All About The Joy
All About The Joy is a weekly hang-out with friends in the neighborhood! We share insight, advice, funny-isms and we choose to always try and find the positive, the silver lining, the "light" in all of it. AATJ comes from the simple concept that at the end of the day we all want to have more JOY than not. So, this is a cool place to unwind, have a laugh and share some time with friends!
All About The Joy
Politics Without Rage | Blake Fischer on Trust, Congress, and The Homeless Conservative
A candid conversation with Blake Fischer on rebuilding trust, cutting through outrage, and restoring self‑government.
Politics shouldn’t feel like a loyalty test, but for a lot of people it does. We invited Blake Fischer, creator of The Homeless Conservative, to talk about why so many “exhausted citizens” are stepping back, how the parties lost their grip on governing, and what it takes to rebuild trust in a system that seems to reward outrage over outcomes. From his early days on a mayoral campaign to launching a podcast meant to add clarity instead of heat, Blake lays out a simple frame: conserve the constitutional order, return Congress to legislating, and stop treating presidents like kings.
We dig into the century-long power shift from Capitol Hill to the White House, why executive orders keep multiplying, and how court rulings and crisis politics nudged us toward a presidency that tries to do everything. Blake explains how weak parties and strong PACs pushed primaries to extremes, sidelining nuance and elevating personalities. We trade notes on media incentives, the dopamine economy of fear and anger, and what younger voters—who only know politics in the Trump era—have been taught to expect. The throughline is practical: write down your principles before you pick your person, follow sources that cite evidence, and reward anyone who corrects themselves in public.
This conversation isn’t about agreeing on every issue; it’s about restoring the habits that make self-government possible. If you’ve felt torn between teams, wary of headlines, or unsure where to start, you’ll leave with a clearer map: how to talk across differences without losing your friends, how to pressure representatives to do their job, and how to sort fact from noise when the feeds light up. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s checked out, and leave a review telling us one principle you won’t compromise on—what would help you re-engage?
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Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.
Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy. This is the private lounge. And um, my guest today is Blake Fisher. Did I say your name correctly? Because I always guess some people's names.
Blake Fischer:Got it.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay. And you are the owner and the creator of the podcast, uh, The Homeless Conservative.
Blake Fischer:True.
Carmen Lezeth:So I'm excited to have you here, but I first want to explain to people um we have a show called Culture and Consequence that we just started, where we're talking about political stuff, more about teaching, kind of teaching some of the things that I think people don't know. And you reached out or your people, I don't know if it was your PR people or who, but I don't have people, it's just me. You don't have people. Okay. Well, we get so many emails, you know what I mean? So, and normally I would have been like, nope, I don't I don't wanna, I don't want to talk about politics on, but your whole vibe totally intrigued me. Your whole thing about um just kind of being a person who is homeless as a conservative because you feel like maybe your party has. I don't know. We'll talk about what you think about that, but I was totally intrigued by it. So welcome to this show, and I'm really excited to have you here.
Blake Fischer:Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm glad it intrigued you. I think there are, I think there are more people like me than uh we think there are, just because the loudest people are the crazy people. And I think everyone else has just kind of retreated. So I'm like trying desperately not to retreat, but it it's hard sometimes.
Carmen Lezeth:It is really, really hard. And I think you have something in your bio or on your website, and my apologies, but you talk about exhausted citizens.
Blake Fischer:Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth:I think that's what got me. I'm like, okay, I may not believe everything you believe, but I'm exhausted.
Blake Fischer:Yeah. I think a lot of people are. I mean, from my, and this is just maybe it's anecdotal because it's the people I talk to, but it it does seem like, and I think there's data that backs it up too. I mean, like uh last year's election, more there were more independent people that were registered as independents that voted than Democrats. And and both parties have been losing people to, you know, they've been leaving. So not just like it's not new voters signing up as independents necessarily. It's actually people are leaving Republican and Democratic parties and saying I'm independent. Now, I don't think they're really that independent. I think they generally still feel very much like one way or the other with a party. But to me, that's a huge signal that they're at least trying to tell someone that, hey, I don't like what you're doing. And I think that's on both sides right now. It seems across the board. And so I think what I've noticed the problem is is that normal people, who I'm calling, you know, sane, you know, people that that want government to work and want to care about this stuff, I think they just are totally overwhelmed by not being like feeling like they can't trust any news source, they can't trust any person on social media, because they'll see two things back to back. That's like one says this and the other one says something that completely contradicts that. And they're both presenting it as fact. They're not presenting it as opinion, even. And then the person goes, Well, I don't know who to believe here. Obviously, someone's not telling you the truth, but it's kind of too hard. It's like kind of hard to dig into who's telling the truth at that point. So I get a lot of questions to me, just from friends and family and stuff. They're like, Okay, catch me up on this whatever big event that's in the news, super polarizing thing, since everything's a 50-50 issue now. Everything's like, you got to be on one side or the other. There's zero nuance. You can't be like, well, here's an interesting. No, it's like you either have to be team A or team B, team red, team blue, whatever it is. And it seems like everything's like that, whether it's a stupid American Eagles Sydney Sweeney ad that we are enraged about, or it's something that's actually happening that matters. And so I think people are just going, like, it's easier to check out and not pay attention to it. I think the problem is when normal people do that, we just kind of leave it to the really crazy partisans that then dominate all the discussion, dominate all the coverage, dominate all the just everything. And then and then people end up in a general election four years from the last time they voted, and they're like, these are our two options again. And then they just kind of either hold their nose and pick something or they pick what's closest, or and and I think the problem is it's like we're just like totally seeding between those, especially presidential elections, to the crazies. And and then the normal people go like, why is it so bad?
Carmen Lezeth:But I'm gonna disagree with you with just one thing. I'm I'm gonna try not to argue with you at all because I want this to really be a body. I know, but you know what? I that's not what my show's about. And my whole thing is I want us to have a great dialogue. So the thing I'm gonna disagree with you about is I actually think more people are not leaving because there are people like you and people like me who are saying, wait a minute. Now, something you don't know about me is I was a Democrat. And when the whole Joe Biden thing happened in this last election, I became not an independent in California where non-party affiliate, you know, non-party um, I forget what the other P stands for, but it's not independent. It's no party platform.
Blake Fischer:That's what I did.
Carmen Lezeth:Um so I agree with you that more people are doing things, or I'm hoping, maybe I'm hoping, more people are becoming less inclined to want to be on the extremes. I've always thought we were more to the middle. I remember in the past, I would listen to people like, and and all my liberal friends are about to have a panic attack, but most of them already know. I used to listen to like Sean Hannity, um, it was K ABC out here in Los Angeles, Larry Elder, you know what I mean? Like I used to Bill O'Reilly on the radio. Now, I didn't agree with them, but I could listen to them because I was, I wanted to understand what their thought process was. And at that time, I was like, oh, I can see where you're going. Like it was a way for me to be educated, you know what I mean? But now it's all too hard. It's all too painful, you know?
Blake Fischer:Yeah, and I think what the I so I agree. I don't think you're wrong about that. I do think people are, if they are like when I say they're checking out, I think that more, I think there are definitely like the majority. And I think it's like a huge majority. I don't think it's like 51% majority. I think it's a most people are um, if they're if they're kind of paying attention. I think there's multiple buckets of people. I think there's a lot of people that just vote every four years, and that's right the most they pay attention to it. I don't love that. I think as citizens, we're supposed to be a little bit more involved. I don't think voting is, I think we've kind of elevated voting a little too high on the list of things that like are supposed like that's like the all-important thing. It's really just a job interview that you're simultaneously firing someone and hiring someone else at the same time. Right. I think what we've done is that most people feel that way. I think. I think most people go, I'm voting. You hear a lot of anecdotal stories about people like holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils. You hear that term all the time. And I think those people realize that I'm voting for this person, and if it doesn't go the way I think it will, I will vote for someone else. You know what I mean? Like that's generally how it goes. I think the sort of crazies, the people I'm talking about that are kind of um have always very partisan. And I think that they feel like the second they vote for someone, they have to then defend every everything that person does from then on if they win. And that's not how I think American politics was set up to be. I think we're always supposed to be holding the people that we elect accountable, like always. That's like our number one job. That's the press's number one job. And what's happened with people like Sean Hannity is someone I used to pay attention to too, as a conservative. Uh, I loved watching Bill O'Reilly back in the like 90s, early 2000s and stuff. Uh, I think most of the time, and but I also like I just think it's good to listen to people and pay attention to people that you're you know you're going to disagree with because it's going to challenge your beliefs and your views. And you might realize, oh, actually, that's a great idea that I do agree with. Because I think most of this is much more nuanced. But what we've turned it into, you know, I think Trump is the symptom of this. I don't think it's that he caused this, but what we've turned it into is like, no, once you, you've got to be my least favorite question is when people go, Are you, do you support Donald Trump? And I'm like, what does that mean? Like, yeah, I don't support anyone blindly. I don't just blindly say any politician can do anything they want. And if they've got the right letter after their name, I'm gonna say, okay, there are going to be things I disagree with that he does. There are gonna be things I agree with. There are going to be, and that should be the case with everyone.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, but you're paying attention. So I think that's kind of why I also wanted to have you on the show is I don't think a lot of people are paying attention as closely, you know. So that's why they end up being like, well, I'm a Democrat, so I have to only support the Democrat. And I can't tell you how much flack I got for loving John McCain. I mean, I didn't vote for John McCain, but I've always loved him. I always thought he was such a great human being, you know? And I disagreed, like the, you know, the whole Sarah Palin thing is just so unfortunate, right?
Blake Fischer:It is, it just is that campaign was off the rails by the time they picked Sarah Palin. They already knew it was a Hail Mary to try to potentially win.
Carmen Lezeth:They already it was a weird, and and it's and it wasn't really, it wasn't John McCain. Like it that's what was so off about it, you know. But before we go any further, because I can see you and me, we could be talking about this forever. I want to get back to when did you decide that this is what you wanted to do? When did you know you were a conservative? And when did you well, I'm you know, I know it's a silly question, but just to get a flavor, because I know you did something way, you know, you did something very different. Let's get a little background on who you are and how you came to this.
Blake Fischer:I'm weird. I don't think most people should pay as much attention to politics as I do. So that's the first caveat. Is that like I say at the top of my show, I'm a political junkie so that you don't have to be. It I have always enjoyed this. My uncle ran for mayor. I'm in Oklahoma City. He ran for mayor and won when I was in eighth grade. So I was like dealing, I was doing like behind the scenes campaign stuff with him, uh, because my mom was helping him a ton, like all the time volunteering. So I got kind of an early taste for that. That most eighth graders are not paying attention to mini politics, much less like local mayoral politics, and you know. And so I kind of like that's probably what got me kind of the bug of so that's like 1998. Uh, and I didn't, I was not 18 yet in the 2000 election, although that was something I was very much paying attention to. I loved cable news in like the 90s. I loved a lot of those shows on like CNN and and Fox News. Fox News was a totally different thing in 1998, 1999. It really was. And like I really liked Bill O'Reilly's show. Uh I I thought he was he got a bad rap for no personality stuff aside. He had some flaws, obviously, a flawed human being, but the show was very much down. Like he let he had people on he disagreed with, he let them have the final word a lot of times. Yes, it got heated sometimes, but they were having real discussions about like, okay, give me your point. Well, what about this? And he was asking them, he wasn't just giving them softball questions, and he wasn't doing what Fox News does now, which is where they just kind of have two people come on and they have like token Democrat, but it's probably not someone that's very good at being on television. It's like, you know, they're just like challenging them, right? Yeah, they're uglier than the Republican that's on the TV. You know, it's like all these kind of things like that that they that's what there wasn't as much of that back then. Remember, Glenn Beck was on CNN in the early 2000s, which is what people forget that.
Carmen Lezeth:That is so wild.
Blake Fischer:When it was on CNN, and then he's like slowly gone off the rails. And what my theory on what has happened is that the way media has changed over the last 20, 30 years, um, especially with social media coming in and YouTube and that, everyone started like needing to have a hot take or an extreme kind of thing. And what happens is that then you the audience loves that. I mean, social media, we know, loves outrage, they love fear. Those are the things that keep people on the platform. And so those platforms serve that stuff up more. Yeah. And I think there's a whole like if you are, I hang out with like 20-year-olds a lot because my wife is uh the the women's like 20-something pastor at our church. So we hang out with 20-somethings quite a bit. And often I'm having these kind of conversations with them. I'm like, they only know politics with Donald Trump in it. Like, if you're 22.
Carmen Lezeth:That's right, because they're so young. Right.
Blake Fischer:If you're 24, that's all you've known. Because for all this, you know, almost decade he that he's been in the picture and it's kind of been this crazy topic thing. Social media has changed the way the coverage of this stuff works. And so what I've noticed is that it just seemed like um, so I kind of grew up in just a different political kind of era where it seemed like I was a musician, so I hung out with people I disagreed with all the time. I mean, it would be like that, you know, like a Republican in California or a Democrat in Oklahoma. It's like I was surrounded by people I disagreed with, but I never had a problem having discussions with this. Was you know, we were like touring around the country before we had smartphones. So all you could do is talk about stuff. So it was we talked about everything. It was movies, it was music, it was politics. And I've just never had a situation where I couldn't be friends with someone because we disagreed. And I feel like that's totally shifted.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay, I was just gonna ask you has that changed for you now?
Blake Fischer:Uh no, I don't think it has changed for me just because I think I I always when I have discussions with people like that, I'm just honest about like, I think you you're wrong, and here's why I think you're wrong, or something. But I'm not like mean about it. I'm never like you're an idiot or you're evil. I think the big problem is over the last it really started in the 90s too. This was going on, uh, certainly in the 90s, but it turned into we we no longer just disagreed with what people, like their opinion on how to fix something was. It was they had bad intentions. It was like they're evil or they're trying to destroy the country or like that language had just come in. And so so basically I was really interested in politics always. I wanted to do a podcast forever about it, but I just kept not doing it because I couldn't figure out like, well, what do I do? What is what's like how do I be?
Carmen Lezeth:I think you found your niche.
Blake Fischer:I think finally after like COVID happened and stuff, and and I had started some uh music podcasts with friends, I was like, oh, this is actually pretty fun. I think I should just do this. And so, um, and I just also just saw that there was not a there are some great people that are um very fact-based and very like honest about like, hey, we're calling out no matter what, but they are getting fewer and fewer and fewer because there are so many of those people that I used to pay attention to that I don't anymore because they've kind of been captured by the crazy part of their audience. And once they get captured by that, they can't get away from it. And so you've seen it happen. Tucker Carlson is another person that was like someone I paid attention to when he was on MSNBC.
Carmen Lezeth:And I'm gonna be honest that I never liked him even on MSNBC.
Blake Fischer:You know how somebody just rubs you the wrong way. Yeah, he, but yeah, like I know he's a smart guy, and something has happened over the last 20 years where he's lost it, he's either lost his mind or he really believes this stuff, or he's just lying to his audience. I don't know. I really cannot figure out that conundrum because he's saying things that directly contradict like very strong opinions he had 10 years ago. And I but I feel like that's everyone on my side, especially.
Carmen Lezeth:Let me ask you this question. So, because it because I I could listen to you the whole time, but then I don't need to be here. You could just talk more podcasts. But no, you're great. Let me ask you this question. Can you explain to my audience what what it means to be a conservative? And what is it that you think the Republican Party has maybe changed, left out, is not doing what may have kept you with the Republican Conservative Party?
Blake Fischer:That's a great question because I think so much of the problems with the way we talk about politics is that the definitions of these words have changed like significantly. And you might have a different definition of conservative than I do. For me, what conservatism really should mean, I mean, this is this would be what I would fight for. Okay, is like I want to conserve the constitutional order that we set up for the federal government and for the states to work. I think that's a good thing.
Carmen Lezeth:So you're a const you're a constitutional conservative, right?
Blake Fischer:Yeah, no, that doesn't mean we can't change the constitution because there are amendments for, right? If we have amendments for, so like that's not what I'm saying either. I'm not saying I'm not one of these people that thinks that we should just like ditch all the amendments that came in or something and just keep it the exact same. I think it's meant to be an evolving thing. But I think that was designed to be hard for a reason because I think the founders were smart to think that A, we should not trust anyone with absolute power. We should not trust any one person or any one branch with more power than without checks on them. Um, they designed the presidency to not be what it has turned into over the last hundred years. It was the least powerful branch of government, honestly, at when it was designed. And Congress had all the power. They just couldn't foresee that Congress would, I guess, give that power up voluntarily, which is kind of strange to me, too.
Carmen Lezeth:So before you keep going, and I'm sorry I keep interrupting you, but I just I know my audience, so I want to make sure they understand something. So when we talk about equal, we're talking about legislative, executive, and um, what am I missing? Uh judicial. All three of those are supposed to be equal and supposed to be checks and balances. And that's what we're talking about.
Blake Fischer:Yeah, except I disagree. I do not think they were meant to be equal. I think that's something that started with like, I mean, honestly, you started hearing that kind of um rhetoric, I would call it during like Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Newton, and these ones that wanted more executive power. And so they started calling them co-equal branches, but that's not in the constitution. The the founders never called them coequal, but they called them, they certainly said there's checks and balances. Checks and balances.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay.
Blake Fischer:But the but when you look at the list of things that it says, you know, got Article I, which is covering Congress, Article II, which is uh the presidency or the executive branch, and then article three, which is the judicial branch. Judicial. There are a lot of things listed in Article I that it says Congress has the power to do. And there are not very many things that it says, you know, basically the president has the power to pardon. Right. The president has the power to veto legislation that comes to them, although Congress can then overwrite that veto with two-thirds majority. So Congress even has a check on the executive branches check on them. Right. You know, so if you had a rogue president that wasn't gonna was gonna veto everything that came their way, Congress still has a way to go past them. You just gotta get two-thirds. You gotta get a bigger majority than you do to just pass a simple law.
Carmen Lezeth:But that's not happening.
Blake Fischer:No, it's not for a while, right? Taxing, uh, taxing, all that kind of uh the ability to uh declare war. All of these things are congressional things that the president actually does not have the ability to do. But over the last hundred years, we have slowly ceded that power to the executive branch. So my main problem with saying that the Republican Party is not very conservative right now is that I don't see that anyone in Congress is interested in grabbing that power back. And I think that almost every problem we have.
Carmen Lezeth:Wait, say that again because you just confused me.
Blake Fischer:Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth:Um, say that again. That was great. I'm just confused by what you mean by that.
Blake Fischer:So Congress has slowly given this uh slowly given their powers away to the executive branch by normally what they're doing is like some sort of thing comes up. Let's say that it's World War II. I mean, that's a good example of this because it's a crisis. Okay, we need to act quicker. And so a lot of times they will then go, okay, we're gonna write a law that says the president can do X, Y, and Z. And then they always tried to do it in a way that said, like, yeah, but we have a final check on that by saying, uh, for example, it happened in the 70s with the stuff that Trump's using right now for his excuses for the reason he has the ability to levy tariffs. The president does not have the ability to create terror. That's Congress. But Congress did pass a law that basically said, okay, the executive branch can do this in emergency situations. And then we can, uh, I can't remember, they called it a legislative veto, is what they called it. Well, what happened is that they wrote that law. Great. Okay, we've got to check on that. The Supreme Court came back and said, no, you actually, there's no such thing as a legislative veto. That's not anywhere in the Constitution. That that part of the bill gets basically stripped out. So now all they've done is completely handed that power over to the president. Over the presidency. And without the check of Congress being able to come back. Now, the thing is, Congress could pass a law today that takes all that away. Like I said, this is all completely, again, if if Donald Trump tried to veto it, you can get two-thirds of Congress to say, no, we actually need that power back. Um, I think that would actually be wise to do, but it looks like it's gonna, if it's anyone, it's gonna be the Supreme Court that says. So, like, but Congress has slowly done that. Started with Wood Woodrow Wilson, it uh it escalated quite a bit with FDR. Um, it escalated a lot more under Nixon. It's just slowly done this. And and you see the number of executive orders, if you look at the just how many executive orders, it's increased with every president and really ramped up with George W. Bush, Obama did more than Bush, then Trump did more than Obama, and then Biden did more than Trump, and then Trump has done more than Biden did before. You know, so we just keep we're doing everything via executive order. Congress has only passed, I think, I could be wrong on this, so don't quote me on. I think they've only passed four bills since Donald Trump.
Carmen Lezeth:I mean, okay, I think what people don't understand, and and I think it's something I want to emphasize here, is I say this respectfully. Um Donald Trump, I think is a different kind of entity that has occurred. And I'm trying to be as respectful as possible. I mean, I think you're right. We've eroded our power. Congress is supposed to be a reflection of the people, right? Because we put them into power. They should be those checks and balances, but it's been stripping away. You're absolutely right over all that time. I love how you did that. But I feel like Donald Trump has just changed the game. Oh, yeah. And I I don't look at everyone knows how I feel about Donald Trump. You can already guess. But my question to you is is not how do you feel about Donald Trump, but do you think Donald Trump is an anomaly, or do you think this is the way in which we're gonna go forward in the Republican Party and the Conservative Party? Do you see any way of this changing?
Blake Fischer:Oh, yeah, that's tough. I I think that I think he is a little bit of an anomaly in a sense that I don't think people are very it we've seen that people have tried to repeat his sort of style and it doesn't work. It doesn't work. It looks, it's like an imitation. I think that Donald Trump is authentically himself, if that makes sense. Um, I don't think he's trying, he's not doing the politics. No, it does, me too, but at least like he but he's authentically himself, and the people that have tried to um repeat that somehow have not succeeded for the most part. Most of his even people that he picks to run for congressional seats and stuff have lost. I mean, JD Vance is the exception. But even JD Vance, I mean, going back to that Senate when he won that Senate thing, uh his what I guess that was 2020. Yeah, that was before that.
Carmen Lezeth:That was before though Trump, right?
Blake Fischer:Oh, Trump had no in the primary. And that's kind of hitch his wagon to him. But even in that, JD Vance, I can't don't have the exact numbers, but he won by like six points, and the governor of Ohio, who's also Republican, won by like 18 points. Yeah, so there's a discrepancy. It was still like he was like JD Vance lost one by a lower margin than all the other Republicans uh on the ballot in Ohio that year or whatever. And I might not be completely right about all the Republicans. But either way, the point being that other than JD Vance, almost everyone else, Herschel Walker, I can't even remember most of the people's names, most of them didn't win in the primary. Um, because people just don't want an imitation, I think. People want at least someone to be authentic and honest. I do think he's in an omnipotent in the sense that we thought that we could give these powers to the executive branch because that person would be um respectful of like norms and some of these things that are a little bit more not written down as law, but they're more like this is the way we do things.
Carmen Lezeth:Romney or John McCain, or you can go down the list of, you know, conservatives, Republicans who would not abuse right.
unknown:Yeah.
Blake Fischer:But my my thing, going back to like, what does it mean to be conservative? My thing is to not trust, like I like, I think human nature is unchangeable. I think that we are not good by nature. And I think you have to, you have to write every law and you have to rule you. Well, I mean, not in a not in a sense that I think people are bad, but in a sense that I think you have to design government to expect someone that is bad to be in that position and make sure that you can check that. Does that make sense? Like it's not great.
Carmen Lezeth:You just blew my mind. Like, I no, that please keep going. That was actually really um something I never thought of because I actually believe most people are good, but in the context that you're putting it in, yeah. Um, okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. Wow.
Blake Fischer:Well, yeah, I just I think that that's how you know you even look at how much I mean, because go back to the founding of the country, and they were very suspicious of single people like kings having all the power to do whatever they want. And so they very they fought and fought and fought over like how do we design a government that makes sure that doesn't happen. And I just don't, and I think they did the right thing. I think they just didn't, they didn't imagine that Congress would be like, yeah, sure, here's all our power to the executing brand. It it seems so silly because now we literally have, I think the anomaly here is that where Donald Trump is definitely an anomaly is that he really only cares about himself. Uh, he does not really care about the Republican Party. He's said over and over again he doesn't consider himself a conservative. So I don't really understand why the defense of people who do consider they're they're conservative, why they can't disagree with that and still vote for him. Like that's fine.
Carmen Lezeth:No, but what's what's your reasoning for why people don't see as clearly what's everything you just said, me and my I'm not extremely liberal. I'm very to the middle. Okay. I I used to be proud to call myself a conservative Democrat.
Blake Fischer:Yeah.
Carmen Lezeth:Because I really believed that's what I was. Now I want nothing to do with the word conservative because I'm so dusted by it, right?
Blake Fischer:Well, right. And I think that that's the problem is that like conservatism needs a rebrand for sure. Because the problem is most people just go, oh, well, Donald Trump's conservative. Well, no, I mean, he is not conservative. He's not conservative at all. And you used to be able to have um we as voters, and I actually don't think it's we as voters in the general election. I think it's really the primaries, and we could get into a whole thing about why I think the primaries are really part of the problem uh that we have. But talk about that next time you come on, but it's work. You know, what we've done is that we've we we no longer award people that are nuanced. And so you cannot be a uh a socially conservative Democrat. You cannot be a uh socially liberal conservative, you know, like you can't, we just don't allow that anymore. Those mentions like all the people that we would consider a little centrist, John McCain, uh, you know, all those kind of people that you've mentioned, those all they kind of got forced out of the Donald Trump era. And on both sides, Democrats are doing the same thing right now where they're going, it's this ideological purity test. Although, oddly enough, the ideological purity test on the right right now is uh, do you say nice things about Donald Trump? It's not actually, it has nothing to do with issues because that might change. Um the Democrats are doing it a little bit more on actual some sort of ideology, although it's it's kind of near to some of the things that they've uh just hammered down on, which I just go, I think electorally are super foolish. I just think like very clearly in 2024, people were rejecting a lot of the things that Democrats were going, you have to be A, B, and C, or you can't be in our party. I think if the parties had more power, we'd be in better shape.
Carmen Lezeth:Um you said more power.
Blake Fischer:Yeah, and what I mean, what I mean by power is like we don't have because of like, okay, again, again, not assigning intentions, but like good intentions don't lead to good results all the time. And one of those things would be campaign finance reform in the 2000s. They're trying to, you know, get money out of politics, which is impossible. And what ended up happening is now all the PACs, super PACs, can get unlimited donations, but you cannot unlimited donate to parties. Right. So the parties are basically absolutely chained to those PACs. That's right. Unless those packs are single issue, which means they only care, like the NRA only cares about gun control.
Carmen Lezeth:They only care about guns, they don't care about anything else. Nothing else.
Blake Fischer:And Planned Parenthood only cares about their thing.
Carmen Lezeth:And so they're only going to, they're only going to be with that person for that issue whatsoever. That's the only thing they're going to. Like, as long as you're Planned Parenthood, I'm going to back you and give you millions of dollars.
Blake Fischer:Right. And so Planned Parenthood in NRA and all these other people are like hanging over the politicians. Well, I don't, we don't endorse you if you don't completely get in line with us. And what that's like, if the Republican Party and Democrat Party had any control over their primaries at all, Bernie Sanders, who is not really a Democrat, and Donald Trump, who's not really a Republican, would not have been able to run for president in 2016. They would not have been.
Carmen Lezeth:I agree with you 100%.
Blake Fischer:You know what I mean? And so that's what's we been weird is that we've turned it into um, I do think Donald Trump has changed politics in a couple of ways that I don't think are going to change. I think one is that we are fully in, I think Obama sort of started this, but Trump sort of put the nail in it. Is like, it is about personality and nothing else. Like, unfortunately for most voters, now it's do I like this guy or not like this guy? And that is it.
Carmen Lezeth:I gotta go back even further and say Clinton, right? Personality was a thing.
Blake Fischer:But I will say Clinton was a very good politician.
Carmen Lezeth:Like he he was very Okay, we're not gonna disagree on whether Barack Obama's a good politician or nothing. Yeah.
Blake Fischer:Like I think that he could see where the country was and he was going there. Like honestly, like Donald Trump honestly ran Bill Clinton's campaign this last year. I mean, it was not much different if you look issue to issue.
Carmen Lezeth:Say that again. Say that again.
Blake Fischer:Like Donald Trump basically ran like Bill Clinton did in the city. Oh, okay.
Carmen Lezeth:I see what I mean. Okay.
Blake Fischer:It's not that much different. Like if you look, if you watched the if you watched the um and you see, you know what I'm hating about you right now?
Carmen Lezeth:You're you're you're telling me stuff I've never thought about.
Blake Fischer:So I'm not saying they agree on everything, but really they are closer because Bill Clinton was seeing that, like, hey, I've got to be a little more he was leaning into the conservatism side a little bit. We were kind of demanding fiscal responsibility and some of that stuff. Uh, and so Bill Clinton leaned into that so so he could get re-elected. And uh, and and that stuff did happen. He had for the first time, you know, he was dealing with a majority in Congress that was Republican. And he had, if you were gonna get anything done, you have to work with them.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah.
Blake Fischer:Um, I think that Obama was just a little too green at it at the time. I think that he, I think.
Carmen Lezeth:I think there were other things also. I mean, I don't want to get into a debate about Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, but I also think there were other issues happening with Barack Obama being the first black president. That was a big deal. And I think there was there was not only negotiation happening, but other stuff at play that we can talk about on another podcast.
Blake Fischer:But yeah, I also think generally presidents are better if they've been governors before. I think that that's I agree with you a hundred percent stepping stool whereas like coming from the Senate, it's just a totally different thing. Like, you know.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, and it was the state, wasn't he state senator?
Blake Fischer:He wasn't well, he was a state senator for a couple years, and then he was a state center for two years before.
Carmen Lezeth:It was like two years, yeah. That's yeah, yeah. I agree with you there. So, and and again, I'm not trying to stop you. I am trying to stop you. I just want to make sure we get the full flavor of who you are. Yeah. Um, and I, you know what? I think the whole thing about arguing about politics is also bad. And I'll tell you, one of the things that bothers me is people believe that they have facts on their side. People believe that, you know, because they watched a YouTube video or whatever, they listen to you or they listen to me and they're like, well, this is, you know, and people aren't doing the research, right? Because we have the attention span of a gnat. Oh, gosh. So we can't research anything, we can't look at anything further than that headline or whatever, you know. So my question to you is how do we fix it?
Blake Fischer:Oh boy, that's that's a tough one. I mean, I think I think the first thing is to reward the people that are doing it well. Uh so most most of that is now. I mean, you know, I follow individuals more than I follow organizations just because the organizations can totally change. And it's not, I I want those organizations to be better. I do. I think that we're lacking institutional fortitude lately. I feel like everyone's just kind of using whatever the institution is as a platform to further their own career or something. And and what I would like to get more to like these organizations, be they news organizations or political organizations or whatever, to be more about the institution and not about the individuals making it up. But right now we're kind of just not in that thing. With social media and stuff, it is about single individuals. That's where a lot of people are getting their news, is from you know, that kind of stuff. So reward the people that do a good job at it. And I think the one way you can tell someone does a good job at it is citing sources. I just think that's the primary thing that has to happen, is to say, well, here I'm pulling up this resource that says this is the facts. And it's not just me telling you it's the facts. It's like, here's the New York Times or here's Washington Post or here's Fox News or who's whatever the source is. It's like, give me some sources. Uh I don't know.
Carmen Lezeth:So that's what we do on culture and consequence. We, you know, we'll have our conversation, but then afterwards, when I'm editing, I'll put at the bottom where our sources are from. Or if we make a mistake, like that's the other thing. Why, why can't people just say, you know what? I made a mistake. I apologize. Let me take that back. Here's the actual information. We don't do that either. No. While I'm um, I just realized I haven't put out your website for the audio. I want to make sure everyone knows it's thehomelessconservative.com. That's thehomelessconservative.com. Please go and check him out, follow him on YouTube. Let me ask you this. Um, what do you think individual people should do if they're feeling lost, besides listening to your podcast or coming to your YouTube? No, really. No, or checking us out on our little political thing that we're doing. What would you say to someone who maybe is a Trump supporter, is disenchanted, is trying to find their way through, or a a Democrat who's like, this isn't working for me either. What do I do? Where do I go? Who do I listen to? Who do you listen to? Who do you like?
Blake Fischer:Yeah, I think the the first thing to do is to talk to people about it. I think that what's always fascinating to me is that I can have um, I think a lot of people think that they we've been told, okay, don't talk about politics or religion at the dinner table or whatever, you know, and like in company. And I just think that we've not done a really good service to us as citizens to be like, oh, you shouldn't talk about politics. I think that most of the time when people start talking about an issue, they find that there's a lot more in common than they have where they disagree.
Carmen Lezeth:And I think that the Well the problem is people don't know how to talk.
Blake Fischer:Yeah. But I mean, I think you just do it and it's going to be messy, maybe. But like, you know, like trust that the other person, like as long as you believe the other person has good intentions, like they're not, they don't have bad intentions, like go into it with that and also go into it that like with the with the idea that we can disagree and uh let's find things that we can't agree on, let's find things we disagree on, and you can still be friends. I think that's the primary thing because so many people have just isolated to being only around people that they agree with.
Carmen Lezeth:I I find it hard to be friends with some of my family members who are Trump supporters. And I say that on, I I really I like at the beginning of this second term, I was like, okay, you know what? All right, he's our president. Let's just we, you know, I'm gonna hope for the best, man. I'm gonna hope I want to be open to it. He's our president.
Blake Fischer:You would like things to go well.
Carmen Lezeth:I want it to go well. I want to believe tariffs are gonna work, even though I know they're not, you know, no thing, okay? Just trying to do it, okay? And and then it just got really bad, especially with the whole immigration thing and just how things are being done, not why you want them done, how they're being implemented, right? Because even if I disagree with you as president, George Bush or whatever, I'm gonna be like, okay, you're the president. I understand the logic. I disagree with you, but I'm gonna move on, you know? Right. But this has been so much of it. First of all, it's every day. Every day it's something. And then it's just petty, some of it's so bad. And so what's happened with me, I'm just being very vulnerable here with you because I want to hear what you have to say, is at some point I was like, yeah, no, you keep supporting someone who is hurting other people. Like I don't know how else to, I don't know how to walk through that. So what would you tell me? What would you say to me?
Blake Fischer:Well, see, I had these conversations with my Trump supporting people as well. So I'd like the same thing. And normally what I'm trying to bring that back to is that um my call out for the people that are super MAGA and support Donald Trump no matter what. And by the way, this would go across the board with any politician. It doesn't matter, it's just like it's obviously a phenomenon right now with Trump, but it could be with anyone. Anybody in the future, right? Right. Is that like you've got to have like ideals and principles, and and you've got to have, I think people need to do a better job at like going, what is my idea of how like where I stand on this issue? And that's not how it works with Donald Trump. How it works is well, what Donald Trump says I support. And that might be something different on Tuesday than it is on Wednesday. And so that's what I've tried to call out with like Trump supporting friends, is is and family members. It's like, okay, what is the what's the principle here that you're supporting? And normally I can call out something in the past, I'm like, I know you don't believe that. So I had a conversation with a friend the other day, really close friend, where they're definitely more supportive of Trump than I think they should be. He's named all of his kids after president. So I know this guy cares about the constitution.
Carmen Lezeth:I don't know which caring on the constitution.
Blake Fischer:And I go, I know you don't really believe that what Donald Trump is doing is good. I know that you don't like, I know you don't believe that. So I'm just trying to get by, I'm trying to get under like, why do you then support him? And I think it's like talking about those issues first, and that's at least how I try to come at it from arguments, is going, like, how do you think this furthers what you want? Because I mean, depends what you want. I mean, obviously everyone's going to be in a different area on that. But I think that we just we've gone way too far down this hole of tribalism and turning politics into a religion, like a replacement for religion, where you can't ever be wrong, you can't ever be nuanced, and you can't ever um admit your team, you know, isn't the good guys or something? And I just think that's a bad way to do it. So, like I'm trying to get people out of that tribal mentality.
Carmen Lezeth:No, you're right, but you still okay, but here's the problem. We still didn't answer my question. I agree with everything you just said.
Blake Fischer:How would they do that if they want to be?
Carmen Lezeth:I'm sorry.
Blake Fischer:So it's like, how would they get out of that if they want to?
Carmen Lezeth:No, like so. For me, I have I have dismissed them and I I have decided it's just not in my best interest. Yeah. You know, we we have a lot of people who are Trump supporters that listen to our show. We do. And and and it's because we have Rick Costa, who's our co host, he um has a um a religious show. And so a lot of people who follow Christianity also come to our show, and I feel so blessed. And I love them. And we don't talk about politics on the shows that they come and visit. And it's fine, even if we did, it would be respectful. You know what I mean? Because everyone knows what the bar is. And I Think um, you know, I want to do better as well. That's why I started the other show, and that's why I'm having you on. And I want you to come back. Will you come back?
Blake Fischer:Well, I would love to anytime.
Carmen Lezeth:And maybe then we could do some debating. I ain't gonna debate with you, but you and Andrea and maybe Joel would have a great time.
Blake Fischer:I don't know. I guess I called it arguing or debating, but really I think it's more like discussions. It's like being able to being able to talk with people and saying, and you coming from a different viewpoint and uh and even just being able to find where the common ground is. I just think we're not doing enough of that. And even then looking at when we were talking about the shows we used to pay attention to, you know, it was Hannity and Combs. It was a Democrat and a Republican on that Fox News shows that argue each other. It was Tucker and what's his name on uh James Cardville, right? On on MSNBC at the time, or that was CNN, I guess.
Carmen Lezeth:No CNN.
Blake Fischer:Yeah, so we so we we used to have these people that would sit there and argue. And now, if you've noticed, that's just totally changed. Now it's like only Republicans over here, only Democrats on these shows. And I just think we're not having those discussions enough, and people aren't being able to listen to those discussions enough.
Carmen Lezeth:We're going to have those discussions because I'm going to ask you to come back. Um, you're right. I don't want to argue, and I think you and I are probably more aligned. That I think most people are. Yeah. And I think we could have like we could have a really good conversation about Barack Obama, and we will disagree on certain things, but I think we'd also agree on a lot of things or at least be able to see the through line. And that's what I always learned when I was listening to Fox, right? Was and I don't listen to Fox anymore, but Oh, I don't either.
Blake Fischer:Yeah, I'm in the same boat. It's like it's totally off the rails propaganda at this point.
Carmen Lezeth:Off the rails. But back in the day, I was able to, even if I didn't understand why they believed what they believed, I understood the logic. I mean, even though I disagreed with what they believed, I understood the logic. And I think that's what the difference is right now, is that we don't even try to understand why you believe what you believe so that I can understand where you're coming from.
Blake Fischer:But I think part of the problem there is that most people don't really have a good answer for that question. If you ask them why they believe what they believe, it's really just because Donald Trump has the right letter after his name or because he's told me I have to. Or it's the same, like I said, same thing on the left. It happened with Biden too a lot. Like where, just because that's the most recent example, is like, no matter what he did, I've got to defend it because he's got he's on my team. Yeah. And I'm like, this is not sports. This is not, you know, it's this is it's different. And so I think the biggest problem is that most people don't really have a firm foundation of what they believe. Like I said, I think it's I think the stat is like 37% of people polled in the United States can't name the three branches of the government. So if we don't know that, like then we're not doing good civics education. There's a whole discussion there about like we are just not educating people well enough.
Carmen Lezeth:Well, I said it the other day on the show, and I got so many emails, like people get upset. I said, if you can't pass the same tests that people pass to become U.S. citizens in this country, I don't want you voting. And it wasn't even conservatives, it was liberals who came after me for saying that.
Blake Fischer:I I agree. Not legally, but yes. I mean, I agree, I feel the same way. I'm I go, and I've said that to Republicans specifically because just the immigration debate is a little bit different on obviously the right. Of course. But I mean, I've had that conversation with like chances are that immigrant passed a citizenship test that you can't exactly look at. You know what I mean? And so, like, there's you know, they might be more civically educated about this country than you are. And I don't know that that's the thing is I would say that we obviously have an education problem, but you have access. I'm not saying you, you have access to the same internet I do where I look at this stuff. You know, it's not yes, there's a lot of stuff that's false. Yes, there's a lot of stuff that is but the basics we should all know.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm just right. Right.
Blake Fischer:And you should be able to find the answer you're looking for. Uh it is hard though. I'm I will not lie about it being uh a challenge to like sort through what's fact, what's crap, what's um yeah, but knowing the three I'm just saying there's the template of the United States that you should know.
Carmen Lezeth:If you don't look it, I get mad at people at people because they can't name their representative, they don't even know who represents them. And I'm like, oh my god, I just want to say thank you. This was not what I was expecting. I was excited to meet you, but I was a little nervous. Thank you for being so cool and chill. Again, it's Blake Fisher from thehomelessconservative.com. Please check him out. Please follow him on YouTube, check out his podcast, and we're gonna have you back. Do you have any last words?
Blake Fischer:No, that's really it. I'm probably I'm starting to do probably more YouTube stuff and less the full like hour-long podcast stuff just because I'm kind of tweaking content. But yeah, so YouTube's probably the best place to go. Uh the homeless conservative issue. Okay, that's the same.
Carmen Lezeth:The homeless conservative. Okay, I'll make sure to put it down at the bottom as well so everyone um sees it. But thank you so much for being on the show. And um, everyone remember at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. And we'll see you again next time. Bye, everyone.
Blake Fischer:Thanks for stopping by, all about the joy. Be better and stay beautiful, folks. Have a sweet day.
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