Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 12-22-25_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Morning news and the Talent Library story...wow. Later Manhattan Institute - Sam Kay Director, External Affairs and Public Opinion did a focus study on what Gen-Z conservatives are thinking, quite thought-provoking.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Good morning. And how our thanks for you today. Welcome to Monday, December 22nd, 2025. Bit of fog.

Actually, a lot of fog, really. And it's going to be kind of a break in the rain. We'll see some of that coming in tonight. And then, gosh, we could be seeing some high mountain snow. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, things like that. Don't know if we're going to be getting it in the Valley. We'll check it with Mr. Outdoors tomorrow. We'll do the wrap-up for the year and get him on.

I think it should be a good conversation. One way or the other, I'm just glad that you're here, and you can join the conversation at 7705-633-770K-M-A-D, the email bill at Billmyershow.com. Our top local story is one which gives me no pleasure to talk. talk about. That's what is going on with the Jackson County Library system. Over the weekend, Rogue Valley Times ended up breaking a story. Once again, Buffy Pollack at the at the vanguard of this from the looks of it. Patron loses library privileges after looking at web images of new children.

This is at the Talent Library. Talent Library employees and patrons. I'm just going to share some of this. They're speaking out after multiple incidents. In other words, it's not just one, but multiple incidents with, according to employees and talent police, a 32-year-old man identified in library service district documents as Nicholas. He spent extended periods of time at the library branch on December 11th, the 13th, and the 15th. So the last one, the last incident was about a week from now, a week ago, rather. and he was observed viewing photos and videos of naked kids as well as employees saying he's also accused of zooming in on the genitalia of children and babies

and he's at the library doing this and by the way this is the third time members it was December 11th the 13th and the 15th that this ended up happening and they suspended his library privileges for a week Well, that makes you proud, doesn't it? So you got an alleged pervert looking at naked pictures of kids and zooming in on their sex organs three times, not once, not twice, three times December 11th, 13th, and 15th. And at least the first punishment was that his library privileges have been suspended for a week. Now, given that he last allegedly did this, looking at the pervert stuff, a week ago, does that mean that Nicholas could go back into the library today?

I don't know. But anyway, the story continues. Library staff and patrons initially reported concerns to district management and police, who responded to December 11th, but the guy had left the library wasn't questioned during the 3rd. third incident last Monday, library patron Michelle Rowden informed by her daughter, a minor, said she saw a man watching videos of naked children. Rowden captured a video of the man for proof and showed the library staff. The talent library specialist Glenn Caphammer, who spoke with the Rogue Valley Times about

the incident, told Rowden that employees had voiced concerns about ongoing residents involving the man, but had been told by district administrators to respect the man's privacy. Ew. So we had management at the library saying, respect the perverts' privacy. What do you think about that? Caphammer tells Rowden he was disturbed by what was going on in voiced frustration with upper management. Rowden decided to escalate the situation herself when I realized they were afraid to call the police.

I said, okay, you guys stay right here. I'm going to go outside and call the police. Caphammer, a district employee for five years, said he had moved to the talent branch after experiencing issues with safety and security at the Medford branch in recent years. At one point, while in Medford, Caphammer said he was tasked with administering Narcan for patrons that overdosed in library restrooms. Well, you know, after all, this is something which is a proper library function is that you have drug-addicted, dirtbaggy types passing out and trying to kill themselves in your bathroom,

and so your job is to revive them so that they can get high again. District has previously come under fire for security concerns centering around the downtown Medford Library branch at times report in april twenty twenty three uh yeah yeah we pretty much uh knew this hey liszt let let me tell you i just know that um you know this story about uh alleged pervert watching in in three separate things three different incidents at the talent library three pervert shows there watching little kids and their genitaly exposed and all the rest of this kind of stuff um one question that comes to mind is

why would the library network even be open to that kind of stuff is that maybe something you thought about when you hear this kind of a story wow and why would it take three times before somebody gets contacted about alleged pervert

watching kids on a talent library computer, naked kids. Is there an official policy in the library district of Jackson County that, well, I guess, three pervert strikes and then maybe we'll do something, we'll allow you one or two, and that's okay? I'm kind of surprised that anyone in upper management would say anything about, well, you know, we have to respect the pervert, you know, the alleged perverts, privacy.

It's like, huh? I don't get this. I just know that I feel so good when I look at that property tax, that property tax statement this year. And I see the, I think it's like $75, $80 a year that goes into the library district. I feel even better about that. Yes, yes, I do. If you have an opinion on this one way or another, what should be done?

Because, you know, there's a part of me that we just would have liked to have dragged the alleged pervert out to the parking lot and beat the living snod out. of them. That's kind of what I'd like to do. I know that would then get me in trouble, but that is sort of the urge of what I would prefer having seen done. But now, Caphammer takes an issue with one week suspension. Remember, he's the library employee. He says it was a violation of our library policy that he viewed images that made him feel good and made other patrons uncomfortable not that he was breaking the law by looking at child pornography oh yeah we're just talking about a policy violation right mr caphammer yeah that is um yeah it's just just policy

because you know there are some people that are just born loving children and gosh we have to we have to accommodate them it's part of our diverse patronage at the jackson county library what do you think uh yikes that uh is one of the latest that is quite an interesting story we're talking with a kevin kating he is a vice president of the library board i think he's probably the only one with any sense on that board we'll have a little talk with him about this after seven o'clock i'm sure he's thrilled about this and also going to talk with a local librarian well someone who used to work in the library system i'm kind of wondering if this is anything kind of unusual. Charleney Princeon

will call the show a little while, too. If you have an opinion, you know my number. 770-5633. Matt Stone, owner of Stone Heating and Air, and I'm on 106.3, KMED. All right, so we have coddled alleged perverts over at the talent branch of the Jackson County Library.

We'll try to get to the bottom of this as much as we can, like I said, talking with Kevin Keating, who is on the library board. He's not happy. I talked with him for a couple minutes yesterday. I don't know what bothers me more the fact that it actually happened in the first place that you have these alleged perverts and alleged pervert looking at kitty porn on a district in, on a district computer. But that it took three times, three incidents before much was done about that. I mean, that's certainly part of it.

And also the response that some of this, well, you know, you have to worry about, you have to protect the privacy of the patron. That was how upper management tended to look at this. Like, you know, this is, well, this is just a policy choice we have. I don't know if you have an opinion on this or not, but rather disturbing, I would dare say. I'll be curious to see how the district itself responds

because the district itself, the actual employees, Many of the employees are part of the woketipus, in my opinion. You know, we're talking about the type of people that are wanting the stolen land kind of conversations and declarations before the meetings and all this kind of stuff. I think there's only a handful of people that make even halfway common sense, Kevin Keating being one of them. And I'll talk with him a little bit later, okay? Hi, good morning. Happy Monday. This is Bill Meyer.

Who's this? Welcome. What's on your mind? This is Brian Weldon. I just wanted to touch on a few different subjects. Number one, you were talking about the rainfall. A week ago here, I live on the Rogue River. The CFS of the Rogue River was 1,000.

Last night at midnight, it was 11,000, and it rose about 6.5 feet from the normal height. Whoa, that's quite a bit of water flooding down there, isn't it? Well, hopefully not flooding. Yeah, now it's going down. and we'll have a break today, but, you know, I'm sure Greg will comment about this tomorrow. We're supposed to have four or five days now of rain, and we'll see where it goes from here. But last year, at this time, the night before Christmas, this Rogue River really flooded, and then it flooded again on New Year's Eve.

So be prepared, folks. Get your boats and your docks away from the river, otherwise they'll float away. Yeah. And while you're at it, too, I mean, consider. that, you know, the gang grains, Brian, one of their big holy grails that they hope to find is to knock out the dam? The dams. Yeah, he had to get rid of the dams.

And you see flooding right now with the dams or very high water. Could you imagine what it would be without? Oh, yeah. If they took the Lost Creek dam out, we'd really be in trouble here. That's what flooded the entire valley floor in 1964, which was also. also a few days before Christmas. A lot of snow melt and a lot of rain at the same time causes the Rogue River to go berserk. But on the library subject, this was the number one lie that this indivisible group and others put forth to try and recall Chris Barnett.

They used this. He destroyed our libraries. He was not a commissioner when this happened. John West and Herman Birchizer were the ones that were dealing with the library in the 4-8. Yeah, but you know how it is in this state? The truth is not necessarily a defense and recall. You know, that goes in politics. Yeah, all that recal booths had little, you know, we love our library signs all around the booths, which he repaired the library lease on the building that they never want to talk about. So it's a little bizarre. And last Friday, we had another one of these guys that you know, personally, uh, uh, Mike Pelfrey came into the Republican office and, and is yelling and screaming and everybody that he is going to start this

committee to, uh, start a phone bank and completely remove Chris Barnett from, are getting everybody to vote yes on the recall of Chris Barnett. Oh, okay. Uh, so we had, well, you know, people, people, you know, you know, they, you know, they're, you You know, Mike, he's allowed to do that. You know, you're allowed to do that. And just like you could if you wanted to. I mean, there's a real split going on.

I would highly recommend. Now, this is not an endorsement, some ringing endorsement of Chris Barnett or Andreas Black, although Andres already quit as an example. All I would say, though, is that this is nonsense, which is being done right now. Stop the madness. Vote no on the recall. I felt really bad about what happened with that mayor recall a few years ago. I didn't think it was wise.

We spin our wheels doing all sorts of things. It's not going to change the tenor of what's going on. There needs to be some calm in Josephine County politics. I would highly recommend, even though I know I don't live in Josephine County. This is just my suggestion. Vote no on the recall. Not because these people may be the best in the world. I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying let some calm, let them finish out a term, talk with them about it in a year or so, let everybody get their sea legs. It's already bad enough that we could get another absolutely green commissioner on the Josephine County Board here in the next few days or weeks. We just don't know. It's going to go on. Oh, God forbid. We need some people on there that actually understand about things like, you know, open meeting laws and what is the procedure to fire somebody. et cetera, et cetera. And that takes a little bit of, sometimes takes a little bit of time, just saying. So I would just relax, calm down everybody in Josephine County. And the other thing, though, is

if you're quiet about this right now, the hissy fitters win on this, because they're the ones who are encouraged. And I don't know a lot of people will get this during this holiday season and just kind of ignore it. What is the deadline? Like January 6th, I think is when you have to have the ballots back in? Yeah, well, that was the other thing is they planned this perfectly to happen right over Christmas. So they would get very few votes and, you know, no rejection to this whole thing and thinking that they're going to, that they're going to be successful at this recall. Yeah. Well, as a matter of principle, as a matter of principle in calming things down, a recall is not going to fix what ails Josephine County. Calm down. Get behind the people who

are in there. Let's get a third one. And let's see if we can find our way out of the fact that I think you only have, what, three, four million dollars in reserves left. There's very little money left in the kitty overall for Josephine County. Well, that is a big problem that, you know, the commissioner has been talking about for many, many years. Herman Birchizer has been saying this. When the logging industry ended, the Josephine County and many other counties in the entire state of Oregon are suffering from the lack of funds.

Yeah. And that's just the way it is. So get behind the two current ones. Let's get another one in here, hopefully, maybe with a little bit more experience or is able to, you know, calm. home out. We need to kind of have some soothing oil poured on these boiling waters rather than just throwing more gasoline on it. It's silly what's going on in Joe County. Okay? Yep. All right. Thank you for the call, Brian. It is 630, KMED, 993KBXG. Appreciate you waking up on the

Bill Maher show. Your smile is the key to your health and confidence. Do you know that one out of two adults do not regularly see their dentist? Do you? Lumber is to you. Hughes Lumber with heart and soul. You're here in the Bill Myers Show on 1063, KMED. 635. I appreciate you being here this morning. We're going to talk to little politics right now that has to do about Generation Z. Younger generations, younger political, and the talkers, the thinkers, the voters, what do they want? And I think that things have gotten a little bit shakier since the 2024 election.

Generation Z actually turned out quite heavily for President Trump, as I recall. and how is that looking now? What are they thinking? Well, Sam Kay, over at the Manhattan Institute, he is the Director of External Affairs in Public Opinion, they ended up asking a bunch of them. Great write-up on a City Journal, and there's a great X-Feed on this one, too. Sam, welcome to the program. Good to have you on. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Bill. Really appreciate it. So are you a member of Gen Z? Just kind of curious, is that what got you into it, or is it something else? Yes. Yes. So I am a member of Gen Z personally. But really what we're interested in is kind of, I feel like there's been a lot of buzz. We feel like there's been a lot of buzz online and among the talking heads, you know, kind of looking at the younger Republican cohort and saying that they're devastated about the economy and radical on immigration and radical on Israel and, you know, kind of flirting with like anti-Semitism. And there's all this kind of buzz about it. And so we wanted to get in there and really sit a bunch of these kids down. and ask them and, you know, really get into these details with them and see, are they really, you know, kind of subjective to these, you know, Hitler kind of sensitive opinions? Are they really devastated about the economy? And so we did, you know, a couple hours of focus groups with them to ask them.

Okay. Well, I'll be curious what they, what they had to say overall. And because I've been rather mixed on this. I know the Nick Fuentes type of rise of those people. I'm not a big, listener. I've never really paid a whole lot of attention to this. And one concern that I have had, Sam, is that, in my opinion, what is, what is passing for anti-Semitism is a difference of opinion in some cases about Israel's foreign policy and our relationship to Israel's foreign policy. And I don't know where the Manhattan Institute is coming on that. Maybe you can explain the stance on it. And, you know, I'm not, I'm certainly not where Nick Fuentes is, that's for sure. But tell me what they were saying, when you sit down with a bunch of these Gen Z kids, or kids, I should say, young adults, pardon me.

Right. So there definitely were some young folks in there. I mean, we had like 18, 19, 20-year-olds, and then we also had 27, 28, 29-year-old, and a mix in between. Sure. So specifically on the Israel portion, I'd say that a lot of these folks look at Israel as an ally, but they are also like, why are we helping Israel when we have problems? at home. And I really think that any kind of frustrations that they had with Israel were more America first generally. It was like we shouldn't be helping any country, you know, more so than

we're helping our hurting Americans here at home. Like we have problems with, you know, job security and affordability, and we have an immigration here, an immigration problem here domestically. And we need to kind of address our problems here. Yeah, we're dropping billions in Israel and Ukraine, et cetera. You know, that kind of thing. Right. Okay. All right. And so it wasn't, it wasn't like we hate Israel because we hate the Jews and we don't want Israel, we don't want Israel to exist. There was like maybe some concerns that there's a genocide happening in Gaza, but it was mostly that they're just America first and that they don't want, you know, to be helping foreign countries. And then on the Nick Fuentes side, you know, this Groyper, these people who

called themselves Groyper, who are the followers of Nick Fuentes. And by the way, could you explain to me, for those who don't really know the term, what is a Groyper? I know it sounds almost like someone, you know, as being a pervert, you're grabbing someone. You know, Gryper, I don't know what it is about that. What does that mean? Yeah, totally. So I really think simply put, Groyper is just someone who is like a follower of Nick Flentis. And what I guess that would mean is they're like white nationalist, you know, neo-Christian believers. And they don't really want minorities in the country. They are very critical of Jews and African-Americans, very strict on immigration and even legal immigration. And so it's kind of this like follower of the Nick Flentis ideology. And what's fun of is, you know, a lot of the kids in the focus groups had never even heard the term Groyper. They didn't know what that meant, and many of them didn't even, had never even heard of Nick Fuentes. And the people that had heard of Nick Fuentes, they were most like, yeah, I've seen some of this stuff online. Like, I just think, I just laugh at it. And I think

that was kind of the big takeaway from these focus groups is that these young adults, they're not radical. They're just looking for a good time, right? Like they're scrolling Twitter, They're scrolling TikTok, they're scrolling Instagram, and they're just looking for a laugh. You know, politics is like an entertainment system for them. It's not like life or death. You know, the stakes aren't really high. And so they see a Nick Wentz video where he's like, you know, riffing on crime in America or immigration in America. And it's radical and it's using profanity and all this stuff.

And they look at it and they look at it and they laugh at it. And then they scroll to the next post and it's sports or whatever it is. Okay. And so it's just not as like they're not acolytes. They're more just like consumers of content. Okay. Well, he's certainly getting a lot of attention as of late. Now, you said in your focus group, it was more, well, first off, how did you select the focus group? You know, how you end up coming up over that group is very important, too. Could you tell me that? Yeah. So you collect a list, you buy a list from a list vendor of folks in the area, and then we call those phone numbers and we ask them screen questions and making sure that they fit our demographic makeup. So we wanted Gen Z 18 to 29. We wanted folks that were right leaning. So we asked them if they were left ring or right leaning because we wanted, you know, generally conservative, you know, young adults. That was the demographic we were interested in. And we wanted, you know, folks that weren't like radical. goals on issues like immigration or Israel. I mean, we were willing to take some of those folks,

but we didn't want like people who were on the extreme and the extremes because it would just disrupt the flow of the conversation. And so we ended up with these 20, 10 of them were college educated, you know, either in college or graduated college, and the other 10 were non-college. And so we just asked them the screen question. And it was in Nashville. And so they were randomly selected from the population in Nashville. It wasn't, you know, I think even a couple of them were collected from the Vanderbilt campus, you know, right there in the city. So it was, it was proportional, and it was a very interesting group of folks and pretty diverse. I mean, they were mostly white and mostly Christian.

I think that's just the nature of that city. I think it's also just the south where you were to. That makes a lot of sense. All right. So, Sam, what about the support for, is it a big deal to support Republicans at this point? Or are they only loosely affiliated? Because a lot of Generation Z is a big part of President Trump's election in 2024. You'd agree, right?

Yeah, yes, absolutely. I mean, he did much better, specifically with men under 35 than Republicans typically do in the past. Yes. So what did it look like? And, you know, for them as far as their feelings right now overall. Yes, absolutely. So I think that these folks are, they were all conservative. So I think they're Republican leaning. And I think that that's probably not going to go away anytime soon. But for example, we asked them, you know, who they thought the next nominee, the next Republican nominee for president was going to be. and almost every single person in the group, or actually, sorry, we asked them who they wanted the nominee to be for the Republican nomination for president in 28, and they almost all said J.D. Vance. And it wasn't like they were jumping with joy, like, oh, yeah, I'm a J.D. Vance guy. It was more like, yeah, J.D. Vance is probably going to be the guy. I don't know who else we'd pick, so I'm going with him. Not a ringing endorsement, not a great love for it, but just looking at the obvious. Okay. Well, Erica Kirk apparently felt the same way. because she endorsed him over the weekend at the America First Deal.

Totally. And I wonder if that will, you know, we'll see, but I wonder if that'll start a cascade effect. Because when Trump was getting ready to run for president in 22 last time, it was two years early, but people started endorsing him very early and, you know, it kind of like locked in the nomination for him. So I wonder if the same thing's going to happen with J.D. now with Erica Kirk doing that. Well, we'll see. Yeah, I remember when Ann Coulter, punded Ann Coulter, very early endorsed him, said he was going to win. and they just laughed out loud at her at that time.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's impossible to predict the political future these days. You kind of just got to roll with the punches and analyze the day. Yeah. But so with these folks, you know, and we also did a survey of Republicans just last month and we're analyzing kind of the electorate in 2024 for President Trump. And a lot of these like new folks, you know, these younger, newer entrance to the Republican Party,

they're not allegiant to the Republican Party. They are, like, if you ask them a generic ballot question, like, if the election for Congress were held today, would you vote for the Republican or the Democrat? Only like 50-something percent are voting for the Republican candidate, whereas the traditional Republicans, you know, the folks that we know that vote for Republican president every single time when you ask them who they're going to vote for Congress, it's like 80 percent they're going to vote for the Republican candidate. So that's a warning, that's a warning sign then. That's a loose affiliation. They're loosely affiliated, really, not deeply tied at all, really. That's right. That's right. We're definitely loosely affiliated. I mean, we even had some folks in the group who are, you know, like clearly Republicans, clearly conservatives, you know, and have voted for President Trump in 2024. And then we asked him who they were going to vote for in 26. One person said, or 28, one person said Michelle Obama was their preferred candidate because he's exactly, because he's so upset with like the rhetoric. I don't know why he'd exactly go to Michelle Obama. But, you know, I think that's just the idiosyncratic nature of the electorate and how it's so hard to build a coalition. and one of the Testaments to President Trump's victory in 24.

And then we had another person who is so radically, this guy was like one of our true Groypers, you know, one of our true Nick Flentis followers in the group. We only had one in the 20 people. But he was like, I'd prefer Accio Cortez for president over Ben Shapiro. That's how radical he is, you know, kind of against the Israel, against the Jew, against the, you know, the mainstream, and he'd rather support like a socialist populist over, over like a mainstream Republican like Ben. Sam, is there a possibility? I'm just posing the question that a lot of this, what is perceived as anti-Semitism, is whenever, whoever you're told you're not allowed to criticize, maybe that in this generation to say, hey, I'm going to go down that road. Any thoughts about that?

I think that's absolutely correct. I think that a lot of these people at their core are just rejecting cancel culture, quote, unquote. They don't like that you, they say, oh, you shouldn't listen to this person or we have to. to get de-platform this person or whatever it is. And they go, well, I want to go hear that person. Why are we deplatforming them? I want to hear what they have to say, because it must be edgy. It must be interesting. And again, I think it comes back to for most people, the vast majority of young folks. It comes back to entertainment. It's not like I'm a disciple. I'm a strong believer. I'm going to, you know, follow this person into war. It's, oh, I'm interested in what they have to say. Someone's telling me not to listen. So I'm a young person. I want to go hear them out. And I think it'd be curious to listen. Oh, if that's kind of edgy, that's funny.

ha-ha-ha, next, you know, swipe and move on. All right. Sam Kay, by the way, is with me. He's the director of External Affairs and Public Opinion at the Manhattan Institute. Really interesting write-up in the City Journal about Generation Z, big focus group. They ended up conducting in Nashville, Tennessee. Now, what about things when it comes to, their feelings when it comes to their economic situation, the look out for the future, let's say. What about getting married, having family?

everything that's not getting done right now in many ways yes so that was really interesting part of the conversation so on the surface a lot of these folks were saying things like yeah you know everything's so expensive like you know it's really going to be hard to buy a home but then when we started asking them the follow-up questions you like why aren't you buying a home you know we had one we had one woman say in the group you know i'm i'm not going to be able to buy a home and then we were like well why and she's like well like you know my husband's from south carolina and i'm from Pennsylvania, and so I'm just, we want to be closer to family. I was like, okay, well, that's not really an economic reason. Yeah. That's really like a timing reason. And we had another

woman say like, it's going to be really hard for me to buy a home. And then we're like, well, what's stopping? She's like, well, I'm saving. You know, I'll probably be able to do it in 27, you know, 2027 or 28. I'm like, okay, well, that's just, you know, another timing thing. Yeah, what about family formation, though? Because I'm seeing all sorts of leaders around the country, not just in the United States, around the world, really. Even Putin's looking at his birth rate, 1.4, you know, that's 1.4 children per female. That's just not going to keep things going, you know? Right. And so what's it looking like here? Really? Yeah. So that was, that was kind of a distressing portion of the conversation, because when we asked them, you know,

their outlooks on marriage and dating, they were not happy. You know, most people in this group, right, they were Christian, they were religious, they believed in faith. That was a big part of their lives. And so marriage is a big part of that. And almost all of them were single. Almost all of them didn't feel like the dating market was good. We had a couple people say that it's really hard to find a person to be in a relationship with long term, right? Like they were like, I get to five months and then it just doesn't get serious anymore. And, you know, we had like 10 people in these groups that were like, yeah, I want to get married and they just didn't see it in their near term future, which was a sad, which is a sad thing to see, especially since

they're religious, right? You'd think that more religious folks would have an easier time, you know, going into church and being in those, you know, those third place communities, like they would have an opportunity to meet someone to partner up with, and they were really struggling to do that. Sam, in this group then, most of it, most of these Gen Zers were male, right? Yeah, I think of the 20, it was like 15 were men. Okay, all right. What I'm wondering about here is do Gen Z males find appropriate females within their peer group? and I'm wondering if that maybe has something to do with it because the woke mind virus has been very strong,

mostly among young, liberal, white women. It's been very strong. Yeah, you're absolutely right again. I think we are definitely, you know, in the 19, between 1950 and 1980, the number one filter that people would apply for selecting a partner was religion. And today it's politics. And so when you've got these kind of under 35, you know, young men who are kind of leaning more conservative as the years go on. And then you have these under 35 young women who are leaning more liberal. You know, I think Kamala Harris won 70% of single women

in America. 70% of single women, Kamala Harris won. I mean, that is to sound bode well when Donald Trump is winning, you know, 60-something percent of under 35 men. Like, how are we going to, you know, match these people up, especially when they're filtering their, their mates by by politics? And I'll tell you, a lot of young men without family formation, without purpose, that's not good for societal stability, is it? Absolutely not. This is where the disaffected, you know, white males come in where they just, they are porn addicted, they're smoking too much pot, they're, you know, chronically online, they're playing video games, they don't have purpose, they're struggling to find jobs, and they don't have girlfriends or wives or children, and they don't have religion to ground themselves. And I think that's why we have a rise of. mental health crisis in our country. That's why the family formation is down. It's a number of these problems that our country is suffering from. And a lot of it probably just comes back to the secularization of our society. But I thought that in a room full of Christians, we would kind

of have less of that issue. And it didn't really seem to be the case. So that is surprising, very surprising. Sam K. once again, from the Manhattan Institute. Sam, what about, where do you see Generation Z may be going to find a proper mate if they're not able to find Christian? females or people who aren't just absolutely bat guano crazy, you know, in their own peer group, is Generation Alpha looking more friendly to a Gen Z? So could it be where you have an older man, younger woman at some point? I don't know. I don't even know if this is something that you explored in this focus group. Yeah, we didn't get too deep into that, but I guess I'd say from the experiences that I've seen, you know, in my 20s and watching my friends date, I think it really

is a grind in a way that it wasn't in the past. And look, I wasn't around in the 80s to 2000s, you know, dating. But from what I can tell, you know, most, at least the stats say this, right, that 50-something percent of new relationships are formed through online dating apps. That's just where we're headed. And so when I'm looking at a group of people like these young Christians in our focus groups, I think that they should be online. They should be on the dating apps, on hinge, on Bumble, on whatever it is, you know, these apps where you can find a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and you should kind of play that numbers game and just get out there and try and meet new folks.

And, you know, yeah, some of them are going to be awful dates where you just are like, why did I spend my evening meeting this person? And some of them are going to be great. And, you know, you'll hopefully find that spark. And, you know, for my personal experience, I have a great girlfriend right now, and it's pretty serious and met on a dating app. Yeah. The other issue about this, though, is someone who has been married and divorced more times

than I wish to, you know, to discuss that the costs of forming family badly are extremely high right now. And I would imagine that Gen Z looks at the older generations. Me being a young boomer, you know, that kind of thing and say, boy, you know, I don't want to go there, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm wondering if there's been a lot of fear that's actually gone through them and not even willing to take the chance on something because of the high cost of being wrong. Yeah, I mean, when you looked at those divorce rates among the boomers that were in the 50 percent, I think you look at that as a young person, you go, oh, should I really get married? If it's, you know, 50% chance I'm going to end up

divorced. But I believe that the divorce rates for Gen Z and millennials are actually better, lower divorce rates. And I think that's probably because people are taking more time to evaluate their mates. You know, before I think the average age to get married, the first time marriage was in their early 20s and out in their late 20s, maybe you're a bit older. I think that that also, in a negative way, contributes to the birth rate replacement issue because when you you know, the women are getting married later in life, you know, it's just harder to conceive a child. Sure. And that's just kind of part of the situation.

So we really need to kind of create a scenario here where it's probably more, it's, I think the online element of this is a big problem, right? Because, you know, you say, what's the worst that can happen? You go and ask a girl out on a date, and all she says is no, right? Well, now it's not just a no. Now it's like you get made fun of online and your peers hear about it. And so there's all this, like, added social pressure that comes with the online nature of it. And I think we did kind of see some of that in these groups where it's like people were saying, like, there's, you know, it's just like the cost of asking people out, the cost of trying to date people. It's just, it's just difficult.

And it's, it's so high the cost that it's like, well, should we really risk it? It's like, well, yeah, you should because it's great to have a girlfriend. It's great to have a family. Yeah. What do the focus group have to say about immigration and the enforcement issues and all of that controversy, which has been flying through the news cycles? Yeah. So I think that this issue is where our young folks kind of most. align with the broader Republican Party.

Like, these folks were pretty strong on immigration as conservatives. They were, you know, pretty pro-deportation of criminal illegal immigrants, right? They were pro-deportation of most illegal immigrants that are in the country. I mean, we can debate if you're in the country illegally. That means you've committed a crime, but there's a difference between that person and the person that actually, like, you know, commits a murder or a felony or something like that. But most of – a lot of the folks in these groups are like, yeah, if you're in the country illegally, we've got to get you out because it contributes.

to our economic problems, our job opportunity problems. So there was that kind of majority opinion. Then we had kind of a smaller minority in the groups who were like, we need to end all immigration, including legal immigration, that they were like the H-1BVs of folks, the high-skilled immigrants. We had some people who said that's even a bigger problem than illegal immigration because those high-skilled folks that come from, you know, India and China and Japan and Korea, they come and they take job opportunities from the college-educated.

Well, yeah, it's their age group. You know, they're trying to get jobs. Plus, they're also competing against AI at this point, too, really. Absolutely. You know, you think about that. And then I think President Trump did a misstep when he was saying, yeah, we need to double the H-1Bs from 300,000 to 600,000 Chinese. I'll bet that went over like a lead balloon for your folks.

Yeah, I think for a lot of these guys, you know, we had one, we had one young man who was, I think he was from Tennessee. He went to college in Virginia, and he's moving to New York City to work in finance, I think. And he was like, yeah, all my friends are really struggling to get a job out of college, and it's a really scary market. He's like, I'm lucky. I kind of got an opportunity, but I'm looking at my friends, and, you know, they're just, like, really struggling to get opportunities.

And then it was kind of like compounding with the immigration conversation where they're saying, you know, you have all these H-1B people who, you know, they're good folks maybe, and they're aligned with America's beliefs and our Constitution, but they're taking opportunities away from our high-skilled folks. And, you know, you want to get, you know, it's like, yes, we love all people who are willing to support our Constitution, but don't we have an obligation to, you know, help our domestic Americans first? Yeah. So that was a big focus on that, and that would make a lot of sense. Overall, is their economic output or outlook, rather, cool, average, or kind of hot? What do they see in the future?

I think a lot of them were pretty optimistic. Initially, right, we asked them, you know, how do you feel about the economy? And there were some concerns like, oh, you know, I'm a little worried about buying a home or whatever. But when we kind of really dug deep into those questions, a lot of them said, yeah, I'm going to be able to do better than my parents. A lot of them cited, like, trust funds and 401Ks that they had for a long time already from working, you know, in their teams. Like these people sounded like they actually were optimistic. When we asked them that the economy was improving, staying the same, we're getting worse, I think two-thirds says, that it was improving. You know, and they said like, yeah, you know, things are getting better in some

ways, but not getting better in others. But I thought the overall, the overall vibe from the group was that things are on the up for these folks and that they're actually are going to have job opportunities and they are going to buy homes. And it's just going to take some time to get there, but maybe they wanted it earlier in life. But it is not necessarily a given, though, that they vote Republican in the midterms, right? That's right. That's right. It's not a given that they vote Republican in the midterms. Very interesting. Great article. It's called Everyone wants to know what Gen Z Republicans think, and we asked them, and Sam Kay was part of that over at the Manhattan Institute. I'm going to like to that, and so it's a city dash journal

dash ORG. Great article, and I'm glad you dug into this and went beyond just the surface questions. Good job on that, Sam. Thanks so much. Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time. All right. Once again, Sam Kay is with the Manhattan Institute. This is KMED and KMED HD-1, Eagle Point, Metford, KBXG grants pass. Well Burns Weapons is your friendly gun, suppressor, and ammo dealer. And they'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And if you're looking for a unique gift, Wellburns may have just what you're looking for. How about a Glock for concealed carry?

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Shipping available on wine and champagne only. Drink responsibly, B-21. is the Bill Meyer show on 1063 KMED. Call Bill now. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. We'll catch off with Fox News here in just a moment, get the hand of the update, and then a conversation with Kevin Keating, his vice chair on the Jackson County Library Board. That incident three times, some guy, according to the library documents,

the name of Nicholas, ended up watching, allegedly watching Child Point. Naked kids zooming into the genitalia on library computers. And the reaction to this, I think, is going to be the most interesting because I'm surprised it took three times before something was said and police were notified. I know that the initial statement, okay, well, instead of going into the initial statement, I'll talk with Kevin about what he's thinking about this. I think he's one of the few common sense people on the board. Hopefully, well, here's some common sense reaction to it. We'll have that all coming up and more coming up on the Bill Meyer show.