Wanna Beat Trump and Actually Save Democracy? Pack the Supreme Court NOW.

What if the only way to protect democracy is to restore checks and balances by expanding the Supreme Court? On this episode of the Keystone Recording podcast, we confront the political chaos shaking our nation to its core. We dissect everything from Supreme Court rulings on presidential immunity to President Biden’s controversial performance, spotlighting the collective anxiety and lack of clear strategies among Democrats aiming to oust Donald Trump. Drawing bold historical parallels to FDR’s New Deal era, we contemplate the idea of court packing as a potentially necessary measure to counteract the Trump and MAGA movement victories.

If you’ve been doomscrolling and pondering why everything feels like it’s teetering on the edge, you’re not alone. There’s one simple solution: President Biden needs to pack the Supreme Court NOW. 

Expect a no-holds-barred look at why Democrats are experts at paralysis by analysis, while Republicans are busy winning with every loophole they can exploit. We’ll revisit FDR’s court-packing attempt and why it’s more relevant now than ever. Plus, hear a clip from FDR himself to remind us that even the greats knew when to shake things up.

We need to stop protecting an "institution" that no longer exists. It’s time to stop worrying about the editorial pages and Twitter trolls, and start fighting like our democracy depends on it—because it does.

We scrutinize the fierce political climate surrounding Trump and his loyal supporters, whose allegiance is rooted in cultural conflicts and a blatant disregard for facts. We delve into the Democratic response, considering the audacious strategy of expanding the Supreme Court to reignite voter enthusiasm and redefine the election narrative. Could recent Supreme Court decisions provide President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Schumer the leverage to appoint new justices? We explore the ethical controversies and constitutional crises this might provoke.

Join us for this cathartic episode where we demand bold action, mock the endless hand-wringing, and get real about what it’s going to take to beat Trump and save democracy. Pack the Supreme Court, President Biden. The time is NOW. Tune in for

Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com

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Chapters

• 0:30 The Case for Court Packing
• 18:40 The Argument for Expanding the Court
• 23:52 Restoring Checks and Balances on Court
• 35:26 Urgent Call for Bold Political Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. I'm Jesse White. This is the Keystone Reckoning podcast for Friday, july 12th 2024. And if you're anything like me, you've spent the past couple of weeks doom, scrolling and worrying and thinking and analyzing and overanalyzing where we are, what we do next and how do we do it. And, of course, I'm talking about everything from the Supreme Court rulings on presidential immunity to President Biden's performance in the debate and everything that has since followed in terms of arguments about whether he should remain the Democratic nominee.

Speaker 1: 1:11

I am not going to wade into that debate because, quite frankly, there's already enough noise out there. I don't know what I can add to it, and it's one of the few times that I've been able to look at a political landscape and come away without any clarity, which, for me, might be the scariest part of all of this. You know, those of us that really follow things closely and consider ourselves to be well informed and well read can usually look at what's happening and come away with a general idea of the lay of the land. That's not really happening now, at least for me, and we're seeing a lot of well-intentioned people that have a common goal of defeating Donald Trump, having a serious disagreement about how to go about that, and there are lots of takes that you can have on all sides. I don't think anybody's totally right. I don't think anybody's totally wrong. I don't think anybody's totally wrong. So it leaves us in this place where, as Democrats, we do what we do best, which is live in our own fears and basically suffer from paralysis by analysis. And again, there's a lot, there are a lot more forces at work here, and you know there it's a very easy rabbit hole to go down. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole today. The best way I can sum this all up is a line from where I tend to always go for deep answers to existential questions, which would, of course, be the South Park movie from 1999. You are really now Okay, funny time is over. Let's get down to brass tacks here.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Instead of talking about the process of where we are and the problems that we're facing as we head into the final four months of the campaign, I thought instead I could kind of look forward a little bit, and to me, as long as we focus on the process of the election and the question of something happen, particularly on the left as we're watching really victory after victory for Trump and the MAGA crowd, and these aren't small victories. Aren't small victories. You know, we're looking at this and saying, oh my God. We're looking at Project 2025. We're looking at the SCOTUS ruling, we're looking at all of these things. You know, judge Eileen Cannon in one of these in the criminal case everything is just kind of allowing Trump to not only avoid any culpability or accountability for what he's done, but it's setting the stage for a truly terrifying, truly terrifying country. If he should win, okay.

Speaker 1: 4:22

So to me, the question is yes, if the Democrats win, we are in a position to again block some of that and we have a real chance to, you know, and at least Donald Trump, trumpism isn't going away we could at least end Donald Trump politically. If we win, but with the conventional wisdom and the polling and everything, really putting that into question and forcing everybody to press the panic button more than anything, setting the conventional wisdom, which is maybe the most dangerous thing, and just eroding the enthusiasm gap on the left down to almost nothing, where people, instead of going out forcefully to turn out the vote and everything that entails, it's going to be almost apologetic and that's going to be a huge problem, especially for Democrats, because so much of what we do in terms of winning elections is based on our ground game, door to door, relational canvassing, those sorts of things that have always been effective. But if we have our people on the ground gun shy about going out and really advocating loudly or being kind of apologetic, that's going to be a huge problem and that's something you're also going to have down. Ballot candidates and you're seeing it right now, you know, basically trying to keep their powder dry coming out, distancing themselves in a way we've really never seen before from a sitting president. It's one thing to not want to have them in your district or stand by them, but we're coming out. We're seeing brazen yes, you should step aside, okay. So all of that brings us to what do we do? What can we do now?

Speaker 1: 6:09

And to me, the solution is straightforward and the big frustration is I know it's not going to happen, but this, to me, is what we could do to change the narrative of and, more importantly, quite frankly, take the steps necessary to actually protect democracy and protect our country. And it's really simple we pack the Supreme Court. That's what we do, that is the solution and in a lot of ways the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity is to me, the tipping point that, not only from a legal point of view but from a political point of view, directs us squarely to that conclusion. So let's walk this back for a minute. Let's walk this all the way back.

Speaker 1: 6:59

Let's walk this back 100 years almost to FDR my personal hero politically, who tried to, in the wake of New Deal legislation being struck down by a conservative Supreme Court after his first reelection, decides that he is going to try to expand the Supreme Court. He proposes legislation to Congress that it was a little convoluted, but basically it said that if a justice didn't didn't retire after age 70, the president would have the would have the power to then appoint somebody to expand the court and there were things about seniority. It was a little convoluted. It wasn't simply we're going to have more justices on the Supreme Court. It didn't work for a couple of, one of the main reasons being that he kind of sprung it on Congress, at least in the House. The House Judiciary Chair didn't even know anything about it until the legislation came out.

Speaker 1: 7:54

The been repeated. It was not as wildly unpopular as some people may make it out to be. And they point then to the next midterms where Democrats got pummeled and they try to say well, that was largely due to FDR's efforts to pack the Supreme Court. I would argue and a lot of people a lot smarter than me on this topic would argue that it was almost the inverse. It was a lot of the New Deal legislation being struck down by the courts which meant we never got to see some of those benefits. The American people never got to see the benefits, then decided well, fdr didn't deliver on his promises, therefore we're going to go with somebody else. And so it was actually the failure of the legislative agenda which could have been helped by the Supreme Court.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Expanding is what led to the losses in the following midterms, and a lot of Democrats have used that, as held that up, as the example as to why we shouldn't do this, why we shouldn't try to expand the court. But the lesson and this is a broader lesson and a lot of people are very frustrated and disenchanted with Democrats in general is we make a lot of grandiose promises about what we're going to do and then we get into office and then we find ways to not get it done. We create roadblocks and hold ourselves to, quite frankly, a different standard. And to me, my standard has always been this Nobody cares about process, they care about results. And the line I've always drawn is don't break the law right. As long as you don't break the law, you can exploit loopholes, you can work the system, you can do what you need to do in order to get the thing done. And for all of the faults of Donald Trump and the current Republican Party and God knows they are more than any of us can count is that when they wanted to get something done, they found a way to get it done right. The tax cuts early on in Trump's term. Any number of you know.

Speaker 1: 10:23

The judicial appointments are infamous right Even before Trump came into office Ms McConnell blocking Merrick Garland from being even considered for confirmation, blocking Merrick Garland from being even considered for confirmation Unprecedented and we all howled at the moon. Amy Coney Barrett being appointed and rushed through the process in direct contradiction to the reasoning that was given as to why Garland could not be considered Right. They did all the things they have. They have taken every possible, every possible shortcut, loophole. Maybe, you know you would argue, maybe unethical approach, but they get it done and then they reap the rewards. And if these, the current Supreme Court ruling and the actions of you know, we go back to, obviously, roe and then the Trump immunity case and any number of cases in between, the Chevron case that ripple effect from those justices being appointed has really been the thing that has eroded the checks and balance system that we so desperately need upon for almost 250 years.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So, you know, to me the outcome outweighs the process, and you can look at certain things that the Democrats have done since coming into office, student loans being maybe the most obvious in terms of you know, they've tried process. They've tried process and they keep getting stymied. You know, if Donald Trump decided when he was president, if he decided, that he wanted to eliminate student loan debt, guess what it would have been done. He would have found a way to get it done. I'm sorry, that's just reality and you can, you know, wring your hands and shake your head over that all you want, but they got it done and the people who supported him would have realized he got it done and they wouldn't have given a damn about how he did it.

Speaker 1: 12:17

And that, to me, is the biggest distinction and the biggest chasm that we have to navigate is that we worry far too much about process and not nearly enough about results, and this is a time, especially now results matter. The result is the thing, and I feel like we have really lost the plot and forgotten the assignment here, which is to get things done, and we are consistently bringing a pea shooter to a nuclear war. We're not playing the same game and, to be honest, it's not a game. That's not even a good analogy. We are not living in the same reality as they are, and what that means is this idea of democratic norms and the way things have always been. That's gone. Maybe it comes back, maybe it doesn't.

Speaker 1: 13:07

My thought is that, now that the blueprint for Trumpism has been laid out, even after Trump's gone, there's always going to be the next Trump, you know, and obviously you see these guys all jockeying and posturing for it. It's. You know, it's a formula that can work, unfortunately, and the reason it works is because we, as Democrats, do not do enough to utilize power when we have it to get the results. We need to stymie it to try to restore those balances and norms and those fleeting moments where we do have the power, you know, where there's rare instances where we've had the presidency, the House and the Senate we've allowed things like the filibuster to prevent anything from happening, where we all know the filibuster is a fictional construct, it's not law, it's a rule and it's clearly designed to benefit Republicans because of the larger number of senators due to the larger number of states in the Senate. We all know it's BS, so why are we allowing that to be a norm Just because the other side says so?

Speaker 1: 14:16

And the institutionalists? And this is where I'm going with this this concept of institutionalism needs to be attacked and questioned. It has been on the left in recent years, not nearly enough. There's still way too much catering to special interests and maintaining the status quo and all the things that, if you pay attention, you see happening. I'm not going to get into all of them right now, but it's that idea that you know Democrats talk a big game and then don't take the action necessary to back it up, which in some ways is even more offensive because at least the Republicans aren't pretending Right, which in some ways is even more offensive because at least the republicans aren't pretending right.

Speaker 1: 14:57

So the idea is, how do we? You know, if we actually got some things done. Not only would it change the narrative, but it would also fix the problem in some ways. So let's get back to packing the court and what I want to do. I've done some homework on this and I have quote a clip that I'm going to play. It's about 45 seconds long, but it's worth a listen. It's FDR in his ninth fireside chat and him talking specifically about the need to expand the Supreme Court and why it matters. I want you to listen to it and think about how much it resonates now, nearly 100 years later, even more so than it did back then. So take a listen.

Speaker 2: 15:40

During the last half century, the balance of power between the three great branches of the federal government has been tipped out of balance by the courts, in direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constitution. It is my purpose to restore that balance, that, in a world in which democracy is under attack, I seek to make American democracy succeed. You and I will do our part.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Okay, first of all, can we just acknowledge that I just love the way FDR speaks, his tone, his cadence, that kind of confidence that he exudes. I mean, you know, the guy's just an order. Like we've never really seen his ability to talk to people. It's just amazing. I can listen to this stuff all day. But let's get back to the point. Ok, so expanding the Supreme Court and why President Biden should do it now and I want to be clear the huge frustration is is that he has said from the beginning because Joe Biden is, if nothing else, an institutionalist, right, I mean, he is like the definition of an insider, an institution man having served in the Senate and, you know, wanting to maintain the status quo and all that stuff so this was always going to be a hard sell for him and actually, right before the 2020 election, he said he had no interest in packing the court.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Ok, this is not then. This is now, and the changes to what we have seen in our country just in these last three years have been so and we can all see where it's heading that I don't know if there's ever been a time and this is not hyperbole, this is not hyperbole. I don't think there's ever been a time that I can recall in American history, with the exception of the Civil War, where dramatic action has been needed to protect the framework of our nation. This transcends everyday politics. This is the thing that if we don't do this, the framework collapses forever and again. Look at Project 2025. Look at what these people are getting ready to do. This is no joke. This is no joke. They have put it out there brazenly, letting people know what they are planning on doing, and you know Trump is trying to distance himself from it. And I do believe that, as we, you know, we need to keep making sure people see what that is all about. And it's definitely. If you look at Google search trends and things like that, people are starting to pay attention and while it is an effective campaign issue, trump's out there saying he distances himself from it.

Speaker 1: 19:08

We all know that's not true, but the Trumpers, they don't care, right? So that's the other thing. You know they don't care. We talk about playing and living in two different realities. Democrats are talking about, you know, replacing our nominee after a bad debate performance and again, we're not going to go back into that, but the point is that was an inflection point that set off, you know every alarm you could possibly imagine. Set off, you know every alarm you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 1: 19:38

And there were a lot of questions that have been raised and rightfully so about. Well, look at the things Trump says, look at the you know, look at the way he carries himself, look at his cognitive. But here's the thing His voters do not care. They don't care, doesn't matter. I mean, he said himself he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nobody would do anything. And unfortunately, that is proving to be true in more ways than we could possibly have ever imagined when he said it. But his voters are locked in. There's no way of getting them. They are absolutely convinced of the. As much as we fear what's going to happen, they are convinced of the inverse. They don't care about the numbers, they don't care about the facts, they don't care, you know, they don't care about any reality. They care about what they feel.

Speaker 1: 20:29

And Trump has been able to tap into those fears. And you know we don't need to go into what that's all about. We all know it has to do with race and culture and this fear of being minimalized, and you know the idea of woke ism and all those sorts of things. Right, for whatever reason, they are on board the Trump train and they're not coming off. And, as a result of that, they have now been conditioned to believe that Joe Biden is the worst president we've ever had and he is a dictator and he is going to be the downfall. And he wants, you know, he wants to do all these things that are actually the things that Trump is saying he wants to do and is going to do, you know. But the cognitive dissonance there is so severe you're never going to be able to convince them of otherwise. And you know, I do believe that this election is going to come down to a very small number of voters in a very small number of states. Right, it really is going to be that small of a tipping point.

Speaker 1: 21:21

But if you want to bring the enthusiasm back, if you want to show people that we are actually getting things done, and if you want to make, you want to redefine what this election is about over the next four months, expand the court. That will get everybody's attention. That's not nothing. So how would it work? The? The main stumbling block is that the size of the Supreme Court has been determined by Congress. Right, there's legislation that says this is what it's supposed to be, and obviously you know there are bills sitting in the courts right now or in Congress right now. They're never again. Because of the institutional roadblocks that are in place, plus the fact that Republicans control the House, those bills are never going to see the light of day, right? So let's just throw that right out the window.

Speaker 1: 22:13

Even if it got out of the house by some miracle, it would it would never make it out of the Senate because of the filibuster and because institutionalism and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right, the typical reasons why crap never gets done. And as little as two weeks ago, we would have said well, the president doesn't have the power to unilaterally make that move, right? But guess what? The Supreme Court just freaking handed it to him. They gave him the greatest gift of all and they said that he is immune from official acts. Well, I don't know, if someone's robbing my house and the robber hands me a weapon, I'm probably going to want to use it on them to protect myself.

Speaker 1: 22:57

Really, there only need to be two people on board with this plan President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Schumer, because they would have to be confirmed, right? If he named appointees, they would then have to be confirmed by the Senate. You're not going to get around that. That's pretty baked into the Constitution. But as long as Schumer agrees to hold hearings and a vote, then they show up. These new justices show up with their little pack lunch and they're like hi, we're here to judge. What happens then? Does the Supreme Court? What do they do? Lock the doors and not let you in. Yeah, it's a constitutional crisis, I get it, but it's the constitutional crisis you want. Pick that fight. Pick that fight, especially at a time when the court is so corrupt, with, you know, clarence Thomas and all, and you know, and you know all the things that are going on ethically. Pick that fight. You want that fight Because, think about it, how would that play out?

Speaker 1: 23:52

He announces that he's going to appoint additional justices. Appoint four more, whatever. Four sounds like a good number. Obviously, you still want to be an odd number of justices. I've also heard you could appoint 12 to be representative of every judicial circuit federally in the country. You could do that too. But whatever the number doesn't matter. But if you're you know, if you want to appoint more, you come out and you say I'm appointing these four people and Chuck Schumer says we're scheduling a confirmation hearing and a week later we're going to have a vote. Well, obviously the Republicans, and you know whoever else, are going to immediately try to file a lawsuit and ask for immediate action to block it. They can't block it on the Senate floor. Right, this is. You know, schumer would just have to push it through. But he could do it, and I don't care what sort of strong arm tactics, I don't care if he has to blackmail Joe Manchin, you know, or Kristen Sinema or whoever, I don't care what he has to do. Get it done. The Republicans Mitch McConnell would get it done. The republicans mitch mcconnell would get it done. Okay, so you have the confirmation hearings and the confirmation hearings.

Speaker 1: 25:03

By the way, I would make it very simple. I would have exactly two questions that I would ask every, every every nominee. Question. Number one is what is your position on the limits of presidential power and immunity? The second one would be questions on a right to choose Again. Be brazen, don't get cute, don't try to make this something that it isn't. Just come right out and say what the hell you're doing, because these are issues, the underlying issues, the results are things that are overwhelmingly popular. Right. Ask about checks and balances, what they feel the role of the Supreme Court should be.

Speaker 1: 25:44

I go back to FDR. There's a part of that clip I didn't play, but one of the justifications that he gave as to why he wanted to pack the court was that the justices had taken on the role of a pseudo legislature that they had. Instead of ruling on the constitutionality of laws, they were in effect making the laws. They were usurping the powers given not just to Congress but also to the president, and that wasn't their job. That was never their job. And that goes back to, you know, the first rulings determining the doctrine of judicial review and all these things I mean. So it's kind of a it goes back to the founding of our country. We had this debate 250 years ago. We'd kind of settled on a system that worked and then all of a sudden now we have a system where it just hasn't worked and it has totally gone the other way.

Speaker 1: 26:36

So you ask some very basic, fundamental questions that lay bare exactly what you're doing, because you know the idea is very simple I am appointing Supreme Court justices who will then go in and hopefully restore the checks and balances that have gone out of whack. Hopefully restore the checks and balances that have gone out of whack. That you would say. These justices, if appointed, would also push through a stricter code of conduct for the Supreme Court, right? So it would not just have an outward effect to preserve democracy and restore some of those checks and balances, but it would also clean house internally to make it a much more accountable court, because right now there may not be a body on the planet with more power and less accountability than the United States Supreme Court, right. So you're trying to restore that status quo.

Speaker 1: 27:33

So what happens then? The legal challenges are immediate, right. What happens is it will invariably I don't even know if it could happen fast enough, quite frankly, to get to the Supreme Court, but it's going to end up restore the framers, and now you can go back to that. You know the, the, the constitutionalist argument, right. The. You know for all of these, these guys like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, that you know that claim to be strict, constructionalist, except when it doesn't fit what they're trying to accomplish, use their own logic against them and say no, this is what the framers intended. I'm trying to restore the nation we were supposed to have Right.

Speaker 1: 28:20

And what happens next? The Supreme Court then comes back and says oh wait, there are limits on your power, you can't do that. Huh, I'll be damned. So now we have an opinion from that court saying that, unlike in Trump, where there were virtually no limits, well, now there are. And that opens the door or in some ways closes the door on what we could be seeing. Get it, get where this is going. It's the only way to force them to have to be accountable to the consequences of what they have done. You're literally dragging it and dropping it right back on their doorstep, because they're either going to acknowledge that he has the power to do it, in which case problem solved, or they're going to say, oh wait, you don't, which then opens the door back up to wait where are the limits of presidential power? And even if Biden loses the election, you've now at least set some sort of a framework right.

Speaker 1: 29:14

That's where this needs to go and, yes, it's bold, it's different, but that's what the country wants right now. And it's what we need and this is why we're all freaking out is because we are not equipped. We lack the intestinal fortitude to do what is necessary, and by we I mean the party and the you know, the call them the elites, the leadership, whatever. And part of it is that you know, they're institutionalists because they're part of the institution and they want to remain part of the institution. And you know, I even saw that as a member of the state legislature protect the institution. Those were things that were said behind closed doors. Now, that was being done to defend things like you know, maintaining per diems, you know, and little perks. They took it seriously. So you can imagine, with the stakes being exponentially higher, how much more serious they're taking it.

Speaker 1: 30:08

And so this takes us back to Biden. Is I pulled the remarks that he gave on July 1st after the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, after the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, and he starts with all the right things and no one is above the law, blah, blah, blah. Okay, all the things that you would want to say, but there's one line that jumped at me. Okay, it says at first, he says the only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone. Okay, but that's not the point. He talks about Roe v Wade. He talks about January 6th. He talks about Roe v Wade, he talks about January 6th. He talks about all this stuff and what he says. I know I will respect the limits of the presidential power, as I have for three and a half years, but now any president, including Donald Trump, will be free to ignore the law.

Speaker 2: 30:52

Do you?

Speaker 1: 30:52

get the contradiction there. I will respect the limits of the presidential power. Ok, but the limits of presidential power have changed. They're not what they were three and a half years ago. They're not what they were two weeks ago. The office of the presidency has been granted new power by the Supreme Court. Using that power is now part of the norm. Right? You know the speed limit in this country, you know, used to be 30 miles an hour because that's as fast as cars could go. Well, now it's 70 miles an hour. So should you continue to drive 30 miles an hour just out of respect for what used to be? No, the boundaries have been hit.

Speaker 1: 31:30

The damn gas pedal branch does, when they have actually given you more authority, and then say, well, I'm not going to use it because I don't think that's right, especially when you know the next guy is going to misuse it in ways that will demolish our nation. Like. We know what's coming. They're not keeping it a secret, they're not hiding it, they're telling us. It is in plain sight. They have put out a 900 page document telling us what they're going to do, and it is horrifically terrifying. So, yes, win the damn election. Of course that should be our goal. But have this fight. Have the fight and win it. Don't just give us lip service. Have the fight. It's a fight that would define this election. Have the fight. It's a fight that would define this election. It would draw the contrast of what we're trying to do and what the consequences of failure would look like. It allows us to pivot to what Trump would want to do. Because what is Trump going to do then? What is he going to say? Of course he's going to criticize it and, yes, you know there is going to be pushback, there is going to be outcry and oh see, he is a dictator, blah, blah, blah blah. But you know what? They're never voting for you anyway. So who the hell cares what they think? They already think that Joe Biden's a pedophile. He's a, you know, a dictator. He's this, he's that. You know, if we allow ourselves to live in the fears of what our opponents may think or say about us on Twitter, right, which is just a cesspool of right wing bots at this point, or we care about what the editorial pages of the newspapers say that have, in the last couple of weeks, have demonstrated a lack of regard for what they know to be true. You know the lack of fact checking that went on at that debate, allowing that to just happen in real time. You know the calls for Biden to step down, but not for Trump.

Speaker 1: 33:28

After all of this, this insane double standard that we've allowed ourselves to be held to. Quite frankly and yeah, I get it Trump has normalized a lot of this behavior and that is. You know, that was, but that was always a part of the plan, right, do so many crazy things and say so many crazy things that you almost don't even know where to look. And afterwards you're so exhausted and it just becomes the norm and they get away with it, taste of their own medicine. And now that the law has allowed you, they're daring him to do it. They're daring him to do it because they know that he won't. And why are Democratic voters disillusioned and frustrated and exhausted and really losing confidence and enthusiasm? Is because we know they won't do it either. Because they haven't yet.

Speaker 1: 34:20

There are so many things they could have done after after January 6th. You know things. Like you know, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico would have fundamentally changed the way the Senate works Massive change. Public is in favor of it. Couldn't do it because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right, everything we want to see done and is now possible. You know, abortion, same thing. Issue an executive order. You know he did. The president did issue an order about. You know life affirming care that you know, basically, that emergency physicians have to administer abortion as life affirming care, and you know when the life of the mother is in danger, which is good, but that's not enough.

Speaker 1: 35:02

Like we take these baby steps, these half measures, because what, oh my goodness, what will people think? You know what they'll think. They'll think, wow, they actually got something done. Why do people are, why are people willing to follow Trump off a cliff, no matter what he does? It's because he'll get things done. First term, he got him their judges, he got him their tax cuts. He got it done. So they were willing to overlook so many other things. We don't get it done nearly enough.

Speaker 1: 35:27

Big, bold action is what's required right now, not just politically, but if we're truly serious about saving our democracy and preserving the checks and balances and the political system as it stands, to protect ourselves from a true autocracy that we know is coming under Donald Trump. Nothing should be off the table, nothing. Be bold, get something done. That will energize the electorate, and the people on the other side are going to hate you anyway, to which I say F them Quite frankly, I don't care. Get it done and you will win. The people will respect you for it. Learn the right lesson from FDR 100 years ago, because the stakes are as high, if not higher. Take the big swing. Do what's right, and then we won't have to wonder whether or not Joe Biden should be our nominee. We'll know that he should be because he did the things that were hard but necessary. But you and I both know that's not going to happen and, as a result, here we sit, doom scrolling, worrying, infighting, or to quote Saddam Hussein from the South Park movie.

Speaker 1: 36:35

Thank you for letting me vent. This has been cathartic. If you'd like to support what we're doing, which is politically we're supporting other candidates for office up and down the ballot through our political action committee, you can go to KeystoneReckoningcom, make a contribution via ActBlue a one-time or recurring. That money will go directly to campaigns and candidates that are fighting the hard fight and doing what is necessary and bold through messaging and other efforts to make sure that we can have a voice and have an impact. So please consider doing that. Again. Thank you very much, and let's keep doing this. Fighting at this point is the only option, and until we figure out which direction we're going to go, the fight's going to be uglier and uglier, but that doesn't mean we can give up. It means we have to dig in. That's what I'm going to do, and that's what I hope you do too.