The Daily Signal - Why Are Millennials Leaving the Left? This Author Has Answers.

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

Why did some millennials vote for President.Barack Obama in 2012 and President Donald Trump in 2016? Jonathan Jakubowski, author of "Bellwether Blues: A Conservative Awakening of the Millennial Soul," joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss. "There’s a lot of reasons that motivated these millennials to change their votes over the course of time," says Jakubowski. "It didn’t happen in one single event. It didn’t happen because of one podcast or one show or one friend. It was conversations. It was things that they read. It was life events that ultimately culminated in a deep change." We also cover these stories: A new study has revealed that the drug Remdesivir might be very effective against COVID-19.  Secretary of State Mike Pomepo is continuing calls for the United States to be able to access the Wuhan labs as the country continues to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. Sen. Ted Cruz is introducing legislation aimed at “cutting off Hollywood studios from assistance they receive from the Department of Defense if those studios censor their films for screening in China." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Snap up Ancestry DNA's lowest price ever in our incredible cyber sale. With 50% off Ancestry DNA kits, it's the perfect time to help a loved one unwrap the past. And with their latest update, they'll discover their family origins like never before. With even more precise regions and new and exclusive features, their best gift, our lowest price. 50% off Ancestry DNA, only until December 2nd. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, April 30th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Dahl Judis.

Jonathan Jakubowski is the author of a soon-to-be-released book, Bellwether Blues, A Conservative Awakening of the Millennial Soul. He joins me on The Daily Signal podcast to talk about his book and why millennials are leaving the left. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review, or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now, onto our top news. A study has revealed that the drug Remdesivir might be very effective in the fight against COVID-19. Sitting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Dr. Fauci told President Trump, and a number of reporters that Gilead Sciences Incorporated is seeing positive results from remdesivir. Here's what Dr. Fauci had to say via Bloomberg Quicktake. That the data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect. in diminishing the time to recovery.

This is really quite important for a number of reasons, and I'll give you the data. It's highly significant. If you look at the time to recovery being shorter in the remdesivir arm, it was 11 days compared to 15 days. And that's a P value for the scientists who are listening of 0.001. So that's something that although a 31% improvement doesn't seem like a knockout 100%. It is a very important proof of concept because what it is proven is that a drug can block this virus.

Dr. Fauci also said America could experience a bad fall and a bad winter if the country fails to prepare for a second wave of coronavirus. Here's what he had to say is CNN's new day. If we are unsuccessful or prematurely try to open up and we have additional outbreaks that are out of control, it could be a rebound to get us right back in the same boat that we were in a few weeks ago. The U.S. Department of Commerce released the advance estimate for gross domestic product or GDP for the first quarter of 2020 on Wednesday. And unfortunately, the numbers are disappointing. They reported that GDP contracted at an annual rate of 4.8%. This is the first quarterly contraction since 2014 and the largest since the Great Depression. Wilbur Ross, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, said in a statement that today's GDP numbers are weak,

but in line with expectations as a result of the COVID-19-driven disruptions to daily lives at home and around the globe that have rocked global markets and supply chains. We continue to have the most resilient economy in the world, driven by innovative and hardworking Americans who have shown that they are willing to make the needed sacrifices to defeat this invisible enemy. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is continuing calls for the United States to be able to access the Wuhan labs as the country continues to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. Here's what he had to say Wednesday during a briefing at the State Department via the Hill. When countries engage in disinformation, it creates risk.

The Chinese Communist Party tells us they want to be our partners. They want to be transparent. We need partners that we can rely on that when they tell us something, it is accurate and then we don't think they're hiding anything. Look, we still haven't gained access. The world hasn't gained access to the WIV, the Virology Institute there. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered a large funeral to be broken up on Tuesday night. The funeral was for Jewish rabbi Kime Mertz, who passed away from COVID-19.

Hundreds of mourners gathered on the streets in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn to grieve the rabbi's death before police arrive to send the crowd home. But de Blasio is receiving harsh criticism for a tweet he posted in response to the large funeral gathering. He tweeted my message to the big. the Jewish community and all communities, is this simple. The time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives, period.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is introducing legislation aimed at cutting off Hollywood studios from assistance they receive from the Department of Defense. if those studios censor their films for screening in China, according to a press release from Cruz. In a statement, Cruz said, from buying media outlets to broadcast propaganda into America to coercing Hollywood studios and sports leagues to self-censor by threatening to cut off access to one of the biggest markets for sports and entertainment in the world, the Chinese Communist Party spends billions and billions of dollars to mislead Americans about China and shape what our citizens see, hear, and think. All of these activities are part of China's whole-of-state approach to amass more influence around the world through information warfare, and we need to put a stop to it. Now, stay tuned for my conversation with Jonathan Jakubowski on his new book coming out May 5th on Millennials Leaving the Left.

It's our priority at the Daily Signal to keep you informed during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's an important message from the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Hey, America. I'm United States Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, and I just want to say thank you for following the president's coronavirus guidelines. Social distancing, mitigation, it's working. We know we're flattening the curve and saving lives, and it is all thanks to you. So keep at it and stay tuned for more updates from the coronavirus task force. We're joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Jonathan Jakubowski. He's the author of the soon-to-be-released book on May 5th called Bellwether. Blues, A Conservative Awakening of the Millennial Soul. Jonathan, it's such an honor to have you on the Daily Signal podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Rachel. The honor is mine. Well, it's a pleasure to have you with us. So your book coming out on May 5th, Bell Other Blues, talks about how millennials have switched over from a more liberal outlook and voting to conservative. Before we get into the book itself, can you kind of break down for us the millennial generation today and what you saw and where they were leaning towards when it

comes to politics and policy. Sure. Yeah, the millennial generation is incredibly important to our electoral demographic because it's the largest electoral demographic. Now, traditionally, the hit against millennials has been that they don't come out and vote. They might register to vote, but they don't vote. Well, that changed in the midterms of 2018. They came out in droves and affected the turnout and the votes in a number of states. So that's a very important demographic to pay attention to, and it's only going to be growing in importance in the future. So can you tell us a little bit about the book, Bellwether Blues, and also the inspiration for the title.

It's such an interesting title, and I want to hear about the title itself, why you decided on that title, and then just a little bit about the book unpacking what all is in it. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the fun parts of the book was diving deep into this generation. I think there's a lot of ideas out there as to who a millennial is and a lot of stereotypes that certainly a lot of millennials fit. But the thing that I found is there's also a lot of millennials that don't fit those stereotypes.

And as I do research with a variety of sources, what I've found is there's really a split in the millennial generation. And ironically, the generation that most dislikes the millennials who fit the stereotypes are the millennials who don't fit the stereotypes. So what I've found over the course of time, and it's a Winston Churchill quote that people might be familiar with, is that if you're not liberal at the age of 20, you have no heart. If you're not conservative at the age of 35, you have no brain. That quote, which brings a lot of humor to the table is, the question is, is that true? Is that true of American

millennials? And what I saw and what inspired the title is there's a lot of millennials that are indeed leaving the left. There's movements out there like hashtag walk away. We use the hashtag left for left, which we've seen before. There's a lot of millennials that have become deeply disillusioned with the nature of political affairs. And as the left has gone from, Further to the left, it's alienated a base of voters who would otherwise be predisposed to their ideology, millennials who passionately care about things like classical liberalism or a freedom, first amendment freedoms. And the more they've abandoned that base, the more that base has gotten the blues, which led to the title, Bellwether Blues. And there was a statistic that I have early on in the book that talks about how 71%

of millennials would prefer for there to be a third party. So they're tired of Democrats in that platform and how far to the left they've gone, but they can't necessarily yet stomach the idea of voting for Republicans. So they're kind of stuck in the middle and they have this symptom, symptomatic case of the blues and they're down and out. And that really is what builds my case at the end of the book for arguing to conservatives. We have to use a different level of persuasion to win the soul. And if we can win their souls, I think we can also win their votes. Well, the book, as you mentioned, is a compilation of seven stories of millennials in Swing Country America that swung from Obama to Trump. And can you unpack? I obviously don't have time to go into super big detail.

But can you kind of talk about and introduce each of these seven people and kind of give us a little bit of a teaser as to what their story was? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for that question. So I wanted to use empirical evidence to demonstrate that there is a move away from the left. But then I wanted to use anecdotal evidence to demonstrate what's happening in Swing Country, America. I happen to live in one such Swing county of 3,142 counties in America. There are 59 that are classified as Swing as having voted for Bush, Bush, Obama, Trump. And then in the state of Ohio, my state, there's only four that fit that designation. And my county is the youngest of those counties. So going deep into that county and then looking at the stories of millennials in those counties,

I thought would have important lessons to offer, offer us as we consider this generation. And through the anecdotal evidence with the stories that I have and very, very powerful and persuasive stories, there's a lot of reasons that motivated these millennials to change their votes over the course of time. It didn't happen in one single event. It didn't happen because of one podcast or one show or one friend. It was conversations. It was things that they read. It was life events that ultimately culminated in a deep change in persuasion. And by the way, Rachel, it wasn't just about the persuasion of an individual candidate. President Trump is not necessarily the favorite candidate of all of these millennials. Some of them really love him, but some of them

were just want for him because they really believed in issues that he stood for, like pro-life, like the Second Amendment. I saw a factor of blexit where there's African Americans who are leaving the left because they saw a lack of progress in the cities with their friends and family, certainly the blue-collar vote. So there was a lot of, all seven stories have a lot to offer us, I believe. Is there one story, and I know this is probably going to be hard to say because all of them are compelling in different ways, but was there one story in particular that really stood out to you or was really especially powerful for a particular reason? Yeah, I think there's one that stands out in Wood County especially. We have a blue perimeter. I don't know if you're familiar with the blue wall concept where we had Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, the northern parts of Ohio that had never gone for a Republican candidate.

and then Trump scaled the blue wall. Well, in Wood County, what makes it so perfect in bellwether is we have multiple demographics mixing together, but around the perimeter of our county, there's this really strong blue-collar vote that's represented at least in 2016, maybe an eighth of the entire voting population. And there's one story of a millennial who is blue-collar, grew up in a union family, voted for the Democratic Party their entire lives. And then in this election, through the course of events, really seeing things like Benghazi,

seeing the alienation of patriotism, seeing kind of a hatred towards country and deep values, the Second Amendment, that really led him to embrace not only President Trump, but also the values that the Republican Party stands for. I know when we were talking about the book a couple months ago, you had mentioned to me that there was a particular person. I'm not sure who it was. One of the seven people was a little bit nervous about speaking out, but then eventually ended up saying, you know, this story is really important, and I'm definitely going to share. Are you able to talk about that at all? And maybe just more even generally, if people were a little bit hesitant to speak out

and what made them change their minds and want to go on the record about this. Yeah, that's a great question. We have to consider the fact that, and I'm a millennial as well, there's a lot of peer pressure in the other direction. And depending upon where you grow up, especially if you're in the coast, I mean, I think there's a ton of pressure that if you're going to express a different opinion than the status quo, you're going to face a lot of peer pressure. Well, that peer pressure might be lessened in swing,

America, but it's still there. So the considerations of having a political book sharing their stories took a lot of courage. And I really admire the seven individuals that came forward and said yes, because Rachel, I found a lot of other stories that fit the same kind of story, demographic title, switch and change, but they weren't willing to come on the record. And in fact, the blue-collar story I just referenced with Jeremy Harple. I talked to over a dozen people who had the same exact story but didn't want to go public because they were concerned about whether or not people in their job might look at them a different way. In some cases, they were angry at pollsters and wanted to continue having pollsters thinking that they're going to be voting for a Democratic candidate when

in reality they're voting for President Trump. So there's a variety of reasons that I saw that led people to say no, but thankfully we had these individuals who said yes. Is it your hope? And do you think that because these seven people were able to speak out and do share their stories, that this will help other millennials who maybe are nervous about, you know, maybe how their paradigm is shifting, give them the courage to speak out and talk about these things as well. I hope so. And I do believe so. I think as we phase and get older in life, we start thinking more about other people, namely

children. And as we have a family and grown relationships, when our thoughts start moving to other people in our families, we're less concerned about what people think about us and more concerned about the livelihoods, the future of our children. And I think that the conservative platform, faith, family and freedom, which I talk a lot about in the book, those ideals that resonate lead people to become more emboldened to stand up for what they believe to be the best possible future hope for their children and for their children's children. Well, mentioning, you know, faith, family, and freedom, obviously very important issues to so

many people across the country. But looking at specific issues that these seven people that brought them over from a more liberal background and conviction to a conservative point of view. Is there any, was there any one or two issues that you saw as common threads that kept resurfacing as to why people are leaving the left? Yeah, I think I can sum it up in the word freedom. Freedom is something that we as Americans have in our DNA. It's a part of who we are. It's in our anthems.

It's in our pledges. It's basically in anything and everything we talk about is freedom. We value freedom to the core. But we don't really understand that. depths of freedom until we lose it. And I think as we've seen the Democratic Party move all the way over to the left, abandoning the tenets of classical liberalism. I mean, we had a president as recently as 1996 sign bills like the, you know, things similar to the DOMA that would be on a Republican Party platform, but also religious freedom restoration acts, you know, that would

speak towards the expression of freedom. And I think the millennial generation and younger generations really value that freedom. And while they're being so, sold a false bill of goods on things like socialism and the benefits of it, they still also at the same time value freedom. And the more they come to understand socialism and its negative effects on society, the more they embrace freedom and the better we can communicate it, the more they'll vote in our direction. Well, in writing Bellwether Blues, what would you say was the biggest challenge or the hardest part about writing the book? Honestly, it was the acknowledgments. I sat there at the very end of the book. And Rachel, I learned a lot about writing a book. I'm a

first-time author, but it was so fun writing the book. Everything seemed to come together so naturally. But the very end, I realized, they say that a dream is a goal with a plan. What I learned is it's not just a goal with a plan. It's also a goal with a plan with patrons. People who are willing to support you, who are willing to invest into your life. And I had so many people encouraging voices, people that were willing to be involved in the book, people that wanted to give me advice, people like yourself are willing to bring me on a podcast from my first-time author. That's incredible. And I look at that and just have an incredible depth of gratitude. And I was thinking about who am I going to not include on this list?

It feels very long and I feel like it should be longer. So honestly, that was the hardest part of the book for me to write. What was the thing that surprised you the most, either in your research or the interviews of the people you did, or just maybe I don't know the best impact on you in this whole process? You know, I think that I understood the power of story. but when I'm sitting there writing these stories and then getting deeper into people's lives, what surprised me is that over the course of time, somebody doesn't change their mind usually instantly. It happens over the course of time, and there were a lot of people who spoke truth

and do an individual's life without any expectation that there would be some shift or ramification to something they did or something they said, and then the fidelity of relationship that endured over time as they walk those long miles of relationship that led these individuals to change their votes. And I guess I never thought about it that deeply. I thought about it more being like the talk show, hosts, the media, the press, what you read. But there was a lot of power in relational equity

and relational equity with truth equal transformation. Speaking of that, I know earlier on in our discussion, you talked about winning hearts and minds and the power of these interpersonal relationships. And speaking to maybe other millennials or even Gen Ziers out there who maybe do come from a conservative background or maybe they have left the left themselves and they're trying to have these discussions with friends or family members, how would you encourage them to talk to peers in this kind of mindset of maybe they come from that background or maybe they've always been conservative? How do you encourage them to connect on that heart level? That's a really good question. I would say first you want to think smaller and deeper.

We have the tendency to believe that a post that we send on social media might be the best way to influence, you know, a thousand people because it's kind of quick access. And our society has led us to have all of these incredible benefits. So immediately we can have instant gratification in terms of responsiveness. But what we've forgotten is there is a deeper art that reaches deeper into the soul, and that is individual relationship. So if you can spend time with somebody, even if they reject your role, worldview, but you cultivate relationship with them. Over time, you're influenced with them. Even if they reject your ideas, they're going to see your lifestyle, they're going to see your character, they're going to see what you stand for and believe in. And that's going to deeply persuade

those individuals that you're in relationship with. Well, thanks for sharing that. Lastly, where can people get Bellwether Blues? We're in the midst of COVID right now. So bookstores and the like aren't on their usual mode of operations. So if people want to get it, how do they get it? Yeah, thank you. Our website is currently selling pre-orders on bellwetherbluesbook.com, but the official launch date, as noted earlier, is May the 5th. So it should be available on Amazon. I think Barnes & Noble and Books a Million will also have links, so they'll be able to ship books out. I don't know exactly when they're going to kind of reopen so that we can get books out on shelves, but certainly online through those channels, you can get a book. Awesome. Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast. It's been great to have you. Rachel, I'm a big fan, so it's really, really an honor to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Oh, thank you. And that will do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. We do appreciate your patience as we record remotely during these weeks.

Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave your review or rating on Apple Podcasts and give us your feedback. Stay healthy and we will be back with you all tomorrow. is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Shrinco and Rachel Del Judas. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Fulia Rampersad, Mark Geinie, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.