The Betrayal of MAGA

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:12] This podcast is going to be a little bit different than most of the podcasts I do. I want to just give some reflections about the recent defeat of Thomas Massie in the Republican primary in Kentucky on Tuesday. [00:00:23] Normally I have like a whole plan with my podcast and an outline, everything like that. I just jod some notes for this one and, and this is more extemporaneous of my thoughts about this and I don't want to bury the lead. I am upset about it. I'm about as upset as I get about politics. I will admit I am not as invested in politics as many commentators are, as many Catholics are. I mean, I talk about politics at times, but it doesn't move the needle for me like discussions of Catholic theology or what's going on in the church or things like that. [00:00:58] That being said, based on that scale, I am pretty. This is probably about as upset as I will get about an election result is the defeat of Thomas Massie on Tuesday. And so I just want to kind of outline why that is. [00:01:12] Now, I know there are many in the Crisis audience because you've told me that they like my takes on Catholicism, but they don't like my political views. [00:01:23] What? Basically they want me to talk about Catholicism all the time and not talk about politics because they don't, they don't agree with me on politics. That's fine. You don't have to agree with me on politics. I would just say if you don't like my political views in general, you probably should just stop listening now because you're not going to like anything I say here. I mean, you go ahead and listen and tell me what you don't like about in the comments. I don't, I don't mind that, of course, but I just know that, that I do not go in the same direction as many of the conservative, politically conservative Catholic audience of Crisis magazine. Now, there are a lot who, who do agree with me, but I just, I kind of know the reality here. [00:02:04] Okay, so Thomas Massie, I actually have been familiar with him for many years. He is the representative. His congressional district is right across the river borders the congressional district that I live in. [00:02:18] And actually many of the people in my parish live in his district because they live right across the river. Our parish is right on the river. [00:02:26] And so I'm very familiar with him also, as many of you know, I am definitely a libertarian leaning in my politics. [00:02:35] And Thomas Massie is one of the most libertarian congressman today. I mean, for many years. He's a Ron Paul type. Ron Paul is My favorite politician. [00:02:47] And so, like, I have followed him for many years, and I have always thought he's one of the best. I've thought this before Trump was elected. [00:02:57] I've thought this, you know, during Trump's first term, during Biden's term, and now I've thought this for many years. And he's, like I say, he's always been one of my favorites because I feel like he is one of the most consistent and most principled members of Congress in that, you know where he stands, you know, what he, how he will vote in general, you know, what he's up, what he's for and what he's against, and no political pressure will change him from that. He will not vote with the party if he does not agree with it. Now, there's a lot of talk about him being a Rhino Republican in name only. That's just silly. I mean, I guess it is true if you define Republicanism as following whatever Trump says today, you know, no matter what he said the day before. Yeah, okay. I guess he is a Republican name only in that sense, but in the sense of conservatism. [00:03:52] Thomas Massie is one of the best. He's pro life, always consistently pro life. He's pro Second Amendment, and he's very much anti big government. The thing the conservatives say they are, but often don't actually live it out. [00:04:07] He is consistently against big government. He's also consistently against foreign aid, something you don't hear a lot of conservatives speak out against, but they should, because foreign aid, American foreign aid to other countries is just basically a waste of our money in general. It's a waste of money. And so he's against all foreign aid. Thomas Massie is, which does include a certain Middle Eastern country that we're not allowed to speak against, which, of course is Israel. So he's always been against foreign aid to Israel, but he's always against foreign aid everywhere. I think there was a 60 Minutes interview, I think it was recently, where he says he's against all foreign aid, including Israel. And they, and they ask him next, are you anti Semite? [00:04:48] I mean, come on, people. We're not even trying here. The point is, is that politically he aligns very much with my own views, and I think he aligns with, with the actual views of most conservative Catholics. [00:05:03] I would say he definitely aligns with the views of most conservative Catholics. Yeah, there might be some differences here and there. I don't dispute that. [00:05:12] But he's not some liberal. I mean, they tried to make it during the Campaign like, he's some leftist. He's liberal. I mean, I remember the mindless drones on X. If you say anything pro Massey, they would just say, oh, he voted against ice. [00:05:26] I mean, that's just the talking point. You know what he voted against? He voted against the bloated big beautiful bill, the four Bs. The bloated big beautiful bill, which he should have voted against. [00:05:37] It was a monstrosity. It was not what Trump ran on. It's not limited government, that's for darn sure. I mean, even the people defending the big beautiful bill, they were defending it like, well, we have to pass this now and then later we'll cut government spending. [00:05:51] Which, of course, they've been saying that for generations now. [00:05:55] And so, yes, he did vote against. Certain. Because, I mean, okay, make sure you understand how things work in Congress. What happens is there will be a huge bill that has a ton of things in it. [00:06:07] And if you vote against that, what will happen is your political opponents later will find one of the things in there and they'll say, oh, he voted against that. When really he's voting against the bill in general. So, for example, if you stick in a huge bloated government spending bill, you stick in there something that will defund surgeries for transgender teens or whatever, then you will then be able to campaign and say, oh, look at Thomas Massie. He's against defunding these surgeries for trans. Which of course he's not. He's against the huge bill. [00:06:41] He's got to vote against it. Likewise, if you put in there a bunch of funding for ice, but it's got a ton of other pork and other terrible things in it, you vote against it, then you just say, oh, he votes against funding for ice. No, he voted against your crappy big government spending bill. That's what he voted against. [00:06:58] And he should have. [00:07:00] If you want to have a line item, a single bill that has a single one bill for each issue, I guarantee he will come across with a very high conservative score. [00:07:12] Because he's a conservative. I mean, he's libertarian leaning. Yes, but he's a conservative at heart. [00:07:18] And so this is somebody that I have liked, you know, for years now. [00:07:24] And because of his voting record, and here's the thing to note, is that I view politics as very transactional because politicians view me as transactional. Basically, if they say certain things, they do certain things, I will vote. They. They will get my vote. I look at the opposite way as well. You know, two sides of the same coin. [00:07:45] If. If A politician does certain things, then I will vote for him. If he does other things I don't like, I will not vote for him. I don't get into cult of personalities. [00:07:56] I like Thomas Massie, but I also don't think he's like, the greatest. The closest I get politically to a cult of personality is probably Ron Paul, but even he has had some positions I didn't agree with. [00:08:06] What this means is I don't follow Trump, no matter what. I mean, people who follow me know this. [00:08:12] I've never been a huge Trump bite. I've always been skeptical of him. I've always not trusted him. I've always thought that he had a lot of issues, a lot of problems. Yet I also voted for him in 2020 and 2024, and in 2024, I enthusiastically voted for him because I believed in 2024 that Donald Trump had changed. The assassination attempts, the lawfare against him. Go back and listen to my podcast from then and you'll see I was on the Trump train. [00:08:44] I was on it. I, I still had the concerns, like, for example, his support of Israel, his undying support for Israel. I had concerns about that. But at the same time, I was, I was voting for Donald Trump. I was supporting, I was telling other people to vote for him. And I really thought that he had changed. And the reasons were, like I said, the assassination attempts and the lawfare against him, but also the people he brought into his coalition. Let's not rewrite history. The gaslighting is just intense in politics because they act like what they said yesterday never happened. I mean, it's so Orwellian, it's crazy. I remember 2024. I know it's way, way, way, way long ago, but I remember back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and 2024 election was happening. [00:09:31] He brought in a, he created a coalition. I mean, Trump spoke at the Libertarian Party convention. He was talking about, like, many limited government things. He was talking about the, he and his people were talking about releasing the Epstein files, talking about no new wars. He's, you know, cozying up with Tucker Carlson. He's bringing on rfk, he's bringing on Tulsi Gabbard. I mean, basically every signal he's giving in words and in deeds was this is not going to be the same as the 2016, the first term of, of Trump. [00:10:09] And I mean, that's what they were saying, too. I mean, all of his, all his, his, his proponents were saying that too. And I was like, okay, great. I love it. I Did I? I, I didn't think tw the first term of Trump was that great. I didn't think it was bad. It was better than Obama, better than Biden, but it was pretty vanilla Republican administration. [00:10:30] But I thought, okay, now we're really going to do something now. And, and like I've said before, the first few months of his term, from January through March of 2025, I was like, he's doing it, it's happening. He's doing great things. [00:10:46] But the fact is, is that things changed in April, May of 2024. That's when the big beautiful bill happened. And I wonder how much of Massie's opposition to the big beautiful bill is the real root cause of this. I know some people say it's because he doesn't support Israel, some people say because he pushed on the Epstein files. And I think those things are true. [00:11:11] But I do think his opposition to the big beautiful bill might have been where Trump was like, screw this guy again, because remember, Trump did not like Massie for his opposition to the big government stuff that Trump wanted to do in response to Covid. [00:11:26] Massey was the best, along with Rand Paul when it came to Covid. He was the true conservative. He was the true limited government person. He was the one opposing the huge spending bill in response to Covid back in 2020 that Trump was trumpeting and saying, this is, we got to pass this. He, he hated Massie. Then he came back to him in 2022. But now I think it was again, he was like, this guy again. [00:11:50] He's going to try to stop my big beautiful spending bill. [00:11:54] And to Trump, remember, disloyalty to him, to his person is the most important thing. It's the most important characteristic of anybody in his world is if you have loyalty and now he doesn't have loyalty to you, he's never going to have a loyalty to any other person. [00:12:12] But he will. He does demand 100% loyalty from his people, from everybody, or you're dead to him. And this is what happened to Massie. [00:12:22] He was seen as disloyal. And so Trump wanted to destroy him. [00:12:26] And so they found some nobody, Ed Gallerin, I think his name is somebody who had no real experience. I mean, just a nobody on the radar. And they propped him up and said, we're going to have him run. And they had millions of dollars brought in primarily through Israeli linked billionaires who didn't spend a day in Kentucky spending tens of millions of dollars to get Massey unseated. This was Trump's main Goal. Now, I want to make sure you understand, let's not look at this in a vacuum. Let's understand this in the context. [00:13:03] This is happening at the same time that Donald Trump is cozying up to Lindsey Graham, to Mark Levin, to the worst people in the world. He is cozying up to them and saying they are the best people, the people who he distanced himself from during the campaign. [00:13:24] I mean, do you think there's ever been any love lost between Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin? And during the campaign, Trump clearly chose Tucker Carlson and that crew. And by the way, this isn't a full endorsement of Tucker Carlson. I don't agree with everything he does or says either. [00:13:41] But I'm just saying that Trump made it clear that he's running with the likes of people like Tucker Carlson, not Mark Levin. And then after, like I said last April, all of a sudden, now Mark Levin's his best buddy, Lindsey Graham. I mean, Lindsey Graham is the worst senator in the United States Senate, and that's a stiff competition, but he's the worst. [00:14:03] And yet that is who Trump is aligning himself with. So remember, that's the context. [00:14:10] Trump is spending all this energy against in his people or spending all this energy against. Thomas Massie, a single congressman who votes with him, votes for 90% of the time. I know in this past year or so, in his current term, it's only been about 77% or 80% like that. But that tells you more about the stupid things Republicans are doing than anything. [00:14:31] You're going to get Thomas Massie's vote on anything you ran on in 2024. [00:14:36] And yet that's the person Trump's team decides. That's enemy number one. That's public enemy number one. [00:14:43] And Lindsey Graham, that's our best buddy. That's who we're going to align ourselves with. [00:14:48] And so what it really shows is, it really is just comes down to it being personal that Trump demands loyalty. He gets it from syncopence like Lindsey Graham, but he's not going to get it from Thomas Massie. Thomas Massie simply won't go along in every situation. He will go. He, I mean, he will vote with you in most situations. Trump, if you, if you like, you know, propose conservative bills, not crazy bills, like let's go, you know, like big, beautiful spinning bill, or let's go attack Iran. [00:15:22] And that's the other thing that Massey's been very consistent on. He's been anti war, anti this, robust foreign policy, interventionist foreign policy. He's always been against that. You're not going to get his vote on the Iran war. And you knew that. [00:15:36] But to him, it's just. It's personal. And Trump, of course, being Trump, he's always been like this. [00:15:43] He just. He can't help but be a lowlife. I mean, he called Massey a lowlife the other day, but Trump is the ultimate lowlife. I'm sorry. He just is. I mean, what he said when he went after Massie for marrying again, like, what was it, 18 months or something after his wife died. After Thomas Massey's wife died, Trump is going to say this. Trump is going to bring this up. The man with three wives who sleeps with porn stars. [00:16:13] I mean, you, you know, we've always known this about Trump, that his personal life is, let's just say, sketchy when it comes to some of his stuff. But, like, okay, again, it's transactional for me. I'll vote for Trump. I voted for Trump twice. Knowing these things about him, not supporting them, not endorsing them, but thinking, okay, if he will do what I want him to do, what he says he will do, then okay, I'll vote for him. [00:16:37] But for him to then attack Thomas Massie on this personal level for, like, you know, marrying too soon, he did the same thing to Joe Kent. I mean, Joe Kent's wife literally died serving under Donald Trump. [00:16:52] And then he called, and when Kent doesn't show perfect loyalty to Trump, he then questions him also for marrying too soon or something like that after his wife died. [00:17:03] I mean, it's despicable behavior. [00:17:05] Let's just take aside Trump and president and politics, all this stuff. I hope nobody in the crisis audience would see somebody in their personal life, like in locally, or somebody they know who acted like that, that they wouldn't think this person's despicable. [00:17:22] I mean, let's say there is a neighbor who's like the CEO of a local company, and he does all the things that Trump is doing like this. [00:17:31] I guarantee you, you would think he's a horrible human being, and you would be right. [00:17:38] Yet when it comes to politics, we have lots of horrible human beings. And so sometimes we just have to choose between them. I mean, Kamala Harris is a horrible human being on levels that are unimaginable. Joe Biden is a horrible human being. [00:17:51] Barack Obama is a horrible human being. So, I mean, I get that. I get that we have horrible human beings running for president, but let's not, as Catholics, put aside our faith and act like it doesn't matter, or even worse, support that. I Mean, that's what I saw were Catholics who know better who would support Trump's personal attacks on Massey. [00:18:14] And so I really think that we can't support those things. But also the other thing I want to note is the craziness of Trump supporters lately and the gaslighting and the rewriting of history. [00:18:32] There's something, you know, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, you know, well known, he had something that was famously called the reality distortion field. [00:18:43] What it meant was he could warp reality. If you're in his presence so that you would think something that you don't really think, you would start thinking it's the example would be, for example, maybe his engineers would come to him and say, you know, it's impossible to get this done in less than three months. To get, add this feature to the iPhone. It will take at least three months. He would say, no, you can do it in three weeks. And they're like, no. I mean, they would go into it knowing they did all the research, they figured it all out, they thought, no, it's impossible to get this done less than in less than three months. And Steve Jobs would basically, from force of personality alone would get them to believe. Walking out of that meeting, they could get done three weeks and you know what happened? They got it done in three weeks. [00:19:25] That's what happened more often than not. It was called the reality distortion field. You go in there and reality is one way, but then Steve Jobs distorts it so that now all of a sudden you think something different. [00:19:35] Trump has that and in spades. [00:19:38] He has a reality distortion field that extends beyond his personal presence. He can say anything and his support. And now I will admit that, I will say, though, with Trump, his reality distortion field only extends to his, his supporters. It doesn't extend people beyond him. Actually, it distorts reality. A lot of times for people in that they start to get crazy in their, in their accusations against Trump and opposing him, like the Russia Gate and things like that. [00:20:06] But for his supporters, he has a true reality distortion field. He can just simply say Massey is a low life and they're going to think Massey's a low life. He can say Massey is a, is a leftist and they're going to believe Massey is a leftist, that he can say anything he wants about just about anything, and they're just going to accept it, even if he literally said something different the day before. [00:20:30] And that's not healthy, folks. I'm sorry, that's not healthy to have, you know, to, to, to have a president like that also, you know, just some other thoughts about Thomas Massey's defeat. We can't ignore the role of Israel in this because like I already stated, the whole campaign against him was kind of jump started because I think part of it was because he went on Tucker Carlson a while back and revealed what AIPAC does in Congress, how they control so many congressman, but they don't control him. And they didn't like that being revealed. [00:21:07] And so they, they, they poured millions and tens of millions of dollars into this campaign. And think about it, we're talking about a single congressional seat in Kentucky. We're not talking. And it's not like Thomas Massey was the most influential congressman. He's not the speaker of the House, he's not the head of like the most important committees or anything like that. [00:21:27] Yet they thought they made this the most expensive primary, congressional primary race in history. [00:21:34] And so it's clear that Israel has a role and that AIPAC wanted him destroyed and that Trump went along with that. Again, I think Trump, I'm not one who thinks like Trump is just completely controlled by Israel or something like that. I think he's heavily influenced by them and he, that's never been a secret. [00:21:54] That was true before the election in 2024. [00:21:57] I think for him it's just personal. He just doesn't like people who are disloyal to him. But I do think for aipac, it was very much we have to destroy this man because he is revealing our secrets. He's making it clear our power and our power is, is exercise best when it's done in dark rooms and quietly. And he's putting it out in the open. We don't want that. I mean, apac, remember after the election on Tuesday, they came out and said, this is great that, you know, these anti Israel people are against the pro Israel people like Ed Gallen. I don't even know can you know how to pronounce his last name and I don't care his opponent, you know, and so clearly that had a major role in this, in this congressional race. And we can't act like it didn't. And also I think there was a role played by Thomas Massey's role in the Epstein file disclosures. [00:22:50] Now, I'll be honest, I've never been a huge Epstein file guy in the sense of like, oh my gosh, it's the most important issue in the world because I just always assumed when all this stuff first came out, like, oh yeah, Epstein didn't kill himself. I know that. Yeah, there's A bunch of pedophiles and awful people and blackmail going on at the highest levels of world governments. I know that's. I know that's true. I just. The reason I didn't make a big issue in my mind is because I just didn't think anything had ever happened about it. I just figured, okay, this thing's going to be buried. Things will go on like they are. I just assumed that. [00:23:21] But then, of course, it started to get legs. And part of the reason it got legs is because of the people in Trump's circle in 2024, the people he brought into his coalition were some of the people who are, who were pounding the drum the hardest about disclosing the Epstein files. [00:23:40] You cannot whitewash this. You cannot gaslight me to act like that's not what happened. That's exactly what happened. He brought in people into his coalition and then appointed them to positions of government. People who had spent their, their careers were based on revealing the Epstein files. And then Trump. This is actually where I turned on Trump. I'll be honest. This is where I no longer. I was like, okay, no, I cannot. I'm not going along with. This is when he is in the Epstein file thing because he did a 100% gaslighting move where he just said one, it's a Democrat host hoax. Only idiots believe this. [00:24:15] After he had brought in all those quote unquote idiots into his administration to get our votes. [00:24:22] And so then I started thinking, this is a big deal. It's a big deal simply because we can't let Trump get away with this lie. We can't let Trump get away this lie. And Massie is the one who led the push to get disclosed. And he won. [00:24:35] He won that battle. Now, of course, the government's still covering it up, you know, going against the legislation, but he got a bill passed. He even got Trump to concede defeat in Trump's way and sign it. [00:24:48] And so the fact is, is that, you know, Trump is the one who kept the Epstein situation in the spotlight, not by his own words, but by all the people he brought on during the campaign in his administration that had made it a big deal. [00:25:06] And so then to act like it wasn't a big deal, to act like not only was it not a big deal, but that the people who are pushing this are crazy and they're. And they're Democrats and they're awful and stuff like that, after that's, he had fostered the whole environment. [00:25:20] That's just a step too far from me. And I Do think that was a big role in him opposing Massey as well is because, and you know all the powerful people opposing Massey as well, because it was, he was, he was trying to expose the corruption at the highest levels. [00:25:37] Another role to be played in all this is by the boomers. [00:25:42] I know boomers hate it when you blame boomers for stuff or even use the word boomer. I don't care. [00:25:49] If you can't handle the fact that your generation has done horrible things to this country, then you're probably, you probably are a boomer. [00:25:59] I mean, that's just the reality. The boomer generation has done horrible things in this country. Does that mean every single person in that generation is terrible? No, it doesn't. And of course it doesn't. Only brain dead people think that. [00:26:10] But the fact is, is that boomers as a whole have done terrible things. This is another example. [00:26:16] If you look at the exit polls, Thomas Massie won every age demographic except the boomers. [00:26:24] And he got trounced by the boomers. And you know what this was. The boomers are the ones who are watching Fox News. They're believing everything Trump says. I mean, Trump himself is the ultimate boomer. [00:26:37] And they're basically just going along with what Trump says. They're going with what Fox News says. Fox News says Massey's bad today. Oh, Massey must be bad today. Fox News says Massey was good yesterday. Oh, he was good yesterday. He always bad today. They just go along. They're brainwashed by the Fox News. [00:26:53] Trump, you know, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, engine, machine. [00:26:59] Whereas younger people who are more on X. [00:27:02] And yeah, X is a cesspool. I have spoken out against that multiple times and it's not reality, but it is more in tune with what young, younger people think than Fox News is. That's for darn sure. [00:27:16] And what we saw was the younger people voted for Massey and the older people voted for his opponent. [00:27:23] And I think that does tell us something because you see all the MAGA people gloating about the Massey defeat. Trump's got the power. Look at this. [00:27:33] But the boomer's gonna die out. The boomers are not gonna be with us forever, thank God. [00:27:40] And so that doesn't, you know, the days of Boomerville in politics are gonna be over pretty soon. I mean, the reality is that today boomers have the most power, political power. They will sway elections far more than, you know, 20 somethings or 30 somethings. No question about that. [00:28:01] But that won't always be the case. [00:28:05] And so will they. Will it be the case that, that this, you know, the Boomer generation will continue. I mean, how long will it continue? I should say I don't know. But the fact is, eventually they will die out and things will be different. [00:28:22] And so for those gloating that they've won, yeah, they won one round. But also, I think, and this is where, you know, I don't like to make predictions in politics because usually I'm wrong. [00:28:32] But I'm interested. What's going to happen in November? [00:28:36] I do tend to think it's not going to be good for Republicans, it's not going to be good for Trump, that you're going to have the Democrats take over the House. I don't think they can take over the Senate. I mean, the redistricting victories that the GOP has had over the past few months will help them in the House, but I think ultimately they could lose the House. I think it's a very bio. So, like, whereas Thomas Massie was guaranteed to win in November, people like him, some of these primary people that Trump got in, they're not necessarily guaranteed. And Trump spending all his political capital on personal vendettas while not actually caring about things that people vote on like inflation, affordability. He's literally said he doesn't care about that. He's just gotta, you know, bomb Iran. He's got to stop Iran from hit their, his, the fictional nuclear weapon that he's talking about. [00:29:31] That's, I think that's not going to play well in November. And here I'm going to say something that I'm going to tick off so many people. [00:29:38] Clip this one and put it out there if you want to. I don't care. [00:29:43] I hope Ed Gallerin loses in November. [00:29:47] I hope he loses. I hope the Democrat, whoever she is, I did see it was a woman. I have no idea what her name is. I know nothing about her. I don't care. [00:29:55] I hope she beats him. I hope he loses big. Now, I know people will just say, oh, you're just doing the, you know, I'm going to pick up my toys and go home strategy. Fine. I don't care what you call it. [00:30:07] The reality is the GOP needs to feel pain for what they're doing. I do not. I am not a Republican. I do not support the GOP when they start forever wars, when they don't care about economic issues, when they are big government spenders, when they allow pedophiles to roam free, when they're completely in the pocket of Israel. I do not support them. [00:30:30] Doesn't Mean, I support the Democrats in general. I mean, I hate Democrats. They're. They're awful, they're evil. [00:30:36] But the Republicans are just a different type of evil under Trump right now. They weren't in the first few months of Trump's administration, but they are now. They're just a different type of evil. [00:30:47] I'm sorry, but killing people in Iran is as morally bad as killing people in the womb. [00:30:56] I'm not saying they're exactly equivalent because there's numbers and, you know, different things like that, but the fact is, starting this war and all the things that Trump's doing lately are just, they're non stars. And I don't want Republicans to win on that. [00:31:11] If Republicans win in November, in my mind, they're winning on issues that I am diametrically opposed to. And so, yes, I hope they, I hope Ed Gallerin particularly loses. [00:31:22] And I would be fine if the Democrats win the House because honestly, I would like to see gridlock. I want to see gridlock. I want to see a Congress and even a Senate that, that opposes dumb things the President does. [00:31:36] I'm not one of these people who's like, here's the key. I'm not a party guy. I know so many political people. It's a sport to them. It's just a sport. Like, I always root for the Cincinnati Reds no matter what. [00:31:49] I might not be able to stand the manager. I do like him. He's okay. Now, I might not be able to stand some of the players, but I will root for the Cincinnati Reds no matter what, because it's a sports team. I grew up in Cincinnati. [00:32:00] That's my team. That's always been my team. [00:32:03] I have never felt that about a political party. And I think, honestly, to be blunt, I think it's stupid to think that about a political party because political parties can do good things and they can do bad things. It should be completely transactional. [00:32:17] And so I don't care. I'm not like somebody like, oh, we have to win in November. We meaning the Republican Party, because that chalks up another one for us. The Republicans won everything in 2024. We have all three branch. [00:32:32] We do have all three branches. Government. I was going to say branches of government, but I meant the, the presidency, the Senate and the House. We also do basically have the Supreme Court. And yet. And yet, what really is happening? Are we really getting better as a country? Are things really being changed? No. We've had some advances on immigration, but not the ones that were promised. Not as much as what was Promised abortion isn't getting any more distasteful in the eyes of the world. We're not spending. Republican Party is not spending its energy fighting abortion or fighting against gay marriage. I mean, Trump supports gay marriage basically, and so the Republican Party does as well. [00:33:10] Yes, I know under Democrats things would be horrible. But here's the thing I don't believe, I don't believe that the apocalyptic threats or warnings about what would happen if Democrats get control. Why? Because I'm old, I've been around, I know they're just lies. I remember in 1992 when Bill Clinton was running, we were told if he's elected, the world will end tomorrow, it will end the next day as soon as Bill Clinton's elected, his first day in presidency. Everything land. I heard that in 1992, 1996, in 2000-2020-2004-2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024. [00:33:55] And here's the thing, Democrats won in a number of those elections, most of them, I think. [00:34:00] And guess what? The world didn't end tomorrow. The apocalyptic scenes they claimed would happen didn't happen. Now the reality is we have gotten worse over that time, but it's not because Democrats were in were the president or in charge of the House or the Senate, because we got worse during that time. Republicans controlled things too, and things didn't get better. [00:34:23] The country is getting, the Republic is getting worse, but it's slowly dying, becoming more rapid in recent years. But it's not like because we voted for the Democrat rather than Republican, we've had Republicans in office and we have not really stemmed the tide. Right now is a perfect case in point. [00:34:41] You please tell me how the Trump administration and Congress, who are completely controlled by Republicans, remember, are doing anything to really stop this. The, the cultural decay, the societal decay, the problem, the real problems in this world. No, instead we're talking about made up threats of a nuclear bomb that what didn't exist and wasn't going to exist in Iran. That's what we're spending our energy on instead of the real problems that are facing this country. [00:35:11] So don't tell me that Democrats being in charge are all of a sudden going to make everything terrible. They're terrible now and the Republicans do nothing about it. [00:35:20] I don't really think there's a huge difference between going 100 miles an hour towards the edge of the cliff or going 90 miles an hour towards the edge of the cliff. [00:35:29] And so yes, I hope Ed Gallerin, the Republican, loses to the Democrat in November and I honestly, if the Democrats win the house in 2026, I'm not going to cry about it. I'm not going to. I'm not voting for a Democrat. I'm not voting for Republicans either. Probably not going to vote for those type for the national offices. [00:35:51] But the reality is that it's just the Republicans deserve a kick in the teeth. That's what I really think, that Republicans deserve a kick in the teeth. That maybe they would wake up and make it and do something different, that maybe in 2028 things would be different. I'm not holding my breath because I thought in 2024 things were going to be different and they weren't. They're actually worse. I mean, Trump's second term is actually worse than his first term at this point, he still has time to turn around. I don't see any indication he's going to. [00:36:21] I thought his second term was going to be so much better in his first term, but it's actually becoming worse. [00:36:26] So I'm hoping for a divide government, frankly. [00:36:30] Okay, like I said, I know you don't like my politics, a lot of you, but that's just what I'm thinking. And I, I really think that this is the, My perspective of, My perspective is one who's not deeply involved in politics, in, in the whole mass machinations of, like, oh, you know, 4D chess. If we, we have to compromise here in order to get this. I know we have to compromise at times. These aren't compromises that Trump's doing. These are actual, actively doing things that are bad. [00:36:58] It's not compromise to go to war with Iran. It's not compromised to pass a big, beautiful bill when you control the House and the Senate and you have everybody behind you. Trump never had the people behind him as much as they did early in his administration, and he squandered it all. He destroyed the coalition. He squandered it all. And his going after Massie is just a perfect case in point of that. [00:37:20] So, Republicans, you need to get kicked in the teeth, and I think that's going to be the best thing for you. Maybe you will wake up and realize it's just not working. I'm sure what will happen is if Republicans lose in November, they're going to blame people like me. They're going to blame the people who didn't go along to get along, and it'll be our fault somehow, but the fault lies with them for pushing policies that we never supported in the first place. [00:37:46] So, you know, that's my political rant for the day. [00:37:49] Hope you enjoyed it. [00:37:51] As Catholics, though, I think what we really need to do is focus on evangelization, on prayer, on fasting. I just wish we spent as much energy on evangelization as we do on politics. I mean, the energy we spend on politics compared to the, the, the results we get, the squeeze just isn't worth the juice. [00:38:14] Whereas the energy you would spend on evangelization will be, that will actually make eternal differences, life changing differences where getting an extra congressman here or there that you like a little bit or whatever, who, who promises things but then doesn't do them, spending a ton of energy on that is a waste of time, frankly. [00:38:34] Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. [00:38:36] I told you I was mad. I told you I was upset. And so I just proved it. [00:38:41] Okay, everybody, until next time. God love you. And remember the poor.