← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind Voter Turnout: What Polling Data Reveals About the 2025 Election and Shifting Demographics
00:32:32
Loading summary
Transcript11 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
B
Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24,7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care. You know what your customers are doing right this second? The exact same thing. You are listening to me, which, let's be honest, is kind of flattering. But my point Is ads on iHeartRadio actually get heard in the car, at the gym, on the couch while people are walking their dogs. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? You're a good boy. That's right, dude. You're a good. So why not make the next ad about you? Get started today. Call 844-844-IHEART or go to iheartadvertising.com that's 844-844-iheart or iheart advertising.com. welcome back to a numbers game podcast with Ryan Graduski. Thank you all for being here again. And I want to personally thank the 500 people who subscribed to me on YouTube in the first week. Thank you so much. I got so many requests to start a, you know, putting my podcast on YouTube and I finally made it happen. And I greatly appreciate how many of you have supported the channel so far. And if you like watching this podcast instead of just listening, please subscribe and never miss an episode throughout the rest of the year. I'm going to be posting old interviews every Tuesday and Wednesday. So you have a Ryan Graduski Ryan Grosky fix throughout almost the entire week. So you get to watch all the old interviews throughout, throughout the entire year. The ones that you wanted to see. Ann Coulter, Megan McCain, Marjorie Taylor Greene, all of them. And I'm looking forward to hearing back from you guys and enjoying that and growing the following following on YouTube. So thank you guys so much. Okay, tomorrow is election day and before I begin, we're going to have a post election analysis on Thursday's episode with Zachary Denini, the great Zachary Denini. He was on this podcast. He's an election and data analysis guy. Super smart kid, you know, more intelligent than I am. He went to much better schools than I did. So you're Going to get that on Thursday. And if you're one of the people who has waited this whole time to go vote and you said to yourself, I'm only voting on election day, I'm not voting early. Well, tomorrow is your time to shine, get out, make your voice heard. We have big elections across the country, not just in New Jersey, New York City and Virginia. We have races throughout Pennsylvania, School board elections in Douglas County, Colorado that are very important. School board elections everywhere that are very important. The only elected Republican in all of Seattle is up for re election. The dsa, the Democratic socials are trying to take over Detroit. And of course there's lots of different things on my, my PAC 1776 project packaging is involved with. I think we have 80 races across the country for school boards. Local politics matter and it matters that you show up. Your vote goes a lot further in these elections than presidentials. And although they are not sexy, they are very critical to your life. So go vote and bring a friend if you can. Now let's discuss last minute polling and early voting numbers to see how the election is really shaking up. Okay. First with New York City. I know a lot of people are like, New York, who cares? They're all going to hell in a hand basket. I get that sentiment. I understand, but it is the biggest city in America, so we should cover it. Now, remember when I said a week ago that the electorate was very old? That has changed quite a bit. Voters between the ages of 18 to 29 have already blown past their 2021 turnout numbers. That's the single largest group by raw votes is actually voters between the age of 30 to 39, presumably to vote for Mandani. That's what everyone is sitting there and saying. That's what the poll says. It's what the data says. Fuomo, in order hold this upset victory that he's looking to do, he really needs middle age and older voters to show up. Young people are coming out in New York to a higher degree than any other place in the country. Right now, 732,000 people have voted early. Now, remember the last mayoral election back in 2021 only had 1.1 million votes throughout the whole election. So we're going to easily blow past that number. We may get as high as 2.5 million votes probably though 2.2, 2.3 million is pretty safe to say. It is going to be the largest mayoral turnout by percentage of registered voters since Giuliani in 1993, but likely by raw numbers, the highest mayoral turnout ever. A lot of areas that Mandani is going to win by Saddam Hussein numbers. And I'm not making a joke by referencing to two Muslims with fairly, fairly strong beliefs in, in authoritarianism, but the areas that he's going to win by Saddam Hussein margins have already had a pretty big turnout. I started looking at some precinct data and I'm going to venture to guess some of those areas already have a majority of their votes in. Not all of them, but a lot of them. For Cuomo to really pull off this upset, he needs more outer borough and further away from Manhattan to show up older voters, black voters. The Bronx Bronx has not been voting very high and he needs Republicans. Republicans are voting about even with Democrats as percentage of turnout goes. But he's going to need Republicans to kick it up a notch because he's going to win a large percentage of the Republican vote. Otherwise, Mandani is not only going to win, he's going to win an outright majority, which is problematic. It's a big question of is there a cap on socialism? Is there a cap of oh, okay, they can win Democratic primaries and super safe democratic districts like AOCs, but can they win a competitive election against a moderate Democrat in a general where Republicans and independents vote? That's what's on the table in this election. Now let's go to Virginia, which once again they don't vote by party, really annoys me. So we can say X number of Republicans voted or X number of Democrats voted. We can only judge based upon polling and where the voters are coming from. About 1.4 million people have voted early in Virginia between in person voting and mail in voting. That's a large amount. And analysts who are really special specialized in Virginia, they don't believe we're going to hit the 2021 turnout numbers, which was about 3.3 million. Republicans are struggling in the southwest rural part of the state coal country that is very Republican while Democrats are really having a problem in the black majority areas around Hampton Roads. That's not going to equalize each other out, but Republicans really need to out of southwest Virginia specifically really need to kick it up a notch on election day. Data from L2, which is a data company, not my favorite in the world, but they do produce this publicly, so it's easy to find this information. They say that this electorate is overwhelmingly older, whiter and more female than elections have been in the past, which is really funny because 20 years ago that would have said it was a Republican victory. Now it's a Democratic victory. Turnout has been especially strong in the Richmond area, Richmond and Richmond suburbs, with some Republican counties coming out at the very strongest as far as the turnout goes. And the very weakest, there'll be a few Republican counties that will have larger vote totals than they did in 2021. According to the New York Times. When you estimate for how many people have voted in the past, like in early voting this election cycle and you guesstimate where their voting intentions would be, it's about 58% Democrat, 42% Republican, which is around where it was in 2024 when Trump lost the state by 6 points. Republicans really can. Republicans were in the same position back in 2021, but they had such explosive turnout on election Day that Glenn Youngkin was able to sit there, win and then carry the entire ticket. Now there have been two recent polls that I want to bring to listeners attention. One is by Atlas Intel. It is the most accurate pollster in the last presidential election. In 2024 it was also the most accurate pollster interestingly enough, in the midterm elections in Argentina. They have a very, very good track record. They said Democrat Abigail Spamberger is leading by nine points for the race for governor. Democrat Gazala Hashmi is leading in the race for lieutenant governor by six points and Republican Jason Miares is leading the race for attorney general by one point. The other pollster I want to bring everyone's attention is Emerson. Now they don't have a perfect track record, but when they're on, they are like on. They said that the Democrats are winning by a larger margin which would carry Democrat Jay Jones, the very controversial Democrat running for attorney general, over the finish line by two points. And Spamberger is leading by 11 points over Republican Winston Sears. I personally don't believe that there's a path for wins and Sears to win. But let me tell you why it's so important that she does well. If this race is in the single digits for governor, Republicans will likely carry over the finish line for attorney General. That will give the Republicans one critical win. If Sears loses by a double digit margin, it will be too large for Jason Miarez to overcome and that will really suffer for Republicans all throughout the ticket. That's why you're seeing Republicans spending last minute money for for winsome Sears. It's to close the gap in this election. Let's go to New Jersey. Last but not least in New Jersey. First, let's start off with the new voter registration data which just came out on Monday. In the month of October, Republicans added 3,100 new registered voters to their. To the overall voter rolls. Right. Which was twice as many as the Democrats added. That shows voter enthusiasm. Independents added 18,000 new voters. That means since the 21 election, there are 167,000 new Republicans that weren't there in 2021. 50,000 fewer Democrats and 52,000 fewer independents. Now remember, Democrats still hold a voter registration advantage of 850,000, but there's a lot more Republicans that had never had the chance to vote for chitterelli back in 2021. There are 1.334 million people who have voted so far early in this election in New Jersey, with 51% of them being Democrats, 29% being Republicans, and 20% being independents. Chittarelli is going to need Republicans to come out in full force because Democrats have a 289,000 voter advantage in the firewall. They basically already banked 289,552, to be exact, 289,000 more votes than Republicans did. Which is why I always say vote early. I know you might love voting on election day, but this is the game and you can't hate, you know, don't hate the game, hate the player. This is, you know, this is what's critical. They, they have slightly more people. Democrats already cast ballots in this election than they did in the 2020 election. 2021 election. In 2021, they had 276,000. This election they have 289,000. And CH lost by 80,000 last time. These new 160,000 Republicans who may just. They're slow to the process, they don't really vote early. They need to come out because that will be what will save Chitterelli if he has a chance. The only bright spot in the early vote for Chitterelli is that minorities are really not showing up in big numbers in the early vote. Precincts that are a majority white have shown about 30% of all those voters in majority white districts who are Democrats have shown up. So they have percent voter turnout. Democrats do a majority white precincts versus 22% for white Republicans or Republicans in white precincts. I would rather say so majority white precincts, 30% turnout for Democrats among Asians, it's 26%, which is perfectly respectable. Right. That's the Democrat turnout in Asia majority precincts. Among Latinos and blacks, it's much lower. It's only 14% of the of Democrat turnout in Latino majority precincts and only 11% in black majority precincts. Black voters are the most loyal voters. The Democratic party. They're going to win about 90% of those votes, maybe 85%, but it's going to be very, very high. So if that turnout is low and remains low on election day, that's problematic for Mikey Sheryl. Mikey Sheryl is going to want minorities to sit there and pick up and go vote on election day because they have not voted early. So this is really where the race stands. The New Jersey legislature, Republicans may gain or lose a few seats. The Governor's Mansion. Mikey Sherrill has a bit of a, has a lead. But it's not impossible for Cittarelli to pull this out. The attorney general race in Virginia is a complete jump ball. Republicans can win it, Democrats can win it. It just depends on how winsome Sears does in Virginia. Even though she's likely to lose, she's got to do better than, than 10 points. She's got to lose by seven points, eight points, six points. And that will guarantee Jason Miaras a win. Now, now that we've discussed all of this, right, I don't, I don't want to harp the whole entire show on just the election because go vote, go vote. Go vote, go vote. I can't emphasize enough. Go call a friend, go vote. That's all we can really do at this point. Just vote. I want to talk about the future, namely the future of the Democratic Party because something flew under the radar last week that not many people in the media paid attention to but is fascinating and that is the Democrats released an official autopsy of the 2024 election and what went wrong and why they lost, why they're losing key constituencies and what they have to do to win in 2026, 2028 and beyond. The results are fascinating and I want to discuss them. We'll be back with that next.
- [14:15]
A
Run a business and not thinking about radio. Think again because more people are listening to the radio and iHeart today than they were 20 years ago. And only iHeart broadcast radio connect Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. And that reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for your business. Radio's here now more than ever and iheart's leading the way. Think radio can help your business. Think iheart streaming, podcasting and radio where the reach is real. Let us show you@iheartadvertising.com that's iheartadvertising.com or call 844-844 iheart one more time. Just call 844-844, iheart and get radio working for you.
- [15:16]
B
Now. Almost everyone, with the exception of the most delusional left wing partisans, knew that the 2024 election could be closed and the really thought they were going to squeak out a victory. They thought that the Rust Belt would stay blue, that Georgia might break their way, so would Nevada. They were very hopeful, especially in the media. They kind of pretended this was, you know, going to make history and they pretended it was really in the bag. I guess that's what they need to do. But a Proper autopsy, published by Simon Balazan, Lauren Harper Pope and Liam Kerr discuss really went wrong to the Democratic Party and the report is fascinating. I need to discuss this with you. The autopsy. It's called Deciding to Win and here's what it states to give ourselves they're talking as Democrats. To give ourselves the best chance to win, we recommend the following approach. Democrats need to one, focus on our policy agenda and our messaging on an economic program centered around lowering costs, growing the economy, creating jobs, and expanding the social safety net. Advocate for popular economic policies like expanding prescription drug price negotiations rather than unpopular ones like student loan forgiveness. Convince voters that we share their priorities and focus on issues that voters actually care about and prioritize them high enough and focus less on issues like climate change, democracy and abortion. You need to moderate our positions when our agenda is unpopular, including on issues like immigration, public safety, energy production and identity issues. And lastly, embrace a substantive and rhetorical critique of the outsized political and economic influence of lobbyists, corporations and the ultra wealthy. Okay, this is I agree with almost everything I said there and said. That's their recommendations. I think that they're completely spot on. But let me dive deeper in what they present. First, voters think the Democratic Party is an extremist party and they believe the Republican Party is increasing a moderate one because Trump moderated the Republican Party. And let me explain because that is completely counterintuitive to everything you've heard in the media since 2012. Since Obama's reelection, Democratic members of Congress have increasingly supported left wing legislation. There's a 99% increase in the Equality Act, 56% increase in the number of members supporting studies on reparations 47% increase in the number supporting assault weapons bans 40% increase in the Green New Deal, 40% increase in free childcare. The party is moving to the far left in Congress and it's true the party is becoming more liberal, but it's more importantly perceived as more Liberal. Back in 2012, public polls show that 45% of the public said that the Democratic Party was too liberal. That number has increased to 55% today. Now the Republican Party started out in the same amount. 47% said the Republican Party was too conservative. That number right before Trump's election has declined to 44%. I know that may not seem like a big difference. Right. But it shows trends. A majority saw the Democratic Party as the more liberal one with a declining minority saying the Republican Party was too conservative. Trump moderated the party. Right. And I want to first discuss what do you think when you hear the word moderate political moderate. Right. You probably think of Susan Collins or, or Joe Manchin or someone who basically is a member of the establishment of their party that breaks with them once in a while on big issues like they support border security but amnesty for illegal aliens if they're a Republican or they support Obamacare but not Medicare for all if they're a democr. That is not what a moderate is. In 2014 there was a study by the University of California at Berkeley and they looked at what political beliefs of moderates, what are the political beliefs of moderates? And it found that moderates rarely take a middle of the road position. Moderates are very inconsistent, but they hold on to quote unquote, extreme ideological positions. That's their wording, not mine. During a 134 question survey they found that self described moderates took at least 1 extreme position 71% of the time when they asked about certain issues. Because back in 2014, so you know, issues were a little different. Moderates took left wing positions on contraception, education, marijuana, Medicare and Social Security. Very right wing positions on immigration and center right or right leaning issues on unions, the environment and abortion. Remember 2014, different laws. I don't think the abortion thing would be the same today, but that's what it was in 2014. Moderates do not take middle of the road positions on every issue. They pick and choose. You know, it's cafeteria, moderate moderation. It's, you know, I'll take this one, I'll take that one, but not this one. That's what Trump ran on. Remember he went to the right on immigration, this is in 2016. Right on immigration. Center on economics with tax cuts, tax cuts and tariffs. And then he went to the left on health care. Like he said, we're going to repeal Obamacare, but we're going to take care of everybody. He really didn't have a laissez faire free market. Paul Ryan approach to health care. That's important to remember. The Democrats just ran to the left, considerably to the left on every issue. It wasn't enough that Biden wanted taxpayer funding for funded health care for illegal aliens. Kamala wanted government funded trans surgeries for illegal aliens. Right? There was no, there was no stopgap. There was no endless move into the left. Democrats, this is according to their autopsy, focus increasingly on issues that very few people cared about except the far left and made them feel like they were out of touch with the American people. Issues like race, sex, sexual identity and DEI exploded in the usage of the DNC platform between 2012 and 2024, while words like economy, middle class, deficits, father's responsibility declined substantially. In 2013, 70% of voters of the Republican Party was out of touch and that fell to 65% by 2024. At the same time, the number of voters who said that Democrats were out of touch went from 51 to 70. When asked what voters want in the Democratic Party to prioritize, they said protecting Social Security and Medicare, lowering costs, creating jobs, making health care affordable. You know what they do not want them to focus on, according to the study? Protecting illegal aliens, raising taxes to spend on more social programs, fighting climate change and protecting LGBTQ rights. I'm going to say it's just transgender stuff, right? It's not gay marriage, it's transgender stuff. The party reflects the priorities right now of college educated, mostly white women, primarily. And guess you know which voters they gained. They gained college educated white women. They guess which voters they lost everyone else, but especially they lost moderates. Their support among Moderates declined by 11%. The report says, quote. As we have shifted our positions and our priorities, voters have increasingly come to see our party as too liberal, insufficiently focused on the economy, border security and crime, and overly focused on climate change, democracy, abortion, identity and culture. Defund the police, transitioning kids and the anti man rhetoric killed the Democratic Party before Kamala was ever the nominee. Making matters worse for the Democrats, as the report says, is that the Democratic staffers and donors, the people who often to the last word with elected officials before they take votes on critical issues, the ones who help draft policy, they are to the left of the average, not only of the average voter, but of the average Democrat. They are making the party more out of touch. They overwhelmingly come from demographics that are overly college educated, overly white, more female, less likely to attend church. This is part of the beast of the, of. Of the, of the, of the machine feeding the beast is these groups of people that the Democratic party is dependent on. This study found that Democrats who espoused very far left leads endorsed by Bernie Sanders, our Revolution or the Squad on average in The House races did 5% worse than the median Democrat while those endorsed by Blue dog Democrats about 5.6 better. Now the one thing I found super interesting about the report was that the Democrats supposed to Democrats if you listen to like psychotic leftist podcasts like I do just out of clear enjoyment and and because I have I have the need to harm myself like that. But if you listen to far left they always send the 2024 election. Don't worry, we have this ground game. The ground game. The ground game. We have this Kamala Harris ground game. The study found that the ground game had absolutely no effect in helping Kamala Harris. It says these two points. Academic research shows the field programs like canvassing and phone banking have minimal impact on changing voters minds and small impacts on increasing voter turnout. Ultimately, there is little evidence to suggest that our party will be able to overcome its problems by knocking on more doors. It cannot persuade voters with our policy agenda and our message. We are unlikely to be able to win via our quote unquote ground game. Ultimately this is the second point. Ultimately, persuasion and turnout go together. Voters across the political spectrum and across demographic lines want Democrats to focus on cost of living and the best messaging. And the most popular policies which tend to focus on kitchen table economic issues appeal to the voters of all kinds, including both swing state voters and sporadic voters. They also state that there is a liberal bias in polling when the polls are asking about policies. So you can't even trust the polling when they say issues on immigration or issues on abortion. There's a liberal bias which substantially overstates support for liberals. This is the Democratic autopsy saying this. This is not Ryan Gradusky. Overall, voters trust Republicans more on border security, immigration, crime, the budget, inflation and international trade. Most trusted issues for Democrats are LGBT rights, the environment and climate change. Issues that so few people rank in their top three that you could fit them all at a booth at Arch. That's what they care about. This is. And they. Excuse me, they asked the most popular Democratic policies by net support by the American public. I'm going to run down a quick list. This is the top 10 most popular Democratic policies. Expanding prescription drug negotiations beyond Medicare. Banning congressional stock trading. Expanding Medicare prescription drug prices from 10 to 25 drugs. Expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing. Prevent any cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Expand mental health programs for veterans. Increase Social Security benefits for Low income seniors, raise the minimum wage $12 an hour, crack down on a state tax evasion and protecting interstate abortion access. These are the least popular issues. Abolish the police, abolish prisons, provide free health care to illegal aliens, lowering voter age to 16, cutting the police budgets, getting rid of, getting rid of tracking in public schools, increasing refugees emissions, restoring affirmative action in college, abolishing the death penalty, increasing taxes by 3% on Americans making more than $75,000 increased. That's all I heard from Kamala Harris. All I heard from mainstream. All you hear from mainstream Democrats on their podcasts and on their television shows are the 10 unpopular issues. I mean, how much more did Rachel Maddow talk about, you know, abolishing the police or lowering the voting agent? She did about, I don't know, expanding Medicare to cover dental. It was not even close. They are completely out of touch from what the voters actually want to. Now, I know you're probably saying, well, what are the most popular Republican issues? I'm going to go over it just briefly because I know you're probably curious. The most popular Republican policies, according to the Democratic Autopsy are, number one, designating cartels as terrorist organizations, prohibiting transgender women from competing in women's sports, eliminating taxes on Social Security, cut taxes by 3% on Americans making less than $100,000 a year, requiring ID to vote, banning gender affirming care for minors, lowering the gas tax by 10% cents per gallon, increasing police funding, imposing work requirements on Medicaid and ending all government benefits for illegal aliens. Huh. Things I hear Republicans talk about, I don't know, every 45 seconds. What are the most unpopular Republican policies? Banning birth control. Something that no Republican talks about. Launching a national Trump branded cryptocurrency. I mean, I also very rarely hear that. Ban IVF. Republicans don't support that. In large, extend the Trump 2017 tax cut to high earners. I've said this to congressional Republicans before. Raising the retirement age, cutting Social Security and Medicare to eliminate fraud. Take, take my Preston off the market. I never heard that that was an issue. Prohibit shipment of abortion inducing drugs, cancel Biden's AI regulation, something that I probably agree with them, and leave NATO. Democrats don't just have a perception problem. They have a polling problem. They have a staffing problem. They have a party base problem. They're not in good position to address those issues in time for 2028. And the best, I mean, I don't wish this, but the best that the Democrats could hope for at this point is that the economy crashes because their base, their donors, their staffers are incredibly out of touch. And any Democrat trying to back off of their issues is suffering a primary challenge. Next up on this podcast is Ask Me Anything. Stay tuned.
- [28:45]
A
Run a business and not thinking about radio. Think again because more people are listening to the radio and iHeart today than they were 20 years ago. And only iHeart broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. And that reach means every everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for your business. Radio's here now more than ever, and iheart's leading the way. Think radio can help your business. Think iheart streaming, podcasting and radio where the reach is real. Let us show you at iheart advertising that that's iheartadvertising.com or call 844-844 iheart one more time. Just call 844-844, iheart and get radio working for you.
- [29:47]
B
Now it's time for the Ask Me Anything segment. If you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me ryanumbersgame podcast.com Guys, I love your questions. It really makes the show special. You know, I, I like to hear from what you're thinking, what your concerns questions are. And there's no topic off issues. I mean there are probably some, but there's likely no topics off issues. Keep it clean. Okay? This question comes from Joel. He says, what's your take on Christian nationalism as a label? Is it worth salvaging, redefining, or should we just retire it all together? To me it's one of those if by whiskey terms when I say I want a nation shaped by Christian moral values, faith, family, humility, courage, justice. I get accused of theocracy, but when left is called for state fund immorality projects to or enforce DEI through federal brands is treated as neutral. We are past due for an honest framework. Okay, great question. And first of all, I want to say that I read the document you sent me and it was very interesting, but I'm not going to go through it on the show. The term Christian nationalism is very interesting to me because it's mentioned in the media a lot, but I don't really know what it means and I'm not trying to be cute. I really don't know what it means. I looked it up and basically it infuses the identity of being a Christian with that of Being an American and that we are founded by Christian ideas and principles and according to Grok, Christian nationalist want to use the Bible as a blueprint for America and in policies want certain Christian principles to reflect the law. Okay, I'm going to work with that concept because I don't know a better one. It's not like somebody has written like the clear definition. It's like the 1619 Project. It's kind of hard to follow. First of all, I don't think using the Bible as a blueprint works. Mostly because all Christians don't follow the same Bible. We don't interpret the Bible the same way. We'd all don't, you know, pick and choose which parts of the Bible we want to follow. Is Christian nationalism going to forbid the eating of shellfish or slavery or child marriage or all some stuff that's in the Bible? I'm not putting down the Bible, I'm not putting out Christianity. But that it's very difficult to create a law on the land based upon a book written in dead languages several thousand years ago. Do you understand what I'm saying? It gets very confusing and I don't know how it deals with other issues like AI or other issues like voting intentions or other issues like immigration. The Bible doesn't address every issue we're facing in 2025America. And there's things in the Bible as fairly antiquated now that we wouldn't want. And I don't say that Jesus Christ espouses beliefs, but I'm saying that there are in certain Old Testament parts of those things. Now my opinion on faith is that. And I've talked a little bit about it, but not a lot. I might do a Christmas episode talking about faith, but. But my opinion on faith is that it is a journey, it is not a guilt trip. And we cannot and we can have certain morals that we carry out by the state. We already do. Right. Children, for example, do not have the same rights as adults and rightfully so. We kind of have arbitrary ages that we made up that 16, 18 and 21 views you as being a partial and then full adult and like I guess a adult plus, you know, 21, you get to do all the full things. And we have laws over polygamy, for example. We have our own morals in part of the law. And I think think given where we are as a society today, it is very difficult to make that universal. And I'm a great believer in self determination. I believe what as conservatives we could really hope for is we can look, have A government that allows Christian communities to do things like school prayer, like public celebration of Christian holidays, like certain types of things and types of laws that really reflect their morals and their standards. And we don't make, you know, New York City do them or San Francisco do them. But if a part of the heartland or part of the south wanted to do that, I think that they should have every right to do it. I think that that should be completely fine, that they have self determination in many different aspects. I think the problem, a lot of our Supreme Court decisions is that they made rules for the whole country that don't reflect the entire country and that a democratic process would be a lot better, you know, addressing things like school prayer, for example. Now, anyway, as far as creating a Christian nationalism, I don't think it's very inclusive. I think it's very exclusionary, especially when you want such a big tent. There are a lot of people of different faiths and of no faiths who are similar travels to us politically and have our overall moral compass. And we shouldn't sit there and excise them because they feel conflicted over not being Christians. Right. Sir Roger Scruton, one of the great philosophers of recent time who passed away a few years ago, he wrote so eloquently about Western civilization and the beauty of Catholic churches and the beauty of Christian morals. But he was an atheist and he died an atheist. He lived as an atheist. Now he was an atheist and he was British. Right. But if he wanted to live in America, would he be excluded because he's not Christian? Because he would have been an asset? He would have followed and believed in what we believe in. And I think that that is, I think the need for a kind of moral compass that encompass conservative conservatives is very important. But maybe the term Christian nationalism is not the one. I, I looked up some polling and between only 5% of Americans identify with that term and support that term. And even though much larger Americans agree with the policies that they may agree with, like a majority of Americans believe in school prayer, for example. Right. So I would say focus on the policy goals, not on the term. I don't think it's how you're going to advance any of your causes. I think when it comes to policies, things should be tangible, easy to understand, and they should try to create a more prosperous, ordered and safe society. So that's my thoughts on it. Anyway, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you like this podcast, please now subscribe on YouTube and like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, I will see you guys for our post election analysis on Thursday. Go vote. Wishing the holidays could come early. If you own or manage your business, they can. With help from iHeartradio. People are already shopping for their loved ones and hunting for for deals wherever they can find them. Including right here.
- [35:49]
A
They're listening to the radio.
- [35:51]
B
They're listening to podcasts. They could be listening to you. Don't wait for everyone else to kick off the holidays. Get your best season of the year.
- [35:59]
A
Up and running today.
- [36:01]
B
Call 844-844-IHEART or visit iheartadvertising.com.
- [36:08]
A
This is an iheart podcast.