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I'm Jason Gander. And this is majority 54.

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The podcast that helps Americans who voted for progress, convinced those who didn't to join our majority.

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Today, we're talking to some majority 54 listeners and their family about their political concerns as we gear up for 2022 and another election year.

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So first, we're going to talk with Megan, who you might remember from our Thanksgiving episode, we're going to see how her Thanksgiving with her family went.

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And then we've actually got Megan's mom, Liz joining us as well.

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Now, if you remember, Liz is one of those coveted swing voters in the Midwest.

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She voted for the Democrats in the 2020 election, but she has not been a lifelong Democrat.

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And it sounds like Liz has been able to make some meaningful inroads with her Trump supporting husband.

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So we're going to talk to Liz and Megan about how they try to break through to him and what Liz is looking for politically, as we head into 2022, Meg, welcome back.

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And I keep calling you Meg. Your name is Megan.

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I do that. It's a bad habit. I have.

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I thought it was endearing. I call her Maggie.

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My mom is here.

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That voice, that voice y'all just heard is Megan's mom or Maggie's mom for the people listening.

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What we're seeing on the zoom here is, is adorable.

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It's Liz and Meg, you know, huddle then at the, at the camera, at the mic using the same pair of courted earbuds, you know, sharing them.

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So anyway, just so when people hear this, they, they know what we're seeing and it paints a picture.

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All right. So Thanksgiving dinner, how'd it go?

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I would say it was like 80% fine, but I did write down some really good stuff for you guys because there was some really like things.

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We, we talked so much about preparing for things and then none of that actually came up and it was so bizarre.

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The actual stuff that came up.

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Yeah. Before you go even let's for those who didn't listen to the episode or whatever let's review, I think we, we talked with you about, you wanted to prepare for like, stuff about Kyle Rittenhouse stuff about guns.

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What Else?

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Aaron Rogers. And like the vaccine.

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Okay. So, so a lot of topical stuff at that moment, so, okay.

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So now w what, what, So,

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unfortunately it was a lot of race, which yikes.

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And not a lot of discussion, just a lot of like, really aggressive, like one-offs about race.

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Unfortunately, most of them came from my father.

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So there was a comment about how being proud to be white is no longer acceptable.

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I don't know if you heard that that was early there.

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Also, my uncle went off on this tangent about the Bible and how at the end of the world, apparently at the end of the Bible, there's two races and it's white people and yellow people, and that it's going to be us Russia, China, and North Korea.

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And they started talking about how we're so indebted to China, that we're all just going to become communists.

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There was a conversation about communism.

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I don't know. It got really convoluted about like creating things and then like, and then we're all just going to be communists.

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I was like, whoa, Well,

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Maggie, when, when somebody says, when somebody says something like that, the proud to be white thing, like, like, is that a showstopper?

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Or do people just kind of ignore it and move on?

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Like, Oh, that was like, just like, while my dad was carving the Turkey and I was like, yeah, Yeah,

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I see. Yeah.

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And remind me, what's your, what's your background other than white?

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Like, are you guys I Irish I'm

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half Irish. Yeah. And my dad's side is Scottish and English and French.

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So Really, really white, But

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like, it's rare. I mean, I hadn't heard it until recently.

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I mean, obviously like a hundred years ago, 50 years ago, this would be more common to say proud to be white, but like, I think like, correct me if I'm wrong.

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Like, I would hear a lot more proud to be Irish.

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Like my family's Polish on my mom's side, people were proud to be Polish.

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I feel like that's generally more benign right than, than white.

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Like I would, I would challenge somebody to be like, what is it about the whiteness that people need to be proud about?

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You know? So how did, how Maggie, how, how did you react to either that or anything else?

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Like what strategy did you choose? I

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think I just said something like, yeah, like there's not enough white pride in this country.

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We're really, really short on that.

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You know, something like sarcastic and just moved on because these are like drops in the bucket.

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Like they happen constantly. So it's like, I was to make a big deal out of it.

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Like it would have blown up. Did

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you feel like, cause we kind of talked and we're going to get Liz we're coming to you in a second.

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We talked a little bit about how you sort of felt like they were going to bait.

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You w was there and like you, you were going to have to choose what, whether to take the bait.

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Did you feel like that's what was happening?

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I just felt like it was happening around me and they didn't care that I was there, which honestly was a little bit nicer.

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I just, there was a point where I was sitting in the living room and it was all of my uncles, like all my male relatives after dinner and they were watching football and that's when all the race stuff started coming up with my dad too.

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And I just sat and took notes on my phone.

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Cause I was like, I'm not going to engage in this there's way too many white men sitting in a circle right now.

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But I need to at least write it down.

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Cause it was very strange.

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So. Okay. So that brings us to one of the ways we sort of close out our conversation with you, for your, our coaching of you for Thanksgiving dinner was we talked about thinking of your mom, like the jury, like rather than trying to persuade your dad and your uncles and such that, you know, your mom is this person as you described her.

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And I'm describing her now while she sits here, who I think thinks of herself as Switzerland.

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Right. And it's sort of in the middle, but you felt had, you had persuaded her to vote in the past for the Democrat sheet.

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She's the, who persuaded your dad to get vaccinated.

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So you were going to approach this like, okay, I'm just going to engage these people as if the jury is my mom.

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So Liz, how, how did you come out of all this?

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What are your impressions? Thanksgiving?

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Wasn't horrible with the family.

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Again, I was doing a lot of the cooking.

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It's the more for me the day to day with her father.

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She lives with him. So eating is a really good word because that is what he tries to do with almost every conversation I kind of at Kim on then.

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And I don't know if he knows I'm doing it, but I go the opposite of whatever he's saying just to get them ticked off because he's so, Oh,

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there give us an example. Yeah. Like I want to hear, I want to hear about this.

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I'll tell him what happened last night, last night, where we're just sitting together and this hardly ever happens that we just sit together and watch TV.

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And we were just watching, I don't know, wheel of fortune or something.

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And he started saying, do you know how much the Americans are in debt from last year to, you know how much?

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And I said, what are you talking about?

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Like fully knowing what he's like I said, are you talking about Christmas?

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What are you talking about? He said, no, no.

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In general $3,500 this year, people are spending more this year than they did last year.

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And it's all because of the person you voted for.

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That's how he says it. And I got mine and I didn't vote for him.

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It was you who voted for him? You know?

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I never admit to him what, and for a long time, I never admitted to me because being Switzerland, right.

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You used to admit to your husband that you voted for Joe Biden.

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You don't, you won't give him the satisfaction.

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Exactly. No, actually she told me she plugged her ears.

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Oh yeah. At one point he kept going on and I was watching TV and I kind of plugged my ears and he goes, did you hear me?

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And I said, no, I wasn't listening. And he knows I'll do that because he's just too much.

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And so, so he wants people to spend less money.

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Yeah. That doesn't even make sense that everything in the economy is costing all like inflation.

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Yes. Because the man I bought it for, it's always the man, It's

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a trap. It's a trap. You know? Cause if, if enough people spend less, it's a called a depression or a recession.

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And if they spend too much as inflation, so it's a clever little, And

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that's what he's hoping to get. He, he loves to get the conversation going.

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I, and I work with them too.

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When I get there and we sit and have lunch together, he'll start in on something.

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And I finally have to say enough, I'm not doing this with you.

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I told you, I'm not talking about this.

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You know, because he'll just go off on any and every subject.

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But You haven't always been from my impression from talking to Maggie, like your, your dynamic with him.

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It's not always been that you've been polar opposites politically.

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Right? I mean, at some point you, you made a different path and he, so did you stay in the same place and he went off or did you changes what happened there?

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Oh, it's a little bit of both to me.

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I vote for the person and I don't see all, you know, Republican Democrat.

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That's Jim is totally all Republican and now he's all Trump like it totally.

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180 8. Yeah, it did.

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And I, what I want to know is you guys tell me what happened to the Republicans when Trump took office, because my husband is so out there and anything that I say about, Trump's saying, how can you say that?

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He, he said so many things, well, prove me wrong.

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Tell me what, what did he say? What did he say? I

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don't know that we have that answer. I feel like, I feel like we're more interested in why you didn't follow him down that road.

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And it sounds like your daughter has a little to do with that.

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So for people listening to take this with them, if you can point to things that she said, or, you know, persuasive things that she brought up over the years, that kind of made sure that you were that Wisconsin voter, that didn't cause there's frankly, I mean, you could argue, Wisconsin has come down to women in the suburbs who either did or did not go down that Trump path with their spouse.

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Yeah. You're having a lot of friends that, you know, stayed and are totally with Trump.

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And I can't do that.

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I just can't because did I persuade you at any point?

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Oh yeah. She would constantly say, mom, you can't, you can't believe the stuff.

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You can't go along with this.

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And again, I don't want to make a big deal out of either way because I get in trouble.

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I get in the middle of arguments and I didn't want to do that.

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You know, I don't want to egg either one on, but all along, I would say, how can you, how can you go along with this, Jim, listen to the man.

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He's a moron. And he, well, I shouldn't do that, but that's the next step.

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So, so it sounds like maybe one of the things that make did that was helpful was rather than try and engage the both of you all the time.

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It sounds like she, at some point early on recognized, okay, dad is maybe too far gone politically and I'm going to work mom when dad's not around.

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I mean, there was a lot of, I feel like time and the buildup to 2020, especially with COVID and stuff.

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And dad being so adamant about, I mean, he was very much on the, my camp of like, this virus was manufactured to take out Donald Trump.

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Yeah. Oh. So I think that hearing him say that like being a reasonable person, knowing that did not happen.

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And in fact, we did not manufacture a disease to simply take out your candidate.

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I think that COVID kind of probably turn used to some of that too.

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Oh yeah. COVID changed a lot of things.

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It did. And you know, you try to say now Jim is like, well, Trump is the one who got the bags, you know, like he's taking total credit for it.

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The vaccine he wouldn't get. Well,

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let's, let's talk about that because Liz, you convince your husband to get the vaccine.

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And there's a lot of people listening that are like, how did you do that?

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Well, there's a few reasons. One of our neighbors, who's a very nice person, very strong Republican.

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He Was at the January 6th insurrection, if that can Repeat.

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Thanks. Yep. So That's where we're at.

12:12

Yeah. He and his family and his Family,

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His daughter, his Wife, his kids, his kids And

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yarn was constant. That's not a short trip.

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Oh no. He went out there. So that's Where

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we live. He got COVID and I happened to hear it through one of my good friends.

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Who's the neighbor down at the end of the block that he had COVID and then he was in the hospital and he was on oxygen and he had a blood clot and I kept telling him, you have got to get the vaccine because we own our own business.

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And I said, if you go down, it's our livelihood, the business camera.

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And we won't have any money.

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You can't do this to us.

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You will ruin us if you get COVID.

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And, and Bob, The

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neighbor was in the hospital for three weeks.

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So, well, here's what I did on a Sunday night, I registered my husband for the vaccine at Walmart.

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And the next day at lunch, I said to him, I may do an appointment.

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You're going for the vaccine. And he said, no, I'm not.

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And I said, yeah, you are. We're going.

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I made it. And he said, all right, I'm not going.

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Unless you come with me. And I was like, okay, fine.

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If I have to hold your hand, I'll do that.

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And I did, I went with him and he got it.

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And afterward, he said, I'm really glad I got the shot.

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Thank you. And he said, but I don't want to tell anyone, including Me.

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He was like, don't tell Megan I got the shot.

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But Then he sees her two days later.

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And what does he do? He shows her the card with a big smile on his face.

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His daughter proud. Yeah. For like a moment.

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But then also he was Like,

13:41

don't give him too much The

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second, because he also then said, I don't know if I'm going to get this second shot.

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No, no, no, no. He said, I'll get the second check, but I am not getting any follow ups.

13:51

I am not. Okay. Do you remember when he threatened to, do you remember when he said I won't get the shot unless you admit that Donald Trump won the election?

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Well, that's just him egging her on, you know, he thinks he's fine.

14:02

I think what's interesting about your approach though.

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What people can take away from it is you didn't force him to, to admit he was wrong about anything you didn't force him to do.

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What a lot of it seems a lot of men don't want to do, which is reconcile with the idea that they might, they might be vulnerable to dying from it.

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All you did is you sort of worked to his protective instinct and you said, look, what if you get sick for a long period of time and you can't do the important, you know, head of household or whatever you want to call.

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I don't know if he is, but you know what I'm saying? Like you, you appeal to that stuff with the business and like appeal to like, we need you.

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And it sounds like that worked.

14:42

That's great. I

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have some advice on the egging on, cause I have some people in my life who've do this.

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There was this technique. When I was running schools, we call do not engage.

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And what it means is if a student is doing something to elicit a response from you, the proper way to react is to do not engage.

15:00

And we mean that in an extreme sense, which means like cold unemotional responses to things.

15:06

So like, if he's making a joke about something instead of rolling your eyes or whatever, not that that's necessarily what you're doing, but give him nothing, just change the subject.

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Pretend like it doesn't exist.

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And that generally speaking works, oh, You

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don't know my husband, Trust

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me. Like, I don't know him, but generally speaking, just the psychology of this is he's doing it because he's getting something from you.

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Like for sure he's getting something out of you that is pleasing to him.

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It works. It

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works on me. And he does that.

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That's what he does because he'll, we'll like argue and then, or like, I'll call him about something and then he'll like go into something.

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And then at the end he's like, okay, good talk, good talk.

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Like not good talk.

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What are you talking about? So maybe just like changing the subject, won't give him that like, and note satisfaction of like good talk.

15:56

That was really great debate. Like we didn't debate anything.

15:59

You just spewed nonsense from Facebook for 25 minutes.

16:03

I do Try that.

16:05

I don't like to bring out the ugly and people.

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And I try to tell my husband all the time.

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Why can't you just accept people for their opinion?

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Let it be, you know, respect them for what they think.

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You may not think that way, but just let it be the, I

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don't think there Was a lot of signs on the front lawn when Trump was first.

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Right? That, that was me. That was me being petty.

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What did he have? So he w when Trump first was running for office, I was just, I was moving home from New York city and out, I was in the house for maybe four months between moving out on my own and Milwaukee.

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And he had a big Trump sign in the lawn.

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And I put up a sign next to the Trump sign with an arrow that said only Jim pointed to it.

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Cause I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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I think that was me though. Like, I feel bad cause you're right.

16:57

Like, I, I

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think that's a little different, that's a little different than what I was advising before, because that's the reflects on you.

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Like if you're showing up to a house every single day has a Trump sign on it like that, you have to address that publicly.

17:11

You know, that's different.

17:14

That's like, that's the rest of the world.

17:16

Not just your private conversation. Yeah.

17:19

But now I was involved because all the neighbors thought I put the sign up and again, I didn't want anything to do with the General.

17:27

You also dragged into this one way or another.

17:30

So I put up, I remember the who's the radio up B 93, the radio show.

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They were goofing around and they had their own political sign.

17:39

The everybody sucks one.

17:40

No, it was there.

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Like they were running for office. And I put that.

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She thinks she's, she's trying to be Switzerland.

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Yeah. I just, As a joke, because then all the neighbors were like, oh, I love your sign was.

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And I said, that's Megan, that's Jim.

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You know? And again, I didn't tell anyone where I was A

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little slice of life here. So I go through this with my dad.

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But what, what does he love? Like if you were to distill it down, what does, what does he love about Trump?

18:07

What does he love? Well, he thinks his policies were all fantastic.

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And now that Biden was that he's destroyed.

18:15

It's more than signal, right? Like, so it's like the, the border, he doesn't think of it as a policy.

18:20

Right. He thinks of it as like, this is a guy who cares about this issue.

18:23

Right. And so it's like, even though he didn't really like, what did he do really about the wall?

18:29

Like, but I see this a lot.

18:31

It has nothing to do with, he actually accomplished. Right.

18:33

It's like the Muslim ban is, is like, they can't name exactly what the effect of that was.

18:38

But it was a statement that says this person is with me on this issue.

18:43

Right? Yeah. I think your question is what is it in the Trump movement that your dad feels, or your husband lives feels he sees his own identity in, and his own idea of himself.

18:56

He loves to think of himself as a deplorable.

18:58

Like he is that quintessential.

19:02

He feels under represented that like masculinity pole of like the, the white man who was never quite good enough.

19:13

Right. And now Donald Trump is speaking directly to him in middle America.

19:19

Right? Like it's like Trump says what he feels.

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And like, dad loves that.

19:24

Oh, he does. He does love, he loved that.

19:26

He would speak out and I hated it.

19:29

I said, it wasn't the role of the president to do what he was doing.

19:32

He loved that. He just ran his mouth. Cause he was like, he's saying what the rest of us are thinking.

19:35

But unfortunately, when you're like doing that, driving down the street of your call does Zack, like, it's just, it becomes really divisive.

19:44

Like yeah, Trump can do it on Twitter and on TV and whatever.

19:48

But when it happens in your own communities, it's really toxic.

19:51

It's really tough. So yeah, it gives him a story in which he can live in.

19:55

It makes sense. It makes sense. It's a story that makes sense to him.

19:57

A story of America and a story of his experience.

20:02

It's like, it's his story? You know, I'm

20:04

particularly interested in mom.

20:05

Like what I, you, you don't strike me as like a straight up loyal Democrat, nor should you be like, as you said, you are, you're somebody who kind of calls.

20:14

It likes you. You see you try, you try, do your best to try to evaluate the person.

20:18

As you look ahead to, you know, you have a big Senate race going on and then potentially you're going to be a battleground for the presidency in all likelihood.

20:26

What's on your mind about those races right now, to the extent there is anything on your mind about it.

20:33

Try to clear your mind of everything that you know, like my husband brings up every day.

20:36

I really just want someone.

20:39

I keep telling this to my husband.

20:41

I said, it's not Republican or Democrat.

20:43

Bring in a decent candidate, bring in someone that wants to work for the people, for, to bring people together for one.

20:52

Cause we're really seeing, you know, an issue with that.

20:55

And, and that's so much more since Trump was in office, has I said, look at what's happened to the country.

21:01

People are so pulled apart and it's all because of him, which he will never.

21:07

So You want someone who's going to unify people.

21:09

I do. I want someone that's going to unify people.

21:11

And of course you, you know, you want all the financial issues and you want healthcare and you want everyone to be supported.

21:18

But I, again, I just can't, it's gotta be someone well-rounded.

21:24

Do you like rotten? What about Ron Johnson? What do you think about him?

21:26

Oh, I Don't like franchise. You

21:29

heard it here first folks. But

21:31

I, you know, I keep my mouth shut about that.

21:34

We, we won't tell anyone, right. Or we won't tell anybody, listen, I was joking.

21:38

They're going to, they're going to hear it out here. You're

21:41

here. Here's their goal is going to, is not going to make you necessarily like Ron Johnson more.

21:45

It's going to get you to hate the other candidate more.

21:47

And so that's what you got to watch out for.

21:50

There's already lots of ads that are just about getting him out of office.

21:54

Not necessarily in support of Someone

21:57

else. Right. But we, I see those on TV.

22:00

Oh yeah. All the time. They're always saying how much his family, how much wealth is facing.

22:05

Yeah. Like that he's in it for himself. Does that influence you?

22:08

Do you like actually listen to those or do you not care?

22:12

I listened to those. You can't help, but you know, listen to them.

22:15

Well, look, I think, I think Ravi Knicks next year, when we have a nominee in Wisconsin, I think we're going to have to have them on with this crew and they can sit and they can just kind of talk to Liz in particular about, okay, what, what have I been doing that you've liked so they can replicate it.

22:33

Yeah. She's like the perfect. Yeah.

22:35

She really is that perfect person that they've been trying to target.

22:38

And that has maybe been a little like wishy-washy right.

22:42

Like you've gone back and forth political party wise candidate wise.

22:45

We don't need to call this Wishy-washy

22:50

it's The

22:52

process. Yeah. We're going to respect the process.

22:54

Right? We're not asking for a blood oath, you know?

22:57

Yeah. We just want, we want a conversation.

22:59

That's all we want. That's true.

23:02

Yeah. You want a conversation? You should talk.

23:06

Let's do it. I'm in, I mean, I think he would come and talk, but I honestly am like, like I'm scared for like our family's honors.

23:17

I'm telling you, Jim couldn't be worse than my dad.

23:19

My dad thinks Trump was a, he's a, he is the reincarnation of a Hindu God coming to save us all.

23:25

So yeah, But we haven't had any, it gets worse than that.

23:27

I tried as You know, I've tried because actually it doesn't pass our producers, but I am totally, don't give a fuck about like, whether, if I get that sorry for the language, but the like, I don't care.

23:39

My dad can speak for himself. He's a grown man.

23:41

He has no sh he has no shame about it.

23:44

So why should, we're Going to have to have your dad and Maggie's dad and, and I'm a dad, so I'm moderate.

23:51

So, all right. Well, this has been awesome.

23:54

Thank you for doing this.

23:56

Both of you. It's a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to this area.

24:00

Yeah, us too. This is super fun.

24:02

And if you've got any hot Wisconsin topics coming up, just, you know, remember us and our little slice, Lots

24:10

of correspondence for majority 54, been blessed.

24:13

So honored, bless you, your First

24:15

correspondence ever. So Thanks a Lot.

24:22

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24:26

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25:30

Hi, everybody. I wanted to tell you about a show from wonder media network that you're going to love.

25:33

If you're a parent and you're listening to this, and I say parenting during the pandemic, there's a certain set of feelings that come up in your body and in your brain.

25:41

And I know that for a fact, because I know how you feel.

25:44

That's why I think you're going to love this podcast in season two of white picket fence host and single mom, Julie Koehler asks, why does it have to be this way?

25:51

We hear from experts, activists, and parents, as they unpack the caregiving crisis in America and reveal why the conditions were set long before COVID-19 ever hit American shores.

26:00

Julia explores the myths about race, gender, families, and the economy that have gotten us to a point where so many parents and especially mothers are cracking.

26:07

She also looks at how the pandemic can serve as a political tipping point to build political will for an alternative economic approach.

26:14

One that puts caregiving at the center of our economy.

26:16

It's really easy to take our current system for granted and assume that it's just meant to be this way, but this show really opened my eyes to all the biases that led to America's caregiving policies.

26:25

We could be doing it better, and I can't recommend this showing up, listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

26:37

And next up, we're going to talk with another listener. Ethan, Ethan owns a brewery outside of Philadelphia.

26:41

Now Ethan is a lifelong democratic voter, but recent inaction by Democrats has him considering not voting at all.

26:48

So with that, let's hear from Ethan.

26:54

Ethan, thanks for doing this. Yeah, of course.

26:56

Thanks for Having me. You Bet. All right.

26:58

I'm just going to start with, I find, I find this whole thing fascinating because you are thinking about not voting at all, I think at all, or, or democratic, but you listen to this show like regularly enough that you left us a voicemail.

27:13

You have got your in.

27:15

If there there's like a Venn diagram of people who are like, I don't know if I'm going to vote, but listen regularly to a political podcast.

27:22

And the two circles meet in a tiny little spot and you you're in that spot.

27:27

So tell us about that.

27:29

What'd your, can we start there? Yeah,

27:31

I don't think I'm that unique.

27:33

I think that guys who talk about politics or are missing a large segment of the population by assuming that that's super unique, but I'm, I'm definitely not going to vote Republican.

27:45

And I think that my end result would be that I just didn't vote.

27:49

I'm deeply, deeply frustrated with the democratic party as a whole, and particularly the Biden administration, my big issue being I'm a business owner.

27:59

I own a small brewery out in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

28:02

And my biggest issue is all about the COVID eight, especially has to do with small business.

28:09

We've been asked, not only to make a tremendous amount of sacrifices that are especially acute for our industry, but we've also been deputized, you know, against our will as the law enforcement body of all the COVID regulations.

28:23

And we have gotten zero help from anybody.

28:28

And it is a deeply frustrating.

28:30

And I just don't know how I can justify voting for people that are through what I view is negligence.

28:37

I mean, literally Lu ruining my life and my colleagues lives and things like that.

28:43

It's a very difficult situation.

28:46

Yeah. I talked to a lot of people in this situation.

28:48

I come from Staten island, New York, which is, you know, if there's a culture of the island, it's small businesses or the sort of tie that binds everybody together and people have been really frustrated.

29:01

So perhaps we take a step back and can you walk us through just your experience from March, 2020 til now, where you've interacted with government and have not gotten what you needed and maybe give us a sense of what you, what would have been ideal and each of those steps?

29:18

Sure. So what started out, you know, the, the shutdowns happened and to be clear, we're not COVID deniers and stick man.

29:27

Like we're very much concerned about everybody's safety and we've done our absolute best to follow any COVID policy to keep people safe.

29:36

So in March, we were ordered to shut down very with some very strict regulations.

29:42

Nobody knew what was going on.

29:44

And then the first round of PPP was issued sometime I believe in the summer of 2020, some people were resentful of that.

29:54

I thought it was distributed relatively well.

29:55

We got our application in quickly. However, the restrictions on how to spend the money were very difficult.

30:00

So for example, I take all of my income from the business, but under the terms of the PPP, I'm not allowed to pay myself with the money as an owner, even though I'm one of the people doing the majority of the production work.

30:12

So for the first several months, that $600 a week, unemployment insurance did not apply to partners in an LLC.

30:19

So I was not allowed to pay myself with the PPP money and I wasn't allowed to get this unemployment health that everybody else was getting.

30:26

So I was just expected to make zero income and I'm not a rich person.

30:30

So that was maybe the most difficult financial time of my life.

30:33

Then they extended the 600 a week to partners and LLC sometime in like July, I believe, or June of that year.

30:41

And then the second round of PPP came out around the same time as the IDL loans.

30:47

Well, and just to be clear, so we're still in 2020, so we're still in democratic Congress, Republican white house at this point.

30:54

Right? Right. So the Eid comes out and that was the thing that helped us kind of get on our feet.

30:59

But to be clear, the IDL is a interest bearing loan.

31:03

So I found that kind of insulting that some other more wealthy industries were just bailed out.

31:09

And what we were offered at the toughest time of our business was an interest bearing loan that required payments almost immediately.

31:16

So we, we took the loan that payment has proven to be difficult to make as our businesses not come back.

31:23

Since that point, basically once the Biden ministration took over, there has been pretty much nothing on the RF fund.

31:32

The restaurant revitalization of fund was the only thing that was close, like storefront businesses that I'm aware of.

31:39

They ran out of money before even a third of the people who applied could be funded less than half of restaurants in the country were even able to apply.

31:47

They then expanded the amount of money you could take from the IDL, but also made the term substantially stricter.

31:55

So Picking up for where Biden takes office right now, you've got Biden in the white house and democratic control in Congress.

32:04

And I take it. You have democratic leadership locally.

32:08

Yeah. I mean, I live in Philadelphia, so, and all the places where the brewery locations are, it's all democratic.

32:12

So what Would you have liked done?

32:16

Well? So I literally anything, you know, I understand that they really want it to pass this infrastructure bill, but I don't really see how a bill that takes place over 20 years is more pressing than this.

32:28

I mean, the restaurant owners association reported yesterday that 86% of restaurant owners in the country are facing bankruptcy and 45% have missed, at least month's rent.

32:39

I mean, ideally the RF would have been replenished.

32:43

You need, we needed $46 billion, I believe.

32:46

Or $44 billion to just meet everybody who had applied after the money ran out, we need another 44 billion.

32:54

There's a hundred billion of unused COVID funds sitting in the SBA account like this second.

32:59

So what would I like to see done literally anything besides Stella us to, you know, just start From

33:07

my experience. I have been frequenting businesses as much or more once I was allowed to then other people.

33:14

But I suspect based on what you're saying, that when life was allowed to go back to some semblance of normal, that something still wasn't right about your, your business Or

33:28

just not coming out. So a lot of people express that they're going out more frequently than they were during COVID.

33:34

And some people feel like they're going out more often than not.

33:37

But the thought experiment, I always tell people is if you went to a restaurant that you really liked in 2019 at dinner time on a Saturday, you probably had to wait for a table.

33:47

And now you're probably getting seated right away, right.

33:50

People are going out and they're seeing crowds on Saturday at six o'clock, but I pay my rent on Saturday at six o'clock.

33:57

I put food on my table with the sales from Wednesday at three in the afternoon.

34:01

And those sales don't exist.

34:03

The sales everywhere down.

34:05

I mean, just for us right now, the entire company, I have three locations in the entire company on a weekly basis is grossing a smaller amount of money that each individual location did in 2019.

34:16

So you, you said something really interesting in your voicemail, which you, you acknowledged, you said, look, I've heard all the platitudes about how yeah.

34:25

The Democrats are in charge, but the Republicans are making it really difficult.

34:28

And there's more that the Democrats want to do.

34:30

And what you said was, but that doesn't matter.

34:32

That's just an excuse. And I think the example you used was you said, you know, if like, we're, we make beer, we get beer into bottles.

34:39

And if you know, if the beer doesn't get into the bottle, we're not interested in hearing about why it didn't get into the bottle.

34:44

We're just interested in getting beer into the bottle.

34:47

Yeah. So every day what I come into work today, I can do a batch of beer, right?

34:51

And today there was a problem with the canning line.

34:53

The reason that I am the person who's qualified to run the business is because every day I'm able to figure out how to make those things work so that the beer gets into the cans so that the customer can pay for his product.

35:04

A politician's job is to make important issues popular instead of going out and saying, this is why you should care about people and convincing them.

35:14

You just come up every day and whine about how hard your job is.

35:18

Well, then you're not very good at your job.

35:20

I don't really think that like saying every good thing that's happened is because the Democrats and the Biden administration and everything that can, every single bad thing, or every single thing that can't get done is because of these me Republicans.

35:31

It doesn't really, it's not a reasonable argument.

35:34

It's and it wouldn't fly in any other segment of American life.

35:38

Okay. So let me stick with your analogy for a second and just offer a slightly different way for you to think about it.

35:43

Because I would agree with you if the entire argument that they were making was we want to do these good things, but the Republicans won't let us, so therefore absolve us of responsibility.

35:49

Like, I wouldn't agree with that either, but it's sticking with your analogy of, you know, you gotta, you gotta fix the canning line.

35:56

You gotta, you know, you gotta fix the register, you get all those things, I suppose you might have at least a slightly different approach to it where you might acknowledge that it was a more difficult task.

36:06

If there was literally somebody from like another brewery who every day was in there and just like trying to smash things, right.

36:13

You wouldn't, when you wouldn't do is you wouldn't be like, so therefore we don't have to make beer today.

36:18

Right. Which I think is your point. But you would say, I probably am going to need to do something to not have all these people in here smashing this stuff.

36:25

Right. But that's an unfair analogy too.

36:28

Right? We have competitors. We have people we're up against to get beer on the shelves, But

36:32

they can't stop you from doing your job.

36:34

I'm not suggesting that therefore you should just vote democratic.

36:37

I'm actually suggesting something different.

36:39

Like you're sort of, I think understandably and a lot of people do this thinking of your vote as, as you're rendering a verdict on what's been done so far or offering a reward for behavior that you don't like, right.

36:50

And I'm saying maybe your vote isn't that maybe your vote is, I don't think they've done a very good job, but I think that if there were more of them, there'd be a greater chance I would get what I want.

37:02

I don't really agree with that. I mean, unfortunately, like I don't, I mean, I understand the argument, that's the way to, to make the pro case for what's going on.

37:10

But I, I view if you're voting for somebody you're, you're jumping on the team with them, right?

37:15

Like the reason that I am not a big fan of a lot of Republican politicians is because they're on the team with white supremacists, right?

37:23

So like, I don't want to be on that team too.

37:26

But like, if they hadn't accomplished anything, but they were out there saying, Hey, we have all this labor data, 86% of restaurants in the country, all these businesses that you care about are about to go bankrupt.

37:38

Guys. I know it's scary out there, but think about ordering and take out order from them instead of Chick-fil-A, you know, if they were out there promoting local businesses every day, if they were out there explaining the situation and telling consumers why the situation is bad, if they were actively trying to pass bills that were getting shut down, I wouldn't feel that way, but they're not doing that.

37:58

They have not been pushing this bill forward.

38:01

They have not been out there saying we care about small business.

38:04

All that I've seen is when people started talking about the labor shortage, which is a very real thing.

38:09

That's a complex issue. All that I've seen is Democrats from the progressive wing of the party, writing snarky things on Twitter, about people like me treating workers poorly.

38:20

And that's why the labor shortage exists.

38:22

That's the closest thing I've seen to acknowledging the issues.

38:26

Okay. So that was sort of my plan a to a, to convince you to vote democratic.

38:30

Anyway, I'm going to go to my plan. B would you sort of alluded to, before you do plan B Jason, is there, Do

38:35

you mind if I just introduce one idea here, which is a lot of what you're saying resonates with me, one person, I would want you to take a look at who's kind of an unconventional.

38:44

Democrat is Eric Adams.

38:46

The week after he was elected mayor of New York city, he went out clubbing and was asked about it and most politicians would apologize for it.

38:55

And he was like, look, we've got to get the city back to life.

38:57

So I think the signaling that you're talking about, there are democratic politicians out there who are doing it.

39:03

Cause what I'm hearing you saying is you want to hear people like if they can't do anything, which he can and we'll see if he does, you want them to validate your experience.

39:13

And one thing I want to, I want to suggest to you is that this could be true of Republicans too, but I'm just using him as an example.

39:18

There are people out there I'm seeing validating the experience and we'll see what they do about it.

39:22

Yeah. And if I, if I had the ability to vote for one of those people, I would.

39:25

But unfortunately the people that I have available to vote for is not Eric Adams.

39:30

There is one, one Senate candidate, John Fetterman that I would probably be excited to vote for, but he'd probably be the only guy who put on the ticket.

39:38

Well, that's good news, Jason. Okay. So we already know you're going to show up to vote for Fetterman.

39:42

That's good. And then the question is how do we get you to vote the rest of the ballot?

39:46

Let me ask you this.

39:47

You, you were saying that, you know, you've typically been like more of a liberal, for instance, you just said like you can't get down with the Republicans because of white supremacy.

39:56

I assume that you would, you know, within that, like talk about the voter suppression.

40:02

Like I imagine that's an issue that you've tracked closely.

40:05

Look, I guess my argument to you would be that all of us, when we ask people to vote on issues like white supremacy or voter suppression, or, you know, any of those issues that make us liberals, right?

40:19

What we're asking people to do often is to vote on issues despite the fact that they don't directly affect them.

40:25

So while your experience is, I think absolutely should be aired and that's what we're doing here.

40:30

But I would ask you to consider between now and the election, whether or not despite your legitimate grievance with the Democrats, whether you still feel that you have to go vote because these other issues are even bigger than your business.

40:44

If I saw action from Congress or the Biden administration that made me genuinely believe they were doing something other than lip service towards some of these issues that I would consider voting for them, it's the same kind of thing.

40:55

But you know, unfortunately on a lot of these issues, things that are really, you know, important to me like immigration, I mean, we saw what happened with Haitian migrants under an ice director that was supported by Biden.

41:07

I mean, you know, criminal justice reform and drug laws by to made a lot of promises and has made zero attempts to fulfill those promises.

41:14

It doesn't seem like he's as much intention to voting rights as well.

41:17

Like they had HR one, right when the Congress started under the Biden administration.

41:20

And then we went to do this infrastructure bill to prove that the Democrats are better than the Trump administration like between now and the election.

41:27

If people are taking meaningful actions on these issues, I'm certainly willing to reconsider my position.

41:33

You know, one question to you is like, so some of the things you mentioned pretend for a second, cause you've got this, this mansion cinema thing, which is hard to figure out in the Senate, right?

41:41

It's like you could have 48, totally well-intentioned people on voting rights, but you've got two people who are holding up the whole thing.

41:49

And so theoretically more of those 48 would get you a lot of what you're talking about, but let's put that aside for a second.

41:56

Let's talk about executive actions. So if you know, January 31st, the moratorium on student loans, debt payments is over, right?

42:05

So at the moment Biden has extended that moratorium.

42:08

So that's theoretically a good thing, but let's say if in January he announces through executive action, which he may have the power to do that he's forgiving certain chunk of student loan debt.

42:20

Let's say what his promise was, which was $10,000, which would, would completely wipe out the student loan debt of millions and millions of people.

42:26

Would that like start to get you back on track here.

42:30

If he vacated some of the nonviolent drug offenses that he promised to do that, you know, these people, the entire society is acknowledged that these people shouldn't be in jail.

42:38

And yet they're languishing in jail because Bible can't tell one of his many legal aids to draft an executive order for it.

42:44

Like it's, there's a million things that the Biden administration has the power to do that were they to do.

42:50

It would change my mind about them that they don't seem to have any intention to a Interestingly.

42:56

It also sounds like if they were to like fire the parliamentarian and just decide that they could go around the filibuster without mansion or cinema, that would also get you back in the voting booth.

43:06

I don't know. I don't know if that would, I mean, I want the meaningful action, but I want it like Republicans being awful only works for me as an excuse for so far.

43:15

So like I'm not a big fan of the filibuster as a general concept, but I don't think that just like blowing up all the Senate rules so that one party can just throw everything out every two years when things change.

43:27

Yep. But you see the catch 22 there in, right. Because you're saying don't blame it on mansion and cinema, but you're also saying don't do the thing that gets them around mansion, go Find

43:35

two Republicans who are reasonable to vote for something like That.

43:38

They're trying to do. I have, yes, they have 10.

43:41

They have, they have 10 Republicans and every Democrat on board for the small business bill and they haven't brought it to the floor and Biden hasn't said anything about it.

43:49

So like it's not always the On

43:51

voting rights, for example. I mean, they, they have gotten past 50 on that.

43:55

They just, the filibuster is the issue.

43:58

I mean, they, they they've publicly announced the numbers past 50 on that.

44:02

Yeah. If they got rid of the filibuster and did a bunch of this stuff, then yeah, it would change my mind dramatically.

44:06

But it doesn't, I guess it's unfair to blame the whole democratic party on mansion and cinema.

44:11

But again, it's like, if you're, if you're playing a team sport, you're judged by all, everybody on your team.

44:16

Yeah. All right. Well, this is going to be fun. I think we may be checking back with you cause let's see, you know, it's, we're in it's December.

44:24

We got 11 months to see what happens here.

44:28

I'm happy to talk to you Guys about, well, let's plug your business.

44:30

Tell us about your business before you go.

44:34

My business is Stickman bruise. We're based primarily in Royersford Pennsylvania.

44:38

We're a small brewery focusing on like lagers, farmhouse, beer and hoppy stuff.

44:43

We also have a restaurant in Chester Springs and the can shop in south Philly.

44:47

You can find us online and stick me in brews and like every format.

44:50

And we also have a false bottom spirits where we do locally made vodka and yet, And

44:54

can we order that anywhere in the country or we gotta be in PA to get your stuff PA, Delaware,

44:58

New Jersey. Okay. Sweet.

45:00

Thanks for doing this. Well, we really appreciate it, Ethan.

45:03

Thanks for engaging. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on guys.

45:05

I really appreciate it. All

45:11

right, Jason, two very different conversations.

45:13

I feel hopeful after one and determined after another.

45:18

How about you? Yeah, same.

45:19

I just really like Meg and Liz and I just think it's really interesting how like thoughtful Liz is about how she's arrived at her own views, right?

45:34

Like, yeah. Like she, or she is the swing voter who probably doesn't engage that closely.

45:39

In fact, it seems that she sort of tries to not engage.

45:43

Yeah. But he's like really aware of it.

45:46

And I, and I think that that's way more common than we probably usually recognize.

45:51

Yeah. And it's, it's a choice. I think some people think of people who don't engage as lazy or something, but, but I think for her, it's, it's almost like a, an act of discipline and the management of her life.

46:02

So she can get through these moments with her husband and her community to say I pick my spots.

46:08

And so I found that super fascinating and it, and I hope there are a lot more people out there like her, because I think if there are, we have an opportunity and this is what Democrats like, it's not about.

46:19

And this is why I kept interjecting to say, we're not expect you to vote.

46:23

It's like, I'm not expecting it for a blood oath.

46:25

I just want us to have an opportunity. And then we have to be the best version of ourselves, you know?

46:29

And I think what's fascinating is we have to be the best version of ourselves.

46:32

And the other side, you know, for one reason or another can be the worst version of ourselves and still be within striking distance every single time.

46:40

You know, I

46:42

guess my, my feeling with Ethan is I'm going to be really interested to stay in touch with him and hear how things develop for him.

46:50

I thought you did a great job of like giving him a couple of things that he sort of committed to like, well, yeah, if that happens, that would be persuasive to me about voting again for, for Biden or for the Democrats in the midterms.

47:02

But also I'll be interested to see how he sort of takes in the other issues that don't directly affect him over the next several.

47:12

Yeah. The thing I keep preaching to myself here as patients, right?

47:15

Like we've got, we've got a while to go before this election happens in Pennsylvania for Ethan.

47:19

And then even if we don't get him where we need to get them, we've got the presidential.

47:24

And obviously we want to get them there before the Senate race.

47:27

Cause that's so important, but you know, he's frustrated.

47:30

And I think like, like he has really important things to say about his experience.

47:35

And I think that's what this is about is a hearing that out and saying, what can we do better?

47:41

Because none of this is static, right?

47:43

If we learn, which I learned a lot about how the small businesses continue to struggle, then we should do something about that, you know?

47:54

And then that's all we could do. And then he could assess whether it's enough.

48:00

Thanks everybody for listening to these conversations, we hope you got something out of them.

48:03

I know we've really enjoyed doing them. We'd love to do this sort of thing, you know, on a continual basis.

48:07

We'd love to do this. Occasionally, if you think you'd be a good candidate for these kinds of conversations, leave us a voicemail.

48:13

5 0 8 6 8 7 2 5 8 9 5 0 8 6 8 7 2 5 8 9.

48:23

And remember we all have the platform, make sure to use yours today. Majority

48:26

54 is a wonder media network production.

48:27

It's produced by Graceland and EDL or theme music provided by Kevin Coleman and special.

48:32

Thanks to Diana candor. I'm Jason Cander, and I'm Robbie Gupta. And this is majority fifty for the podcast that helps Americans who voted for progress convince those who didn't to join our majority. Today, we're talking to some majority fifty four listeners and their family. About their political concerns as we gear up for twenty twenty two and another election year. So first, we're gonna talk with Meghan, who you might remember from our Thanksgiving episode. We're gonna see how her Thanksgiving with her family went. And then we've actually got Meghan's mom Liz joining us as well. Now if you remember, Liz is one of those coveted swing voters in the mid she voted for the democrats in the twenty twenty election, but she has not been a lifelong Democrat. And it sounds like Liz has been able to make some meaningful inroads with her Trump supporting husband. So we're gonna talk to Liz and Meghan about how they try to break through to him and what Liz is looking for politically as we head into twenty twenty two. Meg. Welcome back. And I keep calling you Meg. Your name is Megan. I do that. It's bad habit have. No. I I thought I was endearing. Okay. Yeah. I call her Maggie. Oh, okay. Are you the neighbors? Welcome, Maggie. My mom is here. Welcome back Maggie. That voice, that voice y'all just heard is Megan's mom or Maggie's mom for the people voice that voice y'all just heard is Meghan's mom or Meggie's mom for the people listening. What we're seeing on the Zoom here is is adorable. It it's Liz, and Meg, you know, huddled in at the at the camera, at the mic using the same pair of corded earbuds, you know, sharing them. So anyway, just so when people hear this, they they know what we're seeing. Paint a picture. Alright. So thanksgiving dinner. How to go? I would say it was like 80% fine, but I did write down some really good stuff for you guys because there was some really like would say it was, like, eighty percent fine, but I did write down some really good stuff for you guys because there were some really like things, we we talked so much about preparing for things, and then none of that actually came up. And it was so bizarre, the actual stuff that came up. Give us some highlights. Yeah. Before you go even, let's for those who didn't listen to the episode or whatever, let's review. I think we we talked with you about you wanted to prepare for, like, stuff about Kyle Rittenhouse. Stuff about guns. What what else? Aaron Rogers and, like, the vaccine controversy. Okay. So so a lot of topical stuff at that moment. So okay. So now what what what Unfortunately, it was a lot of race -- Mhmm. which yikes. And not a lot of discussion, just a lot of, like, really aggressive, like, one offs about race. Unfortunately, most of them came from my father. So there was a comment about how being proud to be white is no longer acceptable. I don't know if you heard that. That was early. there. Also, my uncle went off on this tangent about the Bible and how at the end of the world, apparently at the end of the Bible, there's two races and it's white people and yellow people, and that it's going to be us Russia, China, and North also my uncle went off on this tangent about the bible and how at the end of the world. Apparently, at the end of the bible, there's two races and it's white people and yellow people and that it's gonna be us. Russia, China, and North Korea. And then they started talking about how we're so indebted to China that we're all just gonna become communists. There was a conversation about communism. don't know. It got really convoluted about, like, creating things and then, like and then we're all just gonna be communists. I was like, whoa. Well, Maggie, when, when somebody says, when somebody says something like that, the proud to be white thing, like, like, is that a Maggie, when when somebody says when somebody says something like the the proud to be white, thing? Like like, is that a show stopper? Or do people just kind of ignore it and move on? Well, that was like like while my dad was carving the turkey. And I was like I see. Yeah. Yeah. I see. What? Yeah. And remind me, what's your what's your background other than what? Like, are are you guys Irish? Like Yeah. I'm half Irish. Yeah. And my dad's side is Scottish and English and French. That's that's pretty white. That's pretty white. Yeah. But It's rare. I mean, I hadn't heard it till recently. I mean, obviously, like, hundred years ago, fifty years ago, this would be more common to say proud to be white. But, like, I think, like, correct me if I'm wrong. Like, I I would hear a lot more proud to be Irish. Like, my family is Polish. So on my mom's side, people proud to be Polish. I feel like that's generally more benign. Right? Then then white? Like, I would I would challenge somebody to be like, what is it about the whiteness that people need to be proud about? You know? So how did how Maggie? How how did you react to you either that or anything else? Like, what strategy did you choose? I think I just said something like yeah. Like, there's not enough white pride in this country. We're really really short on that. You know, something like sarcastic and just moved on. Because these are, like, drops in the bucket, like, they happen constantly. So if, like, I was to make a big deal out of it, like, And she's flown out. Did Did you feel like, cause we kind of talked and we're going to get Liz we're coming to you in a you feel like because we kinda talk and we're gonna get Liz, we're coming to you in a second. We talked a little bit about how you sort of felt like they were gonna bait you. Was there and, like, you you were gonna have to choose what whether to take the bait. What did you feel like that's what was happening? No. Just felt like it was happening around me and they didn't care that I was there, which honestly was a little bit nicer. I just there was a point where I was sitting in the living room and it was all of my uncles, like, all my male relatives after dinner and they were watching football. And that's when all the race stuff started coming up with my dad too. And I just sat and took notes on my phone because I was like, I'm not gonna engage in this. There's way too many white men sitting in a circle right now, but I need to at least write it down because it was very strange. So. Okay. So that brings us to 1 of the ways we sort of closed out our conversation with you for your our coaching of you for Thanksgiving dinner was we talked about thinking of your mom, like the jury. Like rather than trying to persuade your dad and your uncles and such that, you know, your mom is this person as you described her, and I'm describing her now while she sits here. Who, I think, thinks of herself as Switzerland, Right. And it's sort of in the middle, but you felt had, you had persuaded her to vote in the past for the Democrat and is sort of in the middle. But you felt had you had persuaded her to vote in the past for the Democrat sheet. She's the one who persuaded your dad to get vaccinated. So you were gonna approach this like, okay, I'm just gonna engage these people as if the jury is my mom. So Liz, how how did you come out of all this? What are your impressions? Thanksgiving wasn't horrible with the family. Again, I was doing a lot of the again. I was doing a lot of the cooking. It's the more for me the day to day with her father. Yeah. She lives with him. So eighteen is a really good word because that is what he tries to do with almost every conversation. I kind of egg him on then. And I don't know if he knows I'm doing it, but I go the opposite of whatever he's saying just to get him kicked off because he's so Oh, there give us an out there. Give us an example. Yeah. Like, I wanna hear I wanna hear about this. Well, yeah. Well, tell him what happened last night. Last night, we're we're just sitting together and this hardly ever happens that just sitting, you know, together and watch TV, and we were just watching, I don't know, Wheel of Fortune or something. And he started saying, do you know how much the Americans are in-depth from last year. Do you know how much? And I said, what are you talking about? Like, fully knowing? What he's like, I said, are you talking about Christmas? What are you talking about? He said, no. No. In general, thirty five hundred dollars this year, people are spending more this year than they did last year. And it's all because of the person you voted And it's all because of the person you voted for. That's how he says it. And I got an item for him. It was you who voted for him. You know, I never admit to him. What and for a long time, I never admitted to make because being Switzerland. Wait. Wait. You refused to admit to your husband that you voted for Joe Biden? Oh, he knows. Oh, you just you don't you won't give him the satisfaction. Right. Exactly. No. Actually, she told me she plugged her ears. Oh, yeah. That's fine. He kept going on. And I was watching TV, and I kinda plugged my ears. And he goes, did you hear me? And I said, No. I wasn't listening. And he knows I'll do that because he's just too much. And so so he wants people to spend less money. I don't know what he wants. That doesn't even make sense that everything in the economy is costing -- Oh, like inflation. Yes. Because of The man isolated war. It's always the man isolated It's a trap. We can't even It's trap, you know, because if if enough people spend less, it's called a depression or a FenceJason. If they spend too much his inflation. So it's a clever little trap. And that's what he's hoping to get. He he loves to get the conversation going. And I work with them too. Oh, wow. When I get there and we sit and have lunch together, he'll start in on something and I finally have to say enough. I'm not doing this with you. I told you, I'm not talking about this, you know, because he'll just go off on any and every subject. But you you haven't always been from my impression, from talking to Meggie. Like, your your dynamic with him has not always been that you've been polar opposites politically. Right? I mean, at some point, yeah, you made a different path and he so did you stay in the same place and he went off, or did you make changes? What what happened there? It's a little bit of both. To me, I vote for the person, and I don't see all, you know, Republican Democrat. That's Jim is totally all Republican. And But now he's all Trump. Like, it totally one aided. Yeah. It did. And I what I wanna know is you guys tell me what happened Mhmm. -- to the Republicans -- Mhmm. -- when Trump took off is because my husband been is so out there. And anything that I say about Trump saying, how can you say that? He he said so many things. Well, prove me wrong. Tell me what what did he say? What did he say? don't know that we have that answer. I feel like -- Yeah. -- feel like we're more interested in why you didn't follow him down that road. And it sounds like your daughter has a little to do with that. So for people listening to take this with them, if you can point to things that she said or or, you know, persuasive things that she brought up over the years that kind of made sure that you were that Wisconsin voter that didn't because there's a frankly, I mean, you could argue Wisconsin has come down to women in the suburbs who either did or did not go down that Trump path with their spouse. Yeah. You're having a lot of friends that, you know, stayed and are totally with have a lot of friends that, you know, stayed in there totally with Trump. And I can't do that. I just can't because Did I persuade you at any point? Oh, yeah. She would constantly say mom, you can't. You can't believe this stuff. You can't go along with this. And again, I don't wanna make a big deal out of either way because I get in trouble. I get in the middle of arguments and I didn't wanna do that. You know, I don't wanna egg either one on. But all along, I would say, how can you how can you go along with this gym? Listen to the man. He's a moron, and he won't I shouldn't do that. Makes sense. That's what it's trying to help us out. So So, so it sounds like maybe one of the things that make did that was helpful was rather than try and engage the both of you all the so it sounds like maybe one of the things that make did that was helpful was rather than try and engage the both of you all the time. It sounds like she, at some point early on, recognized Okay, dad is maybe too far gone politically, and I'm gonna work mom when dad's not around. I mean, there was a lot of I feel like time in the build up to twenty twenty, especially with COVID and stuff and dad being so adamant about I mean, he was very much on the in camp of, like, this virus was manufactured to take out Donald Trump. Yeah. So So I think that hearing him say that, like being a reasonable person and knowing that did not happen. And in fact, we did not manufacture ensure a disease to simply take out your candidate. candidate. I think that COVID kind of probably turn used to some of that think that COVID kind of probably turned used to hurt some of that too. Oh, yeah. COVID changed a lot of things. things. It did. And, you know, you try to say, now Jim is like, well, Trump is the one who got the best. You know? Like, he's taking total credit for it. The vaccine he wouldn't The vaccine he wouldn't get. So Well, let's let's talk about that because, Liz, you convince your husband to get the vaccine. And there's a lot of people listening that are like, how did you do that? Well, there's a few reasons. One of our neighbors who's a very nice person, very strong Republican, He was at the January sixth in selection if that was -- Yeah. -- that's a good metric to use. Thanks. Yep. That's that's where we're at. Yeah. He and his family and his He and his family. I was a family. The family will die as his wife. His kids is he heard young kids. And y'all are in Wisconsin. That's not a short trip. Oh, no. He went out there. So that's where we live. Well, he got COVID, and I happen to hear it through one of my good friends who's the neighbor. Down at the end of the block that he had COVID and then he was in the hospital and he was on oxygen and he had a blood clot And I kept telling Jim, you have got to get the vaccine because we own our own business. And I said, if you go down, it's our livelihood. The business can't run. We won't have any money. You can't do this to us. You will ruin us if you get COVID. And and Bob, the neighbor was in the hospital for three weeks. Yes. So well, here's what I did. On a Sunday night, I registered my husband for the back scene at Walmart. And the next day at lunch, I said to him, I made you an appointment. You're going for the vaccine. And he said, no, I'm not. I said, yeah, you are. We're going. I made it. And he said, alright. I'm not going unless you come with me. And I was like, okay. Fine. If I have to hold your hand, I'll do that. And I did. I went with him and he got it. And afterward, he said, I'm really glad I got the shot. Thank you. And he said, but I don't want to tell anyone, including And he said, but I don't wanna tell 1. Including me. Yeah. Wow. He was like, don't Tom Meghan, I got the shot. But then he sees her two days later, and what does he do? He shows her the card with a big smile on his do? He shows her the card with a big smile on his face. You wanted to make his daughter proud? Yeah. For, like, a moment, but then also he was, like, don't give him too much credit. For, like, a second because he also then said, I don't know if I'm gonna get this second shot. No. No. No. He said, I'll get the second check, but I am not getting any follow ups. I am not. I'm not. Do you remember when he threatened to do remember when he said I won't get the shot unless you admit that Donald Trump won't get on the election? Well, that's just him egging or not, you know. He didn't see his funny. think what's interesting about your approach though what people can take away from it is you didn't force him to to admit he was wrong about anything. You didn't force him to do what a lot of it seems a lot of men don't wanna do, which is reconcile with the idea that they might they might be vulnerable to dying from it. All you did is you sort of worked to his protective instinct and you said, look, what if you get sick for a long period of time and you can't do the important, you know, head of household or whatever you wanna I don't know if he is. But you know what I'm saying? Like, you you appealed to that stuff with the business and, like, appeal to, like, we need you. And it sounds like that worked. That's great. That that did work. I have some advice on the egging on because I have some people in my life who do this. There was this technique when I was running schools we would call do not engage. And what it means is if a student is doing something to elicit a response from you, the proper way to react is to do not engage. And we mean that in an extreme sense, which means like cold unemotional responses to in. We mean that in extreme sense, which means, like, cold, unemotional responses to things. So, like, if he's making a joke about something instead of rolling your eyes or whatever, not that that's necessarily what you're doing, but give him nothing. Just change the subject, pretend like it doesn't exist, and that generally speaking work. You don't know my husband. Trust me. Like, I don't I don't know him, but generally speaking, just the psychology of this is he's doing it because getting something from you. Like, for sure, he's getting something out of you that is pleasing to him. It works on me. I just say it works on me. With with my lawyer. He does that. That's what he does because he'll we'll, like, argue and then or, like, I'll call him about something, and then he'll, like, go into something. And then at that end, he's, like, okay, good talk. Good talk. Like, not good talk. What are you talking about? So maybe just, like, changing the subject won't give him that, like, end note satisfaction of, like, good talk. That was really great debate. Like, we didn't debate anything. You just spewed nonsense from Facebook for twenty five minutes. I I do try that. I don't like to bring out the ugly and people, and I try to tell my husband all the time, why can't you just accept people for their opinion? Let it be, you know, respect them for what they think. You may not think that way, but just let it be. I don't want the don't think there Was a lot of signs on the front lawn when Trump was a lot of signs on the front on when Trump was first You're right? That that was me. That was me being petty. What did he have? So he when Trump first was running for office. I was just I was moving home from New York City and out I was in the house for maybe four months between moving out on my own in Milwaukee. And he had a big Trump sign in the lawn, and I put up a sign next to the Trump sign with an arrow that said only Jim. I don't point it to it. Because I was like, uh-uh. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I think that was me, though. Like, I feel bad because you're right, but I That's right. You're right. You're right. I think that's a little different for this. That's a little different than what I was advising before because that's the reflects on you. Like, if you're showing up to a house every single day as Trump sign on it, like, that you have to address that publicly. You know? Thank you. I agree. Different. That's like that that's the rest of the world, not just your private con station. I like that only joke. Yeah. But now I was involved because all the neighbors thought I Oh, yeah. And again, I didn't want anything to do with this. don't wanna you don't wanna be dragged into this one way or another. So I put up I remember the who's the radio the Epi ninety three, the radio show. They were goofing around and they had their own political sign. The everybody socks one? No. It was their like, they were running for office, and I put that up. She thinks she's she's, like, trying to she's trying to be Switzerland. Yeah. Yeah. Just as a joke, because then all the neighbors were like, oh, I love your sign was, and I said that that's Megan. That's Jim. You know? And again, I didn't tell anyone where I was going. Can I get, like, a little slice of life here? So I go through this with my dad. But what what does he love? Like, if you were to distill it down, what what What does he love about Trump? You live with him. What does he love? Well, he thinks his policies were all fantastic. And now that my name was in that he's destroyed everything. It's more the 1. Right? Like so it's like the the border he doesn't think of it as a policy. Right? He thinks of it as, like, this is a guy who cares about this issue. Right? And so he's like Even though he didn't really like, what did he do, really? About the wall. Like but I see this a lot. It has nothing to really actually accomplish. Right? It's like the Muslim ban is is, like, they can't name exactly what the effect of that was, but it was a statement that says, this person is with me on this issue. Robbie, I think think your question, Robbie, is what is it in the Trump movement? That your dad feels or your husband loves feels, he sees his own identity in and his own idea of himself. He loves to think of himself as depreciable. Like, he is that quintessential he feels underrepresented that like masculinity pull of like the the white man who was never quite good enough Right? And now Donald Trump is speaking directly to him in middle America. Right? Like -- Yeah. -- it's like Trump says what he feels and like, dad loves that. Oh, he does. He does love. He loved that he would speak out, and I hated it. They said it wasn't the role of the president to do what he was doing. Yeah. He loved that. He just ran his mouth because he was like, he's saying what the rest of us are thinking. But unfortunately, when you're, like, doing that, driving down the street of your cul de sac, like, it's just it becomes really divisive. Like, yeah, Trump can do it on Twitter and on TV and whatever. But when it happens in your own communities, it's really but when it happens in your own community is it's really toxic. It's really toxic. So, yeah, it gives him a story in which he can live and it makes sense it it makes sense. It's a story that makes sense to him. A story of America and a story of his story of America and a story of of his experience. It's yeah. Mhmm. It's like, it's his like it's his story, you know. I'm I'm particularly interested in in mom. Like, what I you you don't strike me as like a straight up loyal Democrat nor should you be. Like, as you said, you are you're somebody who kind of calls it like you you see you try try do your best to try to evaluate the person. As you look ahead to, you know, you have a big senate race going on, and then potentially you're gonna be a battleground for the presidency in all likelihood. What's on your mind about those races right now? To the extent there is anything on your mind about them? Well, try to clear your mind of everything that, you know, like my husband brings up every day. I really just want someone I keep telling this to my husband. I said, it's not Republican or Democrat. Bring in a decent candidate. Bring in someone that wants to work for the people, for to bring people together for one because we're really seeing, you know, an issue with that. And and that's so much more since Trump was in office has. I said, look at what's happened to the country. People are so pulled apart. And it's all because of him, which he will never. So you want someone who's gonna unify people? I do. I want someone that's going to unify I want someone that's gonna unify people and Of course, you you know, you want all the financial issues and you want healthcare and you want everyone to be supported. But I again, I just can't it's gotta be someone well rounded. Do you like Ron what about Ron Johnson? What do you think about him? No. I don't like Ron Johnson. You heard in your first folks? No. Yep. But I, you know, I keep my mouth shut above that. Yeah. Because We we won't tell anyone We won't tell anyone this. That's okay. Everybody knows. was joking. They're gonna they're gonna hear it now. Here here here's their goal. It's gonna it's not gonna make you necessarily like, Ron Johnson Moore. It's gonna get you to hate the other candidate more. And so that's what you gotta watch out for. There's already lots of ads that are just about getting him out of office, not necessarily in support of -- Yeah. -- someone else. Right? Like that. But we I see those on TV. Oh, yeah. All the time. They're always saying how much his family? How much wealth his family? Yeah. Like, that he's in it for himself. Yeah. Does that influence you? Do you, like, actually listen to those or do you like care? I listened to to those. We can't help, but, you know, listen to them. Well, look, I think I think probably next year when we have a nominee in Wisconsin, think we're gonna have to have them on with this crew, and they can and they can just kind of talk to Liz in particular about, okay, what, what have I been doing that you've liked so they can replicate it. Yeah. She's like the perfect -- Cohost group. -- yeah. She really is that perfect person that they've been trying to target and that as maybe been a little like wishy washy. Right? Like, you've gone back and forth, political party wise, candidate wise. We don't need call that wishy what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We could wishy to wishy to wishy to watchy. It's voting for respect to process. That's for Yeah. We're going to respect the We're gonna respect to process. You're right. Yeah. We're not asking for a blood oath. You know? Yeah. We just want we want a conversation. That's all we want. That's true. You want a conversation, you should talk. No. I look, let's do it. I'm in. I mean, I think he would come and talk, but I honestly I'm like, Like, I'm scared for, like, our families there. I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't want anybody getting cancer. Better if we don't. I'm telling you. Jim couldn't be worse than my dad. My dad thinks Trump was a he's a he is the re incarnation of a Hindu god coming to save us all. So Yeah. But we haven't had the demo on the show either. I tried. As you know, I've try it. It's actually it doesn't pass our producers. But I totally don't give a fuck about, like, whether by chance it's so sorry for the language, mom. But the Like, I don't care. My dad can speak for himself. He's a grown man. He has no he has no shame about it. So why should, we're So why should I? We're gonna have to have your dad and Miggie's dad and and I'm a dad, so I'll moderate. Yeah. So alright. Well, this has been awesome. Thank you for doing this. Both of you. It it's a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to this airing. Yeah. That's true. This is super fun. And if you've got any hot Wisconsin topics coming up. Just, you know, remember us and our little slice of the world. That's a correspondence for majority fifty four. I've been blessed. So on or blessed. So your first correspondence ever. So I can guess. Alright. Well, hey. Thanks a lot. Thank you. This is great. 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Join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental Join over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health Again, that's help. H E L p.com/ HELP dot com slash . everybody. everybody. I wanted to tell you about a show from wonder media network that you're going to I wanted to tell you about show from Wonder Media network that you're love. If you're a parent and you're listening to this, and I say parenting during the pandemic, there's a certain set of feelings that come up in your body and in your If you're a parent and you're listening to this and I say parenting during the pandemic, there's certain set of feelings that come up in your body and in your brain. And I know that for a fact because I know how feel. That's why I think you're going to love this podcast in season two of white picket fence host and single mom, Julie Koehler asks, why does it have to be this you that's why I think you're gonna love this podcast. In season two of White Pigott and single mom Julie Koller asked Why does it have to be this way? We hear from experts, activists, and parents, as they unpack the caregiving crisis in America and reveal why the conditions were set long before COVID-19 ever hit American way? We hear from experts, activists, and parents as they unpack the caregiving crisis in America and reveal why the conditions were set long before COVID nineteen ever hit American shores. Julia explores the myths about race, gender, families, and the economy that have gotten us to a point where so many parents and especially mothers are Julie explores the myths about race, gender, families, and the economy that have gotten us to a point where so many parents and especially mothers are cracking. She also looks at how the pandemic can serve as a political tipping point to build political will for an alternative economic like approach. One that puts caregiving at the center of our one that puts caregiving at the center of our economy. It's really easy to take our current system for granted and assume that it's just meant to be this way. But this show really opened my eyes to all the biases that led to America's caregiving policies. We could be doing it better, and I can't recommend this showing up, listen and subscribe wherever you get your We could be doing it better, and can't recommend this show enough. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And next up, we're gonna talk with another listener Ethan. Ethan owns brewery outside of Philadelphia. And now Ethan is a lifelong Democratic voter, but recent inaction by Democrats has him considering not voting at all. So with that, let's hear from Ethan. Ethan, thanks for doing this. Yeah. Of course. Thanks for having me. You Bet. All Alright. I'm just gonna start with I find I find this whole thing fascinating because you are thinking about not voting I think at all or or Democratic, but you listen to this show, like, regularly enough that you left us a voice mail. You have got you are in if there there's like a Venn diagram of people who are like, I don't know if I'm gonna vote, but listen regularly to a political podcast and and the two circles meet in a tiny little spot and you you're in that spot. So tell us about that. What'd your, can we start you can we start there? I gotta tell you, I don't think I'm that new unique. I think that guys who talk about politics are are missing a large segment. Of the population by assuming that that's super unique, but I'm I'm definitely not gonna vote Republican, and I think that my end result would be that I just didn't vote. I'm deeply, deeply frustrated with the Democratic Party as a whole and particularly the Biden administration. My big issue being I'm a business owner. I own a small brewery out in the suburbs of I own a small brewery out in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And my biggest issue is all about the COVID especially has to do with small business. We've been asked not only to make a tremendous amount of sacrifices that are especially acute for our industry, but we've also been deputized against our will as the law enforcement body of all the COVID regulations. And we have gotten zero help from anybody. And it is deeply frustrating, and I just don't know how I can justify voting for people that are through what I view as negligence. I mean, literally ruining my life and my colleagues' lives and things like that. It's a very difficult situation. Yeah. I I talked to a lot of people in this situation. I come from Staten island, New York, which is, you know, if there's a culture of the island, it's small businesses or the sort of tie that binds everybody together and people have been really I come from Staten Island, New York, which is you know, if there's a culture of the island, it's small businesses or the sort of tie that binds everybody together. And people have been really frustrated So perhaps we take step back and can you walk us through just your experience from March twenty twenty till now where you've you interacted with government and have not gotten what you needed. And maybe give us a sense of what you what would have been ideal in each of those steps. Sure. So what started out, you know, the the shutdowns happened, and to be clear, we're not COVID deniers at sick man. Like, we're very much, you know, concerned about everybody's safety, and and we have done our absolute best to follow any COVID policy to keep people safe. So in March, we were ordered to shut down very quickly with some very strict regulations. Nobody knows going on. And then the first round of PPP was issued sometime I believe in the the summer of twenty twenty. Some people were resentful of that. I thought it was distributed relatively well. We got our application in quickly. However, the restrictions on how to spend the money were very difficult. So for example, I take all my income from the business. But under the terms of the PPP, I'm not allowed to pay myself with the money as an owner. Even though I'm one of the people doing the majority of the production work. So for the first several months, that six hundred dollars a week unemployment insurance, did not apply to partners in an LLC, so was not allowed to pay myself with the PPP money, and I wasn't allowed to get this unemployment help that everybody else was getting. So I was just expected to make zero income. And I'm not rich person, so that was maybe the most difficult financial time in my life. Then they extended the the six hundred a week two partners in LLC, sometime in, like, July, I believe, or June of that year. And then the second round of PPP came out around the same time as the EIDL loans. Well, and and just to be clear, so we're still in twenty twenty. So we're still in -- Yes. -- Democratic congress Republican White House. Right. Right. So the EIDL comes out, and that was the thing that helped us kinda get on our feet. But to be clear, the EIDL is a interest bearing loan. So I found that kind of insulting that some other more wealthy industries were just bailed out and what we were offered at the toughest time of our business. Was an interest bearing loan that required payments almost immediately. So we we took the loan. That payment has proven to be difficult to make as our business does not come back. Since that point, basically, once the by demonstration took over, there has been pretty much nothing on the RRF fund, the restaurant revitalization fund. Was the only thing that was close to, like, storefront businesses that I'm aware of. They ran out of money before even a third of the people who applied could be funded. Less than half of restaurants in the country were even able to apply. They then expanded the amount of money you could take from the EIDL, but also made the term substantially stricter. So picking up for where Biden takes office. Right? Now you've got Biden in the White House and Democratic control in Congress. And I I take you have Democratic leadership locally. Yeah. I mean, I live in Philadelphia. So in all the places where the brewery locations aren't all democratic. So what would you have like done? Well, so I literally anything. You know, I understand that they really wanted to pass this infrastructure bill, but I don't really see how a bill that takes place over twenty years is more pressing than this. I mean, the restaurant owners association reported yesterday that eighty six percent of restaurant owners in the country you're facing bankruptcy and forty five percent have missed at least one month's rent. I mean, ideally, the RF would have been replenished. You need we needed forty six billion dollars, I believe, or forty four billion dollars to just meet everybody who had applied. After the money ran out, we need another forty four billion. There's a hundred billion of unused COVID funds sitting in the SBA account. Like, this second. So what would I like to see done? Literally anything besides telling us to, you know, just starve from my experience. I have been frequenting businesses as much or more once I was allowed to then other I have been frequenting businesses as much or more once I was allowed to than other people, but I I suspect based on what you're saying, that when life was allowed to go back to some semblance of normal, that something still wasn't right about your business. People are just not coming out. So lot of people expressed that they're going out more frequently than they were during COVID, and some people feel like they're going out more often than not. But the thought experiment I always tell people is if you went to a restaurant that you really like in twenty nineteen at dinner time on a Saturday, you probably had to wait for table. And now you're probably getting seeded right away. Right? People are going out and they're seeing crowds on Saturday at six o'clock. But I pay my rent on Saturday at six o'clock. I put food on my table with the sales from Wednesday at three in the afternoon, and sales don't exist. The sales everywhere down. I mean, just for us, right now, the entire company, I have three locations and the entire company on a weekly basis. Is grossing a smaller amount of money that each individual location did in two thousand and nineteen. So you you said something really interesting in your voice mail, which you you acknowledged. She said, look, I've heard all you know, platitudes about how, yeah. The Democrats are in charge, but the Republicans are making it really the democrats are in charge, but they're Republicans are making it really difficult and there's more that the Democrats wanna do. And what you said was, but that doesn't matter. That's just an excuse. And I think the example you used was You said, you know, if, like, we're we make beer. We get beer into bottles. And if, you know, if the beer doesn't get into the bottle, we're not interested in hearing about why it didn't get into the bottle. We're just interested in getting beer into the bottle. Yeah. So every day, when I come into work today, I can't about your beer. Right? And today, there was a problem with the canning line. The reason that I am the person who's qualified to run the business is because every day, I'm able to figure out how to make those things work so that the beer gets into the can, so that the customer can pay for his product. A politician's job is to make important issues popular. Instead of going out and saying, this is why you should care about people and convincing them, you just come up every day and whine about how hard your job is. Well, then you're not very good at your job. I don't really think that, like, saying every good thing that's happened is because the Democrats in the Biden administration and everything that can every single bad thing or every single thing that can't get done is because of these mean Republicans, it doesn't really it's not a reasonable argument. It's and it wouldn't fly in any other segment of American life. Okay. So let me stick with your analogy for a second and just offer slightly different way for you to think about because I would agree with you if if the entire argument that they were making was, we wanna do these good things, but the Republicans won't let us. So therefore, absolve us of responsibility. Like, I wouldn't agree with that either. But sticking with your analogy of, you know, you gotta you gotta fix the canning line. You gotta, you know, you gotta fix the register, you get all those things, I suppose you might have at least a slightly different approach to it where you might acknowledge that it was a more difficult You gotta, you know, you gotta fix the register. You got all those things. I suppose you might have at least a slightly different approach to it where you might, like, acknowledge that it was a more difficult task if there was literally somebody from like another brewery who everyday was in there and just like trying to smash things. Right? You wouldn't, what you wouldn't do you wouldn't be like, so therefore, we don't have to make beer today. Right? Which think is your point. But you would say, I probably am gonna need to do something did not have all these people in here smashing this stuff. Right? But but that's an unfair analogy too. Right? We have Right? We have competitors. We have people who are up against to get bureau on the shelves. But they can't stop you from doing your they can't stop you from doing your job. I'm not suggesting that therefore you should just vote Democratic. I'm actually suggesting something different. Like, you're sort of, I think, Understandable. And a lot of people do this. Thinking of your vote as as you're rendering a verdict on what's been done so far or offering a reward for behavior that you don't like. Right? And I'm saying, maybe your vote isn't that. Maybe your vote is I I don't think they've done a very good job. But I think that if there were more of them, there'd be a greater chance I would get what I want. I don't really agree with that. I mean, unfortunately, like, I don't I mean, I understand the argument. That's the way to to make the pro case for what's going on. But I I view if you're voting for somebody, you're you're jumping on the team with them. Right? Like, the reason that I am not a big fan of a lot of Republican politicians is because they're on the team with white supremacists. Right? So, like, I don't wanna be on that team too. But, like, if they hadn't accomplished anything, but they were out there saying, hey, we have all the labor data eighty six percent of restaurants in the country, all these businesses that you care about are about to go bankrupt. Guys, I know it's scary out there, but think about ordering takeout order from them instead of Chick fil A. You know, if they were out there promoting local businesses every day, if they were out there explaining the situation and telling consumers why the situation is bad, if they were actively trying to pass bills that were getting shut down, I wouldn't feel that way, but they're not doing that. They have not been pushing this bill forward. They have not been out there saying, we care about small business. All that I've seen is when people started talking about the labor shortage, which is a very real thing that's a complex issue. All that I've seen is Democrats from the progressive Wayne of the Party, writing snarky things on Twitter about people like me treating workers poorly. And that's why the labor shortage that's why the labor shortage exists. That's the closest thing I've seen to acknowledging the issues. Okay. So that was sort of my plan a to to convince you to to vote Democratic anyway. I'm gonna go to my plan b, which you sort of alluded to. Before you do plan b, Jason, is there do Do you mind if I just introduce one idea here, which is a lot of what you're saying resonates with me, one person, I would want you to take a look at who's kind of an you mind if I just introduce one idea here, which is a lot of what you're saying resonates with me at one person I would want you to take a look at to his kind of an unconventional Democrat is Eric Adams. The week after he was elected mayor of New York City, he went out clubbing and was asked about it, and most politicians would apologize for it. And he was like, look, we gotta get the city back to life. So I think the signaling that you're talking about there are democratic politicians out there who are doing because what I'm hearing you saying is you wanna hear people, like, if they can't do anything, which he can, and we'll see if he does. You want them to validate your experience. And and one thing I wanna I wanna suggest to you is that you this could be of Republican Stuart. I'm just using him as an example. There are people out there. I'm seeing validating the experience and we'll see what they do about it. Yeah. If I if I had the ability to vote for one of those people, I would. But unfortunately, the people that I have available to vote for is not Eric Adams. There is one one senate candidate, John Federman, that I I would probably be excited to vote for, but he'd probably be the only guy he'd put on ticket. ticket. Well, that's good news, Jason. Yeah. Okay. So we already know you're gonna show up to vote for Federman. That's good. And then the question is, how do we get you to, you know, vote the rest of the ballot? Let me ask you this. You you were saying that, you know, you've typically been, like, more of a liberal. For instance, you just said, like, you can't get down with the Republicans because of white supremacy. I assume that you would, you know, within that, like, talk about the voter suppression. Like, I imagine that's an an issue that you've tried closely Look, I guess my argument to you would be that all of us, when we ask people to vote on issues like when supremacy, or voter suppression or, you know, any of those issues that make us Liberals. Right? What we're asking people to do often is to vote on issues despite the fact that they don't directly affect them. So while your experience is I think absolutely should be aired and that's, you know, what we're doing here. But I would ask you to consider between now and the election whether or not despite your legitimate grievance with the democrats whether you still feel that you have to go vote because these other issues are even bigger than your business. If I saw action from Congress or the Biden administration that made me genuinely believe they were doing something other than lip service towards some of these issues that I would consider voting for them, it's the same kind of I saw action from Congress or the Biden administration that made me genuinely believe they were doing something other than lip service towards some of these issues that I would consider voting for them. It's the same kind of thing. But, you know, unfortunately, on a lot of these issues, things that are really, you know, important to me, like, immigration. I mean, we saw what happened with Asian migrants under an ICE Director that was supported by Biden. I mean, criminal justice reform and drug laws. Biden made a lot of promises and has made zero attempts to fulfill those promises. It doesn't seem like he's has much intention to. Voting rights as well. Like they had HR one, right when the Congress started under the Biden Like, they had HR 1 right when the congress started under the Biden administration. And then we want to do this infrastructure build to prove that the democrats are better than Trump administration. Like, between now and the election, if people are taking meaningful actions on these issues, I'm certainly willing to reconsider my position. You know, one question to you is, like, so some of the things you mentioned pretend for second because you got this this mansion cinema thing, which is hard to figure out in the senate. Right? It's like you could have forty eight totally well intentioned people on voting rights, but you've got two people who are holding up the whole thing and so theoretically more of those forty eight would get you a lot of what you're talking about. But let's put that aside for a second. Let's talk about executive action. So if January 31st, the moratorium on student loans debt payments is over. Right? So At the moment, Biden has extended that moratorium. moratorium. So that's theoretically a good thing, but let's say if in January he announces through executive action, which he may have the power to do that he's forgiving certain chunk of student loan that's theoretically a good thing. But let's say if in January, he announces through executive action, which he may have the power to do, that he's forgiving certain chunk of student loan debt. Let's say what his promise was, which was ten thousand dollars, which would would completely wipe out student loan debt of millions and millions of people. Would that, like, start to get you back on on track here? Absolutely. Yeah. If he vacated some of the nonviolent drug offenses that he promised to do that, you know, these people the entire society is acknowledged that these people shouldn't be in jail, and yet they're languishing in jail because Biden can't 1 of his many legal aids to draft an executive order for it. Like, it's there's a million things that the Biden administration has the power to do that were they to do it would change my mind about them that they don't seem to have any intention to to work on. Interestingly, it also sounds like if they were to, like, fire the parliamentarian and just decide that they could go around the filibuster without mentioning a cinema that would also get you back in a voting booth. I don't know. I don't know if that would. I mean, I want the meaningful action, but I want it to like, Republicans being awful only works for me is an excuse for so far. So, like, I'm not a big fan of the filibuster as a general concept, but I don't think that just, like, blowing up all the senate rules so that one party can just throw everything out every two years when things change. You know? Yeah. But but you see they catch twenty two there in. Right? Because you're saying don't blame it on Mansion and Cinema, but you're also saying, Don't do the thing that gets them around Mansion and Cinema. Go find two Republicans who are reasonable to vote for something. Like, you know, that they're trying to do. No. They have. Yeah. They have ten they have they have ten Republicans and every Democrat on board for the small business goal and they haven't pointed to the floor. And Biden hasn't said anything about it. So, like, it's not always the problem. On voting rights, for example, I mean, they they have gotten past fifty on that they just Mhmm. They've fill busters. issue. I mean, they, they they've publicly announced the numbers past 50 on I mean, they they they've publicly announced the numbers past fifty on that. Yeah. If they got rid of the filibuster and did a bunch of stuff, then yeah, it would change my mind dramatically, but it doesn't I guess it's unfair to blame the whole Democratic party on mansion and cinema. But again, it's like, if you're if you're playing a team sport, you're judged by all everybody on your team. Yeah. Alright. Well, this is gonna be fun. I think we may be checking back with you. Because let's see, you know, it's we're we're in it's December. We got eleven months to see what happens here. Yeah. I'm I'm happy to talk to you guys about it. Well, let's plug your business. Tell us about your business before go. go. Sure. So My business is Stickman business is stick man bros. We're based primarily in Warriorsburg, Pennsylvania, we're small brewery, focusing on, like, lagers farmhouse beer and hobby stuff. We also have a restaurant in Chester Springs in a can shop in South Philly. You can find us online and stick me in brews and like every You can find us online and stick me in brews in like every format. And we also have false bottom spirits where we do locally made vodka and gin. And And can we order that anywhere in the country or we gotta be in PA to get your stuff PA, we order that anywhere in the country or we gotta be in PA to get your stuff? PA, Delaware, New Jersey. Okay. Sweet. Thanks for doing this. Well, we really appreciate Ethan. Thanks for engaging. Absolutely. Thanks for having the young guys. I really appreciate it. All right, Jason, two very different Jason. Two very different conversations. I feel hopeful after one and and determined after another. How about you? Yeah. Same. I just really like Meg and Liz. And I I just think it's really interesting how, like, thoughtful Liz is about how she's arrived at her own views. Right? Like like, here she is the swing voter who probably doesn't engage that closely. In fact, it seems that she sort of tries to not That would really doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. But he's but he's, like, really aware of it. And I and I think that that's way more common than we probably usually recognize. Yeah. And it's it's a choice. Like, I think some people think of people who don't engage as lazy or something, but but I think for her, it's it's almost like a an active discipline and and the management of her life, so she can get through these moments with her husband and her community to say, I pick my spots. And so I found that super fascinating and it and I hope there are a lot more people out there like her because I think if there are we have an opportunity. And this is what Democrats like, it's not about and this is why I kept interjecting to say, we're not expecting to it's like, I'm not expecting it for a blood oath. I I just want us to have an opportunity then we have to be the best version of ourselves, you know. And I think what's it fascinating is we have to be the best version ourselves and the other side, you know, for one reason or another, can be the worst version of their selves and still be be within strident distance every single time. You know? Twelve. I guess my, my feeling with Ethan is I'm going to be really interested to stay in touch with him and hear how things develop for I guess my my feeling with Ethan is I'm gonna be really interested to stay in touch with him and hear how things develop for him. I thought you did a great job of, like, giving him a couple of things that he he sort of committed to, like, well, yeah, if if that happens, that would be persuasive to me about voting again for for Biden or or for the Democrats in the midterms, but also I'll be interested to see how he sort of takes in the other issues that don't directly affect him -- Right. -- the next several months. Yeah, the thing I keep preaching to myself here is patience. Right? Like, we got we've got a while to go before this election happens in Pennsylvania for Ethan, and then even if we don't get them where we need to get them, we've got the presidential. And obviously, we wanna get them there before the senate race. Cause that's so important, but you know, he's because that's so important. But, you know, he's frustrated. And I think, like, like, he has really important things to say about his experience, and I think that's what this is about is hearing that out and and saying, what can we do better? Because none of this is static. Right? If we learn which I learned a lot about how the small businesses continue to struggle, then we should do something about that. You know, and then that's all we could do, and then he could assess whether it's enough. Thanks everybody for listening to these conversations. We hope you guys something out of them. I know we really enjoyed doing them. We'd love to do this sort of thing, you know, on a continual basis. We'd love to do this occasionally. If you think you'd be a good candidate, For these kind of conversations, leave us a voice mail 50868725895086872589. And remember, we all have the platform make sure to use yours today. Majority fifty four is a 1 media network production. It's produced by Grace Lynch and Eddy Aller, theme music provided by Kenneth Coleman and special thanks to Diana candor.