Summary

In this episode of the Zekely Podcast, Zeke interviews Jane Cramer, a mental health deputy administrator and social justice advocate from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They discuss the rise of conservative influence in local education, the importance of community activism, and the power of humor in advocacy. Jane shares her experiences in flipping the school board and offers advice for those facing similar challenges. The conversation highlights the significance of grassroots movements and the hope that comes from community connections.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Jane Cramer

02:21 The Rise of Mom's For Liberty

05:45 What the Buck? 

08:27 The Birth of Cringey

13:43 Make Me Cringe

15:55 Doing The Work

19:21 Strength

20:56 Why Are You A Democrat?

23:34 Advice for Activists

24:52 Hope and Resilience in Activism

26:25 Future Plans

Cringey The Ram on TikTok: @cringefql5dx

Cringey LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/cringeytheram

Full Video Episode Available On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheZekelyPodcast

Short Clips Can Be Found On TikTok: @drzeketayler/@thezekelypodcast and Instagram: @thezekelypodcast

Hello, I'm Zeke and welcome to the Zekely Podcast. Let's talk Pennsylvania. My guest today lives in central Bucks, Pennsylvania and works as the mental health deputy administrator for the Bucks County Department of Health. She is a fierce social justice advocate and helped to save the Pennridge School District from the far right extremist hate group, Moms for Liberty, when it took over the school board. Thank you so much for being here, Jane Cramer.

For years, I’ve knocked thousands of doors all over Pennsylvania and poured my heart and soul into supporting candidates and causes that make a difference—from local school board races to national elections. The personal is political, and I take every election in Pennsylvania personally.

Where the mainstream media has failed you, I will give you truth and independence. You’ll hear from Democratic leaders, candidates, and change-makers who are working to improve the health of the Commonwealth, and it won’t be boring as hell.

No matter where you are, I’ll meet you with hope and a plan to make your community better one day at a time. Welcome to the Zekely Podcast. Let’s talk Pennsylvania.

Thank you so much for having me, Zeke. It's nice to get to see you again.

my gosh, I feel like we were playing tag for a while when we wanted to meet each other because we found each other through social media when you were posting about the Penn Ridge issues you were having. And then we both went to the Moms for Liberty protests in Philadelphia, but we just never ran into each other.

Right.

Right. And I

went because of your posts on TikTok. I kept seeing them and I'm like, I gotta go. I gotta go.

that.

Oh,

Absolutely.

Who is?

So let's get into it.

How long after the Republican school board members took office did you know things weren't going well?

Well, in Penn Ridge, had been a slow buildup that had been going on since prior to the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, there was a school shooting. I forget where, how sad is that, that you can't keep track anymore? and there were, it was the one in Florida. And then there were protests. A lot of students throughout the country walked out of schools.

I remember that, yeah.

Yeah, and in Penn Ridge, you know, our school board was already very conservative, aligned with like Tea Party, and they gave the kids Saturday detentions for the walkout and said to them, if you do this, you're getting Saturday detentions. No other school district did that. It was just such a, you know, such a difficult time for students and so scary and...

Yeah.

you know, I was happy to see students stand up for themselves and their lives, not just their work, you know, the right to live. so, know, there were some protests and the community started to become aware, like, our school board's pretty out there. And then COVID happened.

Yeah,

And we had a lot of people in our community that were, I guess, radicalized around the masks and the restrictions during COVID. One of the Republicans that ran for school board, he was harassing people at the local library because he didn't want his kids to have to wear masks.

So we had that group that then once COVID started to settle down, I guess a little bit and everything transitioned into on the national level, you had Charlie Kirk and some of those other

radical right-wing folks pushing that CRT was, you know, the damnation of America or whatever.

teaching teaching preschoolers

college level course. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just ridiculous. I mean, we all know we all know the playbook now because it's been a few years, but then it was it was shocking, really.

I know, we all know.

So it sounds

like it was like slow burn. Like the ground level was being built during the pandemic and then coming out of the pandemic, they were emboldened to throw their hats in the ring for a position on the school board and then the rest we know about and we're gonna talk about.

we'll talk more about that soon.

But in the meantime,

What the Buck? yeah, I came up with these myself, okay, myself. It's a game where we talk about things that make you say, the buck in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Okay, we'll see if we can get these right. All right, so Gravity Hill in Buckingham, Pennsylvania is a famous location known for what?

Really?

your car will go uphill without accelerating.

Mm-hmm

Yeah, the surrounding landscape creates this optical illusion I guess that makes a slight downhill slope appear to be uphill. So What the buck that's crazy. What the buck? All right, what animal this game is lot of fun What animal has limits of how many you can own depending on what municipality you live in?

What the Buck

Hmm.

Cows? Chickens, really? I didn't think there'd be any limits to chickens in Bucks County. What the buck?

Chickens. Chickens, yeah, like...

Yeah,

what the buck. In Newtown Borough, you can't have more than 12 hens on your property. And in Doylestown Township, you can have only up to 10 chickens per acre. And in Langhorn Borough, you can't have more than six hens on your property and no roosters permitted. I know, it's crazy, right? I know, what the buck. What the buck, there you go.

Well, there you go.

Wow.

Huh, yeah, what the buck?

Numerous sightings of what have been seen over the years fueling conspiracy theories in Bucks County.

Hmm. Is this a... Is it a mystical creature or a human?

You can tap out if you want.

I

mean, it's mystical, maybe ethereal would be a better description for it.

They're everywhere.

Okay.

people by the way, they investigated UFO sightings. There was a 700 % increase in 2008 of sightings in Bucks County. They interviewed I think 60 people and they tried to verify the evidence. So there have been a lot of UFO sightings in Bucks County. What the buck? What the buck? What the buck? Well, thank you for playing What the Buck with me. First time ever played probably in the world.

Hmm. What the buck?

But not the last.

Not the last, I don't think.

Alright, now we have finally arrived to Cringey the Ram. Okay, so you named your persona on social media Cringey the Ram, and I know the Ram is the Penridge mascot. And when I saw you on social media, you just had the Ram picture, and then you just saw your eyes and mouth talking. What made you come up with the name and the voice? Cringey.

Cringey!

Right.

So, yeah, so at a school board meeting when they took away the DEI committee, this is hysterical. So one of the board members came up with a poster with the picture that is now cringey, you know, that actual picture. So there was this poster and it was basically this whitewashed like

Where'd that come from?

Okay. ⁓ that actual picture.

Instead of DEI, we just have these posters up here that say, everybody's special and nice and we love everybody. But to reveal this new poster that they were going to put in the schools, they actually had the mascot come into the auditorium and start dancing around with the poster. Well, we're all really angry and upset because they just canceled our DEI committee.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

no!

and they have this ram.

How tone deaf can you

be? How tone deaf can you be? That's... Wow.

Yeah, so it was a very cringey moment and...

That's amazing.

Well, it kind of wrote it writes itself, right? The comedy writes itself.

It does, it does. And then, you know, my younger daughter was still in school when I started Cringey and I didn't, you know, I started out with the face to hide my identity a little bit because I wasn't so sure I wanted to be out there as much as I am now. But at the time I was still like, know, I don't want to embarrass Ani.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That was very nice of you. Kate, you have to give me little bit of the voice, please.

Hey kids, Cringey the Ram here.

Every time it came on I was like, there she is! And then there was a lot of mystique to it. I like, who is this Cringey the Ram? You know? I'll never forget when Jess finally found out who you were. She's like, that's Cringey! That's Cringey the Ram! And it was really awesome. And then when I found out you were going to be at the Moms for Liberty protest, like Cringey the Ram is going to be there? So yeah, that was great. Well I'm really...

Mm-hmm.

Ha ha!

Yeah

I thought that's wonderful that you did that and it's a great backstory. So that's it. You think you'll ever bring Cringey back? Or is that like, you hope you never have to bring Cringey back?

You know, Cringey is ready. So, you know, people in Penridge better behave themselves or Cringey's going to come back out. Mm-hmm.

huh.

Yeah, our cringey is coming back. I think,

my God, I think one of the best cringey moments wasn't even related to the politics. It was when that goat escaped in Bucks County and you post all these videos kind of like eyeballing the goat, like where is that goat? Ooh, the goat got out. Where is that? Those are just, that was gold. You did such a great job with that character. You really did.

Hahaha!

make it seem real and important, but also make it not difficult to digest, which really is what people need, right? You did a great, you did a, yeah.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. That was, that was my intention. And,

I started doing Tik Tok because of the Ridge network, my one, you know, we were chatting about, well, how do we, you know, what are strategies that we can do to, inform the community? And central bucks had had some success utilizing Tik Tok to reach people in the community, but also to get media attention. So.

Yeah.

My goals were to reach people in the local community and to get some media attention, which I did both as you know, which was really nice. But there were people that really helped me and you were one of them. When I first started doing Cringey, you know, your support and like, you know, commenting on videos and liking them as I was trying to figure out how the app worked.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, I think

to just have people like you just jump in and be supportive and cheering on our cause. It's very meaningful, so thank you.

fantastic work you are quite welcome and thank you

well in honor of cringey the ram we're gonna play a cringey game of course and and you're gonna tell me whether or not these things make you cringe or not okay awkward social interactions very cringey like someone kind of over sharing personal information you know or saying something like it okay that makes me cringe too

I love cringey games.

Okay.

Very cringey.

Yeah, TMI's no.

What about secondhand embarrassment? You know, like what? You don't think that's cringies? my gosh, I get so... Like if I see someone failing publicly, like messing up a speech or whatever, it makes me, I don't know, it makes my skin crawl. Like, my God, I can't believe doing that. That's not for you? Does it make you cringe? Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's funny, right? But sometimes you're just like, my God, that's so awkward. All right. 50-50.

No, not cringey. Fun.

Yeah, I mean, it depends who it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

What about over the top self promotion? Very cringey, like braggadocious people, very cringey. What about public displays of affection?

very cringey.

Yeah, not a fan.

I like it. I'm just putting it out there. think it's beautiful. I think it's beautiful no matter what form it is. think love is a beautiful thing and I don't think people should be embarrassed by it.

Yeah.

There's definitely certain areas you shouldn't do it, but out in public, there's boundaries for sure, but I think that in general, PDA is beautiful thing.

What about forcing a trend? Very cringey. I do that with my kids a lot with my Gen Z lingo. Like skibbity toilet and no cap, flames. They just say, Dad, what are you doing? Stop!

with Yonah.

very cringey.

I picked up bussin'. Yeah, yeah, so my teenagers thought they would very much cringe when I'd be like, ooh, this dinner's bussin'.

Bussin'. Totally Bussin'.

Totally bussin'. Yeah, now

the newest Gen Z word is giat. Have you heard of the word giat? Yeah, like a really nice butt. I know. I love it. I think it's hilarious. So I try to use it whenever I can, but my kids always give me the side eye. So yeah, guess it depends what kind of trend you're doing.

I have heard of Giat.

Hahaha

All right. In 2023, the Democrats swept the five open school board seats at Penn Ridge, wrestling back the eight-one Republican majority. What did it feel like when you took back Democratic control of the school board? Largely due to your advocacy, by the way, I'm sure. How did that feel?

It was just, it was amazing. It was amazing, you know, to, to pour yourself into an effort with, you know, a group of others, you know, to be part of a movement, a grassroots movement, you know, where we were just, we were put to the last possible second, you know, we were pushing and

Yeah.

work in hours and hours a week and, you know, to get to that finish line and to have flipped all five seats. No one thought we were going to do it. People thought Central Bucks was going to flip, but no one thought Penridge was. I was, confidence is the wrong word, but I was really hopeful going into it. You know, like some of my friends, you know, that were also part of it, they were

Yeah.

They didn't think we were gonna do it. I'm like, no, we got this, we got this, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it. Just that positive thinking and for it to come out, was like hitting a home run, hitting a grand slam.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I'll never forget. I remember Jess and I, when we found out about it, were cheering from afar. You know, not that we're that far away or anything, but I mean, we were so happy for you and the community because we know what that's like to just see that type of activity happening in your community. And then you fought really, really hard and put so much time and energy into it and you won. You won, your community won.

Yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely. know, it's I mean politics can very much turn into Like a sport and we we saw that a lot I think with the presidential election that it felt like us. It was a sporting match not our governance You know and and with this election I You know It felt really good at the end like, you know, you want to sport but it

See you.

Yeah. Right.

yeah.

It didn't feel like people were playing politics. It felt like people said, enough is enough. You know, we don't want this. We don't want this right-wing conservative model in our school. We want a normal school district like everyone else has.

just so amazing, I'm so happy for you.

Let's talk about strength, okay? What's a strength that you have that is actually more powerful than physical strength? I think it's an important thing to talk about because I think the way things are going right now in this country and around the world, there's this obsession with being strong, you know?

Hmm

Right.

in a way that is very physical. But I believe that there are many, many ways to be strong and that there are people who are stronger than the physical strength. So I wanted to ask you, what do you perceive is a strength of yours that is more powerful than lifting some weights or the physique?

I think two pop in my head. One is humor. I think being able to use humor to diffuse and to educate.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I like that one, Jane. I actually would not have ever thought of that, but it's very true. There is strength in humor. Yeah, that's a good one. I didn't think of that. What else you got?

Yeah, yeah.

Because you can change or control the conversation or the tone. And I think the ability to stay calm and not be reactive.

Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. I like that. I love it.

Mm-hmm.

having self-control in a difficult time. Yeah, I agree. I believe that those are equivalent, if not more important, than physical strength in many, many more situations

Yeah.

Right.

So Jane, why are you a Democrat? And why do you choose to represent the Democratic Party?

I think I'm a Democrat because the the party's platform is Aligned with how I think government should work. I I think that government can make communities better good government really can have a positive impact and You know, I I think that it when you live in a society

you need to, you know, everyone counts and everyone deserves to have basic, their basic needs met. that's how I see the world. So, you know, for, for what's available right now, cause we only basically have two parties. ⁓ you know, the Democrats are much more aligned with how I think the world should work.

right?

Mm-hmm.

I agree. I mean, I've read the Democratic platform all, I think it's 91 pages or something. It's hard to read something like that and not agree that it is the party that has the values that most people agree with. It just does. I mean, I've read the Republican platform and the Democratic platform, and I just feel like when people sign up to represent the party, it's not a difficult choice. So I agree with you.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. mean, am I happy with everything every Democrat has ever done? Of course not. And are there, you know, obviously we lost the presidential election. So, you know, we got it, something needs to give and it's not just our fault, the manipulation and, you know.

I agree.

Yeah.

Right. The

social media and the apathy and the misinformation. But no matter how much you don't like a Democrat, you're going to get more of what you want in life with the Democrats than you ever want the Republicans. That's just the truth. if you're going to put your time and energy into getting someone elected, even if you don't get what you want every single time, over a lifetime, hopefully, you will get what you want through the Democratic Party.

Right. Absolutely.

Right. Right. And you know, you'll get a better society. Right.

And I think that's just the truth.

Yeah, for everyone. For

everyone. It has the widest tent and

What would you tell people who might be fighting a fight similar to what you've gone through at Penn Ridge right now? Because I'm sure somewhere in the country, people are facing issues that you faced. And they're probably tired, and they're probably angry and upset. What would you tell them?

I think find your people, find that network of other people that want to fight with you or work with you to push that issue forward and create those networks of Some of my dearest friends now are people that I connected with through this struggle.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Absolutely. Mm-hmm.

and connect with them and you can

do something every day, every week, every month to help get more Democrats elected so we can try and turn this around. So I'm glad that you said it was looking for the helpers, looking for people in your community

Absolutely.

All right. I have two more questions for you. OK. What gives you hope?

Okay.

You know, I think it's the history of our country gives me hope because we have been in bad spots before and have persevered and we've done it through people power. So, and I think the youth of today, while understandably very, you know, a lot of youth are

maybe apathetic or don't see what's the point. No one's gonna take them seriously or do anything anyway. I do think they're a very fierce generation and there's gonna come a point where enough is enough. Kind of like we had in Penridge that, you you get to a point where it's like enough. You know, like I can...

enough is enough.

I think my daughters will march on Washington if they take away TikTok. But you know what saying, I think they will get a point.

my gosh. Well, we'll have to see when this episode airs.

I guess we'll find out.

What plans do you have to get yourself through these next few years?

I think it's just continuing to keep my connections of people in the community that are supportive. know, with this grassroots movement that we built in Penridge, was so interesting that the thing people would say more often than not is like, there are other people like me in this community. It could be, you know, like,

Yeah.

If you feel like, this is a very, this is a conservative community and I should just keep my mouth shut. But then you look around and you're like, oh, wait a minute. There's a lot of people that think the same way I do. was very empowering for people and for me. um, you know, I'm grateful for those connections. So my, my hope is that those connections will continue to, you know, get me through and, and inspire me.

Yeah.

when we need to go march on Washington to get TikTok back or whatever the issue is, that I'll know when the time is right to act.

Well, I am so happy to have met you. I'm happy that you're in my life. And I'm just so grateful for what you did in Bucks County. And yeah, I'm just really, really, I'm so grateful to know you as a person. You inspire me

keep doing what you're doing because it makes such a huge impact. I'm also very grateful that we made that connection and have stayed connected and are on the same team, because I wouldn't want to mess with you.

Yeah.

⁓ come

on. I definitely don't want to lead with an iron fist. I want people to respect me and know that I'm trying to do the right thing. And I know you are doing the right thing. And I really enjoyed Cringey the Ram, but I know if Cringey ever has to come out again, some type of social justice needs to be fought. And I'm, and I'll be there to help elevate you and make sure that the right people know what's going on. You're welcome. Well, Jane.

Right.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for coming on. It's always a pleasure and thank you for everything you do. You're welcome.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for joining me here on the Zekely podcast. Stay hopeful and get involved. And until next time, let's keep building a stronger Pennsylvania together.