Tangle - INTERVIEW: Isaac talks with US Senate Candidate Zach Shrewsbury

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Zach Shrewsbury is a Marine Corps veteran, the grandson of a coal miner, a working-class Democrat, a father, and a proud West Virginian progressive candidate running for US Senate. He talked with Isaac about his background, community organizing efforts, "people first" policy priorities, and his embrace of the socialist label. Shrewsbury also talks about his military experience and how it informs his pro-peace foreign policy views and his thoughts on departing Senator Joe Manchin's record. Check out a Special Edition of Tangle⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.You can watch our latest YouTube video, The Zionist Case for a Ceasefire, here.Catch up on Episode 1 of our first ever limited podcast series, The Undecideds, before the next one comes out. We're following five voters — all Tangle readers — who are undecided about who they are going to vote for in the 2024 election. In Episode 1, we introduce you to those voters. You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our general admission tickets are now sold out for our New York City event on April 17th,; but we still have some VIP seats left for purchase. Get them here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, a socialist running for the Senate in West Virginia. In just a moment, we're going to speak with Zach Shrewsbury, a former U.S. Marine who's throwing his hat into the ring in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate as an unabashed progressive. Zach had some interesting stuff to tell us about why he thinks his strategy might work. He shared his unfiltered views on soon-to-be former Senator Joe Manchin and current President

Joe Biden and told us what he's hearing on the ground in West Virginia, where one of the most important Senate races of 2024 is right around the corner. I hope you guys enjoy the show. Zach Shrewsbury, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it, man. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for having me on.

So listen, I'm not sure how to say this other than you're just an interesting candidate. I am curious to hear about how you plan to sell yourself to the people of West Virginia. I think maybe a good place to start is if you could just give us a little bit of an overview of your background. I mean, who you are as a person and what led you to jump into this race. Yeah, sure. So I'm a native West Virginian. I joined the Marine Corps right out of high school after a small semester in college. I did two and a half years in a fleet anti-terrorism security team,

the other two and a half in regular infantry. When I got out, I moved back home after a few years to take care of my grandmother. I saw West Virginia was just suffering. You know, it was a lot worse off than when I had left it. So I want to do something about it. So I dived into community organizing. That's delivering water to communities that have poison water, which is still an ongoing issue. I was just at an event the other day, and we were doing the same thing.

We had some problems with just clean drinking water. I was feeding the homeless across the state with a lot of good organizers there. almost across the state with a lot of good organizers there. I got picked up by different organizations, pushing for legislation from Charleston, D.C., like Build Back Better, Freedom to Vote Act for People Act, the PRO Act. I'm very big on unions and labor. The renewable energy is another thing I'm really big on,

trying to bring renewable manufacturing jobs to West Virginia. I've been pushing for solar panels to come to the coal fields. So essentially, I mean, my background is that of, you know, a working class guy. I come from, you know, working class background. I couldn't afford college, so I joined the Marines. Then once I got out, I just, I went back to doing, you know, blue collar work. And then I started doing politics. I found out that I'm pretty good at it, and I wanted to run for something.

Frankly, I had worked trying to push Senator Manchin to do the right thing multiple times, but really, trying to think of the wording there, whatever broke the camel's back, I can't remember the right wording for that, but the phrase, was when he was caught on hot mic saying that the child tax credit in West Virginia was just spent on drugs. That bothered me immensely. We need the child tax credit. We need that kind of help.

So I decided to, you know what, I'm going to primary center in your mansion. And the straw broke the camel's back. There you go. But, yeah, so I put this as a plan. and uh Charlie broke his back there you go um but yeah so I put this is a plan all the way back in 2022

November of 2022 um I put my team together uh we looked at different races as well but Manchin was always a

uh target and then uh we launched October 15th of 2023 with everything in place and uh then he shortly retired afterward and we've been on the ground ever since hooking and jabbing. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that sort of caught my eye is that you haven't really shied away from some political labels that I think conventional political wisdom would say are sort of disastrous for any campaign, let alone one in West Virginia,

including the label socialist. So I was interested if you could maybe define that term for yourself and then talk to me a little bit about whether you worry, you know, calling yourself a socialist might alienate you from from otherwise persuadable voters. No, I've known I've been I've been a socialist for a long time. And I don't shy away from it because, one, I think we need to destigmatize that word. Socialism is advocating for the working class, and power comes from the bottom up. We need to unionize workplaces. We need to make sure workers are protected. They can't come from the billionaire, millionaire class.

Capitalism is destroying us ultimately. So we need to start really looking at to a different economic system. And, you know, there's multiple ways to work towards that. For me, I'm taking the, you know, I've been on the ground boots organizing. Now I'm on the electoral path. And it's all that together as working class people, we have to push towards a better future from the on the ground-ground organizer to the guy running for office. It takes all of us. So yeah, no, I don't shy away from that because,

one, I think it's an overused attack term. I mean, the Republicans call Senator Manchin a socialist. They call Joe Biden a socialist. I mean, if you're anything that's not center-right, you're a socialist. So I mean, you're going to get called no matter, if you're anything that's not center right, you're a socialist. So, I mean, you're going to get called it no matter what if you're playing in the Democrat politics. So I just said, well, I want to own it. So, I mean, why not? And that's kind of the portion of my campaign that I don't see. It hasn't been a problem for me when I'm talking to voters here, especially even with your, say, Trump supporters, you know, ultimately West Virginians value someone who is authentic, you know. And I've been trying to stress this a lot. How people play politics now isn't real, but people can see through it.

You know, your average politician always does just that beat around the bush political speak where they dodge the question. And everyone sees through that now. Thanks to social media and everything, you can tell when someone's doing that you're not fooling the room you know i'm talking like you're you're professional politicians like mansion you're you're you know you're mcconnell's of the world you know we're not falling for it anymore so i'm very much my genuine self i answer the question and i don't think we keep going on and ultimately like i said it comes down to it's not so label, it comes down to what are people actually need in West Virginia? And I know that I know those answers because I've been that person.

I've been in the shoes of working class Americans and a lot of our politicians have not. You've been a pretty outspoken critic of outgoing Senator Joe Manchin. And you mentioned the child tax credit as being the straw that broke the camel's back. And I know that's one of the big reasons you decided to get into the race, even before he decided he wasn't going to run again. Are there elements of Manchin's tenure, though, that you think were good or valuable for West Virginia? I mean, what kind of upside do you think he had as a senator? Sure uh senator mansion was uh he was always pretty pro-union um he protected unions rather well um uh it's it's he i think mansion started

out back in the day with good enough intentions and then i don't i don't know what's happened once he got that senate seat it it really just became a downhill pattern for just corporate money. So, I mean, I'm not going to attack Senator Manchin's character. I will attack his policies all day. So, I mean, I don't know. He seemed to have sold out very heavily with corporations. But the one thing I'll say is he capped West Virginia relevant. You know, he did.

I mean, no matter how you feel about it, he kept us in a space where everyone knows what West Virginia is. And for a state like us, that's important. And that's also one of my talking points here, is that no matter how we, if you hate or love

Senator Manchin, with his retirement, you now have an open Senate seat where you have to pick the right person. If you put someone like Jim Justice, or Colbert,

into that seat, Western Jews are going to fade into oblivion, and America's going to suffer. So this is our one election that actually puts someone in that's going to fight for us. So this is a senator who managed to step it aside. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. If you were elected to the Senate, you would be one of the most, I mean, arguably one of the hundred most influential people in U.S. foreign policy. And one of the things that kind of stands out on your resume is your time serving

in the Marines from 2010 to 2015. Could you talk to me a little bit about how your experience in the military has informed some of your political views and maybe where you stand on some of the big foreign policy issues that the country's facing right now? Sure. So I'm very pro-peace. policy issues the country's facing right now? Sure. So I'm very pro-peace. I'm pro-C-SPIRE and the Gaza-Israel situation. I've been pro-peace in the Ukraine-Russia situation. Each situation is fluid. So foreign policy has to always stay open to the answer. Anyone that gives you a straightforward answer on a lot of it and you can't because things keep um moving with that but how the military affected me i mean you know i joined as an 18 year old then yeah i'm i'm fighting for freedom i'm here for serve the country in all reality you get there you're like man i'm really just fighting for corporations why why you know

what are we at what are one of our people what are our guys doing here you know what are we doing i mean i didn't i didn't go to afghanistan i I went to Asia a lot and we trained, uh, military is there, but even then you're just, you know, you're just kind of like, what is our, what is our actual goal? What's our mission here? And you see the defense contractors, um, soaking up money and you, it just really just, you start diving into it. I mean, for me, the military gave me lifelong friends. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural

who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting

a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at fluselvax.ca. Discipline, leadership skills that I've developed from there. It also gave me access to the world, so to speak. That's just how it influenced my politics was it gave me access. West Virginia, you know, we didn't exactly have broadband internet often or not. We didn't have, you don't get to really break out of your mindset Or shell here, so when I joined the Marines

And I found internet access Basically, it started with an Occupy Wall Street video And I'm like, man, what's this about? Why are these rich People laughing at the people in the streets on balconies? That bothered me And then I watched Capitalism and Love Story by Michael Moore And it just

Cycled after that. But yeah, I mean, the military influenced me very heavily on discipline, leadership skills, and foreign policy. I don't want to see boots to the ground all over the place, especially when it makes no sense for American troops to be there. So like I said, I'm very pro-peace end of the day. So you've remained pretty confident, I mean, even in this interview, as an unabashed progressive candidate that you could win a statewide race in West Virginia, which is now one of the most conservative states in the country. What's your plan to appeal to some of these conservative voters who are going to

see a D next to your name and not want to vote for you? I mean, knowing you'll need their support in order to win. It's not necessarily a Republican-held state here. It's a state of desperation. West Virginians are desperate for anyone to listen to them. That's why Bernie Sanders outpolled Trump here in 2016. But as we know, Bernie didn't make it, and Trump did. And Trump's a con man. Trump con people here.

But the thing is, he remains relevant because he listened to West Virginia. No one ever listens to us. And that's my strategy. It's been a rather successful strategy. Of course, you always find the haters who hate you because you just have a dex of your name. But I've talked to a lot of Republicans and in the day, I'm the only person that's been at their door, ever. The only person ever running for office, ever knocking on their door and asking them, what do you need?

How can I help you? We might disagree on social issues, absolutely, but you don't have food on your table, your roads are falling apart, and there's no jobs here. The nearest Walmart's an hour away. How the hell can we fix it? And it goes well.

People across party lines like seeing someone from the working class want to represent them. We've had millionaires, coal barons. We've had lawyers. We have people from very rich backgrounds who don't understand the daily struggles of working class people. That's what I'm trying to get across here is that no matter where you're at, I get it. it and i know what i'm doing here and if you want someone to advocate for you and today it will be me it won't be jim justice because and it's gone well as i said of course there's always it's going to be an uphill battle no matter what but i mean you can't you can't persuade um west virgin with another mansion-type Democrat.

You need a working-class person. What's your assessment of President Biden's first term so far? Obviously, if you are West Virginia's Democratic candidate for the Senate, you'll be running with Biden at the top of the ticket. Do you think he helps or hurts you in your campaign? How do you view his first four years so far? Most Democrat presidential candidates hurt every Democrat campaign in West Virginia. I'm not very particularly positive on Biden's first four years. I did push for a build back better very hard. I was very proud of that. I think he had a lot of good starting out. That mansion messed up.

But Biden's definitely lost beyond the conflict in Gaza very harshly. And the Ukraine situation's very complicated on that matter with Russia involved.

And I'm trying to think of the other thing that Biden did. He crushed a railroad strike. I might trying to think of the other thing that Biden did. He crushed the railroad strikes. I might be phrasing that wrong. I have a lot of harsh critiques towards Biden, just to be honest about it.

He also, he did what I'm trying to think of right now, student debt. He ran on canceling student debt and he has started doing that, which is a debt. He ran on canceling student debt. And he has started doing that, which is a positive. But I think he needs to do more. It doesn't he shouldn't be just political pressure to do that. So, I mean, mixed bag.

I think Biden started out decent enough. But I think he's good. He's dropping the ball very hard towards the election right now. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Have you been surprised by anything that you've heard from voters on the campaign trail? I mean, what kind of stuff are you coming across? You know, you mentioned knocking on doors from West Virginia residents that might be surprising to some folks or were surprising to you in terms of issues that people really care about right now. I mean, ultimately, it's kind of, I want to say surprised, so to speak, but like I've been saying, it's kind of just once you remove the national politics, the socialists, unless they remove the social issues and get down to the brass tacks of it all, it's all the same. Everybody has the same concerns,

no matter if they're Democrat, Republican, what have you. It all comes down to everyone's worried about their families and they're very worried about their communities. Like I said, I was just a few days ago helping deliver bottles of water to a community. I mean, this is America. I mean, let's be real. We're still delivering clean water to communities in West Virginia. I mean, what the hell is that about? Why why can't why haven't we fixed that yet and you know then that's the then that's that's a heavily you can say a really heavily red area you know but like it shouldn't

matter people are suffering so ultimately one of that that's not i guess i guess you say it's kind of surprising for maybe someone outside of west virginia that really when it comes down to it is we're all we're all the same we all all want the same thing, a decent wage, job opportunities, and the ability to protect their families. Obviously, you are not the only Democrat running in this race. I'm curious what you're telling voters about what differentiates you from the other Democratic candidates in the primary. I haven't really said anything about my other opponents that much. I've had a four-month head start on both of them. Only one of them is a real Democrat.

The other one is a person that belongs in jail, Don Blankenship. I don't know why he's even in this race. I guess they just remain relevant. The other one, Mary Elliott, seems like a very nice man. He's the mayor of Wheeling. What it comes down to is I think we're both trying to fight for West Virginia, but we both have different tactics about it. So, as I said, I'm going about it in a very unique, different way.

Yeah. So, um, as I'm going about it in a very unique, different way. And, uh, yeah. So I mean, I said, I don't have anything. I don't have anything really disparaging to say about it. It hasn't really come up in conversation, but we do have three people running this myself, Mary Elliot and, uh, you know, Don Blankenship, whatever reason he's running. If you know anything about, if you know anything about anything about him, you'll, you'll understand why I have that reaction. Yeah. anything about anything about him you'll you'll understand why i have that reaction yeah i mean i guess you know maybe i'm more interested in looking at the democratic party as a whole where you think you kind of diverge from them because it does seem like you're running because

you don't think another democrat's going to come out of West Virginia that has the right priorities. That'd be accurate. I don't think – I think my tactics can pull me through this race or at least get me – my tactics will get me on the board. If we run people with a moderate standpoint or a moderate talking point like Senator Manchin. The reason why Senator Manchin's not running is because he couldn't beat Jim Justice. You know, he also had a lot of skeletons in his closet. But, I mean, you can't run the same old, same old talking points. It's not going to work.

And I guess this election, we'll see who's right on that as well. I guess I don't really tow the party line, so to speak. I very much do my own thing. I definitely have. I definitely help work alongside Democrats, Democratic Party a lot. But I don't necessarily just do whatever the party says is right. You know, I'm saying I'm very much in kind of a wild card. I guess on that note, before you get out of here, I'm curious if you could maybe tell me, you know, let's walk down the hypothetical a little bit here. You get elected to the Senate and you become West Virginia's next senator. What are you going to prioritize going into that chamber? I mean, what would be the first thing that you try and get done as a senator in the United States Senate? We immediately start needing to be pushed for renewable energy manufacturing jobs to come to Appalachia, especially West Virginia, to allow that justified transition for miners. A lot of that's the biggest. A lot of times people push about it and they keep saying, hey, you know, let's we're going to. They do very, very direct terms of, hey, we're just going to kill jobs.

No, you're not doing that. What we need to have is a justified transition, protect workers, then also help the climate. And that produces jobs, you know, build the solar panels, build the windmills in West Virginia, so to speak. So that'd be the one biggest thing I would start pushing for. so that'd be the one biggest thing i would start pushing for also we need to bring unions back to this country um hard like right to work laws are destroying our states left and right and we need to win i see the union movement being brought back um very well so far um so i think we need to really uh hone in on that and embrace that as a different especially at the democratic party need if they want to they want to really harness the working class again, then start boosting unions up across this country.

All right, Zach Shrewsbury, if people want to keep up with your campaign and follow along, where's the best place for them to do that? Go to shrewsburyforsenate.com. You can sign up for my email list, and then you'll start getting all the emails. And also, I'm on all social media. All right, thanks a lot for the time, Zach.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager.

Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll be right back. about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.