Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
The problems we have in the country are solvable, but not solvable the way we’re approaching them today, because of partisan politics. Richard Helppie, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist seeks to find a place in the middle where common sense discussions can bridge the current great divide.
Richard Helppie's Common Bridge
Episode 82- 2020 Year End Review with Rich Helppie
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Rich goes over the astonishing year 2020 was. A look back at what was happening with The Common Bridge and world news.
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Welcome to Richard healthy's common bridge. The fiercely nonpartisan discussion that seeks policy solutions to issues of the day. 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 with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children. And welcome back to the common bridge. Rich. We made it through the most Epic year and we came out on scale . So
Speaker 2I'm doing pretty good and not to be a pessimist, but we're not quite through the year. You're right. I mean, there was a volcano in Hawaii yesterday, so that's right. So things are not calming down, but here we are. So you think there's a big finale coming, right? I'd be loath to forecast anything, any way capture this year. Don't tell it. Right. All bets are off. You think about what a different world we were in, you know, just first few days of January, beginning of this year, 2020,
Speaker 1This time, last year, you and I were talking about MPP ,
Speaker 2Right? Right, exactly. The , uh , we were all waiting with bated breath to find out who the whistleblower was. If such an individual exists. Uh , we were waiting to find a corroborating witness would that had maybe some firsthand information we're kind of still waiting on that as well. And you know, we're , we're in this political turmoil. And in the meantime, the economy was just screaming along. Unemployment was a record lows employment participation at record highs wages across the board were rising at the, especially rising at the lower income levels. And yeah, there was political turmoil. We hadn't dealt with things like, Oh, I dunno , healthcare , immigration, firearms , trade relationships, cybersecurity , minimum wage. You know, the talk was around who was in the Democrat primaries and such, and that was our job .
Speaker 1And I think during this time, last year, specifically around Christmas, Nancy Pelosi was holding on to impeachment papers, I think, and , um , refresh my memory on this. But I think she was holding on to impeachment papers and everybody was waiting for her to file them .
Speaker 2Brian that's correct. The house on party line vote had issued articles of impeachment. Interestingly, not the things that they began to hold impeachment hearings about. Right. Take kind of worked around and , uh , came up with a couple of things. The speaker of the house who had been in opposition to impeachment from the onset was sitting on the articles of impeachment and not delivering them to the Senate. That's right. And that didn't until , you know, mid January ish sometime when the articles of impeachment were delivered to the Senate and the trial and I'm holding up air quotes , uh , it was dispatched basically along party lines and with the exception of Mitt Romney voting to convict on one of the two charges . So that little episode is,
Speaker 1And meanwhile, nobody in Washington was saying anything about what was going on and Wu Han with this impending virus, not just Trump, but nobody in Washington, everybody was focused on impeach .
Speaker 2I think we're going to hear more about that because there are people that are connected with scientific relationships and connected through other parties that as we move through the immediacy of this new cycle, I expect we're going to be getting more information, but you know, right now we're trying to survive this second wave. We are all hopeful that the vaccines will work as they have in the testing. And that perhaps God-willing by this time, next year, we're talking about COVID 19 as a historical thing versus a current problem, but it really has turned the world upside down.
Speaker 1Okay. So now we're into February and if I'm not mistaken, that's when Trump ban all traveled to and from China, I think, I think that's when that happened and things started to turn if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I think that was the beginning of the end for the Trump administration. We saw really the weaknesses of this president on full display. I said since the primaries of 16 and have found no reason to stop repeating this is that we have a man that's really not qualified for the full job of the presidency, seemingly disinterested or unable to learn the full job and with massive personal issues. And now we face this crisis of the Corona virus. And the really interesting thing is that even in the face of this horrible crisis management, the federal government was actually doing a lot of really right things had president Trump gone on television and said, we have a virus it's made a lot of mischief in China. It's devastated Italy to the point where they had to triage, who they were going to treat versus who they were unable to treat. And this is now on our shores. And so as your president, I am going to say that we need to take a pause on this economy and no one loves us economy more than I do, but we need to step back a little bit. And I think had he made his crisis management and communications around three central points ? I think he would have won a 48 state landslide.
Speaker 1So you're saying Trump could have done three things that could have changed the outcome of this passage .
Speaker 2Exactly. And he could have said, look, we're going to fight this on three fronts. Number one, we are going to pave the way for our research facilities and our pharmaceutical companies to fast track the development of a vaccine. Now , by the way, they did do that. But you didn't hear much about it. And you heard a lot of skepticism, you know , he was too optimistic and the like, and, but he could have shut that out and said, we're, we're working on it. Number two, we are going to make sure that our hospitals have PPE and medication. And we're going to share information amongst all the participants in the healthcare system about what therapies are working and what's not working. And by the way, they did do a lot of that. And in cooperation with healthcare industry participants and other supply chain management, and then the third leg, we know that people were put out of work through no fault of their own, because we have to pause the economy. We're going to make sure that households remain liquid, which is another thing they did. So compare and contrast when you go back to the financial crisis of Oh eight Oh nine, the federal response was to selectively reliquify the banks. So there a person that loses their job through no fault of their own. So they can't make the rent or their mortgage payment. So they lose their home and they lose their credit rating. So fast forward to the response to the pandemic, with the stimulus payments and the supplemental unemployment, that same individual may have lost their job, but they aren't losing their home because they can make their rent or their mortgage. And so their credit remains intact and they still have their home. If the president would have gone down those three avenues about while we pause the economy to see what's what we're going to work on vaccines, we're going to make sure that our healthcare delivery system is equipped and that we're sharing information. And we're going to make sure that people that are victimized by this economically are support ,
Speaker 1But you're saying eventually he ends up doing two or three of those things, but does them inefficiently and communicates them poorly?
Speaker 2Exactly. But instead, you know, deny downplay magic cure. People are tuning into the daily briefings to hear me. I mean, he really showed how ill-equipped he was for the office of the president.
Speaker 1Okay. So now we're into March and COVID is starting to creep into our reality in a big way, but we also have some other things going on in episode 29. Earlier this year of the common bridge, you talked about the Biden Sanders debate.
Speaker 2Well, it was an unusual primary season. And I will say that the Democrats, or a lot smarter in 20 than the Republicans were in 2016, really how's that? Well in 2016, the Republicans had the vote diluted so much that Donald Trump was winning States when he'd only had 20 or 25% of the vote. And when the Democrats found themselves in that position, a lot of the candidates that weren't polling well dropped out and let it become a two person race. Otherwise the likely outcome would have been Bernie Sanders as the nominee and in that debate with Biden and Sanders, I thought Joe Biden did a very nice job and he showed much stronger. I think that anybody expected him to, you know, well-rehearsed well-prepared. And I think that was really the pivot point as far as the democratic primary.
Speaker 1So now we're into April and the COVID lockdowns have now happened. So we've got stay at home orders in an episode, 38 of the common bridge. You had judge Milton Mack on, and you both spoke about the mental health issues surrounding society at the time and how it might be playing into the pandemic. Do you remember that?
Speaker 2I do. I want to actually back you up to March in episode, I'm going to say 30 ish. There was a brief one about the healthcare system and how it's not ready for COVID you're right .
Speaker 1Was episode 30. And it was about how our healthcare system is not built for COVID or really any other pandemics.
Speaker 2And it's , it's not. And the tragedy is that if you include me, we've had six healthcare knowledgeable people on the common bridge during 2020, and everyone coming from a different perspective, yet everyone reaches the same conclusion about what to do with our health care system. That's from people from a public health perspective to people from a almost libertarian perspective. And we get to the same conclusion. And I think it's just a stark negative testimony to the ineffectiveness of the Republicans, the ineffectiveness of the Democrats and the ineffectiveness of our reporting industry to actually tee up an issue of the day and get to a workable solution. But anyway, you asked about mental health. One of the things that I measure things with is Newton's third law of every action. There's an equal and opposite reaction. So if we take people and restrict their ability to move about, we restrict their ability to go to school or to go to work or to interact with friends and neighbors something's going to happen. And judge Mack , I think, was very articulate at that time, back in April, about the horrific rise in suicides and in opioid addiction and in domestic. And it was poo-pooed at the time as somehow a Trumpian objection to the stay at home orders. Well now look at the crisis that we have, particularly among young people and more acute in lower income areas because we ripped apart all of their social support network, whatever level that might be at this COVID 19 is going to have a lasting effect on our society. And I know we have guests lined up as we go into 2020 on both the common bridge podcast and the soon to be common bridge YouTube channel talking about a post COVID world
Speaker 1That is going to be exciting. And I encourage everybody to keep checking back in with Richard healthy.com to get information on that launch rich as the summer is going on from this year, we get into the middle of the summer. Now civil unrest becomes a huge part of this story. That's going to play out through the rest of the year. On episode 50, you had Washtenaw County in Michigan, Washington County, sheriff, Jerry Clayton on the show to talk about that. Um, I think that was an amazing episode.
Speaker 2Well, sheriff Clayton was one of my absolute favorite guests on the program. And I love to hear from people that started on the front lines, in whatever field that they were in and Rose through the ranks with increasing responsibility and bring that longitudinal view and his comprehensive look of how community policing could and should, and does work. I think, as a model for the nation. And thankfully he is on some national committees to look at how to do that. You know, what we've seen is that this notion let's defund the police, all it results in is more mayhem and particularly more mayhem in lower income and minority populated areas. And we see this playing out in all the cities that have restricted their police departments , ability to respond to just absolute criminal behavior,
Speaker 1Right. And defund the police did no favors for the down ticket for the democratic party, this election cycle.
Speaker 2It's like, do you fund the police? Uh , we really don't mean that it's like when we say defund the police, we really don't mean defund the police. And then the far left going, no, no, we really do mean defund the police, right . That didn't help it take . So look, we all want our police departments to reflect the values of the community. And we do need to provide those frontline officers with the tools to deal with every situation they may encounter. And it's not a black and white right left clear issue that there are nuances. And that's where I'll go back to sheriff Clayton. At the end of our interview in episode 50, he said something to the effect that he liked being on the podcast because other media only give him 30 or 40 seconds to discuss these very complex topics. And when you look at the degree of civil unrest that we experienced starting in the summer and still continuing today in Portland and Seattle with people building couch, forts and declaring new countries in the light until they need something and then the police don't respond fast enough. But I think that there was some exploitation and manipulation and notice that the amount of coordination amongst cities that was not spontaneous. And I just hope that the justice department and the federal law enforcement are looking at these coordinated criminal elements like they did, you know, with the gangs and the forties. And like they've done with some of the urban headquartered gangs today. And we've seen some horrible things, you know, down in Georgia command should be able to go out and jog. Right.
Speaker 1I would think rich and as the summer was winding down, I think it was episode 57. You had an interesting guest, you had Detroit lions, president, rod wood, and he talked about two things. He talked about how the civil unrest was affecting his team. Andy talked about what it was like to get his team ready for the upcoming NFL season. And the age of COVID. I thought what he had to say was really interesting.
Speaker 2I thought it was a great insight and the players having real conversations with each other about what they experienced in America. And I just think that dialogue leads to healing. And I haven't seen the stats lately, but my understanding is that the NFL is not drawing the audience that it wants was, but they have been able to deliver a season and they are, you know, full bore on toward having a super bowl come February. I think the preparation that rod wood describes in our episode, I think played out pretty well, so good job NFL for the planning and execution on delivering.
Speaker 1Okay. So now we get into the fourth quarter and it's all about the election season and it was an Epic election season.
Speaker 2And when you begin to unwrap that, I think a pivotal moment was the first debate. And in my humble opinion, I thought that the conduct of Donald Trump as president of the United States was just horrible. And typically somebody a little smarter would have tried outreach and try to broaden his base. And I think even at that time, people were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And if he could behave like a president that perhaps they might consider giving him another four years, because despite all of his antics a lot did get done China, which we've talked about extensively on the common bridge being of those no new Wars, which we have touched on.
Speaker 1[inaudible] had some success with peace in the middle East,
Speaker 2In the middle East, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, a roaring economy. And that's at all levels, despite what Chuck Schumer wants to say. So I think people were looking at that first debate as like, okay, can we handle this guy? And you know, what I was saying is that I can't imagine a reelection because of the gloating alone would not be something I'd want to witness for four years. And I was chastising the democratic party for not coming up with a better ticket, but then they did. And I think that the president delivered the election at that point, because he clearly not only didn't attract any new voters. I think he repelled a lot of people and we don't know the answer yet, but I think when the statistics are unraveled a little bit, I think you're going to see that there were a lot of people that were all Republican down ballot, but couldn't bring themselves to vote for Donald Trump and said, you know what, we're just going to either leave it blank, or we're going to pull the lever or fill in the dots for Joe Biden. That is my guess . I don't know that for sure, but it would not surprise me. I know a number of people who have told me that they're Republicans, but they're just not going to vote for the guy again.
Speaker 1Well, rich, you've been saying all along that this was going to be a referendum on Donald Trump, and there would be people who wouldn't be able to pull the lever for Donald Trump, but they also, weren't going to be able to pull the lever for defund the police and, you know, Joe Biden, wasn't supporting defund the police.
Speaker 2It would have been interesting. Had Bernie Sanders been the nominee in all likelihood, Trump would have retained the presidency and then Lord knows what would be transpiring after that. But if you look at the Republicans picking up roughly 10 seats in the house, we'll wait to see what happens in Georgia to see who controls the Senate. If you look at the state level elections, it was actually a pretty good election season for the Republicans. And of course the Democrats are very, very happy to have captured the white
Speaker 1And rich every congressional seat that was flipped by the Republicans. This election cycle was flipped by a woman or a minority. And you just don't hear much about that. And in the media. So that down ticket messaging you were talking about before has had a real impact. It looks like
Speaker 2That kind of analysis is indicative of a broader issue. When Joe Biden goes to a African-American podcast room says you ain't black and then is surprised that Hispanics represent a wide diversity of experiences and origins. This notion that a person's destiny is fixed at birth based on their ancestral heritage. I think we're at the beginning of the end of that type of identity politics. And you can see it today in the struggles that Joe Biden has in naming his cabinet is that we're not hearing about the resumes of the people appointed to the cabinet. We're hearing about their gender and their ancestral heritage and their sexual orientation and other characteristics versus what have they achieved that now allows them to for the next four years to be in charge of the , the treasury, the energy of the country, the transportation infrastructure, the environment that this is a really dangerous time. And it's exactly what the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King preached against about measuring someone on the color of their skin versus the content of their character. So Brian, think about this. You're about to drive your car over a suspension bridge. Do you want that bridge built by the best engineers that understand the laws of physics that understand how to support a bridge so that you can drive safely across? Or do you want to drive up to that bridge and say, Oh my goodness, we've represented every culture and subculture in the country, and maybe they're qualified on bridges. I hope they are, but we didn't pick them for their bridge building expertise, or you walk into the surgical suite. And the surgeon comes in, says, we're going to have to make an incision in your scalp to go and get that tumor. You want the best surgeon there , irrespective of whether they are of a certain hue or a certain gender, or have a certain personal life. We want qualified people. And so I am hopeful that we'll see a pivot to getting more emphasis on qualifications. Then we will on birthright or, you know , ancestral history,
Speaker 1What you're saying as they're checking boxes and not checking resumes, correct.
Speaker 2Oh, absolutely. Look at the PR today on the appointment of the Senator to replace Senator Harris, as she goes on to become the vice provost .
Speaker 1That's right. Governor Newsome's appointment of Alex Pedea , um , has drawn some interest and
Speaker 2Of going into the qualifications that talk about his nationality, that is , would be the first Latino Senator.
Speaker 1Exactly. And they're promoting them as that's his greatest asset, which is unfortunate.
Speaker 2Why can't we emphasize what he's done in his public life and what he's achieved. And that's where I think the danger is what are we emphasizing qualification or ancestral identity.
Speaker 1So you think this lays the groundwork for every presidency going forward will be chastised if they don't check every box. And then you start really getting into this longterm vacuum of expertise, right? You're not going to have,
Speaker 2Let's play this out. If the group that is vast represented by soon to be Senator Padilla is happy, then there's another subgroup , you know, Argentinians, Cubans, Siberians et cetera, saying , well, wait a minute. Whereas our person, and we'll wait a minute. You know, this is, I don't know what the disguise personal life is, but we didn't get enough transgenders or we haven't hit every letter on the latest acronym. And it gets to be a point where you are going to twist yourself in a knot with identity politics versus qualification. The right answer is let's make sure we have equal opportunity and remove barriers so that a person irrespective of their race, their gender, their personal identification, and such has the opportunity to become qualified and ascend to those positions.
Speaker 1Do you understand what you're saying about , um, uh , the cabinet and the diversity of the cabinet and qualifications of the cabinet, but let me ask you specifically, what do you think so far of Joe Biden's cabinet picks and more specifically, what do you think of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, you know , with Joe in the white house and Camela sitting in the number two spot.
Speaker 2Very fair question, Brian . And one thing I try to do is allow the people that have been elected or appointed and confirmed an opportunity to do the jobs that they've been placed into. And there's a history of people rising to the occasion. And I know that people have seen the , the resume of Winston Churchill versus the resume of Adolf Hitler, for example, yet the two polar opposites in terms of their contributions to world history. I think we need to give the cabinet an opportunity and yes, some of the pics made it really hard to stay open-minded you? And I know there's one for sure, that is the butt of many jokes in the mitten, and I'm just going to leave it there. Right. Um, and I hope that president Biden and vice-president heroes , frankly become the greatest president. Vice-president the history of the country. We need them to succeed. And a large part of that succeeding is balancing the incredible pressures they have from so many fronts. I think that their hands are already full just in their own party and the left flank then across the aisle. And, you know, Joe is not the youngest man to be in this job. So it's an incredibly stressful job with very high expectations. Let's just hope that the new president, the new vice president, the cabinet , uh , those seated in Congress, those seat in the Senate, those people that have been elected at the state, the local level, let's give him a chance to do their job if they don't, you know, we've got the common bridge to discuss the pros and cons, but it's certainly, again, not one of those polar extremes. Although I guarantee you, you can go on cable news right now and tune in one channel and the enlightened saints have just arrived to take over the government. And in the other channels that the devil has arrived Laden with corruption and misbehavior, don't think either of those is true. Let's give him a chance to do their job and we'll have plenty of commentary
Speaker 120, 21. Then that's a great point. And I want to wrap this up with something that was very topical. You had a couple of guests on a couple of weeks ago, and it was episode 68. You had Scott Drexel of the national popular vote and you had Trent England think he was with save our States. Uh, and they were on either side of keeping the electoral college or , uh, dismantling the electoral college. And we just had just a couple weeks ago, the electoral college vote came down. And then we're probably going to have a little bit of showmanship on the Senate floor on the 6th of January, which is in two weeks when there'll be a , a protest of some sort I'm forgetting what the , uh, uh, what the legal matter will be. But it's all in show to say, they're going to object to the electoral college. I thought that was a fantastic episode that you had with those guys. I'm not sure where we got on it. Um, just because of what would, what it would take. I think it would take a constitutional amendment to change it, but I thought that was one of your better episodes. Do you agree with that? And what did you get out of that one?
Speaker 2It's funny. You should characterize it that way, because I thought it was a great episode. And I came out of there saying, man, I couldn't reach a conclusion one way or the other. They were both really good about their points. Uh , but I think that kind of leads to our , uh , episode 81, about voting that we have the technologies to vote in a 21st century way , uh , using blockchain where somebody leaves my device. It goes in many different pieces, in many different places, and it gets reassembled at the point that I'm trying to send it to just like Bitcoin works. And that's the 21st century method of voting along with facial recognition that will restore the integrity and the trust in the vote, and also lead to very high voter turnout. And I think we're going to have a more just society and a more broad-based representation. If we can begin to employ technologies like that, as for the side show coming up in the Senate, I just shake my head and say to what end to what purpose. And I will also lay some of the blame on both parties, but particularly the reporting industry you'll hear things before you hear any facts. Well, without any evidence thus, and so was said and so on and so forth, I would like to see more reporting explaining what happened, why it happened when it happened versus asking me to believe or to disbelieve some body. So if it's true that there were hundreds of thousands of votes delivered in the middle of the night and they were all slanted one way, tell me why that happened. Okay. And I can understand if it was some prohibition against counting absentee and or mail in ballots until after the polls closed, that would make a lot of sense. Things came in, they got stored, securely polls are closed. We've tabulated things from the polling stations. Now we're going to pull out this next batch of votes again, tell me what was done to scrutinize to make sure that's a valid voter. And what way of verifying that vote was and explained to me why the outcome is the way it is. One party did a better job of getting those ballots in. Give me something to work with other than telling me to distrust or hate the other person and Brian that's where I think we might want to just wrap up for 2020. This is the common bridge. This is designed on the simple logic that if somebody builds a great foundation on the left bank of a river, because they want to cross it, and someone else builds a great foundation on the right bank, until those spans come together and join, nobody's crossing that bridge. And it's going to perhaps be in a little different place, a little different height, a little different with a little different design. But if they sit down and say, okay, how are we going to make this work for your side? And my side at the end, we have a bridge that we can go over. And if we had a reporting industry that instead of saying, the people on one side of the bridge are absolutely the most caring people in the world, just trying to do everything they can for every disadvantaged group. And the other people are just evil and mean or stealing. And the, like, you're never going to understand what the bridge is supposed to look like. And that's where we need to go as a country. If you go back to the episode we had recently, I think it was 77. Natavo Gonzales is the American dream alive. Yes, it is. I see no evidence that our country is anything but an overwhelmingly compassionate and generous and innovative society. The elements of the society that don't live up to that ideal are in the two major political parties and in the reporting industry. And this is correctable. As long as we demand that we get better behavior from those wheel locked and that we get better service from those that report to us. So I look forward to 2021 and the YouTube channel that we'll be launching and be announcing. And I just want to thank all my guests and all of the listeners of the common bridge. God bless you and your families. I hope that your holiday season is joyous, spiritually rewarding, and that your 2021 is the best year ever. This is rich LP , signing off
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