Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 394 | Voter Suppression in Georgia? | Guest: Governor Brian Kemp

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

Today we're mainly talking about Georgia and the changes to election law that Governor Brian Kemp and Republicans are pushing through. The GOP says that the new rules will make elections more secure, but Democrats like Stacey Abrams are saying the opposite, that this will only make voter suppression worse. The Left wants you to think this is literally Jim Crow 2.0, but is that really the case? To address questions about the law, Governor Kemp himself joins us to give his take. And, the incessant media lies and gaslighting have led those on the Right to use the term BlueAnon to jokingly refer to people who believe the leftist narrative. --- Today's Sponsor: Annie's Kit Clubs: Experience crafts like painting, needlecraft, beading, candle and soap making, and a whole lot more. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 50% on your first kit! --- Show Links: Georgia General Assembly: S.B. 202: "Elections and Primaries; Persons or Entities that Mail Absentee Ballot Applications Shall Mail Such Applications Only to Eligible Registered Electors" https://bit.ly/3wi21fo NBC News: "Georgia Governor Signs Sweeping Election Regulations Into Law" https://nbcnews.to/31xj7aR AP News: "Georgia's New GOP Election Law Draws Criticism, Lawsuits" https://bit.ly/3diglfg Erick Erickson: "Georgia's New Election Law Allows Food Trucks at Polling locations and Additional Weekend Voting" https://bit.ly/2PHG88m --- Past Episodes Mentioned: Ep 393: "Lil Nas X's Satan Shoes & Why Christians Should Rejoice" https://apple.co/3w8jEyh Ep 382: "How Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden Got Duped | Guest: Rep. Chip Roy" https://apple.co/3u7oKce --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Tuesday. I hope everyone's having a wonderful day so far. So yesterday, you guys gave me such universally positive, wonderful, encouraging feedback from yesterday's episode. And I'm just so excited about that. We did decide to take kind of like a positive spin on the whole Lil Nas X. I don't know if that's how you pronounce his name. His Satan shoes that have like a drop of blood in them and his music video. And you guys really enjoyed that. And so I appreciate that. Thank you so much for your comments. Thank you for your messages and for your feedback and for sharing it. I really do appreciate that. And one thing that I pointed out on Instagram, pertaining to what we talked about yesterday, because remember the shoes have Luke 1018 on them

and we rejoiced over the fact that the word of God is not going to return void. Also, God is not going to be mocked. Also, God is not going to allow. anyone, Satan especially, to steal his glory. So he works things out for his glory and all good and are good. And we know that that's what he is going to do through this as well as atrocious and disturbing as it is. And the fact that you guys were encouraged by the Word of God yesterday in this podcast in the gospel reminders that we actually got ironically through talk. about this kind of dark trend of glorifying Satan that we're seeing means that the word of God is already not returning void. Like it means that God is already getting glory for this. If you guys

were edified through us talking about this subject yesterday, that means that God is already accomplishing something good and positive and glorifying through what was meant for harm and what was meant for Satan's glory. God is turning it around, redeeming it and using it for His own glory. So already we are seeing God do that. If you guys were encouraged through Scripture and the Word of God yesterday through us talking about something so dark and depraved. So already praise God. Like we can already praise God for that. And just to reiterate what we do in response to something dark and depraved is not to be scared of the darkness because the light isn't scared of the darkness. Darkness scatters when a lamp is turned on. When a lamp is turned on,

light is turned on. We double down on the gospel. We double down on loving God and loving our neighbor. And so we have every reason to be excited and to rejoice. If you haven't listened to yesterday's episode, I encourage you to go do that. If you're looking for something encouraging and the craziness that characterizes our current culture, just throughout an alliteration there because I love alliterations. All right. Today, we did theology yesterday. We're doing some more politics today. And we're going to talk to Georgia. Governor Kemp about the election law and what it means, because you're probably hearing that in Georgia, they are, they just passed a bill that turned into a law that is Jim Crow 2.0.

It's all about voter suppression. It's apparently trying to get minorities in Georgia not to vote. And so I'm going to interview him, talk through the facts. and separate them from the fiction and the sensationalized media coverage when it comes to this law. And we're going to talk about what it actually achieves, what it actually accomplishes. And I know a lot of you Georgians are just Americans in general who are disappointed in the results of the presidential election, in particular in Georgia. I'm going to ask him about some of that. I'm going to ask him the questions that you guys have, such as why did it take this long?

Why are the reforms only happening now? Is it too little too late? And can Georgians truly be confident in their voting process moving forward? I know that's something that a lot of you guys really care about. Before I actually get into the interview, I am going to set us up and give us a little bit of context because the reason I wanted to talk to him for about 10 or 12 minutes is because I wanted him to kind of address the direct criticism that he has gotten from Stacey Abrams and other Democratic activist groups, but I want to give you some context before you get into that so you can

be fully prepared to understand once I start talking to Governor Kemp. So let me read you some of the facts about this law that Governor Kemp just signed. So this is according to NBC News, quote, the 95-page bill adds a spate of changes to the state election process. It will dramatically shortened runoff elections from nine weeks to less than a month and cut the early voting period required for runoff elections from three weeks to one week. In January, runoff election sent Democratic Senators Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff to Washington, securing the party's majority in the Senate. The law allows the legislature to appoint the chair of the state election board. Previously, the board was chaired by the Secretary of State. The current Secretary of State

Brad Raffensberger or Republican, sparred with Trump over the accuracy of the state's election. The bill also allows that state election board to take over county election administration. This is another thing that's contentious. The law will require mail-in voters to include their driver's license numbers or other documentation to verify their identities instead of using signature verification. Dropboxes can be located only inside election offices and early. voting locations curbing their usefulness. So you can already tell that NBC is editorializing this. And they are only trying to list the things that the left sees as negative in this bill. And again,

that's why I think it's so important to separate fact from fiction. But you can see that they're editorializing when they say something like curbing their usefulness. There's always another side to the story, especially when you see a comment like that. It also shortens the window to request absentee ballots. people will be prohibited. This was the big thing that you probably heard that this is cruel. This is specifically trying to make it harder for minorities to vote. People will be prohibited from taking food and water to voters waited in line, which has become common in past Georgia elections in which voters have waited extremely long hours

to cast ballots in the past. Of course, this report does not talk about where specifically it has taken longer for Georgians to vote. They're typically counties that are run by Democrats. Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill into law immediately. Mark Elius an election lawyer

with prominent Democratic clients announced a lawsuit. He says that these new measures in this law violate the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, founder of the voting rights group Fair Fight, said in a statement

that the law was blatantly unconstitutional and nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0. Democrats obviously opposed the passage of the bill. And then also, this was a crazy thing that you guys probably saw. And I didn't get the chance to ask Governor Kemp about this. So Democratic State Rep, Park Cannon, was arrested as she knocked on the door to the news conference or knocked on the door to the news conference when Governor Kemp was signing this bill. She was dragged through the Capitol in handcuffs.

It's a little dramatic. But President Joe Biden appeared to refer to some of Georgia's proposals earlier in the day. When asked about the voting restrictions and his news conference, he said that it's sick, that you can't bring people water. And so even the president of the United States is weighing in on this. According to the AP, like I said, it's not just drawing criticism, but it's also drawing lawsuits. In a letter to more than 90,000 parishioners, Bishop Reginald Jackson, who,

who presides over more than 400 African Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia said the law is, quote, racist and seeks to return us to the days of Jim Crow. Jackson is calling for corporate leaders at companies like Coca-Cola and Delta to speak out in opposition. And so he's also saying that if these companies that are based in Atlanta don't speak out in opposition to what he is calling this racist law, they're going to organize boycotts against these businesses. But here's the question. and this is obviously what we're going to get into with Governor Kemp as well, but I just want to speak to some of the accusations that are being made.

Georgia radio host Eric Erickson, he has talked a lot about this bill. You might know that he is, he's anti-Trump, and he also did not believe that there was fraud in the presidential election at all, in particular in Georgia. But he talks about this law and how the left has it wrong when it comes to this narrative that this is Jim Crow 2.0, that it's not right for you to not allow people who are standing in line to get food or water. He kind of debunks some of this stuff. And he does it in a different way than Governor Kemp is about too. So this is not going to be, this is not going to

be repetitive information. I think it's important to point out Eric Erickson's perspective on this as well. So according to an article that he, wrote, he says under Georgia law, electioneering at polling locations is prohibited. But in progressive enclaves, local Democrats in charge of polling locations have allowed Democrat activists to pass out food and water while urging votes for Democrats. And so this is why this was a part of this law, because passing out food and water while people are in line has been used by Democratic activist groups to electioneer. Electioneering is supposed to be something that's against the law within a certain amount of like within 150 feet of a polling location. Democrats have claimed in the past that this is

not electioneering. It's just taking care of those in long lines. But he points out in 2018, left-wing activists in Planned Parenthood T-shirts passed out water in iTunes gift cards in the sixth congressional district of Georgia last year. Left-wing activist passed out water with left-wing group logos affixed to it. It was electioneering that local officials denied was electioneering. That loophole has now been closed. And so that's what this is about. It's not about, oh, we don't want people to have food and water.

Actually, Eric Erickson points out that this law also allows there to be food trucks. And there are lots of ways that people can get rejuvenated and get refreshed if they want to, according to this law, but it tries to close this loophole that a lot of left wing in particular activist groups were using in order to electioneer, which like I said, is supposed to be against the law. Water and food, Eric Erickson said, will be permitted within 150 feet of a polling location provided. It is set up by poll workers and is unattended by non-voters outside the 150 feet. You can have food trucks, bans, whatever else you want. So long as they stay, 25 feet from the actual voter line. That's very normal. By the way, this is not just the state of Georgia

that has this kind of 150 feet boundary. Voters will be allowed to leave the line and come back into line without penalty so they can get food and drink. And so this whole idea that people are going to be starving, that they're going to be parched when they're standing in line. It's just not true. It's a completely false narrative. The legislation now adds, Eric says, mandatory early voting on two Saturdays, which adds a Saturday from what is now happening and also allows populist areas to pick a Sunday for early voting too. Yes, it reduces the number of overall days for early voting, which is the only thing NBC pointed out, but it expands weekend voting. The legislation requires that absentee ballot requests be submitted at least 11 days

before an election. As a standalone measure, this idea passed with bipartisan support. Then he talks about the requirement for voter ID. He talks about a university. of Georgia poll in which a majority of voters regardless of race, political affiliation, gender, or ideology actually supported having to have a voter ID in order to vote. And again, if you don't have a, if you don't, or not a voter ID, but just an ID in general, if you do not have an idea in the state of Georgia, the state will give you one for free right there. So this is not in any way, an inhibition for someone who is actually a citizen to be able to. to vote. It doesn't matter what your socioeconomic status is. It is extremely easy to get an ID

so you can vote. That whole narrative that it's easier to buy a gun in the United States than it is to vote is just not true. That's not true on any factual basis whatsoever. It is extremely easy to vote. And actually, this bill in a lot of ways, this law now actually makes it easier in some ways for people to vote while still trying to tie some of the loose ends that led to vulnerabilities that could make the process vulnerable for fraud. Eric Erickson says Democrats are right that the election reform bill was done in response to Democrats winning in November. That's at least Eric's perspective.

But they are wrong that it is a way to steal or suppress votes. What Republicans had to do was get Republican voters to be convinced that fixes have been deployed to stop Democrats from stealing the election. Now, so we've heard kind of both sides of this. Now I want to hear what Governor Kemp. pass to say because he's gotten a lot of criticism from both the left and the right. But in particular in response to this bill, of course, there have been accusations of racism and Jim Crow leveled against him. And so I just wanted to see what his response was to those things. And I know a lot of you

are looking forward to that insight as well. So without further ado, here is Governor Kemp. Governor Kemp, thank you so much for joining us. We've got a lot of good questions to ask you. So pertaining to this law, which you just signed, critics, as you know, are calling this a law in effort toward voter suppression. Stacey Abrams said that this is Jim Crow 2.0. Raphael Warnock, the senator from Georgia, said that this is like a 911 emergency for democracy. The NACP, Black Lives Matter, activist groups. We've got the president of the United States, the Democratic Party, saying that this is all an atrocious law, just trying to suppress the vote specifically of the minority population in Georgia.

Can you speak to those critiques if there's any validity to them? I'm guessing you don't think that there are. And what does this bill actually do, if not those things? Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. I think probably the best thing I could say is that unbelievably, even the Washington Post has given President Biden for Pinocchio's. on his statements the other day about this bill. Look, this bill makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

It replaces an arbitrary signature match process with a voter ID requirement, which is free in Georgia. It secures ballot drop boxes that never existed in the law before I signed this bill. It requires our county elections officials to tabulate ballots until every vote is counted, not starting and stopping like we saw in the last election. And then believe it or not, this bill actually gives people more opportunity to vote early, especially on the weekends here in Georgia. And President Biden, I want to talk about this specific claim because this is kind of the talking point that I have seen circulating, even in some parts of conservative media that was reiterated by President Biden, that this is part of the law is cruel, it's sick, he said, deciding in some states, I guess he means Georgia, that you cannot bring water. to people standing in line waiting to vote, deciding that you're going to end voting at five when working people are just getting off work.

Critics are saying this is going to disproportionately affect minority voters who sometimes have to wait in line longer. So what's this about? Is it true that these people can't get food and water brought to them in line? Well, it's just factually not true. It's also a little bit concerning that even some conservative media got this point wrong. and I think it's really, you know, just like the president, a lot of people just really haven't taken the time to know what's in the bill for whatever reason. They're just believing all the activists on the whole Jim Crow 2.0, which that domain name was reserved weeks ago, even before people knew what was going to be in the final version of the bill, which shows you how ridiculous, but also how orchestrated this whole thing is.

it has nothing to do, Allie, with what the nuts and bolts are of the bill. It has everything to do with an agenda and a narrative for people to profit off of this. And also to push through HR1 at the federal level, which is an unconstitutional takeover that Joe Biden and Senator Warnock and everybody else up there is trying to do. And this whole thing about water is ridiculous. The county elections officials can provide a water station for the voters. The voters can bring food, water, drinks, whatever they want to when they're standing in line to vote. But when you're within that 150-foot buffer within 150 feet of a polling location, we're not going to allow people to election near you and provide you water or drinks

or hand out pamphlets or, you know, get you food. If you want to order food yourself, you can. If you want to bring it, you can. But the other question I've told people is, why are people standing in? in line in some of these counties that are run by Democrats where they would even be in line long enough to need water or drinks. It shouldn't take that long. And if the Democrats and the activists and the president would take time to actually read this bill, they would realize that the General Assembly has put in, you know, mandates on the amount of equipment that have to be at every

precinct based on population counts and time counts during the election. There was, will speed up the process so people don't have to stand out there for three or four hours when they're trying to vote in Georgia. And the whole idea that you're taking something away from people having the ability to vote. I mean, the Washington Post fact shit clearly stated today that what President Biden was saying about the ability of working people to be able to vote is ridiculous. We're going to have two mandatory Saturdays for all 159 counties in Georgia to have early voting open. They can, if they want to, choose two. two additional Sundays for people to be able to vote.

And as you know, the polling hours are very generous during the early voting period that lasts three weeks in Georgia, as well as what we have on Election Day. And I want to go back to something that you said at the beginning of that answer, which was very informative. You talked about the domain name Jim Crow 2 was actually bought before this bill was finalized, before it was signed. And I just went to it, Jim Crow 2, and it gives all of this information. I guess this is Stacey Abrams and her kind of activist groups.

And so the PR push against this bill was it started long before the bill was finalized, which I think is really important for people to know that people are acting like Raphael Warnock, for example, he flew in from D.C. He's acting like, oh my gosh, this is an emergency. The reality is a lot of this reaction was pre-planned. And there are even some lawsuits that are now being filed. Can you talk about some of that opposition and what you think is actually behind it? Because the changes that you're describing, I have a hard time seeing how they're truly that controversial. Well, I don't think they are.

And it doesn't matter. You know, their playbook was written before they even knew what was going to be in the bill. I think they must have thought it was going to be a lot worse than it ended up being. at the end of the day, there's even provisions in this bill alley that the Democrats recommended in other pieces of legislation that got, you know, combined into this piece. Of course, you're not hearing that either. But I think for people, you know, even, you know, people of color, other minorities in our state, when they really figure out what's in the bill, what the facts are,

they're going to realize that a lot of these people that are supposed to be representing them or being advocating for them, you know, for them or actually advocating to line their pockets or have an agenda that they're trying to push in Washington, D.C., like the unconstitutional takeover of elections with HR1, and they're going to figure out that what these people are against is expanding voting access on the weekends, particularly an additional Sunday to mandatory Saturdays. And they're also against having a simple voter ID requirement on absent. ballots by mail that will speed the process up, make it non-arbitrary like it is now, and secure the ballot. I think most people in Georgia and across the United States are for those things, and that's what

all of these people are now against, including every Democrat in the General Assembly, voted against that. Right. One thing that I found interesting was that this law allows the legislature to appoint the chair of the state election board rather than the board being changed. by the Secretary of State, someone that Georgians actually elected. So if this bill is about transparency and integrity, can you talk about why that change was made? Yeah, that was really a legislative push there, but I will point out that this person has got to be a nonpartisan type

person, so I think it'll be fine. The other thing is the state election board, you know, I chaired it for a long time as Secretary of State. It's a bipartisan board. The Republicans get an appointee. The Democrats get an appointee. The House. House and the Senate gets an appointee. And it's been that way for a long time. It was that way when the Democrats were in control, they controlled the board. When Republicans took over in 2002 when Governor Sonny Perdue was elected and shortly after took the House to claim all three branches of government, you know, obviously went

under Republican control. So the Secretary of State will still be an ex officio member of this. I know he doesn't, you know, probably like that provision, but I know he's supportive of of the bill. And actually, one of his folks made some great points on CNN last night about what the bill actually does and what the truth is versus what the narrative is that they're pushing out there that's not the truth. Right. A lot of Republicans are excited to see these kinds of reforms, but you've got some Republicans that are saying, look, this is too little too late. Why weren't these kinds of changes made before the 2020 election? Obviously, there were a lot of Georgians

disappointed, not just in the results of the election, but also in the entire process. What do you say to those people? Well, I mean, look, nobody knew we were going to be dealing with a worldwide pandemic, and we would have a 350% increase in absentee ballots by mail. A lot of those decisions were made and encouraged by the Secretary of State, the State Election Board, which is constitutionally set up here in Georgia. So it's not like the Secretary of State's an appointee of the governor, you know, like they are of the president or even the state of Florida. You know, they appoint their Secretary of State in Tennessee.

The legislature elects the Secretary of State. In Georgia, the Secretary of State is a statewide elected official. They have constitutional duties and authorities. And I think that was where a lot of the confusion were from people pointing bangers at me. You know, he doesn't work for me. He's elected by the people just like I am and they will hold him accountable. But a lot of those decisions that were made and things that were done were decisions that were done under the public health state of emergency. So legislative fix would not have necessarily addressed those issues.

I mean, normally in Georgia, you have 95 to 97 percent of the people that vote in person, showing their photo ID. This last election, that was not the case because of COVID and because of, you know, absentee ballot request forms being sent. out to every voter and a lot of other things that were going on and different narratives that were out there. And this is my last question. Do you anticipate when it comes to this bill, the lawsuits being filed or against this law, do you think that they'll be successful? Do you think parts of this law, do you foresee them being struck down, or can Georgians who want election integrity be pretty confident that this is going to hold up? Well, I can assure you, you know, we'll be fighting in the courtroom, just like we've fought through the legislative process, and I've been doing that for a

decade now with all these third-party groups. It doesn't matter what the policy is. Their agenda is to be against it and to sue regardless of what's in the bill, and this is a great example of that. You know, I've been fighting lawsuits and other things since, you know, 2010 and 11 and up through 13 and 14. and it's just that's also part of their playbook, unfortunately. So we'll go to the courtroom, but we're going to hire the best legal team that we can to defend the laws of the state, which is what we're supposed to do. And I think we'll be very successful. You know, a lot of these things, and, Ali, I think it's important for your listeners and other people to know.

These aren't things that were done in the last day or two of the session. Speaker Ralston had a committee that's been working on addressing, these issues ever since the aftermath of the election that started back in 2000, at the end of 2020. And then the legislative process this year, our session started in the middle of January. And these ideas and issues have been worked on and vetted by both chambers. They were different. And then there was consensus that was built on the final bill that was passed just a few days ago. So this issue's been worked on for months now, not just a few days like the left wants people to make you think. So they've been well thought out. There's been a lot of good

attorneys that look to make sure they make constitutional muster, and I believe that they will. Right. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. I know the Georgians that listen to this podcast, there's a lot of them, are going to really appreciate your insight and your clarity on this. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on. All right. So I hope that answered some questions for you. You've probably seen a lot of people living outside of Georgia talking about this law.

And this is a way, like Governor Kemp said, of trying to push HR1, which we've talked about and which I'm going to talk about in just a second. And we talked about with Representative Chip Roy a couple weeks ago. Go back and listen to that if you haven't already. But it's really important for us to look beyond the headlines. if we want any hope of being able to function cohesively as a country, which I understand many of us have given up hope on, then we have to be committed to the truth. That doesn't mean that I feel like I have a monopoly on truth.

As I've told you guys a million times, I know that I'm coming from a conservative Christian perspective. That is my worldview. That's going to color my conclusions. That doesn't mean that I am trying to approach things with confirmation bias. I'm trying to only see that which aligns with me. That's not my desire at all. I truly try to see the truth as it is,

and I never intend to lie to you guys. But that doesn't mean that I don't get it wrong. That doesn't mean that I'm not human and fallible and finite and that I have perfect access and knowledge of everything that is true. That's why I always tell you guys, go read the bill, go read the law for yourself, go do your own research, try to look at both sides of the issue. people ask me all the time, how do you try to kind of navigate through all the different pieces of information that are out there that come from the left and the right? And the truth is,

and it's the unfortunate truth, is that you can't really just read one outlet that describes a particular story or particular event and think that you are going to get a comprehensive understanding of a particular issue, because there's going to be slight editorializing and a slight bias that you might not even notice. Like we talked about with the NBC article that was describing what is in this bill, NBC is left wing. And so even though they want this article to come across as news, to come across as objective, because that's what they purport to be, you can actually see a little bit of editorializing

in it that they're only talking about what they perceive to be the negative parts of the bill. They don't talk about adding days for early voting. They only talk about the shortening. they don't talk about the fact that the law also allows there to be food trucks and that you have ample opportunity to be able to eat and drink and all of that if you're standing in line. It only talks about what it sees as the bad part of the bill because it's a law that was signed by a Republican and the narrative is that this is racist and that we don't need to be talking about voting integrity at all, that we actually need to just.

be talking about voting expansion, even if it is at the expense of voting integrity. And so I have to read the NBC article, which I actually think NBC online typically does an okay job of telling me what's going on, but I can't just rely on NBC, obviously. Like, I need to go to another outlet. So I looked at what Eric Erickson said. I think that he is pretty trustworthy. And he is a voice on the right. So he's going to have his perspective. But I have to have to. look at both sides. So I read, you know, Blaze, or The Blaze.com. I read their editorials. I read their takes on things and sometimes they'll cover things that a left wing outlet wouldn't.

I will look across the spectrum. I'll read the New York Times. I read the Wall Street Journal. I read the Washington Post. I read The Daily Wire. I read National Review. I honestly do have to look at a wide range of outlets in order to get anything close to an accurate picture of what's going on. And that's why I always encourage you guys. Obviously, I want you to come to me and to be able to trust me and to listen to this podcast for your information. And that's why I have all different kinds of people on too to give you a different perspective. But I also want you to listen to the other side. I want you to come to your own conclusions. I don't want you to only believe what I believe or just say what I say.

I want you to go as close to the primary source as you possibly can and learn for your what's really going on. And if you find a discrepancy between something that I've told you and reality, not just a difference in opinion, because I understand those exist, but something that I said in actual factual reality, then I want you to come to me. And I always appreciate you guys know that I've had conversations with me when that happens. And when I get something wrong, I do my best to correct the record on the podcast as well. And I honestly think like that's the best, I think that's the best that we can do because I got a review the other day. Maybe I already talked about this because it just made me laugh.

I told my husband about it. It was like, this podcast host is unabashedly right wing. And I was like, yes. Like I am a conservative podcaster and she like lists, or I don't know, he or she in their review like listed things that I believe. I'm like, yes, I am very open about that. I'm very open about my perspective. I have no problem with people having opinions. I have no problem with people having a bias.

As long as we own our biases and we do our best to look past our biases in order to get to truth. And we are willing to report on things that rub up against our preconceived notions or our foregone conclusions. And that's what I try to do. That's what I encourage you to do as well. What bothers me is when people say that they're unbiased or people say that. that they're only sticking to facts and they're not putting their opinions or perspectives in there. And then you read what they're saying and you realize that, well, actually, that actually is tinged with your opinion just a little bit. I think that is really the deceitful thing. It's okay to have your worldview and your perspective and your opinions and your bias.

But I think we just have to be honest about that. And so if we're talking about being able to come together as a society, especially when we just look at the political and, you know, cultural ideological polarization in this country. I don't think that it's necessary for us to pretend that we don't have opinions. Or I don't think it's necessary for someone who is a conservative like me to be like, actually, you know, I'm a moderate and I'm going to pretend to be liberal on some things. Or for a liberal to pretend to be conservative on some things to be able to come to the middle. You have your convictions, own your convictions. I think that the way that we can function as a cohesive society, if it's even possible, which I'm with a lot of you guys. I don't even know at this point

if it's possible is for us to simply be committed to the truth, even when we disagree. I don't think that we have to agree to be able to function together and to function peacefully. I think that we just have to be able to disagree in good faith and to not put nefarious characterizations on someone simply because they disagree. So for example, when it comes to this Georgia law, I don't think that it's healthy or productive, and I certainly don't think it's truthful for people who disagree with the law to say that this is a Jim Crow law that targets black people and that anyone who supports it is racist. We've also heard that when it comes to voter ID laws, that somehow even though it's unbelievably easy and it's free to get an ID, that it's bigoted. And so everyone who supports that is bigoted. How is that possible?

That people that simply care about the integrity of our elections are necessarily racist and bigoted. We cannot get along if that is how the conversations go down. And I'm not saying that I'm not guilty of that at times. Certainly, certainly I have probably mischaracterized someone who disagrees with me. And I think that's wrong. And I think that we've all got to do better about not saying if you disagree with me, you're a racist or if you disagree with me, you're a fascist or you're a communist or you're a Marxist. Maybe they are those things. Maybe your opposition is those things. But not always. Like I think if we can just disagree on things, on the merits, like, if we can just say, here's the part of the law that I disagree with or what I don't like,

here's what I don't like, and we can kind of hash it out and we can say, okay, but here's where you're wrong or here's where you're not thinking about this and vice versa. Even if we never agree, I think that's a really healthy place to be. What's dangerous, and I think where we are, is that we are unwilling, well, I would say the left more than the right is unwilling to have those debates because you've already characterized anyone who opposes you as a Nazi. And what are you going to, what are you going to do? You're not going to argue with a Nazi. You're just going to disqualify them from any kind of conversation. That's an unhealthy place to be. The left talks about democracy a lot, and yet they shut down any kind of in good faith debate or conversation

with the right by comforting themselves by saying, well, I'm on the right side of history. They're on the wrong side of history. I don't want anything to do with people who are on the wrong side of history, so I don't even have to have these conversations, which is why I think in particular on the left, they get caught up in their insulated bubbles and their versions of reality. That's something that we're going to talk about tomorrow, these two studies that came out, that show that when it comes to, there are two stories, when it comes to how many, for example, black unarmed men are killed by the police every year. Liberals think that the number is way higher than it actually is. Also, when it comes to your likelihood of being hospitalized for COVID,

liberals think that the likelihood is way higher than it is. And I think part of that is because, well, both sides have a problem with not wanting to listen to the other side at all. But in particular on the left, I think that is the product of convincing yourself that anything that is moderate, anything that is on the right is misinformation, is conspiratorial. And then you actually end up being on the side of the conspiracy theories. Like you end up being on the wrong side. And it's actually, when we look at at least those two studies, people on the right are much more likely to be able to repeat accurate information when it comes to things like COVID,

when it comes to things like police brutality. because we have to go outside of the mainstream, outside of trending headlines, in order to understand what's really going on. I do think, in general, in general, okay? On the right, there is, and I know, there are crazy people on the right. There are Q and on the right.

I totally understand that we've talked about the dangers of conspiracy theory, the dangers of Q&ON. Some of you have reached out to me and said that your, like your parents or your grandparents, or your aunt or your uncle, their life has basically been ruined by Q&M because they're so obsessed with the prophecies and the predictions and President Trump becoming president again, even after, even though Biden is president right now, like I understand the dangers of that. I understand that

things like that exist on the right. But I do think in general, and I think the studies that we'll talk about tomorrow show this, at least in part, that on the right, there is a greater commitment to understanding what's really going on, what's really going on beneath the headlines, beneath what we're being told beneath bureaucratic promises than there is on the left. And I think that that is that's the nature of conservatism. It should be the nature of conservatism to question institutions, to question big business, to question bureaucracy, to question headlines, to question narratives. And I think that skepticism towards institutions, even what is being said is science, that's really scientism, I think it's healthy. And then it ends up when you look at the studies that a conservative

is more likely to be able to tell you accurate information about, for example, COVID or police brutality than someone on the left is because leftism doesn't have as much healthy skepticism, at least the leftism that we see predominantly in the United States. Doesn't have as much healthy skepticism about headlines, about narratives, about institutions, and bureaucracies. Now, I do think that they're like true leftists or even like populist leftists that do have that skepticism. And I think that that's really good, again, even if we don't disagree. But I think that we would all be better off, all of us. Again, even if we don't come to the same conclusions, if we are a little bit more skeptical

about the things that we are being told from the powers that be. We would probably all be doing a better job of being able to separate fact from fiction. In particular, when it comes to laws like this that we're being told are Jim Crow 2.0, but when you actually look at the law, it's nothing close to that. And the unfortunate thing is the product of this is going to be, like if Democrats push HR1 and if they're successful in trying to take down this law, the process of voting is going to have less integrity. It's going to have less transparency. And you do have to wonder. And again, we can be as charitable as possible about, you know, different motivations that Democrats might have. I have no doubt that there are some Democrats who simply want to make sure that minorities in Georgia are not getting disenfranchised, that they're not being marginalized, that they are able to vote.

But you do have to wonder when they buck against. something like a voter ID law or when they say inaccurately that people aren't allowed to have food or drink in line. You have to wonder like what is actually behind that? Is there actually a desire for their not to be honesty and transparency when it comes to voting laws and when it comes to the voting process? And it's a very easy rhetorical game that they have been playing for themselves. They say, we want access to voting, and that sounds really good. And then it seems like anyone who is against them doesn't want access to voting and is therefore for voter suppression, which was a product of Jim Crow in, you know, the mid-20th century. And so it's really easy for them to kind of make that racist accusation.

But the fact is, in a democracy, which Democrats are constantly saying that they care about and want to uphold, in particular a Democratic republic like ours, it is, you have to protect the voting process. And if the voting process is not protected, then you have anarchy. Then you, then you don't have people that can actually trust in the institutions that Democrats are constantly saying they're trying to uphold. As we've talked about, for example, when we discussed the border, like if citizenship means nothing, we cease to be a sovereign nation. If there are no special protections and rights and privileges that come with citizenship, then we are no longer a legitimate country. Our laws mean nothing. We lose our ability to exact justice, to protect and provide for our citizens. We become weak. We become vulnerable to

all kinds of destruction and manipulation by enemies, foreign, and domestic. And Democrats said that they care very much about voter integrity when it came to the 2016 election. They said that that's why they're pushing this whole idea that Trump was a Russian agent and that Putin helped Trump get elected. They were willing to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on an investigation to supposedly protect election integrity, but they're not willing to say simply that a voter, that a voter has to get a free idea in order to vote to protect election integrity. So they're okay with foreign interference when it comes to the possibility of non-citizens voting, but they're very angry about foreign interference when their guy loses and they claim it's because of foreign interference. And by the way, that investigation into Russian collusion was not fruitful.

It did not come up. It did not verify their hypothesis, their original theory, but they still have the audacity to call Republicans, the conspiracy theories, and the peddlers of misinformation. And this is what I was just saying just a second ago. it's impossible for us to come together if we are not willing to say, okay, we're going to disagree, but we're going to pursue the truth. You probably, you might have heard of like Blue Anon. We were just talking about QAnon, the dangerous conspiracy theory that was predominantly on the right, a very small fraction of Republicans and conservatives even know what Q&ON is. But BluAnon, which is kind of a joke that people have been making on Twitter, is much more mainstream.

and that refers to like the conspiracy theories that Democrats, that Democrats believe in, that is hyped by the media, that is supported by Democratic lawmakers in a way that QAnon never was. Leftist conspiracy theories are a lot more mainstream. Trump being a Russian agent with literally no proof. That is BluAnon. White supremacy, killing the Asian population, even though the vast majority of these perpetrators of violence against Asians are not white. That's blue and on.

The idea that every racial disparity is evidence of racial discrimination despite evidence to the contrary, that's blue and on. Like keeping kids out of school indefinitely for COVID, despite all of the evidence saying that they should be in school, that's blue and on. And so while we've got some Q&ON-on-type people on the rights, we have a ton of blue-in-on people on the left. And until we both decide that we are going to abandon our conspiracy theories and at least just pursue the truth together, again, even if we have totally disparate conclusions, we're not going to be able to have productive dialogue about things like election integrity. We're not going to be able to talk about what's really going on at the border, for example, or we're not going to be able to talk about voting.

We're not going to be able to talk about the potential pitfalls of HR1. We're not going to be able to talk about something like the Pro Act, which is extremely consequential for a large portion of the economy, for a large portion of the country, and it's completely bipartisan. But we can't have those conversations if we are so committed to our false narratives. Again, difference in opinion is okay. Difference in politics is okay. but we both have to have the same fair commitment to what's really going on.

And I'm just afraid that the coverage that has characterized this law in Georgia is not fair, that it's not accurate. You can have criticisms of it without saying that anyone supports it. Is a Jim Crow racist? I mean, that doesn't benefit anyone. Like, you're not benefiting the minority community by lying like that. You're just fearmongering. Again, like Governor Kemp said, you're trying to raise money.

you're trying to make people angry. You're trying to stir up your activist base, whatever it is. But it's not based on accurate information. And I don't think anyone on the left or the right benefits from that. So that's all we've got time for today. I really want to talk about the border and what's going on there and the media hypocrisy when it comes to that. I want to talk also about these vaccine passports.

I've been listening to a lot of information on the left and the right about that. I said something on Twitter that it is, it's crazy. Speaking of like vaccine passports and the border, bringing those two things together, it's crazy to think that apparently American citizens are going to be forced to have this vaccine passport in order to just live their everyday life and go out in public. But illegal immigrants, we know from reports, many of them, thousands of them, are not even getting tested for the coronavirus before they are being transported in large groups by the thousands to different cities and conventions. centers and hotels on the taxpayer dime throughout the country. And so, and that along with talking about voter integrity and Democrats pushing against voter

ID laws, I mean, that's just, that's just all crazy. And I have a lot to say about all of that, but I don't have time to get into it all today because we just ended up talking about this one subject. So I'm going to talk about some of it tomorrow. I'm going to talk about Derek Chauvin trial tomorrow. Again, we're going to talk about what just. actually looks like and what biblical justice really looks like and why this is important some of the racialized narratives that we've been hearing recently. Also, I think that if we have

time, we're going to talk about the filibuster tomorrow because we're also being told that the filibuster has to do with Jim Crow, like it's a relic of Jim Crow, even though both Biden and Barack Obama have defended it fiercely for many years. And then on Thursday, I think that we are going to focus, we're going to focus entirely on Easter. And it's going to be another just strictly theological episode, if that's something that you guys want. But gosh, I've got a lot of news to get to, too, like about the border and all of that. And so you guys let me know.

You let me know what you want, what you're interested in hearing for the next couple of days. You guys are my executive producers. I take my cues, ultimately content-wise, from you guys. So you just reach out to me. you let me know what you want to hear in the next couple days and in the next week or so. All right. I'll see you guys back here tomorrow.