.jpg)
United States of PTSD
Season One: Mental health concerns are on the rise in the United States. This podcast will look at the influencing factors contributing to the decline of our culture. With the rise of school shootings, political divisiveness, increasing levels of hate, and a chronic war of peoples' rights, we have entered a domestic war that never ends. Our podcast will look at whether this is done by design or is it an abject failure. We will discuss it from a clinical and common-sense perspective. Secondarily we will discuss ways to protect yourself from being further traumatized. Hosted by Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP (licensed in RI) who has over 20 years of experience working with people who have addictions and trauma with a specialty of pregnant/postpartum women. Co-host Wendy Picard is a Learning and Development consultant with 15 years of experience, lifelong observer of the human condition, and diagnosed with PTSD in 1994.
Season Two: Is joined by Donna Gaudette and Julia Kirkpatrick BSW. Julia is currently working on obtaining her MSW and her LCSW. She is a welcome addition to the podcast.
Season Three: Cora Lee Kennedy provided research and worked as a temporary co-host. Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel joins as a co-host for season 3.
United States of PTSD
S 3 E: 2 Election disaster. When Political Fear Clouds Judgment
Political fear and cognitive dissonance take center stage as we examine the unsettling political climate most likely resulting from a national/cumulative PTSD. Discover how fear tactics shape voter behavior and the troubling disconnects between domestic and international issues. We challenge each challenge each person to confront the cognitive dissonance in supporting policies that may contradict personal values, especially in the face of global conflicts and ethical dilemmas. The conversation highlights the frustration and helplessness that lead many to turn away from the polls, while also questioning the two-party system's effectiveness in serving the American people.
In a country increasingly divided, our focus shifts to the power of individual actions and community engagement in fostering positive change. Through personal stories and insightful reflections, we emphasize the importance of bridging ideological divides with dialogue and compassion. From attending local events to small gestures of kindness, we explore how these actions contribute to a more connected, empathetic society. Thank you to our guests, Mike and Cora, for sharing their experiences and insights, and to our listeners for joining us on this journey towards understanding and unity.
Special Guest Michael Thibeault
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic advice or to replace any professional treatment. These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any company or agency.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the United States of PTSD. So today we have Mike joining us. Who is you're going to get a guest like a sneak preview of season four, because the plan right now is for Mike to be the co-host on season four. So, mike, why don't you say hi to everybody?
Speaker 3:Hey everybody, Thank you so much for having me, Matt. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2:Excellent. It's great to have you and Cora, you're back as well, because you are the official co-host of season three.
Speaker 1:Thanks, matt, it's good to be here.
Speaker 2:So we have a difficult topic to talk about today. The election was obviously last week and we thought we would do an episode about processing that and what happened. For those of you that have been following the podcast, about a couple of months ago I had said that I was fairly certain Trump was going to win and Harris was going to lose, and there was a lot of reasons for that. So I do want to go over our rationale behind that. So it might be a difficult conversation for a lot of people. If this is not something you want to listen to, this is probably the episode to skip, because I do think we're going to be pretty honest and raw about some of the stuff that happens.
Speaker 2:And actually, before we start that, one other reminder I want to give everybody is that we are so close to a thousand downloads in a month, and I want to thank everybody who's been actively following it. If you could subscribe, share it with other people and ask other people to download it, that would be fantastic. We are very close to getting sponsors. I'm super excited about this. I want to thank all the listeners who have been really faithfully following, and we have a new listener from Kenya, which is freaking awesome. So thank you for listening. And the other thing I want to add, too, is Cora and I have talked about doing a giveaway at some point. I did just get tumblers made that have the logo of the podcast on it, so we will give you some more details about that, but we're going to plan on doing a giveaway in a couple of weeks for that. So that's all the kind of housekeeping stuff. All right, do either one of you want to talk about your reactions to the election and the outcome?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, I would love to speak on it. I think we had talked pretty extensively running up to the election you and I, matt, and we were pretty much on the same page. I also expected that the outcome would be a Trump victory, and I think that's for a variety of reasons, but unfortunately, one of the reasons that I'm not seeing talked about too much is that this really is a failure of the Democratic Party. Having Biden on the ticket up until August, was it? I believe, absolutely to the detriment of the party, didn't give Kamala too much time to actually establish herself in the race and it completely ignored the actual democratic process of a primary, which I think is pertinent to having unity amongst the democratic voters. So I think that that's one of the biggest reasons. I see that, unfortunately, this was a failure for the Kamala Harris campaign.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree with you more. I mean I would use the word epic. I think it's an epic failure of the Democratic Party all around with everything you said. There are certainly other factors to that, which, as much as everybody hates it, the three of us definitely hate Trump. I think we all agree on that.
Speaker 2:That's something that we are never going to disagree on, and the large majority of the people don't like Trump. But there's one thing you have to give him is that he knows his audience and he is a leader in that sense. That's the only sense he's a leader in. But he is charismatic. I don't see it. I think he's a piece of garbage. But there's lots of people out there that do see him as charismatic, and I had said earlier in August, driving through Connecticut, an hour deeper into Connecticut and then driving into Rhode Island, that there were just Trump signs everywhere and there was a lack of Harris signs anywhere, which was really reflective, I should say reminiscent, of the Hillary campaign, when people were like, oh, she's going to win, she's going to win, but nobody was showing any excitement about her winning nobody, and this was very reminiscent of that. So I agree with you, I think it was an epic failure on their part, plus the lack of any actual stance on anything.
Speaker 1:Plus the lack of any actual stance on anything. That's actually one of the worst things that happened is that Kamala took such a middle-of-the-road kind of stance on all the issues and didn't speak out about things that a lot of Democrats really care about. She didn't differentiate herself enough from the Biden administration.
Speaker 2:Well, not only did she not differentiate herself, she said multiple times, especially early on, that she was planning on doing nothing different. It wasn't until the 11th hour that she was like oh wait, you know, I'm going to do something different. There was also the lack of policies on our campaign website. They didn't even go up, I think, until August or late September. I mean, before that it was just a merch store.
Speaker 3:Absolutely and to your point, cora. I absolutely agree that taking a very centrist route in this election, while it has been successful in the past for you know candidates such as I know, clinton is a famous example of you know a Democrat running on centrist policy for a successful campaign. But I think in this year, 2024, when there's a lot of desire amongst American people for social and institutional change, taking a centrist policy doesn't help when people are looking for a different excuse me are looking for a different alternative to status quo and the current government institutions. I definitely think the base of the Democratic Party was kind of abandoned in this election.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very well said, Mike, when you look at it. See, I am not, and I'll be very upfront about this. Politics is not. I'm not an expert in politics. I'm not like a political commentator. You could probably ask me all sorts of different questions about the different branches of the government that I probably wouldn't be answered. But what I do know really well is people. I mean that's my whole job, that's all three of our jobs.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like to pay attention to people, listen to what people are saying and understand what people are saying, and I think that is missed. That was completely missed by the Harris campaign and, let's face it, I don't think either one of them were a win for the country. I mean, had she won, I think it would just be just as bad. So I mean, well, in different ways, I think there are certain things that Trump are going to do worse, but one of the glaring issues was the genocide and the connection to the genocide and the lack of distance from that or change. You know there are certain.
Speaker 2:What I do know is that there are certain voters that are going to vote party, no matter what. So there's going to be people who always vote Democrat, always vote Republican and they never change their stance. They're not the people who decide an election, because that's the same thing that happens every year. Who decides the election is all the people in between, the people who are not the extremists, and she was not catering to anything that they wanted at all. Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 3:I think specifically with the genocide. I think that really, I think specifically with the genocide. I think that really becomes apparent when you look at the difference in an amount of voters overall. I believe that the Democratic Party, compared to the 2020 election, lost around 14 million votes, whereas the Republican Party lost about 3 million. So when you look at, like, third party candidates who honestly did not make any difference at all in terms of swing states or really any of the state elections, I think it was really shown more just in the amount of people who abstained from voting this year and, I think, couldn't identify with either candidate.
Speaker 2:That's a mass. How many was it? For the Democrat Would you say 14 million.
Speaker 3:I believe it was 14 million.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a massive amount of people that just didn't vote. You put up third party voters and I certainly voted for Jill Stein because I couldn't vote for either one of them and part of me is happy that they didn't make a dent, because of course, we would be the first line to blame, like, oh, it's all you people who voted for third party. What's really interesting is if you look at the fallacies of democracy. All three of us grew up in different timeframes, but we all grew up with the same message that voting is super imperative. Right, like your vote matters. Like, if you don't vote, you're not doing your civic duty and you just you need to vote. It's super important, super important.
Speaker 2:But then, when you don't agree with the two party dichotomy, suddenly you're throwing your vote away. Your vote doesn't matter. Like, forget about it, don't vote. Well then, we don't live in a democracy, like if that's what people are thinking. We don't live in one If we're going to be stuck with a two party ticket who have fundamentally failed both of them. I mean, they are both as guilty. Both sides are just not listening to the people, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that what you're saying resonates with me in terms of how often we participate in democracy. Growing up, I was taught you have to vote, but I was never, ever taught that you have to volunteer, that you have to make phone calls, that you have to interact with politicians on the local level, and I think that's something that, if we really want change, people are going to have to do, especially with Trump as our president.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I want to be very clear to everybody listening, and I've said this to you both independently I don't blame voters at all. I don't blame people who voted for Trump. I don't blame people who voted for Harris. I don't blame people who voted for third party people. I blame the government.
Speaker 2:If the government wasn't epically failing, we would have a very different system, but we don't. We have a bunch of criminals, career criminals, who continue to get in office. I mean, we saw it locally right in both our states, both in rhode island and in connecticut. It doesn't matter, because the same person is always going to win. There's no choice. And we, although we can easily turn to the, to the president, and say, like it's the president's fault for everything, the president only has a certain amount of power and when we have a corrupt senate, a corrupt House of Representatives and a corrupt Supreme Court, that's a bigger issue. But those people still keep winning elections and if we don't change that this is why I said no incumbent should win Every single incumbent Democrat, republican have failed this country. I will stand by that.
Speaker 1:Well, I think globally the record stands. One of the most interesting things I keep reading about is how almost every incumbent globally on like a major level was defeated.
Speaker 2:Wait, globally, you mean not in the United States.
Speaker 1:Not just in the United States.
Speaker 2:That they were defeated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in developed countries it's basically. The theory is that we came out of COVID and everybody was so relieved. So there was this period of time where everybody was just kind of recovering Right, and then, as we're recovering, inflation spikes everywhere and then people say, oh crap, this isn't working and I'm really unhappy right now. It must be the politician who's here right now. The next time I can vote, I'm going to vote to get that person out.
Speaker 2:That certainly didn't happen here, Because they're all still in office. I mean nothing changed.
Speaker 1:I think the article I was reading was from the Financial Times and it was talking about developing country developed countries and just overall, this was not the year for incumbents.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. Did they lose nationally in this country? I think so. Did they really? Okay, mike, what are your thoughts on?
Speaker 3:that Fully. To be honest, I'm not the most informed in terms of foreign politics as it stands, with who representatives are. Who's been ousted from office. I mean, it's evident when you look at the Senate flipping to the Republicans and potentially the House as well, although I don't believe that's been officially decided yet. Correct.
Speaker 1:Right. So, it's pretty close.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean there's the potential that you know they control all the big three, you know, the Senate, the House and the White House, and I do think, whether or not that's in a direction that I agree with, there definitely has been a push for, you know, change overall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I just looked it up and it looks like what we were talking about in terms of global incumbent parties that were kicked out, was more of a general thing. That was occurring on a global level, not on a national level.
Speaker 2:Right, which basically boils down to the old expression if nothing changes, nothing changes, right. Like we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect it to be different. That's the definition of insanity. You know what I had said to the two of you earlier and I think this is true. True, if we bring it back to ptsd right, there are two ways that people have emotional responses. And ptsd one is there's hyper vigilance, where somebody is really just they're reacting very strongly to like stimulus. So if something happens out of the corner of their eye, they jump or somebody moves because they're in this constant state of like fight or flight. Then you have the other side of that, which is what, the emotional numbing. When people are just like hopeless, helpless, they just kind of give up and they don't respond to anything.
Speaker 2:Now, if, again, if we look at the country because I do think we have created a culture of PTSD in this country, not we as the people, but the government that we have If you were to sign a contract under threat of losing something losing your family, losing your rights, losing your citizenship, losing your job, losing whatever and then that's taken to court, it would be thrown out because the contract would be considered signed under duress, which would make it not valid. The whole country votes under duress. Every single person is in a state of terror, whether you're on the Republican side or the Democratic side. There's this fundamental fear that something is going to be robbed from you and taken away. I mean, I've talked to people this week who truly believe that they're going to be hiding people in their basement because it's going to turn into this Gestapo holocaust. What's interesting is that they don't seem to care that it's actually happening somewhere else.
Speaker 2:I've heard a lot of people say this week they've quoted that I don't remember this expression, but it's something like you stayed silent when they came for them. You stayed silent when they came for these people. Now who's going to help when they come for you? Really interesting hearing those same people ignoring genocide in Palestine and pretending that it's not happening and how it's extending further into different countries and they're still just ignoring it. I don't know. It just seems like a very strong level of cognitive dissonance. What are the two of you think? I completely agree, oh sorry, I completely agree.
Speaker 3:I think I first want to address the the original point you made that you know everybody is voting under duress in this country. That's very evident simply in the fact that Trump has such a strong base. He is a fear mongerer and he works very well under the ideas that we are all under threat by immigrants. You know illegal immigrants whether it's attacking your personal values or economically, being the cause of our financial strain, and I think that all of us voting under fear will never result in an outcome that is anything more than a continuation of status quo. But to that point, I also think to your point about the genocide. I think that a lot of people have been very dismissive of anyone who attempted to point out the ethical dilemma of voting for Kamala when she is endorsing and aiding abetting a genocide. It's entirely logical and moral to question that vote, but it seemed to not really have any credit in any mainstream discussions.
Speaker 2:Well, they didn't allow it to because, I mean, as we know, APEC controls our politicians. I mean, hands down, they control all of the Senate and they control a large majority of the House. They control presidential candidates. I mean, we know this, Cora. Did you want to add to that? Because I think you were going to say something.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I have a poll from the Harvard Public Opinion Poll. It's from the Harvard Institute of Politics and this was from 2018. And they reported that 18 to 29 year olds 64% of them had more fear than hope about the American democracy. So even though it's relatively an older poll, I think it shows that even in 2018, young people were already feeling a lot of fear. And then, two years later, the pandemic hits and it just the rhetoric ramps everybody up and I do think, because of the pandemic, people are still in this like state of fear and state of cognitive dissonance where they just feel like they can't act, like it's too big of a problem so they're just shutting down.
Speaker 3:I totally agree, and you know not to feed a fed horse, so to speak, but I think that's very evident just in the amount of people who did abstain from voting this year. There are a lot of people who are tired of the same game over and over, election after election, and, as a result, people have given up, they've lost their faith, they've lost hope and have abstained entirely, kind of, you know, submitting to the systems at play.
Speaker 2:Both of those are really great points. It's also it's another testament to PTSD. I mean, think about how many people that you've heard say that when you ask them what they're doing to affect change, like have you called your, you know your senator, have you called your congressman or whatever, and the response is no, it's just too much to deal with. I just ignore it. I hear that more often than I hear people actually being involved. So, and again, I am not blaming voters, because I do think, systematically, we have all been completely traumatized and that this is, this is all by design, right. So it's to keep us divided, to keep us fighting amongst ourselves, and that's it's. It's really easy to control people that way.
Speaker 2:Mike, you had brought up, you had said you know Trump fear mongers. I think the democratic party fear mongers too. I think the Democratic Party fearmongers too. I think they do the exact same thing. I mean, if, if human rights were so important to them, why are we still fighting the same battles we do every single freaking election? Because that's the only thing they run under. I think. If they, if they didn't have that to run under, what would their whole campaign be about?
Speaker 3:you're absolutely right and I'm glad you pointed that out. I think one glaring example is the fact that Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022 under the Biden administration, and the Democratic Party had nearly 50 years to codify that. But here we are with now it being a excuse me, with it now being a state issue where some folks do not have the right to abortion. By having that on the ticket every single year with the threat of losing that, it's another ticket for, rather, another platform on which for Democrats to abortion. By having that on the ticket every single year with the threat of losing that, it's another ticket for, or rather, another platform on which for Democrats to run.
Speaker 2:Well said. That is incredibly well said. That's exactly what I was talking about. And again, when we blame presidents, when we say like, okay, roe versus Wade got overturned, you know Trump is this awful person. And again, I'm not defending Trump. I hate the guy.
Speaker 2:So don't hear any of this as defending. I'm just looking at the reality of it. Is that the reality? Is it got kicked to state levels, so state by state. So if we take the most backward state we can think of, like Florida and Texas, right, why are they electing the same officials then? Because it's the officials in their state that are now responsible, but they keep electing the same people over and over again. And then they're blaming the president Well, at this point, you can't do that anymore because it doesn't fall into the presidency but then vote differently, like if that's, stop voting the same people in office over and over and over again, because, you're right, mike, they've had 50 years to codify it and they don't, because they want to continue to run on fear. They both do it Like one side is no better than the other.
Speaker 1:And I think another thing we have to think about is the role that social media plays with fear mongering. Like we're in uncharted territory when it comes to the way media is covering things, the way people are accessing news. Just finding credible sources can be really difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is true. I mean, propaganda has been around forever. I mean, when we saw the Colosseum in Rome, they talked about how the Colosseum was really the ancient version of social media and how they use that to control people and spread itself over and over and over again. Social media has made it more. It's more far reaching than it was before and, especially with like AI and all of that stuff, you know it's getting harder to tell what's true.
Speaker 2:I always listen to the people. I don't listen to what I see on, like when COVID was happening, I didn't listen to what I was hearing on social media. I listened to what the nurses and doctors were saying that worked in hospitals because they had exposure to it. So, you know, you have all these people talking about how fake it is and I'm like really, because I'm having conversations with nurses and doctors who were talking about people dying and them having to make the decision between who's living and who's dying. That's the real stuff and it's reminiscent of the last episode we did, cora, about Mercy Brown and how people just don't listen to experts. They'd much rather listen to conspiracy theories, and conspiracy theories are a religion on their own right. So people are always looking for something greater than the truth.
Speaker 1:And I also think we've become such an individualistic society and people have become so much more isolated. It's so much easier to turn on, you know whatever you're listening to and just tune out people in your life, and I think that's actually where I want to offer a little bit of hope. So much this week I've been hearing about feelings of despair and sadness and anger and divisiveness, but I think that if we can start building relationships with real people in real life and start having harder conversations that you know, we have a chance to move forward.
Speaker 3:I absolutely agree, and you know one thing that I kind of wanted to bring up that I had been seeing on social media over the past week I noticed a lot of animosity coming from the left and people who had voted for common, you know, understandably, so this is a very painful loss, I think, of an election, uh. However, I've even seen, you know, discourse about if you know people who, like Latinos, who voted for Trump, and you know that they have undocumented family in this country, to report them to ICE. And I think we really need to keep and I know it and I think we really need to keep in mind what our actual values are and not make this into a competition of spite and simply being right for the sake of being right, rather not compromising on the things that we truly care about and what means most to us. We need to really work hard to bridge gaps and draw understanding on each other's perspectives whether or not we agree with that but to figure out how to move forward with it, God.
Speaker 2:both of you had things that I wanted to comment on, so let's just stick with that one and we'll go back to Corey, what you said about community. I have been seeing the same thing. I didn't see that, Mike, but I saw people talking about, if you know, people who voted for Trump. Defriend them, get rid of them. We're not going to stand for homophobia, racism, all this stuff. It sounds like a really bad idea to and I'm guilty of this because when Trump won the first time, I was certainly one of those people posting things on social media about how awfully was and you know how dare you vote for him.
Speaker 2:But the reality is, is that's how you isolate people even more? Is that we become more divided? Instead of saying like, okay, please explain to me, like, what you're afraid of, like why you voted for him. I want to know, not so that we can. I mean, we can't help people if we don't understand them, just like they need to be able to understand us. I mean, it's going to be a give and take relationship Like, OK, I'll help you with this if you help me with that, instead of like, let's cut everybody off because that just it. It goes right back to isolation. And again, I don't think it's the voters fault. I think all the voters are voting under fear and duress and we can't take that away from them. That's the truth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's very well said, matt. I don't think it's opportune at all, like you said, to be isolated, both whether it's physically or in your belief system. This is such an imperative time for us to really question our own beliefs and try to understand why we are thinking the way we do, where there is room for change, what we are willing to compromise on, what we are not, and with that, you know, to really stand strong by your ethics and your values and figure out where those commonalities are, because I think that's truly one of the common points amongst Americans, even if we disagree on what the right mechanisms are to get there from a governmental standpoint.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, mike, and I think what you said is just so important in terms of cognitive dissonance. The tools that we use to face cognitive dissonance is to actually look at where our beliefs are meeting something that's incongruent, that's like occurring in real life. You know, we believe something, something actually happens that's different, and then we become so kind of wrapped up in our own mental pain that we push it away and we say, okay, I can't look at this. But the way through that is to actually just take a look at what is causing the pain and be able to express that and understand like does that a lot actually align with my values? Is that really different than my core beliefs actually align with my values? Is that really different than my core beliefs? And a lot of times when you start looking at that like real cause of suffering, there's ways out that you didn't see. But just pushing it away isn't going to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good point as well, Cora. And when you bring up cognitive dissonance, again bringing it back to the genocide that's happening right now, this is the place that I saw it the most. I had a conversation with somebody this week who was mind blown that Harris didn't win and I said, well, when you look at what was happening I mean almost all of her rallies had protesters all protesting the same thing. There were countless organizations, from like Code Pink to the Abandoned Harris campaign, to Muslim Americans that were saying we will never vote for you if you do not change your stance on genocide. The fact that there were Muslim Americans who were more willing to vote for somebody initiating a Muslim ban should have said something. That should have been a very loud, clear message to her her to harris and she ignored it. I mean time and time again she just said I hear you, I see you, shut up, I'm speaking. I mean she just said that in different ways and she made no attempt to change that.
Speaker 2:So when I'm having this conversation with somebody and they're talking about you know how people are going to lose their rights in this country if trump wins and like how, how can people vote against human rights and you know how can they. How can you vote against your fellow person? And if you're, you know, if you're a Christian and if you believe all this stuff, then you should be voting for humanity. And then I said what about the women and children in Gaza that are being slaughtered en masse? Like what about them?
Speaker 2:And the response was literally well, if you're going to nitpick everything, I mean you're certainly not going to make everybody happy, Like some things you just have to let go of. That is a classic example of cognitive dissonance and just hypocrisy. Like you're over here talking about the value of human life and how important it is, Just admit you don't care about the people in the house and just admit to you they are not real people. Just admit that. Don't create this whole scenario about how, like I'm nitpicking and all this other stuff, so many people were doing that here. It's disheartening that there's people that were just willing to throw their lives away and we don't care. That's that's a huge problem I totally, completely agree.
Speaker 3:I think it's it's been kind of amazing uh not in a good sense to see the mental gymnastics that that people are going through in order to justify supporting a genocide. The narrative around voting for Trump versus Kamala has been you know, do you really want to vote against humanity, against common good, against human rights? And, like you said, I think it's very telling of how you view the people of Palestine if you don't believe that their right to life and simple existence is counted in your values of what is human rights and what is humanity. It's really been unfortunate to see how many people have been willing to compromise on those values and exist with that cognitive dissonance in order to justify their own emotional ploys towards our politics.
Speaker 2:Mike really well said. You know what I would say, and I'm not just saying this now, retrospectively, because I've been very clear about my stance on this for months and months, and months, and months and months. Actually, since probably the genocide started, I've been very clear about it. If somebody came to me and said you're either going to lose all your rights or we're going to kill millions of people over here, I would say then take my rights. And again, I'm not advocating to lose rights, but I'm just saying the fact that so many people are willing to overlook that at the expense of killing people, torturing people and doing all sorts of acts against humanity, while then claiming to be fighting for humanity. It just it's mind blowing.
Speaker 3:I totally agree, I just want to comment.
Speaker 1:You know, like Mike and I both are just shaking our heads like completely. You know, we just agree with you, matt and I. I feel really disheartened, I feel really upset that there isn't more of a reaction.
Speaker 2:It's out of mind, out of sight, and you know it's very reflective of any genocide. I mean, again, look at World War II, the Holocaust that happened there. How many times, like? The church turned its eye for a very long time, countries turned their eyes on it, neighborhoods turned their eyes on it, they pretended it wasn't happening, and then, when it finally comes out, they're all like, oh my God, how did this happen? Well, this is exactly how it happens, like you just ignore it and then it there it is. Meanwhile and I'm not and I'm not dismissing people's fears hearing these same people talking about hiding people in their basement because if they don't, they're going to be killed. Well, what about the people that are being shot with sniper rifles in churches? What about the babies and and kids that are being used as target practice? What about them? Do they not matter?
Speaker 3:I absolutely agree. I think I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Sorry, my cat was meowing in the background for some bizarre reason. She's so weird.
Speaker 3:I apologize, but I want to point out too. I mean even from a historical perspective, going back to the idea of cognitive dissonance. I mean we jumped into World War II as a country pretty late in the war and at the same time we had concentration camps in our own country for Japanese Americans.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, 100%, absolutely. I mean again, you see it play out time and time again and people just it's like mind blowing. But if we go back to Harris, right, like so, if we look at the stuff that we've already talked about, this is why she lost. So you had a whole group of people who I mean we're talking like thousands and thousands of people who would not vote for her because of her stance on genocide. Then, if you look at the economic point of it, so people are saying I know people were making fun of it oh, you voted for, like, grocery prices and you voted for, like you know, to lower things in the economy. Maslow's hierarchy of needs If you don't have your basic needs met food, shelter, clothing you certainly cannot be working on self-actualization and relationships. So she's ignoring the people who are poor and struggling. She's ignoring the people who are saying stop the genocide. She's ignoring that Again, like, what did she expect? What did anybody expect was going to happen from this? You can't blame people for voting for their, for survival.
Speaker 3:Exactly. I think it's very evident in the demographics of voters and how they voted. In this election the Democratic Party has really lost the support of the average working class person. That has shifted pretty strongly to the right wing and I think that is because of what you just said. The Democratic Party has shifted away from the fundamental value on our basic needs resolved, instead to focus on these other issues that really don't affect the average person day to day.
Speaker 2:Cora. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, I'm trying to think of. It's just a lot to think about. I, you know, as a Democrat, I wasn't all in for Harris. I like I felt that in my heart, you know, like I wasn't excited I didn't know very many people who were excited you see such a disparity between, like, educated people and higher up educated people. I know that that had a play in the voting this year.
Speaker 1:It just feels like what I don't understand, though, with Trump and everything is just how working class people believe he's going to like, be in favor of them and help them Like I. Just that doesn't make any sense to me at all. You know, looking at some of Trump's tax policy, so one of the things he's been talking about on the campaign trail was getting rid of the tax for tips, right, and that would actually end. So it's tips, it's social security earnings, and there was one other. But what they were saying is that he's actually looking to do that, possibly so that people like hedge fund directors can reallocate some of their funds and call it tips, and so they don't have to pay taxes on their tips. So the people that this policy would actually really help is people who don't need help, right, it's things like that. I just don't understand how we could trust Trump to make changes for the working class.
Speaker 3:I mean on a personal level, I totally agree with you. I think it's a facade, but I guess, from trying to understand the perspective of the average person who did vote for him with the belief that he would create a better economic circumstance, from what you just said, I mean, it sounds like Trojan horse kind of policy, you know, policy that is fronted as something that will benefit the average person, like like a someone who survives on tip wages and, and you know, relies on on that money. So it sounds like you're getting extra wages, or rather less tax on those wages, but, like you just said, instead is actually just a front for for more corporate tax cuts, which I believe he also. In the research that you provided in your email, cora, I think it was also noted that he will be cutting corporate tax rates from 21 down to 15%, which of course he did not focus on at all during his campaign, because why would he?
Speaker 2:Cora, I hear what you're saying about like you don't understand how people would vote for him. I think the fallacy in this is that the Democratic Party is any better for people.
Speaker 1:Well, I agree with you. Matt, like I do, I don't believe Trump more. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:They're all liars.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I go back to what I said at the very beginning of the episode. They all have fundamentally failed the American people. They continue, they don't work for us either side and I think more people start to realize that and accept us. There is no better choice. They both represent special interest groups. They are both owned by a foreign government. You know that is not going to change. Depending on whether it's a blue jacket or a red jacket, I mean that's just going to be the same.
Speaker 2:I mean, our healthcare system is falling apart. It's been falling apart for years and that started under the Obama administration, even probably before that. The education system is falling apart. The legal system's falling apart. The infrastructure of this country is falling apart. The middle class is falling apart, like everything is falling apart. That has happened under both Republican and Democrat presidents and it's just it's continuing to get worse and that I think we're trying to. We're trying to take something that doesn't make any sense and we're trying to figure out like a good solution behind it, like why people voted for trump, why people voted for her, why people didn't vote, why people voted for jill stein. The reality is is it's, it's a.
Speaker 3:It doesn't make any sense because it's nonsensical right, yeah, that's true I also do want to add I mean back to your point of maslow's hierarchy matt I think when people's basic needs are not being met or are at extreme risk, then that also heightens the fear that people live in and exist in. And with that, although on a policy level, trump really does not represent any sort of systematic change, his actual presentation socially, he doesn't behave like any other politician, he doesn't speak like any other politician because he isn't one. And I think, whether or not that actually means anything to the outcome on people's lives which it will probably not in the way they expect, but whether or not it does, I think that stark difference is still representative of more change than a continuation of the status quo under someone like Kamala Harris. And with all this discussion, I also really want want to note, because I don't want to dismiss the fact that kamala harris is a black woman and I do think that absolutely plays a part in the lack of support that she receives. Uh, and and specifically with the, the questioning to her qualifications and her ability to be in office, um, kind of resulted I I do think the scrutiny that she was under during her campaign was massively out of proportion to any scrutiny that Trump has faced, not to mention the fact that the both times he has won has been against women, whereas he, you know, only lost to Biden, a white man. So I do think that's very relevant and I want that to be a part of this discussion.
Speaker 2:I 100% agree with you and this goes back to why I think the Democratic Party failed, because the country I don't care who wants to deny this, the country is fundamentally sexist and racist, fundamentally right and you can claim it isn't, but it is. Now we add what you just said into the mix of everything else where she wasn't listening to the people, I mean it was really a disaster for failure, 100% disaster. She should have been absolutely. The Democratic Party, not just her should have been more cognizant of that as a barrier so that they would have listened to the people that were begging her to listen to her. I truly believe if she had said we're ending the genocide, she would have won hands down. I think she would. But again, I'm not discrediting that, that didn't play into it. I think it did no, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think I sometimes do wonder if, if the genocide because I mean for me it a very, very important factor in my vote, which I guess I will be forthcoming and say that I did vote for Jill Stein in this election because of that. But I think when you look at like, well, I mean I don't know because, I mean I apologize I'm kind of fumbling on my words here, kind of thinking out loud, but I sometimes question if the genocide was as big of an issue to the average voter as it was to people like us who, you know, we are social workers, we're driven by the core values of social work and I think those things are very, very important to us. And sometimes I question if the average person isn't so much detached from the genocide in Gaza and of Palestinians. But I'd love to know your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. I think it's multifaceted, right. So certainly, I do think the average person it probably, and I've had. I mean, you think about how many people I talk to a week. I mean, I talk to hundreds of people every week, right between, like, clients and students and like you know all that stuff. So I get lots of different perspectives and I do think that the average person probably was not as upset about it, even though they should be, because that's all our tax dollars, I mean billions of our tax dollars, have gone to fund this. Instead of doing things like, oh, I don't know, funding the South after hurricanes, fund this. Instead of doing things like, oh, I don't know, funding the South after hurricanes, our money did not go there.
Speaker 2:I do think you're underestimating the size of the Muslim community, the college campuses I mean how many college campuses were protesting genocide across this country? Lots, lots of them. And you know, of course, they're being labeled as terrorists because they're actually, oh, I don't know trying to stop a genocide. You know you have all of those groups of people who made a huge, huge number that were begging her stop this and we will vote for you. And she said no.
Speaker 1:And you know personally.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's her own lack of moral compass, I don't know if it's the puppet strings, you know behind her pulling the string, saying like you can't, you can't say this. But I will tell you. With the minute she turned to those people and said shut up, I'm speaking. I was never voting for because that was fundamentally not only unempathetic, it was just downright evil. I mean it was no different than anything Trump has ever said. It was just in a prettier package. But I mean it was really just like shut up, I don't care what you think. Okay, then don't be surprised when you don't win. Like again, what was she thinking?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that is a very, very good point. And to the example that you brought up of college campuses and how protesters were treated, you know, called terrorists, we have to, I guess, guess, remember that it was a a biden administration's government or a left-wing government that sent them, or sent in the national guard to tear gas these students from college campuses. So I absolutely, I absolutely agree with you.
Speaker 2:Actually, I'm glad that you brought up those points and unrelated, but think about, and, and I get the I get the draw to the republican stance about like less government involvement, because think about, and I get the I get the draw to the Republican stance about like less government involvement, because think about what just happened. Are any of you familiar with the whole peanut story, the squirrel? Yes, I mean that just happened in New York. Oh, corey, you're not. So this, there was a, there was an influencer, and actually I think he's from Connecticut, cause I remember when I first followed him he was in Connecticut and I he.
Speaker 2:So he had Peanut the Squirrel, which was like this internet sensation where he did all these videos that the squirrel was like a rescue. And then the guy started rescuing other animals and I personally I stopped following him because I actually thought he was kind of a jerk with some of his responses to people. But outside of that, in terms of like what he was doing for animals, it was fantastic. And somebody accused him of the squirrel biting them and like a raccoon. So I don't know like cops went to the house and like seize, seize the raccoon, seize the the squirrel, and they were killed to test them for rabies, like like talk about overreaching government, like seriously.
Speaker 2:So I think he's suing the state, as he should, and I hope he wins, because it was just the most ridiculous thing ever. I mean, these were animals that were indoor animals, they didn't go outside, they were very well cared for. I mean, he had been documenting it for like like years. I think it's just awful, absolutely awful. But yeah, you're right, it was the Biden Harris administration that was tear, gassing students and then saying, hey, please, vote for us. Like you should totally vote for us, as we're gassing you and like arresting you. Yeah, vote for us. Politicians are so far removed from the average person. If they really want to win, they need to have I don't know mental health experts telling them, like what to do, because clearly they are so far removed from the average voter.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, and I think it also shows just the amount of young people who are moving further to the right. You know, I mean, I believe. Oh, I apologize, I'm not going to be able to remember where this poll came out of, but there was a poll showing that, as it stands, majority of voters 18 to 24 are right wing, and I don't think that that's a reflection of the values of these people or, like you said, to blame the voter, but I think rather it is a reflection of the lack of hope that people have in left wing policy and left wing leaders.
Speaker 2:And interestingly enough, I have one of my Palestinian friends who's been to a lot of rallies, has said to me that some of the people that were the nastiest to them and the worst of them were Democrats.
Speaker 1:Which is just really unfortunate yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it is.
Speaker 3:I mean we have to change that though 100 percent and back to the point of unity. As much as I have a lot of thoughts on the missteps of the Democratic Party and ways that we need to change, I want to bring it back to the point of unity that Cora had talked about earlier, where this is such an imperative time to really evaluate those flaws and understand how to move forward with them, Whether it's I mean, in my opinion, I don't think we should be moving more centrist, but getting back to our progressive base and really connecting with voters on making social and economic change for people, rather than continuing the status quo.
Speaker 2:Cora, I think you were going to ask.
Speaker 1:No, I was just going to ask that's going to be kind of my next focus for myself. It's not only educating myself and educating people that I know, but starting to take action. So are there things that either one of you are doing that you feel excited about or feel interested in?
Speaker 2:I think excited is a strong word. I don't know if I feel excited about it. I think I've learned from 2020, as I said to the two of you before on this podcast. You know, growing up in the 80s under the constant threat of nuclear war and like living in this constant state of hyper arousal and you know just terror and then going through it in 2020 when Trump was elected. I choose not to do that anymore.
Speaker 2:So, like the night of the election, I didn't even watch it, I just lived my life like I would normally live. I just I did work, I played video games, I pet the cats, I made dinner and I said you know, I'll wake up in the morning and I'll see what happens, but I knew what was going to happen. So you know, I really wasn't all that invested. I refused to let myself panic every single day. I did that for four years. Like I'm not. I'm not actually did more than four years. I'm not going to start having more. I mean, some of my, some of the closest people in my family, voted for Trump. I love them. I'm not going to cut them off because I don't agree with them and I know personally why they did it and you know it has nothing to do with my rights as a gay man. I mean, they are not certainly about taking away my rights. I know they're not. And, again, I'm not going to live under that fear that both sides have created the democratic party created that the republican party created.
Speaker 2:What I want to do is I'm going to continue to, to educate people also. I want to be educated. So I want to know, like what decide that I would not normally vote with. What can I do to help you? You know like what? Okay, so you want? I'm just making something off the top of my head like you're like your gun rights are super important to you, okay, cool. Like how can I help you with that? If you help me with this, if you help me with LGBT issues or women's reproductive issues? How do we compromise so that I can help you but you can help me? I think we need to do more of that and less of this. You don't understand me, because both sides are very, very visceral. Both sides will point the finger at the other side and say you need to accept everything I'm telling you and you better not disagree with me. I'm never speaking to you again. Yeah, cause that's super productive.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if I I don't know if I have an answer for you, Cora. No, I think that's a great answer, Matt. I think having discussions and education are crucial for moving forward. I also think not panicking is crucial. Every once in a while I've been seeing like posts about sticking your head back under for the next four years, Like you can't do that, you just can't Devastated. But I got to go on because I care. I have to admit I almost didn't come on the podcast today because I had like a tough weekend and I was talking to Matt about just how hopeless I can feel at sometimes, you know, and that's like a really hard emotion for me to feel. But again, if I look at where that hopelessness or that fear is coming from, it helps me understand what do I care about the most. And what do I care about the most is my kids, is the earth, is people being kind and loving one another.
Speaker 1:You know, those are all things worth fighting for, and so you just have to get up and start again, you know.
Speaker 3:Beautifully said Cora. I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:Mike, is there anything that you would add in terms of what you think would be helpful to make change?
Speaker 3:Well, I definitely agree with you know, the points that you made, matt that we do need to start understanding what we all value most and how to help everybody achieve the things that they do care about, or hold on to the things that they care about, where we're like.
Speaker 3:I had, you know, mentioned earlier what we're willing to compromise on and and what we aren't. I think one thing for me that that really has become, I guess, more evident to me is that, like you had said, it's not worth stressing and and really falling into this place of despair over, because, truly, we are only individuals and, as much as we do have collective power, we have to take care of ourselves. And I think this kind of thing does make me more driven to look at community issues and communities that I can have an impact on at a more local level, because, ultimately, as much as we would love to have our own thoughts implemented on a federal level, everybody thinks that they could do it. I really think it's most important to have our own communities hear our voices and to make others in our community heard, and let that be what guides us through, you know, whether it's the next four years or indefinitely through the future.
Speaker 2:It's a great idea and, cora, thank you for being vulnerable about that too and talking about how difficult it was for you to come on, because, again, I think a lot of people are really struggling with this. When you bring up hope, hope is really important, but there's also false hope. You know, if you're telling somebody, when you know, darn well, it's never gonna change, to have hope, then you're actually setting them up for failure, actually setting them up for failure. Hope is a great thing because it can certainly help people get better in lots of different scenarios, but there needs to be action behind hope. It can't just be this like blind, oh, I hope things get better. Let me go stick my head in the sand Like it can't be that. It has to be.
Speaker 2:I'm hopeful that I can make some changes and I'm going to do it, even if it's just you change one person, because we are our best assets. Think about how much the two of you have to offer individually. You guys have lots to offer, right? So, like you, you could be having a conversation with somebody on the street and I can see either one of you like changing their life permanently just by like saying one or two things. I mean we do have that ability to do that. We don't always recognize that and we want to go towards, like huge changes right, like if I didn't change a thousand people today, I didn't matter. Right, and that's not necessarily true it's a very good point.
Speaker 3:I completely agree. Kind of tying it back to an earlier point that you had brought up, core, like in the age of social media, I think sometimes, when you see the large impact that so many people do have uh, whether it's like content creators, political advocates or just people in general online sometimes our voices can feel very, very small and I think it's important to remember the value that each of us do have, whether it's the impact that we can have on others or a community. I think it's important for us to not feel powerless when the outcome that we had hoped for isn't our reality.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and I think also, you know, don't be afraid to make some noise, you know like there's nothing wrong with posting really positive things, like people need that right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, and not posting negative things. I've actually unfollowed every single person that is posting negative stuff, every single one of them. I'm not feeding into it Like I don't want anything to do with it. If you're not working to make the world a better place, you're working to make the world a worse place, because you can't be neutral. Either you're helping or you're hurting. And what kind of country would we be if we continue to look at half of the country as scumbags, like seriously?
Speaker 1:and that's from either side right.
Speaker 2:So if we keep looking at the other people and saying and this goes back to what you said earlier, Cora, about the difference between community and individualism, so going to Europe, it's great to see because they have a strong sense of community, they're helping each other, they're taking care of each other. It's really great to see when you take an entire country and you give them the message that it's all about. What do I get? What do I get? Me, me, me, me, me. What the hell do you expect? You get a country of a whole bunch of people who are super entitled to hate each other.
Speaker 3:I completely agree, and I do think too, part of that is we have to move away from, or rather we have to separate our ideologies from our identities, because truly our ideology is the result of the information that we have at hand. And I think if we're unwilling to look at the fact that everybody really is the result of their exposure, what they have access to, and if you're going to point that as a personal fault, something wrong with the individual, I think you're never going to get anywhere because you're ultimately denying them humanity in your own perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I agree with you, mike, and that everybody is an expert in their own life. They know the experiences that they've had and they know what they need. Again we go. We go back to like history repeating itself, and I think about just even in our history. I think back to like the Salem witchcraft trials. So they were able to convince an entire community to like hang people they loved because of like these crazy theories that were about like land grabs and other things, right, and there's all sorts of countless examples of this. The other ones I was thinking of is changelings, I think in Ireland, where they would hang babies over fires and if the baby didn't burn to death, then it was a changeling, and if it burned to death, oops, it was a baby. So how many times can society be convinced that doing awful things is okay? And here we are again.
Speaker 1:But also we got to like remember some of our heroes and some of the people that work on the ground level, like just thinking about COVID and the first responders and doctors and nurses who just stepped up and did their jobs in the most beautiful way you know, really made sacrifices during a very scary time. We get a look at the positive people out there who are doing the work.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. Covid is a great example, because all the positive people that were out there doing the work were also the people who were being harassed and bullied and leaving the field because of how awful people were to them. So, yes, we do have to be, we need more people to kind of step it up and be nice, but then we also need people to stop being mean. Both have to happen simultaneously, because otherwise people are going to stop.
Speaker 3:I think, to both of your points. I do believe that, you know, throughout history there has always been that dichotomy of humanity the good and the bad, and the bad and the good. You know, yin yang, I don't. I don't think that is something that will ever be eradicated from humanity, from our world. But I do think that, back to the point of you know where we focus our energy, if we're focusing that on the negative, nothing productive will come of it. And I think, while it is important to acknowledge the negatives that are in existence and to actively work against them, that can't happen unless the focus is on the positive and strides towards that ideal.
Speaker 2:Very well said what can we end? And both of you have been really great and awesome on this episode and I appreciate both of you being here.
Speaker 3:Appreciate you having me here.
Speaker 2:It's great to hear both of your perspectives. So what do you think if we could give one takeaway and I hope the listeners will also do this, this similar thing, because we've done this on the Be Kind episode? What is one thing you can do to work to make the world a better place, like day to day?
Speaker 1:Well, I've got one I'd like to share if you don't mind. It was really cool. The other day, two women knocked on my door and one of them was running for a city council seat in my area, and so I spoke with her for a few minutes and she was like brand new to the process and was talking about all the changes she was hoping to make. I did end up voting for her. She didn't get in, but I can certainly start helping for the next run. But then the person who was with her is actually really engaging in advocacy.
Speaker 1:On the town level. We have a gun range that's very, very close to our middle school and our high school, and it is scary sometimes when you drive by and you hear shots being fired in the distance and then you see kids playing on basically the other side of the road. So this person is doing advocacy to. All she wants is to for that sound to be muffled. That's all we're asking, and that seems like something that I can definitely put some energy towards and hope to make a difference in.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say I'm going to tell something that you've done that has actually made me happy, right, because I think the stuff that you just mentioned is great, is great, and I don't want to get into like the corrupt politics stuff, because I've worked with a couple people who've run locally and I've heard horror stories about them getting threatened and all sorts of stuff. So, um, to take that, to take that part out of it, I'm thinking more of like just a an individual, like day-to-day basis. There were two times and that you because I guess you have like a garden at home and you brought in like little flowers and like herbs for me and you left them on my desk and a little vase and I saw them and I'm like, oh my God, cora, that's like the sweetest thing ever. It just like made my day Right, like. So I don't think it has to be this massive like life-changing thing right Like we're we're going out and doing stuff like, but you made my, my day really bright that day.
Speaker 2:So how can you do more of that on a day-to-day basis? Like? What can you do? I don't mean bring me herbs every day. What can you do to make the like? How do you keep doing stuff like?
Speaker 1:that for me, growing that stuff is is a personal, personal especially, my yard gets a little unruly because I love growing pollinator things, which are not always pretty, but they bring, you know, all sorts of things to the garden. But I've really actually started thinking like how do I take care of myself? So taking care of myself is working in the garden, and then how do I share that with other people? And so, you know, sharing seeds or cuttings, all that kind of stuff is just like a nice way in my community to get out there a little bit and meet new people too. So that's something I really enjoy. I love the flowers Like I'm glad you enjoyed that but also just thinking like, who do I love? Who should I call? Today? I've been trying to get on the phone with friends and family a little bit more because I realized I was being kind of isolated. So I asked myself, who do I feel like talking today and I'll just pick up the phone and call them.
Speaker 2:I don't know if this is I don't know the like what you can and can't donate to the food bank. I know they're really picky about certain things, but could you donate?
Speaker 1:herbs that you grow to like local food pantries and food banks as uh. Like I love that idea.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but yeah, I don't know that you can. I'm just. I'm just kind of throwing it out there as like a, as a suggestion, because, although I think it's really great, you know, to go back to what we talked about, about creating more unity, to also not just spend time with the people we like, but to try to like, branch out and make ourselves known to other people too. Right, the great, great ideas, though, mike, what do you? Do you have any thoughts on what you could do?
Speaker 3:I mean, I was thinking on a very similar level. I really think that this is a time and I know this is something I kind of touched on already, but definitely a time to really foster community, take interest and take action at the level that you can, the capacity that you can within your own communities, within the people that you love, whether that's, you know, whether your community is your family and friends, or you're looking at your larger local community, like schools, local government, town councils, things of that nature, sports leagues. There's so many different capacities in which you know we can be involved in our own lives and the things that do directly affect us. And I think it's important, in a time when we feel often helpless and hopeless, that having a direct hand in outcomes for the people that we love and care about I think are so important, and I think we often lose sight of that in pursuit of the larger overarching kind of change that we, that we, hope for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. So what do you like? Can you think of any things that you would, you could do, that would?
Speaker 3:help.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know personally, one thing that I I definitely have lost sight of in recent years is I used to here and there attend school board meetings to to make my voice heard.
Speaker 3:You know, obviously that was more pertinent to me when I was a student or or closer in age to a high school student, but I think having a hand in that is something that was very meaningful to me at the time and I think it still can be.
Speaker 3:You know, working with, with the youth is something that I'm still passionate about, uh, and I think fostering the best outcomes for our youth is is one of the most important things to make generational change. So that's something that, specifically, I would like to get back to. And, in addition, I mean even doing something like umpiring for my local little league, which is something that I used to do back in high school for community service hours. That's something that I think is such an important example of like how we can connect with our communities and the people in it, even if I mean, for example, you know my area tends to be pretty right wing and ideologically different for me, but that doesn't mean that I can't connect with these people and have meaningful relationships with them. So, amongst other things, I think those two are some examples of things that I specifically could do, but apply it to your life as as you would.
Speaker 1:That sounds awesome.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's really great. I love the the umpiring. That's really cool.
Speaker 3:It was intimidating as a 16 year old, but I think at 24, it might be a little less so.
Speaker 2:And, as you know, oh, go ahead, cora.
Speaker 1:Oh no, how about you?
Speaker 2:Well, I was just going to say, as you both know, one of the things that I've been doing a lot recently is making soaps and just like giving them to people Like I've given them to like local people, I've given them to you guys, I've given to like a whole bunch of people because it's just like, it's an, it's just nice, right, like.
Speaker 2:So I mean it's not making a world change, but I mean certainly people are saying like you know, it's really nice, thank you for thinking of me, because then it makes a more personal connection. So then for things that we don't agree with, we can have conversations, because then we like each other right. So like we, we have this kind of bond and you know, even if it's like a little superficial bonds. But also, you know I'm one of the things I love to do is just and I do this with lots of people is just send out random texts like saying like, like hey, you're like awesome or whatever, or just like saying nice things to people, because it, you never know, like that one thing you say to somebody could prevent them. I know I'm being kind of extreme, but it could prevent it, prevent them from like committing suicide that day, like you have no idea, right? Like just these little kind nice acts that connect us, don't separate us, like are the things that I try to do?
Speaker 1:yeah, and I just want to say, you know, I have a couple of friends that were feeling really vulnerable and I just did like a quick hey, how are you doing this week? You know, check in. And that sparked some really good conversation too. So you know, I love that you send those texts, matt, and your soap is amazing. So thank you for all of those little things that you do.
Speaker 2:It's so easy to make too, like I don't. So everybody knows I don't actually make the soap from scratch, because lye scares the hell out of me and I just feel like if I did that I'd end up like I don't know, like dying or something. So it's like the melt and pour, but I, you know, but I know obviously I put other stuff in it and like vitamin E and I put in the sense and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:They're very much appreciated.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate it. I they feel great, Don't they? They're awesome.
Speaker 1:This has been a really good conversation. I just want to thank you both for toughing it out with me and talking about things.
Speaker 2:That's why we're here. We I've said this many, many, why we're here. I've said this many, many, many times. It's such a privilege and honor to work with both of you. I think you're both truly amazing and I thank you so much for being on here and, hopefully, for the people listening. Hopefully you took something positive out of it, like, hopefully you will go out and try to make the world a better place. Talk to somebody you don't normally like or you don't understand. Try to understand them. Let's start coming together as a community and making like, real changes.
Speaker 1:And thank you all so much for listening. It means so much to us.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody, and we're going to have some guest speakers coming on soon, hopefully, and by next week or by next episode we'll talk about what we're going to do in terms of, like, the giveaway for the tumblers. I think that would be really great, so thank you. Thank you, mike, for joining. Thank you, cora.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody and thank you again for listening. This is just a reminder that no part of this podcast can be duplicated or copied without written consent from either myself or Wendy. Thank, you again.
