Episode 4- Party Politics and First Amendment

Rich talks about party loyalty and it's detriment to actually solving problems, and shifts to how freedom of speech is being challenged at every turn nowadays.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Speaker 1 0:05

[inaudible] .

Speaker 2 0:07

Welcome to the podcast, the common bridge with Richard helpy . Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health and finance space. He and his wife Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, but with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children. My name is Brian Kruger . And from time to time I'll be the moderator and host of this podcast.

Speaker 3 0:30

And Brent , one of the things that has inspired me to begin looking for solutions is looking at partisan party politics , um, as a solution. And it's real clear that's not the answer. Uh, the, if you look at the behavior of the two major parties , um, it proves the adage that people get really good at what they do a lot of and what are they really good at? They're really good at attacking the other side at, you know, arcane rules. Okay . Procedure, process. Um, they're really good at manipulating the media , uh, echo chamber. And so the question I pose to people just to see the reactions is do you really think electing, you know, in any one of the number of the opposing party candidates versus the current party candidate, is that really going to change things? And , and I think about this apparently one of the qualifications to run for president from a in , from a major party in 2016 required one to be delusional. No . Well look, you laugh, but it's a serious matter. Although it's painfully funny in that, think about this on the day you're inaugurated to office, arguably the most powerful job in the world. One white thing, humbled by the awesomeness of the responsibility, the nuclear codes, the leadership in the world, 300 million people plus billions around the world. You really want to talk about the crowd size outside and whether it's bigger, smaller, or this, I mean really it, it's just, it's delusional. And then look what the other choice was. We have a person there, okay . Some might say visionary because this, the other major party had a candidate that saw sniper fire in Bosnia that no one else saw. A saw a vast right wing conspiracy at another time, saw Russians colluding with her opponent. Um, you know, Lord knows, maybe she believed the Steele dossier and in recent days sees a Russian agent in one of the , uh , candidates for her own party's nomination. Now come on. Um, is that really the solution inside those parties? Uh , that one of those structures has the answer? It's our government. They need to be working on solutions for us. Whether it's infrastructure, education, security, immigration, healthcare , um, uh, gun policy. They're not addressing the problem and they're not addressing it because we're letting them and we're reacting to the , um, media manipulation , uh , to get eyeballs. It's, it's become a straight out fight of, of , uh, attack the speaker, attack the person, attack the speaker. And another interesting phenomenon is , um, and this is true of , uh , both poles , is there's a checklist of ideological purity and anyone that has a position that doesn't check every box or perhaps checks another box, boom, don't talk to him anymore. Right. Which I remember vividly, I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. And we're to be manipulated into not discussing things with each other. I think probably the most dangerous thing that we're dealing with as a country today, I was disappointed in the last debate where Kamala Harris suggested to take down Trump's Twitter feed and she could she get some support to stop his ability to communicate. Now, Trump's has some crazy stuff on Twitter. Every day you cringe. You look at it and you go, my God, this guy's leading our country. This is nuts. But to take his D to have the solution be, let silence him scares the living daylights out of me. And that seemed to be an okay thing to talk about on that stage that night. Yeah. And from that side of the aisle that is frankly par for the course. Um, and yeah, I like having the president come out and say things and , uh, here's another exercise that I'd recommend people do when they get a report. The president said X, Y and Z goes to the original source and see, because a lot of it is, is it's a conclusory statement. Yeah . And when you dig into it, it's like, Oh , it didn't really say that. And that's the thing I don't get is we have a , uh , uh , a president that was not prepared for the job , uh, does not appear to want to become prepared for, to become prepared to execute the job and has some obvious massive personal issues. Right. I mean, that's what we have. I mean, we were bound to get one of those anyway , given choices we had, but that's what we have. And I'm just curious why the echo chamber can't just let that story play out yet. Their behavior and the behavior of the opposing party has been so horrible. It masks the deficiencies that we have in the present . It's kind of like this race to the bottom. It, it, it makes no sense to me. That should be more depressing than who is running is how this is being handled. It's sad. It is. And I mean, and the thing is that when we get handed the latest history or an outrage , um , and I said this in 16, when it all started, I said, eventually what's going to happen? People are gonna turn it off and not listen. And that's exactly what's happened .

Speaker 4 6:44

What , what , yeah. When that happens, you're going to get the side of the aisle that, that historically doesn't come out to vote, will not come out to vote in the numbers. They need to take that back, that take their , uh , uh, the white house back for them next fall. And I think what will happen is the incumbent is going to win by a landslide because they can't, if you're gonna attack the person , uh, I don't think Trump's base is moving. Um, and if you're not coming up with solutions, that side isn't going to come out in the numbers. They need to come out and vote. I think Trump could probably get impeached and still win by a landslide.

Speaker 3 7:15

Well, he's going to get impeached. Um, and , uh, you know, it's a low probability business to be in forecasting results of elections. Um, but I tend to be a little more optimistic and that I believe eventually we'll get better government with the proviso that we demanded. And it was Winston Churchill said that Americans will always do the right thing after they've tried everything else. And so I , or something to that. Uh , so I think that we'll get there. Um, but I think it's up to us as a citizenry to demand that they drop the R's . They dropped the DS , they dropped the eyes and jeez and everybody, every other letter, and they work on policy. All right . And not blame the other side. Uh, not try to steal all the credit. Um, you know, just try to address the issues factually wipe

Speaker 4 8:21

out this whole , um, money-making media , uh , uh, uh , machine that speaks to both sides and gets them all riled up if you do something like that. So there's one more positive by-product. Alright . Um, I wanna I want to backtrack on something , um , because you and I both grew up in an era where , um, it appeared that the right was trying to squelch free speech , um, for , from a student demonstrations and such. Well, now we're flipped completely around and it seems that the left is now , uh , uh, whether it's on college campuses or right there on the stage of , uh, the , um, uh, debates ,

Speaker 3 8:57

uh, squelching , uh , uh, free speech. And that's alarming to me. How did that happen? Well, it's , uh, it's clearly alarming. Um, and again, Brian , what I believe is that we have a country made up of compassionate, generous people, and that's proven every day. Um, most people are going about their daily lives, okay . Are not interested in being part of a group or a subgroup. Uh, they're not being told they need to think this way or that way because of their, you know , age, race, gender , uh , orientation , uh , whatever. Okay . You know, how can you think that? Because you're a this , um , yeah . So I think that those , um, classifications, that division is really, it is a product of that , um, media echo chamber, and it's a product of , um , a political system that has not talked about uniting Methodist . It was talked about , um , dividing. And the thing that scares those kinds of political establishments more than anything is people talking to each other. Yeah. And so what's a program like this? Right? It's like, let's just open the doors, right? And the , and so this is the, we're, we're, we've got these tools , uh, today , um, to communicate. It doesn't have to be filtered through , um, an editorial board. Um, it doesn't have to be , um, you know, condensed and reduced to 17 minutes of national news. Um, you know, to, to create a certain view. Um, you know, the, if you think about things like the Vietnam war , um, where many analysis will say that our military forces won every battle on the ground. What we lost it at home because after the Tet offensive , uh , the, it was reported that, you know, we , we, we were losing, although at the end of the Tet offensive, the North Vietnamese thought that was it. They thought they had lost. Yeah . Because they had been, it was a , you know, a horrible, ferocious , um, series of battles. But , uh, at the end of it , uh, they had not much left. And yet, you know, the reporting was distilled down to , um, it was , uh , it was a loss. Um, but I digress. The, we have these tools to communicate with each other and I think we need to respectfully listen to people's viewpoints. Uh, we need to squeeze some of the emotion out of it. And I think we've been , um, manipulated into this world. And not, it's not everybody, but people say, if you don't like what this person's saying, shun them. Okay. Don't talk to them anymore. Cut them off of your social media feed , cut them off of your Thanksgiving dinner. Um, because if they support candidate a candidate B policy C policy D, they can't, they just can't be a good human being. Right . And I think people are more complex than that. Um, so rich , do you think the numbers would, would bury you out? I think they would. But what's your feeling if you have a pie , would you say it's 20% on, on both sides that are the big vocal? If you like him, I don't like you. And both on both sides. And then do you think that the mass , vast majority of us in the middle are going, look, let's just find a way to get through this and let's , let's find a solution. Well, I wouldn't know a scientific number , um, but my sense is it's not even 20%, really . It's a vocal 10% amplified through media models that are under stress. And , um, look at two examples recently, the , um , editor of the New York times , uh, coming out and saying, our job is to take down this administration. That's amazing , isn't it? And that we got off this Russian story and now we're moving onto new attack surfaces. Um, similarly, the president of CNN, all right . Markets themselves as quote news, yet they've said, no, we're taking a partisan view, partisan position. This is what we're doing. Um, and so dangerous territory. But I'll, I'll say this , uh, the origins of the , um , Mueller probe, okay, I still want to know how did this all start? And we're today we don't have an answer and we're seeing a reaction of it looks like we're trying to get some facts out. Why can't we just examine the facts? And yet it seems like, well, wait a minute. If they might catch my person or you know , my side, then I don't want to do it. But if it might harm the other side, then I do want to do it. And I see that the , um, you know, media arms are quick to condemn and they're quick to clear depending on who is doing it, not what's being done. Yeah . Um, I again, I think this all you asked about freedom of speech, freedom of expression, I think this all ties in. Um, and you know, I find that there are, you know, more people that right now, you know, believe in Bigfoot than they do believe that someone , um, from a different political persuasion might be a decent human being. And that's, that to me is a sad take. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think this was , uh , last week , uh, a couple of the news, I think it was CNN and MSNBC , uh, cut off the president , uh, and a couple of remarks he was making and then sat on the air. We're not going to, we're not going to run this any further because he's not telling the truth and whether or not that's true or not. Um, I find that interesting that a , that a news outlet was going to tell the viewer , uh, whether or not somebody was telling the truth. In other words, they became the filter. They became the note , right ? They censored it because it didn't fit the media narrative. And there was alarming to me know they're becoming more bold about that. Um, and I actually, I watched Mark Zuckerberg , uh, this morning on television , um , struggling with where he is as a , uh , company , um , this open social media platform that, you know, could be abused. And when you think about policies that could address that , uh, one of the clear , um, answers I think lies in , uh , antitrust , um, that if people understood a little bit about what's happening to their information and the profile, they would be horrified. Alright . That , um, the companies like Facebook, Google , um, Amazon, Apple, some of our outlets, they need to be , um, they need to be broken into smaller companies totally. That compete with each other. Yeah. Period. Yeah . And , uh, I think our , our very freedoms at stake, Brian , let me , uh , my background is in computer systems, right. And I was , uh , writing computer code , uh, way back. And the first job I had was with a company that did direct mail. And so this is now over 40 years ago. That's all I'm going to say. Um, and there it is. Yeah, it's a , and , and the company bought , um, automobile registration lists from various States. They bought subscription lists to magazines. They bought census track data , um, because they wanted to profile the Kruger household. Um, had an interest in , um, uh, fast cars, had an interest in , uh, hunting. Um, and we're in an area with a particular , um, income profile, right . And that, so they could direct advertising sure. Into that. Yeah . Today it's down to the individual your microphone's on. And they heard you saying , I broke my sunglasses and well, how did this ad for sunglasses get here? Um, it's those kinds of things that are in need of legislation. And I know my friends that don't like the word regulation aren't gonna like that, but , um, they're the, the law and the legal system as always trail technology. And now we have technologies that weren't contemplated , uh , that we need to address. And I think that antitrust is the best Avenue for doing that. Um, and then , uh , also , uh, the citizens bills , uh , writes about what can happen to your information, how long can it be stored , um, and , uh , more explicit permissions and more explicit opt ins. Um, the good news, I think that's the key because you can be looking at the , uh , at the web today or just just kind of Googling around and taking, taking a look at , uh , anything you want today and that cookie is being traveled and it's showing exactly what you looked at and then aiming advertising at those particular, right. And so in real time, if I could do this, this may sound like an advertisement and I meant to, I have no commercial interest in this, but I've been using a search tool called duck duck go. Yeah . And so duck duck go says we can build a model. If you're looking for, you know , home air conditioners while you're in that session, we might go out and bring you an ad for home air conditioners, right? But we're not keeping the fact that you were looking for home air conditioners , um, stored so that we can start showing you other appliances. You know, maybe you're doing a remodel or something like that. Their competitors are going and exactly what the competitors are doing. The competitors, remember that a year ago? Um, you, you were searching for something and I was , uh , just on my social media newsfeed and I got an ad for this weird harness thing and I didn't even know what it was. And I'm like, dad, I didn't, wasn't sure what it was. And I kinda , you know, I didn't want to click it and I, so I expanded it a little bit and it was a , uh, mountain climbing gear , um, for a petite woman. And I realized that I have , uh , one of my daughters is an avid mountain climber. And right around Christmas time I would, what do you want on your Christmas list? Wow, I would. And so it knew about this time of year, I would go shopping for this really specialized mountain climbing equipment. Not only what you wanted but the time of year. Exactly. Those are some breadcrumbs. Exactly. I mean , I , and , and I had no idea. And then it finally, Oh, this is what they're doing. You know, about the beginning of November, the last three years in a row, I bought something that, you know, and she's at a level where they need to have a really specific type of gear. Sure. So, which I don't know , think about. Um, but the fact that they knew that and , um, we're , we're served it up to me, I thought it was pretty amazing, but 40 years ago, Richard helped me what I went. Okay. Yeah. Because we were picking whatever we could out of, you know, what were doing back then, you know , you know, this is the only thing that's available to us, excuse me, to make that work. Um, but now it's , uh , it's on steroids. It's , it's, it's incredible what they can, what they can track for you. Right. I'm not looking, Brian , I'm not sure we're getting any place in terms of , um, uh, solutions here in, but I think it comes down to people need to feel empowered to state their opinions without fear. And that's without fear of their coworkers. Uh, particularly their employer. Um, their family , uh, their friends. Um, and the , uh, you know, other people they might interact with. And I think we, we start there and then we demand of the political and the , um, media groups that they respect what other people say. And I really don't want to be partisan at all. Um, and one of my bonafides for that is I did not support either major party in 2016 and in the years past I've supported both in independence and the like . So, but it was really troubling when the candidate for the highest office in the land from one of the two major parties depicted a very large group of Americans as quote, deplorables. This was not off the cuff at the end of a long road trip. Uh , this was not in response to being frustrated. This was a planned applause line in a stump speech that was delivered twice, at least before it made. It was the , uh, the news, maybe it was three times, but that attempt to silence and shame people has to stop. And we as a people have to quit rewarding those folks who want to divide and categorize it like that. We see that coming out of the white house too . And it comes swinging hard. Sometimes. I'm trying just to punch back at somebody, you know, and that needs to stop. You look at the , the, the, the presidency is a very powerful job. And , um, I would desperately like to see a diplomat in the office or someone you know, with diplomatic skills. And can you imagine a properly motivated president saying, you know what, we're going to camp David and we're going to go in there. We're going to negotiate immigration. And when you look at the immigration bills that have been brought forward , um, by , uh , Bush 43 , uh, by Obama , um, there's not a material difference. Um , they all have the same thing . So , all right , we're going to secure the borders. All right ? We're going to have a guest worker program. We're going to have a path to citizenship for the people that are here. Um, and we're going to give a preference. When somebody gets an advanced degree, they're going to , you know, as many of the polls have said, we're going to staple a green card to that diploma. They all have that in there . Um, in the , uh, reelection cycle of , uh , uh, 2010 , um, that that deal was close to getting done , um, by March and with bipartisan support with bipartisan support and it collapsed on a weird combination of the left wing of the democratic party whose unions did not want to see that go through and the right wing of the Democrat or the Republicans who said, Hey, it's amnesty. All right . If to the 12 million or more people that are here , um, you know, giving them a pathway to citizenship, which wasn't an easy path by the way. It was learn English. It was, you don't have a clean record. It was, you know, all the things that seem to make sense to me. Sure . Um, take a basic civics course. Yeah , exactly. It was like, okay, it made sense and it collapsed because a midterm election, they found it was a wedge issue. And I think as a citizen rate, if we can say, I don't want to hear how you're dividing us. I don't want to hear whose side you're on. I want to know what solutions you're working on. Talk to me about how you view healthcare working, period. Yeah. Okay. Talk to me about what we need to do about firearms, period. What do we need to do about student debt? All right . What do we need to do about immigration, border control, et cetera? So , uh , I'm gonna address the , uh, the cynical , uh, portion of, of Richard helpy . Um, we're a year out from the election. Do you think that there's a candidate, do you think that , do you think there's a road for a candidate out there right now , uh, to come up a Bloomberg or somebody to come up now out of the blue and be that candidate, what you just talked about and said, look, we're gonna take all that stuff off to the side, but let's talk about the solutions here. Do you think it's possible or do you think that both sides of the media are going, no , no , you're not one of us and you're not one of us. So, or will it take somebody like a Bloomberg who can find, who can finance the whole himself? Well, again , um , given that the potential to be right about a political prognostication is about, you know, 5%, maybe , um , yeah. Um, yes, it's possible and I think that the , um, scenario really will play out in the early primaries. And if one of the , um, you know, second tier Democrat candidates , um , uh , Buddha gig , um, or , uh, Gabard , um, uh, does well , um, uh , or in fact wins that Iowa primary. Um, and it doesn't even have to be the same one. Similarly competes well or wins in New Hampshire , um, uh , yang potentially. Alright . Uh, that, I think that's where , uh, the door gets cracked open. You think so? Yeah. I look, I don't think Joe Biden will be the nominee. I don't think so either. No . What about , um, Bernie Sanders, he recently had some health issues and then he , he was endorsed by AOC, which I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing for him. Um, where does he fit into this? I think Bernie was a, a great candidate in 2016 , um, because there was a pivot from the establishment of both parties , um, on the Republican side. They all were licking their chops for the opportunity to run against what they viewed as a very beatable. Hillary Clinton and , uh, Trump, if you remember those early primaries, was taking 20, 25% of the vote, but they were winner take all primaries and he amassed such a delicate lead , uh , that he , he became unstoppable. And the other many really good candidates just couldn't sustain , um, a campaign. Bernie Sanders also appealed to that , uh, know backlash against the , uh , party establishment in 2016. Um, and frankly, I gave a lot of support to Bernie. What Meeker support I did give was to Bernie Sanders. And not that his solutions were great, but his agenda was right. He went to healthcare , education, immigration, and he had proposals. And when he was asked would he invoke some of this by executive order, his answer was, of course not. I would tell people to write to their Congressman and , and, and see if they support what I'm saying. We'd get the best deal we could, which , yeah. And so like, it's like, okay , um , you know, what, tee it up and , um, try to get to decent legislation now in 2020. I think that ship has sailed. Um, and do you think because of his age and health are the message? Both. Okay . And anything less his age and his health? I just think that we've had the disruptive election. Uh, we have a , uh , disruptive , uh, person in the white house right now and the, you know, switching from one brand of disruption to another. I, I just don't think it's a winning hand at all. And frankly, you know, in view of everything else we have going on and all the agitation in the country today , um, people are feeling pretty good about their personal prosperity and , uh , there's a lot of attack surface on Bernie against a candidate like Trump. Um, as far as , uh, what's going to happen to the economy. So, no. So no long answer there. I don't think , um, he's a candidate for 20, 20, although I , again , I admire his , uh, his messaging. I admire his ability to, you know, listen to his own conscience. I admire his ability to , um, you know, to really connect with people. Um, I just don't think he's the candidate for 20, 20. I see. Um,

Speaker 4 31:08

yeah, so, so, and , and you'd brought some of the younger candidates on, on the left side , um, then you think that if they can have a good showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, not one or the other, or if it's going to be one of the other, has to be New Hampshire, not Iowa, right, because that seemed to have sunk, I forget it was in 2016. You can have a good showing in Iowa, but if you don't repeat it in New Hampshire, you have a little bit of trouble. But if you do it the other way around, you're still viable.

Speaker 3 31:32

Well, I , I just think that right now you have a , um, a narrative that says we have these establishment candidates at the top pop, a , um , a really flawed candidate and former vice president Biden , um, who , um , to the objective viewer looks a lot like Donald Trump. Um, if you start pulling sound bites , things that he said , um, over the years, I can put them side by side. They're not going to look a lot different. Um , but who has some bona Fides in the upper Midwest that, that could work? Then you have two sitting us senators. Okay . Uh, then you have , um, uh, two sitting us senators who have just stumbled in their candidacies go in Harrison Booker. Um, and, and now you're into, you know, people that actually, you know, might be able to appeal , um, that are they the strongest candidates that were in the field? Um, I don't think so. I think that the really strong candidates have kind of gone by the wayside. Um, but , uh, if those second tier candidate candidates, a yangs of Buddha gigs , uh, gadgets , um, when in the early primaries, I think you're going to see a panic in the media and you're gonna see a panic in the establishment , um, ranks , uh, they're the, they're going to have to start attacking those candidates. And if you see what's happened with Gabbert and Clinton lately, that that attack has just elevated her profile. Somehow Gabbert became a spy, as you were mentioning earlier. Indeed, she's a Russian spy. Indeed. So , um, and it takes a special light to see that. Yes, indeed. Rich, thanks for , uh ,

Speaker 2 33:17

we're sitting down. You have been listening to Richard healthy's common bridge podcast recording and postproduction provided by stunt three multimedia. All rights are reserved by Richard helpy . For more information, visit Richard [inaudible] dot com.