Ep 606: Influential Origins with Alan Mindel and guest Jake Blumencranz P3 on hmTv

Influential Origins with Alan Mindel
Guest: Jake Blumencranz — Part 3
hmTv at HMTC

In Part 3 of Influential Origins, host Alan Mindel concludes his conversation with Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz with a powerful discussion about America, constitutional freedoms, redistricting, political extremism, free speech, media responsibility, and the future of civic life.

Alan opens with a personal story about his Holocaust survivor father’s deep love for America, despite its flaws, and the belief that the United States remains the greatest nation on earth because of its Constitution, protections, and ongoing struggle to form a more perfect union. Jake reflects on the importance of protecting both the federal and New York State constitutions, especially as debates over redistricting and gerrymandering threaten the principle that voters should choose their representatives — not the other way around.

The conversation explores how safe political districts empower the extremes, weaken the center, and reduce the voice of ordinary voters. Alan and Jake discuss the danger of losing centrist leadership, the rise of far-left and far-right movements, and the way antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric have become common ground for political extremists on both sides.

They also examine the meaning of free speech, freedom of religion, and public safety in a time when intimidation, blocked roads, online threats, and masked harassment are often defended as expression. Jake emphasizes the need to enforce existing laws, protect houses of worship, adopt clear definitions of antisemitism, and make sure communities can live peacefully and safely.

The episode closes with a timely conversation about propaganda, social media, the decline of traditional journalism, misinformation, bot farms, foreign influence, and the need to adapt to a new communications battlefield. Rather than longing for the past, Jake argues that communities must learn to fight for truth in the world as it exists today.

This final part of the conversation is a compelling call for civic responsibility, constitutional integrity, moral clarity, and renewed participation by the “missing middle” in American public life.

Transcript

Ep. 606 — Influential Origins with Alan Mindel
Guest: Jake Blumencranz — Part 3
hmTv at HMTC

[Opening Music]

Alan Mindel:
Humanity.

And we’re back. This is Alan Mindel with Influential Origins, and I’m here with Jake Blumencranz.

Now I want to have the most basic of American conversations.

Jake, it is important for me to point out that I remember my dad talking about Jimmy Carter and really not liking him. He would say this was wrong and that was wrong. I was a little kid, maybe eight or nine years old, and I said, “Well, Dad, then why are we in America?”

My father teared up and got so angry with me. He said, “No matter what problems we have here, this is the greatest nation on earth. Don’t you ever forget it.”

I think it is important for people to understand that this is the greatest nation on earth.

Jake Blumencranz:
One hundred percent.

Alan Mindel:
And there is a reason it is the greatest nation. We have a Constitution, and we are about to celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary. There are protections within that Constitution that are incredibly vital to making this country what it is today.

It is not just about the Mississippi River or having access to the Pacific and the Atlantic. We have a foundation, a union that we struggle every year to make more perfect. That is what makes it so special, and that is the answer to so many of the problems we have today.

I wanted to talk to you about the constitutional freedoms and protections we have here, your relationship with them, and some of the policies we now have to protect in order to keep this country what it is.

Jake Blumencranz:
Of course, I believe in the sanctity of the Constitution. I live, breathe, and die by how we can protect and maintain the Constitution, both as a citizen and as a legislator.

It is important to note that we do not only have a federal Constitution that applies to all 50 states. We also have a state Constitution.

I have been shocked over the past couple of days, as we ended session in Albany, by how the current ruling party, the majority party, has worked to alter that Constitution in a way that would eliminate independent redistricting in our communities.

To take you back a little bit, a little over a decade ago, through referendum, we created and established an independent redistricting commission that would draw and establish district lines based on communities, keeping them contiguous and compact, and making sure we were not essentially creating gerrymandered districts like we see all over the country.

Alan Mindel:
Let’s bring that out so people fully understand it.

This is a national topic that is very much hitting home here. Both parties are engaged in it. You made the quote that instead of voters picking their officials, officials are trying to pick their voters.

This is one of the most fundamental challenges our nation has faced to its democracy in its 250-year history.

Jake Blumencranz:
One hundred percent. This conversation is much deeper than just who you vote for every four years.

The conversations that happen in a solid Democratic or solid Republican district are what allow the fringes to take power. If I have to defend myself from the right every four years instead of defending myself in front of every single voter, that is a very different conversation.

Alan Mindel:
Incredibly different. And it takes the fringe into a position of power instead of the people.

Jake Blumencranz:
It removes the national conversation. It removes the local conversation. It becomes about culture wars and party politics more than it becomes about the voter.

That is why we created an independent commission here in New York. We felt it would only be fair if places like Nassau County were properly represented. We have unique and specific issues that matter to us, and keeping our communities as contiguous as possible was enshrined in our state Constitution.

At the end of session, one of the last bills passed was the first of two changes. In New York, to change the state Constitution, you have to vote twice and then have a referendum. It needs to be ratified in this session and then again next year before it can go to the voters.

This first vote would remove many components of the language that essentially give strength to the independent commission. It would allow the Legislature to draw and create maps it wishes to see.

If the Legislature finds that the map created by the independent commission is not sufficient for them, they will be able to draw their own map. They will not have to deal with the same legal avenues we saw a couple of years ago when maps were redrawn after the census.

They also remove language stating that maps have to change every 10 years for census purposes. This becomes something they can do whenever they see fit. During the debates, they made that crystal clear. This is something that could be done whenever they feel it needs to be done, for whatever reason they see.

You have seen this in red states, and you will see it in blue states. It is a pox on our society. It really is.

When the conversation shifts so that there are only a handful of battleground districts in all of Congress, that is a scary proposition.

Alan Mindel:
Or presidential elections.

What does your vote in New York mean compared to what it means in Pennsylvania? What is the insanity of that?

Obama had a famous quote on this, saying that the only people who benefit from this are those on the fringes who will dictate party policy.

Jake Blumencranz:
Yes. It goes from the center having control to the extremes having control.

What you saw this past cycle was that New York legislators who were part of the majority were able to dictate the conversation around SALT reform because they had a deliverable. They were a vital part of the majority, and that majority came in part from a place like New York.

When you change and shift the lines so that there are just safe seats here and safe seats there, with no more battlegrounds, you take away the power that places like New York have in Washington. You hand it over to one party, which means that when that party is not in power, they will be completely powerless.

And when the opposite exists, the other side will be completely powerless.

It alters the way we can have conversations around policy. It allows candidates we are seeing show up in these primaries to win. And when they win, they will never let go. They will not stop saying what they have been saying. They will simply be able to do it with the approval of the voters.

Alan Mindel:
The incredible part is that what those candidates represent will not be what we understand today as standard Republican policy or standard Democratic policy.

For several decades, maybe even a century, America overall, regardless of who was president, who was in Congress, who was in the Senate, or who was governor, had a centrist government. Center-left, center-right.

A president changes, a party changes, and certain policies change, but they were never wholesale switches because there were still certain things commonly accepted and commonly understood. We are losing that.

Jake Blumencranz:
Yes, we are.

Alan Mindel:
It is not simply that Republicans will take over or Democrats will take over. It is that extremists will take over.

On the Republican side, supremacists — not just the word we use for everyone, but actual supremacists — can end up in positions of power. On the Democratic side, groups like the DSA, who openly talk about hating the Democratic Party, are challenging officials.

I have several Democratic elected officials whom I strongly support. Each one of them is being challenged by some DSA or far-left candidate who is not projecting standard Democratic policy. They are projecting policies that are anti-capitalism, anti-markets, anti-property ownership, anti-centrist education, where dogma is more important.

This entire theory is putting us in a place where we will not have the power to elect people who represent our values.

And I am not talking about Democratic values or Republican values. I am talking about the centrist values of average Americans who love their families, want to get ahead, want a better life, and want their children to have a better life. It becomes the view of the extremist above all else.

Jake Blumencranz:
Yes. And the view of the extremist needs to be at the table because they have the approval of the voters.

You see it in New York politics all the time because, unfortunately, we are ahead in this space. If you look at many of my colleagues in the Assembly or Senate who come from New York City, we are not even running candidates on our side of the aisle in those seats.

Their race begins and ends in a primary.

Alan Mindel:
Because there is nothing else to run. There is no point in running.

Jake Blumencranz:
There is no point in running because the only conversation happening is between the far left and the left.

A thousand people decide the future of that community and our state because that person does not have to run for their life every four years. They are safe. They get to decide, on behalf of all of us, what happens.

They may have a race where 0.1 percent or 0.01 percent of the electoral population is voting, and then they get to make decisions that affect all of us.

Alan Mindel:
And that is not representative government.

Jake Blumencranz:
No. It stops being representative, especially when we stop participating.

Alan Mindel:
Which is the real point. Participation is everything. But where do you participate?

I have told people that many of them should be registered as Democrats in this area because, frankly, there is a Democratic primary. We have a congressman here who proposed a real buffer-zone bill that could really help. He has a DSA opponent. There are multiple situations like that going on.

Jake Blumencranz:
It is happening everywhere, and it will continue to happen. And it happens on the right too.

The problem is that you are seeing the far left and the far right unified on one singular issue, and that is Israel and the Jewish community.

They have turned AIPAC into this monster that must be defeated. They have made it represent everything they think is wrong with society. They have done what every other socialist and fascist playbook has done, which is point the finger at the Jews and say it is their fault.

Alan Mindel:
It is scapegoat politics.

Jake Blumencranz:
It is scapegoat politics at its finest, and they are using it to their advantage. And they are winning.

What we need to do is counter that by fighting for the missing middle, by fighting for the unheard middle.

Exactly like you said, Congress used to be a place that was center-right and center-left. The people who dictated those conversations were real politicians who were able to maneuver in a way that allowed them to deliver for their communities.

Today, it is about who can deliver for the DSA, who can deliver for a headline, who can say something radical enough to get on CNN and talk about it. That is the new game.

Alan Mindel:
And not with anyone criticizing them for it. Simply celebrating that they are there.

Jake Blumencranz:
Yes. Some people just want to hear themselves talk, and that is not new to politics. The problem is that the topics are becoming increasingly detrimental to society.

Alan Mindel:
Another issue that comes from this is all of our other freedoms.

There is nothing more important than freedom of speech. But we used to have an understanding of what freedom of speech meant.

Freedom of speech is the ability for you to identify yourself in the public square and state your views of the world — good, bad, indifferent, racist, not racist, whatever it was — but you identified yourself as a certain individual and publicly stated your view.

Today, people have the ability to hide their identity so, with the worst of it, they do not have to declare themselves.

And now people say lighting ten cars on fire is freedom of speech.

Jake Blumencranz:
Blocking a road is called freedom of religion.

Alan Mindel:
Blocking a road is called freedom of speech. Preventing people from going to temples is called freedom of speech.

It is not freedom of speech.

What does freedom of religion mean? It means you should be able to enter your house of worship when you want, how you want. The fact that in many cases in New York people have not been able to do so is a real problem.

Jake Blumencranz:
It speaks to my first prong that I was talking about. How do we get it right on the streets? How do we get that right so we do not have to have the conversation about what the First Amendment means?

That can be a difficult conversation at times. If you look at what declaring yourself on the street means now under Supreme Court cases, or if you look at our social media as elected officials, they are considered open forums. People have to be able to say what they want.

So when someone says, “You are a dirty Jew who deserves to die,” from a fake account or an account that is not really them, they are speaking in an open forum. I cannot dictate who can and cannot speak in public. And when you are an elected official, a lot of the dialogue you have online is public speech.

That line blurs. That conversation blurs.

All of this does not need to happen if we simply allow law enforcement to do what they are supposed to do and allow our communities to exist safely.

That is why I think we escape the real conversation that needs to happen, the easy and obvious conversation: adopt real definitions, definitions that make sense for protecting Jewish communities; follow and abide by the laws already on the books; allow our communities to exist peacefully in society; and if they are under attack, protect them.

That is what it comes down to.

After we solve that, I feel like many people in politics often try to make this topic more confusing or complicated than it really needs to be. It should be clear. The political conversation has gotten so complicated that it feels like it must be complicated, when it is actually very basic.

Alan Mindel:
And it is propagandized.

We have blurred the line between what is news and what is speech. It used to be that every news outlet’s number-one motto was accuracy. Be accurate in what you are reporting. Be fair in how you explain it. Give people more insight.

Now you have the New York Times, which is one of the most painful newspapers we have in this country, putting out article after article that makes Jews look like the boogeyman the world wants us to be.

Jake Blumencranz:
It reinforces the academic slander campaign that has existed for decades.

Alan Mindel:
Like never before. And then they say they were free to say it because even though it was a newspaper article, they call it an opinion piece.

An opinion is what you think should happen. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they should not be entitled to their own facts.

When you have articles that make outrageous claims without evidence, based on publications from NGOs directly linked to Hamas and other satellites of Iran, and it is presented as fact, that is an unbelievable thing.

One article was published the day before an actual study came out that included hundreds of interviews and thousands of videos showing people raped, butchered, tortured, and murdered. Then the world says, “Of course those Jews were raped. They deserved to be raped because they were rapists.”

That is the danger of this propaganda.

Jake Blumencranz:
It is a dangerous narrative that has been built and reinforced by editorialized news mattering more.

Frankly, what the New York Times says or does not say matters in ecosystems that matter. But where we are really losing the war, and where we need to focus, is with people who are not reading the newspaper.

We are losing with people who are walking the streets, voting, living their lives, and seeing again and again, when they scroll on their phones, what they believe the future looks like and what they see as facts.

There is no evidence-based learning. Our schools are trying to teach students how to know their sources and do research, but how we adapt our educational apparatus and how our students learn in the future will dictate exactly how we create a better future.

Alan Mindel:
Because if social media is your news source today, which for virtually everyone under the age of 35 it is, then we are dead, because none of that is responsible for facts.

Jake Blumencranz:
Alan, we are not dead. We are just fighting a different war. We are fighting on a different battlefield.

This is like World War I, when people realized they could not fight on horseback anymore because the other side was using mustard gas. We need to adapt how we exist within modern communications to deliver our message, or we will lose.

But if we adapt our strategy and come up with our own strategy to defeat fire with fire, then we will win. We will not be dead. We will be very much part of the conversation.

Alan Mindel:
We need a national understanding that just because you saw something on social media does not make it a fact. And that is not a Republican or Democratic problem.

There has been a lot of talk about elections, including what happened in Los Angeles. One thing that did not happen is there really is not evidence of voter fraud, and yet there are so many posts about it because a computer updated statistics 15 or 30 seconds later.

It is so easy to create a misconception in this world.

What people believe about Israel is often based on propagandized videos. What people believe about Jews is often based on a tiny, specific offshoot that does not represent reality.

If there is a small community somewhere in New York receiving benefits, that does not represent the entire Jewish community. We do not live with the general. We live with these small, specific fragments that people accept as universal truth.

We need the press to be the press again. It is important.

Jake Blumencranz:
The press will never be the press again. We live in a world where information is provided in a different format, where people receive and digest information in different ways, and where it is very easy to spread myths and disinformation.

Frankly, the ecosystems being created are siloing us, so many of us are only seeing what we want to see.

Having conversations about how we alter that ecosystem, how we expose and dismantle bot farms, how we dismantle foreign influence in spaces like TikTok — that is how we win this war.

If we can take command and control of the forum, of the public space, in some capacity, and make sure fact and fiction are separated, or fight fire with fire, that is how we win.

I do not see a world where people go back to reading the New York Times with their coffee in the morning the way they once did universally. I do not see a world where we go back to the printing press while people increasingly want to receive media in four-to-eight-second increments.

It is difficult to look at the old world and say, “Let’s go back.” We need to say, “Here is what the world is like now. How do we fit into it?”

Alan Mindel:
Well, we have to figure out a world where people do not digest the entire world in six- and eight-second increments, because there is no way to understand the world in six seconds.

Jake Blumencranz:
Then we need another podcast, because that is a much longer conversation.

Alan Mindel:
Yes, that is a lot of the problem we have.

Jake, I think this has been a phenomenal conversation. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you having it with us.

Jake Blumencranz:
Thank you. I agree.

Alan Mindel:
I hope this will really help people understand what is going on today. I also really appreciate you being part of our Leadership Council here at the Holocaust Center.

Jake Blumencranz:
It is my honor.

Alan Mindel:
You have been incredibly influential. I cannot thank you or your family enough for your help here.

We need more of this.

Jake Blumencranz:
We really do.

Alan Mindel:
Because that is the key to making the world a better place.

Jake Blumencranz:
Amen.

Alan Mindel:
Amen. Thank you so much.

Jake Blumencranz:
Thank you, Alan.

Alan Mindel:
Appreciate it.

[End of Part 3]