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Men Are NOT Angels! | WHY THE GOP IS SPLIT w/ Professor Penn & Matthew Simon | EP268
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A
This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.
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Cross our hearts and hope to die by these 50 countries differing so much in race and religion, in language and culture. It is a big idea. A new world order.
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Well, I know they're lying. They tricked me once, but they're not going to trick me twice. The time is now. Welcome back to the Professor Penn Podcast and Happy New Year. David Penn, your host. Glad to be with you as always for episode number 268. Coming to you on this January 6th Tuesday at 7:00pm Central Time. We have a very special guest that's going to join me in just a minute. But before we get to that, I'd like to do a little bit of in house work. Good morning, Tanner. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. We're back at it again for another year. Let's all thank God for another year. There's so much going on, so much news, so much to get to. But the most important thing, as we always say on every podcast, is citizen involvement in politics. The reason it's gotten this bad is because we've let incompetent at best, evil at worst people take control of our political system. This has gone on during my entire lifetime. The boomers did not stay at the station. They just took the benefits and left us to the wolves. And now we're trying to make a comeback. And you know, things are getting really intense, obviously with the extradition or if not, it's not extrad. Kidnapping. Not kidnapping. I don't know what you'd call that with Maduro, but obviously that's quite an extreme exercise of US power. And we're going to talk about these kind of issues on Thursday night. But let's remember, when it gets this bad, when billions or trillions of dollars get stolen, when our country's on its back fixing a mess like this is not going to look pretty. And we'll make it better by participating. So I want to remind everyone tomorrow night, January 7th, 7pm at the Wayzata Central Middle School in CD3, if you're in Minnesota, please come to the meeting. We're going to fill that 700 seat auditorium. We're going to be there once a month until they kick the dirt over me. Because we need to organize as citizens. And the way we do that is by getting together and forming peer to peer relationships. Now, we do have the benefit of technology. Let's remember, every Thursday night, every Thursday night, 7:00pm, Minnesota Speaks, a digital space on X. We've had as many as 12,000 people in that space. Let's Keep building that space. This is how we're going to organize citizens to get involved in politics. That's the digital Once a week, once a month, peer to peer, Please repost the links to the podcast because YouTube does not help us. Not at all. What did that last short we posted yesterday? Do you take a look at it and look at it. Oh, my gosh.
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For the first, like five hours, it.
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Was zero views, right? You know, they're just suppressing. Professor Pan. David Penn. Why are they suppressing me? Well, I think the first reason is I believe in God. The second reason is I'm suspicious of technology. I'm not suspicious of it. I'm sure it's here to imprison me. So you put those two things together and we can't go very far on YouTube without your help. But without further ado, remembering to come to the meeting tomorrow night, Minnesota speaks on Thursday. Oh, tire get. Because I'm going to forget about this. We pay for this studio with your support. When you go to the Free People Radio store and buy your T shirts and your coffee mugs and you're doing it and thank you or make a donation, but something that's very tangible, very real. We're in the tire business. Tireget.com everybody that's listening, almost all of you have to buy tires. Please remember Free People radio. When you buy tires. Go to tireget.com the price is right. The service is right. You and will mount and balance the tires. 5 minutes from your house. Can't be a better deal. Everybody wins on that one. Okay, that gets the housekeeping out of the way. I want to introduce a new associate of mine, Mr. Matthew Simon, who is actually one of the most important people in this country. He is the chief chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party, which means he is a national committee man to the rnc. Matthew is one of this small number of people. It's three people from every state and representatives from the territories. It's not a lot of people that actually are the governing body of the Republican Party of the United States. This is a big, big time deal. So Matthew and I have met each other. How do we meet each other? I get a call from one of Matthew's associates and she says to me, Deanne says to me, do you think Royce White might like to come up and be a speaker at our upcoming North Dakota Republican Party convention? And we were just thrilled at this. And then Matthew kind of came into my life. And the first thing that ran through my mind, knowing something about Republican Party politics I said, matthew, are you maga? Because you must know who Royce White is if you're inviting them to your convention. That's not something would happen. Well, that wouldn't happen in Minnesota. Let me tell you, in Minnesota they try to keep Royce White out of the convention. So it made me so interesting, interested in you and your story and your politics and what's going on in North Dakota. So welcome, Matthew, It's. So this is Matthew Simon coming to us from just outside of Bismarck, North Dakota. Good morning to you, sir.
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B
Good morning and thank you. That's a very humbling introduction. I certainly appreciate all the gravitas. I love what you said to start off the podcast about the need for people to be engaged and your comment about there has been a whole generation of people that wanted to reap the benefits of a self governing society without having the responsibility to carry it. I mean, that, that spoke to me. That's what I'm here to do.
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A
Well, you're a little bit younger. We've left you a big mess to clean up, haven't we?
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B
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. It's a source of frustration because I look at the history of this country and some of the generations that built it and the amazing sacrifices that they put forth to give us all what we have now. And underlying their efforts has always been the social compact. There was an expectation that I do my part, I sacrifice, I carry this society on my shoulders. And then as I start to age, I turn around and I find an apt pupil and I mentor that person and I help bring that person into the fold and that person needs to earn their way too. But I'm going to lift that person up and then hand it off and then society continues to flourish. And I feel like that ceased to happen in the last couple of generations. And that is a big reason why we're in the mess that we're in in this country.
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A
That's a very interesting. You know, what jumps to my mind is government dependency because previous to the expansion of this Great Society, which was really a brainchild of Lyndon Johnson, shall we say, or we use him as a marker like the Great Society was Lyndon Johnson. Actually, it goes back long before that. But that was a big transition point. First of all, people were engaged in trades. Now Matthew's in North Dakota, that's an ag state where fathers, grandfathers taught, fathers taught sons how to maintain agriculture. And it is agriculture. It's a way of life. So people mentored their own children in maintaining the culture that the agrarian culture. Man, you go back Here in Minnesota, it's the same thing. I think during the Great Depression. I'm trying to remember the statistics, but I think there was 50% of the people in the country that were self sufficient for food during the Great Depression. Now we're down to five. So you can only imagine what could happen if we had a social breakdown. And of course, the predicate for a social breakdown is the breakdown of that social compact, that shouldering the burdens collectively and teaching other people what's great about this country. I went to. Matthew, I'm going to let you speak a lot, but I'm just kind of trying to set the stage. I was at an east coast university in the mid-70s, and that's a long time ago, and they were already ripping the United States of America from pillar to post. So this is, this is a destruction of our values, that it's a long project and it's an organized project. And now at the, at the 11th hour, I got Tanner tan. I wouldn't call Tanner my that. I'm mentoring him, but he's certainly influenced by me. I'm everybody I can I influence to get involved with politics now. Seldom do I look at people and say, you got to think about it the way I think about it. I'm not looking for agreement. I'm looking for argument and discourse and engagement, which is exactly what you have to deal with. Up there in North Dakota is the chair of the party. So for the people who don't know you, which is everybody in my audience and me, could you tell me? Because when we first talked, I said, man, you got to come on the podcast because you've invited Royce White and you're the chair of that party. And I know exactly what that means to me. I'd like to hear what it means to you. How did you get to where you're at? What was the path? What's going on in North Dakota?
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B
Yeah, sure. That's a, that's a. Let me try and answer them one at a time. That's a lot to tackle. But how did I get here? I've actually only been the chair of the party for about six months. And as I turned into 2025 at the time, that was not on my bingo card to do. However, I've been active in the party for a number of years. I've been active as just a citizen activist far before then and have been interested in politics since I was a teenager. I would say that was inspired by my father. He always believed in taking an active role in your community. And your government. So that percolated into me and never left. But yeah, it ended up really getting involved heavily in the party during COVID because I saw a decided lack of intestinal fortitude and leadership. And maybe that's the nicest way to put it. Maybe more realistically, I saw an absolute abdication of responsibility and an exert and an exertion of authority that was well beyond what I ever thought the citizens of this country would allow. I always, I was raised in very rural environments. I actually grew up in Colorado. I'm a North Dakota transplant as of 2008. Actually spent some time in Minnesota there for a few years too. But growing up in that kind of environment, I mean, you really do have self reliance deeply ingrained into you. And you know, we're, we're a gun culture. And I, I just had this innate belief that should the government ever turn tyrannical in this country, that we have 400 million weapons and we have the largest militia on the face of the planet. And when we hit Covid, I saw the people that I thought would stand beside me shoulder to shoulder against the tyrannical government putting a mouth covering on their toddlers and looking at the ground and following arrows on the supermarket because as you mentioned earlier, there's so few people that are self sufficient that needed the food. And that's when I realized that we've allowed ourselves to be broken as a society because we've let ourselves fall into this level of dependency. So I've always been engaged, but I decided let's get engaged directly in the party and let's, let's root out some of these people that are either allowing this to happen from a lack of spine or, you know, they're com complicit in what's going on here. There's certainly been plenty of them too. When I, when I look to get involved in my district level, we, we organized by districts rather than counties. I remember finding out who my chairman was and I called and I gave my quick background and said I'd really like to volunteer. You know, I have a lot of talents and assets that I think can benefit the party and benefit the state. And the gentleman at the time told me, no thanks, we're good, we've got the people that we need.
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Basically told me that that's, you know, I just want to break in one second. Just ask, you bet. What year was that, sir?
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That would have been, let's see, that call must have been either 2019 or 2020. It was right around the time that We. We ran into Covid, and when you're.
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Having this call, I'm sure you remember this guy's name. We don't have to out them unless you want to, but I'm just going to. Did you let them know where you stood politically when you talked to them?
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Oh, absolutely. And maybe that was part of the mistake is tipping my hat a little or tipping my hand rather a little bit too prematurely.
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And I can tell you're an intelligent guy, and I don't know that I'm that smart anymore. I used to think I was smart. No, I just want to be faithful. But I had a very similar about the same time. What drove me into politics was the Georgia election results in 2020. I sat there with my abacus, and I said, that doesn't make sense. So I went into the Minnesota Republican Party, and I'm an experienced person with a very deep well of international experience. Man, did I play it like a teenager. I went in and I wanted to give these people what fur. I mean, I wanted to tell them exactly what. And that was one of the greatest errors I've ever made in my life because I pissed a lot of people off, because, of course, they were protecting their turf, which I didn't understand at the time, only because I didn't think about it. I had this naive view of the Republican Party that it was for the people to participate in. I mean, I. I had this strange notion that it was the place I would go. And we didn't have to agree, but we would all be Republicans. We're all working on similar goals. I didn't recognize the depth of the gap between the wings of the party, and the party is continuing now to fracture because of all the political change we're going through. But I tell people when I go to these meetings and I go all over the state of Minnesota encouraging citizen participation, and my audience has heard me say this. When you go to caucus, caucus is February. I think it's February 3rd. It's a month away. And when you go there, you don't have to tell anybody what your politics is. All you have to say is, I am a Republican. I voted Republican in the last election, and I want to work with the party to elect more Republicans. And that's all you have to say. And then when you get to the meetings and you start to move up through the ranks, which we talk about at our Minnesota Speaks weekly meeting and our monthly meeting, and I'll go any place, anytime, if you can put a group, if you're listening to Me and you're in Minnesota or even in North Dakota. We're coming to North Dakota. We'll go anywhere to get the citizens engaged with saving this republic. And when you're in a room with 500 people and there's a vote, you get to vote. You get to raise your hand or say I or nay. They don't have the time to figure out who you are. We have to be stealthy, particularly in a state like Minnesota. Whereas Matthew knows there's tremendous resistance to the citizens movement. He knows it. He knows Alex Plekish, he knows what's going on. So I'm not asking to make any comments, but I, I'm in Alex Plecish's senate district, so I've known him for years. So, I mean, I know who these people are. And I'm sure the RNC is littered with people who are wearing red MAGA hats and can't wait for Nikki Haley to be the next President of the United States. So, you know, they're hiding. My God, look at them. Tom Emmer. Tom Emmer is getting lit up over here. You know, Tom Emmer is the House Majority Whip. He's number three guy in the Congress and he's Mr. Maga. You couldn't get a more Trump supporting congressperson than Tom Emmer. But if you know Tom, that's a, it's a. He's doing what I should have done. He's a better politician than I am. He's impersonating someone. But I also say, Matthew, and I mean this very sincerely, I had a conversion to Republicanism. And I hold out hopes that every American citizen will look at what's going on in our country and adopt what I consider to be the Republican philosophy. That I'm a citizen sovereign, that I respect minority rights, that I engage myself in civic life, and that I believe in the common good. And if I have those four characteristics as a philosophy, I'm living the Republican lifestyle. Now, you can take one or two of those and actually be living the communist lifestyle and hide with a red mega hat on. So I just wanted to comment along what you were saying. You were froze out. They told you we don't need your partner. And what did you do? What was your next move?
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Well, I'm not very good at being told to go away. Some people see that as deflating. I see that as a personal challenge and it makes me really animated. So I knew there were several other people that felt similar to how I felt. And I said, you know, why, why aren't you involved and they gave me a similar story, you know, well, it's a good old boys club. We were disinvited. They said, well, tough. Let's all get together. Let's plan this a little more strategically. And then when we have this reorganization meeting where you elect all of your officers to your district, let's go in there with just overwhelming numbers and let's take the whole thing over.
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Matthew, let me just break in because this is so critical, because this is what we're working on down here. I just. You're. You're delivering gold. I knew having you on, it's always a risk to have somebody on. You don't know, but I just had this sense that it was going to be just what you're telling me. And when you say districts, are those the state senate districts, is that how North Dakota is organized, as in the state, or is it a different kind of a district?
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B
Yeah, I'd say that's the most appropriate comparison. A lot of states use counties, and we use legislative districts.
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A
We use districts here, too. But I want the audience to hear what Matthew has done, what I've been asking everyone to do. Politics is in your neighborhood. Pick out some friends, go to caucus. There's not going to be anybody there. I mean, just by showing up, you're going to be elected as a delegate in your Senate district. There's 1.5 million Republicans in Minnesota, Matthew. 15,000 people go to caucus. That's it. So, I mean, if you just show up, if we have a wave of people that show up in a month changes history. I mean, you could actually participate in changing the arc of history. Your name could be inscribed in a book of the people that had the courage to fight to save the republic. Please proceed. Because you've done it.
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B
Yeah. So our population is certainly much smaller in North Dakota than it is in Minnesota. But the proportionality of how many people show up to become delegates and participate versus, you know, how many, in our case. We don't have party registration, which I think is. Is an abysmal failure as a system. But people who would self identify as Republicans dominate the state of North Dakota. I mean, we have 70 plus percent, and that's probably being conservative. But for our population, our total population is about 800,000 people. Again, the vast majority of them identify as Republicans. And, you know, at any given state convention, we can expect, you know, 1500, maybe 2000 people to be delegates to show up to that on the primary process, you get a little bit more participation, but it's still abysmally small compared to the voting population. And then, you know, you get to the general election in a presidential year, you see a little bit more turnout. But my argument's been that the decisions have already been made by the time you get to that. The reason you get involved in your legislative districts is because that's when you start to actually vet the candidates. So I hear people complain all the time and in, you know, polite society and on social media saying we've got such awful government and we've got terrible people in government, but a lot of times these same people are the people that are showing up once every four years to vote. And they're completely neglecting this process where you can weed out people just by the fact of being able to come and associate with them directly in a smaller atmosphere. You can find out who people really are. And when you do that, you can start to vet them. And if we all took that responsibility seriously, we would have better candidates. So then when we got to general elections, we'd stop having this conundrum of, well, who's the lesser of the two evils? Instead we could look at somebody and say, we're all people, we all fall short of the glory of God. But at least these people have been vetted. We have similar philosophies and principles. I believe in what they stand for, and we have a clear vision of the country that mirrors one another.
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A
Yeah, this what you just said in Tanner. Have I not been saying the exact same thing over and over again? Yeah. So it's not like this is rocket science. What this is, is citizen apathy, citizen disengagement, citizen, shall I say, surrender. When we have a self governing society, a self governing culture, a self governing constitution, and people don't self govern and they create a void. What Matthew just said. Excuse me. Matthew, I know you're Christian. Occasionally I am too. But occasionally, I swear, when the good people don't show up, guess who shows up. The bags of society show up because they know politics is a great place for criminals to go rob and steal, as we're seeing here in Minnesota in great detail. So what you've just said, and this is so critical, when I say, when you go to a senate district caucus, your caucus, your neighborhood meeting and you become your senate district delegate, and then you go to your, your senate district convention and you become a state delegate, and now you get to vote on who becomes your congressional district, who goes to Congress, who goes to the Senate, you actually get to vote on who the standard bearers are of our party. You become the most important person in America number one. And number two, which Matthew left this out but he's going to say, I agree with you. When you meet these people and you know them because they have to come, they come to the meetings, they, you get to ask them questions. You get to ask, you know, you get to ask a question like I don't want to, they're all, they're all deflectors, you know the, these professionals. You ask them a question like where do you stand on the stand your ground legislation here in Minnesota? And then they go off on some other answer because they're catering to the leftists that they're trying to get votes from. You get to see that and you go, wow, that candidate does not have a strong answer about me defending myself. Wow, he must want me to disarm. I don't like him. Let me find a candidate that's going to say, I've got God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Don't ask me to give up my life. You know, he may, I mean I'm, I'm making up a story obviously. But my point is you get to vet them. But even better when we elect them, if we've made a mistake and we keep going to the meetings and we out these people, we put pressure on them to do the right thing. So let me tell you how I do it here in Minnesota. You're going to smile. If I meet a Republican party delegate and they like me, I know they're good. When they don't like me, I already know who they are because a lot of people know who I am. And you know, we have this, you know, the Reagan rule, you know, we don't criticize fellow Republicans. Well, that was for a different time. Right now the party is bifurcated. And what I do here in Minnesota is I call out Republicans that are not acting in a Republican way. So the party doesn't like me. I think that's dumb. Here comes winter. In winter, good tires aren't a luxury. They're a necessity for safety. @ Tireget.com Getting your winter tires is quick, easy and priced right. With Tireget.com you order online, install right by your house and stay safe on the road this winter season. I think when the citizens get involved and we make our feelings known to the people that represent us, they don't rule over us. They're empowered to represent me. If I don't like how you're doing it, it's my right to tell you. And then they go well, we'll never win with this conflict. Yeah, well, let me tell you, I don't think that that's necessarily the truth. I think we can have a strong disagreement and then unify after the primary. We can fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for what we believe. We're not so childish as to stay home because our candidate didn't get, in other words, a soft, squishy suck Republican is better than a communist. Marginally, marginally better. And if we get those kind of people, they get through the process, I'm going to support them, I'm going to promote them, I'm going to door knock for them, and then the day after the election, I'm going to try to hold them accountable. That's the kind of citizens engagement that I'm trying to build here in Minnesota. And it sounds like we're in agreement about this.
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B
Correct? Yeah, absolutely. And you deserve the government that you get. If you're not doing the things that you just mentioned and your government is awful, then the owners of that blame lies on your shoulders. And I don't think people like to hear that. But if you're not engaged, it's not everybody else's fault, it's yours. You're the one that can correct the situation by being part of the process. And you mentioned the bifurcation in the party that's very much occurring here as it is in Minnesota. And what makes being a Republican both a privilege and a complication is that we aren't hive minded like the Democrats. We don't take talking points and marching orders. We're independent thinkers. And anytime you try to get a lot of independent thinkers together and get them to agree on something, it's going to be a messy process. And where I think that we're falling short is that a lot of us have decided, well, that process shouldn't be messy. You know, we should all just toe the line if we're going to be successful. And I think what's the point in differentiating ourselves from the Democrats if we're going to adopt exactly the policies that make them Democrats? You're spot on. We should have an ugly primary process. There should be no uncontested seats ever. And then we need to rally together for exactly the reason that you said. At the end of the day, you know, the Reagan cliche that's used a lot, but I think it's prescient is that 80% my allies, not 20% my enemy. So we have the benefit in the primary process of fighting around those margins in that 20% and we should, because those conversations have to take place because that's how that's.
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A
Done. We work on each. This is how we. This is how the process moves forward is through disagreement. We have an adversarial system. What our founding fathers gave us was a way to adjudicate disputes without shooting each.
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B
Other.
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A
Yes. You know, the conflict is still there. And of course, here in Minnesota, I just have to say, and I don't know about North Dakota culture, probably a little bit similar, maybe. Got a lot of northern Europeans down here and it's called Yonte culture by the anthropologists. Very passive aggressive. Everybody's got to stick together for survival. It's pretty cold here right now today. Same thing up there, you know. And if you go back 200 years into Northern Europe, that's where Tanner's family is from. People had to get along or they didn't get from fall to spring. So, you know, there's a great deal of social solidarity. And that spans parties that in Minnesota, that actually creates a uni party down here. We don't like conflict, don't want to have any conflict. We certainly don't want any outsiders. Nobody ever asked me if I was a Christian. They just think I'm Jewish. So that the only anti Semitism I've ever suffered in my entire life in Minnesota has been in the Republican party in Minnesota, which is staggering to me, you know, so we've, you know, we got to call those things out. Hey, you know, we. If we don't boldly advance Republican values, we lose them. But I have to ask a question. Since your party is bifurcated and you're new to your role, is it a two year term up.
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B
There? I think that completely depends upon how effective I am. The term itself, if I misunderstood your question. Yes, the term is two.
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A
Years. And you have my plan for.
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B
It. Depends on my.
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A
Efficacy. You have pushback from in the party. They're trying to remove you. Is that going on right now or are you relatively.
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B
Entrenched? No, I'm a fairly new figure at the state level. Like I said, I've been incredibly involved at the district level for a long time. I've helped write bills, I have helped rewrite bylaws for parties. I've been involved in the districts. I've door knocked a photo. I have done all of the lifting. But there is a certain sense of you have to wait your term and be coronated into a certain position. And again, I just, I just don't believe that at all. I believe that I'm A sovereign citizen, as you mentioned earlier. So we had a rare opportunity with the state chairmanship coming open unexpectedly, 18 days before the election. My predecessor decided very last minute that she did not want to run for reelection because this is an ugly position. You take flack from all sides. So I. I don't begrudge her that decision. But the timing was unfortunate. So there was a scramble of, you know, a lot of people that wanted the position. There were a couple of people that I think expected that coronation. And I came out of left field, threw my hat in and through, through some strategic overtakings of districts over the last five to 10 years, similar to what we talked about. We had the numbers and I was able to win in a very highly contested race. But that has made me Persona non grata for some people. There's been a lot of, well, let's just pack up our ball and go home then. And that part has been really dismaying is the level of childhood from adults that should be pillars of the society. I didn't expect that. I maybe came in a little naive thinking, okay, we share common values here. We can fight out to see who has this position, but then we rally around common values. And I still think we can get there, but there's a lot of ego and personality that needs to be addressed there. So it's a contentious position for sure, but I don't shy away from the.
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A
Fight. You know, that's a very intellectually stimulating, provocative. Very provocative thing you just said. Because I'm always looking for how to unify here in Minnesota, the establishment views me as a very. I've been called a communist. I mean, I've been called everything, you know, and I, And I say these people, hey, you know what? I'm trying to unify with you all. I came into the party to serve the party. I didn't know I was going to get spit out because I held, you know, America Firster views. I didn't know that that was going to be the outcome. And I'm not even sure that was the issue. It could have just been pure ego. You know, I don't. I mean, I'm not inside of these people's heads. But you said something that's very intellectually provocative, which is, what are the common values that we can develop as a. This is our common vat. What are our common values? I mean, this makes me ask you, when you talk about common values in North Dakota for Republicans, what are the common values that could serve to unite the Republicans of North Dakota in your.
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B
Opinion? Yeah, I think that's a great question. I appreciate you asking it. And we've been struggling with this for some time, but I think the approach we've taken is going to pay dividends with time. We used to have a party platform that was part of sprawling many, many, many pages. And I don't think that's dissimilar from a lot of other states, but the party platform is really the mission statement. It's a. Here are our core tenants of what we all believe, and this is what we rally around. This is how legislation should be crafted. These are the things that we come together over and over the years, we were able to really focus those in a little bit more. And we came down to 10, because, you know, 10 is a great number. You got 10 commandments. Let's go for, you know, 10 party platform planks. And we did that and we made them, you know, a very bulleted list with a detailed explanation underneath. But we put that out on our website. We put that in a giant banner in our headquarters building. We started to really push that. You know, we. It's so easy to get hyper focused on where we differ on the margins. We need to come back and say, do we all still believe in these things? Because if we don't, what are we doing here? And as long as the answer is yes, we still believe in these core tenants, which, you know, in my mind are the, the core tenants of Republicanism and smaller Republicanism. As long as we still all believe in that, then we have something to unify around. So that's been the big push. And there's certainly people within the party that don't believe in those. They, they are, their views are antithetical to the party platform. But because of some systemic problems that we have in the way that our statute is crafted, we have very limited ability to put teeth behind enforcing that. So that's one of the areas I'm focused on, is remedying that. So we all know when we look at fellow Republicans, yes, we're not going to all agree that's okay. That's actually better than if we did. But we have to have a rallying set of principles, and that's what that platform is intended to.
- [37:24]
A
Be. Can you, I don't want to put you on the spot because I know somebody did this to me. At my age, I might only get seven of them, but could you just rip those 10 off just so we can see or, or maybe we'll go through them slowly because, you know, I've tried to get it down to the four pillars of being a Republican, as a life philosophy, you have 10 planks of what you believe would unite North Dakotan Republican. They're already living the Republican lifestyle, theoretically. Now, these are the ten philosophical or legislature. You tell me how you want to characterize. I want to learn this. This is.
- [38:06]
B
Cool. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you gave me a minute there to pull it up, because I would love to just wing them off the top of my head. But if I, if I made a mistake, I would have people that would hold my feet to the fire and run. Rightfully so. And, and in that vein, the first mistake, I said 10. There's nine. So it probably is nine. A little bit down.
- [38:25]
A
To. Let's add one. So it fits in with the 10.
- [38:28]
B
Commandments. 10 is a much more round number 10. I like 10 better. But if we just went down a bulleted list, I mean, we could dive into any of these because again, they each have about a paragraph explaining them further. But from a bulleted list standpoint, we believe in individual liberty, in personal responsibility and limited.
- [38:47]
A
Government. Wait a sec. Is that all number one now? Is this number.
- [38:50]
B
One? No, I'm sorry, Those. Those are each individual.
- [38:53]
A
Ones. Okay, let's. Number one. Number one is. Number.
- [38:57]
B
One. Number one's individual.
- [38:59]
A
Liberty. Number.
- [39:01]
B
Two. Number two is personal responsibility. And that's, you know, that's a large part of what we've been talking about that I think people overlook sometimes. Everybody loves the liberty and they forget that the responsibility is paramount part of that. Number three is limited government. Four is peace through strength and the rule of law. Five is lower taxes. Six is the right to bear arms. Seven is family integrity and the American moral tradition. And then eight is quality education. And nine is legislative integrity. And again, each one of those have a lot more detail below them. But I think the way people remember things, the way that people associate with things is you start with a real high point bulleted list like that. And again, we, we post that everywhere. That is the rallying cry. Then it comes back to, okay, what do each one of those mean? And I think that's. That comes into the margins a little bit. We've got it pretty well articulated of what we expect each of those to mean. And we expect people in the party to adhere to those.
- [40:03]
A
Principles. How about number nine, legislative integrity? I mean, I think the rest of them, I pretty much got a sense, and I think I have a sense of this one. But I think it's very important because believe it or not, a lot of elected Officials here in Minnesota watch this podcast. A lot of them aren't going to admit to it. We have a lot of state representatives that come on here regularly. I know I'm listening to. I know I'm listening to at the RNC because AK Kamara listens to me. So you know Matthew. Now Matthew Simon is listening to me. So the podcast becomes a really interesting place to proliferate a set of ideas. You know, I don't know how many National Committee people listen to this podcast. I know two are listening. How many National Committee people are there right.
- [40:57]
B
Now? The total number 168 total. So as you mentioned, each state gets three, and then the US territories also get.
- [41:06]
A
Three. Okay. So I got two National Committee people that have appeared on this show and listened to it, and we'd like to have more on. You could help me with that if you want to send people. But because we want to take an idea like Legislative integrity. What does that mean in your set of nine with one more about to be added? What is that ninth one? What does that.
- [41:32]
B
Mean? Let me just read it verbatim and then we can discuss it further. Legislators should lead through personal moral integrity and should con. Should consider this platform responsibly before supporting or opposing.
- [41:46]
A
Legislation. I get it. And I'll tell you, that is a big bone stuck in the throat of citizen activists here in.
- [41:59]
B
Minnesota.
- [42:00]
A
Yeah. Because we've got a gap between our elected officials and the party. In other words, the party volunteers because it's not paid to be in the.
- [42:10]
B
Party.
- [42:11]
A
Yep. The people that are out door knocking and putting stamps on envelopes and holding fundraisers and trying to spread Republicanism. When we're in an election cycle, of course the candidates are hanging around after they get elected. They don't care about the party anymore until they need to use us again. And it sounds to me from number nine that what you're saying is this is the North Dakota Republican creed and when we elect you, we expect you to pay attention to it. Do I get that? Pretty much. Is that what you're trying to.
- [42:51]
B
Say? Yeah. You're spot on. And we've done a really good job as of late of really holding our elected officials to this. Because one of the major things that I ran on was that I was tired of seeing this disconnect between word and deed in the party that you talk to any. Any Republican around our state, or I'm sure yours too. And you're going to hear a lot of the same talking points because you know, they. The words are correct. You know, pro life, I am pro gun. You know, the things that we outline in our platform. But then when it comes to how they vote or legislation that they support or oppose, as this platform plank says, there is that real mismatch, that the deed in their voting record does not match the words that they're using, what they ran on. And that's a problem. Now, what we've done as a party in the past and the very recent past, which has caused a lot of ripples in this state, is that when we have that kind of disconnect, it's our duty as a party to hold them accountable. And we can pass resolutions. You know, we can make public statements understanding that there's some teeth involved in that. You know, it's not like a censure, for example, is a way to publicly condemn an action taken. There are options like that. The idea is that the party needs to hold its elected representatives accountable because the membership of the party demands that of us. And they should, because we're not doing that. We're not needed. Somebody better should be in place. And the elected representatives, if they're not following our platform and our ideals, then they should be replaced. And again, it's the job of us as elected people within the party to call out if they're not. And when you do that, I mean, you. You make waves, because you don't see that on the other side of the aisle. It's very much toe the line there, and it's not here. And I think we would do well as a party to remember that this is a good thing as opposed to seeing everything as, you know, a personal attack and having a frail.
- [44:57]
A
Ego. Oh, it's never. I tell people all the time, it's not personal. It's.
- [45:04]
B
Business.
- [45:04]
A
Right. In fact, I just told this to a candidate for Senate, a guy named Adam Schwarzy. I saw him at the State Central Committee meeting just a few weeks ago, and I, you know, I'm attacking him because I don't think he's honest. And I'm. I just. I could be wrong. And I say all the time, I could be wrong. I say it right on the podcast. I'm only saying what my feelings are. If could be more revealing about me than it is about him. I mean, I don't know. I'm not in his head, but it just doesn't add up for me. And I walked up to him and shook his hand, and I said, man, I just want you to know, if you get the endorsement and you win the primary, you're Going to have my full support. And what I'm saying is not personal, it's business. You know, I'd like to be your friend. I respect you. And he was pissed at me and he let me know it. And that's that kind of ego based politics. Because it really is kind of a theater at a certain level. The whole thing is theater. We have our personal beliefs. I try to be very bold in my criticism of people, but I'm also very honest that I don't know for sure. I can only. And this is the way it goes down. And I want to get to something with this because this, this is really opening up a whole new worldview for me about political strategy. Because watch this now. I know now Tanner doesn't know I'm going to school him up here, but we have eight congressional districts in Minnesota. Four are held by Republicans. We have two Senate seats. They're both held by the Democrats. We have a Democrat state and I would call it a socialist state, generally speaking. I don't know the. I mean, if I really pushed my brain, I could probably come up with the names of the senators in North Dakota, but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to ask you, you have two senators. How many House members do you have in North.
- [46:59]
B
Dakota? We have one and only one. We have the bare minimum. We have one congressional representative at large that covers the entire.
- [47:07]
A
State. And is that a.
- [47:09]
B
Republican? It is. And our two senators are also.
- [47:13]
A
Republican. Great. And so that would make a lot of sense in a state that you said was 70% or more Republican. So when people are not voting the Republican creed in a Republican state. And if you want to just start talking about the weather, I'll understand you don't want to talk about this. What is going on in a state and you know, from a political strategy perspective, to have two locked in Republican senators and one locked in Republican congressperson. And I'm assuming that, you know, you've got three good national committee people. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But from a political strategy perspective, North Dakota is a stronghold of Republicanism. Yet. Yet when I go down to Oklahoma where every single county voted red in the last presidential election, we got a senator down there, James Lankford, who, I mean, calls himself a Republican, but his legislation that he proposes is not in congruence with the modern Republican Party at all. At all. At all. So it happens. So when you don't have, you have a political struggle up there in a 70% Republican state, what's the beef.
- [48:48]
B
Yeah, well, I'm glad you asked. And you started off saying if we don't want to talk about it, that's fine. I very much do want to talk about this because I think if you don't live in a state that has such a super majority, the conclusion that you draw was, would be exactly that, well, what are people arguing about if it's such a homogenous Republican state? The problem you outlined in Oklahoma is the same problem we have in North Dakota is the same problem that they have in Wyoming where you have states that are very, very dominated by the Republican Party to the effect that the Democrat party is completely ineffectual, save a couple of strongholds that they have. The problem that that creates is that a lot of people that are drawn to politics are opportunistic and power hungry people. That's just, it's the nature of politics. So if somebody isn't grounded by what I would say like a good Christian moral creed and they're more chameleon, more shape shifting, they'll see there is no possible way for me if I'm a Democrat, to win in the majority of this state. So as long as I don't have that underpinning of moral values, I'll just put an R by my name, say that I'm a Republican and I'll draw for the apathy of the average.
- [50:04]
A
Voter. That is the clearest and most insightful explanation of this I've ever heard. Tanner clipped that. That is devastatingly accurate. And I've intuitively kind of thought it, but you can't see it in bold relief unless you see it in an overwhelmingly Republican polity. And you know, when you start talking about shape shifters and stuff, makes me wonder what your background is, because not that many people talk that way. But that's super cool, that explanation of that. So what I'm hearing you say is, and of course this is not politics, this is human nature. You politics reflects human nature. So if everybody was a, was striving for redemption and was striving to be reconciled to God and that was the focus of their life, their spiritual life, we'd have none of this. But that is utopia or that's, that's the world to come. In this world we have people that are spiritually unmoored, unbelievers, and they will shape shift and become something they're not just to acquire power and wealth. That's what I heard you.
- [51:33]
B
Say. Yeah, absolutely. You know, if men were angels, we would have no need for government. Men aren't angels. So we have this need for a governing body and it's going to be made up of fallible individual people. Now you made a great point. You said, you know, if we were all striving for a moral good, if we were all centered in our faith, then a lot of these arguments would go away. But not everybody is. And I think that it's high time that we stop pretending that that's not the case. There are people out there that are demonically possessed. There are people out there that are just broken. There's people out there that just, you know, don't have the same moral turpitude that maybe you or your neighbor or my neighbor or me may have. And we need to stop putting blinders on because we want to feel comfortable and nice because that's making us apathetic and that's allowing these people to these players that are these, in some cases evil players to get a foothold in the power structure of our communities and our states. And then we run into these problems where our state is so dominated by people who are wearing a badge that says Republican. But if you hold up their voting records next to our platform, a lot of times they miss by a lot or they go the opposite way. We've, we've actually got a couple of activists in this state that put together a really interesting tool. It's called Legendate. There's a bunch of different scorecards that everybody uses. And the inherent problem with scorecards is that every scorecard has implicit bias of the person that created it. Now where this one differs, where I think it's really good, is that what it does, is it takes the whole body of votes. It doesn't cherry pick and it compares the person who has the most liberal voting record to, to everybody else on the spectrum. And then it highlights, you know, blue to light blue to, you know, all the way up to deep red. And if you look in North Dakota, where again we are a super majority Republican, you start to put those colors on of how they vote with the most liberal members and you find that the vast majority are either really light pink or really light blue, that they're right there around the center, but every one of them will tell you that they're the most conservative that ever conservative. And you know, it's, it's a problem. So having a tool like that's really useful that that benefits us when we're trying to hold people accountable. But I think sometimes the general public needs to see that too because they hear the 60 second sound bit and said, well, this Person obviously believes what I believe, and then they disengage until it's time to vote again. And I think you need regular reports like that. I mean, in my professional life, I have regular check ins. I have regular, you know, performance reviews. You know, when you were in school, you had report cards. When you go to your bank, you present your personal financial statements. Life is all about being graded upon your actual performance. But for some reason, we believe in politics that we don't need to do that, and that's creating a problem in.
- [54:41]
A
Society. Well, here in Minnesota, where the thieving and the stealing could be at the intergalactic level, of course they don't want a report card. Of course. I mean, you know, Tanner, have you heard me say, why do you put a lock on your front door? Do you know why your lock's on your front door? Do you know.
- [55:03]
B
Why? You asked me this and it.
- [55:05]
A
Always stumps me for some reason. Okay, the only reason there's a lock on the front door of your house is to keep honest people from stealing. Criminals just kick the door in. So when you don't have basic controls in government, you know, like, we got this thing. You're watching this thing in Minnesota. I mean, you're seeing it. We don't. I mean, and I'm very careful about this because there's a 20 billion, 30 billion. Hey, you know, let's start indicting people, trying them. Let's see dispositive evidence of this thieving. I'm not a big one to rush to judgment. I know what's going on. And you know, this studio has been very integral in talking about problems in Minnesota since it's been open. And a lot of people have brought this to light. I mean, it's certainly taken a community effort, but how big the problem is, we really don't know. But what I know, because in my professional life, I'm a business owner. If I'm getting robbed at that level every year, I have a certified public audit. And the auditor asked me, how are your fraud controls? Are you aware of any potential fraud? Are you worried about this? And I'm get, that's the report card. That's the check in, right? And I got to go on the record. And if I lie about it, I'm actually setting up problems for my legal problems for myself downstream. So private business has to have controls. So that government, private business have to have some controls. And of course, it's my money, so I don't want to get robbed. But it's our money in Government, that is the common good. And here in Minnesota, there's a problem. The depth of the problem, the scope of the problem, the solution to the problem, all those things are to be determined. Now, if you ask me personally what I think is going on, I think it's U.S. foreign policy. I don't think billions of dollars go missing like this. And if we had the courage to track it down, it'd go all the way to D.C. but that's just me making a opinion like a speculation. And I'm not into spreading rumors. I'm bookmarking. I'm saying I think that needs to be checked off and make sure that that's not happening. But people need to remember, and we're going to play this on the Thursday podcast. On September 10, 2001, the day before 9 11, Don Rumsfeld walked up to a microphone in front of a gaggle of reporters, and he announced that the Department of Defense could not account for $2.3 trillion of payments. And if you really watch this stuff closely, like we do here on the podcast, the Department of Defense just failed its eighth certified audit in a row. And there are very intelligent people who were in government that are saying something like $20 trillion have gone missing just through the Department of defense since 1997. So when good people are not involved in government, and then people are going to say, oh, well, that's just overwhelming. That's D.C. no. That's supposed to make you give up. I can't do anything about. No, no. The solution to this problem is not in Washington. It's in Fargo, North Dakota, at your next caucus. Is that when we get a cultural change, a cultural change where people do what's on your nine, soon to be ten planks to the platform, when people actually take responsibility for their freedom, that's the change. I think that's what the whole podcast is about, getting people to take responsible. And I'm going to. I'm so crazy. And I know you have a little this in you too, because I can hear it in your voice. I actually feel the whole burden of fixing this country is mine. That's how intense I am about personal response. Does that make sense to.
- [59:22]
B
You? Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Happy that you said.
- [59:26]
A
That. It's crazy. I realize it's both narcissistic and crazy, but also whatso you, whatsoever you believe, when you pray, believe you'll receive it and you shall have it. And if you had the faith of a grain of a mustard seed, you could cast a mountain into the ocean so, you know, we have the tools given to us about how to solve this problem. And I personally believe that, you know, Matthew and Mark, which are taught to us as historical documents, are actually the rule book of how to defeat evil right here, right now. And if we get these kind of people that you're talking about, people that have given over to seeking a moral center in their own lives, if they flooded into politics, we could solve this in one or two cycles. And the big question down here in at Free People Radio is the word around the Mingop campfire is there's a million Christians that do not vote in Minnesota. Does that make any sense to.
- [60:29]
B
You? Yeah. And that's a terrible statistic to hear because I think you hit the nail on the head that it's overwhelming to look at what's happening in D.C. and that's the point, is to make the problem so big that people give up, so that you have a million Christians in Minnesota that don't participate at all, at any level. And I think if you pull the average person, they think they participate a lot more than they do. You know, I go on social media and I complain about, you know, this president or the last, or, you know, that's me. Participate. No, that. That's not you doing anything but emoting. And that's okay. I do it too. You know, sometimes you. Sometimes you just need to, you know, you're.
- [61:13]
A
Following. You're following. You're following me on X now. Thank you very.
- [61:17]
B
Much. Yes, I am. I. I was forced, dragging and screaming to set up an account on X by our national committee woman, Lori, in our state here, who is just an absolute rock star of a person, could not ask for somebody better to represent your state than what we have with her. But she convinced me. She said that's. That's the place to be for social media. So I'm working on it. I'm trying to. To put a little more time into getting a little more involved there. But time's a limited quantity, and each one of those is a time suck. And your point about being involved locally, I think was, again, depression, that that's where we need to not be disengaged, because that's where our voice matters. When we talked about district politics earlier, the first time I showed up to this reorganization meeting where I had been told, don't bother, there were 30 people at it. 30. And our legislative districts are organized in such a way that the populations are equivalent to roughly equivalent. So the geography is vastly different. The district I'm in has immense Geography, because it's largely rural, but we're only talking 18,000 people. But still out of 18,000 people, the majority of whom being Republican, we had 30 people making the decisions and keeping everybody else out. Now we regularly pull 200 to 300 people, and that's over the span of five or six years. So it can be done, but it's a slow process. And a lot of this is hand to hand combat on the ground level. Hand to hand combats, you know, maybe more in the spiritual nature that I need to convince my fellow Christians, you sitting out is causing us to lose. And, you know, I understand how the story ends. You know, in the end God wins, but that does not give you a pass to not pick up your cross and follow him. You have an obligation to pick up your cross and be a part of this and to advance his. His kingdom until he comes back. You don't get to sit out.
- [63:20]
A
You know, Jewish people just because I was born Jewish. So I know the philosophy. Jewish people believe that the Messiah comes back when the people are ready. In other words, you know, all these people that are sitting out, if everybody was Jewish and all these people weren't participating. The Messiah's not coming. Messiah. In Jewish eschatology, the Messiah comes back when the people are ready, they've prepared themselves, they bring him into where? Their own lives. You know, we have all these images about how this is supposed to work. You know, I want Christ to function in my life so that when I meet you and I deal with you, I'm spreading the kingdom. That's what we're doing here. I mean, we're. And it's really interesting because, you know, you look like a guy who's a pretty grounded, hard driving. I mean, you have a material side to you that you don't ever have to talk about spiritual issues. I can see it in your energy. But your faith is what's driving you. And we're at this point too, we're a little bit afraid about this as Republicans because there's this growing Christian nationalism that's coming up through the party. And we also have to understand what happens to Christians when communists get control of a country, because the history is there. And you go back and look at the Russian history and there was a slaughter of Christians by the Bolsheviks, China, same thing. I mean, when, when communists get control, when they get their nose under the tent like it is right now, like Mandami in New York, the Communist nose is under the tent of the Republic of the United States of America. If we don't prevent this from advancing. They will kill us if history is a guy. Do you agree with that.
- [65:25]
B
Statement? Yeah, I fully agree with it. And one of my aggravations in public education is that they don't teach a lot of that, like when I was coming up, which is getting, getting to be quite some time ago now. I think it's only gotten worse since then. But we learned Hitler bad, and that's about all we learned about World War II. We really learned nothing about the, the formation of the Soviet Union, you know, the, the October Revolution of 1917, where the Communists took over. I've been fortunate in my adulthood to have the chance to read some Russian authors from the time, you know, and from, from the tsarist time before that, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn. And you read about what continues to happen every time we allow a collectivist mentality that, you know, the communists personify. Every time we allow that to get a foothold, you're spot on. That's exactly what happens. They use the useful idiots. Stalin called them. And a lot of times I would say on our side in modernity here, some of the bleeding heart liberal Christians I would classify as useful idiots because they're missing half the message. They're hearing all the empathy and they're missing all the structure and they're missing all of the justice in it. And communists prey upon that. They prey upon that. Now, you look at foreign policy you're talking about with some of the, what Lutheran Social Services or Catholic Global Initiatives has done with the refugee resettlement program. They're leaning on this toxic empathy so hard that they're missing the rest of the message. And we're importing people that may directly conflict with what our values.
- [67:03]
A
Are. And then you have toxic empathy. I want to get a clip out of this. This is a formation of language I've not heard before and it's very interesting. Could you please. Tireget.com where convenience meets the road. Why make buying tires complicated? With tireget.com it's simple. Tireget.com one site, a few clicks and the tires of your choice are shipped to an installer right by your house. From even a spiritual frame. Talk a little bit about how you view this. Because we got the big problem down here in Minnesota with Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities, these resettlement programs. Obviously this smiley thing is all over the country as everyday news. But toxic empathy from a religious frame. What exactly do you mean when you use those two words together like.
- [67:59]
B
That? Yeah. And in full disclosure that term I didn't coin. I believe Ali Beth Stuckey, the conservative podcaster, coined that term. But the first time I heard it, it hit me immediately like it didn't need explanation further. But, you know, obviously I wanted to listen to her take on it. I think there's a nefarious element at these organizations that. That you and I are talking about at the top level. I don't think that it's coming from a place of Christian servitude to resettle all of these people. Now, if you move down a couple of planks and you get into the actual foot soldiers, you know, the boots on the ground of people doing it, I think that the belief is genuine, that they believe that they are, in some small part serving the Great Commission. They're. They're plucking people out of abject misery, and they're bringing them here where they can have a new life and better opportunities. And hopefully the whole point of that is then to teach them the gospel and to convert them to Christianity. You talked about Jewish eschatology and when the Messiah would return. You know, there's. There's many different eschatologies on the Christian side, and that's why there's so many denominations. So I don't want to pretend to understand them all and dive into them. But one of the big driving forces is this theory of the Great Commission that by the time we as people have converted enough people to Christianity that Christianity dominates the globe, then that's the time of the return of Christ. Again, that's only one of many eschatologies, but a lot of these organizations that are importing people firmly believe in that, or at least their foot soldiers firmly believe in that. The people that run the organizations, going back to my point about feeling, you know, in my personal opinion, that there's nefarious intent, there's a lot of public funds to be plucked from running these kind of organizations. And there's not a lot of responsibility after the people are brought in, they're brought in. They're introduced to every social government program at the county level, the state level, the national level, everything that they can get them on. And they get a piece of that for helping distribute these collective funds. So there's a real profit incentive to run a scam like this. Now, it used to be if you were helping somebody resettle to America, that you had to sponsor them. Like, you brought these people into your home, you were financially responsible for them. If they broke the law, you were legally responsible for them. And that made for A very different immigration system than what we have now. So I know that's a broad way of trying to answer that point. But the foot soldiers in these movements, I think, believe so much in the empathy part. And it's coming from a good.
- [70:42]
A
Place. What you call the Great.
- [70:45]
B
Commission. Right. But then they're missing the entire responsibility point on the back. They're not taking these people into their homes and being financially responsible for them. They're dumping them on the public dole and it's gutting society. Because anytime you have a big collective pool of money, it belongs to everybody and it belongs to nobody. So you have nobody really watching it. Because if it's your money, you're going to guard it a lot more. You're going to be more judicious with how it's spent. If it's your neighbor's money, and you know your neighbor, you'll try and be a little less judicious maybe than your own. You'll still be judicious with it. If it's this amorphous blob of collective funds, you have no incentive to guard it as long as you're getting your cut. And that's why democracies fail. People find out that they can rob the public largesse and they.
- [71:31]
A
Do. It brings up the whole. I mean, I, we can't go, we don't have the time to go down this road. But the dispense, the dispenses dispensationalists or. I don't even know how to say, though that is a different view of eschatology than this Great Commission, isn't.
- [71:50]
B
It? Yes.
- [71:52]
A
Yes. I mean, you filled in, I'm.
- [71:54]
B
Going to get over my.
- [71:55]
A
Skis. Well, you filled in a piece for me because this Great Commission thing is quite similar to the Jewish idea that if we get enough Christians, it's a little bit different than what the Crown did. The Crown said we just need to get Israel going again. You know, so these things are, it's really interesting to. And we don't have the time. Maybe you come back. This is a very interesting area of research for me to try to understand. Like you say, it's a little bit over my head, but it's important that we understand these things because these religious ideas are running our politics. Yeah, I mean, what you just said was the foot soldiers in all these congregations in, in these charity organizations believe that their empathy is bringing forth the return of Christ. That's what I'm hearing you.
- [72:46]
B
Say. Yes, it was much better said than my long winded way of saying it, but that's exactly what I'm trying.
- [72:54]
A
To. It's toxic because the public purse is being. Instead of them. Yes, I want Christ to come back, let's all pay for it. Instead of I'm doing something personally to convert this family or who is living in my home, who I have taken the responsibility.
- [73:13]
B
For.
- [73:14]
A
Yes. And I didn't know that that was. How long ago was that, the immigration method? Not that long.
- [73:21]
B
Ago. Probably maybe 100 years ago, early 1900s, when we had the last massive wave of immigration, which again was mostly European, but it was still at such a level and at such a velocity then it caused a lot of societal disrupt for a while. But at least we had this idea of if you are sponsoring people to bring them in, you had the responsibility for.
- [73:44]
A
Them. It was family based. That's why we have chain migration. It was family orientated. I know that from my own family because I know how my grandparents got here. They got here through.
- [73:55]
B
Family.
- [73:56]
A
Yep. People took responsibility for them. They were never on the public purse ever. Nobody didn't happen. And we had massive waves of immigration. Wow. Now there's two areas of great research for a coming podcast. What was immigration like a hundred years ago? And to delve farther into these different eschatologies, because it's my belief, it's not my belief. I mean, I think it's fairly obvious that we have this highly technological digital age society with weapons of mass destruction that could end all life on the planet in two hours. But what's driving the thing forward is texts that were put together by the Catholic Church 1700 years ago. It's kind of a crazy thing when you think about it, that all these people have PhDs, they don't believe in God, most of them. Yet the politics that they're pursuing as eschatological at base, it's terrifying. Actually, when I think about it. It's rather.
- [75:06]
B
Terrifying. I think on the religious right, one of the big divides right now, you can see in some of your major stars out there, but it really centers around Israel, or at least that's the way it's being sold. But really it's about different eschatologies within the Christian faith. And so when you said, you know, we, we have all this access to mass destruction and our biases are based on texts the Catholic church assembled 1700 years ago. I totally agree with that. We have people that interpret, you know, their eschatology differently and they're making major foreign policy decisions. So, you know, ultimately none of us have all the answers. But if we're sitting on the sidelines allowing people that are very passionate to come up with the answers that may lead to nuclear annihilation, this is part of the. You aren't allowed to not participate. You have to be involved because people that misunderstand their faith have become every bit the tyrants that people who are lacking in faith altogether are. So, you know, there needs to be a bulwark against.
- [76:16]
A
Both. There's another clip for you there, Mr. Tanner. Matthew is full of one liners. We like this. Matthew, we're going to send you a bunch of 60 second clips that you can use in North Dakota to build your political following. You know, what we're doing here for everybody that how this all happened. I got to tell a story before I get to this, what we're doing because we're doing something new. This is a link now between Minnesota and North Dakota that didn't exist until I was called by Deanne, who invited Royce to come up to the North Dakota Republican Party convention, which he's super looking forward to. You had made the comment. I want to comment on this because we bear this in common because I get the sense that you're probably quite faithful. You just don't see. I mean, you're not wearing it on your sleeve. We're talking about it because I brought it up. I'm sure had I not brought it up, it wouldn't have come up. I think you, you know, you're, you're, you're sensitive about that, but I'm.
- [77:12]
B
Very bold about this would have come up. I'm not very good at keeping that.
- [77:17]
A
Me. Obviously I beat you to the punch then. Okay. But I want to tell you a story about social media because I saw you following me on X and I wanted to thank you for that and for everybody else. It's at Prof. Pen podcast. That's a digital army. We've actually built a digital army down here in Minnesota and it's getting bigger all the time. When we have an X base, which is every Thursday, which was started by two citizens, Lieutenant, they go by nom de guerre Lieutenant Aldo and Minnesota lady. They were just civilians. They just started because they were, you know, pissed off. We had 12,000 people in there and this thing's been going just a few months, we could have 150,000 people in there. If we keep working at it and working that. This is what we're trying to do is get citizen engagement. And. And my point is I was religiously opposed to social media. Like if I Have time. I got something better to do than this and I don't need to vent. And I, you know, I'm past the age of psychology. You know, I went to a psychologist. Now they throw me out. They would say I'm not amenable to treatment. But my point is this. I was sitting in a car with Royce White, your soon to be guest speaker in December 2022. And he looked at me, he said, man, do you know what we could do with a podcast studio? And my answer was, what's a podcast? So that's only, that's 22, man. It's only 26. So I mean, I mean, I'm long in the tooth. I had no social media and now I'm affecting thousands and thousands of people. Not because I'm in it for the fame or the power. I'm in it because I want to maintain the republic and my freedom to worship as I choose. And I know that if communists get control of this country, I will not be allowed to worship. At the least, at the most, they'll just take me out and shoot me. And I know that because it happened to people in my own family. I mean, the reason why I get so motivated is my family's only been here for two generations. The people upstream, they all died. I mean, I know how they died. They didn't die pretty. They didn't die in their beds. They were dragged out of their homes and shot. You know, I have stories like one relative, married, two year old daughter. Not Nazis, the local people, because, you know, it went. And this is another thing which, you know, and I say it over and over again, Nazis were not right wing, they were left.
- [79:56]
B
Wing. Yes, national socialist Germany, they were.
- [80:00]
A
Just to the right of the communists, but they were socialists. So it's the same thing. But they pulled this guy out of his house with his wife and his young daughter, shot the woman, the wife right in front of him, killed her, looked at him and said, we don't waste bullets on children. And they just smashed her against a tree and killed her. And then they shot him and left him for dead. And he survived. He actually lived in the forest till the end of the war and immigrated and came to the west afterwards. I mean, this is what we're dealing with. I mean, right now in Syria, that new government is killing Christians all over Syria. I mean, this, this is something we got to get our heads wrapped around, that we're in World War II. 3 and if you happen to be listening to this and you're Christian and you're just scrolling by your ass is on the line. If that's all you take out of this, get that, that your passivity is why we have the problems we have now. If we had a moral and just government, we wouldn't have these problems. That's another one liner. If men were angels, we wouldn't need.
- [81:15]
B
This.
- [81:18]
A
Right? I mean that, that in and of itself is a whole podcast just talking about that. And we, we've got a minister we bring on down here regularly from one of the largest churches in America just to talk about these issues. We're reaching out to the Christian community. I'm widely pilloried in Minnesota because I was reached out to the Somali community because believe it or not, for you racists, there's actually some Somalis that want to become Americans. And sometimes you use a broadsword. But when it's people's lives, it's nice to use a scalpel and remove the cancerous elements and leave the healthy tissue to grow. We have Somalis in this state that are Republicans. They've embraced Republicanism. Now people are going to say to me that it's, you know, they're lying. They're using the Muslim code to lie to me. Well, get to know them. You have to. You know, each person is unique and you know, we just can't be expelling people that have citizenship without a real careful review of who they are. On the other hand, because you know, you know so much about this, I think you might have this problem going on in North Dakota is I kind of got the sense that do you have a resettlement issue going on in.
- [82:33]
B
Fargo? Yes, we.
- [82:35]
A
Do. There you.
- [82:36]
B
Go. Very comparable to what's going on in Minnesota, and that's usually the case with our state is because we're so much less populous. Whatever happens in Minnesota is usually prologue for us, five to 10 years behind. But we, we follow what's going on there in a lot of facets. That's one of.
- [82:55]
A
Them. Well, I just want to say the issue here is citizenship. That's a cornerstone of the Republican of the Republic is being an American citizen. So I'm going to say this again. If someone's here, I don't care if they're Somali, Israeli, Swedish or Chinese. If you're Chinese and you lied to get into this country and obtain your citizenship, you need to go. You, we, we are a country that only functions the way it does because of rule of law. And when it's undermined to this degree that people lose confidence in that institution. We're one hair away from.
- [83:34]
B
Chaos. Yeah. When I was taught Americana and patriotism when I was a young man, the big term du jour that was used all the time was the melting pot. It was the idea that America is made up of all of these different cultures that come together, and then we become a new, unique American culture. And we lost that somewhere along the lines and adopted this idea of multiculturalism. But multiculturalism is Balkanization of a country. And I know those are big words, but they're meaningful words, and that's why I use them. So to be Balkanized is to have all of these different cultures come in, but then to maintain those unique cultures with no collective identity and the new American identity. And that causes the chaos you're talking about, because now it's, you know, history repeats, and it also rhymes. It's a line that Steve Dace likes to say, and I like that one. We look back at, like, the fall of the Roman Empire, it was the same thing. They went from being a melting pot for their time into being a Balkanized nation. And then when the Visigoths came to the gate, you know, there was nobody really to prevent them from coming in, because a lot of people inside the Roman gates, you know, they're like, hey, that's Cousin Stu over there. We know him. And we have no Roman identity anymore because they. They fell to the same thing that we're falling for now. America was unique and beautiful and powerful because we took the best of everywhere. But then we all had a collective American identity, and we think that we can do everything except for that last part and still function as a functioning society, and we can't. Balkanized society is.
- [85:15]
A
Chaos. And I default to. Because we have all these different people in the country. My audience knows I had a conversion experience, but I'm born Jewish. There's 6 million Jews in the country. Most of them are Zionists by far. I mean, does that make them a fifth column? No, that's politics. We've got to, as American citizens, clarify our foreign policy, in my opinion, and I think President Trump is doing that. I don't think the movement really understands it or likes it, but he's redefining what America first means within the context of World War Three. But we have all these different groups in the country now. They're not going to be expelled if they're American citizens here, legally, they're not. But the pressure that I felt as a young man, when my grandmother told me to become an American, she said, hey, dude. She didn't call me a Dude, she said, my son, you know, you're in America, be an American. And you know, that broke me from my tradition because I grew up around very religious people. And I embrace being American. And as I've gotten older and older, it's become more and more important to me because it's a beautiful philosophy. It is probably, nay, I say this not to piss anybody off. It may be the penultimate human organizing governance principles ever invented in the history of the world. And it's right there in our founding documents. And, and when I read something like, my rights are granted by a creator. This is unique amongst all governments. So we have this chance now, our generation, the people who are alive right now, what you're doing in North Dakota, we have a chance to revivify being an American and redefine what being an American is and take all of the struggle, all of the fights, as you said, that have existed for 249 years and take it to the next level and reconfigure ourselves in a way that we're viable for another 250 years. And if we don't do that, guess what? The test is over. We failed. I mean, if we succeed in doing this, everybody who's listening, it's not like the problems go away because we're not angels, but if we don't pass this test, this will be the last one for this country. So that's what brought me into politics locally. I've been involved internationally for my, for 20 years, but I realized the importance of the local politics and that's why I had John Matthew, because you just threw your hat in the ring 18 days before a convention and on the strength of the personal relationships that you had developed in the North Dakota Republican Party over the previous five years, and probably an ass kicking speech that you gave at the convention and all the people that said, man, he's better than these other dudes. And then the Trump movement and the MAGA movement and all the different things that came together. You now are a national committee man and the chairman of your party in five years. So anybody who's listening, who's going to Minnesota speaks or is coming to the weekly, the monthly meetings or is following the podcast. Matthew Simon. This man you're looking at is the template of why I'm doing politics. And if I feel a little bit emotional about it, there aren't that many of us yet. We're still not even close to enough, is.
- [89:09]
B
It? Yeah. I don't know what the saturation point would look like, but we're A long ways from it. We need every soldier on the.
- [89:19]
A
Field. Well, Matthew, I'm going to tell you, Free People Radio generates a lot of content. I'm going to get your. I mean, did I put you on the News that Matters mailing list? Are you on there.
- [89:30]
B
Yet? No, but I'd be happy to be.
- [89:32]
A
There. I'm going to. I mean, every week we put out what's the important news of the week so that you can redistribute it to your. We're doing a lot of content work here. We're not trying to own it. We're just trying to do work and share it with you to help you with what you're doing. We now have a connection between Minnesota and North Dakota that didn't exist. And I want to thank deanne. Thank you, deanne, for calling me. And that was a funny story because she got my telephone number from AK Kamara. And I don't answer calls if they're not identified because I'm a businessman. And that's just the way it goes when you get to be my age because I have so much communication going on. And for some reason that call came in and I answered it. And that was a miracle because when I say I don't answer calls that I don't know who it is, that's fundamental to how I run my.
- [90:23]
B
Life. Yeah, this was the.
- [90:25]
A
God. It was. It was incredible. And now I've met you and I'm looking forward to meeting you personally and staying in touch and communicating. And thank you for taking the time to come in today. I'd like to invite you back because we just scratched the surface of this. You're going to find out that there's a whole world of media that's going to see this dude, you can have a national career. You're good at.
- [90:49]
B
This. Well, I appreciate that. And just trying to do the most with the talents that God gave me and whatever that looks like, you know, best to advance his will. I'm on board. You know, here I am. God sent.
- [91:03]
A
Me. Right now. You're a master of your local neighborhood. And for that you've won. You won the vote. You're the man. We want to do everything we can to support you. It was great to meet you. It's actually. It actually is emotional for me to see somebody do that. I tried to do this in Minnesota and. And Alex Plekish cut me down. I happen to live in his Senate district where he's held court for many, many decades. And I'm a newcomer and I found the importance of organizing. So let me just end with this. If you happen to be in my precinct, W3PB in Congressional District 3, please come to the meeting tomorrow night, Wednesday at the Wizeta Central Middle School. Because politics starts by a peer to peer relationship with the person that lives right next door to you. Matthew, thank you so much. God bless you. Looking forward to coming up to the convention. Tanner yeah, let's get this up to Matthew early enough that he can get it out to his constituents. All right. Very nice to meet you, Matthew. Thank you very.
- [92:09]
B
Much. It was a privilege. God bless.
- [92:11]
A
You. God bless. Have a good night.
- [92:13]
C
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- [93:10]
A
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