The MeidasTouch Podcast - GOP Wants to Marry Your Kids (Guest TN Rep. Gloria Johnson)

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we sit down with the Democratic Party's secret weapon, Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson, who represents Tennessee’s House District 13. A retired Knox County school teacher with 27 years experience educating special needs children, Rep. Johnson’s advocacy work over the past 10 years with health care and a lifetime advocating for public education keeps her energized and inspired. During the interview, Rep. Johnson discusses how she won in a +12 Republican district, WTF is happening in Tennessee from the bizarre & disgusting GOP ‘Marry Little Kids Bill’ to the rampant criminality in the Republican legislature. The remainder of the episode, we bring you the latest breaking news of the week. We discuss the historic confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the radical rights agenda, including their moving of CPAC to Hungary with autocrat Viktor Orbán and much more. If you enjoyed today's episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. As always, thank YOU for listening! DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/meidas BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/meidas Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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They are radical right extremists. Let me tell you what they did this week. 63 Republicans voted no to support NATO. The Tennessee GOP proposed a bill called the Marry Little Kids Bill. It wasn't actually called that, but that is what it did. Tom Cotton calls Ketanji Brown Jackson a Nazi. Ohio pushes for a don't say gay racist bill. The GOP will host CPAC with Prime Minister Orban in Hungary. The Oklahoma GOP passes a total abortion ban. And what are the Democrats doing? Well, new U.S. jobless claims hit a 50-year low of 166,000, the lowest since 1968. The Democrats are delivering. And as Jamie Raskin said the other day, these days,

the true conservatives seem to be the Democrats because we want to conserve the land, air, water, climate system, Constitution, Bill of water, climate system, constitution, bill of rights, social security, Medicare. This is the Midas Touch podcast where we fight for democracy with you each and every pod. Brett and Jordy joining me, Ben Mycelis on the pod. We have an incredible guest. I would say we have the Democrats secret weapons as our guest. We have a pro-democracy champion. And there is a reason the Tennessee GOP literally made her office the closet of their office building in Tennessee. We have Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson and State Representative Gloria Johnson from House District 13. She holds the key. This, I believe, is going to be the most important and powerful interview going into 2022 because Gloria Johnson flipped a state house

district in Tennessee that was plus 12 Republican plus 12. That's crazy. Plus 12 Republican to Democrat. And she's going to tell us her secret for how she did it. And I want you to think about that, Jordi and Brett, because I'm thinking if you were to say a plus 12 district for a House of Representatives seat, most Democrats would say, oh, don't even go there. No one's going to win that. That's a loss. That is not the case. That is not the case. And State Representative Gloria Johnson will tell us how. You know what made me think of Ben and Jordy? It was when we did our Vote Your Rays bus tour around Georgia. And the focus of our Vote Your Rays bus tour in Georgia was we were trying to

hit a lot of the areas where the typical Democratic infrastructure wasn't going to hit. We were not hitting the areas that were filled with Democrats, the big cities. We were trying to hit the more rural areas where there were more right wing people to try to spread our message to them, to try to get at those margins and turn out the vote needed to win in Georgia. And what we saw there and what we heard with our our incredible bus driver, a veteran from Georgia who led the charge there for us, a small business owner, shout out to him. Every time he had these conversations with people one-on-one, they agreed with him. And they were like, thank you for paying attention to me. All this time, I've just had this influx of right-wing messaging, right-wing mailers, people knocking on my door from the right. I haven't had a single Democratic voice come here to talk to me about things. And when you're talking to people about things like social

security and Medicare and education and healthcare and why COVID relief is a good thing for them, people agree with those things. But we just have not been able to pierce that bubble because we write them off. We write those areas off. And so I think this is a good lesson in not writing any areas off. Obviously, we've this is a good lesson in not writing any areas off. Obviously, we've got to focus our resources on places that we can win, but we shouldn't be writing areas off that share our values. Not even just physical spaces, Brett, but social spaces are really important too. I mean, it's the ethos of Midas Touch. We are everywhere. As much as it pains us, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're on Twitter,

we're on TikTok, you name it, we're there because we have to pierce through and our message of pro-democracy has to get out there. You know where we're not though and where nobody is? Truth Social. Which is not worth our time and not worth anybody's time because nobody is on Truth Social. But can you play though, just for the sake of, i guess like a quick laugh devin nunez he went on fox business business is to fox as news is to fox like totally made up bullshit like they put up the dumbest shit in the world like it would be one thing if devin nunez went on fox business and basically said something like, this would be a lie, but at least it would feel like rooted in reality. Look, our early numbers

are coming in strong. I think we've exceeded all expectations. We've obviously got significant work that we've got to do, but our growth trajectory is significantly higher than Twitter. That would be one completely false. What I just said is a total lie. It's coded in a grain of truth. But Devin Nunes says nobody's on Twitter anymore and everybody's on Truth Social. And Truth Social is not even a functioning platform. And even Trump, who it's his platform, doesn't use it. But just play the ridiculous. What is your reaction to Elon Musk taking a 9% stake in one of your competitors, certainly Twitter. Well, you know, I think it's very interesting because, you know, the goal that President Trump has and what I have in our team

here at True Social is to open the Internet back up so that the American people can get their voice back. So it's clear that Twitter is kind of a ghost town. They desperately need Elon Musk to be there. So, you know, it's probably something that Elon wants to do. I think he probably believes in free speech like we do. But at the same time, you know, there's not very much activity over at Twitter right now, especially when you compare it to sites like ours, where we're just in our beginning stages as we continue to test and bring people on day by day. Our interactions are already beating Twitter. And so Elon's going to have a lot of work to do.

Shamelessness is just their superpower. I mean, here's the thing though, it's a microcosm though, or even a macrocosm, who knows? It's a cosm. It's a cosm. About why fascism doesn't work, why systems of oligarchy don't work, and why capitalism actually works. Obviously,

we want a compassionate capitalism, though, as well. But why capitalism should work? Because there should be real, true competition that exists. And in a fascist, in an oligarchy, in an area where like in a government system, the ones that DeSantis wants to create and Greg Abbott want to create and the GOP, where they want the government to pick winners, they pick dumb fuck winners. They pick winners whose qualification is their obsequiousness to the emperor with no clothes. That is how should use, broken stuff, as opposed to actually effective stuff, which they criticize, the functioning stuff that these authoritarian states criticize because they actually support other deeper, broader views. Fascism, oligarchyism, these are forms of socialism directed towards the 1%. That's what those systems are. And that's why it fails, as opposed to a compassionate form of capitalism that provides equality of opportunity for people, which is a system that I support. Yeah, this is it's not a situation where the cream rises to the top when you have systems like this. It's a system where you are handpicking your friends. This is what you see in Russia. And

then you get incompetent people running things, which was the Trump White House in a nutshell. Speaking of Twitter, also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it's an anniversary of sorts for Midas Touch. We here at Midas Touch call it Scotty Day. Scotty Day. Scotty Day. Scotty Day is kind of like Bobby Bonilla Day. Was it Bobby Bonilla Day? Let's pay Bobby Bonilla like a million dollars. They still pay him, and it's on my birthday. It's on July 1st when they pay him the million dollars. So let me give some background on Scotty Day for our listeners, because I don't think this is exactly a thing that many people know about, but let's start celebrating it. All right. So a couple of years ago, about two years to the date on April 6th, 2020,

Young Midas Touch had just formed. We were around for maybe a week or so, but we were hustling. We wanted to get our message out there. We were in the replies of Fox News trying to counteract their propaganda. We were working hard from day one out the gate. And so one of our replies to Fox News, I don't even know what our reply was, but it was probably rebutting some coronavirus lies that they were spreading. We got a response from Mr. At Scotty Wallace, 11 on Twitter, who has some sort of,

I don't know, is it a cowboy hat and strains? Much less. I don't think that's actually a real human being in that picture. And Scotty was trying to joke with us and, and try this and he's troll us. And he said, your quote news outlet has 300 followers with three laughing emojis after the fact.

Now, two years later, we now on Twitter have over 775,000 followers and cross platform about 2 million followers over 1 billion. What do we average? 150, 200 million impressions a month, something like that. And so we like to celebrate Scotty day as just a little sort of time capsule of how far we've come and how far you have come at the Midas Mighty. And Scotty, let's pour one out or pour 300 out for Scotty, who has since been suspended. This troll no longer has his account, but I think it also, you know, it's funny. And we like to talk about, it's funny. We were talking about it with our team the other day, you know, some of our employees here at Midas and we wanted to send like an email to celebrate Scotty day and do things around Scotty day. And they were like, it's a little niche now. Like they were like,

you guys might be the only people who know this inside joke. And I'm like, nah, the people know about the Midas mighty know about Scotty Day. Happy Scotty Day, everybody. But it goes to show you that movements start small. You know, we had no idea back then what Midas Touch would become. And if we had looked at those troll comments back then, and if we were really hurt by Scotty's comments, oh, you guys can't do anything with your 300 followers. And if we looked at it and had been like, damn, he's right. Like, you know, we're never going to be able to have our voice over.

We're never going to be able to do anything. And we quit like none of this would have happened. And so understand as you, you know, are out there making phone calls, knocking on doors, writing postcards, doing all the work that all those little things matter and all those things add up. And you will have people come to you along the way. The Scotties of the world, the losers of the world, who try to distract from you and try to tell you that what you're doing is no good and are trying to tell you to stop. But you need to keep

on going and keep on fighting because the Scotties of the world, they end up suspended and outcasted from society and you will win and democracy will win if we keep pushing. Should we rename what you call a troll a Scotty? Although I would feel bad for any Midas Mighty's name Scotty. I don't want to give him too much, you know, too much. No, no, no, no. I do. I do because I want this loser to be in his basement.

Just few. I want to give him all the credit in the world for Midas Dutch. Well, happy two years, Scotty. Happy Scotty day, everybody. And one of the things, Jordy, that you mentioned too, that I think is worth, you talked about all the digital places where we're at. But I think it is important when we look at some of the stats sometimes as Democrats and we go, wait a minute, all of our policies are for the people. All of our policies are benefiting the people. Why aren't they listening to us, though? I have the answer.

Are you ready for this, Brett and Jordy? You're not talking to the people, Democrats. If you don't talk to the people, how do you expect them to listen? And these people don't just exist as cable news watchers. A lot of them do. These people don't just exist as social media watchers. You have to go out there into the communities, into the backyards, into the parks, and you have to roll up your sleeves and you have to do the work. That's one thing that we're committed to doing here at Midas Touch. I began an informal, but we'll make it a little more formal over the coming weeks and months, a backyard tour where I'm literally going to go to people's

backyards who invite me one backyard at a time. I ask that you have more than five people in your backyard. That's my threshold. A big threshold. See how far we've come from last week. Last week, Ben's like, whether we're in backyards, whether we're in arenas. And now Ben's like, just give me five people. just as important as being in a stadium with 20,000 people, because the 20 people there, I could be speaking to real ambassadors of change who one day could go on and speak to stadiums of 30, 40, 50,000 people and 100,000 people. So I take none of those interactions for granted. Absolutely.

And then I want to give you credit for that. Even like Obama and Biden, you know, they all started off speaking in backyards and shaking hands like you got to have those types of politics. It was incredible, Brett, seeing Obama at the White House this past week, though, and just seeing them together. You just got to play the clip where Obama did the joke about, you know, to Biden about he called Biden vice president. Play that clip. Vice President Biden, vice president. That was a joke. Okay, so this literally the second after I saw this clip,

I think I texted both you guys and I was like, oh my gosh, it's obviously a silly joke from Obama, but watch the right wing freak out and start being like, oh, look, Obama's really running things. Joe Biden doesn't know he's the president. And sure enough, those flurry of tweets came. But whatever, I'm going to set those aside for now because those whatever I'm just going to ignore them and play the clip. Brad, this was an important part, I think, of Obama's speech when he was at the White House, when he talked about his push for health care and his push to give health care to 20 million plus people who didn't have health care

and the risks he confronted when running, when he was running for office again in 2012, that he could lose the election. But just play the clip, and I want to talk about it for a second. I intended to get health care passed, even if it cost me re-election, which for a while looked like it might. But for all of us, for Joe, for Harry, for Nancy Pelosi, for others, the ACA was an example of why you run for office in the first place, why all of you sign up for doing jobs that pay less than you could make someplace else, why you're away from home sometimes and you miss some soccer practices or some dance recitals. Because we don't, we're not supposed to do this just to occupy a seat or to hang on to power. But we're supposed to do this because it's making

a difference in the lives of the people who sent us here. That's what politics is. Politics is delivering for the people. Politics is for the people. And, you know, when you listen to what Obama was saying, this wasn't about entrenching my power. It wasn't about enriching myself. And clearly, that's what Republicans use politics for. There's two types of politics out there. There's politics for the people, and then there's politics for the person. And Republicans practice politics for the person. They want to figure out how the system could be rigged for them and people like them? How do we manipulate the tax code so rich people get tax breaks? How do we come into power and say, in these instances, I want the

government to get involved in your life and to pick winners? In this instance, I want the government to take a step back to shield you and allow you to commit fraud and misconduct and steal and pillage from the people. On the other hand, you have politicians, the Democrats, that's why I'm a Democrat, who says, what can I do to deliver for the people? How can I make the tax code and tax credits work for working families? How do I make the tax code work for workers, for lower income Americans? How do we give them healthcare? How do we give all Americans healthcare? How do we deal with climate change? How do we give more Americans jobs? How do we empower unions to represent workers? It's just a real clear cut. And when you talk to people the way I just talked

to people, they're going to agree with you. Most people aren't billionaires and all of a hundred percent of the Republican policies are basically pro-billionaire other than their social policies, which are anti-people and pro-government getting into your life and getting it. So when you talk to people, we will win these discussions. Well, that's why they invent fake boogeymen. That's why they try to run on these fake issues like critical race theory. That's why they try to push these don't say gay type bills. That's why they're so loud and obnoxious also, because they want to, frankly, distract from the real work that Democrats are trying to do to pass.

And unfortunately, what we see time and time again is you have Democrats who are working hard to pass legislation. I mean, when I when I see the Democrats out there, you know, say all you want. When I see a guy like Representative Jamie Raskin out there fighting for our democracy, I'm proud of that person, you know. And then I see a clip of, you know, like a Marjorie Taylor Greene and a Lauren Boebert. I am disgusted and repulsed or Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz, you name it, repulsed by those people. You see the Democrats fighting, at least. And it's kind of on us, though, to give them the tools to actually get shit done. Because the fact is, is that if they don't have the right majorities, they're not going to be able to get all the things that we want to get done done. But nevertheless, they are fighting, they are getting things accomplished. We've seen the Postal Reform Act, which is a huge deal. We've

seen the infrastructure package. We've seen COVID relief. We've seen time and time again, Democrats delivering for Americans. And the thing is, we cannot let the Republicans distract us with these bullshit cultural issues and set the narrative. They are trying to distract us with all these other issues that ultimately what they're trying to do is they're trying to get Americans to say, oh, it's nice that, you know, infrastructure passed and that I got these child tax credits in the past, but I see gas is expensive right now. So I'm going to vote for the people who want to ban abortion and think that I can't say gay and want to ban same-sex marriage because, look, the gas prices are high, even though the president doesn't really control that at all. This is the position that they're trying to put us in. And so like, we just need to really be very clear

about our messaging. And I think Ben, one of the things that you said during your backyard speech that I think is so important is people are like, what's your messaging tips? And it's, you're like, just say, just say what the things are, what they're doing. Like, like you don't have to couch it in like fancy phrases and whatever. And, and, you know, flowery terms and words and whatever, like, just say like Republicans are trying to do X Democrats are trying to Democrats want you to have healthcare. Republicans want to take away same-sex marriage. You just need to say what is happening to people. Don't treat people like idiots. Just be direct. Yeah. And you, you talk about like what the Republicans are doing. I mean, we're going to have on in a little bit the Tennessee state House District Representative

Gloria Johnson. But look at what her colleague is doing. You know, at the same time, they're out there calling Democrats groomers and using these labels, you literally have a representative from the Texas, Tennessee's sixth congressional district, who is the former commissioner of agriculture, I guess, the woman he married started working there when she was in her teens. And then he married her, you know, shortly after she was no longer a teenager. I mean, just to show the this is a Tennessee Republican, like just you show these photos, Brett, just pull them up. And it's like, that's great. I mean, this is crazy. I want to now bring in Tennessee state representative Gloria Johnson. You will want to watch this interview. And here's what I

ask. We cannot clone Gloria Johnson. She can't clone herself. And you're going to hear me say this to her at the end of the interview. But I ask that you show her interview to any Republican family member. Don't even tell them, you know, that, hey, we want you to watch this because. Just say, we'd like you to watch State Representative Gloria Johnson from Tennessee. She has some interesting ideas, and I'd love your perspective after this interview. That's how you can help us on the Midas Touch podcast. So let us bring in State Representative Gloria Johnson. But before doing so, of course, I want to tell you about our partner, Athletic Greens. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

Have you tried Athletic Greens? If you're might as mighty, you probably have tried Athletic Greens. You've seen the before and after photos of me because Brett puts them up in every read. Brett, put up the before photo. With pleasure. Here's the after photo. And I started taking athletic greens four months ago. And before that, I thought I was taking the vitamins that I needed, but obviously they were not working with athletic greens.

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sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. This month, BetterHelp Online Therapy wants to remind you to take care of your most important relationship, the one you have with yourself. BetterHelp is online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist so you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy, and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Give it a try. I've given it a try. It's helped me see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy. And this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Midas Touch listeners will get 10% off

their first month at betterhelp.com slash Midas. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com slash Midas. Again, betterhelp.com slash Midas. Get your online therapy. Start this month and take that mental health break that you need. Without further ado, let's bring in our interview with Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson. We are joined by Representative Gloria Johnson, state representative from Tennessee's 13th House District. Gloria Johnson is a retired special ed teacher, healthcare advocate, public school supporter. Welcome to the podcast, Gloria. Thank you all for having me. I'm excited to be here. I appreciate what you all are doing. Oh, no, we appreciate you, Representative Johnson. And we saw, well, you know, one of the things that I saw right away, my brother saw it separately, was this tweet that you did, which kind of piqued my interest in starting this interview. It was a tweet you did from March 18th of 2022. And this

is what you say. You say, when I got home this weekend, someone asked how things are going in Nashville. I'm not sure they were ready for my answer, but it went kind of like this. And you proceeded to list all of this legislation that the radical right wing is pushing, illegal conduct, the radical right wing legislators are engaged in. We're going to add to that list, it seems, every week. But Representative Johnson, I want to rewind because the Midas Mighty, our listeners, look to you and they ask us, how do we get involved in politics? How do we even get to be a representative like Gloria Johnson? And your background as a retired special ed teacher. Can you just quickly take us through that journey and make it real for our

listeners and viewers that they can do this too? They absolutely can, because never in my life had I intended to be in politics. I was a school teacher, loved my job, was frustrated with 2000 to 2008 and decided I needed to do something if I wanted to see something different and got involved with the Obama campaign, became an organizer. I trained with some of the best organizers in the country working on that campaign. And I traveled to South Carolina to be part of that primary there. And then after that was over, you come back to Knoxville and there's, you know, Tennessee is not a place where they're spending a lot of money because it's not a state that was winnable. And so we still organized in Tennessee for the campaign. And I had 700 active volunteers in Knoxville, Tennessee for that campaign. And then after the

election's over, you wonder, you know, what can I do here to help? How can we make sure this doesn't happen again? So I began organizing in Knoxville and as a teacher, I was still teaching and they were attacking a teacher's seat at the table. They were taking away our rights for collective bargaining and just removing the teacher's seat at the table. And we knew that that was because of the coming down the pipe, the privatization of our public schools. And I decided that perhaps the best way I can fight and push back is running for office.

And so that's what I did. And so tell us a little bit about the House district that you represent. Tell us about the 13th. And what was the messaging, though, when you ran? What was the messaging that really resonated with the voters in Tennessee as a Democrat, as someone who's talking about unions, as someone who's pro-teacher, as someone who's pro-democracy? How do you go and do that? You really have to talk to people where they are and talk about those kitchen table issues,

because when I first started running, it was about a plus 12 R district. Let's pause there for a second. So you're running as kind of a pro-union, pro-public school, big D Democrat, and now small D democracy Democrat, you know, in a plus 12 Republican district. Right. And so what I did was just talk to people about Medicaid expansion and the importance of that. Talk to them about every child and every zip code getting a great public education. And folks who work a hard 40 hour a week ought to be able to earn enough money to. And the message resonated. I mean, every time I've run, it's always the top three have always been education, jobs, and health care. The order has changed almost every cycle. It's very interesting. But those are the top things that the voters care about. It's those kitchen table issues. And if you talk to people about those issues, you you can win.

Talk to them about the things they care about, because people every election, they have had me pictured and covered in blood All of these insane things calling me this radical socialist, whatever kind of craziness. And I think we won't hear socialists. We might hear pedophile this year. I mean, that none of their stuff has worked. So they're trying absolute crazy stuff. We literally have Moms for Liberty here in Tennessee, very active, who are saying that librarians and teachers are grooming children with obscenity in these books and things like that. We've actually banned books in Tennessee. We've actually had a book burning in Tennessee. It's really frightening what some, a minority of the folks here, but they think they're a majority. It's quite shocking.

You know, when it is the tyranny of the minority, and sometimes those tactics psych out the majority into being silent. I think the Tennessee's 13th House District is a real microcosm. What we're seeing there, how they've vilified you, but how you've spoken about these kitchen table issues is a real important message not just others in Tennessee should learn, but Democrats across the country. Because as you mentioned those three issues, education, jobs, and healthcare, I'm sorry, I don't hear Democrats really out there talking about those three issues. And here's the weird thing. Democrats are the ones fighting for those three issues for the people. I'm going to ask you why you think that is,

but I want to draw that comparison to the Democrats who have fought for these three issues and the type of legislation we're seeing in Tennessee, a laboratory for autocracy, as David Pepper, an Ohio Democrat, has aptly referred to it as. What are you saying to national Democrats as we're approaching 2022? Like, shouldn't they talk about education, jobs and health care more? Well, absolutely. We need to talk about what the people care about. You know, while they're out there calling me all these crazy names, all of my legislation is related to these things. And it's my legislation, medical cannabis and cannabis reform. 83% of Tennesseans favor that. But this supermajority here will not let it get through committee. More than 70%

favor Medicaid expansion. But this supermajority and the NFIB will not let it get through committee and Americans for Prosperity. Fully funding our public schools. Overwhelmingly, Tennesseans on both sides of the aisle favor their traditional public schools being funded, but they're not doing that. It's remarkable to me. We have an opportunity as Democrats to talk about all of the issues that people care about in my county, in the state, and across the country, and those things that affect them at their kitchen table, and that's what we need to be doing, because that is how we win. And that is what we need to be doing, because let's talk about the things that the Republican legislature led legislature in Tennessee is pushing, which is a microcosm of what we will see if Republicans take power at a federal level. And it's what we're seeing in other states. Although I have to say, Tennessee looks like it's competing to be the number one

most radical, you know, if not, if it looks like it's in a competition. So let's just start it off with, this is what you wrote. We have a don't say gay bill that's worse than Florida's and about four more bills to go along with it, all equally filled with hate. Can you talk to that bill that's worse than Florida's and about four more bills to go along with it, all equally filled with hate. Can you talk to that bill that the Republican legislature has put forward? Absolutely. Where Florida's bill was just an elementary, ours is K through 12. And, you know, it's just insanity to say that we are going to remove this from school. As I said, I taught, I remember once I worked with kids who were emotionally disturbed behavior disorders. So kids who had a lot of issues at once. I remember one young man in particular, great kid, but he had two moms.

In high school, that was a reason for him to be bullied and made fun of and that sort of thing. So we had to talk about it. In my class, we touched on mental health and we dealt with that. And so when something had disrupted the classroom, we had what we call a problem solve. And you have to be able to sit down and talk about it, work through it. And I can't even imagine what that class would have been like if we hadn't been able to talk about that issue. It would have been chaos all day, every day, and nobody would have learned anything. They're so short-sighted. They're so scared of anything that doesn't look and act like

them. It's just mind-boggling. I guess that's why we have all the gun legislation, because they can't leave their house because they're terrified, so they need a gun everywhere they go. It's just ridiculous. They promote book burning. Well, absolutely. We have Pastor Locke here. He's gone national. Don't know if you heard of him. Complete nut. He also says that autistic people are possessed by demons. Really, really horrible human being. But yeah, they had a massive book burning in Mount Juliet, not 30 minutes from the Capitol. It's just ludicrous and outrageous. And he was on tour with a group called Tennessee Stands that is anti-mask, anti-anything that science. But they toured the state with this fella who's who burns books and then

we've got moms for liberty in with them who are just just a mess bringing up acting like we're teaching crt in kindergarten and just crazy things like this interestingly books that they banned are all have to do with either uh people black people brown people or native or Native Americans. It's very interesting. But the books that they've tried to ban all related to that. So, wow, I wonder what their real issue is. There's a vigilante abortion bill worse than Texas, a bill that makes your friends and family, gives them $10,000 if they rat you out, and gives more rights to the violent rapist than the victim of the violent rapist. Yeah, I mean, that's I don't know another way to put it, but a violent rapist has the right to choose the mother of his child. But the victim of a rapist cannot choose whether or not to have her rapist baby. And then the rapist family can sue the victim for having abortion and get

$10,000. It's just unbelievable what they are trying to do here. The legislators attack on teachers, on public schools. Can you speak to that? Certainly. As I said, some of these same folks, Moms for Liberty, they bring in their, I don't like to call them B-list celebrity. It's like C and D-list celebrities like John Rich from Big and Rich and Victoria Jackson from Saturday Night Live a million years ago, talking about the obscenity in these books. Some of them are health books. One of them, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which I think I saw the movie, but I've talked to many young

people who say that that book really engaged them and gave them a love of reading. You know, we have the Miller test. Books can be tested. But all of these attacks, when it comes to the teaching race in school and systemic racism, when it comes to what they're calling obscenity, this is all going back to that idea of trying to privatize our public schools, making our public schools look bad, making our teachers look bad, making our librarians look bad. It is just an attempt to privatize our public schools. The last big pot of public dollars, public schools that take every single kid in the neighborhood, unlike charter schools that cherry pick the kids that they have. And charter schools in Tennessee are doing terrible. We have 112 charter schools in Tennessee.

Only five of them are performing above 20% success. We have 38% performing in the bottom 5% of success. We have 77% performing in the bottom 10%. And only five schools that get out of the bottom 20%. And they're talking school choice, school choice. Well, that's not a choice that a white suburban family would choose for their kids. Yeah, I think it's interesting because I think that hatred that you're speaking about also when you when you say, well, look at the books that they're banning, look at the kind of

conversations they're banning in schools. I feel like that's all sort of in a way a Trojan horse for that goal, which is funding the public school system and making public school teachers so uncomfortable and so unable to do their jobs that they just get frustrated and quit and go, I can't do this anymore. And the craziness doesn't end there. I mean, this week we all saw this merry little kids bill that was put out. It's HB 233. Could you tell us about this bill? How did they manage to remove the age requirements for marriage? What is going on in Tennessee here? Well, so ultimately what this bill was,

was it was a hate legislation. Again, it was anti-marriage equality. It created a separate track to get married, not a marriage license, but more a marriage contract, more like a common law thing. And so in the other track, it had the age limits. And this track, they did not put an age limit. Now, I'm sure this was brought to them by focus on the thing. I don't know what group brought them this legislation. I don't doubt that the group that brought it thought they'd just slide it by without that age requirement. And they know that half the time they hand these sponsors these bills, they don't look at them. They don't understand them. The fellow from the group was actually sitting behind the sponsor, tugging on his pants leg and telling him what to say when he was running this bill and committee.

And, you know, even even their own one of our fellows, Rep. Stewart, questioned him and said the age is not here. And Representative Stewart is a lawyer. And he goes, well, it's he said it's assumed because it's a contract and you have to be 18 and our guy's like now that's really not how it works and so and so um then they went to legal they went out of session to ask legal and legal was like yeah he's right there's no age limit in this and uh they didn't care and they passed it. And then they got 20 people to sign on with it. So they signed on as co-sponsors. But we hear they're going to amend it. I hope a lot of sunlight made that happen. But we hear that they are going to amend it. But just the idea that whether by design or by ignorance, it was going to happen, shows you that these guys are just

drunk with power and dangerous to Tennesseans. Yeah, I mean, there are literally, I believe there are 24 Republican sponsors and co-sponsors on this bill. And I think in those little moments, I think you start seeing the real intent of a lot of these bills. It was like when Florida, when they were passing their don't say gay bill, and they added a bit to it that said that teachers have to out their students to their parents if they catch wind that they're gay. And then there was an uproar about that and they had to take that out. But I think that shows the intent of the bill, that it is an inherently anti-LGBTQ bill. And here, I think this shows the intent of the bill. Then I saw, what's this other story about? I've been seeing that going around the online.

It's, I'm not sure if what you know about it, but this representative John Rose from Tennessee, did he, he married a child or he groomed the child and married her on her 17th birthday. What happened there? He met her when she was under age and she was in FFA, Future Farmers of America. And then I'm not sure exactly how it happened,

but created some program for her or whatever, then married her when she was 21, but knew her that entire time, met her when representative who's an admitted child molester. He is on tape for 20 minutes apologizing to one of his victims. He was a teacher and a girls basketball coach. He molested three of his basketball players. And we have all of their tapes. Governor Lee said he believed them. Representative Beth Harwell, when she was here, said that she believed them. But they just gathered around and supported him and protected him. It's past the statute of limitations. I had a resolution to oust him from the body,

and they tabled it and wouldn't hear it, promised us there would be an investigation, but there never was. When it comes to the Republican Party, every accusation seems to be a confession. And with Representative John Rose, you know, when I was looking it up, it was just that, right? You have a person in a leadership position who meets a young girl when she's as young as 12, possibly 13 or 14, promotes her to leadership positions, cultivates that relationship for many years, and then marries her basically the first, second they could. And these are the people out there calling Democrats groomers, calling you a criminal, and throwing around all these sorts of terms. I mean, one of the other things I want to get,

speaking of calling you a criminal, I mean, weren't 14 Tennessee Republicans just subpoenaed for potentially illicit activity or involvement in illicit activity? What happened with those subpoenas and what's going on there? Absolutely. We've had one indicted in the House for wire fraud. We've had one indicted in the Senate for some campaign fraud, five indictments for him. And then we've had 14 subpoenas. I know last week, the speaker went for subpoena, several members of leadership. So we're just waiting for more indictments to drop. We've had a large number of Republican representatives say they're not running again, which is very interesting because we thought they were all going to run. So we're expecting some indictments to come down.

And we know specifically who's involved. This all a lot of it originated with our former disgraced speaker who's still in the House, but he's no longer speaker. He was sending racist texts and sexist texts and his chief of staff was snorting coke off his desk at 1030 in the morning. So, you know, they got ousted and it's been under investigation. We had a very suspect voucher vote a couple of years back and we had several bribes. One, probably the most prominent, is we have a rural Democrat who is a colonel in the National Guard. That speaker offered him the rank of general if he would change his voucher vote. He talked about it right after the vote happened. We didn't really hear much. And since then, we have a Republican that has come out and said, yes, I was there.

I heard it. It's true. Wow. And once again, just to go back to what we were talking about before, this is also about defunding the public education system. This is it's all going back to that same privatization, ending public education. And the people who are involved in this are people that our listeners know. And and it's worth calling them out because it's important that people understand that even at a local level, and this is what Republicans have been so affected that, is that they, while people are distracted by national issues, they target these local systems. And Betsy DeVos, I believe, and Eric Prince are steeped in this entire bribery scheme and this whole getting rid of the public education

system in Tennessee scheme. How is Betsy DeVos and her brother, Eric Prince of Blackwater involved in this? Betsy DeVos has been involved. She's been giving money to these privatization organizations. Of course, when she sat on the board at American Federation for Children. We had Tennessee Federation for Children. She was donating to that. Her husband was donating to that. And Bill Lee was donating to that while Haslam was the governor at that time. Lee has carried it on and just amped it up. Betsy DeVos was here a couple of years ago, a meeting that they thought was quiet, but some journalists found out about it. And it was a room full of hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, and Betsy DeVos and all these school privatizers. And since then, we have seen some of these folks opening these charter

schools. And now we have a governor who has made a deal with Hillsborough College to bring these patriotic religious charter schools. Well, you can't have religion, but guess what? There's going to be religion. Charter schools, he wants 50 to 100 of these across Tennessee. And it truly is indoctrination. The curriculum is a mess and not even factual, especially when you get to the rights portion and that sort of thing. It's really horrific. But Betsy DeVos and Eric Prince are very involved with Hillsdale College and just steeped in that. And the governor at the state of the state just made the announcement. We're going to have 50 or more, you know, Hillsdale charter schools. And so everybody

starts Googling and then it's like, oh, my goodness. Just it's one scandal after another at that place. It's just remarkable. It's like the Republican Party's like a crime syndicate. Yes, it's scary. It is terrifying, frankly. Jordy, before you go, I mean, like, I just pulled up that photo of like my eyes just open. And Ben's talking about Representative John Rose from Tennessee. I mean, you're talking about cocaine, criminal investigations for bribery and admitted molester, an actual groomer, you know, and then all the legislation.

That's who they are. It's yes, I'm I'm rarely ever just like my jaw drop. Literally, it's also your delivery of it, because the way you describe it is so matter of fact that this is what's going on. And I'm just sitting here like well you guys know who scott dajole is right he's also one of our congressmen so scott dajole was a doctor who provided abortions for his girlfriend and prescription pills to his girlfriends and um he gets re-elected every time it's i'm sure i, I'm telling you. I'm sure his policies are

anti-abortion, and he probably supports that bounty law. Absolutely. I mean, it's just terrifying, terrifying stuff, and it's why we're so lucky, Representative Johnson, to have you there in the great state of Tennessee, because without you, I mean,

there's no one to fight the good fight. Cannot let you leave, though, without asking you about your senator over there, Senator Marsha Blackburn. So you scroll through her Twitter. She seems to be amplifying conspiracies about President Biden's involvement with her Biden's laptop, anti BLM sentiments, Hillary Clinton conspiracies. Like it's almost as if the senator from Tennessee is a believer in QAnon. Do you think so? I think it's entirely possible. We have several members in our body who believe in the QAnon stuff. I mean, you hear it all the time and it's just shocking. One of them was at the insurrection. Oh my gosh. Yeah. She keeps saying, I didn't go inside,

but she took a picture and what looks like was in the border that was broken, but and posted it on her social media. And it's it's just remarkable to me. And then, of course, what they've done in redistricting to make sure that they all get reelected is is is hideous too in criminal. They literally, they hate me so badly. I mean, I just cannot tell you. Last year, they gave me a closet as an office. Oh my goodness. And for a year, there was an empty member office sitting across the hall, and they had me in the closet office.

And then this year for redistricting, they drew a couple of blocks around my house out of my district into the only other Democrat in Knox County's district. So I'm moving to run. I have to move two blocks to be able to run. You know what? They're scared of you. They're scared. Like, hands down, they're terrified of you because you are a genuinely good person. And that's what they hate. They hate good people. So I have to ask you, too, as a Democrat who won in a plus 12 district, you know, so many of the people you speak to are so-called Trumpers and MAGA from outside. It looks feels kind of smells like a cult. What do you suggest? What do you suggest the Dems like to break through in 2022?

You know, the thing, the way that we win in East Tennessee that is so red is we just have to get to have personal conversations. It's all on the doorstep. It's knocking doors. It's making phone calls. It's hard to say that to demonize a person when they're standing on a a porch on your porch with a smile, wanting to see what you care about. And so for us, that's what we have to do. And my district has come down. I mean, it's probably about a plus five now. So and I attribute some of that to Trump, hopefully a lot of it to educating the folks in the district that I've done. But also,

Trump has helped. We're one of those sort of suburban areas that's turning as they see what this Republican Party is becoming. And I have folks all the time that that's their first statement to me is I used to be a Republican. I just can't do it anymore. Do you think the deplatforming of Trump from Twitter and from certain social medias has helped the district sort of heal? He's no longer able to spew the big lie on a consistent basis as he was in early 2020? It's possible. I think those that still followed him still follow him. I got some in my family. It's possible. I think those that still followed him still follow him.

I got some in my family. But maybe it has lessened. But with Fox News and talk radio in East Tennessee, I mean, it's tough to fight. It really is tough to fight that false message, just complete lies. Representative Johnson, I think you may be, I mean this sincerely, we've talked to a lot of politicians, political people, you may be the secret weapon. I mean, I genuinely mean this. There's a reason they're giving you the closet. Like you may really be the biggest threat. I mean, the resonating in a plus 12 area and speaking about these issues directly, heartfelt, matter of factly, no BS. I don't, the democratic party needs to watch this interview because this is how we're going to win in 2022 and on a going forward basis, because this is how the American people are going to win.

And I'd be remiss if we didn't end this interview without talking about why there is hope and the issues that you've fought for, not just the negative. We've talked about them at the beginning, but if you can, you know, in your now viral tweet thread, you go through some of these issues about why there is hope. And so if you can speak to that before we leave this interview. No, absolutely. There is absolutely hope. I don't know that I could do this. And if I didn't feel that there was hope and there, there is so much hope in the,

in the legislation that we're able to put out there things like healthcare for everyone, Medicaid expansion in Tennessee. The just really pointing out how public education is the leveling field for all of us, for everyone in this country and making sure that our public education is great. And the dignity of work and the right to organize in your work. And and and we've got on the ballot this year right to work, which is, of course, the right to get fired for any reason they like and the right to work for nothing. You know, it's just we Democrats are here to bring the things that families in this state and this country need. We need to talk about that. We need to double down and bear down on the things that we can do for families so that they can be successful and we can lift people into the middle class rather than having them fall

out that's been that's been happening and yesterday we had a bill in committee for it was so simple it was just a reminder to high school seniors to that they can register to vote and they will be able to vote that year and they killed it we had all these students here from high school speaking about how great this would be. It was no fiscal note. We're talking about an email. We're talking about putting on the school announcement, those kinds of things. And these great high schoolers came to speak on it. And they were just so empowering. They were so smart and they really knew their stuff. And those clowns in the GOP just voted that bill down. And I sometimes wonder, should I be calling them clowns? But they are. And I think I have to tell the truth. You know, they say things that aren't true, but this legislation, the things that they're doing

are clownish. They're dangerous clowns. But I mean, they're not serious people. These are not serious people that care about our state or care about our country. State Representative Gloria Johnson, while we can't clone you, we don't have that technology yet, we can encourage all of our listeners, all of our audience to make sure you send this interview to your friends, regardless of political party. That's the one instruction that I have to all of the Midas Mighty. Send this interview everywhere and see what it means to be a politician with heart who's fighting for the people. Representative Gloria

Johnson, thank you for joining us on the Midas Touch podcast. Thank you. I enjoyed it. Welcome back to the Midas Touch podcast. I told you, I told you that right there is the recipe. That right there is the secret sauce. It really shouldn't be that secret. It seems obvious that that's it, but that is what we need to do. We need to get out there. We need to knock on doors. We need to get in backyards. We need to start writing letters and keep writing letters. We need to interact with people and explain these issues if we want to win in 2022. And I want to add one thing, and Brett and Jordy, you know this is my constant, constant advice to pro-democracy people, Democrats, independents. The only purity test, the only purity test that should exist is one, do you care? Well, there's probably two. One, do you support democracy?

Number one. And number two, do you want to help people? Do you care about people? Those are the purity tests that I have. But if you agree with me on 93% of the issues, but we disagree over seven percent of the issues or even 20 percent of the issues. And not just me. I won't make it personal. Other Democrats, other independents. But we agree on all of the core issues. Democracy, a childbearing person's right to choose, anti-racism, climate, improving the climate. We agree on all of those issues, but we have certain other areas that we don't agree on. Just stop with the bullshit over, I'm unfollowing you. I'm not talking to you. You're dead to me. You're a grifter. Shut up. I'm unfollowed. How could you do this to me? That's just not the way the world works. And that's the mentality

why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. That's why we got Donald Trump. And that is why if you keep going down this road, we're going to have a DeSantis as the president. We're going to have people like Jim Jordan as the leaders in Congress. That is what you are going to get. And now maybe you're such a sadomasochist that that makes you happy during those years and you could just whine

and complain for all of these years as your rights get eroded. Is that what you want? Or do you want to actually fight for our democracy? Because when we rally around each other, when we rally, we get results like we got in Georgia, where we have two Senate seats. That is what we achieved. And because of that, guess what happened today? Ketanji Brown Jackson is now justice. That's Ketanji Brown Jackson. On this vote, the yeas are 53, the Republicans would have prevented her from sitting on the Supreme Court.

Not only her, but all of these great federal judges who have now been gone through the nomination and confirmation process. Ben, let's take it one step back. Also, if we didn't show up for the election in November with President Biden, Georgia aside, that seat would be filled by another right wing fascist judge justice. That's these are the stakes that we really need to be concerned about. This is why we need to be activated constantly. And the fact is, and this is a little bit of tough talk for everybody. If Democrats don't win in 2022, it will be because of Democrats. And that, I mean, that's just the, it's just the truth because if we show up to the polls, we win. If we complain about not getting a hundred percent of what we want, despite all

the accomplishments, despite all of the things, the big wins that we have, despite our new international standing, despite being a leader of the free world again, passing infrastructure bills, despite rejoining the Paris climate accords. Go off, go off. Because you look at the favorability of Biden in every country. I mean, pull up these stats. The favorability of Biden in every country, it's like 80%, 75%, 90%, 70% across the world, other than in the United States of America, where he is accomplishing and exceeding all expectations. And do you know why Biden's poll ratings are remaining lower right now? I mean, it's because Democrats are not saying that they approve of the job. It's because instead of back last year when you had 95% of Democrats after President

Biden was elected saying they approved of President Biden. Now that number is more like 75 percent. And people who lean Democrat are more around like 56 percent approval. So that's why we're seeing those shifts. It's not because Republicans. Republicans are always not going to approve of President Biden. Republicans are never going to come out for President Biden, especially the hard, hard, hard right. But what we need is we need Democrats to be rallying around these issues the way Republicans rally around issues. Think about Republicans in Roe v. Wade. They have been fighting that issue. They've been fighting that decision for decades and decades and decades and decades. And now it looks like they are going to get a result that they want. And Democrats really just need more

moxie at the end of the day. We need to be proud and loud Democrats. We need to spike the football at all of the accomplishments that we've done so far in this administration and not shy away from healthy debates when people point to gas prices that Biden doesn't control. Be proud of Katonji Brown. Justice Katonji Brown Jackson. Be proud of everything that we've accomplished so far in the short stint that Biden's been president. And look, go back to what Gloria Johnson said, and that's how we'll close out this podcast. We're talking about jobs, we're talking about healthcare, and we're talking about education. That is what we need to focus on in 2022. When I say that, though, I'll often get comments. Well, what about climate? I'm with you. All of

those things I also support. But what we have to realize is for us to achieve our goals on climate, the Democrats are already supportive of that. What we have to do is make clear the immediacy of what the Democrat wins are and what the Republicans want to take away. They want to take away health care. They don't want your child to actually receive an education. They're against public schools. That's what they're against. And they are not for Americans having jobs, period, or jobs that pay a living wage. They want to either outsource all your work or they want to have labor that's paid at such minimal amounts that you can't survive. That is just what their platform is. And so we need to go out there and we need to make the promises that we are already keeping.

And we need to stop having the Republicans go out there and lying over and over again to the people. That is what we need to do. That is what we're committed to do at the Midas Touch. I want to thank our guest, Gloria Johnson, for joining us on the podcast today. Please, this is how you can help the Midas Touch podcast. Please subscribe to, one, our YouTube channel, and two, wherever you get the podcasts. Even if you don't subscribe to the podcast because you listen to it on YouTube,

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Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Midas Touch. Let's keep fighting together. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.