Keystone Reckoning Podcast
The most honest and unfiltered discussion about Pennsylvania progressive politics and policy anywhere. The Keystone Reckoning Project will shine a light on Pennsylvania Republicans at all levels of government in a blunt and brutally honest way, demonstrating that a new messaging strategy can change not only the narrative but, more importantly, the results on Election Day.
Keystone Reckoning Podcast
The MAGA Threat: Defending Democracy with Pat Dennis of American Bridge 21st Century
In this episode of the Keystone Reckoning Podcast, we sit down with Pat Dennis, President of American Bridge 21st Century, to pull back the curtain on the chaos machine that is the modern Republican Party. American Bridge isn’t just about keeping tabs on GOP hypocrisy—though there’s enough of that to keep an army busy for years—it’s about putting those receipts in front of voters in a way that actually makes a difference.
Pat shares his expertise on opposition research and impactful storytelling that can shift voter perceptions, using real-world examples from battleground states like Pennsylvania. You'll gain a deeper understanding of how campaigns navigate complex environments to hold candidates accountable and influence elections. American Bridge combines relentless research, rapid-response tactics, and paid media to shine a light on what Republicans are saying behind closed doors while showcasing Democrats' real wins for families and businesses.
We explore how American Bridge is taking on the major fights of this cycle: Republicans’ quest to control women’s bodies, extremists threatening democracy, and disinformation campaigns. Pat explains how American Bridge’s ads cut through the noise by featuring real people with real stories, reaching suburban, exurban, and rural voters who might otherwise be swayed by GOP fear-mongering. From the rise of the Tea Party to redistricting, we discuss how these shifts have reshaped the Republican landscape and fueled an outrage-driven communication style.
Finally, we tackle the complex interplay between media and politics, focusing on figures like Donald Trump and the ongoing challenges to election integrity. We discuss media bias, voter suppression, and the ethical lines in political discourse, emphasizing the importance of transparency and vigilance in safeguarding democratic processes. Pat's insights provide a behind-the-scenes look at the strategic decisions that shape political campaigns and the real-world stakes involved. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on the critical role of informed political messaging in today’s divided political climate.
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Hi and welcome to the Keystone Reckoning Podcast. I am Jesse White. We're going to jump right into it. We have a special guest with us today, pat Dennis with American Bridge 21st Century, and we are here to talk about the perpetual doom scroll that we are in between now and Election Day. So thank you for joining me, pat.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:So probably would be useful right up front to tell everybody what American Bridge is, you know, kind of where you came from as an organization and kind of an overview of what we're most famous for is doing opposition research against Republicans. So we dig up dig up the dirt, but also, just like you know, the votes, the terrible things they've done in their careers, and make sure to get that publicized every election. But then, starting in 2020, we also do paid media spending. In 2020, we were the largest outside spender in support of Biden in Pennsylvania. We spent about $32 million on ads in Pennsylvania and I'm happy to get more into that and what those look like, what we're doing there. So that's another big part of it. So it's the ads and it's the oppo research.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's really interesting that you're doing both, because you know so, I have this pack and, being former elected, like one of the things I thought about with it was what's the thing that I wouldn't want people to like? What would be the thing that would drive me crazy, right, and I was like, yeah, the oppo research, because even you see a lot of candidates when they're running they don't really know, they don't do a very good job, I think, of explaining why the incumbent or whoever doesn't deserve their vote, and because so much of it is lost in the weeds, and find a way to message them effectively is really a smart move, because it's a way to kind of sprinkle some of that policy vegetables in with the things that people want to eat. So how did you kind of come on to that formula and kind of what was the point where you knew it was going to?
Speaker 2:work. Yeah, so I personally have done ABBA research for my entire career. I started working for campaigns and but, but I've been with american bridge now for more than 10 years uh, really focused on on that strategy. And it's funny because in the post trump era, a lot of people um decided to start to think that like, oh, oppo doesn't matter anymore because we know all these terrible things about Trump and he still got elected in one election, which is just not true. Like voters really care about candidates, they really care about the specifics. Pennsylvania in particular. You've had some real doozies running for governor, for example but also, just like a real problem with the Republican Party, they're finding candidates who are from the state, I mean people that actually live here.
Speaker 1:I mean to be fair. It's a small state. It's hard to find a place like yeah, you're right, the optics of who they pick are just absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's incredible, but it goes to show, like you know, somebody like McCormick like it's an incredibly important part of the case against him, things that are traditionally Apple research, but like where he lives, where he just paid taxes, the things that his you know he's done in his business career, which the specifics are just terrible. Somebody needs to sit down and go through all that stuff. And you know, read all of you know Bridgewater Capital's 10K reports and you know it's, it's a lot of work but really, like it's what democracy is about. It's about understanding your candidates, understanding not just what they say but what they actually have done and what they do and how that shows what they value. So that's really what we try to foster here and you know it's a lot of, it's a lot of reading, it's a lot of documents, it's a lot of watching videos of absolutely disgusting people at you know say things that are terrible.
Speaker 1:Pander into their base, right that's. That's what I love is the idea of being able to kind of it's like the inverse of meeting voters where they are. It's kind of meeting candidates where they are and you know, especially on the Republican side, and the way they play to their base, especially like a guy, like a McCormick right, who's going to. He's smart enough to know what to say, he's cognizant of the room he's in and you know what to say and you can't let him get away with that.
Speaker 2:And yeah, well he's. He's hired somebody to give him the memo right before he gets on stage. I don't know if you get Well, I don't know if you get him. Well, I don't know if you get him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know it's terms of his hiring If his social media person still has a job after. Like the other, I'm from Pittsburgh originally. I'm out here in Pittsburgh now, but I just had to laugh so hard about that. You know he's all out here for the, I'm out here for the, for the, for the Steelers. He's an Eagles game and you know it was funny. As someone who does political social media, I was like I get what they were doing. They were like, oh, and good luck to the Steelers. Yeah, just so sloppy.
Speaker 2:When you have a preexisting narrative that you're not from the state, you can't make it look like you don't know where the Eagles play. And I can't believe they didn't delete that. I mean, maybe they did after I got to to it, but it was up for at least 24 hours it was.
Speaker 1:and the other one I always love when the the the litmus test of going to philly for a cheesesteak and it always goes south for republicans and I think it was was a mccormick's group this time out, where they like they got some like republican operative and who was like said it was for like a, a faith based thing, like basically they got into the cheese sink place under false pretenses and it all went South. They said it was autism awareness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was it. That was it. Yeah, and then yeah, so they do this event and the headline coming out of it is the owner of the business being like I can't believe these guys tricked me Like just utterly uh stepping on themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it is. You know, I had a. I had a really enjoyed, like when jd vance did the thing at permante brothers. Um, yeah, that's yeah that we, we spent more money and time and and eat more sandwiches than I can think of and I was just like, but it's funny because the thing that I noticed was a lot of that is performative in that and I'd love to get your opinion on this.
Speaker 1:Like, traditional political communication is about winning over votes, right Winning, or building an air of perception, but a lot of this, what I've seen, especially in this cycle, is it's more about fueling the outrage machine. It's more about fueling the outrage machine and the Permanente thing was a great example because it felt like I know I've been watching all these crazy videos and I know a lot of people that were in them and I'm like, oh, these are a bunch of Muppets, like this is ridiculous. And it felt like they knew they did it poorly on purpose because they wanted the outrage, so then they could go back to well, kamala Harris bust people in, which wasn't what happened, but they wanted that. It was more about, like, fueling the rage machine.
Speaker 2:This. This is a fundamental problem, I think, where they have a hermetically sealed media environment, which is what they watch. It's what their core voters watch, but it's not what any swing voter watches and it leads them to make these weird decisions that you know feeding the outrage machine will bite you like it. I mean, one of the most important political attacks of all time I think we can say at this point, to the extent that it's stuck in the everyday voters' brain, is JD Vance talking about childless cat ladies. Right, that has people who don't care about politics at all. That is the one thing they know about JD Vance.
Speaker 2:And why was he saying that? Because he was going on right wing media, where that's just like a normal thing to say, because those folks make money by selling ads, because they people listen to it and they're mad and they're super engaged with it. That has nothing to do with winning elections. That's everything to do with a media business that mostly just scams its own listeners and you see it just backfiring on the Republican Party constantly because they have to pander to these outrage mongers just to get to a primary.
Speaker 1:It's so funny you mentioned that I was thinking I was just talking to a friend of mine right before we got on here that worked in state government with me and we were going back and kind of doing like a reverse timeline of how did we get here right? And to me the inflection point was 2010. Because you know, the Tea Party comes on and you start at first they weren't taken seriously, but you saw the seeds of like going into a Bob Casey town hall meeting about Obamacare and, you know, disrupting it and you start to see these things. But the other piece of that then comes into the redistricting parts, especially Pennsylvania, because we were talking about how we used to actually do bipartisan things. We saw like block parties are in the budget and part of it is the rise of cell phones, camera phones, Right.
Speaker 1:But the other part of it was, after redistricting, so many moderate or reasonable Republicans lost primaries. And I think that if you got the Republican leaders from back then drunk and ask them did you go too far with the redistricting? I think they would tell you yes, because they created a monster and that they created so many deep red districts because they thought that would let them keep a majority and it largely has, but it fundamentally made their party ungovernable. Because all the moderates are gone, because it doesn't matter about offending the Democrats anymore, because they could never win. Have you seen that kind of evolution?
Speaker 2:I mean, I've seen that and it's funny. I never know if I should attribute it to 2010 or it's just like that was my second cycle in politics and everything. No, it was.
Speaker 1:It was my second I got elected in 2006 and 2010 is they came after me and they came after everybody and so many of my colleagues at Western PA lost and I managed to beat it by kind of going against the grain and doing some of the things you're talking about and we actually had like operatives and events and stuff. But yeah, I mean, it was a total sea change total, it was a total sea change.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. And you know these folks. I remember being out there in 2009, 2010 and, like my first jobs as an oppo researcher was, I would go to, I was a tracker, I would go to the opposing candidates events and I would talk to all these tea party people. And this is really where you see the politics of like confrontation. That's not done to like because you want to confront them, but it's done for the cameras. Like you know these folks, they all had their own cameras there back then. They weren't even cell phones, they were flip cameras and they were doing these.
Speaker 2:You know this confrontation, but those folks were legitimate extremists, like serious extremists, and in a lot of these districts they became, you know, the kingmakers because they ran the local Tea Party group. You know, if you wanted to do small dollar fundraising, like the pathway went through them and it has backfired extraordinarily. And you know people will say, oh, but Pat, like you know, trump has been remarkably successful capitalizing off this, but he hasn't. He won one election and then he lost 2018. He lost 2020. He lost 2022. And I think it's just done incredible damage to the Republican Party. Now it's also done incredible damage to America, so that's not good.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, right, I mean, that's the thing. It's like, boy, there's not going to be a Republican Party left after Trump. You're like, what is there going to be a country after Trump? Like, is it going to matter? And the fact that we're having those conversations now like seriously is alarming. But, yeah, I agree with you. I think that they, they you know you want to talk about selling your soul to the devil right, because you're right what happened was then and Republicans have always been better at this at the state level, I think, and they're very good at building a bench there's not as much of a wait, your turn mentality, right, they're like're like, oh yeah, come on in. And so they bring these people into local government positions or whatever, and they just and I think a lot of it is they did in their own party. What you're seeing now, which is it just becomes a war of attrition.
Speaker 2:We're going to make you so miserable and we're going to be so in your face about everything that you're just going to walk away yeah, I mean I think it's interesting bringing this back to Pennsylvania, like Scott Perry right, like there's somebody who like really went off the right wing, deep end, full MAGA full like January 6th, like full, you know, extraordinarily extreme on abortion, and now you see that district is like I live in.
Speaker 1:I'm sitting in right now. I live in Carmel County, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh nice, yeah, I live in Canton and you know, you see, the vulnerabilities from what they've done, like the extremism has just really, really harmed things. Oh, you tell me You're there how?
Speaker 1:are things on the ground. It's really interesting in that and I knew Scott, I served with Scott in the state house and I watched him go to Congress and be great. He was never this bad Right. He just. You know, I always have a theory that, like usually, the higher up the ladder you go kind of the.
Speaker 1:You become almost like a caricature of who you are, right, but like, yeah, he just went all in. But the fascinating thing to me is that's not part of the narrative around here, right? So when you have these figures that are like national figures and you're like how does Marjorie Taylor Greene get elected in her district? How's Laura?
Speaker 1:Well, laura Mobert moves to another district, but yeah like, how do you, how do these people get elected? Part of it is the well, you know they had a veterans dinner for us, or there's always that constituent part of it. But I think the nationalized issues don't often find their way onto the ground and I think that what I see in the messaging and your messaging guy is they almost use it in their favor, right, like they're all coming after me. You know, basically they're coming after us, so I'm going to run in and slam the door shut on them and thank God we made it right. Yeah, that's kind of the vibe I get because you don't like, I was at a local, uh, we local, uh, we went our kids a local halloween parade last week and you know perry was actually when he was doing his debate, so he wasn't there, but he usually is, but they had a truck or whatever for him and you would think that if they take, if you took, a scott perry truck down a street at a parade, like half the people at least would be throwing the candy back right and tell them to go off.
Speaker 1:You didn't really see that and you don't hear the vitriol or you don't hear people talking in a casual way about it. I do think it's not a lot for party building out here, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But I mean, what about, like you know, the Life Conception Act, stuff Like this is a guy who would vote for, like essentially, a national abortion ban.
Speaker 1:Well, it's really interesting because I moved from Washington County, which was a, you know, a blue collar, blue area that then immediately, like a Democrat, can kind of like a dog catcher there, yeah, to Cumberland County and like, right, as we moved here five years ago, it was like that week there was an article that it had reached the point where D's and I's combined to outnumber Republicans for the first time ever, right eyes combined to outnumber Republicans for the first time ever, right, so it's starting to trend. But I was worked with Progressive Turnout Project out here in 2020. I ran their central PA operation and it was not hard to see. There's that thing where again it's. There's a lot of pressure put out there. The Democrats believe they're alone. Right, you knock on a door and they say, well, I'm a Democrat, but nobody else on the street is. And you're like, well, actually, like four of your neighbors are, and they're like no, no, no, this is all Republican around here.
Speaker 1:So it forces everybody to be kind of insular and that that is a huge impediment to party building and to building a narrative. Right, it's kind of keeping everybody isolated because they think they're the only ones, and I think this.
Speaker 2:I've really seen that play out here and it does take. It takes strong local party building, it takes good candidates and it takes a lot to kind of get to that point, and I think Perry has really been a beneficiary of that. I think publicly people aren't saying much from. Privately they are normal like we'll have like a swing voter focus group, but like right leaning and folks who voted for trump, and it is very normal for us to see folks in those groups basically be like you know, reading each other and but then if you get them one-on-one, they're like look, I am a republican, I believe in this stuff, but like my daughter, like if she got pregnant, like it's just too serious, like I can't, and it's like, well, why didn pregnant? Like it's just too serious, like I can't, and it's like, well, why didn't you say that to everybody? And well, I couldn't say it.
Speaker 1:so I wonder if there's really like a quiet and this is kind of what we saw in 2022 just like a quiet majority there, that's really going to drop the hammer on these people that is literally the argument I was just making to my friend a little while ago and I agree 100, because I actually just done a podcast on this that normally we're like yard size, don't vote, right, who cares? You know, especially when you work on a campaign like yard size or the bane of your existence, right, yeah, but to me, you know, and you know this, yard size in public areas don't matter. Yard size in yards at least means something, and this is one of those times. I've seen it play out in my street where it's like and my wife and I've had this conversation, you know like do we put a yard sign out because do you want to raise the ire of people? And it's like, but the problem is the crazy Trumpers are so in your face and if they don't see that other people are supporting the other side, it goes back to, like you said, they're so insular that they're like well, everybody must agree with me.
Speaker 1:So if the election doesn't go our way, then it must've been rigged. Now let's go burn the Capitol down, right? So like it actually does it. There's that social psychology to it that I think a lot of people don't get, because one side is a political party and the other side's a cult Right and you're playing different games and you don't want to deal with the cultist next door. Sometimes you don't want to know that the person next door is in. A cult Makes life easier. Because now I'm at the point where, if you're a Trump supporter and you're not, either a billionaire or a white supremacist not that they're mutually exclusive I don't know who you are Right, and maybe I don't want to know you and I never thought I'd say that, but I just can't.
Speaker 2:But you know, it's so interesting, so the focus groups are kind of bearing that out. Then, yeah, and look, we've been on the same journey. I've always been anti-yard sign and we've been on the same journey. I put one out for the first time this year because, yeah, I think they matter and I think they're an important counterweight to like internet conversations like anything from and counterweight to like internet conversations like anything from. Uh, you know, facebook is ground zero for this neighborhood list serves like people are just meaner to each other on the internet and they're polarized and they these conversations break down. But if your neighbor down the street, who you like because you borrowed his lawnmower, has a lawn side up, like that is like a real like foot in the door, um for like communicating and I think, especially now, especially with the national stuff, because it's a value statement, right, it's like I care enough about this or I I have enough to me as a candidate.
Speaker 1:When I would knock on a door, having them say they'd vote for me is great. Having them say, having just met me, right, they'll give me a yard sign, that means I really closed the deal. You know they're giving you that personal endorsement. That matters immensely and yeah, I think that. And but I think that's part of the tactic right intimidation, you know, keep everybody insular so you can't build that sense of community which can then help you know how to drive the drive participation. But I agree that I think the silent majority thing, now more than ever, is I think you're going to see it in this election- yeah, and this actually drives a lot of our advertising strategy, Right?
Speaker 2:So, like a lot of people assume that we're going to be up with ads that are like, oh you know, like big bad, like voice, like Donald Trump is the worst person you've ever seen. But like what we found honestly, Donald Trump is the worst person you've ever seen. But like what we found honestly is like we recruit people from inside the media markets where we're going to be advertising like real people on the ground Pennsylvania, we also do Michigan and Wisconsin and we don't script anything. We just sit down like we'll literally go to their house talk about like, hey, what issues are important to you? Like you voted for Trump, how did he disappoint you? Like, what are you worried about? You know, and we sit down and we just fill them in their own words and that's what we put on TV.
Speaker 2:It's just everyday people looking directly at the camera talking about. You know, I'm worried that my daughter won't be able to get an abortion if she needs one. You know we have a nurse named Lori who is up in Pennsylvania and you know she just talks about what she's seen her patients have to deal with since Roe fell down and that that has been. We find just extremely, extremely effective, especially with women. But, like you know, really outside of like the most extreme Trump partisans, like those messages really go, really get driven home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what I'm going to do is I have some stuff from your YouTube page and everything. I'll probably just drop some audio from one of your ads and so people can actually hear that and I'll put the link in the, in the notes and everything, so people can actually go and check it out. Because, so this is what I think is super interesting, you know as, because we've actually been sitting here talking about retail politics and on the ground politics, right, but what you do is almost the exact opposite. Right, you're there on the ground, you're flying at 50,000 feet and I think that in recent cycles, having worked, consulted and worked in numerous races at various up and down the ballot, I think that democrats have almost over relied on field. Um, you know, we gotta knock doors, we have to knock doors.
Speaker 1:I think there's a segment of the party that they feel they put an outsized influence on field and it's kind of really permeated a lot of it, because knocking doors is great, but I've always said, like, above a state house race, you're never gonna win by knocking on doors. It's just too big and you know that's also time. It's very time consuming. Right, there are other things to do and I've always seen, and it always seems to be getting more and more. So how do you, in crafting your message, how do you kind of see your role in kind of like the broader messaging scope of like you know how, what are you trying to accomplish that that may not be getting accomplished any other way?
Speaker 2:Totally so. It's important to know like we are part of an ecosystem Right, and like we do not do field now because, like I do, like there is absolutely a place for field and the Kamala campaign has that handled, I don't know. They have like three to 10 times as many staffers on the ground in Pennsylvania as Trump does and it's like you know, they know what they need, they know what numbers they need to hit. There there's we're not going to add anything to that and then there's the other super PACs there's like Future Forward. They're really big, they're up in the huge media markets. You know your Pittsburgh's and your Philadelphia's. Where we fit into this is we really focused in on a core demographic of swing voters. We've done this. We did it in 2020. We're doing it now is largely women. It is more rural, rural, suburban, exurban, you know, outside of like the major population centers.
Speaker 2:But folks who are, you know, many of them haven't gotten to college. These are folks where they are cross pressured when it comes to supporting Trump. Like a lot of them, their husband will be a big Trump supporter. They are very much on the fence. A lot of these voters voted for, for Trump in 16, some of them in 20. And they have like major doubts.
Speaker 2:You know Roe was the catalyst for that, but like January 6th, very much like a close second there and driving these voters away. And just the third thing is like just Trump's temperament, like the number one thing you hear in these groups is the guy's just a huge jerk um, which you can't you know you can't um, drive a feature or a bug, though, right, we've never been able to figure that out. You know well, with these voters it's a bug. So those are the folks we're targeting. And yeah, as I mentioned before, like the way to do it is not to put a dc like voiceover in the ad, it's to have like those actual voters explaining it to each other so you kind of view yourself as kind of like the tipping point.
Speaker 1:Right Like you're, you want to be the thing that pushes them over the edge in their decision making over the edge, maybe the thing that helps them make that, you know, make that final determination, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're like a lot of other spenders. They have to spend a lot of their time and money getting out the base Right and that is important. We are not focused on the base, we are focused on swing voters, on folks who could go either way, folks who maybe we want in the past but they aren't sure they want to stay with Democrats. So, as I like to say, we make our lives as hard as possible. We like don't do studio ads, we, we do real people, um, which is just, you know, very effective but logistically very hard. And we target but you know, some of the hardest voters to swing. What it's important. That's what we got to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've. I've always been a targeting guy and even back before we had all the tech that would make it easier. Yeah, it's just so important because you know you have such little time to actually communicate with somebody and if you're not talking to them about the not that they what they want to hear, but the thing they care about it's wasted energy. And especially on the democratic side, because we're we're not monolithic and you know, even within the same house, and that's why things like geofencing and things like that are amazing tools. I could literally talk to five different family members about five different issues and they're all sitting around their tablets, right? It's insane, yeah, but knowing how to do that and how to be effective with it is, and it sounds like you use I'm curious a little bit, you know, without giving up your secret sauce like what does that process look like in terms of like figuring out the who's, when's and where's, and how does that all kind of come together?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we work with some real smart data firms who sort of have the entire voter file that's mixed together with all kinds of different demographic data. But really the core of it is I mentioned the focus groups it's like actually talking to people who fit into the various demographic profiles, really getting a feel for them as individuals. We do our own polling. We do a lot of. One of the things that we really focus on is what we call like media consumption studies, which is like it's kind of naive to assume that people are just going to be watching like the nightly news on broadcast. Like you know, it's like it's 1982.
Speaker 2:So we spend a lot of time like how much time do you spend on Facebook? How much time do you spend consuming TikTok? How much time do you spend reading paper newspaper? It's very little. How much time do you spend, you know, reading different online publications, watching television news, everything conceivable. And we try to get a real. You know a lot of these folks. You know most of our targets are not political junkies at all, but they spend a lot of time listening to, you know, true, true crime podcasts, things like that. So we really try to get a feel for how they consume the media, so that we're not just like dumping our money into broadcast ads that are that nobody's watching, and making sure we can, you know, meet them where they are, meet them, you know the places where they're actually going to hear these messages.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could tell you, you know, at least you guys have the funding to do the different things. I can't tell you what a nightmare it has become to try to do a media buy in a campaign where you have no money. It's almost impossible because there's no good options anymore. Right, it's just you know like to do that. You know I could understand, you know I can understand that process, but then being able to carry it out in terms of not only the ability to buy the ad time but to produce enough creative to meet all of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, quite frankly, trying to get candidates and organizations to understand that is really hard, yeah, and, quite frankly, try to get candidates and organizations to understand, that is really hard, yeah, yeah. So it's to have the ability to and the resources to actually kind of see that process through from beginning to end is really, really effective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, look, it's a luxury. I've worked on much smaller campaigns where we don't have that kind of thing. You know I was around in some cases for these tools existed. Don't have that kind of thing. You know, I was around in some cases before these tools existed. But this is also kind of why we do the oppo as well, because, like, if something we really believe in here is like you can buy as much media as you want but like it's not going to, generally speaking, like be a person opening up a trusted media source and seeing some key piece of information, so like you know, dave McCormick screwing up the teacher's pensions in Pennsylvania, like that's something that was like on local TV, in local newspapers all over the state, and like that. You know, that kind of earned media stuff is also something we're really focused on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you know a really good example of that because I'm a big believer. One of the old timers that I first dealt with, you know he told me, you know, define yourself and define your opponent Right, there's the most important two things you can do. And it's amazing, yeah, right it's. You know, candidates just don't do that as much. And I think a lot of that is kind of what we're talking about here. You know those little things you know, like, for example, dave McCormick not knowing he was at a Steelers, not knowing he was in Eagles game except for Steelers game. For a lot of people that was kind of all they need to know. But that wouldn't have worked had the narrative not been made and the groundwork hadn't been laid that he doesn't live here If you don't have that first piece of information hadn't been laid that he doesn't live here if you don't have that first piece of information, the second piece doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it all got a boost from the fact that it worked on dr oz last time.
Speaker 1:Well, that was it. That was my whole point. They're like this is a place it builds on itself right.
Speaker 1:I mean I remember when fetterman did the. I mean they just trolled him so hard with the, uh, the billboard or the, the the flyover with yeah, and they got snooki to do a cameo or whatever and he was like come back to New Jersey. And it was funny because I was running a campaign at the time. So I was with a lot of political people in Lancaster County and it was very mixed reviews about how that was playing and you could kind of see who got it and who didn't, because it was like they're going to get to defining who Fetterman is, but they've got to define who Oz is first. And it played out beautifully. And what's your opinion? Do the Republicans do this or do they do it well? Or I mean, what's the comparison?
Speaker 2:It depends Like. You can definitely find examples of them doing a good job. Still, the Republicans over the past like five years, have purged a lot of their, like, actual talent. Um, some of some of their best folks on this have actually, like, since, uh, gone to the private sector or um, some of them even became democrats, somebody like tim miller, uh.
Speaker 2:So, but yes, they are still capable of doing it and they have a slightly easier job in the sense that they have, like a bought and paid for media ecosystem where one person without media standards can report it, fox News will pick it up and say so and so alleges, and then it ends up in the mail piece and then, you know, and then somebody asks about it in a debate because it's out there, even though it's like. So, like, they have their own ways of doing it which are a little bit more underhanded. But you know, in a lot of ways they're swimming against the tide in the sense that, like, there's just this huge branding problem they have named Donald Trump, which, in a lot of places that they used to win, has become just anathema.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and you know it's. I always think that I look at, like you know, project Veritas and that kind of garbage, you know, and if you read like the backstories of those and how like insane, like when it all comes tumbling down, it's always like insane. But it feels to me like I'm looking at like what you do and even like when you're not even like gotcha stuff, it's to me it's never considered like gotcha or dirty politics. I think that democrats a lot of times fall into this. Well, we can't do, just because they do what we shouldn't do it. You know, when they go low, we go high stuff, which I'm real glad that we've kind of moved away from that. When the obamas were kind of like, yeah, f that we're done with that, like I was like, yeah, we go in a variety of different directions right, right, right.
Speaker 1:Hey, you go where the tide takes you sometimes, yeah, yeah, but this idea of it's like dirty to do this kind of stuff and it's like look, especially if it's an elected official who's already in there talking about the record and the things they say, you know, with a lot of what you do is kind of bringing the details to light of things about policy and what's really being said, which I think a lot of times Democrats traditionally view that they kind of frown on that and they're like, oh, that's got your politics. We need to be better than that. Yeah, what do you? What would you say to those people? Yeah, I don't want to say to them, but I would like to know what you would say.
Speaker 2:Would you prefer a world where, like you just don't know that Dave McCormick funded military weapons manufacturers in China, right, like it's good, it's important to know that stuff Like, or the fact that he was short selling Hershey, trying to drive them out of business, like these are things that matter, that drive home, like to tell you something about what this person values, what they believe, and you know, you think back to a world where there was like, oh, a gentleman's agreement where, like, we won't talk about this stuff. It's, like that doesn't lead to a more informed electorate. That just leads to, you know, elite essentially like colluding with each other to keep people in the dark. So voters deserve to know. But like you can't just make stuff up, right, and he's got it. Virtually everything we do, we hand off, you know we'll do the investigation and then we'll hand it off to a legitimate journalist and say, hey, you know, you can, you know this now.
Speaker 1:Like you can verify it or you can't, but like this is information that deserves to be out there right, yeah, I always take it from the perspective of you can't govern if you don't win, and and we've seen the result of that right, like it matters, you know, and it's, yeah, I always look at it like don't break the law, you know, don't do anything, that's very important, right, well, and not only that, like there are definitely lines. Right, you don't go after a candidate's family or anything like, oh, you know, there are clear lines of you know kind of rules of war that at least I think we abide by. But beyond that, if we're talking about, like their professional things they're saying, or their performance or whatever, like how is that? Isn't that kind of like the thing we should be judging them on?
Speaker 2:yeah, and it's such. I mean not to criticize my fellow democrats too much, but you know you can. It is a luxury to be able to sit around and decide not only, oh, do I want to win, but do I want to win, like while wearing a completely on soiled like white cape. That, uh, you know, it just is entirely perfect and it's no. Like this is politics, like people's lives are at stake here. It's like are these kids going to get Medicaid or not?
Speaker 1:I think you're right and I think one of the challenges that we run into is we, you know, as Democrats, I think we generally overanalyze things a lot more, and I look at it like this, like, I feel like Democrats a lot of times find reasons to not support a candidate and Republicans find any reason to support, yeah, trump's story, yeah, right. And so, for example, I've you know my political past dealt with taking on the fracking industry to great. You know it was quite the adventure. You know that ultimately led to me losing my last election and to me I got called by some reporters after the Harris-Trump debate because they knew I was active on this issue and they were like well, what do you think about what she said about fracking? I was like I don't care, I don't care, my opinion on the issue hasn't changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But if you think that that is, I'm willing to acknowledge that. If that's what you have to say or if that's what you believe, if that's the one thing I have a problem with, I don't care. Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You're never going to agree with a candidate 100%, like never, right, it's not possible.
Speaker 1:And I've seen so many former colleagues. You know I always say if a candidate tells you everything you want to hear, you are being lied to Right. It's just not possible, and I feel like we try to be a little too perfect. I think you're wearing the white, the white kit. I think that's a good. It's a good way of putting it, but it is, and it makes it. From a messaging point of view, though, does it make your job harder?
Speaker 2:because your audience is different. We it is Like. For us on the paid media, our audience is defined largely by being completely not completely apolitical, but not political junkies at all. So they're, you know, a fresh group. Now, on the oppo side, a lot of the people who read this kind of reporting are, you know, seriously into politics and that only makes it down to the voters later in the paid media. Or you know seriously into politics and that only makes it down to the voters later in the paid media. Or you know when, you know if it ends up on the candidate's Wikipedia page and they're reading up before they vote and that kind of thing. So you know, for us it's pretty easy, Like we never really hear pushback number one, because most of the time nobody even knows where stuff came from. Us, we're just providing information out there, uh, but, and you know, uh, and you're not on the ground, right that's.
Speaker 1:You know that is one of the luxuries of not being. You know you could do that kind of stuff and you're you're more worried about getting it out there than because you don't have to. Yeah, you don't have to get that direct pushback from folks, but I'm always having to be criticized.
Speaker 2:If people want to criticize me for being too tough on the republicans, like guilty as charged, like right, well, right, it's almost a.
Speaker 1:It's a, it's a lingerie in some ways. But it's also a responsibility in the other, because you have the ability to really shape the narrative in ways that those individual door knockers can't. But there's also a responsibility there to make sure that you're not doing anything to to to steer the ship the wrong way. Like you've got it, you've got a bigger order than a lot of people and there's a responsibility.
Speaker 2:That is important, especially it's funny actually. So we were always, and still are, a DC based organization, post COVID. Now, like we, our staff is all over the place and that has been a huge benefit. Now, like you know, half our comms team lives in wisconsin, we have people in michigan, we have people in pennsylvania, we have people in texas and, honestly, like having a remote staff that's on the ground and like literally like in these places really makes us more effective. I believe, um, just, you know, there's only so much you can do from us in DC.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I'd be interested. So do you think, just as a result of kind of the organ, is that your organization having a kind of a different feel, right, a different kind of because you're not centralized? Do you think that then made its way into the way you communicated with folks that you wouldn't have had?
Speaker 2:otherwise, yeah, I think it's definitely helped. Like just you can't help but have a better feel for the election when you're, you know, living in the place, seeing the same local news as everybody else and you know this. I'd love to take credit for this as, like a great political strategy. But ultimately, like we just went remote during the pandemic and a lot of people moved out to the states where you know they're from or where they, you know, worked on previous elections, and it just happened to work out really well.
Speaker 1:That's great. So I want to ask you about something you mentioned a couple of times and it's become more of an issue, I think, in than I've ever seen before which is the role of the media. And you know that we've heard the term stain washing and all these different things, and I'd love to get your, your opinion on it and not only just kind of, as it is part of the larger, you know, are things different now and maybe why that is? But then also you you talked about working with reporters, with the media, to bring these things out and the challenges that you may be running into or not. You know that would allow us to believe. You know, is the media doing their job? Are they doing it the right way?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, how much time you got.
Speaker 1:And also we have 14 more minutes, but I mean it's become a really big deal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a big deal, and my answer on this also changes depending on the time of day you catch me at, depending on how mad I am at any given reporter. I think there have been colossal, world changing failures of the media. Donald Trump is number one in a lot of ways, like I'm not going to relitigate the 2016 emails coverage in the New York times, but that is the go-to example. But more so than that, there is just a general like he gets graded on a curve, like the guy like we had how many new cycles about mental fitness in this country? And then Donald Trump goes, does a town hall abruptly stops taking questions, has the sound guys start playing his favorite songs and stands there dancing for 40 minutes and it's like barely, barely, a blip.
Speaker 1:Like normally that the Wall Street Journal did you see their headline for it? No, I don't want to. Town hall ends in concert. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:What. So I have an incredible amount of criticism that I believe needs to get out there. That is deserved, and a lot of it is just like an ambient sense of Trump is graded on a different set of rules than everybody else. That said, overall I am less of a media critic overall because the media is not one thing. There is incredibly great, like world-changing, like some of the best media that's ever existed uh, out there right now.
Speaker 2:Now much of it is behind paywalls and maybe 0.5 percent of swing voters ever see it. There's also some of the worst, most biased Sinclair stuff being beamed into people's homes for free, and that is that is a huge problem. So, you know, the media is a lot of things. Overall, the individual reporters I know are generally well-meaning, they're rigorous, they're not biased and there are obviously exceptions to that, but they are existing within this system. That just has, you know, huge problems. That said, I also think it's a real problem if Democrats spend all their time on Twitter criticizing the New York Times when the New York Times is not read by swing voters in any of these states, not that you know that's funny.
Speaker 1:I've I've been on Twitter more and I'm like, and I'm like why? But then I'm like I, but it's like you kind of need to know, right, yeah, yeah, you know it's like I, but knowing, going in, that you know like 40 percent of the accounts are Russian bots and you know they're throttling accounts, like that part of it's important, otherwise I'd be losing my mind. But but knowing hearing what people are saying and seeing this debate, but then taking comfort, knowing like I'll be doom scroll until three in the morning, but I'm like the good news is, like you know, hardly any voters are actually on here. This is such a very niche. But I'm like the good news is, like you know, hardly any voters are actually on here. This is such a very niche group. I'm sure that that's what lets me probably get to sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and number one, I will say like I do as I say, not as I do, like I am on Twitter way more than I should be. But number one, I always say like Twitter is not a voter focus group. Right, you're not learning what the voters believe on here, but you are learning the sort of soup that a lot of the media lives in. And like it's important to know like what they're seeing, what sort of fake, not real vocal, like small groups of vocal people on Twitter is like influencing people. And you know, being aware of that matters. Yeah, you know, I aware of that matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I look at going through Twitter and that kind of stuff is like it's like raw polling data, right. Yeah, it can tell you a lot if you know how to read it, and if you don't, you're going to do more harm than good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know and I guess that's kind of an inside thing if you've never tried to read polling data or crosstabs. But you know, and so let me ask one more thing I want to get to before we're done. I'm going to save it for a minute, but one question before that is. So much talk about polls. My thought is they're all within the margin of error and we've gotten to this idea where we let it become an average of polls. So you're seeing so much garbage put in. Is there, from your perspective? Do you give any credence to polls in general I know there's some better than others credence to polls in general? I know there's some better than others. And do you think there's a method to the madness of trying to flood the field with these pro-Trump polls?
Speaker 2:If you're a voter, don't do what I do. Don't stay on Twitter until three in the morning and then don't get up at six in the morning and check Pennsylvania polls every morning. You'll drive yourself insane. That said, that's exactly what I do. So I will say the flooding.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things that the trump campaign is doing right now where they are trying in advance to create a circumstance where they can say the election was stolen, yes. Now is how many of these polls are directly related to that? How many of them are republican pollsters just trying to get their name in the news? You know how much is this part of his strategy? How much is just helpful to them? It's hard to say, but I think there is a real incentive for Republicans to kind of, you know, put these bull polls into the average.
Speaker 2:That said, like I am also like if Democratic voters are more anxious about the said like I am also like if Democratic voters are more anxious about the election, like I think that helps us in terms of turnout. It doesn't help. It doesn't help anybody, you know, find the truth of the matter. Or like sleep better at night. But as a practitioner, I believe that poll, that polls are extremely important, like I, directionally important. They help you see trends that are happening, even if the raw numbers are difficult, you know, difficult to really trust. You can see, you know opinions change, you can see different demographics move in a way that is only important if you're somebody like me who's like trying to direct 50 million dollars and spending to the right spot, where it's not going to be wasted.
Speaker 1:That is not most people, yeah right, but you think to some extent the tail wags the dog a little bit, so like if, if you know they're like oh well, it's, it's. It's a 50 50 race. So trump must be, must not be as terrible as everybody's saying, because if half the people in the country are for him, he must not be too bad.
Speaker 2:So maybe I should be potentially, but would I prefer a world where Trump and we lived in this world in 2020 to some extent, where Trump is behind six or seven points when in reality, the polls are inaccurate and he's only behind by one Like that is not also great either. Like there's, there's advantages and disadvantages, but the fact is we live in a world where getting a representative sample for a poll is virtually impossible, like it is. Try to get a representative sample of trump voters. Like they're not answering the phones. They don't trust you. Like anybody you do get in there who is a trump voter is probably not representative of other Trump voters. It is just very difficult and there are techniques for dealing with it, but it is. You know it's difficult and it's difficult to understand the size of the error bars on this data and which parts of the data are questionable. So I'd say it's like it's useful for professionals and you can drive yourself crazy as a voter looking at this stuff.
Speaker 1:So this gets me into the last thing. We've kind of gone chronologically the ramp up. We're at the election. Let's talk about the end game here, and the end game of what I guess is to be determined. But you touched on it and there was a Rolling Stone piece yesterday that kind of said the out loud part even louder about Trump's plan. It's not the four attorneys in his orbit and the plan is to immediately declare a victory on election night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the pieces that are coming into place, you know, you see, in Virginia, where they waited to purge the voter voter rolls, so they knew it would be scaled back. So then they could say, you know they could be aggrieved, right, you know they could be aggrieved, right? You know, oh, they kept 90,000 people, they wouldn't let us take these illegals and whatever's off the rolls. Pennsylvania, pre-canvassing you know Governor Shapiro says they're not going to be able, we're not going to have these done on election night because the Republicans, they killed the bill that was sitting in the Senate right now that would allow for seven-day pre-canvassing. And then they immediately and this is where Twitter can be useful, because you see where the reactionaries are going is well, that's it, right there, because it sounds like Trump's idea. He's doing the same thing in Wisconsin. The idea is they're playing to the lowest common denominator.
Speaker 1:I was winning when the polls closed. Yep, and I think this is where the polling comes into play, is I think and this is just? I have no science to back this up. My gut is, if votes were to be counted right now and a winner is determined on who won the got the most votes which I know is a novel concept, but I think she wins by two and a half to three points in Pennsylvania Yep, I really ends up with what I think. And if that happens, but a bulk of those votes are male and Therefore those are illegitimate votes. The polls showed otherwise. Because people don't realize that polls aren't the most accurate thing in the world and that's going to be their move to. You know, there are these extremists, like in the Michael Flynn world that are.
Speaker 1:The plan is very simple and the Rolling Stone article laid it out. The plan is to get the state legislatures to award the electoral votes on their own, is to get the state legislatures to award the electoral votes on their own. I mean it's insane, but at this point we're at the limits of insane. I'd love to get your thoughts on, kind of generally, where I think November 5th is when this starts, not when it ends, kind of like where you think we're going and maybe more importantly, not that your opinion doesn't matter but in talking to folks, how aware are people in these focus groups of where we're at and how dangerous of a place we're at? Like are they like? Do people get it or not?
Speaker 2:There's a wide mix in how much the average voter gets it.
Speaker 2:Many of them do not, but a lot, like more than many people would expect saw January 6th for exactly what it was and were profoundly disturbed by it.
Speaker 2:And those people, you know are disproportionately voters in this country, like people who you know are disproportionately voters in this country, like people who care about democracy are also people who go out to vote.
Speaker 2:So what they're trying to do in my mind, you can see the way they're lining this up. They're lining up rhetoric and they're lining up an argument they can make to the public. They're not lining up really a way to like win court cases on the merits right. That is not that make to the public. They're not lining up really a way to like win court cases on the merits right. That is not. That's not the strategy they're doing. What they're trying to do is buy pr cover for the state, legislate, state legislators for, you know, maybe, in certain places, secretaries of state, although they got wiped out in a lot of these secretary of state choices to do things that ultimately, like in a normal environment, would not be accepted. Now we saw this in 2020 and the rule of law helped, in some cases barely, and there is the real potential once again, if they're doing this essentially PR strategy, that they will once again drive people to targeted violence against Right.
Speaker 1:So I you know one of the guys that I, you know. I heard this Ivan Rakin. I you know. I just stumbled into this video of him the other night giving a speech in Pennsylvania in which he laid it all out and he said look, when this, when the election stolen right foregone conclusion when the election stolen, december 1st is a day that matters because that's when the new legislature takes effect in Pennsylvania, which isn't exactly true, but whatever. And he said we will have to go to the state capitol and convince them. And then he elaborated. He said we need to make those spineless Republican senators do the right thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was like they're basically making it clear, like they don't even care about what the democrats are gonna do. Their their whole thing is putting the pressure on the republicans. Yep, and I, I think that we are all so exhausted, and voters obviously not people like you, but voters as well we just want it all to be over. Yep, and I think that what I really worry about is that when they think it's over, it's not going to be over because the other side won't let it be, and that's when we're gonna have to really kind of dig in our heels. And this is where I think the media really is how the media covers this. Yeah, what happens next?
Speaker 2:you can't both Like right. This is about hearts and minds. That's where they're fighting it, At least.
Speaker 1:Exactly and right who. You know? I was looking at it like this. To me, the thing that broke Trump's back in 2020 was when Fox News called Arizona. Yeah, that was it Right, that was the way that, at least. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're like, well, ok, like, and my question is like I almost feel like I have to watch Fox on election night this year. Right, because that's the, that's the bar. You look at a place like Newsmax, which ultimately saw massive legal repercussions from the way they covered the election. I think, to some extent, like I do not want to vouch here for like the integrity of the people at Fox News, but they do care about dollars and I think they are chastised by the potential of losing another billion dollars to a to a court settlement that goes the wrong way.
Speaker 1:It'll be fascinating with with Kamala Harris agreed to do an interview on Fox. Yeah, because you, like, I really feel like Trump, anything less than them getting on there and like calling her every horrible name in the book like slurs like you know what I mean Like he's got to want to go all the way. Anything short of that is going to be seen as betrayal. Lures. You know what I mean. He's going to want to go all the way. Anything short of that is going to be seen as betrayal and it's going to be, like I said, the best funneries the Democrats could ever or the Republicans could ever have. If they charge Democrats to watch a live stream of Trump watching that interview, they'd make a billion dollars, because I'd want to see anything. Close the money gap right there.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and so it is fascinating. Even in recent interviews, you know, they it does feel like there's a higher level of awareness of like it's almost like it's like Trump, we're trying to help you, but he doesn't even get that, and like you've taken as a far like well, we can't go along with this. But like I wonder, for example, like if Trump, at some point do they stop giving him the amplifier of a voice Right, like at some point do you stop the amplifier of a voice right, like at some point do you stop and I'm talking about now, but after the election, if he's just going to get up there and incite violence, at what point does the media say maybe we shouldn't be carrying this to the country?
Speaker 2:It's so he's back on Twitter. He still has Drew Social, so to some extent he will have a megaphone. Now it is difficult to imagine, like fox news cutting him off. But no right, it was. It was difficult to imagine fox news cutting off tucker carlson and they did um, which I don't pretend to understand, what led to that, but like, look, it's possible, it could happen again. I am not counting on it, uh, by any stretch.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm thinking more along the lines of, like your major deficits right. At some point today, you know we'll run a scroll saying you know, I think that that's going to really use it. You can't both sides of this, because the second you do that you really kind of lost right and we've learned you and I'm assuming you, I know I was around long enough to see what happened where all it took was that little bit. And the thing that made me think about 2000 was watching Karl Rove today doing an interview in which he called the January 6th people a bunch of son of bitches who need to be locked up. And I'm like that's how far we've come.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, you go, karl Rove. Like what, where are we at right now? So one last question on this. I know we have to go here in a minute, but yeah, so one last question on this. I know we have to go here in a minute, but knowing that we, you don't want to, you don't want to get people riled up, but it seems to me the difference is that previously it would always be other people like we're getting super worried and like people like you and I like you said, practitioners, we were the ones that would like calm everybody down. Right, feels like if this election is almost the inverse, yeah, you know we're like, oh, this is, we've really gone in some weird places.
Speaker 1:We got to be careful yeah knowing that and knowing that we're going to be one way or another. This is not going to be easy. Like no matter what, it may not be the end, end of the world, but like it's not going to be easy. Do you envision and do you think there's a place for, like your organization, to then continue the messaging beyond election? Yes, 100% at all.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it is important. That's going to be an all hands on deck thing, like. So the most important thing we did is, like 2022, we pulled out all the stops for the first time and made sure that you know all these states arizona w um, it's down the line had democratic secretaries of state win to be overseeing these elections in the first place. So that's sort of when it started. But, yeah, after, like I work, I work with some of those groups. I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, uh, after election day, it's like Trump is playing this as an earned media. Hearts and minds. Like we're going to win the mandate of the people and we'll backfill the law with whatever we can get Republican legislators to do. Like that is a real problem that's going to be fought out every day. Like we need to be making sure that. Like people understand that he's lying, that, uh, they're disenfranchising millions of voters, and there will like we will not have the majority of the Republican establishment backing us on this, but there will be some of them who will stand up to Trump. You know, like I don't want to say nice things about Brian Kemp. He did it in 2020. There will be others like that. We need to bring those people into the fold, make sure that we can stand up for democracy when it's like under its greatest attack.
Speaker 1:Right, I, yeah, I don't think there'll ever be a better uh test than all you know, for you know kind of really see who's. You know who's who who every time I'm being a Patriot. Right, let's Like for these Republicans and I, you know they're up. I think they're up late at night for different reasons than we are. Yeah, because they know there's a reckoning coming for them. Right, like, you know the, you know the, the. The uprising is coming from inside the house and you can skate along for a long time, but there's a point where the rubber is going to meet the road and I think you and I are kind of feeling the same way that that point is coming.
Speaker 2:Yep, and those folks are afraid of the Trump base, Like you saw during the Trump administration. You would have on background Republican legislators saying I would stand up to him but I worry for my family. Like that was a real quote. That like came out consistently.
Speaker 1:We saw that here in Pennsylvania when Brian Cutler, who sat in front of me for like four years on the House floor, where we were both rank and file and he's a speaker and he's a very conservative Republican, but he's like a good human being, yeah, you get to know these people and you're like, okay, this is not a, he's a good guy at the end of the day. And he refused, as we've learned, he refused to go along with it and it wasn't widely reported, but there were people showing up outside his house and he has young kids and yeah, um, as a parent, I don't know how anybody could be I couldn't do that job today, I don't know terrified to do it the right way. Yeah, right to do it, to be an advocate for the things you believe in. It's it's it's only been 10 years and it's such a different world. It's. It's unbelievable, um, but no, I think that I think you nailed it on the head and it's such a different world. It's unbelievable, but no, I think you nailed it on the head.
Speaker 1:It's encouraging for me to know that the people that are being have such an important role in shaping the narrative, especially talking to the people, that when you know, we're going to be going to some choppy waters here and they may not know what to think because it's going to be hitting them all at once from all angles and it's going to be different and to help provide some clarity in a way, like I almost feel like the water is going to be rising and everybody's going to be, you know, finding a way to maybe like quietly slip a lifeline. Here's a life fest. I'm going to talk to you in a way that you I know you need, you need to you're going to understand and and help that. You know, britain, that messaging which will then have a cumulative impact. I think that's so incredibly important, and the fact that people like you and your organization are planning for that and are cognizant of it. It will actually let me maybe get to bed a little early tonight, so I thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Good, I'm hoping I'll be able to take a vacation by january, but we'll see yeah well, or maybe it'll be taking a forced one somewhere, right, exactly so well, excellent, why we catch a little bit longer? But, um, I thank you so much. Um, is there anything you want to? You want to send anybody to to learn more or donate or do whatever?
Speaker 2:please, it's, it's all yours american bridge on twitter americanbridge AmericanBridgePackorg. I'm Pat Dennis on Twitter, but if we're doing our jobs, you'll see our work without having to do anything. It'll come to you. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Pat, thank you so much for everything. I'll put links to everything in the notes. This has been the Keystone Reckoning Podcast. I'm Jesse White. Keep it up. We're almost there and we just got to.
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