From Washington Insider To Free Speech Advocate: Lisa Ekman On Deprogramming Politics

What happens when a dedicated Democratic warrior realizes her certainty was built on sand? We sit down with Lisa Ekman—former DC lobbyist, Senate staffer, and now author of Deprogramming Democrats—to unpack how a crisis of trust pushed her to question authority, confront cognitive dissonance, and reclaim the courage to ask uncomfortable questions. It’s a personal story with national stakes, because when institutions lose credibility, citizens need a roadmap back to truth, not new idols.

Lisa takes us inside the culture of expertise that shaped her worldview for decades and explains why the pandemic exposed deeper fractures: censorship dressed up as safety, scientism standing in for science, and incentives that reward the right outcome over an honest one. We pull apart how research can be captured by funding, why full trial transparency is essential, and how “appeal to authority” short-circuits the public’s ability to evaluate risk and evidence. The conversation doesn’t let any tribe off the hook; cult-like behavior thrives wherever questions are punished. So where do we go from here?

Together we explore practical paths forward: citizens learning to read results and weigh tradeoffs; AI helping map complex debates and surface uncertainties; and communities rebuilding trust with face-to-face work that humanizes disagreement. We talk about education that teaches how to think, not what to think; the exhausted majority stuck between loud extremes; and simple local actions that prioritize people over purity tests. If you’re tired of outrage and hungry for clarity, this episode offers a grounded, human route back to dialogue and discernment.

Subscribe, share this with someone who values honest conversation, and leave a review with the one belief you’ve recently reexamined—we’ll feature our favorites in a future episode.

Thanks for listening.  Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about.  In these times of intense polarization we all need  to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Well, welcome everyone. Welcome again to another exciting, scintillating, incredibly intellectually stimulating episode. How did I do? No, okay. Uh of frame of reference, profiles and leadership. And I'll tell you lately, folks, I, you know, I've said this before on several of the introductions to episodes that um I have been really, I don't know if there's something in the air or God is just looking favorably on me, his, you know, her servant. I don't know what gender and God and I don't, we don't understand that whole concept. But, anyways, um I I would like to say that there's something going on because the quality of the guests that have been uh seeking me out lately um has made my job so incredibly enriching and easy because I don't have to spend all kinds of time going, yeah, I should lately I've had, I think this you're like the sixth one, Lisa, that's just reached out to me either personally or through an agent. And I've read the information on the course, yes, this is exactly the kind of person I want to talk to. So um, and today is another one of those days. So keep the role, the role going. Those of you that are into praying, keep those cards and prayers coming because I will take that however this is uh uh uh coming about, I'm all with it. I'm on it, as they say. But today's guest is uh a woman that I've just found out about, which is the other exciting thing about who knew these people were here, right? Is Lisa Ekman is with me. Um, and Lisa comes from an incredibly, I think, fascinating background. Um, and I'm gonna let you describe it, Lisa, because it's I I could do it, I think, but I want people to hear it from your words. You you are a person with a very unique vantage point, and why is that?

Lisa’s Washington Career And Identity

SPEAKER_02 1:43

That is because I spent more than 20 years in Washington, DC, as a democratic advocate and lobbyist, um, working for a variety of different um people. I worked uh for a political appointee at the tail end of the Clinton administration at one of the agencies, and then I worked for a couple of different Democratic senators, including um Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, which I think most people have heard of. Um, and then I had I worked for um a number of different nonprofits and government contractors, and uh I um used to say that I bled blue. I was a very, very dedicated democratic warrior. Um, and I uh did so until um COVID, and I had what I would term an awakening. Many people might have said it was my red pill moment, um, although I would say I um I know I I don't fit neatly into any category anymore, but um where I really became aware of the fact that I have been brainwashed, programmed, and indoctrinated into what I call the progressive cult. Um, and that I deprogrammed myself, woke up and decided to share my story with the world, uh, because of the grave danger I saw that our great republic faced and still faces today, as we see the growing division, the um growing political violence that is going on in our our country. Um, and so my my I wrote a book called Deprogramming Democrats and on educating the elites to share my story. And now I am going out and and talking to anyone who will have a conversation with me, um, because I feel like that is the solution to reuniting our country, um, uniting our country again, um, and getting people to begin to see each other as fellow humans, fellow um children of the creator, uh, as opposed to to enemies and dehumanized.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, the otherization of uh both sides of the equation. It's interesting because the rhetoric that you're using, you know, the cult kind of deprogramming all those things, are things that are readily wielded by the liberal side of the equation in our in our national discussions towards the MAGA community, right? It's just it's very much of a um people are purposing and repurposing the vocabulary in ways that are you know, sometimes like, well, what does that word even mean anymore? If you can say it means this and you can say it means this, I you know, a lot of myself included, I think we sit back going, okay, well, it's that's interesting. Let's talk more about that, right? Let's uh let's unwrap that.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

And I I I should say I I don't disagree that there are people who are um exhibit cult-like behavior on both both sides, you know. Um, I think the biggest thing is if someone is unwilling to question in any way what their leaders are saying and doing, yeah, that's when you have to start asking questions. Um, and you know, the the reason why my book is deprogramming democrats is because that's where I come from and that's the side that I know, and that's the the how I know what techniques were used, how I know why they were effective, and those kind of things. But that is not to say that um there isn't cult-like behavior on the right as well.

SPEAKER_04 5:27

Right.

Cult Dynamics And Authority Worship

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Um, and you know, I personally uh have since my awakening rejected the left-right dichotomy um that they force us into sort of taking sides on. And what I look at it as is an establishment who has been corrupt that has been corrupted, right? Um, and that has taken the power away from we the people, um, as envisioned by our founders. Right. Um, and the divide and conquer strategy, which is in full display in many ways, but um left versus right is a very clear example of them. Um and so uh I think you know, the the reason why a lot of people on the left fail to see, I think, themselves with cult-like behavior, is that there's no charismatic leader. You know, most when you think of a cult, you think of, you know, Jim Jones, you think of uh Charles Manson, you think of an evil but charismatic leaders. Um and with the progressive cult, uh what they worship is authority, and what they idolize is the expert. And um, I think if you look at what happened during COVID, uh it's a very clear example of that cult-like behavior, that uh scientism that is uh religious in almost in nature, um, and their unwillingness to question the leaders um when they when they tell them something is true or ask them to do something.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, I think that was one of the fascinating things that when I was reading some of your background materials is that you you you got to that moment where you began to want to question and found that there really was no room for a person that wants to question. You know, that that that was uh you you don't get to step out of line. You don't get to be the nail that that stands out from the other nails and not get you know pounded on pretty hard in those circuits, which is it's really interesting when when you think about it from the standpoint of the liberal community, liberal, you know, um uh history has been one of liberal arts, right? The the wanting to you know further education, wanting to further the advancement of the human being, you know, overall. Um I went to a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin that that was it was very liberal and very conservative at the same time, right? But the idea was you know question, question, question, learn how to think, learn how to ask good questions. And now on today's the people that ask good questions are put at the back of the bus, you know, get you you there's something wrong. Why would you even question that? Um, and it's like because it needs to be questioned. So it just needs to be. So we've lost that somewhere along the line. So we can talk. We're we're gonna talk, we're gonna keep the format because call darn and I'm a rigid son of a gun from Wisconsin, and it's hard to teach an old Milwaukee boy new tricks, but here we go. So we just start with my favorite things. It kind of gets things loosened up and gets us to know each other, gets the people that maybe already got offended by something another one of us said to just relax a minute and remember we all have a favorite kind of pizza. Okay, so let's uh let's just get there for a moment, shall we? Uh so let's start up the this is the my favorite things. You just it's Rorschachtian. I throw something out, you say butterfly, whatever. Um, that's fine. Uh there's no right or wrong answers unless you think that the answer you give might offend somebody you care deeply about, and then you can say, but remember, to qualify qualifying. There would be no caveats in my answers. Okay, good. I appreciate that. My my uh answers are usually not caveats either. I just result in some kicks in my shin from my wife under the table at an occasion. And I deserve them. So, but um, so first question is do you have a favorite pizza?

SPEAKER_02 9:34

A favorite pizza? I grew up in Chicago, so if I did not say uh deep dish, I'd be you know in trouble. Uh-huh. Um, and the original Unos, uh, downtown Chicago, that would be my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

The original Unos, did you say? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Okay, pizzeria Unos.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Okay. Was there a um a particular toppings that you liked on it too?

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Uh we used to do a lot of pepperoni and sausage.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Pepperoni and sausage, okay. I think Rocky Rococo's in Madison kind of took their deal from uh Numero Uno's. They because they the their deep dish pizza, their sausage and pepperoni one was like, mm-mm-mm-mm. People came from miles around for some good old uh yeah. I so I I hear it. And when they're all sloppy and the cheese is just dripping all over the place, it's hard to beat that for a good old what would you call them? Stomach bombs. They're stomach bombs.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah, I mean, you're not you're not gonna get up and run a mile after you eat a slice of that but it's delicious, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, what's wrong with him? He ate an entire deep dish pizza.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

So how about a favorite how about a favorite book? Do you have a favorite book?

No-Question Zones And Liberal Arts Irony

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Oh goodness. I have so many different favorite books. That's part of my challenge, you know. Books were my constant companion growing up. That one is gonna be a hard one for me to really pick. Um I think for this purposes right now in my life, if and I think I should say if you ask me on a different day, it might be a different book. That's fair, but the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

No.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. He is a Nigual, which is a shaman of the Toltec. Um and uh the book is about the fact that we're born into agreements that our society has, that our family has, that define who we are, um, that often lead us to create our own misery, and creating four new agreements for ourselves that will help us to alleviate. It was it was um of the book I read after I woke up that allowed me to begin to explore my own faith and my own connection to the creator.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Um, and um that allowed me to let go of the fear once I did get my faith or establish my own faith, um, and allowed me to wake up the way that I did. So that's why today that's my favorite book today.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Gotcha. Well, it's a it sounds like it was an essential resource, if nothing else, right? So how about do you have a favorite poem as long as we're on a literature cycle here?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

That I actually don't have. No, I don't know. I don't have a favorite poem to okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Some of you know, poetry isn't something that it used to be people had, I think, more of a connection to poetry. Maybe we've lost that somewhere along the line, too. You know, that it and uh I know I I was taught a lot of poetry in in school, so you know it I I couldn't probably tell you a full poem of anything, but I remember leaves of grass, you know, um being you know something that really kind of impacted me a lot, and it was bits and pieces of it here and there, kind of jazz. But yeah, no, that I I'm that's good. We're good. No, no problem. How about uh favorite music artist? I'm on an artist thing right now, right now. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Um yeah, so uh I was uh a big deadhead.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

So Jerry Garcia? Really?

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Jerry Garcia, yeah, yeah. I saw I saw quite a few shows while he was still still with us. Yeah.

Favorite Things Icebreaker

SPEAKER_01 13:42

You would enjoy the this story. My um my my wife and I, when I one of my first jobs was as the um assistant director of the Wisconsin Union Theater, UW Madison. And um, while there, uh this was when the Clinton campaign was going around the nation and they did a rock the vote episode at the Union Theater. So uh the press team comes in ahead of time and you know hits me right away and says, You have to find a professional makeup artist for us because we need them to be able to get uh Vice President Agora and President Clinton ready for this you know interview on stage, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, I've got like six of them I can call up immediately, right? So, but just did what they asked, right? Got got uh and asked my wife, are you coming to see this you know the event? And she's like, Yeah, I guess. I said, Well, you're gonna have to be a makeup artist, okay? Because I knew she had done makeup at least for shows and the like. So um, I'm gonna have to have you do uh you know makeup for them. Well, and at this time she was a staunch Republican. So to ask her to do, you know, Bill Clinton and now Gore's makeup was uh that was a real test of love, let me tell you. So and uh she she agreed to do it though. And uh the the the long and the short of the story is she she came in. The woman that was uh handling uh President Clinton said, okay, here's the deal. You're a professional makeup artist. If anyone asks you, you're a professional makeup artist. You got it? So it's like, okay, yep. So went and did the makeup. And as she's doing makeup, they're interviewing Clinton and asking him all these different questions. And they said something about, so how does it feel, Mr. Clinton, to be in the city of the deadheads? And he she could tell being up close to him. He was just kind of like struggling, what the hell does that mean? And she whispered into his ear, Grateful Dead. So and he's like, Oh yeah, grateful dead, that's a great pen. Blah, blah, blah. Just went right into it. See, you saved his presidency right there. You saved his presidency. So I you're you're responsible now. I'm sorry, sweetheart. That's the way it is. But your fault. Pretty much, yeah. I everyone thankfully, we lost the pictures of that. So no one could probably prove that she actually did do that makeup. So, but uh, I don't know. I think my mother-in-law lost them. She couldn't believe that she had done makeup for him. So uh how about um, do you is there a uh a favorite place that you like to go to to de-stress?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

My garden.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Your garden? What kind of garden?

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Mm-hmm. So uh we we actually have three different gardens. Two of them are more flower and herb gardens, and then the other one is a uh vegetable and fruit garden. Wonderful. So we grow on our farm, we grow our own fruits and vegetables, and then um uh a lot of um medicinal and culinary herbs as well. Um, and so cool. Um de-stress with the plants and nature.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

They're right up there with dogs, aren't they, for de-stressing capabilities. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

They are, and my second, you know, um answer probably would have been the couch with the dog, you know. There's a good place to be stressed.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah. My favorite time of the week is the weekend when I have a dog on my lap and a dog on the couch next to me. And yeah, it's it's uh I always think, why can't I just do this for a living? That would be I'd be really good at this. So, but um how about last question, then we can uh move on. But um, is there a um a place or a memory, uh something that you can think of that um is one of a you like a favorite memory to go to or a favorite something happens and you you're reminded of that, and it's it's just one of those things you go to and you relish that moment again and again and again. And it's uh you know, is it something like that in your in your life where you know that it's it's something that just really impacted you? And maybe at the time you didn't even realize how impactful it was. But now as we get older, you know, I think we do have all of us seem to have those moments where it's just like, you know, just walking in the forest and the sound of the leaves under my feet is just so comforting because I think of walking with my grandpa or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

You know, I I think there is a memory I have. Um I was out in Colorado and I was hiking alone in the Rockies um out west of Denver, and I crested over the top of a little rise, and there was this huge valley full of wildflowers. Um, and all of the wildflowers were covered by butterflies, and as soon as I stepped over um the rise, they all took flight and flew directly at me and up over um the top of my, you know, my head and every color of the rainbow. And um, it's one of those times where um I felt so insignificant. You know, anytime I'm on the side of a mountain, I feel very insignificant, yet at the same time so connected to divinity and the creator because of the beauty and look look at the wonder and the awe of it. Um and this was probably in um 1995. Um so that was you know 30 years ago. And um I do I do from time to time it just replays, and I just think, wow. Um because one of the things about our current society that I notice is people are so disconnected from nature, you know. Um, and I think when you have experiences like that and it reconnects you, um, it's really powerful. So that that is a memory that you know just does in fact it not very long ago, a couple of days ago, I just was relating that story to someone for the very reason. Um, but it does, it just pulls me back, it makes me yeah, feel the the awe and the and the wonder in the universe.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah, see the beauty, right? See the beauty, which is um yeah, I think I'd have to agree.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I think we've we've lost the common connections of isn't that a gorgeous sunset, you know. Isn't that powerful to stand on the shores of I mean, I remember growing up in Milwaukee and just going down to we were like four blocks from Lake Michigan, you know. So my mom's idea of a great Saturday or weekday any day was to, you know, pack up some sandwiches in a radio flyer wagon and you know, pull us and whatever down on in the wagon to the beach and hang out there for three, four, five hours, right? And it uh and something about that lake just rolling in and rolling in and rolling in. You don't, you know, we don't realize at the time how that's connecting us to things way beyond us. Um and and now there's just everything is so bite-sized, and you know, let's make sure it's just palatable and make sure we keep feeding the right markets. And yeah, boy. Okay, let's talk about that, the big thing, right? Tell me how you how did this happen to you? Yeah, yeah, I I know you you tried talked about in your summary, but what was the moment that that you got unwoke or awakened from your wokeness, shall we say?

The Awakening: COVID, Censorship, Water

SPEAKER_02 21:07

So it was a little bit of a process. Um, so it wasn't all at once, but I think um the very moment that it happened is when my partner, who was my boyfriend at the time, asked me a question. Um, this was during COVID. Um, and he and I were not on the same page about COVID. Um, he from the very beginning was asking a lot of questions and questioning what they were telling us and all of that. And I was not. I was doing what I was supposed to and being very afraid and not questioning, you know, what the government was telling me. Um and one of the things that um was I could not wrap my head around it. I started, you know, I did disability policy advocacy um in Washington, and so I spent a Lot of time working with the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, all of these agencies that played the role in COVID. And so I said, but I was also doing all this research, and nothing that they were saying was making sense to me based on what I was trying to find. I was trying to find the science to support what the government was doing, and I couldn't. And so I said to him at one point, I said, Jamie, that's his name. I said, Jamie, I just can't believe that they would do this to us, that they would do this to our country, to the world without data and evidence to support it. And he said to me, looked me right in the eyes, and he said, Lisa, if they'll poison our water, what won't they do? And he knew I already believed that. He knew, you know, um, and this is a longer story that I didn't, I don't, you know, I want to be conscious of time and not go into, but my mom got very sick. She had cancer, um, stage four, and I did a whole bunch of research to try to help her um get better. And um, long, long story short, we changed her diet, got her to an active path, did all sorts of things, and um she was cancer free before they finished her first round of chemo. Um but she ended up um dying from what I will call chemotherapy poisoning for her kidney shutdown. So after one round of chemo, after two years of no cancer, um, even though her death certificate says cancer, which was not actually cause of death, it was what they gave her to try to treat it. Um, and when I was doing that research, I'd learned a lot about municipal water supplies and what's in them. And you know, fluoride um just really isn't good for us, and no other country in the world gives it to us, but it's in our water, and they've since admitted that it can lead to um lower IQ and calcify your pineal gland and all of these things. So I already believed that to be true. And I also know that water is the most essential thing to us. If we don't have it, we die. Um, so if they'll poison that, what will they do? And um I had lived my life with a great deal of cognitive dissonance. I was able to sort of say, on the one hand, this, on the other hand, that, and um, those two things can't actually be true, but because experts told me they both are, I have to believe them. That's part of being a member of the cult.

SPEAKER_04 24:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Well, this pushed my cognitive dissonance to the point where I could not hold those two ideas together anymore. If the agencies that are supposed to be protecting us and our health will will allow fluoride to be put in our water and the chlorine and the fact that the pharmaceuticals can't be filtered out, all the things about our water, then how can I believe that they are telling us the truth and protecting us in other ways? And it literally caused my brain to for a moment stop completely and then start working again and allowed me to start asking questions. And and then, as they say, I kind of, you know, I said to him, Well, the other thing that happened that was going on then that was really bothering me was the censorship that started really happening um to conservative voices a lot, but also to the natural health practitioners I had started following after I had helped my mom. And I'm a really a free speech absolutist. I believe that our rights, our freedom are all impined, you know, um depending on our ability to question the government. And in fact, it's our responsibility to do that when we believe they are um being corrupt or acting, you know, not in our own uh our country's best interests. Um, and when when when you start hearing the word disinformation coming from your government aimed at citizens, that's pretty scary. If you know, if you know anything about actual history, which I fear many young people do not anymore, um the word disinformation should send shivers down your spine when the government is trying to get to tell you what is true and what is not. And so then Jamie said to me, Well, if you don't believe me, prove me wrong. Go do the research. And I said to him, Okay, I will. And then, as they say, I I went uh down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, and my world shattered everything I thought was real and true was not. Um, and it took me uh a number of years to pick the pieces up and and you know try to figure out without my identity as a democratic warrior, without my identity as um, you know, a liberal uh lefty, uh, who am I? And if they could manipulate me and brainwash me the way that they did, how do I trust myself again? How and how do I trust anybody else?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Right. So how do I expect to be trusted? Right. So when I was proposing something that I believed was true and stood by it, I defined myself by it, how do I get others to trust me too? And that that to me is it in doing this podcast in particular, it's been um a fascinating, ongoing struggle is you know, to to uh my my goal, my objective, my you know, as God is my witness, my heart is to just have the facts, as many facts as I possibly can, to have the truth set before me. I want to be able to make an informed decision and critically think about things, but I want to see the facts. I don't want somebody showing me the facts that fit their ideology or fix fit their agenda. Because I really don't think it's as much about Republicans and Democrats, nor has it been for quite a while. I think it's about one group of capitalists and another group of capitalists and you know, organizations that benefit a lot from, you know, the exposition of different themes, whatever you want to call them, I guess. Um, and you know, we we all get caught in and vilified against one another when really what most people want to do is just know the truth and have a decent amount of respect, be respectfully treated and respect, uh be able to treat others respectfully and and to be able to ask questions. I want to I want to live a life where I can just ask any question. And I completely agree with you when you say I will you know I will defend anyone's ability to speak and say and ask anything. Do not tell me that they don't have a right to ask that just because you find it offensive, just because it's it's something that you think, you know, that's been decided all around. Why are we even asking that question? Because they need to ask the question. So let them ask the question. And when you talk about misinformation, right? Government misinformation, oh yeah, my gosh, why are we not all of us just going, warning, Will Robinson, warning? Because if that isn't a way of saying, you know, and by the way, we will tell you how to think. Don't worry, you don't have to worry about thinking we've got that all under control. Um that ought to be terrifying. And yet we're too busy fighting what you voted for who, you know, and that we can't even unify.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

We can't. The other thing is though, and I this is I think some people don't want to be responsible for deciding what the truth is. Um, there are a lot of people, you know, it is kind of scary, I will tell you, when you when you come from a perspective of the government is gonna help me figure out what's true, they're gonna keep me safe, all of those things, to wake up and find out, you know what, actually, no, they're not. I'm on my own here. I'm, you know, and especially if you do not have any relationship with with with God or the creator or no spiritual connection in that way, however, someone wants to, you know, look at that, right? And not here to tell anyone what the right answer about that is, but your own connection to the creator, you get a lot of strength and a lot of um love from that. If you don't have that and you place that trust and faith in the government and then it's gone, it's a very daunting thing. And there are a lot of people who don't want to have that responsibility. Yeah, um, you know, freedom comes with a lot of responsibility. Um and uh sadly, a lot of younger people in this country, I don't think they even understand what freedom is. Our our government has gotten so um bureaucratic and so in every decision that you are trying to make, um, that um I think a lot of people don't really understand what it means to be free. And with that freedom does come a lot of responsibility, and um uh taking accountability for one's actions is not high on the priority of a lot of people. Um, I can't speak to the world, I can only really speak to this country because that's right. My experience, but I suspect it's true in other countries as well.

Trust, Truth, And The Demand For Certainty

SPEAKER_01 31:31

So, what do you think it it would take for a person who has lost faith in their institutions to trust a new, because I I think that's ultimately what is coming from this, or what will I think will have to arise from this. We've lost media that we used to trust. We've you know, we've lost a commonality of socially acceptable or socially verifiable um uh systems, sources that will give us the true picture or a true picture as possible, um, and you know, explain the uncertainties when they exist, because you know, science will tell you. I remember during COVID having discussions with one of our local physicians here, who's a guy that had been a Vietnam uh you know medic back in the day and you know became a full-fledged doctor, ran a you know, GP practice out of you know, good old Slockbury, Wisconsin for 47 years, was at the point in his career where he was giving birth to the great grandbabies of kids that he you know birthed when he first started. And um he would I would ask him about COVID in the midst of all that, and I'd say, you know, what about this? What about you know, we just we don't have enough data points yet to answer that. We think this is what's going on right now. And he would tell him from reading New England, you know, Journal of Medicine what the current trends are, of current research studies that were going on, and the numbers that they were gonna have to reach before they would really be able to have any kind of conclusions that would be meaningful. And I really appreciated the fact that he was one of the only people in the scientific community anywhere that I was hearing that was saying that type of message. That's we're just not sure yet. And the reality was people didn't want that message. They wanted, yes, you can't go out without a mask, or don't worry about a mask, that's stupid. You know, it was they there was no room for, well, wait a minute, let's just stop and think about this for a minute. There just wasn't. And we still have continued with that kind of mindset. So, what is it going to take for us to be able to get an organization or a common source of truth, of factual information that isn't biased, isn't it doesn't have somebody's sponsorship attached to it, uh, you know, or some you know, viewer approval rating that says, oh yeah, don't talk about that, talk about this behind it. Is that possible anymore?

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Um, you know, I struggle with that. I'll be very honest. I really, really do. Um, you know, I think um the sad part is I think the best thing that anyone can do right now is provide all the data that they they can. And um, you know, we I think we're all gonna have to make up our own minds, is is the thing. Um because everything I think right now is so tainted. We've lost faith in every institution. Um, and rightfully so. You know, I understand that people want certainty. I also understand that people want to go um sometimes to the doctor, and they don't want to hear about their lifestyle choices that may be contributing to um their problem. They want a pill to fix it. Well, the truth is those pills don't fix it. Um, and you know, um I I will I will say that I do not have a very positive view of what I call our medical pharmaceutical complex. You know, I I think unfortunately most doctors are now just very highly paid drug dealers. That's what they are. It's a cartel. Um, and they have captured our our regulatory agencies. Um and so I think one of the things that we're gonna have to do is break the um the logical fallacy of appeal to authority and the expert. Um if a doctor cannot tell you, you know, can you describe to me the risk of me getting this disease or the risk uh versus you know, the cost-benefit analysis of this treatment versus that treatment? Um, you know, there are things that I think we're gonna have to people are gonna have to take responsibility more for deciding what is true. Um you know, one of the things I talk about in my book is that you are just as qualified as a doctor to look at a study and decide whether or not something is effective. You can read the results, you can look at the study. Could you do the complete the study and write the paper? Maybe not. Maybe so, but maybe not. Um but you are just as qualified to do that, and we have to start believing in our own ability to decide what's true, and we have to stop placing um faith in the experts in in a way that is unquestioning. Um, and you know, that's not an easy thing to say. Um, but I think we also have to very strongly advocate for getting the money out of our science.

SPEAKER_04 36:48

Yeah.

Science, Money, And Transparency

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Um, we have to figure out how to do that. You know, I talk about this too in the book. You know, a scientist is supposed to not have a vested interest in the outcome of his or her experiment. The scientific method relies on the fact that the only thing we're looking for is truth. We're looking for does this experiment support my hypothesis? Um, does the data and evidence support it? Can it be replicated? And if not, then I need a new hypothesis. Well, if I'm a scientist working for a pharmaceutical company, my hypothesis is always gonna be that the drug is gonna work because my very salary depends upon it, and my future in my industry depends upon it. So transparency, you know, if if a pharmaceutical company does a study and it shows that their drug is gonna kill people, uh, maybe we're we need to require them to publish the results of every single study that they do, you know. For example, and I'm picking on the pharmaceutical industry, and but this could be applied across everything. You know, um I I personally have a big um passion about reforming our food, um, our agriculture. Um, you know, the same companies that make the pesticides that kill life shouldn't be the companies that own our seeds. You know, what are you know, we need to be having conversations about that. And we need to get the money out of the science. And I think uh transparency may be the first way uh to do that. And so um, again, I think making sure people understand, you know, here's here's my post-wake-up favorite saying to people is question everything and follow the money. And if the money became transparent, um, I think we'd have a very different view of how so many things operate in in our country and in the world. Um, and if you know, if we can get the money out of science. So, for example, instead of giving NIH giving money out to companies to do research, have scientists who get a salary who have absolutely no invested interest in the outcome, and have those scientists, you know, this is just an example. I'm not really for more government, I'm for more returning control to communities and states. But as an interim staff, maybe it is that the scientists can't work for the company who's trying to get an approval. I think the other thing that happened, um, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has talked about this, um, is that we have um allowed companies to just sort of use chemicals and introduce them without proving they're safe first. And there are something called um I'm forgetting the law right now, but it's a concept that it's generally regarded as safer grass. And then there are so many chemicals that get introduced without um looking at, okay, maybe this chemical is kind of safe by itself, but what happens when it gets mixed with all these other chemicals that are already in the environment and all those kind of things? And I'm focusing on this aspect because I think one of the biggest institutions that we have lost our belief in is science. It's been co-opted. Um, and as we move forward, um you know, I mean, we have a an extremely unhealthy society. And I would say that's true physically, spiritually, and emotionally, mentally. We're very unwell. Um, and part of that is I think due to the food we eat, uh, the environment we're in, all those things. Um, and in order to address it, we have to have some faith in the science, I think. So I guess what I would say the the in the beginning, what we have to do is make all of the data available, and people are gonna have to decide for themselves until we can rebuild some institutions um where we take the money out of out of the equation.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

That's honestly one of my greatest hopes for AI. Um, I've been working on a project actually with um Anthropic's uh version of AI Claude, um, which Claude is wonderful. If you haven't tried, if you're gonna try some AI, try Claude. Uh Claude's named after Claude Shannon, you know, the father of modern information and uh science technology. But uh the the the whole uh concept of could we use AI as and its large language model as a way to just go out and get all of the information about a question and bring it back into a digestible summary that we could at least begin to then have informed questions to go beyond that first question. And it seems very hopeful. I I think there is a way to do it. There's a lot of problems to work out, but I I think you're right. We need something that says, okay, just take all the, excuse me, bullshit out of the equation and let's just look at science, real science, not you know, Quaker Oates funded science or whatever, you know, pick on whoever you want. Um, because that is, we're we're tainting that, we're tainting any kind of religiosity. I mean, there's so much, you know, that is built into the Christian faith right now that it's paid for by various organizations. Like, wait a minute, you know, I have to remind friends of mine that's just like, yeah, but he's not Jesus, you know, he's not Jesus. I I don't know if you know that or not, but he's not Jesus, okay? And it so you get that whole thing going on of people are so willing to let their truth be co-opted. And by letting that happen, I don't know. I don't think there's there's a way back to epistemological uh shared epistemology unless we can find a way to unfragment that thinking that says, I will only believe something if it comes from this source or this tribe or this site. That just is never going to solve anything. We have to get to a point where we have a shared resource that all of us can say, okay, all right, all right, well, what's that have to say? Well, I doesn't agree with why okay, well, let's ask some other questions, but keep going from the same pool. Okay, so at least we're not drinking fluoride and water and whatever else might be the soup du jour from some company.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Uh yeah, and I also think the other thing that we have to do to go along with that is to rebuild our faith in each other.

SPEAKER_03 43:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

And I think that starts from having more face to face interactions with people and rebuilding our. sense of community. Yeah. And that's a challenge. I think, you know, community started sort of dying before COVID. And COVID was some nails in the coffin. You know, it's a lot easier, you know, um it's a lot easier to vilify someone that you only see online or that you never even meet, you know, and you know a lot fewer people go to church and you used to know every all your neighbors from church or the civic organization if you were in one of one of those or you were on the bowling league or you had the dinner club or whatever it was. Right and all that went away. Those things all went away. And so um you know and then our schools have really been indoctrinating people and have been used um you know I I when I started doing research on education through the booking I'm I I've spent a lot of time in school. I have a law degree a master's in social work I and have an undergraduate so that's a lot of time in school. And I was really shocked when I started doing some research about what actually goes on on campuses these days. And it's it really isn't about teaching people how to think it's about teaching people what to think and making sure that they are not exposed to things that might interrupt the message. And that message is generally not um supportive of our American experiment and our constitution and our system. And so um I I think you know we we have these young people especially you know that young people are the future so we have to worry about what they believe and how they're going to to think and they graduate often never having really to confront any opinions that are different than their own yeah um and really being taught that they are morally superior they know better they're now the experts they're credentialed um and that people who don't think the way that they do are bad people. Yeah and they don't get exposed to to different opinions and so I think we have to figure out how to how to overcome that and part of that is you know putting down the devices and taking the screens out of between people and you know getting face to face.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Talk to that person across the booth from you.

AI Hopes And Shared Epistemology

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Yeah so yeah and having conversations you know with people that you don't agree with yeah um and and not you know not taking it personally and you know figuring out that it's okay to agree to disagree um and that someone not thinking like you is not a moral failure on that sorry it's it's you know um so it's funny because the left always talks about diversity they like diversity of everything except diversity of ideas.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Um and and and I yeah well you know that's dangerous that diversity thinking that's that's tough that's that's really hard so I yeah there's uh I I used to think the the left used to be a big tent and they could agree to disagree and that really disappeared over time.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

I you know I I feel like um now what I call it in the book is there's a need for ideological conformity and that falls right into the cult like thinking. If you don't agree exactly with us then you're a bad person.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

My my dad uh after he died I found he had carried a um a little folded up piece of paper that he had hand typed and but he had to had to have the you know fairly long little quote so he had it folded up nice little you know piece of typing paper and in his wallet that he'd carried for years who knows how long and it was a a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson that I'm I'm paraphrasing it but the essential spirit of it was the veracity the the vehemence of my opponent's argument convinces me that I am perhaps a little bit wrong. And he is perhaps a little bit right. And I thought boy that's uh I'm glad I had a dad that thought that was an important enough thing to remember they carried it around in his wallet because it uh we have lost that in many, many ways. And it it it is essential to understand that Adam Mysell was on the show with me a few weeks ago and Adam was is the founder of an organization called um U.S. United and if their their whole effort is to he basically got into a tour bus and they went across the country all the way out to the West Coast and then not sure if he's coming back from there or or if he's you know just paused for a while but his whole thing is they go out on this tour bus essentially to small communities and start trying to help them build community projects together, get community centers revitalized, get you know just educational co uh coalitions established and uh they their whole thing is purple and and that they came about purple is the color because it's blue and and and red combined. And he found throughout the country everywhere he went that there were about 15% of the people that were just radical right that you know President Trump says something in his absolute gospel word. And then there was the radical left that were that's you know woke everything and don't you dare question anything that's said by X, Y, and Z people because they are scientifically whatever, you know, right that that whole thing. But 70% of the people by and large 70% were right in the middle that just wanted to be able to have a dialogue and get some questions answered and understand things more. And they just didn't feel like there was anywhere that they could do that because they couldn't they they didn't know who to talk to anymore right everything's become so polarized and so you know I don't say that you can probably get them upset if you say something about that.

Rebuilding Community And Face-To-Face Trust

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Well goodness gracious you know we got to be able to talk somehow talk right yeah I mean I think we do and I think that that's part of it um you know I think social media has played a big role in this I think that those 15% on each side that you're talking about feel like they are a much larger majority than they act or are a majority and much larger than they actually are because they are in these social media echo chambers. So they think so many more people think like they do. And I think the cancel culture that that social media created makes the you know let's say 30% of the people who might be sort of left leaning but not in that 15% m feel uncomfortable speaking up you know um you know I do hear people who are on the left but not in the cult so to speak will say you know I I kind of agree with you but I can't I can't say that because then my entire community will disappear right you know and um so they I think we do we do need to do that in person um is part of the best way um to do it. But I also think people's lives are just so busy you know that it's hard to figure out you know and our economy our economic situation for so many people is so challenging also because um inflation and the devaluation of the dollar and um all of that that is how do people have the time to do those things and I don't know if it's just me but and I know this happens as you get older but it just feels like I blink and a day is gone now or I you know um and COVID made this much worse I think it sort of eliminated some of the normal markers of time passage that we used to used to have yeah um but it's like how are we almost to the end of 2025 I don't understand where did it go? And so within that context how do you encourage people to get together in community and the other thing that I think is really important as we think about that is figuring out ways to do it that don't cost people money. Because so many people don't have money to you know spend and you know one of the things that I I really realized um when I moved out to the country and I've met a lot of very different people than I used to be associating with in Washington. And so if you just say oh well it's just ten dollars well that might be lunch on the last day of the month for them or it might be you know um the prescription copay they have to pay or the new pair of shoes they need and um so um you know I think churches used to play a much bigger role and unfortunately a lot of churches seem to have now become corporations instead of actual philanthropic organizations that do work for the betterment of the community and I am not fan moffing churches there are great churches out there but for every great church there's an LLC who is getting a lot of money um and not giving a lot back to the community. So supporting churches and other organizations to play a bigger role having community picnics and things like that, you know, where um every church member can contribute if they can but doesn't feel like they have to in order to attend are just things that we we need I think we can think about in terms of how do we because if we we can't get to a place where we begin to trust one another again it's gonna be really hard to get to a place where we can trust our institutions again as well. I have optimism though I do so I see I see that I know it's like heavy but it's the truth it's the fact that I just see so little uh connection between humans anymore um and I think that um that is the root of so much of our malaise as a society uh of our inability to you know divide and conquer is one of the oldest control strategies ever and they have done everything they can to divide us in every way possible left versus right man versus woman black versus white gay versus straight all of any way that they can highlight our division and if we can work to get people focused on those things we have in common and the things that unite us um I think that's where we can we can begin to see a turnaround. And I think it's imminently and eminently possible.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Agreed. I think there is a yearning that goes way beyond anybody's corporate bank account um and is way more powerful. We just need to activate it and we need to be open to activating it. And so we need to be willing to wake up from our wokeness or or our conservative security whatever is you know going on that uh put your faith in each other because it's I really think we need like band of brothers you know kind of mentality we're we're in a war people and this war is not against Democrats and Republicans. It's a war against haves and have nots. So let's uh let's try to get uh get it together here have nots and realize that you know we could do a lot of good if we just unite and do do things that really matter to people like making sure they got that$10 at the end of the month that they need um and being knowing them well enough to know that they need that$10 and not being afraid to say well here's$10 no big deal going on. Oh thank you so much. No, no sometimes you'll give me$10. I'll be right don't worry about it. So right that would be a nice world you it's a it's a wonderful life that's what we need. We need uh good old Bedford Falls again. So Lisa Eckert has been Eckman has been with me today the author of Deep Programming Democrats and uneducating the elites which I thought right there it's like wow okay you don't hear that type of message very often so it's uh it was it was refreshing I have to say in a way I'm so used to that sort of you know uh uh rhetoric being used for the the other side of the political spectrum that to hear someone say deep proming de pro sorry deprogramming Democrats not only is it alliteration but it's uh makes you kind of wake up and go huh what so um I it's been a pleasure talking with Lisa how you escaped the progressive cult has been uh we only touched a little bit on the very tip of that iceberg so I do hope we can get together again that sometime in the near future and continue the conversation that would be wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

That would that would be my pleasure and if you don't mind I can just say you can get my book on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

Oh please no dude I I was gonna ask you what else can we people how can they get a hold of you how can they find out more?

SPEAKER_02 57:44

Yeah so I have a website it's deprogrammingdemocrats.com my book is on Amazon and Barnes and Noble um and I am on X only as deprogrammed Dem. On X only as deprogrammed okay deprogrammed them yeah I say only because that's the only social media that I have I got rid of all of it when I woke up because it was too toxic and I that's the only one I jumped at. Yeah because when I joined that was the only one that was free and open for speech. It was after Elon Musk purchased it. So at that time everything else YouTube, you know uh Instagram meta was all still censoring Truth Voice very heavily so you kind of wonder about that don't you?

SPEAKER_01 58:35

It's just like uh you you don't have to be afraid if if you know just just read and you'll know what's going on. Okay. So it's so thank you Lisa thank you thank you thank you all people out there have enjoyed listening to the conversation and enjoyed talking with you as much as I've enjoyed talking with you. So although they didn't get to ask the questions so I feel a little bad about that but uh I'll get over it thanks so much say hello to your dogs for me okay too and I'll I'll give my dogs a hug from you and you do the same all right so thanks for listening everyone here on on profiles and leadership uh frame of reference that's the backwards version of frame of reference profiles and leadership take care