Episode 322- Why The Real World Feels Different Than The News.

Scotland takes over Boston, travelers flood YouTube with “America is amazing,” and suddenly a question hits hard: if the country is truly collapsing, why do so many visitors leave impressed by the people, the space, and the everyday energy? We use that contrast to dig into one of the biggest forces shaping public life right now: the gap between lived experience and the media narrative. Our goal is simple and stubbornly nonpartisan: get closer to what’s real, and stop letting outrage do our thinking for us. 

From immigration protests to headline spin, we look at how incentives drive what gets covered and how it gets framed. We talk about the responsibility behind public demands, the role social media amplification can play in keeping us mad at each other, and why reflection is so rare when predictions miss. We also argue that competence still matters, especially for roles tied to national security and intelligence, where experience and judgment are not optional. 

The conversation turns to bigger cultural and moral fault lines: rising antisemitism, selective outrage, and the danger of scapegoating any group. We also touch on public clashes around LGBTQ issues, respect for veterans, and how to defend human dignity without rewarding provocation. We close with a reminder that checks and balances still work, the country is more resilient than the doom loop suggests, and clear thinking is a civic skill worth practicing. 

If this conversation helps you see the noise more clearly, subscribe wherever you listen, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find Common Bridge.

Transcript

Welcome And Mailbag Setup

Announcer 0:00

Welcome to season seven of the Common Bridge, hosted by Richard Helpie, a leading analyst, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. Now expanded with healthcare, education, finance, science, and world affairs bridges, the podcast, now in its seventh season, with an audience of over 7 million worldwide, explores issues in a fiercely nonpartisan way. Find us at the Common Bridge at Substack.com, YouTube, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Hello and welcome to the Common Bridge. That's right. It's not Rich, it's me. It's the producer of the Common Bridge, Brian Krueger. Uh just for a moment, though, we recorded this episode two weeks ago, just after returning from the Mackinac Policy Conference, which is in Mackinac Island, lovely Mackinac Island in Michigan. And we decided to do our sort of bi-annual, if that makes sense, twice, maybe three times a year we do it, mailbag. But this time we're kind of mashing everything in with comments we've gotten on the line, as well as comments we got really nice comments about our show at the Mackinac Policy Conference. So we've just kind of written some things down, going through some topics with Rich. I think you'll think this is a lot of fun. We're going to join this conversation in progress. And again, this is episode 322 of the Common Bridge. Thanks for having me on the show. It's good to see you again. And it was nice spending some time with you up on Mackinac Island for the Michigan Policy Conference. That was great. But um there's a couple of things that come to mind, especially what you just talked about. The World Cup is in town, and Scotland has taken over Boston, and YouTube is filled with foreigners who have never been to the U.S. And they're posting a ton about how much they love the United States. They're going, This place is amazing. Your houses are big, your food is amazing. We get a bunch of it. It's just fun. You get on YouTube and you can hear it from all over the place from these travelers from around the country. Now, that doesn't really work well with the narrative that's out there from one side of the press, which wants to tell you that everything's terrible and they want to show you the Delaney deportation center in New Jersey because they have to push that. If you listen to people who come here, they want to live here. They love it here. So tell me, what's where's the disconnect? Does it get right back to believing what you're seeing on TV? Because what I'm seeing all over YouTube the last few days is Scotland loves the US and so do the English and so do the Italians, and they're just having a ball.

Rich Helppie 2:30

Yeah, I guess the theme I would say is that you know, look at your real-world experiences and break out of your bubbles. People don't

Travelers Praise America And The Disconnect

Rich Helppie 2:40

want to hear a different view. And look, immigration is a great example. You have people that are going out to the street at the Delaney Center, for example, we have to stop this, it's the terror, most terrible thing. And then you have people go, look, we're just enforcing the law. We're removing people. And my cut on this is do something worthwhile. If you don't like the way that people that entered the country illegally are being treated and asked to leave, it's a very simple solution. I count, there's a hundred protesters, right? If every one of those protesters would take two immigrants into their home and he spread that across the country, the problem would be solved. There would be no immigration crisis at all. I did float this, someone that is uh decidedly left to center. And I said, Well, why don't you take in a couple? You've got room. You know, your kids are grown. And the answer was, well, I would, but I'd really want to screen them and find out who they are. And I'm like, are you listening to yourself? You're just out there advocating no screening. Anyone comes in right up to your front door. And this is where logic has abandoned for irrationality. As you know, I'm a pattern recognizer, and so here it is today. Blank turns on Trump. Trump loses support from blank. Oh, latest Trump threat blank, Trump failure, X. And if you go back like weeks ago, it was just different blanks being filled in. Now, as you know, you know, I have not been a fan of Donald Trump. There's things he does, but I also look, in my lifetime, there's been 13 presidents. We're gonna be okay, but I don't understand the mentality that goes online every day and for hours at a time, republishes stuff that is easily false, goes back to that same source and publishes it all over again. You're making yourself miserable, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Stop. I think a lot of it is manufactured too, Rich. Why do you think that the protest, the only protest that was being covered by the media was in Minneapolis? And when that shut down, there was quiet for a long time. And then another one popped up. Another one popped up, and it was in New Jersey, next to the largest media outlets in the country. I I think that, you know, there's a hundred of them because there's a hundred of them that get paid. I think they should probably get paid more. They should unionize because it's getting a little trick, trickier out there with them. But I think this is being shoved at us in such a way to keep us mad at each other. And I think what you're seeing being republished all the time online and regurgitated is done through bots. 70% of online social media posts right now are bots. 70%.

Rich Helppie 5:42

Look, I don't know because I haven't gone into that and I've heard the allegations that you know it's paid protesters and the like. I have not seen it with my own eyes. I don't have any independent verification of that. So I don't know if that's happening or not. But you see politicians like Mikey Sherrell in New Jersey and Tim Waltz up in Minnesota standing in front of things and giving proclamations. It's being done for some kind of political purposes. I I mean, I don't know, but I would just like to see people think a little bit more. So I'm gonna share with you. Here was a headline, Detroit News today. Michigan LGBTQ group labels Israel flag harmful symbolism. Uh okay then. And what country in the Middle East could this group called Outfront Kalamazoo operate in? Let's see. Israel. Only Israel. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know if there are others or not, but certainly others. Not in Middle East. Yeah, it's not gonna happen. And I'm thinking can we at least think this through? And like, why would you react to some of your own volunteers who are Jewish wearing the Star of David on their clothing and and not say, you know what? We embrace our neighbors of the Jewish faith and that of the Jewish heritage. Here's another headline, same also today. Michigan House, same paper. Michigan House okay's Snyder-backed innovative programs for public schools. Of course, Rick Snyder was a Republican governor for the state of Michigan.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

You talked to him about this, I think.

Rich Helppie 7:23

We did. We've got a uh eight or nine-minute clip for him. But listen, go into the story. This measure passed 107 to zero in the Michigan House. Why isn't the headline House unanimously backs innovation in education? Or overwhelmingly, at least, right? Yeah, right. I mean, it's a program for 21st century education. Sure, got to do something different, but just the spin on it, Rick Snyder is a quiet, just get stuff done guy. He's a really capable executive. Politics doesn't deserve him, but we we had him for a while. You look the way the story in CNN, I'll pick on them for a minute, about the algae in the uh reflecting pool.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah.

Rich Helppie 8:13

Okay. Why can't we say that we shouldn't have algae in there? All right, it should look good. You know, people like you said, people come from another country. Why don't they see us at our best? Why is it bad if the graffiti gets cleaned up? And you look at San Francisco when the President Xi came from China. Governor Newsom cleaned the streets, got all the you know, attics and things off the streets, swept out the encampments. So you know it can be done. Why not do it? And speaking of Governor Newsome, I had to look this up too. California has spent billions on homelessness, yet the homeless population grew. Substantially. Yeah, and the last time CNN reported on it was 2023. And then, of course, you got the train to nowhere. But let's just jump over now to what else is going on in the news. Bill Poulty Jr. gets nominated as a director of national intelligence. There is not a shred of qualifications that I can discern that would say, yeah, good call. Anybody doing anything in leadership,

Immigration Protests And Everyday Hypocrisy

Rich Helppie 9:20

policy, and critical areas like intelligence, you better not be seeing stuff for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

That's right. I agree.

Rich Helppie 9:29

You know, we get a signal out of Russia, Iran, Ukraine, wherever. You need someone that says, Yeah, we know who's doing this. We know why they're doing it and how they react and where it affects other people. That's what you need. We can do a lot better on that front as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Do you think, too, that it's incumbent upon at least decent journalism to reflect on what they might have said in the past and said, you know what, we got that one wrong. You and I a year ago were talking, we had a podcast on this, and we were talking about the tariffs and what kind of impact that was going to be. And Paul Krugman, who was formerly with the New York Times and is now a colleague uh Substack writer, said on April the 8th on WBUR, he said that the tariffs were, you know, he said he said uh it was just before they were announced, but they were being talked about. But he said, if this happens, and it looks quite likely that it will, it'll actually be the first time in history that a president has actually caused a recession. And then he went on to say, who's going to want to commit money to an investment project that the whole environment for investment depends on the whims of Donald Trump? And I don't have to remind everybody that at least two days ago from when this was recorded, the Dow hit a record high of 52,281. We're not in a recession. The economy's booming. We probably could use an inflation that was ticked down a couple of points. But how come they'll come back and say, you know what, had that wrong. Had that wrong. You know, it looks like this this uh rolled out a little differently.

Rich Helppie 10:55

Well, because there's not a market for reflection. There's not a market for, hey, you know what? We there was a another way to look at it. I particularly find it funny with uh economists, you know, because there's a joke like I just want to find a one-handed economist. Because an economist, well, what's going to happen, you know, now that Strait of Hormuz is open. And they'll say, well, you know what? Now we're gonna flow, and with all the stuff from Venezuela and being produced domestically, and the oil sands coming in from Canada, oil prices are definitely gonna go down. And then they'll say, but on the other hand, you know that's that's the other hand. Producers got used to having high prices, so they're gonna keep it. So what we need is a uh a one-handed economist from time to time.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

And apparently we got we're both based in in Michigan, and and and everybody who watches this, listens or watches the show or reads about it knows that's true. Um, about a month ago, there was fear in the media that when school gets out and vacations start, gas prices are gonna be over $5 a gallon, and this will truly be the end and the implosion of the U.S. economy. Well, this morning, the average gas price is I think it was $69 a barrel. And at the pump, it's dropped under $4 a gallon. Not great, but I think it can be a glut. Again, nobody's coming back going, you know what, we had that wrong. It looks like it's gonna be you know decent travel for you know record drivers this summer going to vacation spots around the country. Good news and exciting for travelers in the U.S., but let's not focus on that. Let's find hate rolling into November to make sure that everybody hates what's going on. So they're making, they they need to come up with new stuff all the time.

Rich Helppie 12:42

Yeah, look, the narrative is kind of flipped over now to we didn't get anything meaningful accomplished with the attacks on Iran, lost 13 lives of our our best, and you know, spent billions on the war itself, and also consumers spent billions at the pump. And that's certainly all true, and that's certainly all on the cost side. And what can't be discerned is did it do any good? There's not a learned person on the planet that thinks Iran's ambitions are resolved. They're still gonna want this, they're still gonna try to do things, and you know, we're gonna have to have vigilance about that. Now, it will be arguing for decades about whether these attacks were justified, whether they were effective, uh, whether they created any lasting change any place. But this is what I do when these kind of situations occur. I listen to see what the political opposition says. And, you know, whether it's you know, President Obama, President Trump, uh, or uh another uh president, you know, what's the opposition, political opposition saying? And what you're not hearing right now is a lot of, well, we never should have done that, etc. What you hear that we don't know what we've created, which is true, we don't know what we've created, but the political opposition is really half-hearted. And my sense is they know stuff that we don't know. You know, it's way over the heads of your average person. We attacked Iraq and the Bush administration. A lot of leading Democrats came out and said, Yeah, we had to do this. Former President Clinton was very emphatic about that during the Obama administration when he did the redo of the automotive industry. There wasn't anybody that came out and said, bad idea. I mean, right, yeah. You look at it, it was overdue. And you could argue that they should have done it through bankruptcy. Yeah, okay. We kind of ended up in the same place with rationalizing the production capacity with the demand capacity. You didn't hear that. So I know where you're going next, Brian. Is well, what about the signature legislation from the Obama administration, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And today, what's the number one issue in healthcare? It's affordability. And we've had this law in place now for 16 years. Okay, remember it was going to save everybody $2,500. You keep your own doctor. For the record, at the time, when I read the legislation, I said it's not going to do any of that stuff. It was a tax and rationing bill. And, you know, we've, I'm not saying that today's in medical inflation is caused by that, but you can see we didn't get it fixed. You know, maybe on a different time, uh, if you want to do a story uh about the structural things that have to happen in healthcare in order to get this problem resolved. I'm happy to do that.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

And you'd be a good person for that too.

Rich Helppie 16:01

I kind of like this phase of life. You know, I can just kind of like let it rip.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Does it relate to being a grandfather?

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Yeah, indeed. My ability to care about uh someone's reaction is it's okay, it's it's basically zero.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

There's a big part of the news out there right now. It's been going on for a while, too. You and I both grew up during a time where anti-Semitism was, you know, as uh alarming as using the N-word. You know, it it was it was pure racism, and now it's being clouded in kind of a strange way. For instance, an estimated 30,000 Christians have been murdered by Muslims in Nigeria over the last year, but the media and some influencers are still stuck on let's free Palestine. And to me and to comedian Jerry Seinfeld recently said, you know, when asked about, you know, we're gonna free Palestine, he said, you guys are taking this too hard. Why don't you just make it easy on yourselves and say you hate Jews? It has nothing to do with Palestine. I don't think you care about Palestine. You just don't like Jews. Just say that and it makes it easier. And I see that also happening with a lot of what's going on about people thinking the Israeli flag is hatred. Take that however you will, but why isn't the media covering with more revengeance the 30,000 Christians who have been, and it's that you want to talk about genocide, that's it in Nigeria by Muslims. It's uncovered because it's really about, I guess maybe white people in the Middle East, the only ones there. I don't know what it is. But also, all of a sudden, anti-Semitism is in fashion. And now it's completely okay to openly say that you don't like Jews. And anybody who tries to say, no, no, it's about Netanyahu, I think they're full of it. I think they're uh it's it's just anti-Semitic and it's and it's terrible.

Rich Helppie 17:43

Well, if you recall, we had Professor Emeritus Todd Endelman on our program who went through the entire history of the Middle East and Palestine and the formation of Israel and all the factions there. And indeed, Israelis were referred to as Palestinians because they lived there. That was part of it. I'm troubled by hatred and genocide against any group, by any group, based on, you know, a description of a person, be it their

Media Spin Headlines And Leadership Competence

Rich Helppie 18:10

you know, race, their creed, their religion, their country of origin, you know, their age, their you know uh sexual orientation, uh their gender. You know, I I mean we've got to be kinder universally. We're never going to sort out the Middle East. Right? It's I totally agree with that. It's not ever going to be clean and crisp. We've gone through numerous generations that don't want to solve this. I don't want to get into both sidism, but I do think that it's very dangerous when uh a part of the political world starts adopting the exact same technique that the Third Reich used. We're going to scapegoat Jews, we're going to drag them out of their homes, we are going to wantonly kill them, and there's been persecutions on Christians too. We need to stand up for the slaughter of innocents, period, full stop. Allowing anti-Semitism to creep in will just lead us to the same place that World War II led us. That we're going to have bitter fighting and untold death, and we don't need it. But I also find it interesting that the press, the political opposition, called our current president a Nazi consistently for years. And they've watered down the term. And then the Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of War, if you prefer, which I think is stupid to rename the thing, but that's Trump being Trump, right? Yep. The ridiculous level that the man invokes sometimes just not all right. But anyway, when our Secretary of Defense slash Secretary of War had a Christian symbol tattoo, tried to fashion that into, oh, you see, he's letting real Nazis in here. Heggseth has to resign, Heggseth has to go, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

At least one week of news cycles hit that. Yep. You're right.

Rich Helppie 20:13

Okay. Yeah. Well, in recent weeks, now Graham Plattner, who is running for the Senate in Maine, has an actual Nazi tattoo on. And they're like, no, uh, we're we're good. Come on. What would cause somebody to look at the same people telling you, well, Hexeth has to go for something that's not even a Nazi symbol? But Platner, he's our guy. He's our guy. And it's not like that's the only wort on this fella.

Commercial Speaker 20:44

Before we dive back into today's enlightening discussion, we have a quick message for all you Common Bridge enthusiasts out there. Did you know that you can find this episode and over 300 more on Substack as part of the Common Bridge series? You can also find written columns and opinions as well. Subscribe at the commonbridge.substack.com for a full Common Bridge experience. There you can comment and express your opinion on all the topics we cover on this and the past seven seasons of our podcasts. If you'd rather support the show without subscribing, you can do so with Zell at rich at richardhelpie.com or using Venmo at Richard-CBridge. Thanks for listening. Now back to the episode.

Rich Helppie 21:28

All right, but I know what you're thinking, Brian. Well, what about the candidates we have for Senate? We can do a lot better. And even discounting for how crazy Texas politics are, imagine if you're a reasonable person any place in the great state of Texas. Okay. Your forehead and any rigid wall are probably going to be leaving each other. Like, no, no, no, make it stop. Your choice is Ken Paxton or James Bellerico. And Paxton has a long record of giving people reasons not to vote for him. And the only thing to say about Talo Rico, he's clearly out of his mind. All right. But he's probably going to get 48% of the vote. I don't know. We're going to, I guess we'll wait and see. But these are not our best and our brightest and the people we want to lead us. But we're running the elections because they are separated from what we do day to day. And what's the news cycle about? It's about all the crazy stuff Paxton has done and all the crazy stuff Telarrico is. That's what we're talking about. What are the real issues? What's energy policy? What's immigration policy? Right? Which are all really important to Texas. We have a guy running for Senate in Michigan, Saeed, who said just because you do something illegal doesn't reduce your political power when he's reacting to the story about an organized gang that was attacking homes of University of Michigan leadership, spraying toxic things on their homes where kids live. Yep. Threatening their families.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yep.

Rich Helppie 23:14

Yeah. It's like, where's the universal condemnation?

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Like, who are you pandering to? Well, I think you start answering your own question, or why why do we keep electing, you know, crazy people and not and not people who aren't qualified? You and I both know we're older now, and we both have been introduced and have friends and have known of really, really smart people who would just be incredible people to have in decision-making capacity. Nobody, none of them would ever want to be a politician. And that's the problem.

Rich Helppie 23:46

You know, I don't I don't know where we move on from this, but um, I don't care where people were educated, you know, M S-U-T-C-U, but I I my alma mater is STFU because that's what you could hear me chanting, because people need to STFU and do a little bit of research. You know, we all have to strive for something in the future that works for everybody. And you're you're seeing the collisions now against the I don't know how you want to frame this, anti-unity or anti-American agenda. Dearborn, Michigan, Hamtramck, Michigan, other places like that have said we're not doing any pride celebrations. Pride, you know, to mean, you know, celebration of gay and lesbian people is an affront to Allah. That's an intractable thing. And I don't want to see us go back to the days where people just trying to lead their lives based on who they love and who they're attracted to, got rated and beat up and discriminated against, and you know, limited rights about who they marry and so forth. We don't want that. On the other hand, the L and the G and probably the B, all right, we get that. But then they start attacking on other letters, which are not remotely associated. And some of the horrible displays we've seen, like to live a life of dignity, yes. To get on a float and simulate sex acts, no.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Well, so what's going on in Long Island where there's a group that's upset of the LGBTQ that says, hey, look, you know, in our community, they let the veterans have banners on the street signs from May until November that celebrate veterans in our community. How come they get a whole summer of that and we can't have, we meaning the LGBTQ, have our month or two of our flags up on the street signs. And it's like, man, when when you're you're barking up the wrong tree if you start going after the veterans for for what they do.

Rich Helppie 25:59

Equating the two is the height of ridiculous. Somebody that has gone to serve, and and I did not have that experience, but everyone I know that served, it was a profound period of their life. You know, putting up with stuff because that's what comes with the territory. And yeah, we need to honor them because no matter what race or gender or orientation they might be, they went to serve. And they went to serve selflessly. They did not go to serve to become some kind of controversy. They went and did their duty. Now, to say that we have to have an equal based on you know who people want to couple with romantically and sexually, all right, let's take that to the extreme. Now, does that mean that we're going to have heterosexual couples get their banners too? Well, why not? You're not proud. I mean, it just gets a little crazy. And then when we get into the definition of what gender is at males and females, that we've destroyed, or we're trying to come back now, I guess, from an era between the two Trump presidencies that undermined Title IX that let women and girls compete with women and girls. How that got to be controversial or somehow an affront to someone else's rights is insane. It is absolutely insane. See what I'm told you, Brian. I get to come out and

Foreign Policy Doubts Healthcare Frustrations

Rich Helppie 27:40

say this stuff, and I don't care how a person wants to present. You're an adult, fine. I'm good. I've had you know interactions with people that are trans and gay and lesbians, and I mean they're just friends, you know. Like it is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

So just go live your life. That's right. Well, Rich, how can you bring this all home for us today? I know we're both on limited time today.

Rich Helppie 28:01

And well, we didn't get to talk about uh climate change or not. We didn't get to talk about California voting or not. We didn't get to talk about the numbers that are coming out vis-a-vis the amount of fentanyl that's not getting into the United States. We did not get to talk about the money laundering through Act Blue and the taking the fifth. We didn't get to talk about the UFC on the White House lawn. Such a dignified thing. Come on. Like if you like the UFC, fabulous. Go see the UFC. Not on the White House lawn, please. Okay, Mr. President, stop it. Okay, like that. We didn't get to talk about the difference between the Trump first presidency and this current one. And one of the things is I think he's sleeping better because we're not getting 3 a.m. tweets when he's sitting on the throne, which you gotta admit.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

That was the only thing you were you really wanted to ask, and we we covered that in the podcast. You said, okay, this next time around, please, no more texting on the toilet at three in the morning. And you've gotten that. So you must have he must have heard you.

Rich Helppie 29:06

But he still does outrageous things. And by the way, every time that they try to do something that is like bringing a case, it's always framed as Trump's retribution. But it was never framed as Trump's prosecution or malicious prosecution. But we're pinging between these two extremes. The situation that created the environment for Donald Trump to get elected didn't happen in a vacuum. And I was writing about this way before 2016. Both of the established parties have failed the American people. They are really tone-deaf, don't think they have to answer to anybody. The press is out there running their narrative. And I said at the time, the only good thing about Trump getting nominated would be that he would destroy the Republican establishment. And fast forward now 10 years, he has.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Yeah. Well, we had that moderate on your show twice. Dean Phillips was on your show twice last year, and he couldn't get any traction, couldn't even get a primary. They wouldn't let him, they wouldn't even open a primary to let him. And that was your guy. I mean, a billionaire, uh self-made billionaire. Well, his family, but you know, ran a nice business, regular guy. He has no quarter in the Democratic Party right now.

Rich Helppie 32:06

No, and you know, Dean Phillips is an interesting case because prime time for him, I think he was 54 years old. Great resume. Great resume. Yeah. And he said, look, I'm a you know, left of center guy. There won't be any policy changes markedly from what Joe Biden says he's going to do. But you know, it's time for a changing of the guard. Would he have been the best candidate? You know, we'll never know. But I thought it was a reasonable thing. But he wasn't even allowed to get on a debate stage. That's right. With you know, whoever was the president between the two Trump terms.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Yeah. And I don't know how he would do on a debate stage, which to me is going to be very much a contest of who can say they hate Trump more because there's not a lot of policy going on with the left. It's just how much do you hate Trump? And that's what the followers want to hear. They really don't want to hear anything about what he's going to do. And Dean Phillips was not that guy because he said, look, here's what we need to do with healthcare. Here's what we need to do with education and the economy and foreign policy. And that just does not work with what used to be the Democratic Party.

Rich Helppie 33:09

Brian, I want to pull you up. I want to pull you up a little bit on that. First of all, we haven't seen what the Democrats are going to do or say. So let's allow them to sort out their issues. And you've seen it in this state if you watch local television. The Republicans are trying to say Trump loves me more. And by the way, the same token for people that are trying to look ahead to 2028, they're trying to say which leading Republican loves Trump the most because that's going to be the guy. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Or Trump loves him too, because if Trump doesn't love him and he's out, you're out too. So you're right. It goes both ways. Yep.

Rich Helppie 33:44

Right. And so the only issue in the country is not Donald Trump's the president.

Antisemitism Culture Clashes And Closing

Rich Helppie 33:50

I started this by talking about the press and polarization. And this is a great example of polarization because we have people looking at the man, not at the policy. And guess what, America? We have checks and balances that are working. We have bicameral legislature, we have a judicial system, and all the fear-mongering and worst-case scenarios have gotten checked and balanced. As we prepare to celebrate our 250th anniversary as a nation, we're doing pretty good. I agree. And you can just ask the Scots if they're having fun. That's a good rap.

unknown 34:32

Right.

Rich Helppie 34:32

Brian, it's good to see you. So this is your host, Rich Helpy. I don't know what was our topic. I'm just, but we're signing off on the Common Bridge. Thanks for joining us.

Announcer 34:43

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