The Daily Signal - 'Propaganda Extravaganza' Coming to Chicago

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

The Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago on Monday, giving Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz an opportunity to present their vision for America. But don’t be fooled by the Democrats’ glitzy gala, says John Tillman, CEO of the American Culture Project and chairman of the Illinois Policy Institute. “We’re going to see one of the greatest propaganda extravaganzas in the history of politics. It will make Hollywood look like amateurs in comparison,” Tillman tells The Daily Signal. Enjoy the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A city government, and even the state government or federal government, has to do three things, has to provide security, has to give educational opportunities to children, and has to provide economic opportunity for all people. The city of Chicago is failing in all three of those, and that's what's coming to America should they get control of our federal government. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, August 19th. I'm your host, Rob Bluey, and that was the voice of John Tillman, CEO of the American Culture Project and chairman of the Illinois Policy. Institute. With the Democratic National Convention starting today in Chicago, I spoke with Tillman about what to expect in the windy city. From his vantage point in Illinois, he's had an up-close view of the destructive policies pursued by the city's progressive Democrats and the devastating consequences that have resulted for residents who live there. Ever the optimist, Tillman believes the

tide is turning and shares some examples to prove his point. And speaking of Chicago, you'll want to keep tabs on the daily signals coverage of the convention this week. My colleagues, Tim Kennedy and Tony Kinnett, will be there to report on what's happening, along with the rest of the team who will be following the events each night. Now, stay tuned for our interview right after this. The Heritage Foundation is the most effective conservative policy organization in the country. Every semester, our interns are a vital part of that mission. We pay competitively.

We develop talent, and we give our interns access to some of the sharpest minds in the country. We're going on off. So join us. To learn more about the Young Leaders Program here at the Heritage Foundation, please go to heritage.org slash intern. We are joined at the Daily Signal today by John Tillman. He's the CEO of the American Culture Project and the chairman of the Illinois Policy Institute. John, it's good to see you again. Great to be with you again. Happy Monday. It's an exciting Monday. Yes, it sure is. And you have a big event coming to your state and the city of Chicago,

the Democratic National Convention. I also want to talk about the work you're doing at the American Culture Project and IPI, but let's talk about cities, specifically the city of Chicago and the work that you've done to try to bring free market ideas and different reforms to many of these places

which seem to be led by pretty radical progressive Democrats. And here you have the Democratic Party, which will be on display in the city of Chicago. What are your expectations for what's going to take place at the DNC? We're going to see one of the greatest propaganda extravaganzas in the history of politics. It will make Hollywood look like amateurs in comparison. We've already had a preview of this propaganda effort by the Harris campaign since she became the nominee.

And what they're going to try to paper over in Chicago is the policy results from radical, liberal, progressive Democrats who really want to take the country and perhaps even a communist or Marxist direction. which I think is not preposterous to say, given some of the rhetoric that has come out of them. But in Chicago, long run by Democrats, the most radical elements of the Democrat Party, you have schools that fail. The poorest children, particularly African Americans and Hispanic kids who can't learn, can't read, can't write, don't graduate with the skills necessary to participate in today's economy and today's society. You have violence that grows every single day. My daughter's car was stolen. I had a good experience with the city of Chicago's really lovely machine. of how you get your car back when it's been stolen.

You have jobs fleeing the city and the state. This is what Democratic governance actually does, and they're going to try to paper over that by creating a fictional account of how great everything is. Well, let's go back in Chicago history. You mentioned a long time been run by Democrats. And in recent years, we all hear in other parts of the country about the crime epidemic that's plagued Chicago.

But you also hear about some of the other not-so-great policies that are coming out of that city and its leadership. So when you have the Democratic Party, which is showcasing the city of Chicago, what does that tell us about what direction that you think that they might want to take our country and why it might not be the best approach in terms of the results that you've seen in Chicago?

Yeah, it's a really interesting thing to go back and look at the history of Chicago's governance in the Democratic Party when I moved there in 1985. The running joke, for those of you who are Godfather fans, I would joke with my friends from the McEnough Center in Michigan, and using the mob analogy and the Godfather analogy, and I'd always say, you guys got a mayor, you got Mayor Fredo. Remember Fredo, the brother who was not very competent?

We at least got Michael. He was a competent, Don, running the mafioso that was Chicago governance, but they were competent, and they were pro-free market, pro-free enterprise. That has completely shifted. They're all about the government now having the commanding heights of every aspect of our economy and our society. they really believe the unions should be in the commanding heights as well. The Chicago Teachers Union is now the most powerful force in Chicago politics as well as the state.

And they're the biggest funders of politics that teachers unions are in general and the CTO specifically. And of course, a former CTO member is now the mayor of Chicago, Mayor of Brandon Johnson. And in every aspect, you know, a city government and even a state government or a federal government has to do three things. It has to provide security, has to give educational opportunities to children, and it has to to provide economic opportunity for all people. The city of Chicago is failing in all three of those, and that's what's coming to America, should they get control of our federal government

in a trifecta way. John, what type of political diversity exists in Chicago? You paint a picture where it seems that progressive Democrats are running the show with the support of unions. Are there any other alternative or heterodox voices that even have an opportunity to present an alternative vision? Yes, and that's such a great question because actually it is not as monolithic as I just depicted. They do have the commanding heights of political control and the media is aligned with them.

So it feels like they are in the supermajority. They're actually not. And I'll give you a couple of examples. In 2020, the state of Illinois, the Democrat legislature put on the ballot of progressive income tax. We currently have a constitutionally protected flat tax. And they want to change it to a progressive tax, which is always a terrible thing for taxpayers of all income levels. And we were at the center of that with many other people, a good team effort across the spectrum of defeating that by about 6.7 points back in 2020. But the city of Chicago voted for that progressive tax by 71%.

Meanwhile, when Brandon Johnson gets in, they announced that they want to have the so-called mansion tax, what they called Bring Home Chicago. This is a wealth tax on expensive properties, relatively expensive properties to the national standards, a million dollars or more. But in the city of Chicago, huge numbers of middle class people own properties worth a million. and they put a surcharge on any time that property was sold, was going to bring hundreds of millions of dollars. It's never been defeated anywhere it's been tried. And we led that campaign at the Illinois Policy Institute where I'm chairman, and we defeated that by eight points, 54 to 46, just this past spring.

So the question is, how those same voters, how do you get that to flip? And also the mayor's race last spring between Brandon Johnson and a Democrat reformer Paul Valis, about 100,000, not about 30,000 votes separated. them out of several hundred thousand cast. And so Paul Valis, the reformer, almost won that election. It would have been one of the great upsets in history. And so there's definitely a rising reform-minded pro fiscal restraint and fiscal responsibility within the Democrat constituents.

People, not everybody sees it. And I think what we've seen is we've done a lot of work at the Illinois Policy Institute, the team there, Matt Pat Brockian, the whole team there have done a great job of really educating Chicago voters. unaware Brandon Johnson wants to take the city. And we've really curtailed his power. He has not been able to pass his tax hikes. He wanted $800 million in tax hikes.

He's not been able to get that. He wanted over a billion dollars from the state of Illinois. He's not been able to get that because he's become so unpopular. For 30 or 40 years, the CTO had an approval rating of 65%. They're now down in the 30s. And that's following, we launched a campaign to educate the public on the CTO's power and have helped to bring those numbers back to where they should be, which is making them very unpopular and thus curtailing that power.

Well, sure. And, I mean, at a time when it seems that parents nationwide are demanding more educational freedom and options for their kids, if you have a powerful union like the CTO, which is putting up roadblocks to that, certainly I would expect their popularity to plummet. John, let me ask you this question. You know, not far from Chicago, I was up the road in Milwaukee. The Daily Signal was there for the Republican National Convention. It was described by semaphore as the happiest place on earth. obviously a lack of protests or really many disruptions.

Do you foresee anything different happening in Chicago? There seems to be angst in the Democratic Party over the position on Israel and Palestine and other issues or has largely that dissipated and the chatter about that dissipated in the wake of Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden. Such a great question. By the way, it was my first convention. I did run up to Milwaukee and spent some time up there.

And it was a joyful, wonderful experience. And I always kid around that. If you compared the 2024 tattoo ratio to the 1996 tattoo ratio at the two Republican conventions, the 2024 tattoo ratio is winning about 10 to 1, which shows you how much more of a working class, middle class party, the Republican Party has become. It was such a diverse crowd, a happy crowd. It was really, really interesting and very different than it used to be in the past. But the Democrats, they're a little bit schizophrenic right now.

They're all, they're trying to get everybody to unite behind Kamala and tamp down all. their inner turmoil. But they have some real problems. You know, they did not pick Josh Shapiro, the very popular and very effective political campaigner, governor of Pennsylvania because he's Jewish. And when you have one of the two major parties not be able to pick a nominee for high office because of their anti-Semitism in their own party, that tells you a lot. And I think what's interesting is radical as the Democrat Party has become as radical as the ticket is with Harrison Walls. there are still some who want to take it further to the left and further pro-Palestinian against and aligned against Israel.

So I expect to see some protest. There are some people that will not be denied their opportunity to protest, and I think we're going to see some of that. John, let's talk about the policy issues that are animating this campaign. Obviously, the economy and inflation continues to be a top issue. So does immigration border security? You know, if you're a conservative, what do you think the American people are looking for for the next four years and maybe a break from what they've experienced under Biden and Harris.

It's kind of shocking when you think back when Biden was running against Trump in 2020, his whole campaign was built around the idea of returning till normalcy. And we've had anything but that. We have the Democrat Party advocating the gentle mutilation of children with quote-unquote gender-affirming care, which is a bizarre. And to quote Tim Wall's weird policy to advocate for, whatever your thoughts are on the trans issues for adults, The idea that a party is advocating for that, I think that's kind of strange and abnormal.

The fact that we have an open border and literally are being invaded by people who want to destroy the American miracle that has existed for over 230 plus years is really, I think, resonating with the American people, securing our border in these times and still being a pro-immigration country, Trump has made it very clear he's pro-immigration, but controlled and we get to decide who comes in and who doesn't. I think that's a common sense, normal policy. The idea that we've given up our energy independence and become more dependent on people under this administration is abnormal. I think Trump wants to return us to the idea that we should have independence in terms of energy and get as much of our domestic production up to not just lower costs, but to make life better for working class and poor people. One of the things you can do to find out the impact of the Biden administration on energy costs, next time you go to the gas station to fill up, walk around the pumps and see how many people are prepaying with cash, $10, $5, $20.

I check every time I go fill up and I'm blessed. Probably most of your listeners are blessed. We put the credit card in and we fill up, $65, $70, whatever it might be. But look at all the people. I'd say about three, or rather one third of every pump I look at, people are prepaying a limited amount of money. That's why these policies matter. And so Trump wants to return the country to normal, pro-American, optimistic, internally focused on being great again, which I think from my point of view seems good. Now, there's many problems with Donald Trump.

Let's not put that aside. But when you look at the contrast between his policies and theirs, it seems like if you want to stay, keep America as amazing a miracle as it has been, there's only one choice. Well, and certainly you know about those policy issues as well, having many years led the Illinois Policy Institute now serving as chairman. You're currently the CEO of the American Culture Project. Tell our listeners and viewers about that organization, the work that you do.

We focus on several things. Number one is we want to educate the public on the power of the, the teachers unions. Right now, the teachers union, one of the dirty little secrets is the teachers unions give the vast majority of their political spending. They're the largest hard dollar political giver in the country, and they give most of it to Democrats. But they carve out enough of that to key Republicans in key pivotal states, red states and purple states in particular, and in essence, buy off Republicans to block reforms. What we just saw happen with Governor Abbott in Texas is a very good example of that. Prior to that, what Governor Reynolds did in Iowa, where they both

went in the primaries after Republicans who essentially were aligned with the teachers unions are really good examples of that. So the American Culture Project wants to educate all Republican voters, particularly in the primary and all voters, Democrat Republican and dependent on the power of the teachers unions and how they actually harm our children, harm our communities, and hurt educational performance. So that's one of our major projects. The other one is we're doing a ton of work in Georgia and we're about to add a few more states on early voting and vote by mail. We've been running these campaigns now for years very effectively and we get voters out through our digital and social media campaigns.

Well, let's talk about that first one, Teachers Union. I mean, we've seen it. I've covered stories in Alabama, for instance, where you've seen this play out. The Texas one is a very prominent example, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, of course, former president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. I know it's an issue that he's passionate about

is bringing school choice to that state. And yet you have the unions, which time and time again, stand in the way or find Republicans who stand in the way and block these reforms. Do you feel like you're making progress in that regard and has the sentiment toward teachers' union shifted at all post-COVID? Yeah, I quoted those numbers that we're seeing in Chicago. So we've had a sustained campaign to educate Chicago voters on the Chicago Teachers Union. They've gone from plus 65 to down to 35 approval rating.

And so, yes, what we've learned is that when you tell voters and parents of children in schools that the teachers unions don't have your children's best interest at heart. And you start to cite the data. Chicago is a great example. is about $30,000 per student. And, you know, in some schools, not a single kid can read at grade level in third grade. In most cases, it's around 10 or 15 or 20 percent are reading at grade level and it doesn't get better when they get older. The dirty little secret, though, is this is going on in suburban schools that people perceive as top notch. They're not. And it's because the incentives of the union are aligned against better educational flexibility and adaptation to any kids' needs. And that's why school choice matters so much. It's why Kevin's work at TPP Office, so important and heritage has long been an advocate. And there is a trend line in our favor. I think we're up to 11 states now that have some level of school choice. And the school choice movement is actually on the rise and moving. And it puts the unions in a very difficult position having to say parents shouldn't have a choice as what's best for their child. We know best. And of course,

they are the experts with all the credentials. And we saw how that went with the pandemic, right? So there's some skepticism now to that thinking. And that's why I think school choice movement is going to be one of the great stories of this century. No, it certainly seems that way. And thank you for sharing those encouraging numbers about the number of states that are adopting universal school choice policies or giving parents more freedom.

Your second issue you focused on was related to voting. Obviously, this was a big contention in 2020. As a result of COVID, we saw a number of states change the rules in many cases, maybe not doing so in a way that was in accordance with the Constitution. What is your assessment of how things look

on this day in August as we approach the November election? Well, so you might hear the black helicopter in the background, so it could be landing at any moment to pick me up. So here we go. So I really think what is interesting about the whole 2020 phenomena is you know that they wanted to have a looser integrity in the election process when they said, we're going to mass mail ballots to everybody, and we're going to reduce the signature verification requirement.

if they were actually concerned with integrity in the balloting process and making sure that every ballot is protected, they would have said, we're going to mass mail everybody ballots, and we're going to increase the scrutiny of the signature process, and then let the ones that are questionable be educated, educated later. They didn't do that. So now here we are in 2024. And what has happened on the right is there's lots of people on the right who raised a fair amount of money, including myself and my colleagues, to actually get involved in early voting vote by mail. And we started experimenting with this in 2020.

We did a larger program in 2022 in Illinois. We did a very large program in the mayor's race that was very successful in 2020. Then we did a large program in 2023 in the Virginia legislative races. So we've had some experience of this. Now we have some really good data on cost per vote. And one of the keys to all of this is cost per vote. And so there's lots of people doing it in lots of ways. And I think that is very good.

Lots of practitioners out there trying to figure out in the key states how to take advantage of these rules. because the only way to revert back to paper ballots like France has, or most of Europe has, is to gain political power and build or reverse these laws that make it very easy for corruption. The thing that worries me and the white reason I'm worried about the black helicopter is they still have a very, the Democrats have a very good ballot harvesting machine. And a lot of times I'm not sure that every individual actually votes every ballot that goes into the system. We can have that debate another day. So it's important that our side that believes in liberty, believes in the policies we've been discussing, and from a nonpartisan point of view, but believes in the American construct is very focused on harvesting balance as well within the legal system.

John, can you share with our audience how they can support the work of the American Culture Project or Illinois Policy Institute for that matter? Illinois Policy is easy to find at Illinois Policy.org. I was longtime CEO there for some years. And then American Culture Project is 8. Culture.org. You can find me on X at at John M. Tillman. And you can also search the commanding heights.com. Okay, I'd be remiss if I didn't also ask you about your support of alternative media. As somebody who obviously has led an organization, the Daily Signal, for the past decade, it's really important to have champions like you out there who are encouraging those of us to create different and alternative structures to the existing legacy media. Talk about the state of conservative or libertarian or just, you know, right of center media today. And what opportunities you think exist for the future and where you see things going? I've written quite a bit about this. I have an essay called the history of communication.

And it's about where we are in the 21st century. I spent most of my time back in the last century in the direct marketing business. And the anomaly that your listeners will certainly understand is the 20th century was an anomaly in human history. It was mass communication for the first time. The 21st century is going to be direct marketing one-to-one communication. So the key to our side is to build what I call data collection funnels where we obtain names and addresses, email, snail mail, cell phones for text messaging. And we build one-to-one marketing machines so that we can bypass legacy media's dominance

of the traditional pipelines of content. The battle is all about content, customized for audience, and then distribution. And we have to be competing in both. I think that the right of center movement has come so far in fairly short order. The area that we need to do better at is that we're really good, I think, now, at communicating with our base, you know, very much so. I'm chairman of Franklin News Foundation that has the Center Square product. That is a wire service that competes with the Associated Press. It is centrist media, a fact-based, taxpayers' voice in every story.

So it doesn't have any ideological point of view. It's just fact-based taxpayer-centric. And that means the stories are written a little differently than what the AP will write. We need to do more to appeal to those people in the center and the soft left that are getable. And that's where I think we need to invest along with data and analytics. Let me ask you this question about that audience. It seems that increasingly they're getting their news from a variety of different sources, including social media.

And so what has your approach been in terms of this direct communication and thinking about, you know, how to actually persuade them, perhaps on, persuade them on two fronts, not number one, just to pay attention to policy issues, which don't necessarily have the same sex appeal as entertainment news or sports or other things that might compete with their attention. And then secondly, when it comes to actually the policy work

of organizations like Illinois Polys Institute of the Heritage Foundation or so many other state think tanks, what are some of the tactics that you've found successful? Andrew Breitbart was well known for having said that politics is downstream of culture. The other side of that coin that I always talk about is winning elections is upstream of the election. And what I mean by that, I talked earlier about our victory on the mansion tax that was this past spring in 2024, that we won by eight points. We knew it was coming. We started communicating to voters about that in January of 2023.

So by the time the election season rolled around, we had 12 months. of educating voters pre-election in a way that was much more consumable and not election focused. It was just about the truth of what was going on on that policy and how it would affect their lives. And so I think one of the things we need to understand is that it is a 24-7 business, 365, and we need to be communicating with voters and the American people every single day about issues and how that affects them. So that's part A. Part B is, and this is something I think our side struggles with, is we have to sell in the language the target audience consumes. Too many people on the right, in my humble opinion, want to sell the language we get that we love.

To bring people over from the other side, it's a little bit like the old child's game that some of your viewers might remember, Red Rover, Red Rover, let Robb come over. You're inviting people over, and if you have your arms linked and if they can't break through, then they're on your team. That's what we're trying to do with our communications. And you want to communicate them when you're calling Red Rover, Red Rover, let the soft Democrat come over. We can't sell in Red Meat messaging. We have to sell in messaging that appeals psychotocally to them. And to do that, we use a system called scarf. Scarf is an acronym that stands for a variety of emotional reactions that people have.

Status, certainly, fairness, autonomy, relatedness. These are always people ingest information, open their mind to the new ideas, and actually will convert their thinking. Thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, it's critically important. And certainly, we appreciate your leadership and the strategic advice that, that you've provided to the movement. John Tillman is the CEO of the American Culture Project

and the chairman of the Illinois Policy Institute, a longtime leader of state think tanks and other policy organizations doing excellent work in the state of Illinois. John, thanks so much for joining the Daily Signal today. Thanks for having me on. It was a blast. And that'll do it for today's episode. Please subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. And help us reach more listeners by leaving a

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