for a voluntary state guard. And a voluntary state guard has one stipulation, which is because people are not paid or compensated, they're basically not under contract. They show up if they want to, and they can go away if they want to. Which means there's no way to mobilize this organization without the consent of citizens, civilians. And at the same time I was researching this, I'm looking at the National Guard. I'm thinking about the National Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last two casualties of 20, 25, there were two, I think, I don't remember if it was Iowa or Idaho. National Guardsmen killed by ISIS in Syria. I was like, I didn't even know we had National Guard in Syria. We got National Guard all over the place. As you said earlier that Iraq and Afghanistan, we would not have been able to do without the national guard. There were 9,000, only 9,000 National Guard ever deployed to Vietnam, mostly Air National Guard. So you get to, you look back and you see there used to be a large body of citizen soldiers in the United States who understood, I'm in this unit, Connecticut Guard. I train with my neighbors, I train in my town. It helps me know my neighbors better. And if I really need to, if the British come back, if some, if we get invaded, I'm absolutely there. I'm there for the defense of my state and for the country. But they're not going to, you know, Vietnam, they're not going to Afghanistan and Iraq. I thought to myself, the thing to do, the thing to just sort of supercharge the reinvigoration of our citizen soldier military in a way that decentralizes power from the federal government to the states and then from the state to the towns and the cities, like really pushes power as far down as you can, not quite to individual citizens, not the sovereign citizens, but the towns and cities. That's the way to do it. And I can do that on day one as governor, I could say 15. We need 15 to 20,000 people in the State Guard. Let's go. We're going to start doing this day one. We can start working on it today. Actually, I think that'll be revolutionary in the best possible way and fit the founder's intent.
- [32:04]
A
So this is the big idea, right? This is the centerpiece of your campaign. You want to bring us kind of back to where we started as a nation and reintroduce and re implement this idea of a state guard with Connecticut as the case study or the first. Right. And this is really important, I think, for folks to understand because you and I have discussed this and you're not exclusively a one issue candidate, but this is what you're running on. You're pushing forward this idea, which is by today's standards revolutionary. Not revolutionary in historical context, but it's almost like Andrew Yang running on universal basic income, or Ralph Nader running on seat belts, or Forbes running on a flat tax. You want to use this campaign, I assume you also want to win, but you want to push forward this idea in your state and force a national conversation about the, all of it. And I think it's a really brilliant, frankly, and effective way to do it because it kind of addresses all things from foreign entanglements and regime change, wars to what do we do if ICE comes to your town or if, I don't know, Trump sends in the federal military, right? So let me ask you to take this kind of to its worst possible scenario. You get elected governor, you implement the State Guard, you say, okay, Trump, you know, we got everything handled here. He says, you know what? You got a migrant crisis in New Haven. I'm sending in, you know, I want to send, I want to federalize your National Guard. I assume you can say you can't because they're not yours, they're mine. Right. Which creates kind of a circuit breaker. And then if he says, I want to send in the federal troops, you say, no, it's my state, we got it covered. I mean, is that kind of the, the circuit breaker conversation loggerhead that you're trying to create for this country?
- [33:54]
B
I wouldn't put it in, in terms quite so stark. It, because my feeling, I think it's more that many of the problems that we have today in society on the right and the left come about because people don't have opportunities. And people correctly feel that they feel boxed in. They feel there's no opportunities economically if they're in the generation younger than ours. Not only do they feel that they have no hope economically, they also feel that they're, you know, their healthcare opportunities are shot. They're never going to own a home. They got to wait for their parents or their grandparents to die. It's very bad out there. Actually. It's remarkably bad for how good people are saying the economy is. It is very bad. That's like, that's where the opioid epidemic comes from. And one thing I know is the more powerless you feel, the more tempted you are to go online to look for answers. And right now, a lot of it, a lot of folks, a lot of young men, especially young men, being prone to military service, first of all, they're being told, you can't join the military because you're, you know, you're not a professional warrior, you're out of shape. You're not, you didn't, you know, you didn't pay attention in school. You got attention deficit or whatever. So they're being told they can't serve. And they're also being told at the same time that they can't serve, that their entire country is falling into lawlessness. And this is, I mean, an entire generation is being radicalized by the right because there are no local mechanisms for service. It's also true of people who are my parents age who are similarly. They're less mobile and they spend more time now on the Internet. They look at Facebook, they look at the socials and they see that New York City and Chicago and Los Angeles are like, you know, the 1970s, except 10 times worse. They're lawless. You can't go anywhere without being robbed or mugged several times. And it's like, I take the subway every time I go into New York. I've, I, I lived in New York for a couple years. I've been in New York since I was, you know, when I was in high school, I used to go down to New York occasionally. I've literally never been mugged once. You know, I remember Times Square when it was pretty hairy around, you know, back before 9, 11, you'd go to Times Square after 1 or 2 in the morning and, and sometimes when I was in college, I'd go to New York and I'd just walk around. You know, I just walk around just to clear my thoughts or to go down. And I'd be reading like Moby Dick and I'd want to go see like what, what Melville had been writing about. I was weird. And you again, people would be like hustling, you know, trying to sell you drugs. I'd be like, no, thank you. Never got rugged, not never got robbed, never got mugged. New York is an incredibly safe place to go, certainly Manhattan. Anyway, I think by, but the scandmongering is real, right?
- [36:53]
A
And I mean, I think part of what this idea proposes too is a way, you know, national service is something we've talked about before. You know, there are ways. How can we get more community service? And it's kind of like the Minutemen, right? Like the instant militia from revolutionary times. And it's also what we've seen happen in Minneapolis, right? It's what you're seeing happen in so many cities around the country. When ice comes in, people start looking out for each other like they used to, right? And people are coming out of the woodwork. So this creates kind of a formalized mechanism for People to be involved in their community and to help each other and have that common connection at the most basic local level, looking out for each other, protecting each other in the way that the National Guard often does. Right. Floods, forest fires, you know, basic safety. Right. Traffic, things like that. There are state guards that do exist in this, in many states and that's what they do. Right. They often do seem to traffic and crowd control, things like that. So let me ask you to build off of this because I want you to come back and expand upon this and I'm excited for you to do on the campaign trail. You know, how do you run this campaign? Ned Lamont is probably going to be the Democratic. Caleb, they'll probably be a Republican. Best case scenario, it's a, you know, one on one on one, a three way race. I think in the final. Right. You're not going to have to go through a primary, but you are going to have to get on a ballot, which is always a challenge for an independent. Is that your number one priority for the campaign right now is ballot access?
- [38:22]
B
Yeah, that's, that's right. It's weirdly the ballot access is, it's the thing that has to happen. My number one, my number one priority is raising awareness, followed by fundraising and then followed by preparing for ballot access. Connecticut, I mean, like you said, it's, it's. Every independent will tell you the same thing, which is that the, the two party system, they put all of these like comical walls in place that clearly benefit them. And I mean like, I'm not going to complain about it. They don't. The, the state of this, the, the Secretary of state in Connecticut doesn't issue ballot petitions until April 28th and then you've got until July 29th to, to, to file them. And there's all these sort of like weird little nuances to it. It's like, whatever, I get it. You guys don't want me to run. You only want the Democrats and the Republicans to win. To run mostly because the Democrats are almost guaranteed to win. That's fine. I'm not complaining about the process. I can do some stuff to get ready for that. There are actually a lot of independents in Connecticut. A lot of them are people who, who feel disenfranchised and feel, you know, pretty marginalized. I don't know how easy it's going to be to galvanize them. I can tell you. Just after announcing there was an incredible outrushing of support, we've got a lot of people asking to volunteer in different places. In different capacities. Fundraising is still a little bit of a weak point. That's, that's going slowly. I think that'll change with, with, with dedication and by making it a national issue. But, but the thing to, to get back to ICE and the idea of, of, of confront confronting Trump or, or, or providing an alternative to the National Guard. The first thing I want to say about that, which is really important, is I don't see this as a mechanism for prompting a confrontation between the states and the federal government, because a state or any group of states will lose that every time. The states that buck, the federal government will get crushed. I mean, a state guard of 15 to 20,000 people isn't actually going to be able to stand up to active duty military or even the National Guard. That's folly. Even, even if we had, Even if we're 50 years from now and you've got generations of people in the State Guard and half. And Connecticut's like Switzerland. Almost everybody in Connecticut has or knows someone who has a rifle. Everyone's trained on it. We can, we can sound the air raid siren and everyone will muster out. It still would not be sufficient. It's less about that and more, I think what you were saying earlier, more about taking control back over this kind of, this way of serving the country that the federal government hasn't been able to provide, or if they provide it, they abuse it. The National Guard was supposed to be this, this is what the National Guard used to be. And again, Vietnam, you can see people are still used to the National Guard being like, oh, we don't touch that. Like, Air National Guard, maybe they fly jets. Okay, we'll bring some Air National Guard over to Vietnam. Nine thousand people served in a time when the military was far larger than it is today. 9,000 is nothing. Vietnam era military. And nobody knows how many people serve, how many National Guardsmen and National Guards served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands. The National Guards were essential for that. That was part of their planning. That's incorrect. And I was actually, I was having a conversation with another Afghan vet at an American Legion in Connecticut recently, and I made this point and he said, well, yeah, I mean, like, the National Guards had to deploy. We couldn't have done it otherwise. And I was like, okay, keep talking. We couldn't have done it otherwise because maybe we shouldn't have. Right? I mean, like, this was a Trump voter, too. This is a guy who presumably thinks we should be in fewer parts of the world doing less. It's like, all right, brother, here's your chance. You know, you fill in the blank here, man. Is that how you want to do it?
- [42:22]
A
It's the social backstop that we're missing, right? That was supposed to be how it was designed when the all volunteer military happened. But I think, you know, it's a really important conversation. Adrian, I think your candidacy is very exciting because you're introducing a new idea at a time when it feels like there are very few new ideas and the system needs to be challenged, the status quo needs to be busted up, and we need new ideas, new blood, new leaders. You are an inspiring, patriotic, dedicated leader. I'm very excited you're in this. I'm excited to see you launching your campaign. How can folks, find out more about.
- [42:57]
B
Your campaign and support bonnenbergerforgovernor.com Bonnenberger for Governor is all the socials. I'm sorry, my last name is hard to spell, but if you get even in the ballpark, it's a pretty unusual name. So you'll probably find me.
- [43:14]
A
You know, I, I told my son today I was interviewing you, and, and he was like, that's a, that's a fun last name. Bonnenberger. I said, yeah, that is a fun last name. And I think it's a memorable one. But you're a, you're, you're a really honorable and thoughtful leader. I'm so excited. Folks, we got another one. Okay. This is another patriotic independent veteran that's stepping up, that's showing up, that's putting his hat in the ring. I hope will inspire others. I've told you there are more coming. Adrian is the latest example. If you want to follow Adrian's lead, of course. Join us@independentveteransofamerica.org the link will be in the show notes to his campaign. Adrian, congratulations on your launch. Thank you for your continued leadership and sacrifice. I hope you'll come back on again soon and keep us updated. And give him hell out there, man. Go get him.
- [44:01]
B
Thanks, man.
- [44:03]
A
All right, Connecticut, there you have it. There's your new independent candidate for governor. To the rest of you everywhere, independent Americans, especially independent veterans, check out Adrian Bonenberger. He is the newest of what will probably be dozens, if not hundreds of independent candidates that are running this fall for offices from the US Senate all the way down to school board. You've heard recently from Jesse Ventura, who was the first to do it. Most recently, you heard from Dan Osborne. You will hear from others in the days to come, especially the newcomers. I want them to come here first. Independent Americans is going to continue to bring you new voices, voices that are challenging the system. And I just got to say, Adrian's idea is an important one and it's not a new one. It comes from hundreds of years ago and he is the guy bringing it forward. So I wanted to celebrate that and ask you to share it far and wide like you do with every show. Also, all our recent episodes, especially our one last Friday with Anya Kamenitz about kids and how Trump and ICE are really impacting our children. If you haven't heard that episode, and especially if you're on winter break with your kids like I am, please share it far and wide and invite others to join this movement. I will not be on News Nation or MSNow or CNN today or this week. I'm on winter break with my kids. I still need to give my voice a rest. As you can see. I'm going to try to get some sunshine, going to try to get some baseball and going to continue to bring you as many shows as I can and as much good content as we can. We're daily now and we did hit number 36 on the charts. So follow us everywhere on all socials, subscribe wherever you're listening and especially if you're watching on YouTube, you can get the Independent Americans merch. You can join our Patreon community and invite others to declare their independence because America is divided. But here at Independent Americans, we're working to change that, adding light to contrast to heat. And if you're among the now 45% of Americans who are independent, especially, and to all of you that are independent, curious, especially you folks in Connecticut, this is your show. Our independent movement is bringing hope for the future and new leadership like you saw from Adrian, country over party, people over politics, light over heat, challenging the status quo in very real ways. And our movement is growing. You're seeing that with all the new men and women who are stepping up to run and stepping up to lead. And we are providing the hope that is the oxygen of democracy. If you enjoyed this episode with Adrian Bannenberger, shared far and wide, invite your friends, your family, your adversaries to declare their independence. And stay vigilant, my friends, because eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. And no, you're not alone in your vigilance. We're all vigilant and we're all in this together. I'm your host, Paul Rykoff. Thank you for tuning into Independent Americans. If you want to follow Adrian's lead and run for office in your area or you want to support others who are check out independentveteransofamerica.org, also linked in my show notes. Continue to spread the word about independent Americans. I'll see you again soon. Happy hump day and stay vigilant, America. Stay vigilant.
- [47:04]
B
And it's not cool to believe in school but if I can say one thing I've seen the children of the revolution and the good trouble they can bring. He says the red and blue I get an independence it is an attitude an island in the sea of rhetoric and I can rally go, he tells me the left and right our dreams for those without a clue and when you wait, it's time to grow power by righteous media.