This is an interview we had with J.D. Vance during his run-up to winning the U.S. Senate seat, representing Ohio.

And now, he's Trump's running mate for the 2024 Presidential election for the G.O.P.

J.D. Vance is the author of Hillbilly Elegy. It's his memoir, written about his upbringing and his transition into adulthood and into Yale Law School, after a very difficult, very challenging upbringing and child in poverty.

With Appalachian, Scots-Irish culture, you say he grew up in anything but traditional. And that's true for professional class people. He's anything but traditional in that sense. There are so many people who are impoverished in West Virginia, in Appalachia, Ohio, and in Kentucky, that for them, it's a lifestyle that the rest of us are unaware of. And J.D'.s book really brings that to the forefront. It's a remarkable insight into that culture.

And then he attends Yale Law School, where he had to learn the whole new elite language. He has incorporated his background, his upbringing, and what he has seen in both worlds and come to a really solid foundational philosophy on government, on society, on America.

We know you'll learn more about J.D. in the short time we get to talk with him.

Harper CPA Plus

Moments

00:00 Bilingual in language and social class integration.

05:34 State of the Union speech dismissed.

07:15 Acknowledgment of JD's experience in coal country.

11:14 Negative trend in American public life due to technology companies' political influence.

14:44 Common carrier regulations and antitrust laws explained.

16:15 J.D., fentanyl crisis, addiction, family impact, book.

19:26 "Prevent drugs, secure border, kids' well-being."

24:07 Contrast of two worlds from Hillbilly Elegy.

28:50 Reflecting on Cincinnati, leaders must serve purpose.

32:23 Concerns about division, race, gender, culture increasing.

36:06 Military urges arming countries for defense.

38:27 Russia's invasion concerns call for de-escalation.

Recorded at the 511 Studios, in the Brewery District in downtown Columbus, OH.

info@commonsenseohioshow.com

Copyright 2024 Common Sense Ohio

Stephen Palmer is the Managing Partner for the law firm, Palmer Legal Defense. He has specialized almost exclusively in criminal defense for over 26 years. Steve is also a partner in Criminal Defense Consultants, a firm focused wholly on helping criminal defense attorneys design winning strategies for their clients.

Norm Murdock is an automobile racing driver and owner of a high-performance and restoration car parts company. He earned undergraduate degrees in literature and journalism and graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in 1985. He worked in the IT industry for two years before launching a career in government relations in Columbus, Ohio. Norm has assisted clients in the Transportation, Education, Healthcare, and Public Infrastructure sectors.

Brett Johnson is an award-winning podcast consultant and small business owner for nearly 10 years, leaving a long career in radio. He is passionate about helping small businesses tell their story through podcasts, and he believes podcasting is a great opportunity for different voices to speak and be heard.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

It is March 2, 2022. Steve Palmer here with another lawyer talk roundtable session. Norm, back at the roundtable.

Good morning.

Good morning. You know, we did that, Rob Muse interview a few weeks ago.

Terrific.

Phenomenal. And, you know, right on the heels of that, you know, we haven't teased this. We haven't announced it, but another awesome interview coming this morning, JD Vance. And for those who don't know JD Vance, Norm, give us a quick backdrop.

JD Vance is the author of Hillbilly Elegy book written it's his memoir book written about his upbringing and his transition into adulthood, into Yale Law School after a very difficult, very challenging upbringing by many members of his family and, a a child in poverty.

Yeah. Certainly, something anything but traditional. Right? He comes from the the hollers of Kentucky

Right.

Moved up. His grandparents moved up. He was born up here, but then spent the summers down in Kentucky. You know, I have a a very close friend who who lived that existence too, and I and I still go hunt down there, in Kentucky with him. And, so the book really resonated with me. And, you know, he was brought up in this in Middletown, Ohio, working class that just really turned sour, you know, with addiction, with

Appalachian, Scots Irish culture. And and and you say, you know, anything but traditional, and and that's true for professional class people. He's anything but traditional, you know, in that sense. But that culture, there are so many people who are impoverished in West Virginia, in Appalachia, Ohio, and in Kentucky that for them, it's a lifestyle that the rest of us, even here in, quote, flyover country, a lot of the rest of us are unaware of this subculture, and JD's book really brings that to the fore. It's it's something like you've had friends, I've had friends, come out of those circumstances, and, it's a remarkable insight into that culture.

Yeah. And what's what's interesting to me is that, he sort of speaks both languages. He speaks, the common language, and then he goes to Yale Law School where he had to learn the whole new elite language or the, you know, the fancy talk, as I call it, the fancy lawyer talk, but not only the fancy lawyer talk, like like learn how to talk to people who, quote, summer, you know, meaning, like, where do you summer? Will I go? Like, they have summer homes on the East Coast that more money than you and I can even comprehend. And he can swim in both pools and do it comfortably. And I think from that, he's developed a really, really foundational ideology on on these political topics. So it's not really political to him. He's actually he has thoughts. He has given things a lot of thought, and he has incorporated his background, his upbringing, and what he has seen in both worlds, and come to a really, really solid foundational philosophy on government, on society, on America.

Yeah. He has he is a truly spokesman for, family values. Yeah. I would say that's his strongest. If if you had to if if you had to, you know, give a thumbnail sketch of the guy, it's strong family values, a pro family point of view.

And now he's now he's running. He's running

for office. He's running. So it so the book came out in 2016. Movie came out in 2020 on Netflix. It's probably still available there for those that, either, read the book or don't, you know, would rather watch the movie, and it's a pretty faithful representation of the book. So he is running for the United States senate seat, one of the 2 seats, that all each state gets in the United States senate. He's running for one of those 2 seats, here in Ohio. The seat that's being vacated by, Rob Portman who is retiring, There are approximately, as last I recall, 9 or so candidates on the Republican side for that seat.

The election is May 3rd, Tuesday, May 3rd, coming up. Please register to vote, and consider voting for JD. I'm just gonna go ahead and reveal that I'm I'm an advocate for him. Not gonna, you know, fuss you.

No. No. I'm not gonna

I'm not gonna fuss around and and hide it. It'd be straight and transparent with those who are listening. But, I intend to ask him some tough questions and, no softballs.

Yeah. Well, the good news is we don't have to wait much longer. It looks like here he is. He's calling in. So, here we go. Here's JD Vance. JD, good morning. How are you doing today?

Good. How are you guys doing?

Doing great. You know, I we we talked a little bit about what we wanted to ask you, and I know you've got, you know, you're you're running for office. You've got other stuff going on. You've got a a popular book, a movie that may as a result of that, but, you know, I assume you had a chance to watch this State of the Union address, and, it just seems like this country is going in such a crazy place, but it doesn't feel like, that's what was portrayed last night. What are your thoughts on it? And, you know, what do you what do you think going forward?

You know, it it's funny. I I didn't even watch the state of the union address last night because I I I knew that it was gonna be a joke and it's become such a political parlor game. You know, I I've seen a lot of the reports and I've seen some clips out there. And, you know, I basically, you know, it sounded like a guy who was giving a standard state of the union speech sort of laundry list of things that he would like to do without confronting any of the real crises that are actually happening in the country. And, you know, if you think about you know, just take the present Ukraine situation that, you know, everyone is so preoccupied with. If you think about what America can actually do to increase its own position relative to that of Russia? There's really only one answer here because, you know, obviously Ukraine and borders Russia, there's only so much that we can do given our geographic limitation. The thing that we can do is actually achieve energy independence because you guys see that oil is $110 a barrel. And so long as it goes up and up and up, you're gonna empower the Russians in this pretty profound way.

And yet every time someone suggests Biden do something that would promote American energy and then, you know, opening up more drilling, approving certain pipelines in the United States and North America, That's always met with well we can't do that and of course the biggest one is really rapidly expanding our nuclear capabilities. We don't talk about any of this stuff because those things all don't fit with the green agenda. And I think it just shows that there's a fundamental unseriousness to what the president is focused on right now where we have all of these problems. We have ways of solving them, but we have a president who chooses rhetoric over real solutions.

Yeah. JD, well said for a guy, you you know, with, you know, whose family hearkens from coal country, Kentucky. You know, the the the loss of jobs, the lack of American self sufficiency. You speak well on that topic, and and you know of of what you speak, from a personal level and being from, you know, hailing family hailing from that area. You know how critical, those energy jobs are, whether it's oil, coal, natural gas. I would like to ask you the one thing in Biden's speech that seemed to resonate with Republicans that sounded somewhat hopeful was, in one of your speeches, I remember you saying this was one of your top 3 agenda items, is the border. And, of course, I, yeah, I think it's a head fake on Biden's part, but, you know, would you speak about your position on the border, what we need to do physically down there as well as, you know, high-tech solutions, please?

Yeah. You know, I mean, I I think there are a few things that we need to do, and and we have to sort of think of this in a multi pronged way. I think the first is just, your physical security. I know that the President talked last night about, you know, enhancing our technological capacities, drones and surveillance and all that stuff. And, of course, that's good. But I think the most obvious physical security thing that you can do is finish a physical security wall. And that's something that we should be trying to do. Unfortunately, you have large segments of the border wall that was started under President Trump that basically haven't been built or haven't been constructed since Biden started.

And I've heard even that it's more expensive to have them just of sitting there rusting away than it is to actually put them up. So it's it's kind of preposterous from both the fiscal and also border security perspective. I think we also have to realize that the reason the southern border is such a crisis zone is because certain people get rich off of it. And in particular, the Mexican drug cartels, which are unfortunately not just doing drug trafficking, they're also doing sex trafficking now. Mhmm. They've become very wealthy by the lawlessness of the southern border, which is why I think the Democrats' idea that this is somehow compassionate is kind of ridiculous. It's not compassionate. It's really anybody who lives either south or north of the border.

And so I propose declaring this cartel as a terrorist organization and actually using the full force of US military against them. And I think the third thing that we have to do is be mindful of the the fact that we can't just welcome everybody in, right? I think we're a generous country. We've always been a generous country. And God willing, we always will be a generous country. But generosity has to stop somewhere. You know, we can't be generous with all 7,000,000,000 of the world's citizens. And so another thing that I proposed is, you know, what if we made very clear that if you come to the United States illegally, not legally, we've come illegally, then you don't get the sort of suite of benefits that come along with citizenship in this country. Because I think it would send the message to a lot of people that, look, if you wanna come to the United States, you've gotta come through the proper channels.

Absolutely. I'd like to switch gears here a little bit. We had also spoken, you and I, about, the cancel culture, off air, at an event, and I'd like you to I know that really fires you up, the whole idea of, the public square being denied to conservatives or or to anybody that just has an alternative view. And, you know, used to be organizations like the ACLU would stand up for unpopular speech. But it seems like now, you know, we have to walk in lockstep with, Big Tech and Big Corp and Coca Cola and, you know, all these all these companies that wanna shut you down if you have a difference of opinion, please.

Yes. It's a pretty negative trend in American public life, and I think that Republicans in particular have to be really willing to do some drastic things to push this in the other direction. I mean, you know, we we basically live in a world where, though many of us aren't even aware of it, some might not want to admit it, probably 90% of people consume most of their information through 4 or 5 large technology companies. And those technology companies really control the entire infrastructure of the modern internet. And unfortunately, those technology companies are very politically active and they're all very left wing. And so you have this weird world where if you don't say things that they want you to say where if you sort of step outside of the narrow constrictions of what they said is permissible speech, you can be banned. You can be kicked off their platforms. And that's true whether you're the president of the United States or just, you know, a middle class Ohio, conservative voter.

You know, to your point, even a lot of liberals, I think aren't aren't happy with the big tech thing because, you know, sometimes even if you're a liberal person, maybe you have a viewpoint that isn't favored by big tech and you wanna be able to express it and debate it and argue. That's sort of one of the fundamental things. The flip side of this is, you know, these companies, they're often viewed by commentators on private entities, but we know that's really not true. Right? So they get certain special government favors, certain privileges from the government. These things are all they make them more powerful, they make them more profitable. But they also are getting explicit propagate or excuse me, explicit pressure from the government to do certain censorship. So you've seen Jen Psaki from the White House, press room say multiple times that she wants Facebook or Google or Apple or whoever else to engage in more censorship on this or that issue.

Mhmm.

It's like, well, the government can't accomplish through the backdoor of big tech, what it can't accomplish through the front door directly. Right? Joe Biden couldn't show up to house and say, you're not allowed to say that, you know, COVID mask policy is dumb. Right? In the same vein, he shouldn't be able to pressure a large technology company to ban you from their platform for saying the exact same thing.

Yeah. JD, this this sort of brings up another question I think is interesting because, you know, there's this notion of what the federal government should be able to control and what it shouldn't be able to control, And now you have this situation where big tech is sort of, operating as an arm of the government but government, but not quite formally. You know, how far do you think the federal government or even at the local level, how far do you think they can go to try to this or try to either break the chain or start operating, with a lever going the other direction to prevent, big tech from eliminating free speech rights?

Yeah. You know, I I I guess I seem to think that this is one of, like, the fundamental core functions of the federal government. You know, massive, massive national entities, really multinational entities. I mean, some of these companies are more powerful than even governments in certain countries. Indeed, pretty striking the contrast between the fact that January 6th last year, Donald Trump was the sitting president of United States of these technology companies in his own country, we're kicking him off of their platforms. So I tend to think that it is something the federal government has to pay attention to. It's the only entity, you know, in our constitutional structure that has has really the right and the responsibility. And I think there are a couple of things that we could be doing here.

You know, the first is common carrier regulations where going back you know hundreds of years even before the creation of constitution in this country. There was this idea that if you owned a railroad or you owned a public road you couldn't discriminate against people based on, you know, their skin color or their political views. You had to sort of be open to everybody so long as they were willing to pay the right price. And I think that that's actually a pretty interesting analogy for how to handle Google, Facebook, and so forth, that they can't do something to one group that they're not willing to do to another group. They just have to be fair to everybody. That's actually something, you know, to sort of slightly qualify what I said earlier, that's something that state governments could do and I've even joined state lawsuits here in Ohio to try to get Google in particular to clear the common carrier. And then the second thing of course is antitrust right where you know we have precedent in this country going back well over a century where when certain companies become so powerful that they're able to control the US government itself, Think of the US Steel or think of the railroad monopolies. There is precedent to go in and make those companies smaller, actually break them up into subdivisions, which, you know, the economic evidence, I think, is is that often the companies end up doing better because those monopolies are aren't great efficient companies.

But also they had much less political power, which is the most important thing. So I think I think both of those things need to be on the table. We need to be willing to declare these guys common carriers, and we need to be willing to break them up.

JD, if, if I can, switch to something that's probably very, very close to your heart. The, the fentanyl crisis, the drug crisis, and the social safety net that that you think would be the right, level or the right mix. You know, for those who haven't read your book or seen the movie, you know, basically, I don't think it's too, off the mark to say, you know, mamaw and pawpaws, you know, basically saved your life because you your your mother had an addiction, issue. And, you know, working with people in that, you're an addict forever. You're you're always an alcoholic or you're always a drug addict for life. You it's a struggle. And I'm I'm wondering, I know you've done work in this area professionally and, of course, your family. I'm wondering, you know, you're sensitive obviously to the deprivation, especially for children, which is is so, it's so dramatic in your in your book.

What what does a government owe its population, that cannot, not the part of the population that doesn't wanna work, but the population that is truly helpless, people who, you know, obviously are are, you know, have a disability, or children. How how big should the largest be to support people who are truly needy versus, you know, where is the stick to get up off the couch and get a job for those who are who are able-bodied? If you could go into that a little bit.

Yeah. Sure. I mean, of course, one of the great difficulties and complexities of of modern public policies were to draw that line. And I guess I tend to think that generosity is good, but at a certain level, and this is true in our personal lives, but it's also true in our government policy. The generosity can become self defeating. Right? You don't want to be so generous, that you don't actually encourage people to make the right decision. Here's the classic adage, important sometimes to give people fish, but more important to actually teach them how to fish. And I think that's true in a lot of areas of public policy.

I guess the way that I think about drawing this line is that, you know, we should try to have an economy where good job opportunities, good good pathways are available for those who want them, And we should have a social safety net that works for the truly needy in our country. And that's really that's kind of how I draw the line. And of course the details really matter there. But with this particular you asked about the Fentanyl issue. Let's just take that as one example. Right. So one way of looking at the Fentanyl crisis is to say well people should be able to make their choices. It's completely fine if somebody wants to be a drug addict and die.

That's their own problem. That's their own fault. And then, of course, you know, my my approach to it is a little bit more well. You know, we have to accept that people are in some ways formed by the environment in which they grew up and we shouldn't want children to grow up, you know, where their their their moms and dads are dying of heroin overdoses. And we shouldn't want our parents to grow up in a world where their children are surrounded by illegal drugs and all all all manner of other problems. Right? And so that counsels in favor of I think pretty strong enforcement of preventing as much drugs as possible into our community of securing that southern border that we were talking about earlier, but also having some pretty some pretty robust enforcement mechanisms to reduce the supply of this stuff. And, you know, I I guess the the way that I think about this and, you know, just to sum this all up is I've got 3 young children. I've got a a 4 year old boy, a 2 year old boy, and and we had a baby girl about, you know, 8 or 9 weeks ago.

Congratulations.

And I I tend to think about it. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. You know, I guess I tend to think that, you know, I I want a country where it is easier for those kids to become virtuous young people. And it's harder to do that when they're surrounded by drugs. It's harder to do that when their communities don't have good job opportunities. It's harder to do that, when, you know, let's just take something that's going on right now, when we're letting the the communist Chinese buy up American farmland and American single family homes.

So we don't just want to write people a check and say here's a bunch of money, see you next week when you need another check. But I also think we wanna make sure that we build a society where our young people are encouraged to become good people.

You know, JD, it seems like there's always this, this line that that it gets blurry because, you know, the government, for Norman and I were talking this morning a little bit about the PPP loan program and how so many businesses, you know, just had a windfall because they didn't really need the PPP loan but they still qualified, and then you had other businesses who decided, well, I'm not gonna take it or, maybe I need it, maybe I don't, or maybe they really needed it and got it and it helped them, but it seems like a lot of these they you know, this is, I guess, a little bit back to culture. It's like there seemed to be a time way back when when when at the local level, the churches, the neighborhoods, the groups that that at the very local level would help others, and now the government thinks they can fix everything. And I and I just wanna get your thoughts on, how to deal with that problem, if there is a way to deal with that problem.

Yeah. You know, I I guess I'll tend to think that I mean, one, you're absolutely right, and it is a problem, and it's, of course, a problem that a lot of people wanna pretend isn't real. And I and I think it's probably a consequence of any time the government does anything. There are going to be some negative consequences. And, you know, sometimes when the government does something, there will hopefully be some positive consequences as well. And I think that's true. You know, Regardless of how big or small the government is, one of the things I try to remind people of is that the question of the size of government is obviously a primarily important point, but it's also there's like some basic function questions, right? We shouldn't just want the government to be big or in my case small. We want the government to actually do what it does effectively and to do it well.

And I think that that's something that we have to pay a little bit more attention to in our public life is for 4 years, we've been having this big versus small debate. And it's like, you know, well, okay. We all agree that the local government should fix the puzzles. Like, I'd like the government to fix the puzzle. Right? It increasingly doesn't do that. Right? I I mean, we have a we have a a federal government where even in its smallest, one of its fundamental tasks was protecting the sovereignty of the country securing its own border and yet, we have this massive, massive government that can't even do this basic function well anymore. And so I I I guess the the way that I tend to think about this is we're never going to get outside of a world where sometimes there are unintended consequences of a given government policy. That means that we should probably be pretty cautious about injecting the government into some of these issues.

And when we do, like when we have to inject the government into some of these issues, we should be extremely careful about how we do it so that we limit those unintended consequences, you know, accepting that they're always going to be downsized whenever you act. I mean, that's maybe not a satisfying answer, but I I think that's that's basically, you know, to to summarize that, we should try to keep the government out of as much as possible, and we should be super careful when we do inject it into something that we're not being stupid about it.

JD, if you have time for another question or 2. Sure. Yeah. It's one one of the, things that really struck me in Hillbilly Elegy, in the closing part of the book was, when you observed that we that you really got to see that there are 2 worlds, and there might be 3 or 4, but but you got to see at least 2 of them. You you got to see, you know, where the rubber meets the road, the retail level, lower class, middle class, if you will, income wise is is what I mean by that. Nothing else about class. And then, this rarified air at at Yale Law School, and and and how how the how there are built in just, you you basically, a smoother path for people that are in the upper echelons of society, and you got to go to law school with those folks and, married a classmate there at Yale and, and developed a a really beneficial relationship with, one of your advisors, professors at Yale that really helped you. And you describe all that in the book.

And, I'm wondering I have real problems with the Ivy League. Right? I I I just I just look at where our government is, institutions like the CIA, institutions like the FBI, institutions like, the Department of Defense, and you and you see so many of these egghead, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford people, and I just wonder, you know, you're an Ohio State graduate. I I part of what excites me about your candidacy is that you're you're a man of the people, but yet you understand that world, of big tech and and the egghead, Ivy League people. Could you talk a little bit about your experience there and, you know, what what you might find in the senate when you go to the American House of Lords, so to speak, and what that might be like. I'm I'm really excited about your candidacy and, you know, it I I think I think you're gonna be so unique in the senate, if if you don't mind kind of musing about that a little bit.

Yeah. No. I I appreciate it. And and certainly, you know, a big part of just who I am is that, yeah, I came from a working class family, and I spent a lot of my time in the last 10 years, you know, in sort of, pretty pretty successful world of of business and, you know, Ivy League Schools and so forth. And and I guess, you know, a few just a few lessons that I guess I take away from my life experience. I think one is that a lot of people assume that there's, you know, there's a correlation between, education and wisdom. And that's not always true. I think my grandmother, you know, who didn't finish high school was a hell of a lot more wise Mhmm.

Than a lot of people that I spent, you know, I spent time with. Mhmm. I I think too is that, you know, in some ways, like, what is the Ivy League? Right? If you ask yourself this question, you can give a number of answers. But the way I've always understood it is that it's this, these very nice universities where you're, if you're a student, you have a great life there, You're sort of guaranteed a good job after you graduate. And their purpose really is to train the next generation of American leaders. Right? So if you look at the military or you look at politics, you look at business, you see so many people who went to these very elite universities. And yet I think the country has been badly mismanaged. Not just in politics, right, in a lot of different ways over the last 30 or 40 years.

And so one of the questions I have of just spending time in the Ivy League, you have made a lot of friends there, also I think saw some real pathologies there. Like, are these institutions actually serving their function? Right? Are they actually doing the job of preparing American leaders for a very complicated world? Or are they just turning out a lot of people who are actually pretty boring and think the same way and have the same sets of thoughts but aren't actually willing to step outside and challenge some of the received wisdom. Like, that's not what we want out of our leaders. Right? We don't want just a bunch of people following the mob. We want a bunch of people actually challenging the mob, and yet the Ivy League, I think, does the exact opposite. So I wonder, frankly, whether they serve much of a good purpose in this country. I would not have said that 10 years ago, by the way, but I I certainly think that

now. Yeah.

And then, you know, I I I I think I guess the final thing is just, you know, I I look at our institutions in a way that a lot of my family, looks at our institutions. I'm in Cincinnati today. You know, obviously, the campaign takes me all across the state. And, you know, today, we're, you know, we're about 45 minutes from where I grew up. And I gotta be honest with you. The the way that a lot of my family sees their own leaders, which is, look, these people are given titles, and they're given positions, and they're given a lot of money, and they're given a lot of prestige, like, what do they do with it? Are they actually doing something useful and helpful for our country? Unfortunately, I think the answer for a lot of them is to be a good ally for the people that made me who I am, but also just the type of leader that doesn't bend to the mob, that doesn't let people beat me down, but actually, is actually willing to take a stand on some things.

You know, it's it's such a good point, and I guess, that that sort of led me to this thought. I think a lot of us feel, JD, that the country in the last year has just gone off on the wrong tracks, going in completely the wrong direction. As I look back, like, even just 3 or 4 years ago, everybody felt good. You know, jobs were abundant and people were working and and everybody seemed to be, prosperous. And now it feels like we're just we're going the complete opposite direction. And I hate to be all doom and gloom, and I don't think it is, but maybe just some closing thoughts on how we get it back. What do we need to do? And I know that's a that's a broad question, but, it's like, what's the solution at this point?

Well, I think there are a lot of things that we have to do. I mean, you know, one, I think we have to rest we have to restore public square where people are open and willing to disagree with one another. I think that's, you know, partially a big tech question. That's partially just a cultural question. I think that our leaders have really been gripped by this weird set of economic views in the past 30 or 40 years. And we have to sort of get back to this like fundamental idea that we should want to build things in this country, we have to make things in this country, and we have to employ Americans in order to do it again. A check is not a solution here. A check is not a replacement for a good job.

And, you know, you can't import all of your stuff from China, make some money and then pass out the money to the losers of of of sort of the economy and hope that that works out. Right? I mean, the the whole idea of modern globalization was you're gonna have winners and losers. Right? You're gonna have people who do very well by it. We'll tax them a lot of money, and we'll give that money to people who lose in globalization. That's a terrible, terrible way to run an economy. And I think we have to get back to a little bit more of self sufficiency in this country, self sufficiency as a nation, but also with a lot of our workers. And then I think finally we've got to accept that the culture really matters. Right? And whether children grow up in a home with a mom and a dad, whether they grow up in in healthy families, whether they grow up in communities that are high crime versus low crime, like these are very fundamentally important questions.

And just, you know, basics of public policy that I think our leaders pay a lot of attention to for 200 years, we've We've got to get back to caring about this stuff. And I think we do you know, we can slowly start to turn this around. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a I'm not pollyannish at all. I don't think that the country's problems are going to be solved in 10 years. But I do think that at least a lot of our citizens have woken up to how mismanaged the country has become. And I think, you know, as the old saying goes, the first step in solving the problem is realizing how bad it is. But I think we're finally at that step where our citizens are ready to take some really positive long term steps to fix things.

JD, Norm here. I one of the most insidious, things that that's happened in our culture, and I know you've written and talked about it, is is the division along, gender, along race, along nationality, along religion, even amongst, you know, people who who don't have any particular faith, agnostics or atheists or whatever. It seems like there are forces that are trying to resegregate America, forces that represent themselves as advocates for the, for the needy or or for people that consider themselves underserved or being told they're underserved. And and we're having separate dormitories, and we have I don't know. What are we up to? 55 different genders instead of the original 2 genders. It's it's just I I just wonder, you know, I think Americans crave getting back to some kind of normalcy. And, you know, I feel the tension now, that I didn't feel even, you know, during the Reagan administration or I mean, you go back 20, 30 years, I it feels like race relations are worse than they were 20, 30 years ago. And I say that on behalf of somebody who's slightly brown, but you you you know, I mean, your family, your personal family is, you know, comes from different cultures, and and it just seems like, there are forces that are trying to drive us apart from each other.

And I'm I'm wondering how, like, what do we need to do as a culture? How not not what I think you know what we need to do, but how do we do that? It you know, how do we hold ourselves up and say, you know, no. Black black boys and girls and white boys and girls, whatever those terms even mean. What's black? What's white? But but why don't we all go to the same prom? Why are we having separate proms? Why do we have separate dorms? What I don't understand what's going on. It's like we've gone backwards.

Yeah. I think look. We we've we've grown up in a world where a lot of people have have profited from and some have gained power and some have gained money by dividing us against each other. And that's why this is really happening, and I think we have to recognize that, you know, most people, do not share community with share community with somebody who looks slightly different from them and say, well, let's self segregate. Let's separate ourselves into victims or impressors based on skin color. Let's decide that the black children have to go to 1, one prom or one dormitory and the white children have to go to something else. So I I think we just have to, like, basically stop giving money and stop giving prestige and power to the people who have profited from our division. That's easier said than done in some ways.

I mean, if you were to propose, for example, something I proposed on the campaign, which is eliminating federal subsidies for critical race theory programs and curriculum development, then you get called a racist. Right? Which I think is kind of crazy. It's nearly the opposite. Yeah. I want the Right? I want to stop funding the explicit racism that's being pushed in our schools. But look, it's it's a long fight. It's it's a problem that I think we've been asleep to because while most of us have been living our lives and thinking about, you know, ourselves as Americans and not primarily as one race or another, There have been some pretty powerful forces that have been mobilizing in the other direction. We just gotta start pushing back against it.

I think now we realize what's going on. Again, it's time to it's time to take that awareness and turn it into real action.

Yeah. As a military man, just a quick comment. I'm I'm curious what you think about Ukraine. It seems it seems pretty obvious now that the I don't wanna pick on Yale. But it seems now that the you know, our Ivy League leaders, you know, were just frozen in place and except for president Trump over the last, I don't know, you know, 10 years as this crisis has evolved, nobody has armed the Ukrainians. In fact, Obama specifically refused to do that. So so we're way late and a dollar short, and I I don't think you or most people are advocating American troops, but, you know, you know, be involved in in in the actual fighting. But my goodness, when you have a country like Taiwan, Ukraine, you know, the the Baltic states, and they wanna maintain their freedom or at least their independence, and they may not be perfect countries, would you not favor at least arming those people so they can defend themselves?

Yeah. I'm I'm fine with sending arms to people to defend themselves. I think we have to be careful, that we don't stumble ourselves into an escalation here. I I, you know, I I'm a big fan of this guy. I'd encourage all of you to see if his video clips have been rolling around the past couple of of weeks because he's been so prophetic about this. His name is John Mearsheimer, and, you know, his his basic argument was that American policy from about 2014 on, really almost ensured that the Russians and the Ukrainians would have a major war, and that the Americans did this knowing that there was no way that Ukrainians could defend themselves against Russia, right? It's right next door. There's just no possible way they could do it. And so I think that the thing that we have to be careful about is further escalating when, you know, really, I think we're at the situation, your point, for the 10 years of of American policy.

And, you know, like Donald Trump Trump was gonna invade Ukraine when Donald Trump was president because he sort of respected the strength of the American presidency. But, you know, like, there was just no way to prevent, I think, prevent, I think, Russia from doing this, starting 5 weeks ago. Right?

Right.

And so I I I think I I think that we sort of got ourselves in a situation where Russia felt like it was definitely going to invade. It felt like the West wasn't gonna do anything about it. And really now the way that I think about it is we have to try to deescalate the situation as much as possible because I think that there's no chance now hopefully I'm wrong. I think there's no chance the Ukrainians can actually win and so I think that our goal here should be to try to preserve their sovereignty, get the war to ends, and make sure that this doesn't become World War 3 because some of the things that I've seen some folks throw around here, the idea that we're gonna send, you know, fighter planes from from England and Germany to intercept Russian planes. I mean, it starts to look like the beginning of World War 3 unless we're careful. And so I I'm a big fan of de escalation in this situation just because I don't think there's much else that we can do. Okay.

Well, JD, I think we're getting to the point where we're gonna run out of time soon, but, I wanted to ask if if people wanna learn more about your your platform and and what your values are, etcetera, I'm sure you have a campaign website website. You wanna share that with us, and we can get it out there.

No. I appreciate that. Yeah. You know, I'm on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram. I'm on all social medias. The website for the campaign is jdvanse.com.

And, yeah, would would love for people to, to follow along with what we're doing and support us if they're able, and I appreciate you guys giving me the time.

Hey. I got a bumper sticker on my truck, man.

Yeah. And and and for for for those who haven't read JD's book, check it out, Hillbillyology. I know Norman and I read it, recently, and I read it a couple years ago too, but, great stuff, JD. We really, really appreciate you taking the time and, and chatting with us this morning.

Yeah. God bless you, man.

Awesome. Alright. Alright. God bless you guys. Thank you. Take care.

You too. Thanks.