The Social Contract with Joe Walsh
Trump Didn't Cause the Divide. He's The Consequence of the Divide.
Our politics has been broken for awhile. Our political system is in desperate need of reform. Our political class hasn't been listening to the American people for a long time. So it's not a surprise that a horrible demagogue like Trump would come on the scene.
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- Broadcast on:
- 27 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
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The truth is our political system is broken. And the truth is that's because we, the American people for two damn long haven't paid attention and haven't stayed involved and engaged. And over time, it's, it's because we've, we've not done what we need to do as a people over time. Our political system has become disconnected from us. I mean, that's the truth. Most of us don't like politics. Most of us don't want to get involved. Most of us are sick of both political parties. We're sick of politicians. Most of us feel like our government, our politicians really haven't been listening to us. We don't feel connected to them. We're broken. And that's how come. Really, that's how come we got a guy named Trump. Like he's, he's the consequence of a political system that's really, really broken. I mean, Michigan, that's why I'm sitting here in a car again today. I'm traveling in Michigan today, rallying, traveling the state. I'm in Ann Arbor right now, University of Michigan, rallying independence and Republicans to get out and support Kamala Harris. You know where I stand. I think it's of supreme importance that Donald Trump is not reelected. That Donald Trump never, ever, ever again sits in a position of power. But I was thinking this morning when I woke up before I got here to campus that, yeah, Trump's got to lose. Can't have that man back in office. Can't have that horrible, bad, ignorant, dishonest, cruel, intolerant, bigoted, unserious, dangerous man back in the White House, but, but then he loses, then what? Then he loses. Well, we've still got a broken political system. We still have most of the American people who rightly in my mind are sick of both political parties, sick of gerrymandering, sick of the way we vote, just feeling like it's all rigged. It's all fixed. It's no longer meeting the needs of the American people. Trump loses what then this country's still going to be dangerously divided. No matter who wins. And everywhere I go and whenever I speak, a part of what I say is like Trump didn't create the divide in America. He's just the ugly consequence of the divide. Trump didn't break our political system. He's the ugly consequence of a broken political system. And I hope everybody listening to me right now understands that. I hope every Democrat and independent listening to me right now who wants Trump to lose. I hope you understand that even defeating Trump, just defeating Trump, is not going to solve what ails this country. We're at a scary, dangerous point. Having nothing to do with Donald Trump. I guess that's the point I'm trying to riff on this morning. I'm trying to get across this morning. This country that we all love is at a deeply dangerous point. Having nothing to do with Donald Trump. Do you understand that? We have a government right now and we've had a government for a long time, utterly out of touch with the American people. We've got a political process, a political system. The way we elect people. The way the two parties have dominated, monopolized our politics. The way we elect people. The way we pick our congressional districts. The way we nominate people. The way we vote. The way that certain special interest and lobbyists run the show in Washington and the average guy and the average girl out there, their interest are never ever heard. We have a broken political system that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. We have a broken voting system that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. We have a populace that's utterly disengaged that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Not enough people vote in this country that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Way too many Americans have checked out in this country that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. We're at each other's throats in this country. We want to destroy the people we disagree with. We certainly don't want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with the people we disagree with that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. This 248-year-old experiment in democracy is not quite on its knees yet, but it's getting there. And that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Trump is just the product of where we are. He's just the outcome of where we're at. He's one outcome. He's one consequence. I mean, he's -- I have so many conversations every day. I do every single day with good, decent people. And it's been like this for years now. My typical conversation for the past five to six years with good, decent people who don't follow politics as much as you and I do are not on Twitter every day, are not on Twitter at all. Don't watch Fox News all the time or don't watch MSNBC all the time. The average American out there who works and lives paycheck to paycheck and tries to get by and tries to have a life and tries to take care of their kids and checks in every now and then on how things are going. These people who are not wedded to the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, these people, these people I engage with every day, they all give me a variation of this. Like Trump's an asshole, they tell me, but like Democrats don't really understand me. Trump's a bad guy, they say, but Democrats have ignored me. I'm talking about people who don't feel a tie to either party. I'm talking about people who aren't as informed politically as you and I are. And these are the people who vote and they're good and they're decent people. They're just not obsessed with politics on a day to day basis like you and I are. And here they are again faced with an election between a guy that they tell me is a bad guy, he's an asshole. But before it was Joe Biden, now it's Kamala Harris. I don't like think like she really knows what I go through every day. She doesn't really understand what I care about. And these people have to decide who they're going to vote for, an asshole, who will at least give them some lip service, who will at least tell them that he's talking about and caring about the things they care about. And Democrats who they tell me are not assholes, but they're kind of elites. And often these folks will tell me that Democrats, they look down on people like me. We're living in a moment, I guess what I'm trying to get across, where the average American, just an average regular American, is angry and confused and scared with how life seems to change in a nanosecond every day. Their lives seem to change. Things impacting them. These good, decent folk in many ways, their heads have been spinning now for years. And they don't know what to make of it. The economy's changing. What's important changes? Issues like gender, the way we talk about and think about gender, changing overnight. And what happens is, again, they're in between. They're torn because on the one hand, they see Trump and now JD Vance giving lip service to some of these issues. I'll give you an issue. The issue that's been right in front of our faces, the past number of weeks, the past number of years, one issue, one issue that I think typifies how broken our political system is. And how it has fucked up regular average Americans. And neither party is doing a thing about it. Our broken immigration system, our broken border. Not going to revisit it all right now, but I'm going to tell you right now, in this country right now, we have hundreds of thousands, millions of migrants who've been let into this country legally, legally, claiming asylum, looking for work temporarily, whatever. Tons of migrants have been flooding into this country now for a number of years. And they're living in towns and cities across America. All because, and they're here legally, but it's the product of a broken immigration system. I mean, when you come to our border and you come seeking asylum, because you're looking for a better life, and we let you in, and we give you a sheet of paper, and we say, okay, it'll be months or years. Come on into America, you can stay in America until we adjudicate your asylum request, and then you come into America and you stay in America, and you stay in America, and you have to live in America and try to work in America. And the American government needs to provide for you for months or years until your asylum request is heard. As good as these people are who are coming here, that's a problem. It's a problem. That's a broken system, right? You come here seeking asylum, that request ought to be dealt with really damn quickly. Should you be led into the country for months or years until that's dealt with? That doesn't seem right. Should you be led into the country at all? That's a place at the border where all these good, decent folk, and I want to reiterate that, all these good, decent folk come in here looking for a better life. I'm not talking about them. They're not broken. They're doing the right thing. Our system's broken because we let them in for months and years until we deal with them. Certainly not for that long. Should there be a place at the border where a good, humane place where we spend the resources to have facilities at our border to have these good, decent folk at our border until their claims are heard? I don't know, but I know what we're doing now isn't right and so it's a problem. You have a town like Springfield, Ohio where these good, decent Haitians have come to temporarily until they can be dealt with. They're looking for work and they're working and they're hard working and they're God-fearing and in the main, they're really good people. But you take a town like Springfield, Ohio, a town of 60,000 people and you put 20,000 Haitian migrants in that town. That's going to create problems. It's going to create a strain on that community, a financial strain on that community, a strain on the education system. These children need to be taught a strain on the healthcare system. These Haitian migrants need healthcare a strain on our public services, a strain on housing in Springfield. So what you've got is you've got good, decent Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio through no fault of their own looking for a better life. They're not to blame. You've got good, decent Americans living in Springfield, Ohio who are good, decent, compassionate people who want to open their arms to everybody who are just raising their hands saying this has created some problems. Is there a limit? Can we stop? Can we address the financial strains that these migrants that here are putting on our community? So what you have is you have a real issue, a real problem that makes good, decent people angry, concerned, questioning, fearful, and then the politicians take a situation like Springfield, Ohio. And on one side, right, Trump and JD Vance and the Republicans, what do they do with this situation? They take it and try to scare the fuck out of their voters. They take this situation in Springfield, Ohio, and they try to scare the American people. These migrants are committing crimes all over the place, they say. These migrants are eating your pets, your cats, and your dogs, Trump and Vance say. So we have one side demagoguing the issue. But we have the other side, the Democratic Party, for two damn long, just hasn't paid attention to this issue. Ignored the issue. Biden and Harris for the first three years of their administration ignored our broken immigration system. That's the truth. If Republicans demagogue the issue of immigration and they do. 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They see just an issue like this. And Joe and Jill are good, decent people. They see an issue like this. And it's a problem that government should fix. We're not bad people, they say, but how many migrants are we going to take in before it's too many, they ask? And neither side has been addressing this issue. Neither side has been able to address and try to fix this problem. And they're left with these average regular Americans, Trump and Vance talking about the issue, but demagoguing it and trying to scare them. And the Democrats not paying enough attention to it. And that's just one issue. We're living in a populist moment, not just in this country, where average regular Americans are really fed up at a broken political system. And moments like this are just right for demagogues like Trump. To come along and take advantage of a moment like this and lie to people. And take this moment where Americans are really generally concerned and afraid and try, they try to magnify that fear. They try to increase that fear. And that's a horrible thing to do, what Trump and now Vance are doing. But it's a populist moment that Democrats for too long have just not recognized. Democrats have stayed above the fray. Democrats have looked down on people for way too long. Regular average people who've been concerned about an issue like immigration. Democrats for way too long have looked down on these good decent Americans, not just MAGA who've been concerned about issues like this. But they find ourselves in an election like this where the demagogue could damn well win again. What a shame that would be. Because the demagogue won't do anything to fix the problem. The demagogue is a horrible person. I've been preaching this for a while. I was preaching this to Joe Biden and I've been preaching this to Kamala Harris. Don't let the demagogue win. But the demagogue is going to win. Democrats respectfully Kamala Harris. If you don't engage, if you don't listen to these concerns and these fears. And if you don't engage these concerns and these fears. I leave you with this. Defeat Trump? Sure. That's just the tip of the iceberg. I leave you with this. This is a divided country. Trump did not create the divide. And the sooner you all understand that Trump is just one ugly consequence of this divide, the sooner you understand that. You'll understand that we have a long way to go to fix what ails this country. Democrats meet this populist moment. Engage in it. Meet it. Don't stay above it. Don't look down at it. Or the demagogue may win. Again. I'm Joe Walsh. Have a good weekend. Be brave. Thank you for listening. Remember to listen, share and follow the social contract with Joe Walsh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and everywhere great podcasts are found. And be sure to leave a five star review. This has been the social contract with Joe Walsh. Hey there. Looking to level up your shopping experience? 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