Speaker 1: You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, welcome to the
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton Show. On this episode, Mark Hemingway is with
Speaker 1: us of Real Clear Investigations. He's also an editor at
Speaker 1: The Federalist and the husband of the formidable Molly Hemingway,
Speaker 1: who is fantastic author and writer in her own right.
Speaker 1: Mister Mark, how are you doing, sir? How is America?
Speaker 1: You know America is hanging on? But yeah, I'm doing
Speaker 1: all right. You know one thing that I know you
Speaker 1: get very focused in on is all the school stuff.
Speaker 1: You've been on the board of a classical school for
Speaker 1: nearly eighteen years. Want to I want you to tell
Speaker 1: me about that, But then I also want to ask
Speaker 1: about you may have seen, you know, Biden is saying
Speaker 1: that it's cruel now to prevent gender transition surgery for kids.
Speaker 1: That's it's cruel to stop kids from getting surgery that
Speaker 1: is going to almost certainly ruin their lives. But anyway,
Speaker 1: well we'll get to that first. Telling me what is it?
Speaker 1: What is this classical school You've been on the board
Speaker 1: of for almost twenty years. Yeah, my church has had
Speaker 1: a school in some form or another for you know,
Speaker 1: nearly one hundred years, like a lot of Lutheran churches.
Speaker 1: But you know, like I think a religious education in
Speaker 1: this country kind of suffered an identity crisis in the
Speaker 1: you know, in the sort of the late twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and you know, our school have gotten very small. We
Speaker 1: were reciting what to do with it, and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the school population have gotten so low, like
Speaker 1: do we close the school or something. So what we did,
Speaker 1: and this was you know, gosh, eighteen twenty years ago. Now,
Speaker 1: we basically doubled down on the religious emphasis of the
Speaker 1: school and we made it a classical school. Now twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. It's kind of funny because you know, talking
Speaker 1: about classical education like like these days, you know, I
Speaker 1: talked to well educated parents and they know exactly what
Speaker 1: classical educationism and ask me questions like are you teaching
Speaker 1: Saxon or sing a poor math? And they have like
Speaker 1: very opinionated ideas about private schooling because they've had to
Speaker 1: because of the collapse of public education. But at the
Speaker 1: time we did this, we didn't really know what we
Speaker 1: were doing, and we were taking a gamble, and obviously
Speaker 1: with you know, during the pandemic was sort of the culminations.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we have a very well regarded
Speaker 1: classical religious school in a Washington, DC suburb, and during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, when all the schools in the Northern Virginia
Speaker 1: were closed, we had to take the application off the
Speaker 1: website at our school, which is crazy. And now like
Speaker 1: getting into private schools in DC in recent years has
Speaker 1: been absolute blood sport, which is just you know, amazing
Speaker 1: to me because you look at how many people in
Speaker 1: the DC area are in somewhere or another, you know,
Speaker 1: responsible for destroying public education, you know, via the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party or teachers unions or whatever it is, and you
Speaker 1: know they're living in an area where you know, nobody
Speaker 1: with any money feels good about sending their kids a
Speaker 1: public school. So, you know, education reformancy has got to
Speaker 1: be a much higher priority than it's been. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that one one constant reality of the public
Speaker 1: school system. And I know there are people always they
Speaker 1: always played this game like we can't speak about this
Speaker 1: with any nuance or or you know, it's always oh,
Speaker 1: but you know I went to a great public school
Speaker 1: or they're great public schools, hear me, Okay, but there
Speaker 1: are also a lot of terrible public schools and they
Speaker 1: never get better. And the fact that the DC public
Speaker 1: if you're right next to Washington, DC, you live right
Speaker 1: outside of DC, I know where you guys are, and
Speaker 1: I know that city pretty well, having lived there a
Speaker 1: couple of times. They've spent don't they spend something like
Speaker 1: in the twenty thousand dollars range per student. It's like
Speaker 1: the highest in the country. And the public school system
Speaker 1: there is is horrible. I remember there was a Washington
Speaker 1: Post story. This is about a decade ago, and so
Speaker 1: I'm sure the figures are certainly much higher now, but Washington,
Speaker 1: DC was spending about thirty thousand dollars per kid. Wow,
Speaker 1: and Washington the Washington DC school district is by several
Speaker 1: objective metrics, the worst school district in the in the country.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like constantly can eating with school districts,
Speaker 1: and in certain parts of New Jersey for like the
Speaker 1: absolute wrisk performance in terms of dropout rates and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. You know, it's it's also a situation where
Speaker 1: there've been a number of high profile cases in the
Speaker 1: last twenty years of like teachers union corruption, like actual
Speaker 1: embezzlement like millions of dollars and things like that from
Speaker 1: the unions and schools in DC. So, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just just bad at every level. But what's also interesting though,
Speaker 1: in this area in particular, is that just outside of DC,
Speaker 1: in northern Virginia, you know, in Loudon County, in Fairfax County,
Speaker 1: you had, by some measures, some of the best public
Speaker 1: high schools in the nation. Fairfax County in particular. You know,
Speaker 1: it was always upheld as a model. And what happened.
Speaker 1: A bunch of woke people got elected to the school
Speaker 1: board and like within a span of a few years,
Speaker 1: it's become a national news story what's happened with Loudon
Speaker 1: County schools with the trans bathroom stuff. And then in
Speaker 1: Fairfax County they had this famous magnet school for science
Speaker 1: and Technology, that Thomas Jefferson High School. It's when you know,
Speaker 1: it was an Ivy League feeder school and it was
Speaker 1: a public high school, and the day school board has
Speaker 1: basically tried to destroy merit based admission to it. You
Speaker 1: had to test into it, right, But what happened was
Speaker 1: is because there were a ton of Asian immigrants in
Speaker 1: me in the Northern Virginia, you know, and again these
Speaker 1: are historically discriminated against immigrants. We're taking up all the
Speaker 1: spots in the STEM schools. So all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they had to do away with the merit based admission
Speaker 1: to the school. And that this has been a big fight.
Speaker 1: Um as that school gets, you know, fallow starts to
Speaker 1: fall apart. Um. There's a recent scandal where they didn't
Speaker 1: inform several students because of what looks like because they
Speaker 1: were you know, white or Asian, that they had won
Speaker 1: national merit scholarships. You know, I mean like they're just
Speaker 1: they're just waging war on people. And it's it's it's
Speaker 1: absolutely sounding to me to watch this just implode and
Speaker 1: everyone's sort of standing around, powerless, you know, to do
Speaker 1: anything about it. And I've been screaming for in the
Speaker 1: twenty plus years Republicans need to make an education reform
Speaker 1: a much bigger political priority. How do they do that? Well,
Speaker 1: for one thing, they need to start talking about it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously there's you know, a war are on
Speaker 1: meritocracy in this country, you know, right now in advance
Speaker 1: for an advance of what looks like there's a potential
Speaker 1: to the Spreme Court to basically, you know, take away
Speaker 1: affirmative action in this country. Ivy League schools even have
Speaker 1: announced they're no longer going to be using SAT scores.
Speaker 1: You know, and I'm sorry, but SAT scores and standardized tasks. Look,
Speaker 1: we all have issues with them. You know, maybe we
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy them, but the fact of the matters is
Speaker 1: SAT scores, for instance, we're a great equalizer. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a you know, if you were an Asian
Speaker 1: immigrant who spends you know, I don't know, twenty hours
Speaker 1: a week or whatever outside of school, working in your
Speaker 1: family restaurant, you don't have time to burnish your resume
Speaker 1: doing all these fancy extracurriculous that look good on an
Speaker 1: Ivyleague school application. But if you go in and you know,
Speaker 1: you pull a fourteen fifty on the SAT, then you've
Speaker 1: got a shot at getting in an Ivyleague school. Well,
Speaker 1: they do away with the SAT all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: What's all that's going to do is empower you know,
Speaker 1: the kids who have the money and time and resources
Speaker 1: go out and burnish their resume with you know, charity
Speaker 1: work and you know, higher education consultants and all that
Speaker 1: other nonsense you know, involving in schools these days. So
Speaker 1: that's like one issue right there. You just talk about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, why are we doing away with merit based
Speaker 1: admission to you know, like STEM school, Stem high schools,
Speaker 1: now and colleges. You know, just go out there and
Speaker 1: talk about that. I wonder as well. You know, you're
Speaker 1: so you're on the board of this school having for
Speaker 1: a long time of your school attached to your Lutheran church.
Speaker 1: Are there parents who show up at any of the meetings? Now?
Speaker 1: I know it's it's a pre selected group in so
Speaker 1: far as these are people that are choosing to go
Speaker 1: to this school and it's you know, Christian affiliated, But
Speaker 1: is anyone showing up and saying, hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: really think we need to expand gender ideology for the
Speaker 1: kids starting around the third grade? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: come up against that? Uh? I always I find it
Speaker 1: remarkable trying to figure out where does this begin? Because
Speaker 1: we know what happens in a lot of different schools
Speaker 1: across the country where they start the very sexualized books
Speaker 1: for young kids and the LGBTQ plus indoctrination stuff at
Speaker 1: a very young age. Obviously in Florida that calls to
Speaker 1: Hughes fight a huge fight. Do you know, had you
Speaker 1: come across any parents who feel like there's not enough
Speaker 1: of the left wing stuff going on for the kids,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? I mean that they're
Speaker 1: not being LGBTQ plus friendly enough or something. There's stuff
Speaker 1: like that, but it's very much confined to the margins.
Speaker 1: One reason why religious schools are good for this sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and if I were, you know, a parent,
Speaker 1: I'd be out there looking for religious that cares about
Speaker 1: these issues. I'd be looking at religious schools is because
Speaker 1: most religious schools are actually controlled by the church. In
Speaker 1: order to be on the board of the school or whatever,
Speaker 1: you also be a member of the church. And then
Speaker 1: you know that board ensures that nothing that the school
Speaker 1: does is going to go against the doctrine of the church.
Speaker 1: And if the church that's running the school is you know,
Speaker 1: a solid, you know church with traditionally Christian, biblically centered beliefs,
Speaker 1: you're not going to encounter any of that stuff. Because
Speaker 1: the moment the parents, the parents sort of raise these issues,
Speaker 1: then you know they can be you know, pretty much
Speaker 1: dismissed because you know, it's it's they don't have any
Speaker 1: sort of direct input in it. It's a private school.
Speaker 1: You can need to choose this in your kids there
Speaker 1: are choose not to. And then the other thing that's
Speaker 1: happened simply is like I said, you know, it's become
Speaker 1: basically what supposed pandemic become blood sport in a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, fluent areas to get your kids into
Speaker 1: a private school, and the demand to get into private
Speaker 1: schools is really really high, so that for once, you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you have a private school where there
Speaker 1: isn't a lot of pressure to get kids into the school,
Speaker 1: and in fact, as is the case in a lot
Speaker 1: of private schools, you know they're turning people away because
Speaker 1: they're waiting less in every grade. Then parents aren't in
Speaker 1: in a position whatever too, So I should say, parents
Speaker 1: who have ideas contrary to with the school wants in
Speaker 1: terms of values, you know, are not in position to
Speaker 1: tell schools what to do, which is very different obviously
Speaker 1: than public schools, where you know you have all these
Speaker 1: you know, massive political factors going in to things, and
Speaker 1: it really sort of upsets things. Do you think that
Speaker 1: they because you're you're a Virginia resident. You mentioned Loudon
Speaker 1: County as well. That was clearly a big part of
Speaker 1: Governor Younkin's victory, right, the frustration with the schools because
Speaker 1: of COVID, but also the you know, trans student attacking
Speaker 1: the other student in the bathroom and the policies around
Speaker 1: a lot of this. Does that frustration continue and do
Speaker 1: you think that that'll play a role in how Virginia
Speaker 1: goes just politically in general in twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 1: think it, honestly, you know, continues because it very much
Speaker 1: affects the Northern Virginia area where there are a lot
Speaker 1: of affluent people and in a huge population hub that
Speaker 1: determines a lot of the voting in the state essentially,
Speaker 1: And so what happened in Virginia, it's really interesting and
Speaker 1: instructive and why I think that Republicans need to go
Speaker 1: out there and talk about this a lot more because
Speaker 1: you know, it really worked for young Ken. Basically, you
Speaker 1: have a situation where, yes, most of the residents in
Speaker 1: Northern Virginia are you overwhelming Democrats, and they vote overwhelming Democrat.
Speaker 1: But having said that, they're not like urban progressives. They're
Speaker 1: you know, like they tend to be much more moderate Democrats,
Speaker 1: unlike say, the voters that live in DC are big cities,
Speaker 1: and these are people that you know, care about certain
Speaker 1: things a great deal, you know. And with the pandemic,
Speaker 1: basically two things happen. One is that DC completely fell
Speaker 1: apart as a city like a lot of other urban centers.
Speaker 1: It just it had been falling apart for a while,
Speaker 1: but it got really really bad. Now, like the homeless problem,
Speaker 1: all these other things are exploding in DC in ways
Speaker 1: that wasn't before. And so young kid is running, you know,
Speaker 1: post pandemic, and the people in northern Virginia are looking
Speaker 1: over the bridge and they're seeing all this crime that
Speaker 1: they're worried about, you know, coming over into their neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing was Virginia had one of
Speaker 1: the worst pandemic responses of any state in the nation.
Speaker 1: I mean, it basically just completely shut down schools for
Speaker 1: eighteen months, you know, deferred to the teachers' unions on everything.
Speaker 1: You know, these are high achieving parents with jobs, and
Speaker 1: they were frustrated beyond belief with you know, having to
Speaker 1: take care of their kids and you know, having all
Speaker 1: the problems that come with doing school from home and
Speaker 1: seeing what their kids woke curriculum was like for the
Speaker 1: first time, and all these other things. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you know, with a lot of Democrats are
Speaker 1: on the country, especially the affluent ones. If you do
Speaker 1: two things, you know, if you threaten their property values
Speaker 1: at crime and you you know, ruin their kids ability
Speaker 1: to get into a top flight college because you're messing
Speaker 1: with their education, well then God have mercy on your
Speaker 1: political soul. I mean, it's just such a losing message
Speaker 1: for Democrats across the board, you know, those two things,
Speaker 1: and that's how young can one basically, I think messaging
Speaker 1: very effectively on both of those issues. But education in
Speaker 1: particular was just huge because you had all those international
Speaker 1: scandals and Karen McCulloch just took for granted that the
Speaker 1: national press in Washington, DC was going to run interference
Speaker 1: for him, and it didn't work out that way because
Speaker 1: you know, Yunka was relentless about hammering the education issue
Speaker 1: and it resonated with enough Northern Virginia voters to peel
Speaker 1: them off. It was very effective strategy, as we saw.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you speaking about how cities are doing.
Speaker 1: You are a native Portlander? Is that correct? Well, my
Speaker 1: mom I'm a native, or well my mother is. My
Speaker 1: mother grew up in Portland. I lived in Portland for
Speaker 1: a time. I've got a ton of relatives growing married. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we want to talk Portland and what has happened to
Speaker 1: that city specifically in just a second. But first I
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Speaker 1: Can I just tell you. I've been to Portland once.
Speaker 1: It was two and ten, and I remember thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: this city is amazing. It's beautiful, the food is great,
Speaker 1: it's got a really interesting vibe to it. Obviously great coffee,
Speaker 1: like so much going for it. It wasn't very expensive
Speaker 1: then either. It was starting to get more expensive to city.
Speaker 1: But I remember also talking to people who were there,
Speaker 1: and I was like, when I'm in a place for
Speaker 1: the first time it's been They said, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: the downtown and we got a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of vagrants. That it was. It was just beginning to happen, right,
Speaker 1: and you could kind of see that the the Democrat
Speaker 1: left was becoming more assertive in its craziness, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think this really happened to Austin in the
Speaker 1: last you know, five to seven years. You know, these
Speaker 1: cities go through, all these people moved there, they realize
Speaker 1: how great it is. But then also the Democrat reality
Speaker 1: starts to creep in more and more. What happened to Portland, man,
Speaker 1: I mean it is it is hemorrhaging people. It had
Speaker 1: I think in twenty twenty one a thousand shootings, which
Speaker 1: some some crazy number, which for a city of that size,
Speaker 1: just means that there are areas where there are shootings
Speaker 1: going on all the time. What happened? What happened to
Speaker 1: and why isn't Why aren't Oregonians up in arms? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a good question. I mean the answer is
Speaker 1: Oregonians are up in arms, which is to say, um,
Speaker 1: business owners in Portland and almost everyone outside of the
Speaker 1: city are, you know, incredibly frustrated by what's going on?
Speaker 1: And I'll sort of get to why that, why that
Speaker 1: is in the moment in a moment, but basically what
Speaker 1: happened is one of my favorite Portland anecdotes is is that,
Speaker 1: you know, starting in the late nineteen nineties, Portland became
Speaker 1: known as a very trendy city. And as evidence of that,
Speaker 1: I like the site that they didn't they didn't mark.
Speaker 1: They did this elaborate market research. I remember reading about
Speaker 1: this New York Times. They were trying to pinpoint what
Speaker 1: started the Paps Blue Ribbon revival in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: like why all of a sudden hipsters started drinking Paps
Speaker 1: Blue Ribbon. And they found out that, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it started as an organic trend in Portland, Oregon, Like
Speaker 1: you know, like Portland was like hipster central, like that's
Speaker 1: where people, you know, they had a great music scene,
Speaker 1: it had, you know, this burgeoning restaurant scene that you
Speaker 1: mentioned that was like really sort of flowering and started
Speaker 1: in late nineteen nineties, and it became trendier and trendier
Speaker 1: until right around the time when you were there in
Speaker 1: twenty and ten, that was the height of Portlandy of fame,
Speaker 1: remember the TV show about that or whatever. The sort
Speaker 1: of like made fun made sort of gentle fun of
Speaker 1: right about it. They didn't want to eat the chicken
Speaker 1: in like the chicken kebab or whatever until they knew
Speaker 1: the chicken's name and what the chickens hopes and dreams
Speaker 1: were and all I remember that from Portlandia. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: Funny thing about that sketch was that Portlandia was like
Speaker 1: it was the reality of Portland at that was so
Speaker 1: much actually crazier than the sort of sketch show. There
Speaker 1: was like an actual there was a local culinary competition
Speaker 1: right around the time I want to say, a year
Speaker 1: or two before the show aired with that sketch, and
Speaker 1: you just described about meeting the heritage Breed chickens where
Speaker 1: there was a local culinary competition where two chefs got
Speaker 1: into a fight and one of them had a fractured
Speaker 1: tibias result with mug shots because one of them wasn't
Speaker 1: using locally sourced pork at some culinary competition. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's how crazy Portland was in terms of all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But it was right around that time that like, because
Speaker 1: it became trending the nineties, people started moving there and
Speaker 1: moving there. And the situation with Oregon is it's like
Speaker 1: a lot of Western stay it's kind of this way,
Speaker 1: but Oregan is kind of an extreme example where Oregon
Speaker 1: has about four million people and it's it's a large state,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the size of Germany and has
Speaker 1: four million people. But of the four million people, of
Speaker 1: just over about half those the population lives in like
Speaker 1: two or three counties that make Portland metro area. So
Speaker 1: what happens is is that once there's this even greater
Speaker 1: influx of population into Portland, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: whatever is going on in that city, no matter how
Speaker 1: crazy it is, it's going to like basically ruin the
Speaker 1: politics the entire state. And in this case, basically it
Speaker 1: was a whole bunch of Californians and you know, people
Speaker 1: from around the country that lived in urban environments that
Speaker 1: had gotten too expensive or you know whatever, they were
Speaker 1: just sick of dealing with, you know, the traffic and
Speaker 1: smog in La or whatever it was, all moved to
Speaker 1: Portland and they brought with them their progressive politics, thinking
Speaker 1: that while I can just have my progressive politics somewhere
Speaker 1: where it's cheaper and easier to live, and then almost
Speaker 1: immediately started voting for all these you know, sort of
Speaker 1: radical ideas and progressive policies that you know, they basically
Speaker 1: completely ruined the city. Why is it the heartland of antifa?
Speaker 1: Like how did that have because that's even a level
Speaker 1: beyond you know, people say, oh, you know, they'll call
Speaker 1: them hippies. I'm like, these are not hippies. There's these
Speaker 1: are people. There's a lot of white dudes with face
Speaker 1: and neck tattoos, putting black balaclavas over their heads, acting
Speaker 1: like they're fighting fascism by throwing rocks at cops and
Speaker 1: immigration you know, enforcement officers and like bad stuff going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's actually a really interesting question. Um um, So, I
Speaker 1: don't you know how familiar with the history of this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. You probably are more so than most people,
Speaker 1: But you know, there's this issue of anarchism, which was
Speaker 1: an actual sort of you know, prominent current in the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century. I remember, well the late nineteen I
Speaker 1: think you could say the late twentieth century when they
Speaker 1: did all that stuff in Seattle. Remember it went they
Speaker 1: went crazy and they shouted all the Starbucks windows right
Speaker 1: yeah right, yeah, no, no, that wasn't that was Seattle too.
Speaker 1: It was the Pacific Northwest. But in the late nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: remember was the the person that assassinated was a McKinley
Speaker 1: was an anarchist, and there was all this anarchist violence
Speaker 1: in the early part of the twentieth century. Well, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, the anarchists were actually you know, there was
Speaker 1: a there was a strong sort of bunch of anarchists
Speaker 1: enclaves that were in the Pacific Northwest. I mean it
Speaker 1: was always looming. I mean there are towns in Washington
Speaker 1: State that existed this day. They were founded specifically as
Speaker 1: like anarchists, like communes or whatever. And so there was
Speaker 1: always that sort of current. And then you built on
Speaker 1: top of that with this sort of weird hippie fringe
Speaker 1: that was always attractive Pacific Northwest, you know, like there
Speaker 1: was like some extreme ideology, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: the hippies. There was a guy named John Zerzan that
Speaker 1: was a living in Eugene, Oregon when I was going
Speaker 1: to school there in the mid nineties, and he had
Speaker 1: a radio show, right, and he was this anti technology anarchist.
Speaker 1: He was a close associate of Ted Kazinski, the UNI
Speaker 1: bomber or whatever, and he was going around in Eugene,
Speaker 1: Oregon when I was there in the mid nineties, basically
Speaker 1: like reaching to you know, these gutter punks that were
Speaker 1: like homeless kids skateboarding on the streets and preaching anarchism
Speaker 1: to them. And when I was in high school, when
Speaker 1: I was in college, there are all these stories of
Speaker 1: like the you know, these anarchists breaking into like city
Speaker 1: council meetings and all this other stuff and causing a
Speaker 1: ruckus and like all the local stuff in Eugene, Oregon
Speaker 1: University of Organism. And then like three or four years
Speaker 1: after that, I turn on the television during the WTO
Speaker 1: riots and I look up and I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it's all the same gutter punks you know that I
Speaker 1: was seeing in Oregon um you know, uh, just a
Speaker 1: couple of years earlier. And so, I mean I really
Speaker 1: think that there was there was this sort of weird,
Speaker 1: underground ideological thing that had been happening for a long
Speaker 1: time in the state that sort of created this um.
Speaker 1: But but it didn't really become a problem until it
Speaker 1: certainly grew around in twenty and ten with the with
Speaker 1: the Occupy Wall Street movements right gave some fuel to that.
Speaker 1: But what really happened would really change, was all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, with all these progressive anti politics, basically there
Speaker 1: was no longer any political will to reign any of
Speaker 1: these people in and all of a sudden, like Portland
Speaker 1: became like an Antifa theme park. Basically, well, these people
Speaker 1: could go out, you know, and do all this stuff
Speaker 1: and they would never be um, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: attacked or you know, you know, he's going back ten
Speaker 1: years ago, and the cops were afraid to do too
Speaker 1: much or else they'd be, you know, accused of attacking
Speaker 1: you know, homeless kids. Um, never mind that they were
Speaker 1: basically violent. They were organizing themselves into terror cells and
Speaker 1: they were just going around like on random Wednesday nights,
Speaker 1: breaking the windows and restaurants and this totally insane, and
Speaker 1: they just allowed this to continue to this day. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you may have seen this. Actually, Ted Wheeler,
Speaker 1: the mayor, who I think it's tough. There's some really
Speaker 1: bad mayors, but certainly one of the worst mayors in
Speaker 1: America in terms of our results. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny to see him. I remember during the pandemic where
Speaker 1: he went down to talk to Antifa and they just started,
Speaker 1: you know, f bombs and you know, you're the worst.
Speaker 1: They they they just spot him, just like they despise
Speaker 1: everybody else because they're spiteful, angry little idiots who aren't
Speaker 1: accomplishing anything other than just destroying property and making people's lives,
Speaker 1: you know, more difficult and miserable, um, you know, the
Speaker 1: surrounding community. But but I think it's interesting is that
Speaker 1: finally now Portland has started to have a little bit
Speaker 1: of a conversation about, hey, maybe we can't just have
Speaker 1: the whole downtown be an open air homeless shelter, Like
Speaker 1: maybe maybe that's actually a bad idea. And Ted Wheeler
Speaker 1: has started to try to move in that direction. And
Speaker 1: there are there is still this left wing vanguard there
Speaker 1: that is like that the city has been destroyed, and
Speaker 1: they're like, how dare you try to turn things around?
Speaker 1: They're still they're still pushing Oh no, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: as bad as Ted Wheeler is, and he's horrendous. He
Speaker 1: very nearly lost the Democratic primary in the last election
Speaker 1: to a woman who was literally Antifa. It's like publicly
Speaker 1: declaring she was Antifa and he won like a few
Speaker 1: percentage points over this one. I mean, so, I mean
Speaker 1: that's the political reality that you're you're dealing with. But
Speaker 1: you're right, they don't make any distinctions between say, you
Speaker 1: know Ted Wheeler, the guy that you know constantly is
Speaker 1: attacking the police unions on their behalf and the overall
Speaker 1: you know, sort of fascist structure or whatever they're fighting.
Speaker 1: He's just part of it. But but part of the
Speaker 1: reason why that you know, they're able to do this
Speaker 1: is because they have a demonstrated history of pushing Ted
Speaker 1: Wheeler around. Portland has this you know events, the city
Speaker 1: of Roses, they have a Rose Parade every year or
Speaker 1: whatever it was. This goship was, like I want to say,
Speaker 1: it was about four years ago they Ted Wheeler canceled
Speaker 1: like the entire Rose Parade because Antifa threatened violence against
Speaker 1: the parade anonymously, by the way, and the reason why
Speaker 1: they were threatening violence was because the Multnoma County Republicans
Speaker 1: wanted to march in the parade. Like, if he's going
Speaker 1: to cancel an entire parade because you sent him an
Speaker 1: anonymous threatening letter about this, why wouldn't you keep pushing it?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just you know, a read in the wind,
Speaker 1: you know, as far as you know, ending fascism in America,
Speaker 1: so you know, why not push him until he breaks.
Speaker 1: It's also fascinating because in the case of Portland Antifa,
Speaker 1: you had people who were trying to burn down a
Speaker 1: federal courthouse who you could see were almost all white guys.
Speaker 1: There were some women, but they were white, and they
Speaker 1: were doing this in the name of BLM, and the
Speaker 1: whole thing just struck me as, Oh, so they're just
Speaker 1: you just choose whatever cause suits the moment, so that
Speaker 1: you can throw your Molotov cocktails and act like you're
Speaker 1: some kind of hero against fascism, right, And they'd already
Speaker 1: burned like a police facility and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff around town at the time that happened, and they,
Speaker 1: you know, they weren't even doing anything there. The wheeler
Speaker 1: was joining the protests, and the national media was basically
Speaker 1: one hundred percent behind it, like, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: just a peaceful protest with a few agitators. I mean
Speaker 1: it was. It was totally insane. Seattle's just just as bad,
Speaker 1: right pretty much. I Mean that's Seattle had the chatz
Speaker 1: or the chop or whatever they were calling it a
Speaker 1: Capitol hill zone. Are they turning things around? I just
Speaker 1: under I haven't spent much time to the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: I told you, I've really just been out there that
Speaker 1: one time. I went to Cannon Beach, which is beautiful though,
Speaker 1: and it strikes me as it should be this great place.
Speaker 1: But you've got two cities that should be the jewels
Speaker 1: of the Pacific Northwest that are just turning into crappy
Speaker 1: places to spend spend too much time, certainly in the downtowns.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know right now. Seattle is actually there
Speaker 1: was just a big story recently about Seattle's facing a
Speaker 1: ton of lawsuits from business owners in the Chazu as
Speaker 1: they should. Basically, they just completely surrendered law and order
Speaker 1: and you know, left these business people and people that
Speaker 1: lived in an area at the mercy of these you know,
Speaker 1: like literal war lords, you know, running the city. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're still dealing with that Amazon and Amazon is going
Speaker 1: to occupy an entire skyscraper in downtown Seattle, and they
Speaker 1: just moved the whole project outside of the city because
Speaker 1: they weren't going to begin to deal with that. And
Speaker 1: you know, these things keep happening, and yet somehow, you know,
Speaker 1: there isn't the political reform movement that you'd think be happening. UM.
Speaker 1: In the last mid term, right, UM, Phil Knight, the
Speaker 1: founder of Nike, dumped millions of dollars into the candidacy
Speaker 1: of a tough on crime independent candidate and then later
Speaker 1: switched to dumping millions of dollars into the Republican in
Speaker 1: the Oregon governor's race, and in a three way race,
Speaker 1: Republican came very close to winning, UM but ultimately didn't.
Speaker 1: And then they ended up with yet another like crazy
Speaker 1: progressive UM governor and Oregan's governor prior to that, Tina
Speaker 1: cootech I think, wait now, Tina Gotech's the current governor,
Speaker 1: Cameron Brown Brown. Yeah, Um, she she had the lowest
Speaker 1: approval ratings of any governor in the country. And first
Speaker 1: and you still can't get rid of these you know, progressives.
Speaker 1: They just elected basically an acolyte of Brown essentially to
Speaker 1: run the state. UM. It's it's like so far gone.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's going to take to fix it.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem is is that you know people, Um,
Speaker 1: you know all of the people that are sick of
Speaker 1: what's going on. Portland are just moving to Boise, and
Speaker 1: this is you know, I think a big warning for
Speaker 1: everyone else. Um. You know, Boise is the only big
Speaker 1: population anchor in Idaho. And you know, twenty five years
Speaker 1: ago Boise was one of the most provincial cities in America.
Speaker 1: Now there's got a tech sector in a microburry in
Speaker 1: every corner. I wouldn't be surprised, you know, if the
Speaker 1: Idaho isn't careful that that state goes the way of
Speaker 1: Oregon in another twenty years. Um, So people really need
Speaker 1: to be thinking hard about this. I think the good
Speaker 1: news is after people saw what happened to Portland and
Speaker 1: Austin in particular, people are a lot more wary about,
Speaker 1: you know, people moving into your state. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll just necessarily see it as an unalloyed economic good.
Speaker 1: They have to understand that there's a culture that's very
Speaker 1: much they're worth preserving. And let me tell you, you know,
Speaker 1: as a third generation Oregonian, I am really really sad.
Speaker 1: I love that state. I mean it was gorgeous. I
Speaker 1: mean it was a real privilege to grow up there
Speaker 1: in terms of like just an unreal natural beauty of
Speaker 1: the place, and not just that, like a wonderful local culture.
Speaker 1: You know, for years growing up it was run by
Speaker 1: a bunch of liberal rockefellow Republicans, but they're mostly libertarian
Speaker 1: leaving me a loan types who did a really good
Speaker 1: job of managing competing interests. And more than that, they
Speaker 1: were just competent people. You know, they balanced budgets, they
Speaker 1: did the right thing. They were good on environmentalist issues
Speaker 1: in a very positive way that I unfortunately, I think
Speaker 1: the Republican Party is a little too captive to special
Speaker 1: interests on you know, nationally. It was just it was
Speaker 1: a it was a good state to be from, and
Speaker 1: I was really really proud of it. And like now
Speaker 1: you mentioned, oh from Oregon, people literally roll their eyes
Speaker 1: in your face because Portland is that bad. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got whatever, people, I guarantee you whatever you heard
Speaker 1: about Portland, it's worse. I mean it's it's downtown is
Speaker 1: a really really scary place. And it's not just downtown.
Speaker 1: All of the violence and all the antife and all
Speaker 1: the crazy homeless people, you know, yelling obscenities in the
Speaker 1: street corner that's spread that basically the entire city and
Speaker 1: anyone that tells you different is lying to you. Yes
Speaker 1: you can live there. Yes it's not always violent. You know,
Speaker 1: you can get around this. But like people that live
Speaker 1: there and say, well it's not so bad and they
Speaker 1: have Stockholm syndrome, they don't know what like an actual
Speaker 1: functioning city looks like. I mean, I was I was
Speaker 1: in Baghdad for a while during the war, and there
Speaker 1: were people who were going out and you know, getting
Speaker 1: like milk and eggs. But it was bad, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's you know, people are still living in these places
Speaker 1: that just bad things are happening, So you know that's
Speaker 1: they're they're quiet there. You can find quiet in any
Speaker 1: place at any time if you look for it. But
Speaker 1: if there's too much of the other stuff going on,
Speaker 1: that's real problem. I want to ask you about elections,
Speaker 1: by the way, in election security. I know you've done
Speaker 1: a lot of research into well the most important thing,
Speaker 1: which is how do we fix things for twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four instead of people just walking around screaming at me
Speaker 1: and others, we won I look at them and I'm like,
Speaker 1: not not really, I don't know what else to say. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, we can sit around and talk. You can
Speaker 1: tell me that they cheated, and but we got to
Speaker 1: fix the cheating, not just stand here and scratch out
Speaker 1: that we won, right. I mean, it's like if the
Speaker 1: other team goes home with the trophy. You can say
Speaker 1: the ref fix the game as much as you want,
Speaker 1: but you got to figure out how you're gonna win
Speaker 1: the next game. Let's talk about that in a second. Though.
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Speaker 1: Mark the election in twenty twenty four. He's going to
Speaker 1: be hard for Republicans to win in terms of processes,
Speaker 1: vote counting, and tactics unless we do what how do
Speaker 1: we fix this thing? That's that's really tough. But I
Speaker 1: mean there are two sort of basic things here I
Speaker 1: think need to be addressed. One is that I was
Speaker 1: somewhat heartened to see that Trump came out and sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, moderated his position on vote by mail. To
Speaker 1: be clear, I think vote by mail is terrible. It's
Speaker 1: obviously more rife for fraud than almost any other form
Speaker 1: of voting, and I'm not a fan of it. I
Speaker 1: wish we could all come together society vote you know,
Speaker 1: from sun up to sundown on a single day. And
Speaker 1: know the results right away. I think that is the
Speaker 1: way that democracy should be run. But the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is is that's not the way it's been
Speaker 1: run for a long time. And even a lot of
Speaker 1: Republicans are really you know, accustomed to vote by mail.
Speaker 1: So public's need to come up with a strategy to
Speaker 1: sort of address that. So we don't have you know,
Speaker 1: two months of Democratic organizers running around, you know, maximize
Speaker 1: vote totals, where Republicans are sitting back on their hands,
Speaker 1: as we saw on the last mid term, basically hoping
Speaker 1: that Republicans turn out big on election day to overwhelm
Speaker 1: that effort. Again, I'm not a fan of vote by mail.
Speaker 1: I think it's righted by fraud. But as a friend
Speaker 1: of mine put it, you can't have arms control unless
Speaker 1: both sides have news, right, and so intel Republicans prove
Speaker 1: that they can sort of you know, equalize the playing
Speaker 1: field in terms of organizing for vote by mail or whatever,
Speaker 1: they're not going to be in a good position or
Speaker 1: whatever to sort of push back against a lot of
Speaker 1: these other sort of you know, dodgy ways that they're
Speaker 1: trying to sort of expand the vote in it, open
Speaker 1: it up to the hoping up the process to abuse.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing I think that needs to happen.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is that one of the things
Speaker 1: that came out when I worked with my wife on
Speaker 1: her last book on election security issues called rake ye
Speaker 1: have a copy of, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: really sort of shocked the heck out of me was,
Speaker 1: and I think most people don't even realize this, which
Speaker 1: was that there were some shenanigans in a gubernatorial election
Speaker 1: in New Jersey in like the early nineteen eighties, and
Speaker 1: a federal judge put the entire Republican Party under a
Speaker 1: consent decree, which basically meant they couldn't do any sort
Speaker 1: of election day monitoring or other in all the traditional
Speaker 1: activities the party would do on election day. And that
Speaker 1: federal judge literally he retired from the bench and he
Speaker 1: kept senior status. I don't know if you know what
Speaker 1: that is. That's like a way for retired judges to
Speaker 1: sort of like stay active in the profession while actually
Speaker 1: being retired. And he kept senior status just for for
Speaker 1: for like decades, just to just to keep this injunction
Speaker 1: in place, basically, and that injunction wasn't lifted until that
Speaker 1: judge died and an Obama pointed, judge looked at what
Speaker 1: he had done is basically hamstring the Republican Party for
Speaker 1: forty years and keep them from doing any election day
Speaker 1: you know, monitoring another activity. And in twenty twenty was
Speaker 1: the first election where the Republican Party since it was
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty or eighty two, the Republican Party had you know,
Speaker 1: the ability to go out there and send organizers out
Speaker 1: in the field or whatever and do poll watching and
Speaker 1: all that stuff that the party would normally do the
Speaker 1: first time in nearly forty years. And so the party
Speaker 1: itself didn't have a lot of muscle memory in terms
Speaker 1: of like how to go about doing those things, having
Speaker 1: the trained lawyers out there that do that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So I think what needs to happen now that like
Speaker 1: your pug and party can go back and do this.
Speaker 1: You know, we need people at the ground level. You know,
Speaker 1: we need party precinct people you know, going in and
Speaker 1: volunteering to do the election day stuff. We need the
Speaker 1: and we need the party apparatus to go in and
Speaker 1: you know, make sure that there are people in place
Speaker 1: to like watch these things and prevent any sort of
Speaker 1: Shenanians that are going on, because I guarantee there are
Speaker 1: Shenanions going on making accusations about widespread fraud or anything
Speaker 1: like that. But people are very much abusing the process
Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways and get away with it.
Speaker 1: And we need to be much more sort of vigilant.
Speaker 1: And that comes down to the listeners. You know they'll volunteer.
Speaker 1: He is hem and Nature on Twitter. Highly recommend you
Speaker 1: follow him Mark Hemmingway everybody, and also look for his
Speaker 1: work on real Clear investigations and over at the Federalist
Speaker 1: dot com market. Has been an honor, a privilege, and
Speaker 1: a privilege, my friend. Thank you for being here with this.
Speaker 1: We hope you come back. It's great to be on here.