The MeidasTouch Podcast - Laboratories of Autocracy with David Pepper

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, the brothers have a very special guest, David Pepper! David is a former Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, former councilman from Cincinnati and best selling author of the new book, Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-up Call from Behind Enemy Lines. During the interview, we discuss why it is so crucial people pay close attention to their local city councils, voter suppression laws and how we combat an entire political party rooted in fascist principles. Throughout the rest of the episode, the brothers discuss the latest Trump grift, TRUTH Social, and why the SEC may be paying particularly close attention to what’s going on. The remainder of the episode is rounded out by the brothers recapping Ron Desantis’ latest pro-covid policies, and much more. If you enjoy today’s episode, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! As always, thank YOU for listening. Support our sponsors: HoMedics -- Right now if you go to HoMedics.com/MEIDAS and use promo code MEIDAS, you’ll receive a FREE REPLACEMENT FILTER with the purchase of your Air Purifier…up to a $99 value! Wondery -- Listen to new episodes of American History Tellers on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ben Micellis joined by Brett and Jordy Micellis. We have an incredible episode for you today. Our guest, David Pepper, former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party and author of one of the top books on Amazon's political list, a great book called Laboratories of Autocracy, a wake-up call from behind enemy lines. This interview with David, if it's anything like the book, is going to freak the heck out of you, but he's got plans. He's got an agenda in terms of what we can do to resist and save our democracy. And lots of those ideas are some of the ideas we've been talking about here

on Midas Touch, so we'll be good to speak with David Pepper. Brett, Jordy, good to speak with you. How are you doing? Good to speak with you guys. You know what also terrifies the shit out of me is if you look at the Amazon charts or if you look at the New York Times bestsellers list, if you look at the podcast charts, it's how dominated they are by these right wing fascist voices. Like you'll see on the top of all these charts, it's like, you know, you got Tucker, you got Steve Bannon's War Room on the top of the podcast charts, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk. And people ask a lot, you know, how does a podcast change anything? How does a book change anything? Well, this is the way that messaging is dispersed in 2021. This is the way that people are learning about politics. And this is why you see all these crazy people out there because they are digesting all this fake information from all these sources.

It's being beamed right into their ears via these fake fascist podcasts. And that's why we need to combat all this with our voices, with our pro-democracy voices. And that's why you listening to this podcast is so important. That's why you being informed, as stressful as it is to be so informed on a daily basis is important and I'm excited to get into it with David because David is really gonna talk about the intricacies of the state houses and why it's so important for us to not just worry about the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Matt Gaetz's of the world,

but to get really local with it, right? To get really into the nitty gritty of politics, where all the scary shit is actually going down. So I'm both excited and a little worried to speak to David today. I want to piggyback on that point that you made before though, Brett, about these right-wing GQP nutjobs just being at the top of the charts and of everything. The algorithm is real. Their content does get pushed to the top, but also a lot of people are listening to them. The way wars were fought back in the day, we're on a very physical battlefield. And we like to say now wars are fought in digital places.

A few expressions come to mind, Jordy. One, a hit dog will holler. Two, a quartered snake is most likely to bite. And what I glean from those types of statements and what we're experiencing now is that fascism, GQ peers, and this goes back to an earlier interview, actually, we did, where, you know, one of the guests said to us, the fact that the GQP is acting this way shows that they're losing because they are terrified. All the crazy shit you see is a projection of their desperation. But we as democracy loving people, as pro, as being unapologetically pro democracy, as Jordi Schertz said, we cannot take democracy for granted because sometimes it's so easy to take democracy for granted. It's easy being on the sideline. It's easy not showing up and going about your day and ignoring the fascist threat and going to sleep and waking up and going through our routines. But we need to realize that the

barbarians are literally and metaphorically at the gates in the form of the GQP. It will be great to have David Pepper on the podcast. Brothers, we are making a movie. Let's go. Damn, movie time. The Midas Touch is making a movie with the good liars. The movie's called The Supporters. The trailer dropped a few days back in just 48 hours. Well, in fact, in 24 hours, it got 1.1 million views of the initial trailer. The movie, it's a full-length film. It will be

released November 4th of this year, one year from the last election date. That's why we chose November 4th as the date. We intend to release this film for free, for free. We will be requesting during the film or after if you enjoyed the movie to make various contributions, whether it's $9.99 as a rental or $19.99 as a purchase, but or more or less, we are going to empower you, the viewer. And this may be the craziest business model ever, but we wanted, but you know what? We've seen so many bad movies during the pandemic where I've spent 1999 or 30 bucks for a movie and it was

unwatchable in the first 20 minutes. So we're going to flip the script on streaming here and say, if you like this movie at the end of it, feel free to pay for the movie. If you don't like the movie, don't pay for it, but you are going to love it. It follows, it's a parody, but it's done in the style of Borat. It follows two Trump supporters, two massive MAGA QAnoners who are deep down that QAnon Trump MAGA rabbit hole. They record a podcast out of Derek, one of the characters' wife's minivan, where they record their Derek and Dale podcast. And they go on a journey to try to get on Fox News. This was recorded during the 2020 election.

It was recorded during the pandemic. The movie was even recorded during the insurrection. There are literally scenes with the insurrection in the background while the film is being shot. I don't want to give any spoilers, but this film is hilarious. And Brett and Jordy, I've had friends who I've sent the screening to

and impartial people have said, this is the funniest movie they have ever seen. Yeah, it really is. I know I'm biased, but it really is one of the funniest movies of all time. And it is brilliant. And I think it has an important message and an important point

that I really don't want to spoil the story. But let me just say this movie pulls no punches. It hits everybody on all sides here. We got Joe Biden, who has one of the best comebacks in the history of comebacks to The Good Liars when they try going after Biden. It has Don Jr. It has Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren. I mean, you name it, they are in this movie. Trump makes an appearance in this movie. This movie pulls no punches, leaves no stone unturned. And I am so excited for you to see the full length thing. You could check out the trailer right now

on our YouTube channel. It's also currently the pinned tweet on our Twitter account. Go check it out. I'm sure you will absolutely die laughing. And I can't wait for you to see the full thing. Except the title of the movie, guys. Well, you know what the thing, you know, that I think was great is that the people, you know, on the pro-democracy side, whether it was Buttigieg, whether it was Biden,

you know, when prompted, they showed their true colors as being, you know, civic-minded, being decent human beings. And then when you look at what the GQ peers were who were interviewed, they show really who they are. Right, Jordy? Absolutely. And look, this is why I'm the marketing guy, because you guys did a great job explaining the movie where people can see it. But you guys didn't say the title of the movie. The movie is called The Supporters, and it's going to be the best movie you have ever seen, guaranteed. You could go to thesupportersmovie.com, check out the trailer. You could sign up to the

mailing list to be the first to know when the movie drops. That's the supportersmovie.com. Go check it out. Absolutely. Let's get into some of the news. Let's talk about Trump's social media company and the announcement of it. What's it even called, Brett? The Truth? Pravda? It's called... Yeah, it's named after Pravda, named after the Russian communist paper of record. Truth, literally, which was the name of Pravda. That's what Pravda means. And in Truth, it's basically they copied Twitter.

They actually stole the source code from this open source social network and just copied it and put their branding on it because obviously they can't create their own thing. They just pulled an open source social network and put it in. They're not following any of the guidelines that you're supposed to with this open source network, any of the licensing agreements. That's another issue that they'll have to deal with.

It's called Truth, which is one of the most Orwellian things I've ever heard. One of the requirements of Truth, this free speech platform is that you cannot speak badly about the social network or about Donald Trump on the network. I'm not lying. This is literally one of the terms of service that you cannot speak negatively about the social network. Say what you want about Twitter, but I could tweet right now, fuck Twitter, and they will not kick me off the platform.

But if you say anything negative about Trump, if you say anything negative about truth on truth, then you will be kicked off the platform. And they just ripped off all the stuff. Instead of a retweet, you do a retruth because that's... It feels like the plot line out of Silicon Valley when that one character kept literally stealing other platforms and just putting their logo on it. That's insane. Instead of tweeting you truth.

You truth. Retruth. Retruth. It is the most 1984 psychotic thing. Let me give you a little bit of a legal understanding of what this merger is. I'm going to save a lot of it

for the world-renowned Legal AF podcast. I know, because Ben, I keep... When does Legal AF air? First tell people when Legal AF airs, subscribe. Saturday live and Sunday drop. Boom. Subscribe to Legal AF. And the term that I have been hearing constantly, even before this, Ben, is SPAC. SPAC, SPAC, SPAC, SPAC. I have no idea what a SPAC is. And I know you are the SPAC man. So let me break it down for you very briefly what a SPAC is in as basic terms as I can. Again, I'm going to save some of this for the legal AF analysis, but a SPAC stands for a special purpose acquisition company. A SPAC is a public holding company. It raises money. It trades on a public forum like NASDAQ

or New York Stock Exchange. I think this trade is on NASDAQ. The SPAC here is called like direct media worldwide entertainment or something, or has a name like that, like DWPAC or something, but it trades publicly. And what the SPAC does is under regulations, it has a limited time period. Usually it's about 18 months to two years from which this public holding company joins with a private company to take the private company public because this public holding company is already trading on one of the exchanges. And so you think about it like an IPO process, but in many ways, it is a bit of a quicker IPO process, an easier IPO process. It doesn't have all of the hoops and hurdles necessarily and all of the diligence

that always takes place in an IPO, but still has extensive, extensive diligence. But basically, it's to bring a private company public. Now, here's the thing that's fucking blowing my mind here. Why the hell would Donald Trump want a publicly traded company that falls under the scrutiny of the SEC. That seems like a regulatory nightmare waiting to happen. It's going to be, but he and everything, let's think about the regular Trump Ponzi scheme mentality. I think we've saw it here today, which is one of the vehicles the SPAC does is the public holding company, it's already went out and raised money. So this particular public holding company, I think raised around $293 million, which is kept in a trust account. Upon the merger of the companies,

that SPAC injects that money into the new entity. And it's a little bit, it could get a little more complicated than that in the sense of you could raise money before the merger, and that's called a PIPE, a P-I-P-E, also an acronym. But here you're basically injecting $293 million into this private company to bring it public the same way an IPO would sell a certain amount of shares on the public market. So why would Trump do it? Because he's probably thinking, I'll deal with the regulatory shit later. Let me get this money now and deal with it. And look, the stock today, let's be real. it has traded like one of these penny stocks that have gone through the roof. I mean, at some points today, this stock traded as close to 300% increase.

So when the SPACs trade originally, it's at $10 a share. That's the standard SPAC price. There's a little bit difference with warrants, but assume they start at $10 a share. So now it's trading in the realm of the high 30s a share. I want to know who bought that stock 48 hours ago. Which means the valuation of those initial $10 shares have exploded. One interesting thing to look at though, and we should all look at, is people who buy large amounts of those shares have to file with the SEC a special form of a certain beneficial ownership that they have a certain threshold of stock. So we should also begin looking at who are the stockholders,

who are the shareholders, who are the people who are actually buying the stock. The stock was actually called DWAC, Digital World Acquisition Corporation is the name of that stock. And yeah, it's above 300% right now and doing incredibly, incredibly well as a stock. But here's the thing. Usually in these types of SPAC mergers, the target company, meaning the company being acquired, which really means being merged into that public company, is an actual company. It actually has a history of success so that on the public markets, you can say, well, look at my financials in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021. Look at my five-year trailing or even three-year trailing. But there is a history of success within the target company. Here, this Trump entity is a made-up entity. It is being created

for the very first time. And that's one of the things with IPOs, right? We don't, you know, like let's say Midas Touch wanted to IPO. You know, we have a history, at least a track record to IPO. But imagine if last March we said, hey, we want to IPO before you even had an entity that exists. And so you can see the concerns that a marketplace could have in something like this. And this is a real concern because Trump is pumping the shit out of this stock with his press release. He's creating an artificial demand in the marketplace. You see all the issues here of where this is going. So as we look at the stock price today, the moment this malfunctions, the moment we see Trump pump and dump his stock, stay tuned, folks.

That is where this is going. And by the way, my SPAC knowledge right there. Really impressive. That's why I said you're the SPAC man. That is some next level breakdown. But that is what is going on there. Just some other you're the SPAC man. That is some next level breakdown. But that is what is going on there. Just some other facts about the SPAC.

The CEO of the SPAC itself, Patrick Orlando, also serves as the chief executive officer of China Yang Hong Holdings, LTD with offices in Wuhan. Just want to throw that out there. You can't make that up. Your tweet was like, so Trump is literally owned by China right now? Yeah. And the fact that in all the places of China, it's in Wuhan is really just one of the most mind blowing things. And I encourage the QAnon conspiracy crowd to look into that and make what you will. So that was a deep dive breakdown of the Trump SPAC, where it's headed, where it's going, what you should be looking at. Feel free, everybody, look up Digital World Acquisition Corp. Look at their filings. I mean, be online sleuths. Feel

free to start looking at those filings. And we will be following that very closely here. At Midas Touch, something else we've been following very closely at Midas Touch are the subpoenas that are going out from the January 6th commission. We know that Steve Bannon, who's claimed executive privilege, even though he was not working in the White House. The executive privilege is a privilege of the deliberations of the president. And so the fact that someone who wasn't even working for the president is claiming the executive privilege, as Liz Cheney says, it proves the point that Trump was not working as an executive if Steve Bannon's claiming executive privilege? Steve Bannon is a podcaster as a fellow podcaster. I could say that I don't have executive privilege, so I don't think Steve Bannon should have any executive privilege.

I think the entire legal community agrees with me here. I actually like where the direction of the committee is going right now. I like the rhetoric coming out from them. I like the actions that I'm seeing from them in regards to Bannon, in regards to Dan Scavino, who is now not cooperating and they're threatening to give him the same treatment as Steve Bannon. I think if these people do not cooperate, they all will end up in prison. I know it goes to a legal timeline and people want it to happen now, now, now. They want that movie moment of Steve Bannon being whisked away in cuffs and all the cameras on him. But that's where we're headed. It's just not going to happen overnight. It has to happen procedurally and unfortunately. Ultimately, though, you think

we'll get there, Brett? Because right now there's been a lot of great statements and I agree. I think everything's going in the right direction, but I know a lot of people are thirsty for action. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's imperative that we get there. And I think the Democrats know that it's important that we get there. I think the Democrats know that it's important that we get there. I think the most important thing above any single issue out there, in my opinion, is protecting our democracy at all costs. I think that's, unfortunately, that's what it's come to. I wish that we were able to focus on the nitty gritty issues of how to improve this

country more. But I think protecting our democracy from those who seek to destroy it at this moment in time is everything. It's the name of the game. And whether that's voting rights, which we'll talk about in a little bit, or whether that's holding these bad actors accountable who attempted to overthrow our democracy, I think that is absolutely essential, essential, essential, essential. And if Democrats don't deliver there, then they deserve what's coming to them. But I think they understand that this is important. And I think we need to keep putting the pressure on them to make sure that they take action. Yes, we have to deal with Sinema and Manchin.

But let's not act like 99% of the Democrats are not fighting for us because they are. It's just these two bad apples out there that are fucking it up for the rest of us right now. But even they voted for the Freedom to Vote Act that we saw hit the floor the other day. They joined all Democrats in voting for this act that Chuck Schumer brought to the floor to put voting rights front and center. Of course, every single Republican voted against voting rights once again. Voted against your right to vote. I mean, that's how far we've come.

Republicans don't even want you to have the right to vote. And now Chuck Schumer at the very end switched his vote to a no vote because our government is so stupid that in order to be able to... It's such a weird procedural rule in order for him to be able to bring this bill up again, he had to vote no on it at the very end. He had to switch his vote and vote against his own. We have the dumbest system, everybody. It's just the stupidest. There's a bunch of dumb rules within our system, but that's what they are. They're rules. But anyway, go ahead on Schumer, Brett. I'm trying to question if it's even smart for Schumer to

bring these bills up like this because he knew it wasn't going to pass, right? Because we still have the filibuster. We got to get rid of the filibuster if we ever want to see this passing. He knew it was going to fail. But I think at the end of the day, Schumer wanted to show, hey, look, Democrats, we're fighting for your right to vote. The Republicans, they're the ones who are voting against you. Not one or two of them voting against you, but 100% of them are voting against you, not one or two of them voting against you, but a hundred percent of them are voting against you. And it's just such a fucked up and ridiculous system that really 40,

41 Republicans have the power. And those 41 Republicans who, by the way, represent only about a fifth of the entire nation have the power to reject your voice and reject the voice of all other Americans. And that's why I'm excited to talk with David Pepper, who's going to talk about not just the issues of autocracy within the national level, but at the state and local levels. Jordy, I want to give you a shout out for using the word thirsty. That's thirst trap Geordie, but you know what traps germs better than anything? It is home medics, air purifier. Let's go. Yes. Yes. Ben is nailing those segways. I'm going to tell you, I got the home medics right here with me. When I do the podcast, I got the home medics in my bedroom. It's helping me personally breathe better. It's helping me

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Thanks for having me. So I read this book, David, and it scared the shit out of me. Although at the end of it, you give remedies. It's about 30 remedies of how we can save our democracy. But what it made me reflect upon, obviously, and it's right there in the title is when we all took civics, we were taught that states were the laboratories of innovation, the laboratories of democracy. That famous expression was instilled into us, but now seems to be the opposite. And that's exactly what your book argues. So how have states now become laboratories of autocracy? Well, we could sort of have a historic debate about whether or not that term was ever all that great. I mean, there clearly have been moments where they were

laboratories of democracy, but we've also seen some pretty horrible moments in the past, like the Jim Crow era or others, where they've been the opposite. And as my book tries to lay out, that's what they are right now. And not all states. One of the things I advocate is when Democrats win, we better make them laboratories of democracy. We owe it to ourselves to do that. But in too many places, and the reality of state houses is in many ways, they're sort of an Achilles heel of American governance. No one knows who these people are. The special interests surround them. They have power over things like district lines, election rules. And, you know, for some of them, the greatest eight years ever going to have is as a state rep. So let's go for

broke. And between that, those problems in and of themselves, as well as the fact that groups like the Koch brothers have figured out that if you want to do damage, go to these places. Don't go to Congress. You'll never get anything done in Congress. Go to state houses. You add it up in the last 20 years, really is seeing these state houses accelerate in this terrible role they're playing. I try and lay out in the book, it has become almost a laboratory process where, you know, Ohio tries one thing, Georgia tries another, you know, some other state tries another. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but because there's no accountability, they never stop. And every success another state models off of, and every failure another state learns from. And so you have this kind of growing, you know, momentum around attacks on democracy, and they're kind of perfecting it as

they go. And it should scare you. So my point of writing the book, like I say towards the end of the book, I want to alarm people. That's why this is not like a both sides academic treatment. It is a advocacy book. I was more alarmed when I was done with it than when I started it because of all the research I did. But I want to alarm people into actually doing something because it's not too late. It's close to too late, but we know it's too late if no one does anything. And so I try and, you know, write it in a way that really wakes people up, maybe shocks people. And we all kind of know a lot of what's going on. So I'm glad that you were alarmed because I really want people to see it's worse than most realize.

It's worse than a lot of U.S. senators realize. And we need to wake up and start acting like it or they win. And the history of our country and other countries is relentless attacks on democracy win unless people fight back very hard. You know, I think, David, when we use the term laboratories of democracy in the past, your point is well taken. Is that true? But the arc of history always seemed to be going of experimentation to make our union more perfect. Not that it was perfect in the first place, but now with these voter suppression laws that are being experimented with in these states, the anti-choice laws, the pro-COVID laws, right? DeSantis today said businesses need to be liable who require vaccines. It's the arc of history that's becoming problematic.

Absolutely. And the thing, you know, I was a history major, and this gets back to the whole debate over, you know, teaching history. There is an arc that goes one way and it's gone that way over time. But but sometimes we we lose sight of there have been setbacks that people lived an entire lifetime trying to get through, like the Jim Crow era. You know, people forget or never knew that after the Civil War for about 30 years, there were elected black officials who were congresspeople, mayors, governors from southern states. And the painful lesson here is that also can all be at risk. And after Jim Crow set in, people who in their mid-20s, let's say African-American men, because women couldn't vote yet, who in the mid-1870s would have seen elected officials that looked like them in office, they probably never could have imagined that in like them in office, they probably never could have imagined that in only a few years, they would all be gone for the rest of their lifetime.

And so the thing I never want people to get, you know, the arc of history does bend in the way we want, but with a whole lot of pushing. And sometimes it gets bent the other way for a lot longer than we ever acknowledge, because people stop pushing when people who are against democracy were pushing very hard. So it's not inevitable. And that's why, again, the book I don't want to sound alarmist, but it's, I hope, very realistic about the threats we face, how they're getting more serious and how everyone from, you know, U.S. senators to people in their own communities who need to know who their state rep is and start registering people need to really get engaged. Or we could have another era where my own kids, I don't know if you guys have kids, I have a seven-year-old, a four-year-old. I don't want them fighting for democracy, you know, until they're 40 or 50 before they get it back. That's at risk, I'm afraid, if we let these state houses keep doing what they're

doing. You know, an alternative title of your book, although it's a title of other books and papers, could have been the new Jim Crow, because in many ways, you mentioned Jim Crow. Many of these issues, it seems to me, are really proxies for racism, proxies for white supremacy, to enable people to discriminate against women and the LGBTQ plus community. And we can call these issues SB8 or SB this or Senate bill, voter law this or voter law that. But at the end, whether we're talking Ohio, whether we're talking Texas, whether we're talking DeSantis in Florida, when we look at these states, it seems to be a reincarnation of the Confederacy. And what they're scared about is the diversity of our nation. And they want to clamp down on that because they know they don't have the numbers. So let's cheat. Yeah. So there are a lot of people who've written

about this who know a lot more than I do. So I don't spend most of my book on the motivation. I do it on the mechanism of what they're doing. But I also do dedicate, late in the book, some pages to this. And I think it's a coming together of two pretty awful interests. One is sort of the Koch brother economic interests where they don't want government touching their money. And the way to keep government touching your money is to keep average people from getting their voted will, because the average person, if they have fair and free elections, is not going to put up with the 0.01% controlling most of the money. In order to prevent that, you don't want to have a robust democracy.

You want what Alec is pushing for. You want what we're stuck with, trickle-down economics. That is now dovetailing with what you just talked about, which is this terrible pattern in American history. And it happened again after the Civil War. It's happening again. It especially happened after Obama won office. And it's whenever the broader diversity of our nation sort of exerts itself and says, hey, we're the majority now. Those old days are gone. You see this backlash that is an ugly strain of white supremacy. And again, if you look at the parallels, I've been reading a lot of this history that some want to censor. You know, if you read the terrorism of the late 1800s and the early 1900s in Southern states, but also beyond Southern

states, so much of the tone of it was what we're seeing now. Voter blacks are doing voter fraud. That was how they justified Jim Crow laws, you know, arming everyone, especially during emergencies. So you can shoot people and be a vigilante, you know, no more protests. And if you drive a car through protests, you're not liable. I mean, this is really dark stuff. And it recalls, if you read the history,. It's in the state houses. These are the officials that have rigged their own elections and are rigging them again right now through

gerrymandering. So they're not just sort of protesting. They're not just in Charlottesville marching. They're in state houses writing the bills. And as the book tries to make clear, these state houses are strong enough, even if you have more moderate governors, Republicans even, these state houses run them over. We're seeing that in Ohio. We see it in other states that, now in Florida, you don't even see that. The governor himself is part of the problem. Here, we have some more moderate Republicans, but the power of these state houses around budgets, around voting laws, and around politics is such that an extreme state house ends up, you know, getting rip checking or overwhelming even moderate instincts of statewide officials. So a lot of these bills is anti-vaccine

bills and others. They're all getting signed by these governors because they're scared of these state houses too. David, let's Monday morning quarterback for just a second, because I want to know why did Democrats drop the ball here? Why are the Republicans so dominant in these state houses? So I go, you know, in the book talks about my campaign for state auditor in 2009 and 10. And you're going to when you read it, you're going to think, boy, that was some one naive guy. And I was in my early 30s. And I think that was a key moment where Obama was in the 70s percentage approval. In states like Ohio, he was in the 50s or 60s. In the middle of 2009, Karl Rove basically drew his map of where he was going to prioritize winning the offices that would draw the maps for the next 10 years. And we already know that midterms are tough when you have the

White House. And I think a lot of that moment where they did, you know, there was a, I put in the book, there was a Time Magazine cover in May of 09 that had an elephant, the Republican Party, saying it was near extinction. We were all saying, oh, the demographic change is such that they'll never win again. Well, Karl Rove and other people had a bullseye on the very states and districts they needed to win. And I think that success, and I saw it in Ohio. You know, we had a governor. We had we had a majority of our statehouse. And at the end of the day, they went for broke on the offices that could control districting. They won governor's races. And I don't think they could have even anticipated how successful that would be, because the gerrymandered map of 10 held even in 20 when Biden won. And my worry is we'll hold for the next decade because it's the same people drawing it again. And I think they were much smarter at that moment

than we were. We were still celebrating this new era and they went for broke and they succeeded. Now, here's the thing I don't think they thought about then, which the book gets into. I don't think people understand yet just how warped it's become to have essentially a generation of politicians in these state houses who basically never experienced democracy. It's not just 10 or 20 of state house members out of the Ohio 99. It's a majority. They've never really been in a real election. They've never worried about being reelected. That's true around the country. And when you stop and think about what that means, an entire generation of politicians, their own personal experience of coming to power never had anything to do with democracy.

And the book goes through this. The warping effect on just their mindset and what they do every day is enormous. What's the one thing that threatens their hold on power? A real election. Well, they also happen to draw the rules of elections and they draw the districts. How's that going to work out? Not very well. These guys know, and by the way, one other thing, the only way they'll lose their election is in a primary. So they're as extreme as possible. In a gerrymandered world, that's rational behavior. If it were fair elections, they're so extreme, they'd all lose and they know it.

So anything they can do to avoid fair elections, they're doing. And by the way, the other thing that comes with what they're doing is, I try and point this out, the results in states like Ohio are terrible. Small towns where these people represent are dying. Trickle-down economics isn't working. What the Koch brothers want is a directly in contrast to what small towns and cities need. So the other thing these guys have, they have no record to run on. They have to win by rigging elections because if they actually had to run on the public outcomes in places like Ohio, they would lose the election. So it all started in 9 and 10. But the truly disturbing impact of a generation without democracy and all these majorities is far greater than I think Karl

Rove would have even thought in 9 and 10. And now they're stuck. Like I put the analogy, these guys, if you swept out gerrymandering and had real elections, they'd all lose. They'd be like I say in the book, they'd be fish on a beach, washed up, try to suck out oxygen and failing. Like they would lose. They know they would lose. So they have to do this to keep doing what they're doing. They created a fucking monster. And now these Republicans are like, holy shit, we created this fascist freak show. What do we do? It's out of control. And most of them are too cowardly to say anything now. They know it. They, you know, I, again, I, I sort of, I'm pretty brutal in the book. You know, John Kasich now complains about all these people. Well, he gerrymandered the

day of MAP in 2010. Yeah. You look the match. He created it. We have a secretary of state who is now a lieutenant governor who wants to tell us all that he's, you know, he's moderate. He drew the map to John Boehner, drew the map like they all created this. And now it's exploded. And we've got anti-vaccine and all this other stuff. And by the way, one thing that really, you know, I hope and I'm not sure it's exploded and we've got anti-vaccine and all this other stuff. And by the way, one thing that really, you know, I hope and I'm not sure it's going to happen. You know, right now, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce is working its tail off to beat back an effort to not allow companies to have vaccine mandates. And they're actually so they're fighting nonstop with the Republican legislature. Right. But they're saying nothing about the gerrymandering that's happening at the same time. Guys, the reason the anti-vax stuff is so powerful is because of the rigging of elections in the first place.

If you're not fighting both, you'll be fighting one the rest of our lives. So a lot of people who used to be moderate and still claim to be were were creating all this stuff. And they need to frankly, I don't I don't care if they publicly own claim to be, we're creating all this stuff. And they need to, frankly, I don't care if they publicly own up to it, but they got to figure it out privately. And if they care about democracy and any sense of common sense, also be part of fighting back. Well, Halloween isn't for another week or so, but you've adequately spooked me. You've adequately freaked me out and our listeners out. But now that you've done that, help us help present some of the solutions to these issues. I know you go through about 30 points at the end of your book. Spoiler alert, not going to ruin the book here. Read the book if you want to hear

everything. But what are some ways that we could reclaim democracy? Well, not to be in the book selling business, but one, all of this relies on the fact that no one knows anything about state houses. That is why the Koch brothers can do this. No one pays attention. We're running around worrying about Marjorie Taylor Greene, and she's someone to worry about. She's not doing anything right it, everyone needs to sort of self-educate on what's happening and then frankly spread the word. If you have a book club, you want me to speak, I'm all in. You guys too. We need to get the word out that this is the place where most of the damage is and will happen and just educate this country on that reality. Because even every couple weeks, we'll say, oh, my God, what happened in Texas or Georgia? But then there's like a boycott or a lawsuit. And then we go back to debating the debt ceiling. We never say what the hell's happening in these state houses, why and how do we stop them? So I think, honestly, first, some real self-awareness about the problem is needed. But then I think it's, you know, the book's 30 steps or everyone can do something. You know, if you're a federal official, for God's sakes, vote for voting rights protection,

including ending gerrymandering as best we can. The founders would have expected you to do so. Filibuster is not a legitimate obstacle in any way to fighting for democracy and state after state. But it's not only about them, although they have to do that. That's a bare essential. Then it's national political players rethinking all of politics to be about saving democracy. If we think about everything as a four-year federal

presidential thing, and we only look at a map because of swing states and the electoral college, we will lose. It's got to be every year. And you've got to defend democracy in every state. You know, there are right-wing think tanks in Vermont, in Hawaii. They're fighting against democracy everywhere. If we only fight forward in the states that happen to also be presidential states, we're giving up half the country before we even start. And if you look at this laboratories model, the fact that we're letting them cook all this stuff up in half the states in the country to then share elsewhere, you're really losing when you only fight on half the playing field. So we have to rethink our framing of politics to be the same way we do other countries. Like if another country is falling

away from democracy, we call that out what it is. We have to think about states in that same way. And then from down from there, you know, every citizen should know who their state house member is, should know where they stand, should never let anyone run without an opponent. That's what they want in a gerrymandered world. We should all be registering voters in any way we can, because that's the primary attack on voting. I go through all the details in my book, but it's a lot about awareness. It's about officials playing their roles. And by the way, one other thing we and I look back at my own time as a city council member and regret this. Every official in this country should be championing democracy. If you're a mayor and you have rec centers, register people, those rec centers. If you have health centers, register them after they're done with the appointment, say, hey, you're registered or have you moved? Great. Let's re-register you. The people who are fighting democracy are purging these people all the time.

And it shouldn't just be the Bureau of Motor Vehicles where you asked if you're registered. If you're a city, if you're the city of Cincinnati or Cleveland, it should offend you that they are purging your voters. It's in your interest to re-register them. So every mayor, every school board member, all of them, nonprofit leaders, restaurants, I think all of them should in their own footprint and mindset and mission think part of our mission is democracy, empowering the people we serve, those who work for us, you name it. So there's a lot in there, and this is all in the book. But I think that we've got to really dig down deep.

Or again, the other side that's attacking this stuff every single day will win. Shifting gears here slightly. Josh Mandel. What the fuck? I mean, he's clearly the favorite to take that Senate seat. But it's just, what the fuck? How does a guy get that corrupt? Is that crazy? Does he believe his own bullshit that he's spewing? I don't. He is. How concerned should should Ohioans be if this man actually gets that seat?

I mean, incredibly concerned. He is he he is worse than Holly. He's worse than any of them. And And he is clearly the favorite in that primary. J.D. Vance may have a lot of money and he's showing to be pretty shameless and scary, too, by the way. I kind of call that, you know, I grew up watching the West Wing and American President and thinking that was good. I call these guys the house of cards generation. They watched that show and thought that was how they were supposed to be. I mean, it's really scary to watch these guys. I still think Mandel's the favorite. And I just don't think in the end he really, he'll just do whatever he needs to do.

I don't know where he, but, you know, he was a Gore supporter. I first saw him running as a moderate, as a state rep. Then he keeps moving to the right. He'll just go as far as he needs to go. And here's the other thing. I don't want to over get carried away. Trump will love this guy. Love him. When when Jane Timken first announced she was a former Republican chair who's also total Trumper all the way through. I think she hoped Trump would endorse her early, but that window closed. I think Trump is going to look at Mandel and think he's perfect. He's exactly what I want.

And by the way, this is the one thing that gets lost in Ohio is how hard it is to get known in Ohio. It is a big state, multimedia markets. Mandel is the only one who has run twice statewide, won both times, run for Senate a time and a half. He's going to be up in the polls for most of his race. So I think it will be in Flynn endorsed him just the other day. So I think you'll have a lot of Trump world tempted to endorse him. Now, I do think if you're Tim Ryan, Josh is the best opponent. That's the good news. But to your question,

that's scary as hell, too, because Trump won Ohio by eight. It's a midterm when we have the White House. He is the best matchup for Tim Ryan, I think, because he's so freaking is the most psychotic and weird. But he could win, too. I mean, no one should take that matchup for granted. I think, you know, some of the other candidates might be tougher head to head. Uh, but, you know, so Tim can beat him in, in 18, 2018, Ryan versus Mandel. Ryan wins the race. Let's be clear. 22 shared one by seven.

We only lost the governor's race by about four. You know, I think Ryan would beat Mandel probably pretty easily at 18, 22 though, midterm. They have the white house. they have the White House. We have the White House. I don't know. But so I think he's the favorite for the primary. I think he is Tim's best opponent. But I also think he's scary as hell and will do anything to win.

That's a message we've been spreading here at Midas Touch, David. Never take any of these elections for granted. Never take democracy for granted. And that is at the heart of your new book, Laboratories of Autocracy, a wake-up call from behind enemy lines. Midas Mighty, make sure to purchase that book now. You will enjoy reading about the prescriptions and the descriptions of how we got there. And David Pepper, we appreciate so much for you joining us on the Midas Touch podcast today. Thanks, guys. Thanks again for all you're doing. Makes a huge difference. I love your shirt, by the way. Unapologetically pro-democracy. That's what we all need to see. That's a good plug. David Pepper,

thank you so much for joining the Midas Touch podcast and hope you will come back again as a guest. Great interview, Brett. Great interview. I have like the chills and I know you read it then, but I got to immediately go now and read those. I might just skip to the end of the book, honestly, and read the 30 solutions for how we fix this thing. I like that. I'm definitely worried, but that's why we all got to just constantly be vigilant and keep doing what we're doing and pushing ahead and fighting for democracy. And I like that he roots these issues historically. He talks about Jim Crow. We talk about the modern day Jim Crow. And it's why I like to read and listen to history. It gives great context for what we're going to now. And I love to get that from Wondery. The American History Teller series in general is like an amazing series. I've listened to, I think, literally dozens of their seasons.

Can we set the scene? Can you break it down? Yeah, set the scene again. Just set the scene. The first ad read you did was electric. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Set the scene. Jordy and I could provide some sound effects.

It's the 1920s. America is emerging from the turmoil of a world war and the Spanish flu pandemic. Now it's time for a decade of extraordinary change. From Wondery, American history tellers, Roaring Twenties is an all new podcast season that explores an era of exuberance and prosperity that also had a dark side. The roaring 20s calls to mind images of flappers, jazz clubs, and speakeasies. A younger and more diverse generation was creating a more forward-thinking American culture. But with change came resistance, and the cultural transformation sparked a fierce and violent backlash. Many feared that traditional American values were under attack.

Anti-immigrant hysteria swept the nation. The Ku Klux Klan reached the height of its power and many white Americans flocked to fundamentalist churches. Are we talking about the 20s right now? Are we talking about the 20s right now? Which 20s are we talking about, man? American history tellers, American history tellers, roaring 20s, will take you from the post-war unrest of 1919 to the devastating stock market crash of 1929. It's the story of the decade that gave birth to modern America. Brett and Jordi, to your point, it feels that history does repeat itself.

We talked about in the interview, the arc of history moving gradually but slowly in the right direction. But now the forces of authoritarianism seem out and about to try to push us back pre-1920, push us right back in to Jim Crow, and even much worse, to push us back in to an overall time where authoritarianism was what dominated the globe. Yeah. I think what followed the 20s, it was an era of fascism globally that took over the world. That's why I think this podcast is so important to listen to. I encourage everybody to listen to American History Tellers on Apple Podcasts, Apple Music, or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Wondery really knows how to tell these stories. And I think these stories are so important and

our listeners are going to love this. So check it out, American History Tellers, every listen to podcasts. Absolutely. Wait, before we move on, I want to talk about David Pepper real quick because he's an Ohio guy and that's why I like him. OH, baby. He's not just an Ohio guy. He's a Cincinnati guy. Brett, who is Joe Burrow? Isn't Joe Burrow the quarterback, Jordy?

Of the Cincinnati Bengals. Who day, baby? Jordy, I think Joe Burrow is the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals. There you go. It's so funny. Brett's sports knowledge only lasts until 1999. Yeah. I could tell you the full lineup of the Chicago Bull only lasts until 1999. Yeah. I could tell you the full lineup of the Chicago Bulls up until 1999.

I could tell you the full lineup of the New York Knicks. I could tell you who was on the Jets and the Knicks. I could tell you everybody in every sport. And then at a certain point, I was like, none of the teams I watch are good. None of them work. So maybe I'll focus on this movie thing a little bit more. Or not be the right play. You get very personally invested in a team?

And sometimes you have to question, is that team personally invested in me, in my community? And sometimes there is that incongruity there. But Brett and Jordy, people don't come to us for the sports news. Maybe some people go to Jordy for that. But people come to the Midas Touch for political news. We serve it fresh, real, unadulterated, and a little spicy every single podcast that we do. And let's talk about Governor Death Santas for a second. So Governor Death Santas gave a press conference today, and this is Governor Death Santas'

take on businesses that want to implement, private businesses that want to implement vaccine mandates. Play the clip. We're going to be pursuing a number of protections for employees. First of all, if you think about it, if anyone has been forced to do an injection and has an adverse reaction, that business should be liable for that. Any damages, there's just, you have to do it because that's on them. It wasn't an individual choice. So there you have it. You have Governor Death Santa saying that he,

as the governor of Florida, wants to retaliate against businesses and make businesses liable't have vaccine mandates, corporations that are pro-COVID like Death Santas, people like Death Santas in positions of power who promote and spread the virus like it's some fucking Las Vegas rave that we should all be partying to disco music for that they're pro-COVID and these governments should be held responsible and liable as well. Should it not follow? I believe so. And I think, Ben, I think what we're going to see, and you could tell me with your legal expertise, is the flip side of what DeSantis is saying, is that I think corporations can and will be liable if their employees get COVID. You don't think that's possible? Not only do I think it's possible,

it's literally what I just said. I completely agree. That is exactly the point that I was making. No, it stays in the pod. It stays in the pod, Brett. Sometimes we don't listen to each other. Yeah, sometimes. And that's a good broader point, Brett, about people in general. Let's use that as a teaching moment. Sometimes we talk at each other, but not with each other. We should all listen to the true meaning behind what we're saying. But Brett, that is the point exactly. And at the same time, you have the GQP creating this Hugo Chavez boogeyman that exists, that does not exist, but they claim, you're Hugo Chavez, you're Hugo Chavez, you're Hugo Chavez. Well, let's talk about what GQP policy actually is. It is to affirmatively attack businesses

with governmental resources because businesses came up on their own with the decision to keep their own workers safe. And we're talking about Florida. We're talking about the cruise industry, where the spread of COVID on cruise ships is at the all-time most risky factor that could destroy the businesses. We're talking about restaurants. We're talking about places in Florida

where the businesses, by their very nature, as a major transportation hub, have decided, look, here's what we need to keep our businesses safe to remain profitable. We can't kill people in our businesses. And Governor DeSantis. Some would say it's a bad business model, trying to kill your customer base. It is a bad business model, trying to kill your customer base. It is a bad business model. But for the Death Santas, for the GQP, that is not only their government model. Let's kill the most people. But also it's let's now intervene in businesses who as private businesses want to help.

And these people like the DeSantis, these people like the GQ peers on Fox News, their whole shtick is based on disinfo and stanky data. And I use stanky because I still love the clips of our videos, Brett, about Trump's stench being in Virginia. They don't even want to smell that stinky Trump out there. But let's talk now, before we go into some of Midas touch efforts in Virginia, let's just talk briefly. You've seen these photos, the GQP are posting, Brett. Which ones? The photos of the empty shelves, the photos of grocery stores in the United Kingdom from 2020, from food stores in Germany, from the lines that were when Trump was president. This is the new line of attack coming from the GQP.

It's that all the shelves are empty and all the stores everywhere, that you can't find basic necessities anywhere in the whole world or anywhere in the country rather. But let's be real here. All the pictures that they're posting, like you said, Ben, are from A, other countries, or B, from when Trump was president during the height of the pandemic. And they're just liars. This is a form of propaganda. They know what they're doing. They are willfully showing photos from the previous administration, and they're trying to act like it is President Biden's administration. And I'm not going to pretend like there are no supply issues. Obviously, there are supply

chain issues that are affecting the entire world right now, but the shelves are not empty like that. And I think all of our listeners right now, if you go to the store, I think you all see, you might have a shelf out of a specific product or a specific brand, but all in all, things are pretty much there. Now think back to last year. Think back to trying to buy a roll of toilet paper last year. I remember I went to Costco to pick up supplies. The shelves were absolutely empty. They were rationing toilet paper.

You could only get two boxes per customer. And they were completely sold out. Tried to get even tomato sauce, completely sold out. Tried to get basic spices, pepper, garlic, completely sold out. Tried to get hand sanitizer. Tomato sauce, bread. Completely sold out.

Beans, rice. On the list of things during COVID, Brett, that I needed, tomato sauce would not go, toilet paper, tomato sauce. Spices. You clearly don't cook because if you cook, you need these things to cook. If you're not ordering in every time. Hand sanitizer.

You don't use diced tomatoes in your cooking. You don't ever use beans or rice or any of this stuff. These are important cooking supplies. Look, I hear you. But on the list of my doomsday things that I need for supplies, I wouldn't go- Canned goods are not on your list? Toilet paper, masks. That's absurd.

Canned goods? Toilet paper, masks, tomato sauce, basil. Canned goods? It's like the ultimate thing that people eat, and especially in times of crisis and pandemic are canned goods. And they were sold- Shifting the goods and they were shifting the benchmarks from not just tomato sauce to can't you shifted the benchmarks you went from tomato sauce to canned foods generally i'm with you canned foods generally absurd absurd absurd but these things were impossible to get last year they were just totally impossible to get

i remember they were so hard to get i couldn't even find a carton of eggs, and you might make fun of me, or flour, or other things that people cook with. I couldn't find any of that stuff in the store, so I actually had to go at some point to a California pizza kitchen. And I had to place an order in advance at a California pizza kitchen, which had also- Oh my God, you had to go to a California pizza kitchen because he couldn't get tomato sauce. Because there were no products in the stores. Before Brett- Now you're like a Trump defender. I don't know you're a Trump defender.

Before Brett storms off the podcast, let me just give you a quick anecdote. When I went shopping- Maga Ben over here. Gets the blue check mark and goes off the- Maga Ben, Maga Ben. Everybody calm down. So March, 2020, I go to the grocery store in Brooklyn. Dude, thing is packed. Nobody's wearing masks at the time. It's the craziest thing ever. I go to check out. The guy's just giving me free items. And I'm like, Hey, thank you. But like, why are you doing this? He's like, it's the end of the fucking world, man. Dead serious. Just stared me right in the eye. So that was creepy.

Good. Good interception jordy of the i mean all i was going to say brett is that your coveted pandemic story of because there wasn't tomato sauce so you had to go walk to a california pizza kitchen is like the least sympathetic story that's not the story that's not the story oh my god God. We got to shift gears here. The story is that there are no basic supplies such as eggs, pantry items, canned goods in the store. So you had to order pre-rationed goods at restaurants that had limited supplies to give customers because they were not in the stores. And that includes paper towels, flour, cans of tomatoes, beans, rice, anything that you kind of need to eat and to live.

And you had to go and you had to get it rationed from the stores. That's how I remember 2020 was constantly dealing with that and dealing with empty supermarkets and dealing with empty department stores and dealing with just not being able to get anything. Even on Amazon, I remember trying to buy Purell because none of the stores actually had hand sanitizer anywhere and they were only available on Amazon through these shady resellers for upwards of $100 for a little bottle of Purell. That's the crisis that we were in under Trump. And I think we are immeasurably, immeasurably better right now under President

Biden, even though Ben apparently doesn't think so. Brad, tell us about what the Midas Touch is doing in Virginia right now. We got big efforts. Let's focus. Let's get serious for a second because the polls that are coming out of Virginia are, they're scary. I'm not going to lie. They're scary.

The momentum right now is not on our side. And that's why we need everybody to step up. The last poll I saw, I believe, had Youngkin and McAuliffe tied at 46% to 46%. That's scary stuff, guys. We cannot let a MAGA governor take over the Commonwealth of Virginia. So we are ramping up our efforts tenfold right now. So we have two very important initiatives that we're undertaking. The first is a text message initiative. We're planning to text as many voters as possible. These are going to be registered Democratic voters who have not yet placed their ballots. These are who we are targeting. So get your texting fingers ready and stay tuned on our social media and stay tuned for our email list.

And if you're not on our email list, you could sign up at MidasTouch.com because we're going to be counting on you to text voters and get them to the polls. Second, we are running a door knocking operation. We are hitting the ground and the same thing, we're gonna be targeting voters across Virginia who have not yet voted. Democrats in Virginia who have voted in past elections but have not showed up to this one. We're partnering with an incredible group on the ground

there, Commonwealth Forward, to make this possible. Our plan right now is to knock on 50 000 doors in the commonwealth of virginia but we need your help so check out our twitter for ways that you could contribute and this is an all hands on deck moment i cannot sound the alarm enough we sounded the alarm and did our text message campaign and it worked out great in california and we got the result that we wanted and now we have to bring it to Virginia. Everything is make or break right now. You don't understand. Like David Pepper was saying, policy and politics is made on the local level. And the governorship is so important because they control these state

houses. We must win Virginia and we need your help. And we need you to get the word out about Terry McAuliffe and about how horrible, how horrible Glenn Youngkin would be for Virginia. Red alert, red alert. You heard it here. Literally a red alert of a GQP potential takeover in Virginia. We need to do whatever we can. That's how Midas Touch is going to be jumping in Virginia and that race in a big, big way. Special thanks to our guest, David Pepper. What an incredible guest. What an incredible book. Everybody go out and read the book, Laboratories of Autocracy, a wake-up call from behind enemy lines. Special thanks to our sponsors, Wondery, American History Tellers. Check out their Roaring 20s special.

And special thanks to Homedics, air purifier. Everybody go to homedics.com slash Midas and give them a nice Midas mighty hello on social media. This is Ben. You heard from Brett. You got Jordy Micellis, the three brothers of Midas Touch. So enjoying spending each and every episode with you. We'll see you next time. And we won't stop fighting for our democracy. And before I go, check out again, the supporters movie.com or supporters movie.com. Check out our trailer. You will love this movie coming out November 4th of 2021.

Jordy, shout out to the Midas Mighty!