The MeidasTouch Podcast - We are the Cavalry with Amy Siskind

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

On today’s episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast ,we have an incredible guest and true warrior for democracy, Amy Siskind. During the interview, Amy breaks down her latest article, “I sounded the alarm for authoritarianism in 2016, and I am sounding it again.” Additionally, Amy details the importance of securing victories at the local and state government levels and the tangible ways people who consider themselves pro-democracy can get involved. For the remainder of the episode, the brothers discuss the various wins this country is seeing on a national scale, Paul Gosar’s censure and the spineless GQP. If you enjoyed today's episode please be sure to rate, review and subscribe. As always, thank YOU for listening! SUBSCRIBE to The PoliticsGirl Podcast now! Support our sponsors: Quip -- If you go to GETQUIP.com/MEIDAS, right now, you’ll get your first refill FREE! HoMedics Air Purifier -- Go to HoMedics.com/MEIDAS and use promo code MEIDAS  to receive a FREE REPLACEMENT FILTER with the purchase of your Air Purifier Stamps.com -- Sign up with promo code MEIDAS at Stamps.com for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: The MeidasTouch Podcast: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 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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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome. free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Ben, Brett, Jordy, let's go fellas. We've got a great episode for you today. We got democracy activist Amy Siskind on the podcast. You wrote an incredible article recently. I sounded the alarm for authoritarianism in 2016, and I am sounding it again, excited to discuss with Amy the news of the day, the authoritarian encroachment into our democracy and what we can do to fight back.

But Brett Jordy, we said that we had big news. We announced that it was coming. And sure enough, the Politics Girl podcast with Lee McGowan reached number one on the charts, number one of all news podcasts in the country on its first day of being released. And it's still in the top 10 right now. Incredible. And let me just tell you guys what number one means. Number one means ahead of the New York Times. It means ahead of Pod Save America. And I love those guys. But more importantly, it means ahead of Ben Shapiro. It means ahead of Steve Bannon. It means ahead of Charlie Kirk. We went into their ecosystem,

into their media landscape, and we owned the space. And that's why this media network is so important to me. That's why I think we need to be highlighting pro-democracy voices and getting them out there because it's not a lack of demand. It's not like people to be highlighting pro-democracy voices and getting them out there because it's not a lack of demand. It's not like people don't want pro-democracy voices out of the media, but there's a lack of supply. And that's where I hope that the Midas Media Network and what we're building here and what you are all building with us can supply pro-democracy voices that are unapologetic about our beliefs and aren't going to both side shit. And I just want to thank everybody and just say like how passionate that I am about this and how passionate that I know Ben and Jordy are about making this a real strategy of ours now.

And this isn't a two month strategy or a one year strategy. This is like a 10 to 15 year strategy to change the way that we consume media in this country and tilt the landscape back in our favor. And that's what we're working on. And so thank you for joining us. And if you've been living under a rock, Lee McGowan goes by I Am Politics Girl on Twitter. Her podcast is The Politics Girl Podcast. If you get that anywhere you download your podcast from,

and also make sure you check her out on the YouTube and the Facebook. And Jordy, look, the important piece here that when we're talking about why the Midas Media Network, and look, it was so cool to see like with New York Times and all these other like large media entities to see Midas Media Network just to be in the mix. I mean, when we see today's headline from CNN Politics, And this was a, quote, analysis that they did on CNN. It says, and this is the headline, Americans aren't feeling relief from President Biden's big Washington victory. One important thing to point out when they're criticizing Biden here is that they're using data before the bill was even passed, which is

probably one of the most significant flaws of the analysis. It's like if I wrote an analysis themed, Ben Micellis can't spell well, and I used a paper of yours from kindergarten. Yeah, I guess I'd have data supporting me, but is it genuine? No. Here's where it gets worse though, because it's not even just that. I don't care if they were using a poll from today. That to me doesn't even make the difference. I don't give a shit about that, right? It's the fact that the bill was literally, the ink isn't dry yet on the bill. President Biden just signed it into law and the law is to build bridges and to completely revamp our roads, our entire infrastructure apparatus, our internet, everything, electric vehicle charging stations. And guess what? That doesn't happen in three days. It doesn't even happen in a year.

So this CNN analysis is just complete garbage. And by the way, Brett, has CNN and Jordy too, I'll bring you into the conversation. Has CNN ever reported more than for like a five second blip of the good news that's going on in the country? Is there any media actually discussing the benefits for Americans? is the only source of that. And look, when things are bad, we need to call it out. Like, we should call out the fact that there is bad inflation indicators. But those bad inflation indicators are not new Biden things. These indicators have been here for 40 years, if you look at the housing. That's the directionally where these indicators have gone. It's just that when there is a democratic presidency, that's exactly where the media wants to focus on, including the CNNs of the world. Going into the exciting economic news, we have major retailers like Walmart, Target. They're saying their shelves are well stocked,

that consumers are buying more than ever. The jobs report from June through September were revised upwards in a big way. Rating agencies have concluded that the Build Back Better bill is not going to even add to the inflation. The White House has announced that the U.S. is the only major economy in the world to have a higher GDP now than before the pandemic. And then I also want to juxtapose that stat with the U.S. vaccination rate, which is the other major economies have a vaccination rate around 73 to 74 percent of their population, while the U.S. only has a vaccination rate of 59 percent of Americans vaccinated because an entire political party is against the vaccine and against all of

the major economic developments that the Biden administration is trying to usher in. You have a party literally trying to take down the infrastructure plan that benefits them. You have people being violent in the streets from the radical right, attacking infrastructure, attacking broadband. And Midas Touch, particularly credit to Brett, did an incredible video called the Let's Go Brandon. Let's go, Brandon. We did Thank You Brandon. But Brett, tell us about Let's Go Brandon. And why here did you not use the Thank You Brandon branding?

And what made your decision to say, let's just use actually Let's Go Brandon? You know, I just like taking over their phrases and using them against them. And, you know, if they're going to continue to use Let's Go Brandon, well, I want to spell out what the acronym actually means for people. And so when people say Brandon, Brandon, Brandon, instead of just thinking about the way Republicans want you to think about it and the way the news media wants you to think about it, I want you to think about that B stands for broadband, that R stands for roads and railroads, that A stands for airports, that N stands for no lead pipes, D stands for we're going to deliver clean energy, O stands for our jobs, and N stands for a network of

charging stations. So what I did was I spent far too much time combing through President Biden's speech that he gave prior to signing the infrastructure bill into law. And I pieced together those phrases to highlight that acronym of Brandon and reframe it in a positive way. I think if we could take negative energy and negative attacks, and instead of pushing back, like, you know, we all know, you know, listen, we're three brothers. We grew up with each other. Jordy, if we made fun of you for something and your reaction was to get upset about it and to complain and cry and whatever, what would we do as brothers? You would do it more.

You double down, you triple down, you quadruple down, right? So that's why when- Why did you say when we used to bully you and make fun? I mean, you guys still do that to this day. Way back in the day, Jordy. Way back when we were much more or less- Three hours ago before we jumped on to record? Yeah, okay. When we were far more immature, Jordy, way in the past. No, but I mean, that's basic human nature, right? When people see that you are down, they start kicking. That's just like what people do.

People are messed up. And so when they use phrases like, let's go, Brandon, if you start complaining and whining and getting upset about it, all they're going to do is say, oh, we triggered the libs. Oh, let's keep doubling down. We triggered them. But if you're like, oh, Brandon, okay, you're talking about our broadband. Oh, thanks for supporting the infrastructure bill. It's a rebrand. We rebranded Brandon. Can we play the video? Because you've done an excellent job breaking it down. But for those who haven't seen it or heard it, I know they're dying to see it. Well, I want to give you this before Brett shows it. I think we are doing a disservice

though to the listeners because it's mostly the letters and within the background. So I'm not sure the listeners will understand, but Jordy, if you have- I would like to do it because it's another reason for the listeners to subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's Midas Touch on YouTube. Go subscribe right now. Play the clip and apologies for the next 30 seconds to the listeners. Broadband lines, roads, railroads, airports, freight rail, no red pipes, deliver clean energy. Job, job, job, job. Network, charging stations, electric vehicles. It's never, ever been a good bet to bet against the american people now that seems like such a simple edit that brett did but it is took me remarkable

it took me a really long time those specific moments without like editing anything in or misrepresenting anything. I don't know how you do that, dude. And just so much props, man. I don't know how we do it, Jordy. And the way I like to frame these videos, I like to start with how can I be disruptive in the space, Jordy? How can I, Jordy, I like to think about it. What's the tension?

What's the tension in the piece is kind of how I like to look at it. Apologies to the audio listeners. Remember that I got your back. You heard basically the gist of the audio of the video there. Here's what I want to say. That's the power of effective positive advertising, right? And that video highlights these accomplishments in a quick way. We hope that it gets out there in a huge way because we need to be the people who are the

messengers, right? We need to be the people who are out there screaming about these accomplishments from the rooftops that we're getting high speed internet roads, railroads, bridges, upgrades to our airports. All this good stuff is coming and it's coming because of Democrats. Because if we don't, and we're already seeing this, the Republicans who voted against the bill, and there have been multiple cases of this already, are going to hate attacking the media. It's not something I enjoy doing. I truly do. They make it really hard for me not to attack them. They make it extremely hard for me when they write stories like the stories that we see. We saw last week someone wrote a story or wrote a tweet, a Bloomberg reporter criticizing Kamala Harris because she said

the instead of the. I didn't even know that was not a thing. Like I say the all the, the Midas Touch podcast. Like I didn't know that was a bad thing to do. And they make it very difficult to take them seriously when they write stories like that. And there are so many good journalists out there and so many incredible reporters out there. And we all have to understand the importance of the media here. But we also have to understand that there are a whole lot of journalists who are scared of losing their jobs and are just engaged in clickbait to try to get your attention, to spark your outrage, and to get clicks on their stories. It's the Chris Silliza model of CNN. The fact that they hire

and keep Chris Silliza on the staff at CNN, I think shows you a bit about their priorities here. And the media thrives on conflict. They want constant conflict here, right? They want to keep the horse race going because if the Democrats were just crushing it right now and everything was positive, they know people wouldn't even tune into that. People want to get these doom and gloom stories. They want to be doom scrolling through their TV. At least that's what the data says to these people. And I've worked in Hollywood until I started Midas Touch.

Here's the secret about Hollywood and the media and everything. The people who own the people, should I whisper it? The people who own the studios are not liberals. The people who own the media networks are not liberals. The famous people who you see on TV, they may be. They may be more liberal, but you think the people who own these major corporations are gonna want a Build Back Better bill that's gonna raise taxes on them? Absolutely not.

They're fighting for their bottom line all the time. You think they're going to want taxes to go up on people earning them, people earning over $400,000? Absolutely not. These are the people who run these companies. And basically three to five companies control all the media that you consume, everything. Here's another secret that CNN doesn't want you to know. They're owned by AT&T. They're owned by AT&T, the same AT&T who funds OAN. They own CNN. And you just need to take this into account. I think there are a lot of incredible journalists at CNN. I really respect a lot of the reporters on that network. I think a good amount of them do an incredible job.

But I think we need to understand, though, that these are corporations. At the end of the day, they need to toe the corporate line, and they want to make money. And anything that threatens their bottom line, they are going to fight back against, even if it's subtle, even if it brings us closer to autocracy. They don't care because they care about their business. That's my take. And here's what we have to combat against, Brett. Everything you just said, plus Fox News that is overtly propaganda, OAN, Newsmax. It's a three-front war, right? Oh, it's beyond a three-front war. It's this quote-unquote liberal media, which I'll call the corporate media.

It's the actual right-wing propaganda networks with Fox, with OAN, with Newsmax, with all the radio stations, with the newspaper. By the way, they own all that stuff. Think about Rupert Murdoch alone. Rupert Murdoch owns, and think about if you're living in New York, like we grew up in New York. He owns the New York Post, which is the most widely read tabloid newspaper they have. He owns Fox News. You want to get some international news, if you're going to turn on Sky News, Rupert Murdoch owns Sky News. You turn on the radio, guess who owns those radio stations? Most of those talk radio stations are owned by Murdoch or other conservative conglomerates. This is where people are getting their news from. So it's no

wonder that the climate in this country is the way it is. They control the messaging. And that's why while we complain a lot about messaging and everybody wants to say to us, why isn't the DNC doing a good job or a better job? I'm not going to act like the DNC has no problems. I'm not going to act like Democrats don't have messaging issues because they exist. But I think they are far exaggerated by the public because I think what really exists is a problem not with messaging, but with the messengers. And Republicans have the messengers on their side across the board in all forms of media, and we have nothing.

And you missed one point there too, Brad, because I think you were saying there was three aspects to it. Then you go on the kind of less traditional, which is now becoming the more traditional way people consume news through podcasts and through digital work. Then you have the most well-funded and organized entities who something like Midas would compete against. You've got the Bannon programs, the Ben Shapiros, the PragerU's. Funded by right-wing billionaires. I'll tell you who my three was because I did lose my train of thought. My three are the right-wing media conglomerates. I'll tell you who my three was because I did lose my train of thought. But my three are the right-wing media conglomerates. I'll loop them in with the Ben Shapiro's of the world. The corporate media, who people like to call the liberal media, but who's really,

they're not fighting for us. They're fighting for their bottom line. And then the third is the actual Republican Party and their infrastructure. And so we're fighting all these groups at the same time, and we're here out on an island. And that's why we need to be building like the Midas Media Network. We need to be highlighting pro-democracy voices. We need to be raising these to the forefront of the conversation. And we need to be the ones who are highlighting these accomplishments on a daily basis, because we can't let autocracy come to America and take over. And Brett, you're there in that room right there, which for those listening, Brett's like kind of in a soundproof prison that he records the podcast right now. And Brett basically stays in this room all day. But, you know, imagine if, you know, in addition to Brett's video that he did, imagine if the media told the truth about the facts that

we told you that was good about the economy. Like, the truth about the facts that we told you that was good about the economy. What about the fact that if we told you the US is the only leading economy where real household income, which accounts for inflation and real GDP, are higher than before the pandemic? Imagine if it was not just the Midas Media Network telling you this. Imagine if every single day you went on and what you saw when you looked at the top 10 podcast was not just politics, girl, but other truthful news that truly fights for our democracy. Let's take a quick cleanse before bringing in Amy Siskind. Brett, tell us about Quip, one of my favorite hygienic tools that I use right now. I'm not sure Jordy uses it, but Brett, tell us about it. Hey, I use it all the time.

Come on. Well, I'm just going to start off by saying that I love Quip and I've been a user of Quip far before they even came to us and said we want to sponsor the Midas Touch podcast. So I was super excited when Quip approached us and said that we want to support the show. Good health starts with good habits and Quip makes it easy by delivering all the oral care essentials that you need to care for your mouth. The Quip electric toothbrush is loved by over 7 million mouths and it features time sonic vibrations with 30 second pulses to guide a dentist recommended 2 minute clean. A lightweight and sleek design for adults and kids alike with no wires or bulky charger to weigh you down. A multi-use travel cover that doubles as a mirror mount for less clutter. Reusable handles in a range of sleek metal hues including the best selling all black and all pink as well as bright plastic colors sure to make a pop in your bathroom counter. And on top of your brushing, you could upgrade your Quip with a new smart motor to track and

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rush this guy a toothbrush. Let's bring in Amy Siskind, activist for Democracy, author, host of The Weekly List and podcast. Amy, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me back. It's always great to have you on the show. Let's just get into the article you recently wrote. I sounded the alarm for authoritarianism in 2016, and I am sounding it again. Right now, Amy, it seems like that alarm, if it was, you know, red alert in 2016, it's pretty much exceeded that. I mean, it's here, it's seeping through the country. We see it every day. What led you to write this new article and what were some of your findings? You know, I sense there's a fair amount of apathy

in the recent election, and I get it because people are exhausted from the four years of Trump and then the pandemic and the generational trauma that comes with that. But I wanted to reinforce to people the importance of this 2022 election, as well as voting rights. And we can go through it. But I wanted to alert people to what I'm observing that the Republican Party is doing, to be able to be in a position to overthrow the 2024 election, to the extent they don't win that election. And the steps that they're putting into place now with that objective. Because I think one thing the Republican Party is very good at is the long game. One thing that we're really bad at is that same long game. So we can walk through what I see happening beyond the obvious,

but I'll just, I'll go through it real quick. And then you guys can have me back up and go through whatever needs more light. You know, we're all aware that in 2022 every house of representative seat is up they're up every two years and then we also have the senate about a third of the seats up so we're going to have to fight to control both of those and what we're battling to get there is gerrymandering, which is happening that's already locked five states for the GOP. And we're also battling voter suppression measures. And part of the GOP long game has been the Supreme Court, as we all know, we're seeing that with Roe v. Wade as well. But the 2013 Supreme Court struck down the Voting Rights Act and more recently a ruling in July legitimized

two voter suppression measures in Arizona. So the Supreme Court is basically telling us, don't shop here. The judicial branch will not save you on voting rights. So that basically just leaves our legislative branch, Congress, to be able to pass voting rights in order to stop what has already happened in 17 states, which are measures to very purposefully, in the light of day, suppress the vote. In addition to those states, and in addition to what I'm speaking about here and the need to pass that while we still are in the majority, there are three states that we keep hearing again and again. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Ring a bell?

Those are the three states that Trump won by 77,000 votes in total in 2016 that gave him the presidency. Those are three states Biden then took back, but were very much in the battle when Trump tried to overturn the election. All three of those states in 2022 have their governor, their secretary of state, and their attorney general up for re-election. And in all three

of those states, the Republicans are challenging with very well-funded, they have their national networks, candidates that are going to try to take those three states. And you guys know the work that I did over the five years, close to five years of Trump coming into office and then ultimately leaving office. But the one time I was concerned that he was going to be able to overthrow our election was what happened in Michigan. And not only did he invite the Republican-led legislature, two of

them, to come to the White House, at the same time, they started the big lie on steroids in Michigan, claiming that one of the counties, Wayne County, which of course is a predominantly Black American county outside of Detroit, but there was massive voter fraud. And it ended up going to the Michigan Canvassers Board, which was two Republicans, two Democrats, and they held a hearing. This is weeks now after Biden had won the election. But Michigan didn't certify until that hearing. And it was close. At the end, one of the Republicans voted with the Democrats. And so we certified that vote. But it was the one time I was concerned, truly concerned, that if they had overturned the voters' results in Michigan, it could have set

off a domino effect that could have overturned other states and could have delivered the election to Trump. Now imagine the same scenario in 2024, at this time with the Republicans controlling the House and the Senate and controlling and save Michigan, the governor's lot, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, you know, the three women of Michigan also saved us. So that is, you know, sort of an overview of the long game and why I'm so sounding the alarms, we are more than halfway through our time in the majorities in the House and the Senate. And we have very little to show for it. I'm very grateful that we passed the infrastructure bill, but we need to pass voting rights. It is the basis of our democracy. So that's the overview. We can kind of go into whatever you guys think makes sense. It seems that the lesson learned from the insurrection by the Republicans was not,

how do we stop this from happening again? Quite the contrary is, wait a minute, we could do this. We could get this done. Looking at the models of what took place in the big lie in Nazi Germany, looking what brought to power people like Mussolini. The Republicans are looking at that and go, wait a minute, why do we care about this experiment called democracy? We saw it with Tucker Carlson when he was talking about, well, I guess democracy is okay, which was a half-hearted statement about why we should support Russia over Ukraine when he was speaking with a Republican who was on his show. And the Republican was trying to explain to Tucker why it's important, but that Republican learned the lesson there.

If I want to go back on Tucker, I better go along with what he's saying. And so that seems to be the lesson and what's most scary, Amy, coming out of this whole thing to me. Yeah. You know, I being a half glass full person generally is how I live my life. I thought after Biden won and took office finally that Cheney would be the new minority leader in the House. I thought that the traditional Republican Party would come back having Trumpism lost them, the House, Senate and White House, and the Republican Party would right itself. But that hasn't happened. The exact opposite has happened. And I speak about that the article is pinned on my Twitter feed, if anyone hasn't read it, and I encourage you to read it, share it, send it to your two senators,

send it to your member of Congress. Instead, the Republican Party has been subsumed with Trumpism. And six in 10 Republicans believe that a central part of being a Republican is believing the big lie. And the majority of Republicans believe if they lose the 2024 election that it will have been rigged. So Trump has already primed the pump. They've also been targeting, you know, with violence. You mentioned these things as patterns, right? You know, Nazi Germany, I talk about also the Russian Revolution in my article, that often it's not the first fight, it's a second fight. You know, you learn what you didn't do right the first time, and then you perfect it, which is what I'm pointing out in the article they are doing right now. They are getting rid of all the barriers that stopped them from an overthrow in 2020. And if you thought there were better angels in the Republican Party,

which is based on the votes of white, straight, Christian men, and mostly high school educated men and women, if you thought that the better angels were going to care about our democracy, as you said, and about this experiment that we have as democracy, as a young democracy, they don't. They care about power. So this 2022 election and like gearing up now could not be more important. And the good news is we know how to do it. Like we did this in 2018. But what I'm trying to do is wake everybody up and say, yeah, I know you're bummed. I know you're bummed there's not accountability. I know you're bummed that our elected officials are not listening to us. Why the hell are they

on vacation last week and next week? Stay in DC and work. I get it. I'm super frustrated too. But if we get past 2022, we will be at the point of no return and with nothing that we can do about it. One of the things, Amy, that it feels like we're also fighting against though, is look, you obviously have the Fox News, the OAN, the right wing talk radio, that entire ecosystem that's been built. But like today I was going through, you know, my feed on social media and you have like CNN saying Americans aren't feeling relief from president Biden's big win, a big Washington victory. And they're citing also a poll that predates the passage of the bill. The media, media seems that it just let us down completely too.

And it's like, we're fighting currents of overt disinfo. And then even the people who claim to be kind of center of the road, apparently they want the resurgence of these. It's almost like they're rooting for it sometimes. Right. They've learned nothing. Like the Chris Christie book tour show. I mean, he's everywhere, everywhere, and very few holding him to account for five years

of embracing Trumpism. And like, how did we get Trump to begin with? It was exactly that, like this free airtime on every network non-stop and normalizing chris christie to the point where it's like oh my god chris christie would be a relief but there's yeah there's been i think a lot of talk about how the media does this both side ism and they're back to trying to do to biden what they did to trump but's not, it's still like for a short time window, they got the whole thing about this isn't Republican Democrat, this is democracy versus authoritarian state. And how do you get there? Because you don't call out lies. They're just normalizing what the Republicans are doing as being like the Republican Party of Bush and

Cheney. And it's not. I mean, the fact that we're having discussions about whether you should get a vaccine, you know, and this craziness where Fox News and Newsmax has it mandatory for all their employees. And then these nut jobs, you know, are holding us back and Biden gets blamed. So that and the other thing that really frightens me, I know you guys are from Long Island, is how well the Republican Party nationally is organized, and how we don't have any of that. Now, I live in Westchester County, which is just north of Long Island. And we had to fight tooth or nail because of this voter apathy to get people out. We did. We held our county seat. We held most of our local seats.

That's great. But Long Island was a bloodbath. And there were six questions that were referendums throughout New York State. And the Republican Party spent $3 million, the Mercers, on broad-based telling Republicans vote no on everything. And all of them went down. There was no organization statewide in New York. It passed barely in Westchester because we organized, but barely. And so that's the kind of thing, even at a state level, like on Saturday, I'm having an event for a new statewide PAC that's going to try to influence

that for New York State called No Surrender New York. And I'm hoping they can be a template for around the country. But where are the billionaire families? Where is the national infrastructure for our party? Why are you guys and me like having to do all that? Like we're, you know, and myself and the other indivisible leaders here, like, why do we have to start PACs in New York State? Where is? What are the Democrats doing? I live in the suburbs. They are taking over their school boards in the suburbs. They're well organized. It's the same messaging that the Mercers and the Koch brothers put together that they send out to everywhere from a friend in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Their school board just got taken over in the last election by Trumpers. And I have tweeted about it. And people all over the country had the same experience. Who is doing it? There's nobody doing that on the Democratic side. Let me ask you, Amy, why? Why do you think that's the case, though? Because it's, you know, the people who I speak to, they seem to care.

You know, I have friendships with people who are, you know, who would seem to have resources to be able to do things like that and know people. But why don't they do anything? Like, why is it you? Why is it Midas Touch? Why is it other kind of small grassroots that have to self-fund? I say, look, do you think I really want to be doing on the Twitter feed,

hey, we need to raise X amount of dollars for an ad? I'd prefer to have the funding and just go out and do it, but we have to do what we can do. Right. I don't understand it. And the Republicans are so good at the long game. That's how they took over the Supreme Court.

And that's what they're doing right now. Wake up everyone with these school boards. It's the same messaging. There's even like typos on it. But it's the same messaging that they're using in every single state. And, you know, like I mentioned, with Westchester County, where we were super targeted, and like we did fine. In Georgia, they took back 41 seats in their local elections because they have stacy abrams and all the other wonderful black american activists in georgia that are like leading the charge so it can be done um and again that's why i'm hopeful that this pack we're launching in new york no surrender that at least there's only one stacy abrams but there can be

a lot of no surrenders that needs to be more like one Stacey Abrams, but there can be a lot of no surrenders that needs to be more like, I hate to use the word Lincoln Project because it's so tainted, but those kinds of tactics, like literally in my community, we have Project Veritas founder, we have the Proud Boys, their founder, Gavin McGinnis, one town over. People need to know that kind of stuff that needs to be put in the air. And that's something a PAC can do. So I'm hoping that their activism is something that a template that can be mentioned across the country. But barring that, folks, here we sit with the reality. And I do not want to be like doing the weekly list again for another four years of Trump in 2024. And I'm sure all of you do not want to like,

I'm re-listening to the tapes. I'm archiving the weekly list at University of Pennsylvania. And part of that, I'm like re-listening to my tapes in 2017. Like our mind, it's sort of like after you give birth, you three can't associate with this, but I have two children. After you give birth, you're like, as know, as a woman, you like, forget how much painful you went through or else we would all only have one child. I think that's happening with us with how bad it was in the Trump era, how we had to wake up every morning, look at our phone and be like, oh my God, go to sleep. Like, oh my God, we do not want that back again. We need to start fighting like now. And the apathy and the whatever

fear, we have to just put it aside and start fighting now because we are the cavalry. There are no like Mercers and Koch brothers on our side to help us. It was us in 2018 and 2020. And it's us again. We have to be the ones that save our democracy. No one's coming to save us. Yeah. I love that concept of we are the Calvary. And that's something that we've been trying to emphasize too over the podcast in these past few episodes. It's like, hey, don't look for the DNC to save you or for X, Y, and Z to save you. We need to save ourselves at this point. And I think one of the things that we have had an interesting experience with, and I'm sure you've seen this as well, is Democrats are a lot

more resistant to outside help. Like at the same, on one hand, they will criticize the DNC and say, we need someone to come in and to be great messengers and to come in. And then a Midas touch comes up or, you know, Lincoln Project, like you mentioned, or something. And then they get ruthlessly attacked from the Democratic side. Meanwhile, Republicans mobilize the Charlie Kirks. They mobilize, you know, the Project Veritas. They embrace that and understand that that's an important part of our strategy. What do you think that is? What do you think is, what's that infighting about? What's that impulse of Democrats to just eat their own and eat people on their side? Yeah, I feel like it's a little bit better now. I'm hoping that it stays that way. I do feel like we're more cohesive than we were during the four years of Trump.

The fact that most of Congress, with the exception of six members of the House and two members of the Senate are pretty much on the same page, like legislatively. So I feel like our party does have that ability. But what you're saying is exactly right. Like we have to work together. And I think parts of that we're really great at, and then we screw it up. You know, Jamie Harrison was supposed to be so I never even like, and I'm pretty involved. I had Val Demings at my house. I didn't need Klobuchar at my house. I've like I've been to my backyard all the time. But where was I didn't even hear about Jamie Harrison before this last election. So yeah, this national infrastructure that's supposed to be in place. It's like, no, all of us need to be calling our member of Congress and our senators like Chuck Schumer's.

People are so sick of hearing from me, but tough. I mean, I mean, I know Chuck. I love Chuck. He's just not the right guy to be the majority leader. And I've been saying that to them nicely since like January. I know who he is. He's my senator. We have to keep the pressure on these people.

Like, you know, that's all we have to keep the pressure on them. But as well, now we need to start and recreate and retrace our footsteps from 2017, what we did leading up to the election in 2018 that we were so successful at, and start to mobilize those groups. I'm doing my first big podcast, not podcast, excuse me, Zoom event with all the Michigan Indivisible groups on December 1st, because Michigan is super important, super important. And I'll do it for anybody else with their state.

But every representative is up for reelection in 2022. We have to fight to keep our majority. And you guys got to keep up your work and we have to support you and not the Lincoln Project. Like you guys are legit on our side. It's like anyone on our side, we have to all support however we can. And I'll say this, when we have this discussion about the messengers and trying to find the right people and why isn't XYZ doing much, I don't want people to get discouraged to our listening. I want people to use that as fuel to understand that your voice is that more important. And that's why it's

so important that you get engaged in your communities because you are really the change that we need in this country. And if you're not doing the work, you can't rely on anybody else. And that replies to kind of all aspects on life. I'm going to ask you the obvious question. And we're used to that. We're good at that. We did that in 2018 and 2020. We have these local groups. Let's rise up. Let's get it done. Let's do it. Let's do it again. I mean, just reactivate those same groups and retrace your steps. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not get discouraged, people. And here's what I want to ask you, though,

about voting rights. I think voting rights is the most important issue that we have right now, especially in regards to saving our democracy and make sure that America still has a democracy a year from now. But a lot of it feels a little easier said than done. I mean, we have the slimmest of slim majorities and we have some senators in our party who refuse to even consider a carve out to the filibuster right now. So practically speaking, how do we make it happen? Yeah. I mean, that is the only way. And the only thing that makes me feel slightly better about voting rights and writ large, what we do in the Senate is Klobuchar is in charge of that. And she was smart enough to get Manchin on her bill as a co-sponsor to find that common ground. One thing that Klobuchar is good at

is finding that that middle ground that works for everyone and the second thing she did literally she dragged kirsten cinema off the senate floor the day they first voted on it like everyone's afraid of kirsten cinema except for amy klobuchar she is does not taking her shit and so like she and they they need to be afraid like i've been saying to you guys since we spoke last time we need a wartime consul here running the senate kirsten cinema i you know i i whatever she's like her own deal i i i'm very careful how we discuss women politicians as a woman yeah but she you know she needs somebody and and Schumer does not know how to control her. Somebody like a Klobuchar has a better chance we wanted in this voting rights bill, but enough to get Manchin on board was to show Manchin. And now she's got to like, you know, take the both of

those two into the back room and figure it out. But I have more faith in her than anybody else in the Senate to get that done. But at the same time, all of us need to be calling our senators. And if you have friends that live in Arizona and West Virginia, have them call their senators, because that's the basis of our whole democracy, the right to vote. Yeah. So that is super central. And this is potentially our last chance, because folks, if we lose the House or the Senate, we won't be able to pass legislation again. And like I said, in my preamble and in my

article, the Supreme Court has already signaled they will not do anything to stop these voting measures, voting restriction measures. So now is the time to apply maximum pressure and not be defeatist. Like a weekly call when your senators are home, since they're home so much, if they're doing a public event. I don't know if they're doing public events or it might seem to be like showing pictures, you know, pushing their grandkids on the swing. It's like, that's lovely, Chuck. Our democracy is blowing up, but I'm glad that you have time with your grandchildren. You know, pressure them however you can. Like they need to feel this urgency. They are not. Some senators are feeling the urgency, and others are just living the life.

Once again, we are the cavalry. Hit the phones and get to work. If the GOP regained power, do you think they would even hesitate to refuse to certify the result of an election if democrats won i i i think we all know the answer to that you know the baseless voter fraud that is now widely embraced by this party they do not other than you know the cheney who has been disavowed by her state's own Republican Party. A Cheney. This is the Republican Party. I guess been basically kicked out of the Wyoming Republican Party. Yeah.

Who would have thought Liz Cheney would be the fringe and Paul Gossar would be the center of the Republican Party. I mean, it's sick. Exactly. And they all like backed him yesterday. Oh, my God. So, yeah. I mean, other than the two, and then one didn't vote and three were present. It's sickening. Yeah. I mean, you ask these questions rhetorically, which was questions I asked myself

all four years. Of course, they'll do anything to stay in power and they'll just repackage it. Like, oh, those tourists coming on January 6th. And the other scary thing that is happening, the New York Times wrote an article about it, but we all see it in our daily lives, is violence is being used instead of like showing up for protests. Like you voted for the infrastructure bill. Those 13 members of the House are getting death threats. How dare you give me roads and bridges and broadband? I'm going to kill you. I can't even understand the mindset that goes into that. It's pure insanity. But if you have any doubt, and that's another thing I mentioned in my article, this is also something that they're quietly doing. They are targeting with death threat

election officials and people with experience. And a lot of them are resigning because they and their families are getting death threats. So they're being replaced by Trumpism kind of people who can't, you know, they have a lot of power election officials when if there's something that is quote unquote, like, can't you find me 11,000 more votes?

You know, and again, I use a Michigan example where there was no voter fraud where that actually went to the canvassing board. Now imagine instead of Gretchen Whitmer, it's a Trump person as governor and secretary of state and AG, like how different that picture would be. So what we wanna do now for the next year is do whatever

we can to prevent that from happening, because I have no faith that the Republicans care about our democracy. There's no evidence that other than the couple that do that are mostly now not running for reelection, that they have any interest in preserving our democracy. Absolutely. And you're right. And it's terrifying. And this sort of reminds me of the last time we spoke, you were telling us that you were ready to go back out there in person activism and really just roll your sleeves up and get going. So my question for you is, have you been out there on the ground yet? And if not, what are your plans for 2022? Yeah, so I have been focused on, I had in the spring before when we were still doing local stuff,

we finally got our first Black woman elected to our school board. So I was pushing super hard for that. I did a lot of like local stuff in my backyard. I've been doing outdoor events. And then I had a big event with close to 100 people for Val Demings, who I believe can turn that Senate seat for Marco Rubio. It's an event for Klobuchar. Saturday, I'm helping launch this PAC, No Surrender.

And I'm also doing Zoom events. So those are the things I'm doing in person. And I'm gearing up for 2022, whatever way we can. Like I'm hoping this PAC can alleviate me needing to focus on winning back New York seats. And they're going to do that work. And I'm hoping what they're doing can be copied in other states.

But yeah, people that I do events with, we're hopefully going to have the woman from Michigan come out instead of coming to my backyard. Raphael Warnock. I'm trying to raise money for people that, yeah. I'm trying to figure out where, which districts need the most help and where we can help, you know, create, you know, financially help them as well as have people volunteer. Like, like Charisse Davids, who I've had a couple of times, and hopefully will come back again. Like Kansas is not safe for us anymore. It was in 2018. She won and we felt pretty good about it. But it was close in 2020. I was at an event for Lauren Underwood. That was another close, you know, so that's going to get redrawn. So we all have to

think about and there are groups that help with this, like Swing Left, Vote Forward, and also Sister District is super good at finding in 2022, they'll find these districts where we need to put our efforts. If you live in a safe district that's like plus 20 Democrat, you can devote your time to other districts that need your help that are on the margin going to be close. Amy, if people want to join the fight with you specifically and they hear you, they're compelled, they're listening, how do they get in touch with you and the organizations that you work with? What's the best way for them to reach out to you? They should follow what I'm doing on social media.

I'm doing the same thing on Facebook as on Twitter. You can find my name both there. If you want to host an Indivisible event with me speaking about this kind of thing to help get people going, you can reach out to me and email me either through the weeklylist.org website, or you can DM me on one of the social media platforms. And if you're in the tri-state area, anywhere close and want to come to the events that I host in my backyard, just reach out to me. The more, the merrier.

I mean, we've had two huge events of like a hundred people in the backyard. And it also becomes like, it's regenerative for people to be amongst like-minded people. We can't really all necessarily do that inside, but to be outside, like we're doing hot cocoa and spiked apple cider instead of the rosé from the summer. We're going to bundle up and be outside. We're going to do as much of that as we can and zoom in between, but we all need to get like activated and do our part as defeatist as we feel.

It's going to feel a lot worse if you wake up in January, 2024 and the guy with the orange skin is back at it. And that will be like the end of it. So let's all like lift each other up now and do what we can. And we appreciate you fighting with us, Amy, fighting for the people. You gave me a great idea. We're hosting a Midas Mighty event in the West Coast in early January. A bunch of the supporters are coming out here, but we should also do kind of a co-Midas Amy event out in New York with everyone on the East Coast would be great.

You gave me that great idea right there. And everybody, make sure to check out Amy Siskins' article. I sounded the alarm for authoritarianism in 2016, and I'm sounding it again. Make sure you read that and make sure you check out the weekly list. Amy Siskins, thank you again for joining the Midas Touch podcast. Let's keep fighting together. Thank you, guys. Thanks for all you do.

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is when I love the product and we don't take sponsors where we don't love the product. Yeah, we test them out first. And then I like to give the discounts like this $99 value for the free replacement filter here. Let's talk now about this Paul Gosar situation. Brett, you want to set the foundation here? Yeah. So Paul Gosar, a few weeks ago, he releases a video. The video is a bizarre anime style video that depicts him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So the backlash was swift and immediate from the video. He was condemned by the Democratic Party. But of course, Republicans remained silent

and refused to condemn these actions. And so flash cut to yesterday, there was a vote to censure Representative Paul Gasol. Nothing else to do because the Republicans didn't do anything. They were supporting this condom. Brett, before you go into the vote, imagine if that happened anywhere else in the workplace where a coworker published a video of themselves in an animated form killing another coworker. This is a place of business. Remember, right? It's a place of business. I don't care what your political beliefs are here. I don't think if you think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the

second coming of Satan, I don't care if you love AOC. I really don't care what your beliefs are here. But this is an issue that is black and white. It's a litmus test. And the way you respond to this litmus test will tell me if you are a good person or a bad person. Like you said, we wouldn't accept this behavior in a classroom. We wouldn't accept this in the workplace. If Gosar had a normal job, he would be fired and deemed unemployable. But Republicans in Congress reward the unemployable. They are the unemployable. It's the one safe space for the sickest human beings in our country is the United States Congress. So true. And so if I could sum up this whole situation succinctly, Democrats want to pass laws

to prevent violence against women. Republicans support politicians who promote violence against women. And we saw this yesterday with the vote, the censure vote, which came down 223 to 207 with only two Republicans voting to censure Representative Gosar, and that was Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Now Gosar is really one of the strangest characters on the planet. AOC's speech on the floor I thought was incredibly powerful. And I urge everybody to listen to the full six minutes. We posted it on our Twitter account.

Feel free to check that out. But listen to the full six minutes out there. And just the craven support for Gosar to me by McCarthy, by Matt Gaetz, by Lauren Boebert, it really shows you, not that we didn't know, but it really shows you who these people are at their core. These are bad human bad, bad, sick, disgusting human beings. You said it, Brett. There's no other way to say it. These are evil people. If you went into a workplace and your coworker harassed you, defamed you, called you all sorts of names and bullied you every single day and made it an intolerable workplace, you would be like, you know what? Fucking Paul Gosar is a piece of shit.

Okay. Like Matt Gaetz, this guy's an asshole. And I think, is America a country of assholes? Is America a country of bullies? Is America a country of Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Bob Ertz, who use their platform and power and privilege to bully and harass others? I thought we were a beacon of hope. I thought we get our shit wrong a lot of times, but ultimately we want to get better. When mistakes are made and when people do the wrong things, we condemn them and should condemn them universally. But then even to hear like when Lauren Boebert, let's just do this juxtaposition for our listeners. Brett, play just the clip, a small clip so everyone can watch the full clip of AOC. But listen to just a small clip of her speech to start. There is meaning in our service.

And as leaders in this country, when we incite violence with depictions against our colleagues, that trickles down into violence in this country. And that is where we must draw the line independent of party identity or belief. It is about a core recognition of human dignity and value and worth. So that's AOC. Now, Lauren Boebert, Lauren Boebert, the hero of the right wing, the hero of the GQP. She goes, and this is the speech that she delivers. The speaker has designated the floor to discuss members' inappropriate actions, shall we? The Jihad

Squad member from Minnesota has paid her husband, and not her brother-husband, the other one, over a million dollars in campaign funds. This member is allowed on the Foreign Affairs Committee while praising terrorists. A Democrat chairwoman incited further violence in the streets outside of a courthouse. And then the cherry on top, my colleague and three-month presidential candidate from California, who is on the Intelligence Committee, slept with Feng Feng, a Chinese spy. Let me say that again.

A member of Congress who receives classified briefings was sleeping with the enemy. This is unacceptable. And this would never be. Time to expire. Gentlemen from Florida. Just riddled with lies, hate, disinformation, which I think if she spoke anywhere other than on the floor of the House of Representatives would be just complete slander. I don't know what the law is there. If you called a colleague of yours, if they were of the Jewish faith,

the Islamic faith, the Jew squad, hey, you part of the Jew squad? Are you part of the Jihad squad? I mean, it's the most heinous and despicable thing that somebody can say that and label their coworker that. We'll talk about it more on legal AF, but there's something called a speech and debate clause, which generally immunizes what politicians can say while they're on the floor of the House of Representatives in their capacity when they speak on the floor. And so unfortunately, I don't think that the defamatory conduct like that actually would have a repercussion other than her being censured, but they like being censured. For them, just like the kid in the class like would like being suspended and would like not striving

for excellence and to be a good person and who would mock the fact that they are being censured. What did Paul Gosar do immediately after being censured? He posts the video again. He posts the same video again. There's another video circulating about Paul Gosar, showing Paul Gosar going back into his office. And what makes this so kind of difficult also is that you seeing the video, he's clearly someone who's unwell. I mean, just his physical state. And I'm not making light of this in any way, but he's someone who is unwell, who's not

thinking in the right terms based on whatever it is but he's someone who is unwell, who's not thinking in the right terms based on whatever it is that he's going through. And it's obvious in the videos, he has some serious conditions that he's going through, but to be hoisted up by the party and laughing and normalizing this type of death humor against your coworkers, This is the type of propaganda, this is the type of death propaganda that existed in Nazi Germany, that exists in countries like that, where the next logical step is once you take somebody and just make them the other, and you literally instill these images amongst your following that this person deserves to die, that they're not worthy of life. That's what those images reinforce. When you tweet that out in your

official capacity as a congressional person, you normalize the killing of that person. And we've been hearing these stories about people who go to these right wing, you know, radicalized churches who start asking, so when do we get to use the guns on them? Because that's what this discussion, that's what this dialogue, that's what this all leads to. the GQP. And I want to focus on Brad Raffensperger and Chris Christie as just examples of the spinelessness of them. But before doing that, I want to talk about our other sponsor of the Midas Touch podcast, Stamps.com. If you're looking for ways to skip the trip to the post office and dodge all that hectic holiday shopping traffic, why not save time and money with stamps.com? Stamps.com lets you compare rates, print labels, and access exclusive discounts on UPS and USPS services all year long. It just makes sense, especially if your business sends more mail and packages during the holidays. We use stamps.com at Midas Touch as a small business. We rely on it to send our messages. Maybe you received our Midas membership cards. Maybe you've

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of Georgia, Trump's defiled this man. He's defamed, besmirched, made this man out to be persona non grata. Death threats have befallen this man. Remember, Raffensperger was one of the people who said, yeah, there was no voter fraud in Georgia. And Trump embroiled this man. Remember, Brat Raffensperger was one of the people who said, yeah, there was no voter fraud in Georgia. And Trump embroiled this man in really some of the worst things he could think of, you know, what he had to go through every day. But Brett, is that going to change his mind about voting for Trump if Trump runs in 2024? these people have lost their damn minds. Yeah. In fact, he said that he refuses to rule out voting for Trump again in 2024 in a recent interview. And let's play the clip. You've said for a year that you voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

So if he, as looks likely, is the Republican candidate again in 2024, will you vote for him again? That is so far out in the future. There's so many people that are going to throw their hat in the ring. I think we'll have a robust debate. And I believe that we'll have someone that will stand on character and have the moral compass to lead this nation. All right. This shouldn't be a conversation. This shouldn't be a debate. The answer should be no. I will not support the man who tried to overturn the elections in this country, including the elections that I was in charge of defending. I will not support the man who attacked my family, who sent his followers to make death threats against my family. No, of course not. But what's happening here,

Raffensperger is touring the country right now. He's selling a book and he's got an election coming up in 2022. So now he's like, oh, well, we got these Trumpers here in Georgia who I guess I need to get their votes. So I'm not going to say anything bad about him. And Chris Christie is making the rounds, doing the same exact thing. Dude, who is Chris Christie's PR person? Yeah, we need to get Chris Christie's publicist. That's all I've learned over this past week, because I could not turn on my TV without seeing Chris Christie's face on it this week. And I don't think there's really any figure out there who people want to see less on the news than Chris Christie. It's not like Chris Christie is even like Trump where it's like, oh, it's ratings gold. Get Chris Christie out there. Who gives a fuck? I don't understand why they're giving this guy so much airtime. And the media was so ill-equipped to handle him. Every single interview, save for Nicole Wallace, was a puff piece about the guy trying to make him out to be some sort of brave

guy who defended, who spoke out against Trump, even when Trump was mean to him and all this stuff. And there were very, very few people who pushed back against him. And Christie also, after being humiliated by Trump, after being dragged through the mud by Trump, he too will not say if he'd vote for Donald Trump again, giving the same sort of evasive answers that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. If you believe anything that Chris Christie says, I've got a closed bridge to sell you. Chris Christie was Trump before Trump. And I think that's why, I think that's one of the main reasons that he is so bitter about it, because Trump is the guy who outdid his shtick. That was his thing on the stage at the Republican debates.

He was the loud, abrasive one who would sometimes curse and he'd call people names and would be very pointed with his statements. And then Trump came in and just totally put the guy to shame. And this is not a man who should be rehabilitated. I'll just end with that. It's not a man who should be rehabilitated. He was engaged in one of the most corrupt practices we have ever seen in this country from a politician, shutting down a bridge in his state, making people suffer, preventing ambulances from crossing a bridge, all of that, just so he could stick it to his political enemies. I do not need a puff piece on Chris Christie. I do not need puff pieces on Brad Raffensperger. I need people who are going to be, as we say, unapologetically pro-democracy.

Even if that means it might hurt your chances of running for president, even if that means it might hurt your chances of running for secretary of state, we need people with moral fortitude who actually stand by their beliefs in this country. What do you think, JR? Spinelessness, eh? Let me take it here to a candid level. When I look at the Raffensperger situation very specifically, that's a lose-lose for him if I'm being really honest with myself. What good does it do him to honestly and earnestly answer that question that, no, in fact, he's not going to vote for Trump?

Now, let me just get to what I'm really thinking out here. Because he says no, right? Then those crazy GQ peers who have attacked him personally, who has attacked his family's lives, they get the new ammo and you know, the new energy to go back after them. Okay. If you want to give into terrorists, okay. Then appease the terrorist, right? If you want to give it, okay. They were mean to me and they fucking threatened to kill me. So I'm just going to sit back here and I'm not going to want to upset them. No, like we did. That's why it's courage. It comes down to courage. It comes down to standing by your beliefs.

It's not like this. Here's the thing, Jordy. There's still, this is why I think you're wrong because the wishy-washy statement that he gives, he's just going to now look to one side. The Trumpers hate the guy. Like Trump's not rehabilitating. Trump's not putting his arm around this guy.

He's got by him saying, I won't rule it out. He's not going to get praise. They're still going to hate him. They're still going to hate his family. They're still going to give him death threats. And that's what these cowards don't realize that that is still going to come. Like saying something like that does not appease Trump. Trump's a fucking maniac.

You know, he doesn't give a shit about you, your family's life. Trump could care less if Raffensperger, if something bad happened to Raffensperger. Trump doesn't care. And then by saying you wouldn't rule it out, you just seem like the biggest fucking clown. Imagine his family. Imagine his children. Imagine if that was your father, Jordy. Imagine if your dad, imagine if you got death threats because of someone and then they asked then they asked our dad well you're gonna support the guy who led to jordy getting death threats and the guy's like yeah maybe i might support that guy like that's the craziest fucking shit in the world listen there we are in the fight for the heart and soul of democracy itself there is no equivocating democracy. You got to pick a side, people. You got to pick a side. Are you going to be on the pro-democracy faction of this country,

or are you going to be against it? But you can't be in the middle. So pick your lane, stake your ground, and own it regardless of the consequences. Not only spineless, but also criminals. The criminality pervades this GQP party. I mean, whether it's Bannon being indicted for not complying with subpoenas, or we heard the story of the FBI raiding the home of the Mesa County clerk and recorder, Tina Peters, as well as Lauren Boebert's former campaign manager. I think her name is Sharona Bishop. I mean, this situation involves an investigation by state and federal authorities together

for alleged breaches involving election equipment in Mesa County earlier this year. Ring, ring, ring. The same bullshit that they accuse other people of doing who are not doing it. That's verified in all of these different court system. Guess who's actually doing it or appears to be doing it? These people, which by the way, is why they're projecting because they're the ones likely who are doing it. This story is bonkers to me. It's flown completely under the radar. Could you guys imagine if this was a Democratic congressperson? Could you guys imagine the uproar? And this is their response, Jordy. This is what

Tina Peters' response was. Quote, today, large teams of heavily armed federal agents using battering rams to break down doors raided the homes of Mesa County clerk, Tina Peters and several others and her friends and colleagues, mostly elderly women in their mid sixties. This is a level of weaponization of the justice department. We haven't seen since the McCarthy era. Thank God Tina wasn't protesting critical race theory at a Virginia school board meeting, or they might have brought two battering rams. I mean, that statement is bizarre beyond infuriating, but look, the FBI and the state entities, they respond. They were like, we walked into the home very nicely. We allowed her to eat breakfast and cook breakfast while they gathered the documents that they needed. We feel that we have to respond to these inaccuracies that's occurred,

and we are going to just pursue our standard law enforcement activities. They commit crimes. They get called out for it. They get arrested or they're home-jointed. Critical race theory. That's it. Because they committed crimes, and then they complain that the justice system is targeting them.

Stop committing crimes if you don't want to be arrested. That applies to Steve Bannon. This applies to Matt Gaetz. This applies to everybody complaining and trying to toe this line that the DOJ is somehow a political entity. They're coming after me. Yeah, they're coming after you. They're coming after me. Yeah, they're coming after you. They're coming after you because you committed a crime. Sometimes multiples.

Because you're criminals. And so they have that strategy, right? They talk about ZRT in that. Crazy people. And they just have like, you know, it's like buzzwords. They're just like a Mad Libs of phrases that they put in there to stir anger. And so they have that strategy, right? They commit crimes. And I think you summed it up great the other day, Ben, when you said,

so the Republican strategy is just, they oppose everything the Democrats do. They go and they take credit for them when they pass. And then they use these culture war issues like CRT to get elected. That's what they do. And that was- And they commit crimes. The one part you missed there is they commit crimes and pardon themselves for the crimes. Yeah. They commit crimes and pardon themselves. So that's the strategy, everybody. That's the strategy. That's going to be their playbook as we head into 2022. So we know that strategy. How are we going to counter that strategy? Like I said, we're at a three-front war between the conservative media, the corporate media, and the fascist GOP.

So that puts the onus on you, on us. And I want you to remember that the reason right now why unemployment is down in this country, the reason right now why we've added almost 7 million jobs back to the economy, the reason we're getting upgrades in roads, bridges, broadband, the reason why there even is a committee that exists that's investigating the January 6th attacks. It's because you showed up and you voted at the polls. So be proud about this and understand that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what all these voices says because the true power in our democracy, and this is why they are trying so hard to take it away from us because the true power in our democracy, and this is why they are trying so hard to take it away from us.

Because the true power in our democracy, it lies with you. So you need to stay in this fight, you need to get engaged, and we need to be showing up at every local election, at every national election, at every statewide election. Show up, understand that progress in this country is slow, which by the way, makes it all the more impressive that we've been able to accomplish all these things in these past nine or 10 months. So never take our wins for granted. Stay engaged. Stay in this fight.

Get to the polls and vote. Vote for democracy. Vote for your family. Let's do this together, guys. Come on. Yeah. Show up or they will shut you up. We need to go to the polls together.

We need to win this together. We're fighting together. Well said, Brett. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Midas Touch podcast. Thanks to our guest, Amy Siskin. Special thanks to our sponsors, Quip, HomeMedics, and Stamps.com.

As always, it's a pleasure being able to fight for democracy with my brothers on the Midas Touch podcast. And congratulations to Politics Girl on the Midas Media Network for going number one on the news podcast charts. We will see you next time on the Midas Touch podcast. Shout out to the Midas Mighty!